South Bay Cities Genealogical Society

Promoting Genealogical Education and Research in Southern California's South Bay

Beginner's Basics

Looking at the Whole Family

Now that you've got vital records and census entries for your immediate family, it is probably time to stretch out the branches of your tree by including the whole family of each of your ancestors. Have you looked at or ordered marriage and death certificates for all your great or great-great aunts and uncles? This can be important for several reasons:

Did you look at and print census entries for all the siblings in a family after they set up their own households? There are also several reasons this can be important:

When you look at the whole family in each generation, many more family facts will emerge. You may even find it useful to identify the children and grandchildren of each of your ancestor's brothers and sisters. Grandparents, especially the very elderly, can be found living with their grandchildren in addition to their children.

Whole family research can also help to clarify the family dynamics at any given time. Someone once said that each sibling is born into a different family, and we can know our ancestors better when we understand the changes in their families.

[First appeared in The Beacon, September/October 2008.]

Member Access

Login

Follow Us

[facebook icon] [twitter icon] [youtube icon]