LOOKING AT HOME- EPISODE TWO

Whether or not you believe in ghosts, hopefully you’ll find your house "haunted" by photographs, documents, and other things your ancestors left behind. In the second episode, you’ll learn how to look at home, in some of the most unlikely places, to find clues about your ancestors and pieces of the past.

Tips

• Begin your search at home.
• Review the information you already have on your pedigree chart to help you decide what new information to look for.
• Be creative. Clues about your ancestors can be found in unlikely places.
• Enlist the help of extended family members to look for documents, photographs, and other clues in their homes.
• Handle the things you find with care, using gloves and archival quality storage materials.
• Record the information you find on your research log.

Suggested Activities

Look around your house for photographs, documents, old letters, journals, newspaper clippings, family Bibles—anything that might provide new information for your pedigree chart or verify the information you already have. Document your own life first by gathering records and information about your birth, marriage, graduation, military service, and so on. It is the same process you will eventually use to document the lives of your ancestors. Make copies of the originals and organize your materials in labeled file folders or large envelopes. Enter the new information on your pedigree chart. Record your progress on your research log or family group record. A family group record is a tool to help you organize your research by families. Because information about an individual ancestor is most often found with information about the ancestor’s siblings or parents, a Family Group Record is a helpful organizational tool. It includes room to write information found about a husband, his wife and their children.

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