Five first steps when you start a family tree
Every family tree starts the same way: with you. Add yourself first, then your parents, then their parents. Stop when you run out of things you know for certain.
1. Start with what you know
Write down full names, rough dates and places. A year is enough. You can always add the exact day later.
2. Ask one relative one question
Pick the person who tells the best stories and ask a single thing: where did our family live when you were a child? Their answer usually opens three more names.
3. Collect what is already in the house
Birth certificates, funeral cards, letters and the backs of photographs are the primary sources of the family. Photograph them before anything else.
4. Keep the tree visual
Relationships are easier to sanity-check when you can see them. If a child ends up older than a parent, the picture tells you immediately.
5. Save it somewhere you control
A tree is worth decades of effort. Keep it in a place you own and can move, such as your own cloud drive, so it outlives any one website.