There are a few different ways. If you want to do it yourself.. start with a family tree program.. to help you plot your way... geaneology.com has a good online program. If you live in the same town as your anscestors that you know of... go to City Hall... they have Birth Certificates.. death certificates... If you find you need help... almost all Churches of the Latter Day Saints have a genealogy dept. (Mormons) They are famous for their ability to research family trees. My Boss's wife works at their family history center almost every day.

First, gather what information you can from your family. Usually one person in each family has some sort of family tree they've made and probably stored in the back of the file cabinet for a couple decades. Make sure to talk to the oldest living people in your family. If that doesn't work out, you can use other traditional methods such as looking up certificates of birth, marriage, death, etc. Once you have a few names, try searching them on sites like http://www.rootsweb.com. Among other things, you can see if those names show up in other family trees already posted by others. Just make sure to double check that the dates seem to correspond (between your people and theirs) as well as parents, spouses, children, etc. Note, on rootsweb and many other sites you'll only be able to search for deceased people. If you can get enough information from your family to start with an ancestor a few generations back, chances are good that you will find at least one tree through rootsweb or other sites. You might be lucky (as I have been) to find an enormous tree that leads back hundreds, and even thousands of years. Of course, take everything online with a grain of salt and check sources. It will definitely give you a great starting point, though, if someone has already done some of the work.

I would highly suggest that you obtain as much infromation about your immediate family as possible as well as extended family members, such as your cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. Try to find out their birthdates, places of birth, places of death (where applicable), hospital they were born in (where applicable) because some relatives might not have been born in a hospital; although, quite rare these days; unless, it was an emergency situation and a hospital was not available. Also add other personal information to as well such as baptismal records (if & where applicable), etc. Also examine your collateral branches. These are your extended family members as mentioned above. Try to ask as much basic information and personal details about their lives as possible. An excellent database that has tons of information to help you get started is Cyndi Howell's website called Cyndi's List. Here's the website link: http://www.Cyndislist.com I hope this helps and welcome to the wonderrful and enlightening world of genealogy you're in for a real treat!

A good start is to go to www.google.com and type your last name into quotations and you will come up with all kinds of hits if you have a popular last name and you can follow the names by their region. When I started my family tree, I started at http://www.genealogy.com and http://www.ancestry.com/ and I actually found relatives I haven't seen since a child and finally found out the mystery of my great grandmother who died when my grandfather was a baby.

some good websites - ancestry.com ancestry.co.uk rootsweb.com rootschat.com familysearch.org genesreunited.com

Start with yourself, then your parents, then their parents, and so on. Get all the information you can on each generation before going on to the next. Document everything you learn: keep notes on who told you what, where you learned facts, etc. Obtain copies of documents, such as birth and death certificates, marriage certificates. Also collect obituaries, photographs, and a list of dates and places of residence. Meanwhile, get a good genealogy program for your computer. I like family Tree Maker. Also, join your local genealogical society to learn how and where to search for information. There's a lot online (and not all of it can be trusted), but you will need to spend time in libraries and archives to really get to the real thing. Tips you get from interaction with others more experienced in genealogy will help you greatly. Contact your local library for information about your local society.

all of the above answers are very good. there are some important things to keep in mind 1) unless you are looking at a photocopy of a document online, take all information given on family history sites as a possibility only. People make mistakes in transcriptions. Some too readily match individuals with people on other family trees. You must be able to back up the information with hard proof. 2) keep your records well. it is frustrating to know that you found grandfather's birthplace, but can't remember where you put the information or to spend hours following a line,only to find you have done it before. (I speak from experience! LOLOL) 3) be generous with the information you have and you will find others will be generous with you. Happy hunting.

You will first need to get as much information about your parents, grandparents, etc. as you can from talking to them, because you can typically only search for dead people on the Internet. Once you have some information farther back in your family, here are a few resources for you to use: http://www.familysearch.org Probably the best free online resource. http://www.ancestry.com is one of the best but has a hefty subscription fee. Also, you can check the surname message boards for his surname at: http://genforum.genealogy.com For links to helpful sites, you will want to take a look at: http://www.cyndislist.com And finally for a lot of different resources: http://www.rootsweb.com Good luck, Dave -- http://www.familypulse.org

I went to ancestry.com and you can post on some of their pages without paying. Anyway, a cousin of my husbands was also doing a search in England and made contact. We live in Australia and have never met any of these relatives, didn't even know any of their names. I posted my hubby's grandfathers name and date of birth. We now make regular email contact and have sent photos of all the relatives to each other.

Google is good but it might be better to start with web sites first. Like singwell said be careful of any information you get. I know in Familysearch.org there are many people listed the same but have different birthdates. Check your immediate family first - don't worry about aunts and uncles unless you find that info with that for your direct ancestors. Check census and Social security records. There are also military records. good luck

Start by speaking to your oldest relatives. Get as much information from them as you possibly can before moving on to web sites.

Talk to your elders...

I began my tree by going to the court house & looking at old records, birth certificates deeds etc, then they lead me to the next generation & on down the line. I even went to the family cemetery. I have been able to go all the way back to 1510 on my father's side this way. My mother's side I have gone back until 1781.