Building a family tree can a rewarding and fun activity that can help you discover more about your ancestors and yourself. It’s a great way to preserve family history, connect with relatives you didn’t know you had, or learn more about your heritage and culture. How awesome would it be to discover that your 3x great grandfather fought with George Washington, or that you have an ancestor that was on the Mayflower, or maybe even that you are a descendent from a royal family?

Before you begin, ask yourself, “Why do I want to build a family tree?” For me it was discovering who my family on my biological father’s side was. You see, I didn’t know him until I was in my 30s, and while we developed a close relationship; it was cut short after just 8 years when he passed. There were a lot of unanswered questions. In particular, who his mother was. This is where my journey began. You don’t necessarily have to have a reason beyond just for fun. No matter your reason, buckle up and get ready for an adventure!

Building the Base

The first step is to start with yourself and what you know. Grab a notebook and write down your name as well as your date and place of birth. Now begin working backwards by doing the same thing for your parents. You may not know all the answers, so don’t be afraid to ask your living relatives to help fill in any missing information. Ask if they have copies of birth certificates, photos, newspaper clippings (marriages, obituaries, etc.), letters, diaries, or even old bibles (you’d be amazed the things you would find written in these). Be sure to write down any other important dates as well such as marriages, divorces, and deaths. Once you have information back to your grandparents or great-grandparents, you are ready to begin the deep dive.

Are you hooked on discovery yet? If not, you soon will be!

Time to Commit

Now that you have the base for your tree jotted down, it’s time to make a few key decisions. First and foremost, you will need to determine where you are going to build your tree. There are several popular sites and each has pros and cons, as well as varying sets of features. Some of the most popular sites are Ancestry.com, 23andMe.com, MyHeritage.com, and FamilySearch.org. Spend some time researching each of these to determine which you are most comfortable with and fits within your budget. Some things to consider are:

What record databases can you access (U.S. census, birth, death, marriage, Social Security indexes, etc.)?
Do they provide DNA testing?
Do they show shared DNA matches?
Can you search other trees?
Do they have a way to contact other users?
Can you pause your membership?

Ancestry has a ton of features depending on the tier of your subscription. If you are looking to go far back in history and need access to worldwide records, newspapers, and other records, the All Access tier is the way to go. Be prepared to drop $59.99 a month on the monthly subscription plan (there is a discount for paying for a full year upfront). The upside is it gives you access to all the worldwide records, plus access to Newspapers.com (newspapers back to the 1700s) and Fold3.com (military records).

For me Ancestry was the best as I needed access to as much information as possible, a large DNA database, plus the tree building interface is easy to understand and navigate. This is no slight to the other options, just what I felt was best for me. The good news is most have a free trial for you to get a feel for me. Once you have decided which is your best fit, you are almost ready to start building.

DNA Testing

Box of test tubes with filled with different color liquid. Dropper of purple liquid is being placed into one vial.

Time to decide if you are going to submit a DNA test or not. This is completely optional but is a very useful tool to complement your traditional research. It is especially valuable when it comes to looking for unknown relatives but can sometimes uncover skeletons that families either are not aware of, or do not what to discuss. It’s also not as much of an exact science as some people think. It comes down to how comfortable you are with providing this information as well as being prepared for any unexpected results. For now, let’s assume you are going to submit a DNA test.

The three most common types of DNA tests are Y-DNA testing (paternal line), Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) (maternal line), and Autosomal (both parents). I’m not going to go into detail here as there are tons of articles that explain the different types, and which is better for what you are looking for. The most commonly used type is autosomal. Ancestry and 23andMe both use autosomal test. These tests are easy to take, simply provide a saliva sample in a small tube and mail it back in. Then wait. Tests can take up to 8 weeks but are usually complete in 4-6 weeks.

Building the Tree

While you are waiting for the DNA results (or if you didn’t submit one), it’s time to take those notes you jotted down earlier and put time into a working family tree. Once again, start with creating a new person in your tree to represent yourself. Now begin filling in your parents, grandparents, and so on. You can capture your photos and records and add them into your tree then connect them to the correct individuals to begin building their stories.

You may start to see “hints” appear. These will be potential record matches based on the information you have entered. These hits can be from census records, church records, or other people’s family trees they have shared. Be careful here as it’s very easy to take for granted work that other people have done in building their tree. This can lead to mistakes in your tree very quickly and create hours of confusion and wasted research. Trust me. It’s a good habit to verify the record you are linking to is an exact match before adding that person or record to your tree.

This is where a lot of time can be spent. It’s very easy to find yourself in a rabbit hole chasing information and before you know it, four hours have passed, you have 30 browser tabs open, and you are looking at a census record from 1940 of someone you have no idea who they are. It happens to us all.

To help avoid the rabbit holes, try to pick a single person to research for that session and stick to that one until you have exhausted all hints before moving on to a different person.

By now your tree should begin filling in with aunts, uncles, and cousins. Don’t forget to include any spouses. That becomes very useful when confirming records especially if your family seems to have only had a list of about 5 names to use throughout all the generations like mine. Can’t tell you how many “George”, “James”, and “William” first names are in my tree.

As you start getting a few generations back, you may find sites such as FindAGrave.com useful. This site is a good resource for cemetery records that may include birth and death dates, burial locations, obituaries, photos, and even other family members such as spouses, siblings, and children. Best part is it is completely free!

The research is time consuming and sometimes you may hit brick walls. I still have yet to definitively identify my father’s mother even after a few years of research. It’s important to not get discouraged. Sometimes you just need to take a break for a few weeks or months and come back to it (why the pause subscription feature is nice). I’ve don’t this a few times and it is helpful in preventing burnout and frustration. It’s also important to remember that your tree is constantly growing and changing, so you will never really be done.

DNA Results and Matches

The results are in, now what? First thing is to see if there is any match that you recognize that is already in your tree. If so, you can link the match to it. Now let’s analyze the remaining matches. The best way to figure out how these matches may be related to you is to build a Leeds chart. This chart allows you to sort out your DNA matches into groups based on common ancestors. Generally, you should end up with at least four groups with one for each of your grandparents’ line. There are plenty of posts and videos on how to build a Leeds chart, but here is a high-level overview:

Identify your closest matches (usually up to third cousins) who share at between 90 cM (centimorgans) and 400 cM of DNA with you. Do not add any over 400 cM.
Assign each match a color based on which grandparent they share with you (if known) or leave them unassigned if unknown
Compare each match with each other using the shared matches tool on the testing website
If two matches share DNA with each other and have the same color or no color assigned yet, assign them both the same color
If two matches share DNA with each other but have different colors assigned already, assign them both a new color that represents a common ancestor higher than grandparents
Repeat this process until all matches are assigned a color or no more shared matches are found

It is possible for a match to share DNA with more than one group so don’t panic. This can be especially true there is a lot of endogamy in the tree.

Now you can use the groupings to determine where your matches might fit in your tree. Take a look at their shared tree, if they have one. If not, do not be afraid to reach out to them and ask. In most cases, people are willing to share information they have.

Another useful thing to do is upload your DNA to other sites such as FamilyTreeDNA.com, MyHeritage.com, or GEDMatch.com. These sites have some free, and useful tools for working with DNA. GEDMatch in particular has submissions uploaded from multiple sources, so if you tested with Ancestry, you may find matches from MyHeritage and 23andMe there. The more resources you have the more likely you are going to be able to verify information discovered.

Things to Look Out For

As I mentioned previously, you will be better off in the long run verifying as much information as possible before adding it as a valid record in your tree. It gets more difficult to correct things as your tree grows. For example, FamilySearch.org has a ton of information going way back, but since most everyone can edit records, things have a greater tendency to be incorrect. They do have a really fun tool called “Famous Ancestors”. It will automatically build out your tree based on information in its database. I have found several errors when validating my tree there. Too bad too because I could have been related to Marilyn Monroe and John Wayne!

Don’t make assumptions! You may find information that somewhere down the line someone had a child no one knows about, your grandfather had a previous wife no one talked about, or distant cousins married. These things are more common than people realize.

You may also encounter family members that do not want to discuss family history (see previous paragraph). Be understanding, don’t push, and continue your research in other ways.

Conclusion

I’ve been building my family tree for over 6 years and have over 1000 people in my tree (which isn’t nearly as big as some trees I’ve seen). My initial goal was to find out who my paternal grandmother was and despite still not having that answer, I have connected with relatives I did not know existed, had conversations with ones I haven’t spoken to in years, and discovered some really fascinating information. Things like my 10th great grandfather Captain Sir William Crosse sailed with Sir Francis Drake or that my 24th great grandfather was Henry II, King of England (that one took a long time to trace out).

I have spent time sharing my discoveries with my children teaching them about their history, spent time with my wife building out her tree, and recently my brother has began this journey which has led to us spending more time talking and researching our family together.

The biggest takeaway I have had is that this is a huge time investment, and depending on how far you go, can get expensive. That said the journey has been well worth it.

Good luck, hope this is helpful for you. Feel free to leave comments or if you have a question about anything let me know. I’ll be glad to help if I can.