You may feel overwhelmed when trying to figure out where to begin.

As they say in The Sound of Music, “Let’s start at the very beginning”… or, in this case, with the present.

You are the best source for your own life story, so the best place to begin is with you.

You will want to start first with a pedigree chart. The National Genealogical Society has a fillable pedigree chart you can use. Pedigree charts help you organize the information you find.

Here is a sample of how you fill out your pedigree chart. For these examples, I am going to fill this out as if I am George Washington.

Put in your full name, date of birth, and birth place.

Note: When entering a woman use their name of origin (otherwise known as their maiden name). For example if a woman’s full name is Susan Ann Brown Smith; you would enter her name on your family tree as Susan Ann Brown.

Now that you have your information, let’s move on to the information you know.

Many people can trace their family history back four generations. Four generations includes you, your parents, your grandparents, and your great-grandparents. This is the fifteen individuals most closely related to you.

Start filling in what you already know … names, birth dates, and places for your parents and grandparents.

For some, this may feel harder. You might be adopted or know very little about your family. You may not even know one of your birth parents’ names—and that’s okay.

That’s exactly how I started. All I had was my father’s name from my birth certificate—nothing more.

The key is simple: start with what you do know, and we’ll build from there.

If you aren’t sure of the information you can either leave it blank or fill out the date with about in front of the year (ie about 1864) You can see an example of this on the pedigree chart below for George’s Great Grandmother Anne Pope.

For the first four generations, start by talking to the living members of your family. Often times parents, grandparents, or aunts and uncles can help give you information you might be missing. Ask them for names, dates of birth, marriage, and death, as well as locations. You can also look in photo albums, family scrapbooks, baby books, or birth certificates and you might find information there from obituaries, birth announcements, etc.

For now, take some time to work on this first step.

Click on the image above to see the filled out pedigree full sized.

Once you have filled out your pedigree chart, you will be ready to move on to the next step.