Continued from Family Tree?

Question:

Continued from Family Tree?

Alright... So I have started the search , I know as far back as I can go. i don't have much of a start. My mother never knew her mother, (but we have a name) and my grandfathers side, i have his mothers name and fathers name even have birth days, day they died, and even their social. But I have no idea and nor does any one else in my family what there partents names are. How do i go back? How do I find the names of their parents, and their parents parents, and there children.... How do I go back? I have the information, and have looked them up but no where can i find their parents names... Help!

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Welcome to the addictive world of genealogy. <grin> You will find yourself surrounded with buddies.
How do you trace them? like eating an elephant, one byte at a time. You have a great start. One way to think is that what you DO have is preliminary research. I always think of research as starting when you reach the end of what people "know".. and even those items should be documented. The idea of "prove it" initially seems confrontational. It isn't... it is the cornerstone, since there are more reliable sources than others. Work from what you HAVE, build on that, and it links up.
For the most part, in the 1900's, people should have birth and death certificates. Both normally have the parents names. You also would usually search for marriage documents/records. Obituaries. Tombstones. Census records are open for research, except for recent ones (for privacy reasons). In the US, these go back to 1790 and were taken every ten years.. you can search up to 1930. A lot of people use ancestry.com as a quick way to get those.. if you have some leg work done (know where you are going to be looking), you can try ancestry with a trial subscription.
Back to one byte philosophy.. you are doing this by individuals. Meaning, records for each person will DEPEND ON TIME AND PLACE, and will "shift" as you go along.
There are numerous places online (ie ancestry, familysearch, rootsweb) where people share there work by posting it. This is more workable after getting a bit back, since reputable genealogists avoid posting private info about living people. Keep in mind that many people don't put much effort into really confirming the facts, and copy other files, which may be inaccurate to start with. Get some experience under the belt, and you will quickly learn how to sift the good files from the bad.
www.rootsweb.com is free... and on the front page is a beginner's guide that goes into much more details.
Come back often.