When I was in my mid to late teens I helped my mother’s mother type up her genealogy finds in Family Tree Maker. She purchased the program and I put the information in. That was the first time I even thought of genealogy. I didn’t give it much thought at the time and was just helping out. It stayed in the back of my mind. I had asked her what she had done to get all this information. This is before the internet went crazy like it has nowadays. She had genealogy done by her grandaunt and had filled in some gaps on her own through the cemeteries and files readily available at the time. Family bibles, Gaelic College in St. Anns and cemeteries. She did well. I have since inherited that information and it’s a treat to behold.
 
About six or seven years ago my father’s mother asked me to look up her father’s side of the family. She knew about her mother’s side of the family but even then she was missing some pieces. I couldn’t look up one person and not attach him to everyone else I found. I started with what I already knew. I created a family tree with what I already knew from the information she gave me. I started with my grandmother and worked my way back. I knew everything from her to me, but the other way was a little more difficult. I used Nova Scotia’s vital statistics to locate my grandmother’s parents marriage certificate. On that I was able to see my great grandparents names, ages, date of birth (usually the year), previous martial status, where they were born, where they currently resided and their parents. That information is the most important. Where they got married and who officiated/witnessed is also important, but most times doesn’t help in finding more information.
 
The information on the marriage certificate is fantastic. It’s the best when they have the bride/groom’s parents names (including maiden names). It broadens your search and makes searching for siblings much easier. Family Search is awesome for looking up birth or christening records once you have the parents names. I have filled in a lot of blanks using this information. Census records from the 1800s and 1900s can confirm information or give you more. The census tells you the head of the household and each member that had resided in the household when the information was taken. It tells you the relationship each person has to the head. It tells you where they were born, what religious denomination and occupation. I was able to find from this information relations that my grandmother didn’t know existed. It’s a challenging source of information but a great source just the same.
 
Once I have information from the marriage certificate I look into death certificates on the website. Vital Statistics has birth, marriage and death certificates. It’s really awesome. I get a weird sense of joy being a part of history and seeing real documents. Anyhoo, so I check out death certificates for everyone that was on the marriage certificate. Here we find the birth date, death date, cause of death, occupation, spouse, marital status, who claimed the body and where they were buried. We can gain additional parentage and children from this document, which is awesome. The burial site is great because most families bury in the same cemetery unless they move away. Some come home to be buried.  The COD is interesting and gives you some family history there. This also gives accurate date of birth and death where headstones and other avenues may give approximate information.
 
I use the above techniques over and over until I hit a stumbling block and no more information to be had. I go through marriage certificates and Google names or couples to see what comes up. I have come across distant family members searching genealogy websites for information and posting in forums and others have posted what they had for family trees. The only issue I had with this was the forums were from five or six years ago and the contact information is no longer valid. Where I’m not able to reach out to anyone currently, I thought this blog would open things up. We’ll see if this works out. I’m kind of stumbling a bit on the information that I have and issues expanding on it. I’m going to post more family lines today.