Where to start?

Question

I am currently waiting on my volunteer status so I thought I would come here and ask for some expertise. I have dabbled in genealogy in the past and built a pretty ok start to a family tree but I have begun looking more seriously into it as of late.
My question is, there doesn't seem to be any of my relatives already listed on Wikitree so where should I start? Logically I start with me but I won't see any matches since most of my immediate family is living. Should I pick a line and trace it back or should I go each step like parents and their children, grandparents and their children ect.? Also any tips for finding sources for Canadians? I find so may American public records but very few Canadian.

Comments

Is Coe your name?  I would research that one because I think you'll be able to connect to the main tree.

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I have added the Greeters tag to your post, so someone should be along shortly to help you get started.

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That is where I have begun. Thank you for the suggestion

Answer 1

Use Ancestry.Com,Family Search (FRee) Find My Past.Often Census records,between 1841 and later show where lived and family,Alway look

at Original Census Sheet,often other relatives live near them.

Comments

Great point about looking at the census sheet for other relatives. I know for a fact many lived very close together at times. Thank you

Answer 2

Well, it's personal preference of course, but I went for the easy parts first, which means 'family I can get census data for'. That basically means the 19th and early 20th century. So I went up each line until about 1800 and then started to go back down again, adding more siblings and cousins. Given how many children they all had then, it's going to take me a while!

Doing it that way had the nice effect that my 'ancestors' chart on the family tree page looks nice and full (and I got a 'family star' badge for finding enough ggg grandparents), and I didn't have to worry much about the privacy issues with 20th century family.

Comments

I agree with this.  Start with whatever line you think will be easiest to trace back to connect to someone already on here.  Then start filling in everyone else.  If you get stuck, just ask for help.  There are some amazing researchers here who are able to find so much information to help.

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I think this is what I'll start with then. Thank you for the advice. I Originally wanted to start with my paternal line because I know the most about it from living descendants. I have around 100 first cousins of which about 50 are directly related to that line and so there is lots of pictures and information out there about them. I will start there.

Answer 3

Michelle,

When I started I waned to see how far back I could go and to see if I could make any connections with other members. After I did that I have gone back and added the children and siblings. It is a lot of work. Throughout the process I have gotten better at find sources and where to look. Add what you can. You can always go back and add more.

That being said... Source! Source! Source!

Also, Welcome to Wikitree!

Comments

Thank you very much for the welcome and the advice. I think I will definitely start with the single line then. I would really like to find a connection with anyone and that seems to be the way. Sources will be the hardest part, I can always go take a picture of grave stones but otherwise I am having the hardest time with public records in Canada for my other attempts. I suppose I'll learn as I go.

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In addition to all Census records available on Archives Canada (LAC), they have also digitized military records for the Expeditionary Force in WWI - can be very helpful in filling in blanks. There are also some fonds that are digitized for early marriages (Kipling is one). There are also some excellent sources on the various provincial archives for land records and mentions. HBC archives are also a wonderful source of information for early periods and then of course there are extensive Quebec genealogy sources. Feel free to ask for help doing searches. Can't say I have a comprehensive list of sources - but certainly will help where I can. Good luck and welcome to WikiTree!

Shirley

Answer 4

Hello Michelle, Either of the approaches you are considering would work fine, but if you go for focussing on following one line back until you can connect to the main stem of the tree I would recommend that you still add spouses as you go along. This helps to provide supporting evidence that you are following the correct line. 

You may find the Library and Archives Canada is useful for your Canadian research. It gives a good overview of which resources are available and which have been digitised. 

Comments

Thank you for the resource, this is exactly the kind of thing I'll need. I appreciate it

Answer 5

In addition to what others have suggested, I would like to add two tips. I know you asked more on the line of where to start, but I feel it's important to learn about all that Wikitree has to offer, in terms of finding sources.

First, I like to also use sources, such as family genealogies and location based sources. See this link. You can find both there.

Second, if I am looking for information on a particular surname, I enter that surname at the top of the wikipage. Then I can look at other profiles with that surname, to see the sources they used. Or I can see trends in locations for a surname.

Comments

Thank you for the great information. I took a quick gander at the source link and it is very thorough, I should be able to find some great stuff there.

For your second point, I'm looking for Coe. Specifically from Ontario and Quebec in Canada, coming from Suffolk, England. I went through quite a few of the returned search results and I'm just not finding anything about us specifically. I'm hoping once I get going and build a bit of a starting tree I'll start figuring better tags to search and find more connections. I'm really excited to see where this takes me.

Answer 6

One of the easiest way that I have found is to use the 'Research' at the bottom right of any person's profile.  When you select that you will be directed to a Roots Search page with info filled in from your person's profile.  Then you can select any of the sites at the bottom to search their records.  When the results are shown, you can select the Collections tab to filter the results to the different pages that were found, ie all the Census or one year, etc. You can look at the census record, as well as what was typed up

Family Search is free with a login, You can search any of the other sites.

You can always just change that initial search page with different info to search, even if you haven't created the wiki profiles yet

Answer 7

Hi Michelle, if you are on Facebook, there is a group called “The Coe Group” which is run by Carl Robert Coe. He has written books on Coe family history. When people join he seems to be able to trace their Coe family line back with just the name of their parents or grandparents. You might want to use that group for your Coe family host.