Empire State Search Service
Specializing in New York State Records
E-mail: SearchInNY@aol.com
For Beginners
Starting Your Search
- Start with yourself and work backwards gathering information.
- Collect data from living family members and family documents.
- For each family member answer: Who? When? and Where?
- Choose one family line at a time. For example, begin with your mother's maternal line
before researching for your mother's paternal line.
Help Us Help You
- Gather together your facts. What do you know and
how do you know it?
- Which facts do you have evidence (documents) for?
- certificates
- letters, diaries, photo albums
- family bibles, genealogy charts
- Evaluate the source of oral history information.
- Is the source still living? (My grandmother is 93 years old and says
she was married in 1930.)
- Is the source a piece of family legend? (The story goes that my dad's
uncle, Joe, came to New York by himself at 16, around 1900.)
- Who are you looking for? Be as specific as possible.
- Who:
- provide full name
- use maiden names for women if possible
- provide spouse's name if possible
- When:
- birth and death dates, if known
- date of event searching for
- if exact dates not known, give date range
- Where:
- state
- county
- town
- address