Tips to Start Your Genealogy Research

By Rubi Baeza, Genealogical Expert, Ministry of Justice of Chile

1. Start with yourself and work backward: Don't jump straight to looking for 18th-century records. The safest method is to move from the known to the unknown and from the recent to the ancient.

   • Document the Living: Begin with yourself, your parents, and your grandparents. Gather their full names, exact dates (day, month, year), and specific places (city, parish) of birth, marriage, and death. Be very thorough!

   • Interview the Elders: Oral tradition is your first primary source. Record or take notes of conversations with your oldest relatives. Ask them not only for names and dates, but also for stories, nicknames, professions, and places of residence. Often, a nickname or a profession is the key to distinguishing between two people with the same name.

   • Gather family documents: Before going to public archives, review them at home. Family records, photographs with names on the back, letters, wills, and diaries are invaluable clues.

     
     

2. Prioritize primary sources and verification: For a rigorous genealogist, and even more so for an expert, only the original document serves as proof.

   • Seek the original: Never rely solely on an online family tree. A primary source is a document created at the time of the event (e.g., a birth certificate). A secondary source is a repetition of that information (e.g., an index).

   • Civil Registry is gold: In most Spanish-speaking countries, civil registry records (birth, marriage, death) are the ultimate legal proof and should be your priority once you have exhausted family sources.

   • Church Records: Before the existence of the Civil Registry, parish registers (baptism, marriage, death) were the primary sources, as well as notarial records.

   • Be methodical and organized: Genealogy becomes unmanageable without a good management system.

   • Use reliable software or platforms: Employ tools designed for genealogy (e.g., Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch, or software like AncestralQuest or Genopro) to organize your data and build your tree.

   • Cite all your sources: This is the most important piece of advice for forensic rigor. For every piece of information (name, date, place), record exactly where you obtained it (file name, book, folio, record number, or URL). If you cannot cite the source, the information is not evidence.

   • Identify difficulties (homonyms and gaps): When you find a homonym or a gap in the record (the "brick wall"), note it down and don't make assumptions. Rigorous research is that which identifies and documents the gap, rather than filling it with conjecture. Researching your tree is an exercise in patience and precision. The satisfaction of proving a link with a centuries-old document is immense.

     
     

3. Consult or hire an expert:

   • Although numerous online platforms and digital access to records exist today, professional genealogy goes far beyond an internet search. An expert can help you interpret old documents, detect common errors (such as confusion between namesakes or contradictory dates), and access non-digitized or restricted archives. Furthermore, if you seek to confirm biological links, integrating genetic (DNA) analysis with traditional genealogical documentation allows for scientifically based proof of kinship.

   • At "ADN y Genealogía", we combine rigorous documentary research and extensive experience in genetic studies, ensuring that every finding has verifiable backing. Having the guidance of a professional not only saves you time and frustration but also brings you closer to your true origins with certainty.