Step 4: Keep going back to your family. As you research, keep going back to your family with information that you learn about. You will likely come across facts that spark memories they have not thought about in years and then they will be able to share even more of your family’s history with you.

Here are a few caveats about your research:

• Dates do not always match up. It is fine. People make mistakes. A clerk might have written information down incorrectly, or a son or daughter might record information incorrectly about their parent or grandparents birth. After all, how would they know, they were not born yet.

• You will find names misspelled and or changed. We live in a computerized age when names have official spellings. We think digitally. This was not always the case. In the 19th century, spellings sometimes changed. In Germany at that time, there were sometimes multiple spellings for the same name.

• Try to verify information with multiple resources. This will help you weed out any bad information and give you confidence that the person you found in your research is indeed your relative.