April Leigh Helm

The amount of available family history resources has skyrocketed in the last couple of decades. This is an exciting time for genealogy research because scanned images of key records are coming online at an unprecedented rate. Also, technologies such as DNA testing have been refined and are now invaluable tools that complement evidence from paper records.

Your computer puts the world at your fingertips. Discovering all the wonderful online genealogy resources that exist makes you feel like a kid in a candy store. You click around from site to site with wide eyes, amazed by what you see, tempted to record everything for your genealogy — whether it relates to one of your family lines or not.

Your question at this point is probably, what is the Helm Online Family Tree Research Cycle? All great projects start with a plan, and starting a genealogical project is no exception. A well-thought-out plan can help you make efficient use of your time and keep you focused on the goals that you've set for a particular research session.

To be a good genealogical citizen as you work online, you should keep a few things in mind, such as maintaining privacy, respecting copyrights, and including adequate citations. Mandatory lecture on privacy Sometimes, genealogists get so caught up in dealing with the records of deceased persons that they forget one basic fact: Much of the information they've collected and put in their databases pertains to living individuals and, thus, is considered private.

The process for generating a family tree or report should be similar for most genealogical software. RootsMagic Essentials is the software used here to demonstrate the process of creating reports. Before you can generate a report, you have to find the person who will be the focus of that report. Here's a quick refresher on how to get to the appropriate person's record: Open RootsMagic Essentials and select the family file for which you want to generate a chart or report by highlighting the filename and clicking Open.

A social networking type benefit of a paid subscription to Ancestry.com is the LifeStory feature. LifeStory in Ancestry Family Tree allows you to create an online timeline and retelling of your ancestor's life, giving color and context to it. Using records and information you've collected, in conjunction with information about historical events and areas, LifeStory builds a narrative for the ancestor.

If you're looking to set up a genealogy-networking site where others can discover your family lines and contribute information directly to you in a public forum, Geni is one place to start.Geni.com has space where you can initiate public discussions about research, ancestors, or just about anything genealogy-related you can think of.

Most genealogical databases subscribe to a common standard for exporting their information called GEenealogical Data COMmunication, or GEDCOM. Making a GEDCOM file using most software programs is quite easy. This is true for RootsMagic Essentials, too. If you have not yet downloaded and installed RootsMagic Essentials, you should do so.

There are a few things you need to know about receiving GEDCOM (GEenealogical Data COMmunication) files. Just as you would be careful about trusting information written out in a report or chart, you need to be careful before importing someone else's GEDCOM file into your genealogical database. If they have wrong information about an ancestor you share, you could corrupt your whole database and set you back in your efforts.