An excellent method for finding new hints and sources for your family history is to put your current research results “out there” for the world to see.
Certain websites allow you to post your family tree at no cost and let you contact and be contacted by others working on the same ancestral lines. FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com are two such sites. You can manually build a family tree on those sites, adding one ancestor at a time. The usual practice is for living persons in your tree to be hidden or “private.”
It is easier to upload a database of your tree, called a GEDCOM, which is the world standard for transmission of genealogical data. Any standard genealogy software program, such as RootsMagic, Legacy Family Tree, and FamilyTreeMaker, is built using the GEDCOM framework.
You can also upload your family tree to DNA websites, such as Ancestry.com, FamilyTreeDNA, 23andMe.com, MyHeritage.com, and GedMatch.com. There you can learn whether your DNA matches your genealogical research.
In the past, the usual way that genealogists reached out to one another was to put a classified ad in a genealogical magazine or a newspaper’s genealogy column. That tactic has pretty much disappeared today.
It still may be useful to reach out to a library or genealogical society where your ancestor lived. That’s where RELIC’s Genealogical Exchange File comes in. It is a card index to Prince William ancestors that are being researched. Anyone with such an ancestor can fill out the online form,
and we will add it to the file. You can request a report on any local family, and we will send you contact information about their researchers. We can also provide copies of correspondence and previous research from our Family Files.
