Amateur

From dictionary.com, an Amateur is defined as:

1. A person who engages in a study, sport, or other activity for pleasure rather than financial benefit or professional reasons.

and

2. A person inexperienced or unskilled in a particular activity.

By both definitions, Stephanie and I are amateurs, but we are learning daily and loving genealogy.

I just spoke with our Genealogy Queen, Grandma Putnam, who gave me a few pieces of advice that I thought were awesome.

1. When trying to find ancestors, focus on one line for a certain amount of time. Give yourself 30, 0r maybe even 60 days, to delve into records, censuses, State websites, etc, for one line. Do NOT be a grasshopper, as Grandma put it....jumping around from name to name, getting stories, dates, and info confused.

2. Keep written notes! Grandma Putnam recommended a spiral notebook or even an open Word Document to keep notes from things you find. I have found family trees on http://www.ancestry.com that have confusing information with multiple spouses, extra or missing siblings, and dates that do not match up. Keep notes that you can refer to throughout your searches....this is a must!

3. Do not add incomplete information to your http://new.familysearch.org/. Try to find a government document. You can go to http://www.ancestry.com/ to find censuses, etc, and you can also use http://labs.familysearch.org/ to find records. In most cases, it's important to find your own records and don't rely on what others have put on their family trees.

4. Once you find information to add to your http://new.familysearch.org/ , print the document for your own record keeping. A three ring binder is perfect for holding documents and organizing.

Now get to work!!! :) I'm off to work on ONE line....I will not be a grasshopper.