How to Research Your Family History: A Step-by-Step Genealogy Guide

People who want to trace their ancestry are often unsure where to begin. According to guidance published by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), FamilySearch and the Smithsonian Libraries, the process follows a consistent logic: begin with time-sensitive steps such as interviewing living relatives and preserving old photographs, then build a documentation system — a research log, timelines and source citations — before searching federal and historical record collections to fill the gaps.

Step 1-3: Preserve time-sensitive information first

FamilySearch's beginner guide treats some research steps as time-sensitive. It urges newcomers to interview living relatives — in person or by phone — and record or videotape their answers, and to locate, digitize and label family photographs and documents while relatives can still identify the people in them.

Both FamilySearch and the Smithsonian Libraries stress that memories, stories and the identities of people in old photographs can be lost if this step is delayed. FamilySearch's guide puts it directly: researchers should ask relatives questions as soon as possible, before the information is forgotten or the relatives themselves are no longer accessible.

1. Interview living relatives in person or by phone and record or videotape their answers, as FamilySearch recommends.
2. Locate, digitize and label family photographs and documents while relatives can still identify the people in them.
3. Keep a research log to track clues and note which records have already been checked, a step FamilySearch recommends.
4. Build a timeline for each ancestor to spot gaps in dates or locations, a method recommended by the Smithsonian Libraries.
5. Search federal record collections — census, military, immigration, naturalization and land records — through NARA.
6. Cite every original record you find, using a reference guide such as 'Evidence Explained,' which the Smithsonian Libraries point researchers toward.
7. Consider a DNA test as a supplement once document research has established a paper trail.

Step 4-6: Search federal and historical records

NARA identifies five record categories most commonly used by genealogists: census records, military pension and service files, immigration records such as ship passenger lists, naturalization documents, and land records. NARA provides free access to commercial genealogy databases, including Ancestry and Fold3, at its research facilities, and recommends obtaining a Research Card before an in-person visit.

For researchers who hit a wall, NARA suggests consulting genealogy books and journal articles, joining a local or regional genealogical society, and learning paleography — the skill of reading historical handwriting — to decipher older documents.

The Smithsonian Libraries' guide adds further primary-source categories beyond NARA's federal holdings: historical newspapers, cemetery and burial databases, and personal materials such as diaries, letters and memoirs. It also points to a Library of Congress initiative that encourages and assists American families in studying their family history and researching their family's folk traditions, and notes that a directory it recommends lists more than 4,500 historical societies.

Documenting sources and organizing results

All three organizations treat documentation as essential rather than optional. The Smithsonian Libraries' guide recommends building timelines for each ancestor to reveal missing dates or locations, and citing every original record using an established citation standard such as 'Evidence Explained.' FamilySearch recommends keeping a research log to track clues and note which records have already been checked.

Where DNA testing fits in

DNA tests are a supplement to, not a substitute for, document-based genealogy, since they identify genetic relatives and estimate broad ancestral regions rather than reconstructing a family tree on their own. Ethnicity estimates from DNA companies are approximations tied to each company's reference-population data, and they change over time as that data improves.

MyHeritage, one of the major DNA testing providers, illustrated this in February 2025 when it released an updated ethnicity model, called Ethnicity Estimate v2.5, after what the company described as two years of research. The update nearly doubled the number of ethnicities the service could distinguish, from 42 to 79, including splitting a single 'Scandinavian' category into separate Swedish, Norwegian and Danish estimates. MyHeritage also acknowledged a trade-off: some narrower ethnic categories, such as Maasai and Sierra Leonean, were dropped from results because the new model requires larger reference samples than were available for those groups.