For those who have never done any genealogical research at all, figuring out where to start can be overwhelming. It doesn't have to be.

Whether it's a book, website or individual researcher, the initial advice to a budding genealogist is always the same. Talk to family members. Ask your parents about their parents, grandparents and so on. Where did they live, what did they do and so on. No detail is too insignificant. It all has meaning and, as you will find out as you get deeper into your research, the more information you have, the easier you search will be. It also creates a truer picture of what really went on in your past.

While you're asking all those prying questions, snooping into things that some will think is none of your business, develop a passion for records. Take notes, grab those old birth certificates, military records and report cards (such as my first grade card that you see here) that were going to be thrown out because they weren't important anymore.

Oh, yeah, never assume that everything you're being told is the absolute truth. Memories are frequently unreliable, especially when it comes to dates. Worse, even the best people lie when it comes to their family history. Maybe they have something in their past that they don't want known. Or if they do let you know about it, they gloss over the facts to make it sound nicer than it was.

Keep a pen handy and scribble down information you run across on any scrap of paper that's handy. An envelope, a napkin, the back of a fast food box, even the skin of your hand. Just write it down somewhere so that you won't forget what you heard.

Don't worry about whether it's true or not. Just write it down. Then do your research to prove or disprove the event with as many facts as you can find.

Finally, transcribe it into that collection of nice neat records you're starting to keep. If a piece of information is a proven fact, record it that way. If it's questionable, be sure to indicate that as well.

You are doing that, aren't you? If you're not, you'd better start before things get out of hand.

It used to be that the serious researcher wound up with multitudes of manila folders (or the superior Pendaflex hanging folders) stuffed into overflowing steel file cabinets, along with stacks of yellow legal pads on which you took notes while you were researching books and microfilm in the library.

Sooner or later, all that material was transcribed onto family tree charts (Condensed to little more than name, date of birth, who they married, where married and when they died.). All of their children were listed with the same information when available and then attention turned to the next person on the list.

The voluminous material that had all the juicy information (bigotry, murder, adultry, etc.) was neatly filed in page protectors and the protectors themselves contained in three and four inch thick 3-ring binders. At least it turned out that way where the serious researchers were concerned.

Most simply accumulated a stack of papers and snapshots, lost interest and stashed the material helter-skelter in shoeboxes or a suitcase that wound up in the attic or a leaky storage building. This has been the pattern for decades and it certainly was no better in centuries past. That's why genealogy is as much a treasure/scavenger hunt as it is anything else.

Then the computer age hit. Talk about a shot in the arm for genealogy! Now you have someplace to store all that material you've found and a decent chance of filling in some of those blanks you've been worrying over. There's information galore on the internet, much of it accurate beyond belief...and just as much that's so inaccurate that there's more fact in a romance novel.

If you're serious about your genealogical research, there's a major decision you will have to make. The great majority of genealogical material is pretty well limited to your basic name, rank and serial number. In other words, the name of each person, when they were born, who they married, when and where, names of their children and when and where each died. Similar data is determined for each child and the beat goes on.

While this is well and good as far as it goes (and that may well be all the information you have on many of your ancestors), that does precious little to tell you what those ancestors were really like.

Were they poor as church mice or wealthy? Intelligent or dumb as a stump? Involved in criminal activities? What was the cause of death, are there any mysteries surrounding their activities and so on. Without at least some of this information, you really have no idea of what they were truly like and it's that information that allows you to know where you came from.

Now it's time for that major decision, the one that will determine how much you really know about your past. Do you dig for all the information you can find and record it for everyone to see? Or do you select the information you want to record, creating an image of some ancestors that bears no resemblance to who they really were? It's your choice, but you need to think long and hard about it.

If you choose to find all the information you can (or interpret limited available data) and record it for the world to see, historians will love you. But family members will come down on you like a hawk on a june bug. "How could you say things like that about poor old Uncle Charlie?" they'll say. Never mind that Uncle Charlie abused his slaves, beat his wife and was also the town drunk. Unless you say so, no will will ever know that Uncle Charlie was anything but a kind, gentle man who was beloved by all.

The flip side of the coin is to sanitize all the information to the point that name, rank and serial number is the only thing you should bother to print. But what's the point in that? Take that approach and you've created a fictional character totally unlike your real ancestor. If you do that to your ancestors, what's to stop a future genealogist from doing exactly the same thing when researching information on you?

It's your decision. Choose carefully.