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Most genealogy beginners make the same mistake: they open a database, type in a name, and start clicking. Within an hour, they've collected a pile of hints they can't verify, attached records to the wrong family, and gotten completely lost.

The solution isn't more tools or better databases. It's a plan.

Here's the seven-step research process that works — for anyone, starting anywhere. Each step exists for a reason. Understanding the reason is what keeps you from going in circles.

Step 1: Document What You Already Know

Before you search a single database, write down everything you know about yourself and your immediate family. Full names, birth dates and places, parents' names, where you grew up.

Why this matters: genealogy works backward. Every generation you trace connects back to this starting point. If you skip documenting it, you have no way to verify whether the records you find actually belong to your family.

This is the foundation everything else rests on. Beginners who skip it spend months correcting errors they could have avoided.

In Lesson 1: The Big Five Standards, we walk through exactly what to record for every ancestor — and why those five facts matter more than any other.

Step 2: Talk to Living Relatives

Your oldest living relatives are the only primary sources for information that may exist nowhere else. They hold memories, documents, and stories that no database contains.

Why this matters: in ten years, that conversation might not be possible. Living memories are finite. Every week you wait is information you may never recover.

Ask open-ended questions. Write everything down. Photograph documents you find. Record conversations if permission is given.

Our course covers how to conduct effective family interviews — what to ask, how to document oral histories as legitimate sources, and how to organize what you learn.

Step 3: Search Your Home

Before you go online, search your own home. Attic boxes, filing cabinets, old photo albums, family bibles.

Why this matters: birth certificates, immigration papers, military records, old letters, and photographs are primary sources — and some may exist nowhere else. A document you photograph today is yours forever. One you don't find today may be gone in a year.

In Lesson 3: Getting Organized, we cover the filing systems that make it easy to keep track of physical and digital documents from day one.

Step 4: Set Up Your Organization System

You're about to accumulate a lot of information. Set up how you'll organize it before you start — not after.

Why this matters: research without organization becomes noise. Every fact you record should have a source. Every source should be findable. A year of unchecked searching without a system produces a pile of data you can't verify or use.

The course covers both digital and paper filing systems — what works, what doesn't, and how to build one that holds up over years of research.

Step 5: Choose Your Core Research Tools

Two tools belong in every beginner's toolkit: FamilySearch (free, billions of records, collaborative family tree) and Ancestry (subscription, largest private record collection, free trial available).

Why these two: together they cover the vast majority of American genealogical records. Most researchers use both.

The mistake: beginners sign up for everything and end up with accounts they never learn to use. Better to master two tools completely than to half-use five.

The course walks through using both FamilySearch and Ancestry — when to use which, how to evaluate search results, and how to avoid the common traps that lead to wrong conclusions.

Step 6: Search Systematic Records Collections

With your foundation in place, start searching — but systematically. Census records. Vital records. Immigration documents.

Why systematic matters: searching one name at random produces hits, not research. A systematic approach searches one generation at a time, evaluates every record for what it confirms and what it raises, and tracks what's been tried so nothing gets repeated.

Census records are the backbone of American genealogical research. One census entry can fill in an entire family branch. But reading them correctly requires knowing what you're looking at — and why each column matters.

Lesson 2: First Steps walks through your first real search — how to read census records, evaluate what you find, and build on each discovery.

Step 7: Build a Research Log for Every Brick Wall

At some point you'll hit a name you can't find. This isn't failure — it's research.

Why research logs matter: a brick wall means the records exist somewhere, but not where you've looked yet. Your research log documents what you've tried, what you've found, and what's still missing. It becomes the foundation for every search that follows.

The discipline of documenting what you've tried is also what separates a hobbyist from a serious researcher. It's not about having more time — it's about knowing how to use the time you have.

The course covers research log methodology — how to structure a log, how to design new search strategies from it, and how to know when you're ready to move to the next generation.

The Research Checklist That Keeps You Focused

For every ancestor you research:

Ready to Move from Planning to Doing?

Download our free Six-Generation Family Tree — a printable chart that maps six generations of your family in one place. Fill in what you already know; the blank boxes tell you exactly where to research next.

Download the Free Six-Generation Family Tree →

When you're ready to move from planning to doing, our free lessons walk you through each research skill in depth — starting with The Big Five Standards, the five principles every family historian needs.