The best way to start your family tree is to ask lots of questions to your relatives. Your relatives have lots of great information hidden away but can very easily completely overlook a more distant relative from way back especially if that person was only around when they were a child and you come from a large family. This family member that they have forgotten to mention may be that all important stepping stone on your tree to finding more of your ancestors so hopefully these 12 questions can help to stimulate your relatives memory into action and you never know, they may even remember a forgotten cousin or unmentioned uncle or someone else they just haven't mentioned to you.

1. Do you remember ever visiting any relatives or meeting up with them anywhere.
Follow up with: Where did you visit them/meetup? Is that where they lived? Why did you visit?

2. Why did your parents choose your name? were you named after someone? middle name come from anywhere?
Follow up with: Were any of your brothers, sisters, other family member named after someone?

3. Did you ever go to any weddings?
Follow up with: Whose was the Bride and Groom? When was it and how old were they? Where was it? Who else was there? Do you remember the brides maiden name?

4. Who was the oldest member of the family you can remember?
Follow up with: Who was the second oldest?

5. Did you attend any funerals?
Follow up with: Whose funeral was it? When was it and how old were they when they died? Where was it, which church was it at? Who else was there?

6. Did you attend church when you was a child?
Follow up with: Which church did you attend? Who else went there? Were you related to anyone else who went?

7. Did you attend any baptisms?
Follow up with: Whose was it, When was it? Where was it? Who else was attending?

8. Do you remember any photos up on the walls?
Follow up with: Who was they of? Where was it taken? Was it taken at an event?

9. Did you ever move house?
Follow up with: Where did you live before? Did you live close to any relatives when you were there? Who did you leave when you moved away?

10. Did anyone ever move away?
Follow up with: Who went and where did they go? Why did they go?

11. Did you Grandads Brother have any kids?
Follow up with: Did your Grandma's Sister have any kids etc...

12. Did anyone go off to war was they in the military?
Follow up with: Who went? Which war? Where they in the Army, Royal Marines, Air Force etc?

Hopefully these 12 questions give you an idea of the questions you can ask to stimulate your family members memory to help you with your family tree search and they definately sound a lot better than actually asking them if there is anyone they have forgotton about. You will get better results by asking them to recall memories in this way rather than by asking more specific questions. You may even get some great stories from them too!

If there is any questions that you think can help stimulate one of your family tree question victims to remember things just leave them below. Remember these are not general questions though.

When starting out your family tree search it can seem a little overwhelming and daunting at first because you are learning to do something very new to you. So to get you over some first hurdles I created this list of things that are good to know before you start out on your Tree Digging adventure. I also think that this is a fitting way to start TreeDigger.com as this is our first post ever and the start of many more to come.

1. You Will Never Complete Your Family Tree
No matter how hard you try you will never complete your family tree because there will always be one more person that you can track down no matter how much of a distant relative they are or some more information about the people on your tree lurking out there somewhere. Every person you add means another branch which means there is someone else to find and once you've gone way back into the past you can always go forwards in time too. There will always be another branch to find on your tree, it just depends on how far you want to go. This is great because it means if you enjoy genealogy you will have that hobby for as long as you want.

2. You Will Enjoy Yourself
Searching for your families past is a enjoyable experience and past time which many people the world over enjoy. Especially when you realise that you have dug up something or somebody new on your tree that your family may not have known about. It really does give you a buzz. There is loads of fun to be had doing your search, it is like being a detective with a special case to solve which is personal to you and your family.

3. You Must Have The Desire To Succeed and Patience
You need to have that desire to succeed within you which you will be able to feed from the joy you have when you do find out something new. But sometimes even though you put in the hours needed to find out something new, you may not get any results to show for your hard work. So patience and will be needed to see yourself through these quite periods. Most of the time though you will hopefully see good results for your time.

4. There Are Limitations
Humans only began recording births, marriages, deaths and census records in 1837 (here in the UK where I am from) and in other countries even later than that, you may even find that records have been lost from other countries during the World Wars. You must understand that there are limitations and whilst you may hear about some people getting way back to the 12th century, it is usually through some good luck that happened along time ago and that you may only manage to get back a couple of hundred years at most which is still a great achievement.

5. You Must Be Organised
You are going to need to be organised from day one and you will understand and thank me later as once you start getting a few hundred people in your tree you will understand. Don't make notes on pieces of scrap paper that will get lost, get organised and start using a family tree software package or a paper filing system. I will be reviewing some good software packages including free ones on TreeDigger.com and giving lots of tips over the next few months that will help you with your organisation.

6. You Will Make Mistakes
You will make mistakes along the way. For example you may realize that certain people you thought belonged in your family tree actually don't and that place another load of people out of tree. You can avoid this by avoiding making assumptions, but instead look for hard verifiable evidence to make sure people belong in your tree. Doing this from day one like organisation (see number 5 above) may save you time in the future. Question everything you find out.

7. It Is Something To Share With Your Family
Get your other family members in on the act, that way you can enjoy your search together. You can both take different branches of your tree and report back in a weeks time with what you have found. This makes meeting up with family even more fun when you know there is some new information to share with or discover. Your family tree is also something you can pass down to your children and grandchildren allowing you to share your discoveries with your future generations.

8. You Will Need To Spend Money
Many sources of information need you to pay out to use them and so you have to realise that this is not going to be a completely free hobby. Although there are free resources available you may come to dead ends with them and will most likely need to send away for certificates. This can add up if you require a lot of them for your research. I usually order only a couple a month to spread the cost that way, but you must realise it will be difficult trying to do it for no cost at all.

9. Don't Be Put Off If Your Family Tree Already Exists
You may find out that someone has already completed your family tree which could be close relative or you may even find it online in one of the big online tree services that someone else has uploaded it to. Don't let this put you off thinking that there is nothing to do to your tree. You can just use this tree as a helpful guide to your own research, you never know you may find more people than that tree has or find mistakes. The fun really is in the research and you won't really learn about the people in your tree until you do this research for yourself and your tree will mean much more to you.

10. You Already Have Started
You may not know it but yes you already have a head start on your tree without doing one search. You and your family know information about your ancestors already you just haven't put it down on paper or on your computer yet. Question as many relatives as you can, especially the older ones as that is the best place you can start.

If you can think of something that you think people should know before they start out their family tree search, please create an account and add it to the comments below. Over the coming months on TreeDigger.com we will publish lots of articles, tutorials, reviews, advice and more to help you in your search so please subscribe to our RSS feed.