A good place to start is by speaking to your immediate relatives, parents, grand parents, aunties, uncles etc and finding out as much information as they can give about your ancestors. One important tip to make you aware of right away is that you must always always corroborate any information they give you by checking with the relevant historical sources.
When you interview your relations make copious notes about anything and everything they tell you, do not omit any information thinking it not to matter or too trivial, because as sure as eggs are eggs further down the line with your research it will fit in somewhere. If you can use a voice recorder so much the better, then you can transcribe the interview in your own time. Remember to keep the tapes or discs so that you can review them later if needed.
You might well discover as I did some years ago that one of your relatives might already have done some research of their own and have a lot of information that they can share with you. In my case an aunt had done a little research and had filled out her findings with her own recollections, which gave me a good deal of information to work on. I did find however that some of her recollections were inaccurate when I looked at the relevant historical information, hence the recommendation to always corroborate, but at least I had a steer on where to start looking.
Its is also important to interview your relations sooner rather than later, the longer you leave it the more chance that fading memories cannot recall important snippets, or heaven forbid that someone passes away before you have spoken to them. So make it a priority before it is too late.
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