Family history can be no less exciting than the history of the country, and the search for information about relatives can be a real detective story. Sometimes those who would like to find out the fate of great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers have to go to the archives, travel around the country in search of military graves, contact foreign public organizations. There will certainly be disappointments along the way, but there will be many more discoveries.
To create a family record, you need to collect materials. The best place to start is with the people you have contact with. Interview parents, grandparents, and other relatives. Specify their personal data - there are often cases when documents were lost, and in the restored ones there was an error in the surname, date or place of birth. Enter all the information in a specially wound notebook. You can also create a folder on your computer, which is even more convenient. You probably know your cousins and sisters. But try to find out all possible information about other relatives - grandmother's cousin, grandfather's stepfather and everyone else. Find out and write down their last names, first names and patronymics. It is very useful to record stories on a voice recorder, and save the recordings. In this case, you can always check the information.
Those born in closed cities may not have a “numbered” settlement as their place of birth, but the nearest regional center.
It is possible that you have old albums in your family. You, of course, have seen them more than once and you know many of those who are captured in the pictures. Browse the albums again. Perhaps you will see faces that you have not noticed before. Ask the older generation who is shown in the photographs, ask them to tell everything that can be remembered about these people. It doesn't matter who is photographed there - relatives, friends, neighbors, colleagues or random travel companions. It is quite possible that you will have to turn to them for some information.
It is better to scan pictures from family albums right away and sign who is depicted on them.
Start building a family tree. Draw a square on a piece of paper or in a text editor with a drawing function. Enter your details in it. Draw a second box next to it and fill in your spouse's details. Connect the squares horizontally. If you have children, draw for each box below the existing pair, write in the details of each child. Your tree will grow upward. Above your square, draw two more - for the parents. Do the same over the spouse's square. Continue the tree. Straight line ancestors will be above your squares. If there were still relatives in some generation, draw squares for them on the side. Connect all squares with straight lines, indicating family ties. If you do not have enough information about someone, put down question marks instead of unknown data. In this case, you will most likely have to go to the archives.
Formulate requests and send letters to the archives. If you need to find out the data about the second cousin of my grandmother who lived in the city of N, who has lived in one place all her life, contact the city archive. True, you will most likely have to indicate the degree of relationship. It is possible that you will have to look for someone from her direct relatives. Modern communication technologies, mainly social networks, provide a lot of opportunities for this. Try to find out the dates of life and death, whether this relative had children, whether there are grandchildren, who they are and what they do.
If you are looking for data on a frontline relative, it is best to contact the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense. It is very good if you know personal details or information about awards. There are several large military archives, they are constantly being replenished, and there are cases when relatives managed to find out the fate of a front-line soldier many decades later.
Ask relatives of the older generation about the events they witnessed or participated in. Write down their stories. Write down your memories and interesting things that you saw in life. What seems common to you will be history for your children and grandchildren.
