Many people want to build a family tree but stop on day one. There is too much they don't know: where to begin, what to ask, where to write it down, how not to get lost.
This piece is a minimal four-generation plan you can actually finish over a weekend.
Step 1. Sketch out «yourself» and the inner circle
Open a notes app or a spreadsheet. Write down:
- Yourself: name, last name, birth date, birth place
- Your parents: name, maiden name, dates, birth place
- Your grandparents: same fields
If you don't remember something, that's fine. Empty cells are normal at the start.
Step 2. Make one phone call
Call a parent or a grandmother. One hour. Ask:
- What were your parents' names?
- Where were they born? What year?
- What did they do?
- Who was in their family besides them?
- Are there family stories that travelled across generations?
Record this conversation on your phone. This becomes your audio archive, not just a written genealogy.
Step 3. Find the photographs
Ask parents and grandparents to show you the old photos. Photograph them with your phone (or use a scanner). Caption right away: year, who, where. Five years later you won't remember who that man on the left was.
If you have a free evening, digitise an entire album. It takes 2–4 hours, but the photos then live in parallel with the family archive for a lifetime.
Step 4. Use the archives
Once names and dates are gathered, you can dig deeper:
- State archives in the place of birth
- Genealogy sites (FamilySearch, MyHeritage), with care for privacy
- Civil registry metric books
- Military archives (TsAMO, «Memorial of the People»)
That turns «grandmother from a Smolensk village» into a concrete document with the name of a great-great-grandfather.
Step 5. Pull everything into one place
The most common mistake: the tree in one place, photos in another, voice notes in a third. A couple of years later it all falls apart.
Gather:
- Names, dates, places, in one file or app
- Photos, in one folder with captions
- Voice recordings, alongside, attached to people
When everything sits together, the tree lives. When scattered, it dies the first time something goes wrong.
The point
Don't try to chase eight generations on the first attempt. Start with four. If that goes well, keep going. If not, an incomplete four-generation tree beats a perfect ten-generation plan that never starts.