Ways of conducting a genealogy research The easiest and most practical way is questioning your parents, grandparents and other members of the family. Asking them about their ancestors is very convenient, since it will not require a lot of research. The only limitation is that they may not remember as far back as necessary or may not have been concerned about genealogy at all. Here is a short list that you could look through and consider in starting your own family tree : Perhaps the group of people that is most interested in searching for their kindred dead is the Latter-day Saints. They believe that genealogical work is a part of man s salvation. Their belief is three-fold- missionary work, perfecting the saints (improving themselves while following the gospel) and redeeming the dead (here is where the genealogical works come in). Examples are the Brother s Keeper Genealogy software, Family Tree Legends (claiming to be a powerful software in genealogical search), Gedmark (used in securing any information on an author on GEDCOM files), GeneWeb (genealogy program that has Web interface), and GenFinder Freeware, TimeLine Maker (maker of charts that show histories, also, colored printouts There are also free tools for translation. Check with your folks It would be great if you communicate with your parents. Solicit their assistance with the dates and names you need. Most likely, the names of relatives you do not know or have not heard from for a while, will crop up as these names could have been vital during the growing up years of your parents. There are numerous characters originated and used according to Korean and Japanese definitions which will represent as native words. The free relationship between character and phonetics made writings of different and not related languages a possibility. Sinographs is the other term for Chinese characters thus their writing is called sinography. Other names derived from an ancestor's distinguishing traits are Baines, which means 'bones' and describes a thin man, Armstrong, Black and Longfellow. Occupation Another common source for surnames is an individual's trade. John the carpenter, John the cook and John the smith later on became Messrs. Carpenter, Cook or Cooke and Smith.