It is always advisable to talk to older members of your family in the first instance and note down what they can remember.It is so easy to be sidetracked by coming across records of other branches of the family, or unrelated families of the same name, and so waste time and effort. Decide which line of your family tree you wish to trace.Tracing your ancestry can be a very long, time-consuming process, so before launching into the project it is important to take some preliminary steps: