Hello Edgar. Welcome to the wonderful world of genealogical research! It is a hobby that I started back in the 1970's at age 12, and my passion for it has never diminished.

If you are just getting started, the best place to begin is with yourself and your immediate family. Find out specific dates and places, like when and where your parents and grandparents were born, were married, lived, and died. Once you know a few facts like these, you can then start collecting primary source records (birth, marriage, death) and secondary source records (census, etc.) which give you even more information and clues to pursue.

Family research is never-ending, and for many people it becomes a life-long hobby, because the more you find out, the more that new paths open up for you. Each of us has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, and so on. So, the information grows exponentially with each generation. There are countless sources of information available for researchers (online databases and genealogy sites, historical societies and libraries, churches, cemeteries, county courthouses, state and federal archives, newspapers, etc., etc.).

One word of advice is to validate and document the information you find, and don’t immediately trust everything you see. Sometimes people “assume” that certain bits of information are true, when really they aren't. Census records can sometimes be inaccurate, for example, when the census taker records a family name with an incorrect spelling, based on how he “heard” it, or when a family member or neighbor simply “guesses” at someone’s age, place of birth, etc. Usually, primary source records (birth, marriage, death, etc.) are accurate for the event being recorded. A death record, for example, is probably accurate for someone’s death, but other information recorded on a death record, such as the person’s age and place of birth, may not be accurate if the informant isn’t sure and is only guessing. But even this secondary information is often helpful for additional clues, and may in fact be accurate.

If you haven’t done so already, purchase a good genealogy software program for your computer so that you can collect and save the information you’ve gathered. Some good programs are Legacy, RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker, and Personal Ancestral File (PAF), just to name a few. Some programs can be downloaded for free (like PAF). There are some good online sources of information also, like Ancestry.com, Genealogy.com, RootsWeb.com, Family Search.com, etc. Some are free, and some are not. Not everything can be found online though, and a good genealogist must do a bit of travel and “beat the bushes” in order to solve some of the harder problems.

I don’t know if you are related to me through your Alder line or not. My paternal line has, so far, been traced back to the 1600's in Northumberland County, England. Others named Alder have traced their lines to Switzerland and Germany. With Y-DNA testing, people can now find out just how closely they are related to others along their paternal lines (Alder in our case), and I have had great success with that. By the way, one of my 2nd great-grandfathers was named Anderson Alder (1814-1882). He was born in Loudoun Co., Virginia, USA and died in Brown County, Indiana, USA. Where was your paternal grandfather (Edgar Anderson Alder) born, and who were his parents?

So, once you can share a bit more about your Alder line, I will be happy to compare notes with you to see if we have a connection. Until then, take care, and happy hunting!

Respectfully,

Norm Alder