The Web is a vast resource for genealogy information and tracing one's roots online is on of the Internet's fastest-growing categories. But because there is so much information out there, you not only have to know where to search, but how to search. Here are some tips to help get the ball rolling ... Starting could be a neat Mother's Day project. I really admire people who take this on ...

Start your search offline.
Databases on the major genealogy websites are enormous - we're talking millions of records - so just plugging in a first and last name isn't going to cut it. By first gathering all the information you can offline, you'll be better equipped to take advantage of online resources. Once you know the basics - first and last names, approximate birth/death and birth place, marriages, plus any knowledge of military service - you're online search will be much easier.

Interview relatives.
Interview living family members for full names, birth dates, birth towns, marriages and occupations. Ask about military service (75% of Americans have ancestors who served in the Armed Forces and a lot of those records are searchable online). Also, take a trip into the attic and collect as many family records as you can. Family Bibles often have births, deaths and marriages recorded in them. Old photographs, letters and obituaries also reveal clues about previous generations.

Go local.
A trip to your local library, courthouse or historical society can yield for more background information. Look up your ancestors and check for deeds, probate, voting and marriage records, etc.

Time to hit the Web
The desire to dig up genealogy information has spawned more than 250,000 genealogy websites. Start with a site that offers access to Census records. Census records can give you a wealth of information such as birth places, military service, education, professions, property/personal property owned, etc.

Ancestry.com is the big player in the space. If you're looking for one-stop-shopping, this is it. The site has been around for 10 years and has over 23,000 searchable databases, with information on 5 billion names. It's relatively user friendly. The site recently completed the digitizing of U.S. Census records from 1790 - 1930. Copying the material took a team of experts and workers a combined 6.6 million hours of labor. (A census of the population has been conducted every 10 years since 1790. Personal information is kept sealed for 72 years after each census, which will explain why Ancestry.com's database ends at 1930).

Start your search by going from known to unknown.
Always start with yourself and work backward, generation by generation. That helps to ensure accurate results. If you search for an ancestor but can't find direction connections between generations (birth certificates, census documents, etc.) you can't be sure you have the right person.

Tracing your roots takes time.
You might go twenty or thirty minutes and all you find are a couple death certificates. Be patient. Time is by far the biggest investment in researching your family tree. It can be a big undertaking, so don't expect to have your family tree over and done with in an afternoon. Really what it ends up being for many is a hobby; something you do in your spare time.

Things get harder if you have a common last name.
If you have a name like "Smith," "Johnson" or "Lewis" :) ... You're going to have to do a lot of cross-checking to make sure the information you're uncovering is relevant. There's two kinds of information, government source information (Social Security Death Index, military records, census, etc.) and there's the community information (things people have posted, stories that have been passed down). You want to cross-check that with something you know to be true. So if someone tells a story about a great-aunt in Ohio , you have a Social Security number that says they were born in Ohio , maybe that's a match.

Float your family tree (connect with distant relatives).

The real value of sites like Ancestry.com is in the networking you can do with people who have similar profiles. Sharing can be critical when you hit roadblocks or sticking points. Ancestry.com has feature to automatically connect a user's family tree to others worldwide if it finds common relatives with another subscriber. This brings about a social-networking component to genealogy. You're connecting online with close and distant relatives, you're sharing your family tree, maybe old photos and documents you've scanned in, etc.

Factoring in cost.
It can start to add up, but again, time is the biggest investment. Community content, like message boards are usually free – these are usually postings that say things like, "I know this person was related to this person, but I'm trying to figure out where he fits in here, can anyone help." But when you start getting into specific records that have been posted and digitized online (Census, marriage, death records), there are fees involved.

Most pay sites offer a free trial and then subscription fees start at about $15 a month. You get a break if you pay annually. You may also run into some up-selling. Ancestry.com offers upgraded services like the Family Tree Maker Software or a higher-level membership that lets you search databases overseas.

Free options online.

RootsWeb.com is free and good place to learn or get your feet wet. It offers hints and tips on how to research family history ... what you can expect to find in particular documents, how to search old newspapers, etc. It can help you get more mileage out of the pay sites.

Explore immigration history for free.
For most people, your ancestors had to arrive in the at some point. EllisIsland.org provides free information for more than 25 million passengers that entered the United States through Ellis Island and the Port of New York from 1892-1924.

If you're stuck, ask Cyndi.

CyndisList is a free portal with approx. 260,000 genealogy links, the bulk of which are cross-indexed and categorized. The site is also big with those who are stuck and looking for new avenues of research. And yes there really is a Cyndi. It was created by Cyndi Howell, of Washington state, who started the ongoing project during a maternity leave from work in 1996.

This kind of DNA testing is also being used to confirm ethnic heritage, though the degree to which your geographic roots can be specified is a matter of debate.

The test kits are priced starting at about $100 and sell for as much as $800. The more you spend the more detailed results you get. Be sure to read the fine print on these sites, so you know exactly what you're getting and you have your expectations in check.

Facial recognition tools.
www.myheritage.com

The site is called MyHeritage.com and while the site enables users to search across hundreds of genealogy databases at once, the feature that gets the most attention is its ability to research family history through face-recognition technology.

The idea is to upload old family photos of people you can't identify. Then, let MyHeritage.com try to recognize these people. If another MyHeritage user also contributed a photo with one of your mystery people, it will make the facial connection and you can get in contact with each other.

It clusters faces based on attributes like bone structure and the unique characteristics of the person's eyes.

Don't delete your own history.
Don't delete your own history. Oral history makes up such a big part of how we track our history. And these days, everything is by e-mail. So all of those e-mails that talk about what your family is doing this year, consider saving those. Maybe start a digital diary, put them on a disk. Or, at a minimum, print them and keep them in the attic, because, you know, our grandchildren aren't going to be able to go upstairs to the attic and read deleted e-mails. So make a point of saving them.

Genealogy gifts for the budding genealogist.
Family Tree Maker Software and books from Ancestry.com can help you build and manage your family tree on the computer. Prices range between $40-100.

RedEnvelope.com – niche for family tree-themed gifts on the web, like the Couples Ginko Genealogy Tree Frames pictured below.

redenvelope.com