There is usually one person in a family who is interested in keeping the records and that person is YOU! So it's up to you to gather family for a tell-all; one of those family fun nights when everyone talks at once...quietly record there memories and sort it out later so you can enjoy the contest!
If you have a family that isn't close or just haven't talked about themselves much, as with my parents, for this reason alone it is essential to find your relatives and to get closer to those you know. Paper trails can be found for a lot of reasons, births, marriages, etc, but if your parents were raised in the back country most of your paper trail could have ended when the local minister died!
As with my parents most of the clues I found were within the family Bible. I was blessed to be able to go and see and copy the information from that Bible just before it was sent to a distant cousin I have never met. So don't delay thinking I'll get it done next time we meet, those opportunities to find out where your roots are can be fleeting at best!
