How to find your first new ancestor, quickly--for beginners only

If you haven't done much internet searching for your ancestors, there are two recommendations that I have for you. One is to go to rootsweb, and enter your ancestor's name in the family tree search. Try to pick an ancestor whose name is not terribly common. If you know the date of birth, or the spouse,choose advanced search and plug in the info. Give the dates you enter parameters of say five years, or even more. You will get more results that way, as not all researchers will know just what the correct dates are. Now, the results you see in someone's tree may be interesting.You can click on names to see the ancestors, and you can easily see all the descendants of the ancestor by clicking on "descendency." The results are not necessarily correct. Take them as interesting clues, and see if you can verify any of it with other sources. The second great place to begin is with google. Sometimes a famly tree will be nicely set on a web page. Or you may turn up a biography. When I get no hits at all with google, I go to google books. Often there are hits there. Once you have begun your search you will begin to find your way. Again, what you read is just possible information that may be helpful and may lead to answers. Even if you see that something is incorrect, that may be of help in some way. I cannot say enough about rootsweb. I think that for ease of clicking through names, it is really the best. Fast and easy to use.