My family always said that we had an ancestor who came over on the Mayflower, but I never knew if that was true. When I decided I wanted to trace my ancestor, I started with the obvious sources. I asked my parents, grandparents, and cousins to share any family stories and records. Some could give me specific data; some could only give me clues about how to trace my ancestor.
Then I went online and started searching for documentation of my ancestry. One resource that helped me start to trace my ancestor was the Social Security Death Index. It is available at OneGreatFamily.com, and it is a great place to start. However, the Social Security Death Index is only useful for twentieth-century sources. I needed to go further into the past...