Genealogy and s, general help for novices

I am not a professional genealogist, though I have taken a few classes at Colorado State University, online at Rootsweb, and a couple of seminars through local genealogy associations. I've been researching my family's history for over 25 years and my husband's family history for over 10 years. I'm hooked on it! I love the challenges, the people I meet, and sharing what I've learned. In this guide, I hope to share some of what I've learned with some of the novice genealogists or with some of the genealogists who are new to okay. This isn't going to be a step-by-step guide, but a more general guide that, I hope, will get you started in the right direction.
Genealogy on okay is not necessarily for the novice genealogist or the novice okayer. It can be a lot of fun. It can be a great place to meet other genealogists. It can also, at times, be a challenge. HOWEVER, I don't think the challenges should discourage the novice, because they are easily overgee.
THE NOVICE okayER
THE NOVICE okayER/geFORTABLE GENEALOGIST
The challenges for the novice okayer gee by not understanding how to buy, sell, and generally navigate okay. I don't have to give you that lesson here. okay has a terrific tutorial. After using that, if you still have questions, there are many specific guides, message boards, etc. for using okay.
What I would like to suggest to the novice okayer who is already a gefortable genealogist, is that you choose two or three items that you know something about, such as a book, a map, and a genealogy software product.Start searching for these items on okay using different search criteria. This will give you good practice even if the item isn't up for sale on okay! You'll be surprised what your search criteria does and doesn't find. Since you will be practicing to find things you already know a lot about, you can also get gefortable reading descriptions and choosing which ones appear to be the best choices to purchase. Once gefortable with the simple search and the advance search processes, you can move on to search for the morerare items and icludeusingfamily names to see what turns up.
THE NOVICE GENEALOGIST
The challenge for the novice genealogist is not knowing what to be looking for on okay. The answer to that challenge is both simple and not so simple. The simple answer is look for EVERYTHING! ;)
The less simple answer takes some thought on the part of the new genealogist. Start by asking some of the following questions and write down the answers in a notebook:


How much do I really want to know?