Every search has a first step, and it is almost never where the seeker expects. In this first sitting, I answer the question that stops so many before they start. We begin not in the archive but at the kitchen table — with the living, with the names and stories already in your keeping — and work backward, one generation at a time, from what you know toward what you do not. I'll show you how to gather what your family already remembers, why the most recent records are your firmest footing, and how to write down a memory without mistaking it for proof. The line begins with you.