I also agree with using Ancestry. When you build your tree, start with yourself, then your parents, followed by your grandparents. Getting started you should always start with what you know.
Once you enter the information, little "leaves" will pop up that are hints. They can be helpful but don't accept them because they show up. I get many hints that are not even for the person. They may be for someone else with a similar name and age but not the place that I know the person to be in. (For instance, I got a hint for someone in California and my family has always been in Ohio).
Some of the hints may be for documents. Be sure to look at them as there may be more clues there. Some hints could be photos other people have uploaded to Ancestry. These could be helpful. Some hints are from other family trees. Be careful with accepting these. I find that a lot of these are people that just accept every hint they get for a person. I have an uncle that did this... he had some wild connections on his tree since he didn't look at the dates of the people he was accepting hints for. My cousin and I don't take his research as gospel, we do our own and have the proof what he has is not correct.
When I started, I was lucky that my grandmother had done a lot of research in the 1950's. She corresponded with people and gathered information that way. I first started with a software on my computer and that is still my main database. I do have a tree on Ancestry but I use it for hints. I will research the hints it gives me before adding to either database. Original documents are fun to find. I've spent many hours over the years in libraries that have genealogical collections going through books of family histories and compilations of official records (probate birth and death, cemetery inscriptions etc) all before this information became available on the internet.
Another website that has really helped me in the last couple of years is Newspapers.com (owned by Ancestry). They have digitized versions of many newspapers that you can search. I actually broke down the "brick wall" of my great-grandmother and her family thru searching those newspapers. All newspapers are not on there though. None of the newspapers for my county are but thankfully, the newspapers for several counties that border mine are and that is how I broke down that brick wall.
Another website (again owned by Ancestry) that could be helpful is FindAGrave.com. Volunteers all over the country are contributing to this so again, be careful as to the information on there. Gravesite memorials are set up for individuals and if their parents are deceased, they can be linked to them. Spouses are also linked. When the children of a couple are linked to them, the links show as siblings for the children. I have been working on getting links for family members recently. I found an incorrect parent linked for an ancestor so I submitted a correction and it got fixed. The father's name was John and the individual was linked to the wrong John. That family had a lot of "Johns" in the family so it was an easy mistake. With your mother and grandparents being deceased, I would look for their graves and if they are on the website (which is still a work in progress), someone may have already linked information to them. Many people put copies of the obituaries on the memorial or even type a small bio for the person. And, photos are there as well, both of the gravestone and the people.
I am also involved in my local county genealogical society. Back in the 1990's when I first started, I joined and learned a lot from the members. I took a break for over 20 years and have gotten back into researching so I joined the society again. Many of the members from my early days are no longer around so it is a new group of people. And, I've got some distant cousins that are there as well. We meet 9 months a year and have a speaker every month except one which is the month we take a field trip to a repository for the day to do research. When new people come to a meeting, we welcome them and answer any questions they might have on getting started.
Like Amie said, it is really interesting but a time suck! And, I love it!
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