By all means pursue the info your father has. If you can find primary data like family bibles and records kept by earlier generations in your family, it can give you a huge leg up in doing online searches.

Also, if the LDS church has a genealogical library within driving distance of you, it will be worth the trip. They have exhaustive records gleaned from primary sources all over the country. They often participate in "loose records" projects, scanning and recording old paper records in churches, courthouses, etc. Just tons and tons of genealogical info in microfilm... and, if there's something in their index that isn't physically in their local library they will often send to Salt Lake to have a dupe made and sent at no charge... a way to build up each local library.

Happy hunting!