In our nation of immigrants, exploring your family origins can be an interesting and enlightening project. Collecting or adding to your family's history is important for several reasons. Children love to hear tales of the past and enjoy the personal link with their ancestors. Photographs capture the reality of the moment and reveal fashions, hairstyles, housing, automobiles, and toys from days gone by. They also reveal fascinating family resemblances. You may recognize your face in the features of an old grade-school picture of your great-aunt Sara. You could discover that your maternal great-grandmother had the familiar dimpled chin and curly red hair that was inherited by you and several of your cousins. As a bonus, birth and death records often provide clues to valuable medical history you never knew.
Abundant information is out there waiting to be uncovered-in book stores, libraries, archives, immigration records, and Internet sites. But it's not always correct and it may be incomplete. Exposing the past requires patient detective work following hints and making guesses that sometimes lead to nowhere. But the journey is fun and fascinating, and could explain why your grandparents left home and family in another land and came to the United States. According to Ellis Island documents, many European immigrants endured the three-week ocean voyage to America in a crowded lower deck with few material goods and $10 hidden in their undergarments. At the very least, a genealogy project provides justifiable motivation for travel to new destinations to search for relatives.
Some of the sites listed below offer free information, while others charge fees per document or require your paid subscription to access data. Begin your search by gathering names and dates, especially from public records concerning birth certificates, death notices, military service, real property transfers and deeds, marriages, divorces, adoptions, churches, school records, and college alumni affiliations. Sort this data into categories by family surnames and by locations including city, county, and state. Having some idea of what you're looking for will facilitate navigating through numerous online genealogy sites.
www.accessgenealogy.com/native/ (links to Native American databases)
www.ancestry.com (links to information, subscription required for full access; free 14-day trial)
www.cyndislist.com (directory of links to genealogy information)
www.ellisislandrecords.org (immigration records of entries via New York ports)
www.everton.com (publisher of The Handbook for Genealogists, family histories, maps, and other helpful books and magazines)
www.familysearch.com (download free software for recording your data)
www.familytreemaker.com (popular software program, purchase online at $39.95)
www.genealogy.org (database directory)
www.infobel.com (international telephone listings)
www.nara.gov (U.S. National Archives site, links to immigration/naturalization, military and census records)
www.rootsweb.com (affiliated with ancestry.com)
www.usgenweb.org (national genealogy project, free, staffed by volunteers)
www.worldvitalrecords.com (subscription service for national and international databases including newspaper archives)
Ask family members to help by contributing photos for your family history project. Forgotten names, dates, and places are sometimes evident in the photos or noted on the reverse side and will help in your investigation. As in any research, one bit of acquired knowledge leads to another. Church and municipal sources are invaluable, but these records are time-consuming to trace; some were destroyed in wars or by fire before technology permitted document backup with microfilm and computer files. However, new information is continually coming online so it is worthwhile to revisit old databases for updates. Message boards are helpful, especially if you are lucky enough to find another person who is researching your family name.
Federal and state census records provide evidence of family members living as a unit at the time of the census. If your great-grandfather, his wife, and their six children are listed in the 1910 census and one of the children's names is unfamiliar or irreconcilable with any other data, perhaps the child died at a young age or is the infamous "black sheep" who ran away from home and was never heard from again. (And the "black sheep" could have descendants.)
The popularity of genealogy research escalated with the increased use of home computers. Software is available for compiling, editing, and sharing the information you have collected. Some downloads are free, and many more programs are available online or at traditional electronic stores where personnel can guide your selection. Back up all data-frequently-in the event your files are damaged. You will not enjoy repeating the process of collecting these records.
If your imagination and curiosity are heightened, try writing a family history describing the ancestors you meet during your research. Older relatives enjoy reminiscing and their stories of childhood escapades will give you a fresh perspective. Read all you can about the locations and eras in which your forefathers lived-it helps to understand the choices they made. To add interest to your family album, illustrate liberally with photos and drawings. For example, photograph the house where your ancestors lived; if the house is gone, use a picture of the town square where they walked-or the church or school they might have attended. Don't hesitate to include conclusions about what you learned and encourage other family members to do the same. Look carefully at what you uncover and enjoy the adventure of a personal journey into your past.
Article provided by Homesteader.
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Genealogy is defined in the dictionary as 'descent traced continually from ancestor', a study of pedigree. For most of us, it simply means trying to figure out what relation Aunt Millie's great -great grandson is to our daughter in law. |
I recently had the opportunity to research my DNA and find out some long lost relatives through DNA testing from Gene Tree. Why not continue this great personal project by finding out more about my ancestors by joining a website devoted to helping people find and fill in their family tree. |
