If you’re a grandparent, there’s a decent chance you’re a member of the oldest living generation in your family. This, whether you like it or not, makes you the historian of the brood. The grandchildren will undoubtedly ask you at some point: “When did we come over to this country?", “Were there any famous people in our family?”, or “Where does our last name even come from?” A developed family tree may best illustrate the answers to these questions. So when they're rattled off in rapid succession, all you have to do is lift an arm and point to a frame on the wall. Ahead, how to jump-start a genealogy project and traps to avoid.
It Starts with You
It's common when starting a family tree to feel a bit overwhelmed, wondering where to begin. But, according to Kory Meyerink an accredited genealogist at ProGenealogists, Inc., who also teaches the subject at Brigham Young University, the first person to help you with the research is right in the room: you! “Begin by writing down when and where you were born. Then, jot down your parents’ information, including when their siblings were born,” says Meyerink. This can be done on something called a Family Group Sheet which often includes marriage dates and places, and for every deceased family member, dates and places of death. Download one for free at Ancestry.com.
The second place to look, he says, is directly above you. “A friend of mine refers to something called ‘attic archeology.’ Look through the attic for family memorabilia and old scrapbooks. You may even find some family obituaries that give you clues on anything from lineage to towns where they may have grown up," says Meyerink. These snippets can lead to other relatives — all facts to be added to the tree.
You can also visit family cemeteries and look for those buried nearby whose last or maiden names match up and appear to be related to you. In addition, you can unearth detailed information at county courthouses in the towns where your family lived.
The next major step in your genealogy project, says Gloria Gibbel, member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, is to go to a local family history center or genealogy society (find the former through FamilySearch.org’s free search). “Public libraries can also be a big help. Many have genealogy files and some even have whole genealogy rooms,” she says. Do some pre-trip work by looking through a library’s online catalog to see how many resources it has available. And, ask if you can hire librarians to help with research. A little extra investment may pay off.
Internet Investigating
The Internet has changed the way family trees are discovered, says Meyerink. “Genealogy has tens of thousands of Web sites to choose from. The two major categories are free Web sites where anyone can post information and fee Web sites where you can find significant information at a significant cost. The most notable subscription-based site is Ancestry.com — I use it on a daily basis for its 20,000 databases and 2 billion names.”
A site called ProQuest, says Meyerink, has a data provider for academic libraries, census records, and indices that go incredibly far back. Another useful option? A book search through a search engine such as Google. “I once found an online scanned book published in 1912 that included a family I was researching. Since it was electronic text, we were able to easily cut and paste it.” Meyerink also recommends Footnote.com for its national archives and early American papers, along with NewsBank.com since its obituaries can provide substantial clues.
RootsWeb.com is a popular, free genealogy community whose most valuable feature could be its message board. There, you can trade information with other family tree creators trying to keep this hobby on-the-cheap. The USGen Web Project even offers ideas on how to include your grandchildren in the project through USGenWeb Kidz, which boasts a how-to section, as well as an area where children can post questions. The Church of Latter-Day Saints runs FamilySearch.org, a site hosting more than 1 billion people in its database.
Mistakes to Avoid
A major mistake to skirt, says Gibbel, is getting your hopes up about a famous person you believe to be in your past. “It was long a ‘fact’ in my family that we were related to the Dalton gang (a late 1800s gang of bank robbers)” she says. “After I traced it back, it turned out they only lived in the same town as my relatives.”
The next misstep? Forgetting to ask all your family members if someone else has already worked on a family tree. There’s no reason to repeat work that’s already been done, and maybe you can even team up to make the genealogy project a joint effort.
The last miscalculation you can make, says Gibbel, involves how easy you might assume a genealogy project will be: “My granddaughter was asked to do a family tree for homework and she told the teacher, based on watching me, that she thought it would be too big a homework assignment. Considering our family goes back to the Mayflower, my granddaughter was right!”
Ultimately, a genealogy project could take anywhere from a week, to put together a simple Family Group Sheet, to six months or longer, to build a complex family tree that's outlined in calligraphy and housed in expensive framing. Regardless of a project's scope, the end result will be the same: a better understanding and appreciation of where you’ve come from, a real-life family story to pass on to your grandchildren.
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