HOW TO - FAMILY RESEARCH GUIDELINE
FamilySearch.org, the Web site for The Family History Library in Salt Lake
City, Utah, lists these steps for family history research:
1 Remember Your Ancestors
Begin by remembering information about each member in your family that will
identify that person.
Each person can be identified by personal information, such as their name;
other members of the family; dates and places of important events such
as birth, marriage, and death; ancestral village; and occupation.
Get forms or computer programs you can use to record your family information.
They make the task of recording and organizing easier.
If you prefer writing information on paper, download or print these two
forms:
A pedigree chart, which lets you list your pedigree (your parents,
grandparents, great grandparents and so on).
A family group record, which lets you list an entire family and their
information. You will need several copies.
If you prefer using a computer, download the free program Personal Ancestral
File or install a family history program of your choice.
Record the information you remember about your family on the forms or in
a family history program.
First fill out a form for your own family, then work back to your parents and
grandparents. You can quickly see what you know and what information is
missing or incomplete
.
2 Use sources in your home
Look for sources in your home that might contain the missing or incomplete
family information.
Useful sources include birth, marriage and death certificates; family Bibles;
funeral programs; obituaries; wedding announcements; family
registers; and ancestral tablets.
Add this information to your pedigree charts and family group records.
Record the sources of the information (use the notes or sources section on
the forms or in your family history program)
.
3 Ask relatives for information
Make a list of other relatives and the family information they may have.
Contact relatives - visit, call, write or e-mail them. Be sure to ask
specifically for the information you would like. Add the information to your
pedigree charts and family group records. Record the names of the relatives who
gave you the information in notes or sources.
4 Choose a family or ancestor you want to learn more about
Look for missing or incomplete information on your pedigree chart and family
records. Select a family or ancestor with missing or incomplete information.
Start with the generations closest to you and work your way back. Usually it
is easier to find information for a family member or ancestor born in a
recent period.
Step 5: See if someone else has already found the information
Look for the names on the Search for Ancestor page. This will search the
databases that are a part of FamilySearch Internet and includes family
histories submitted by others.
Look for the names in the Family History Library Catalog, Surname Search.
The search will list family histories in the library's collection that contain
the surname.
You can arrange to see many of the histories at your local family history
center.
Look for published family histories on other Web sites or at public archives
and libraries.
If the family histories do not contain information about the family you want,
search for records from the locality where your ancestor lived.
Step 6: Search records for information about your ancestor
Use the site's research guidance page to help find copies of original
records, such as censuses and birth records based on where the person lived
and the time of his or her birth, marriage or death.
Select the place and time, and research guidance provides a list of
recommended things to do and records to search in priority order.
Download and print forms and guides to help. Many forms and guides are
available on the research help page to download for free
Copyright © 2005 Randall Family, LLC. This content is intended for the sole,
personal use of this visitor, who may not modify, publish, transmit,
participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce, create derivative works
from, distribute, perform, display, or in any way exploit, any of this
content.
Branching Out
Genealogy serves as a way to preserve family history
By ALISON WALKER
News-Post Staff
awalker@fredericknewspost.com
FREDERICK - A wealth of information for people researching their family
histories is available, meeting an evergrowing interest in genealogy. The
Historical Society of Frederick County, Inc., on East Church Street is one
resource. The society's collection of 7,000 books contains church, marriage
and cemetery records, obituaries from the Linton Collection, family genealogies,
indices to land and census records, county and local histories
and maps.
Staff said interest in the library has risen in recent years.
"I think we're in the same boat as most genealogical libraries after Roots
(the 1974 book by Alex Haley on his family history) was published,"
said Joyce Cooper, the museum assistant.
"Interest in the library has increased as the facility has enlarged, and
we've gotten online, so we're much more in the public eye," she said.
Marie Washburn, the society's librarian, said when she first began working at
the society 12 years ago, entire weeks passed with no one coming
into the library. Now, about 70 people come in every month.
In addition to the Historical Society, Frederick is home to a branch of
The Family History Library, whose main branch is located in Salt Lake City,
Utah. The library is recognized as the largest collection of family history
material in the world and is run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints.
The Frederick branch is located at 199 North Place, off West Patrick Street.
The Salt Lake City library is 142,000 square feet on five floors and is
visited by about 1,900 people a day.
The collection includes more than 2.4 million rolls of microfilmed
genealogical records, 742,000 microfiche, 4,500 periodicals, 700 electronic
resources and 310,000 books, serials and other formats.
The library is open to the general public at no charge and was founded in
1894 to gather genealogical records and assist members of The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with their family history and genealogical
research.
The Waynesboro, Pa., branch of the library, the Fairview Ward Family History
Center, holds an annual event, "Unlocking Your Past." The convention
for people interested in family history and genealogy featured professional
genealogists and historians, classes, workshops, exhibits and research
rooms.
The convention was held this year in March and has drawn an increasingly
large crowd since its opening in 2003.
Ms. Cooper of the Historical Society attributes the relatively recent
interest in genealogy to people looking for stability and comfort.
"We're a transient population," she said. "There's something reassuring about
learning the history of a family that appears intact. Family history's
a history you can wrap your arms around."
The library also contains records from nearby counties and states, because
many people moved to Frederick County from other areas or moved out
of Frederick County.
The society's library holds Jacob Engelbrecht's diaries from 1818-1890. Mr.
Engelbrecht owned a tailor shop on North Market Street and later West
Patrick Street and served as Frederick's mayor at the end of the Civil War.
Mr. Engelbrecht's exten- sive diary about life in the county, even if it
doesn't mention a particular family by name, is an interesting reference to
learn about what ancestors' lives may have been like, Ms. Cooper said.
If the society doesn't have a certain record or document in its library,
staff can direct those interested in researching family histories to other
resources, including the Frederick County courthouse, the Maryland Room at the
C. Burr Artz Library, local cemeteries, the Hall of Records in Annapolis
and the Division of Vital Records in Baltimore.
When first visiting the library, Ms. Cooper recommends starting with the
"Genealogical Index to Frederick County, Md., The First Hundred Years." The
book is an index to sources published before 1992. Ms. Cooper said people
researching their family histories who are African American may be able to find
records of their ancestors in unexpected places.
One resource may be church records translated from Germany between about 1745
and 1840. Baptism records include the child's and parents' names, as
well as "owned by" or "slaves of" if the family included slaves.
The Frederick City directories also used an asterisk next to names of African
Americans, Ms. Cooper said.
Although tracking a family history can be extremely time consuming - Ms.
Cooper said she is considered a genealogy "newbie" even though she has been
researching for 11 years - often researchers will unexpectedly come across a
connection. "There'll be an a-ha moment, an epiphany," she said.
The Historical Society holds a family history seminar series every fall and
spring.
Introductory and advanced seminars held this March and April included getting
started, continuing research, evaluating records, and transcribing
and abstracting.
This fall's seminar is tentatively scheduled for September and October. Nelda
Burdette, of Damascus, first became interested in genealogy when she
retired from Montgomery County Public Schools, where she worked as Damascus High
School's registrar for 30 years.
Ms. Burdette, 67, said she heard about a class on genealogy at the Historical
Society of Frederick County, and after the class she was
"hooked."
"I like being able to find out who my ancestors were, what they did for a
living, what they died from," she said.
The class provided a great resource on researching family history, Ms.
Burdette said.
She learned that her greatgreat-great-grandparents came to the United States
from Germany in 1834.
Through her research she also learned more about her great-grandfather. All
she knew was his first and last name and where his wife was buried. She
visited the cemetery, which said where her great-grandfather was buried, but
there was no marking or stone on the site.
Ms. Burdette looked through the census records from the 1920s, when his wife
was still living and used the Maryland State Archives to find out that
he died in 1924.
At the Maryland Room in the C. Burr Artz Library, she found his obituary.
The obituary provided the name of his four sisters and his surviving
children.
She is considering buying a small tombstone to mark his grave at the
cemetery.
"I just keep pounding away, and sooner or later I'll break through and find
something," she said. "You're never finished. It's an ongoing process."
"I hope that the research I do will help my descendants if they're interested
in this sort of thing," she said. "I hope I'll answer some
questions for them, because the further it (family line) goes, the harder it is
to get information."
She said she plans to continue her research.
"I have no desire to ever publish anything," she said. "I just want it for
myself and for my descendants, to help them know where they come from,
something about their ancestors."
Copyright © 2005 Randall Family, LLC. This content is intended for the sole,
personal use of this visitor, who may not modify, publish, transmit,
participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce, create derivative works
from, distribute, perform, display, or in any way exploit, any of this
content.
Students trace their roots at genealogy camp
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Jameel Reese expected to spend his summer
swimming, hanging out, goofing off with friends. Instead, he spent it finding
family.
Jameel discovered his great-great-great-grandfather by - of all things -
going to camp. He and six other children age 7 to 15 attended Youth
Genealogy Camp.
"He was trained to be a casket maker while he was still a slave," the
soft-spoken 12-year-old said of his ancestor. "He was sold when he was 11.
He must have cried a lot then."
The month long day camp is the brainchild of Antoinette Harrell-Miller,
founder of the nonprofit African American Genealogy Connection.
"So many kids have no idea of their own history," she said. "They don't stop
and think about how their family got here or how they lived."
Harrell-Miller discussed the idea of the camp on her local cable-access TV
show, "Knowing Your Family History." She and a group of parents financed
the camp, spending about $1,200 this first year.
"Parents started calling me and saying they wanted their kids to attend," she
said.
The campers pored over records in the library and The Amistad Research Center
at Tulane University. They also visited cemeteries and older family
members and went to parish courthouses. They dug through birth and death
certificates, deeds, registrations and voting lists. "We took them to
federal and state offices so they could learn how to get records,"
Harrell-Miller said. "The thrust of the camp was to teach them how and where
to get information." Younger campers, who might have struggled with more
difficult searches, were asked to bring pictures of relatives from home. "It
's pretty rough to have to get up early in the summer and drag yourself down to
the library, but it was worth it," said 12-year-old Jordan Rock. "I found
out about 'Wild Man' Rock, who was a Mardi Gras Indian master. And L.C.
Beauregard, he was in my family, and he was a mulatto policeman in the
1880s."
As fascinated as Jordan was with his ancestors, his 15-year-old sister,
Amandia, was even more amazed by the discovery of a white member of the
family tree.
"She was my father's great great-great-grandmother," Amandia said. "I was
shocked. I never thought of myself as being white in any way."
Akanke McKinsey, 10, said she thought the camp might be boring, but it
wasn't: "It was like reading a story about me," she said.
Akanke proudly displayed a picture of a 1910 federal grand jury that shows
her ancestor Homer Cyprien. "He was the first black man invited to sit
on a federal grand jury in Louisiana," she said.
Discoveries like that, and the sense of family history they give a child, are
important for the city of New Orleans, said Mayor Ray Nagin.
"This may be one of the keys for unlocking what is one of the biggest
problems in our city," he said. "Our young men, more than anyone else, need
to know their history. They are the ones dropping out of school and getting into
drugs and crime and shooting each other."
Harrell-Miller said she welcomes white campers next summer. She said it is
easier for people with European ancestors to trace their genealogy
because records have been better preserved, she said.
Harrell-Miller has backed a bill filed by Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu that
would establish a national archive for the preservation of vital records
relating to slaves and their descendants. "I thought about it when I went
to Ellis Island," Harrell-Miller said. "There were records there for people of
European descent to discover their
heritage, but where do African-Americans go?"
Records are now scattered in courthouses, county seats and historical
societies, she said.
"Many times they have been lost or destroyed," Harrell-Miller said. "We
need to have a central place for them before more are lost."
Copyright © 2005 Randall Family, LLC. This content is intended for the sole,
personal use of this visitor, who may not modify, publish, transmit,
participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce, create derivative works
from, distribute, perform, display, or in any way exploit, any of this
content.
Thanks to:
John W. Ashbury
(wasps65@earthlink.net)
Who posted the above