Genealogy Geniuses

Although I put this under the Shade Tree, it might also fall under Hobbies, and plus, it's hard to spell. The forum gurus can make that call.

Ed (Hfx_Cdn) caught my eye in the Moab Rally thread http://www.rvforum.net/SMF_forum/index.php?topic=43162.new;topicseen#new about going to Salt Lake City to do family research, and I would like those who have done that or have some background in the topic to share some pointers to the about-to-be family sleuth.

As long as we are rolling through that area, this year and next, that would seem like an interesting use of our time but I don't have the first clue about what is available, how you get started, and how you make the best use of your time.

Thanks for any comments from the veterans.

Kim

Kim, I believe you can access their records on line.

Kim,

Try "family search.org" to get started.  You might want to get "The Handybook for Genealogists" and of course there are lots more to help you get started.

    While the Family Research Center in Salt Lake City is considerable, the LDS volunteers are many and very willing to help.  Donna has researched her and my families for over 30 years, and was apprehensive about going there.  Within a half hour, she was well into their files, both hard copy and electronic, and it was a job to get her to come back to the coach before closing time.
    So, I guess I'm saying, if you show up there with paper, pencil (NO PENS ALLOWED), and a desire to look for family, it won't take you long to get started.  As for going on-line without the basic research background, you will quickly get overwhelmed, because there is too much info out there (much of which is inaccurate).
    A couple of years ago, while playing hop-scotch with Marsha and Tim, we spent a couple of weeks in Fort Wayne at their library, which is also a great Genealogical library, and we posted several comments at that time.  They too were helpful, but not to the same extent as the LDS volunteers.
    However, like many hobbies, it can become addictive.  Donna will spend hours "tromping" cemeteries, visiting libraries, meeting long distant relatives, or just inputting all the information she gathers.  Yet, it is a good fit for the motorhome, which allows us to pick destinations that have some type of emotional attachment.  For example, a brother of a 4 time great grandfather left New Brunswick, and settled in Amador CA during the gold rush.  We visited there last spring during our swing through the west, and she was thrilled to see the mine he worked at, the old 1849 vintage buildings still standing, etc.
    Hope this gives you a bit of what you were looking for.  There are a number of Framily who do genealogy as a hobby.

Ed

Kim,

My mother was our family genealogist and she turned her files over to me shortly before she died in 2004.  I'm STILL trying to get it all computerized!  Jerry used to say "how come I always end up in a cemetery when we're with your mother?"  He also says "are you working with your dead people again?"  Yes, it can become quite a time-consuming venture.  And it can also be extremely interesting.  My family settled Western Pennsylvania.  Some of the men were on the Forbes Expedition that cut out the road to Fort Pitt and they liked the area so much they stayed to farm.  Others in the family have found papers where they had Indian massacres and had to leave for a year or two, or girls/women were kidnapped by the Indians and were found three years later in Fort Detroit where they were bought back from the Indians.  All fascinating stuff!  Of course I've also seen census entries where the person's name was simply "Grandpa".  The family must not have known his true name and he perhaps couldn't tell the census taker.

The LDS Family Search Library in SLC holds a ton of "stuff" and it was fun to find some things my mother had contributed to their files.  The best place to start is at home, however.  Get yourself some good genealogy software.  I prefer Family Tree Maker because it can handle such things as marriages between cousins and in-laws and out-laws.  I'd go nuts without it!  Especially in the 1600s when farm kids didn't have much of a "pool" from which to find a potential spouse.  Then start with your own immediate family and work backwards.

I do want to caution you about using the internet and ancestry.com or similar sites.  True genealogists prove every single fact - that's why I have so much to wade through!  In 40-50 years Mother spent a small fortune and many hours tracking down facts and getting copies of same so now it's my job to organize them.  The internet can provide a lot of information, but it can also be a trap.  The good things are actual copies of some of the old books to research.  For example, I found a page of paper in Mother's file on which she had handwritten the entire contents of a title page with a very long title and even longer subtitle.  I had trouble reading her handwriting (her fingers had gotten pretty crippled) so I went to the internet and found the entire book.  It certainly was much easier just to print out a copy of that title page and it was much more readable.  The downside that many of us abhor is the people who don't do their research and put their family tree on, for example, Ancestry.com.  I have several trees from our families that are so completely wrong that I've contacted the authors.  One had my nephew as his dad's father!  That's how bad some of them are, so what you find on the internet CANNOT be trusted.  Take to heart the old Russian saying, "Trust but verify."

Finally, one of my contacts told me he had asked a professional genealogist to do some work for him and the man wouldn't even talk with him about it until he had his DNA report in hand.  I suspect that man had been asked to follow too many bad leads and just didn't want to do it anymore.  And, by the way, the person who told me this is one of the people I contacted because he had put our family tree onto Ancestry.com with so many errors it just wasn't funny.  So now everyone who researches the family will probably be using that bad information and it will multiply worse than rabbits.  The correct information is readily available, but sometimes you have to dig for it.

One of the advantages of a subscription to Ancestry.com is the ability to access census data.  Some years are terrific because it included month/year of birth, relationship to head of household, etc.  Of course, that said, you can't make any assumptions because there are so many people who have names identical to many others.  You have to look at the entire family - grandparents, parents, and children to be sure you have the correct people.  The census pages are there in the original, plus they have been indexed and not always correctly.  For example, one of Mother's Deems families was indexed as Deam, so they're not always easy to track down.  I've found some of them just by going to the town where I knew they had lived and gone through the entire town's data, page by page and family by family.  Serendipity really works sometimes!  I've found other family branches when doing this when I had no idea where they lived.  Also watch out for nicknames.  On both sides of my family people named their children to honor their parents or grandparents.  In one I have the father Johannes.  His sons are Johannes Adam, Johannes Mark, Johannes Christian, Johannes Johannes, and Johannes Matthew.  They went by the middle names but legal papers were often in their first names with no middle name!  Makes it tough to trace events!

Anyway, you're in for a fascinating and life-long pursuit.  Have fun!

ArdraF

Ardra,

Excellent comments and all too true.  One of my mothers ancestors had 12 children and all of the sons named their children for the father and his brothers and sisters in the original's age order.  That was a real trial to sort out and I am not sure the collected community has got it correct yet.  The discussions on this issue have been going on for over 100 years.  Not sure it will ever be resolved.

Then there is the issue of Mayflower descendancy that has been gong on even longer. 

Lots of fun, time consumng and also expensive.

I've read that some birth, baptismal, marriage and death records found in England don't have a century on them.  Of course, at the time, why would the church folks bother with such nonsense. 

To the original poster.  Have you tried your local genealogy society to help you get started?  Or if your city doesn't have one ask at your local library.

I've read that some birth, baptismal, marriage and death records found in England don't have a century on them.  Of course, at the time, why would the church folks bother with such nonsense.

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Ha!  Probably the minister of the parish or whatever started each new year's entries with a date including the year but that means you'd have to find the original record and work backwards until you found it.  Sometimes the years the clergy practiced at a particular church at least provides a time span.  I found that recently in a Pittsburgh church record.

ArdraF

      We found that in Europe, they marked time as  the number of years in the reign of "whoever was the king".  So, unless you are an astute historian, you will have a difficult time figuring out the exact year.
      Tony, you will also find out that in Canada, the Anglican Priests were charged with the responsibility of keeping records on the entire population.  Some did a decent job, and their records are good, but others didn't care for information on people who were not their parishioners.  That is particularly true with the coming of the Loyalists.

Ed

The posts indicate a lot of passion among the searchers, and pinpoints the diligence required to do it correctly. As a database guy who makes his living chasing and mining data, the whole thing has a familiar ring to it.

I have already uncovered some of the anomalies around the records being available and having to go forward, backward, and sideways to draw the proper conclusions.

The prospect of uncovering interesting and unusual family factoids is certainly a draw and then connecting the dots physically as we travel looks to be a bonus as well.

Thanks for the interesting responses.

One of the things that has made our genealogy searches interesting and enjoyable (especially since we started RV'ing) is studying history and geography as well as data.  Why did so-in-so pack up and move across country, leaving such a beautiful valley?  Well, in 1824 there was a big flood or there was a drought or there was a cholera epidemic - you get the idea.  Information like this can make the difference between finding a particular ancestor or running into a brick wall.  So, genealogy databases are only a part of the picture.  To us it is much more than who our grandparents were - but, it is satisfying when we find one.

    We are planning to go to SLC directly from Moab, and plan on staying at Pony Express RV, here is their website: 

http://www.ponyexpressrvresort.com/

but we won't be making our reservations until we are a little closer to going.  We prefer it to the KOA site that is closer to the research center, but is not as well kept.  Unfortunately there isn't a PA park handy.

Ed

I did genealogy for years and years, and one day My cousin called and said that some one had found a Bible in Roth Germany and it had my family in it. It was published in a genealogy magazine, I ordered the book and sure enough it was in their, I was so happy at first going over all the names and inputting them in my tree. Then one day I realized all the fun I had for years was over. The book took my family back to the 1600's. I figure I would never find anything older than that.
I then started doing my wife's family just for fun. Well her great grandmothers brother was Jefferson Davis, Yep THE Jefferson Davis, Well his family has been traced for years and that was about the end of that. It is a great hobby and was always fun to find a branch of the tree

I've been doing my genealogy for years and just submitted my application for the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution).  The documentation just to be able to apply was extensive: birth records, marriage license, wills, land holding etc.  My line goes back to 1640.  In doing all my research, I also found that I'm a daughter of a confederate soldier so I qualify for that.  In my research I found that the confederate soldier was actually a prisoner and died in prison. 

However I have to admit that a lot of my stuff was handed over to me by an aunt which pointed me in several directions.

Most of my research was using Ancestry.com.  But you have to be careful, some of the data is wrong.  The censes info is great; but you really need to dig deep.

I've not been to Salt Lake City and hate to admit that I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana and have not done any research there, but as Ed mentions it's a great resource.  The next time we go back there for a family visit, I plan to spend some time digging through stuff.

Now I'm trying to get my mother's line all sorted out.

Ancestry.com is fun because people have their email addresses on there and I emailed a connection and found we were related......

Have fun with your research; it's addicting.

Marsha~

We had a lot of fun with our searches. Discovered my maternal grand father's family came from the same area of Norway as her ancestors. Did I marry my cousin? ;D
We used Ancestry for the most part, hit a lot of dead ends but eventually traced our families back to the late 16th century. I would really like to know what these people were like, their occupations and personalities. We dropped the site this year, leads were drying up and we found little more to keep us interested. The subscription is pricey to keep up.

RoyM said:

Did I marry my cousin? ;D

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I'm of Mennonite background.  My parents grew up within 10 miles of each other although they didn't go to the same schools mostly.    I'm a second cousin to myself twice or three times and a 3rd cousin a bunch of more times.  Yes, that explains a lot. 

Furthermore when two of my great grand parents spouses died the surviving spouses remarried.  As a result my mothers mother is stepsister to my mothers father.  What that makes my mother I have no idea.

Finally we have one ancestor in the Ukraine in the 1700 or 1800s who had five wives.  All whom, except for the last one, died in child birth.  He had 27 children and his last child was born when he was 72 years.

when two of my great grand parents spouses died the surviving spouses remarried.  As a result my mothers mother is stepsister to my mothers father.  What that makes my mother I have no idea.

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And that, dear friends, is why I LOVE Family Tree Maker!  It's a little befuddling when you look at a Kinship Report and see that a man married both a mother and then her daughter from another marriage and then his son later married the same daughter after both parents died.  What really confuses me is that so many in my family have the same name (tons of Elizabeths, Williams, etc.) and without a birth or death date it can be really difficult figuring out who married whom.

Actually our more casual society has its benefits.  Today when we see an obituary, for example, it will refer to the women by their given and married names instead of Mrs. John Smith - which drives me right up a wall.  Or, just Miss Jones when there were several unmarried girls in the family.  Oh well, that's what makes it fun.

ArdraF

I'm another one of those passionate genealogists.  In the past, we've spent a month during March/April at SLC.  [usually going to or coming from the Moab rally.)  I had worked for 20 years before that on Fred's family, only because we lived in New England where his family stayed for 10-11 generations and the information was easy to come by.  I spent one day every week in the local historical society library, or the Deeds Office or the Probate office.  So much info, so much fun.  And what a sense of history I have acquired, especially during the colonial period. 

When we went to SLC I had to find out about MY family.  I'm a first generation American and my only knowing past were my parents and grandparents who came together in the 1920's.  My parents were teenagers.  When I asked them about their past in Germany, they could tell me very little.  My mother's father came to be with his sisters and brother leaving his wife and my mother's sisters and brother in Germany.  Why??? She couldn't tell me as she was not allowed to ask questions.  My Dad's family was no less heartbreaking, but his parents came to be with my grandmothers sisters who were already established here.  When I asked my Grandmother about her family in Germany, she just gave me a blank stare and said, why do you want to know about them, their all dead!!

And so SLC come about, and was the main reason for us to get into RVing.  [Fred will tell you I tricked him somehow!]  Anyway, I was able to go back into their foreign records and find my families back into the 1500s, 1600s, and and in one case the 1400s.  Then, the priest's handwriting was so bad and it was in Latin, that I gave up, but probably could have gone further.

FHL (Family History Library) is and amazing place and it WILL suck you in, like a giant vortex.  I was lucky in that I could read some German, not much, but I couldn't at all with the OLD German script.  But, low and behold, one of the weeks I was there, the volunteers held a class that would teach you how to identify the Old Script alphabet, and that was a tremendous breakthrough for me.  I had worked on my maternal grandmother's last name, thinking the first letter was an R.  But after taking this class, learned it was a Z.  They also have classes in almost every language they have volunteers for that will teach it.  It's an amazing place.  (If anyone needs another language, ask when a class might be planned for and set your trip to coincide.).  Also, while there, look up the Deed records where your people came from and also the probate records.  Many times, people gave away their property before they died and so there would be no probate.  But most times in these deed distributions, there would be a whole family record, sometimes going beyond children, to grandparents, (where the land came from to begin with ) to sister/brothers, nephews/nieces, etc.  A pedigree in and of itself.  LDS has most of them.  If not there, then you would have to go to each state Archives or city Deed and Probate office to find them. IF they will even give you the time of day to look for them or tell you where to do that. 

I will also voice my opinion about Ancestry.com that others have, and am happy to see so many others as dissatisfied as I have been.  [I thougt I just had a chip on my shoulder]  People just copy other people and bad information is perpetuated forever.  I have gotten much more GOOD information from the State Historical Society, (I belong to three and and contemplating a fourth) because they always have copies of the old town records, church records, tax records, and very scholarly pedigrees, all of which have to have sourced to be published, so you can be sure you are getting good info.  Also State Archives are excellent sources for the same results.

Do not worry about the volunteers at SLC trying to proselytize as they are not allowed to.  If you ask about their religion, they are more than happy to talk to you about it, but they are not allowed to initiate it.  I have had nothing but happy experiences there, and the volunteers there, are so warm and helpful and are as passionate about their families as are you.  So do not hesitate, your ancestors are waiting to be discovered.  There is something comforting about a library, being surrounded by thousands of books and microfilm reels full of knowledge, just waiting for you to come open them up to learn all they will give to you. 

Daisy

Very nice genealogy writeup, Daisy.

Linda and I will never forget the two months we spent in SLC, one of those months with you and Fred. Like you we found so much information the first month, that we essentially stopped going back to the Library the second month, except to lookup a particular bit of information. We sent the second month trying to get the first month's information organized and into the computer. Good memories.

R

To Mike Eddleman;

It sounds like you have just followed the male lines on both of you and your wife's family trees.  Have you followed your maternal and paternal grandmother's lines.  And continued with the wive's lines all the way through your family trees???  That my friend has been the greatest finds of my research.  Digging into all those female lines I found through Fred's family, that the male Thomas' did not do much to get noticed in the records, but following the female lines, I found them to be much more interesting.  In some instances they were quite prominent in civic affairs, in the Quaker movement, and anti-slavery, accused and hung as witches at Salem, and even an early one, Rev. John Wheelwright, who was kicked out of Boston, for disagreeing and preaching against the Puritan ways.  That's ok, he along with his followers went to New Hampshire and founded the town of Exeter, which played a very prominent role in the early establishment of New Hampshire.  His sister-in-law, Ann Marbary (sp?) was also evicted and went to Rhode Island to join John Rogers in his new protestant movement.  [The Baptists?]  Much can be discovered following those female lines, so don't neglect following through on them. 

Daisy