A personal hobby and fascination with me is researching my roots. I got into genealogy by accident when helping my mother and I became smitten with it. Just hit the starter button below which says, ‘beginning here’ and it should take you to my genealogical information. I have put together a small compilation of ideas if you would like to study on your own, beginning here
My start in beginning genealogy
As I mentioned before; I have been into genealogy since I retired in 1995 and saw that my mother attempted to develop the family history by writing some of our kin and getting information to reinforce what she knew or suspected. She would also occasionally discover a nugget or two of information that would help her to build her story, but it was a slow process and would have taken a life time to tell the accounts of past lifetime events into the status of the dozen of lives she encountered.
After my retiring from my employment and without a lot of pressure from the daily grind of my administrative job, I was ready to learn more about genealogy and how to gather it more wisely than just interviewing my relatives. In deciding that if I was going to do it, I would take on the task of discovering both my family and my wife’s family history.
I had no idea how to do this and just made up my own rules as I began the collection of facts. I could have attended some classes or read some materials from “how to books” but I jumped into the attempt without this knowledge. If I had it to do over, I probably would have done the same.
First, I found a copy that someone had printed of the names and limited birth and death dates of the people buried in the Ebony Cemetery in Mills County where many of my family members are buried and this helped me to understand more about gathering family materials I would need.
I made my books into two parts with first being the list of all the family members and their families only and using this as kind of table of contents. The second part would be the pictures and stories I collected that would add more information on the members in my table of contents. This was what would actualize the list of family members and make them more real in the minds of the readers.
At this time, most people still searched the cemeteries to find headstones of their kin and getting what information was available. That has really changed for the better in past 15 to 20 years. Most cemeteries have placed their cemeteries on websites with pictures of the headstones. So many people now seem to make a hobby of going from graveyard to graveyard taking photos and putting the results online.
Most of these photographers have no idea whom the interred people might be nor do they care as they are trying to get as many headstones and names as they can acquire. It seems to be a race among them but it really helps those of us who are trying to find and memorialize the relatives we have buried there.
You need to get all the data from reliable sources and gather all the media (pictures) to show the person of whom you refer to and tell as many details and stories as possible. I made up my fact sheets and send them to every member of our families and asked them to send as many photos as they had of the people in their families that they knew.
The stories are the most important factor in helping family members to grasp and understand the lives of their antecedents and to more fully feel the kinship with them. I wanted the correct birth dates, wedding dates and other information that they might have on their parents and grandparents as far back as possible. Most all responded although some were less enthusiastic about the project than others. I promised that I would collect all the information and print the material from both families into books and send them a copy.
Many were underwhelmed by this but most gave me enough facts and pictures for me to complete my project. I eventually printed about 150 copies of the booklets and shared with all. About 20% responded to the book and the others weren’t too impressed, I guess.
This was my beginning in genealogy as I wanted to memorialize the relatives of ours and in my attempt, not to raise them from the dead, but to make their lives seem more meaningful, significant and worthwhile. After all, they were the ones that gave us lessons from their lives to help us build our moral compasses to judge what is right and wrong and to act so.
This could only come from the stories I discovered as I researched for the bio I wanted to add. I believed that the best way to do this was to find the cemetery, add a headstone and tell a story of whom was buried there in this bio. I did not really see how much easier it became until I discovered Ancestry.com and Findagrave.com and found out how to make a grave tell a complete family tree. There are other websites, but I chose Ancestry.com and Findagrave.com to tell my stories.
Ancestry.com website
Ancestry.com is a search engine in the World Wide Web which helps in your examination of the knowledge you might have and the added family data you hope to find. I have found it to be very easy to use and it’s huge data base will aid in discovering things about your family which makes for interesting reading.
When I began, I would search for something and discover hidden facts that I did not know about my families and it was exhilarating. As I have progressed in my searches, it has become more common and less thrilling. Much of the time, you can start with your parents names and their locations and it will on it’s own begin to fill in much of the data you seek.
Let me try to pass some ideas for a beginning genealogist which might be helpful or seem kind of simple. First, you need to gather as much of your family’s history as possible and begin by using this knowledge on the search page which allows you to add the first and last name of the one you seek, as well as to add the place your ancestor lived.
If you have birth, marriage, death dates of your father and mother, you will be able to add other family members such as siblings, spouse and children as you go ahead. Be sure to add the gender and the race or nationality as you start. You will get hints (leaves) at this point from historical records, family trees, stories and publications and sometime, photos and maps.
You will now need just to follow the hints and other information you will be receiving. If you don’t get the information you want, you will need to be patient as the hints will come as long as you are on Ancestry. It make take a while for the web site to recognize your family but it will in time.
Findagrave.com website
This is a free world-wide site and my favorite as it can be used to become a complete family tree when you gain all the knowledge you have discovered on the Ancestry.com website. This site is for those who have died and you need to know the cemetery where they are buried to fill out the form on Findagrave.com.
As I mentioned earlier, I have used the Ancestry.com website to find the person and the cemetery where they were buried and have memorialized over 200 family and friends. Much of the information on the Ancestry.com website comes from the data taken from the Findagrave site. They seem work together in the hunt for common ancestry knowledge.
Genealogical DNA test
A Genealogical DNA test is a DNA based test which looks at specific locations of a person’s genome to determine ancestral ethnicity and genealogical relationships. Results give information about ethnic groups the test subject may have descended from and about other people that they may be related to.
Taking a genealogical DNA test requires the submission of a DNA sample. The most common way to collect a DNA for the Ancestry.com website sample is a method using a spit-cup. After collection, the sample is mailed to their testing lab.
After receiving my results on my DNA test, I have been amazed at the number of people I had found before and pleasantly surprised by the large groups that are now my undiscovered relatives. I don’t spend anytime trying to contact them but have come to believe strongly in the accuracy of the DNA testing.
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