The television ads make it seem easy: enter your name and
information, then that of your parents and grandparents. By then you’ll have found a link to
someone else’s family tree to which you can connect and have your genealogy laid
out in front of you! That can
happen to a limited extent, but generally there’s a whole lot more work
involved. The family tree service
provided by Ancestry.com is invaluable and it is definitely one important early
step in getting your history organized.
But it’s not the first step.
To begin properly, you need to start at home.
There are sources of family history and genealogical
information all around us, but we don’t necessarily recognize or make use of
these resources. As a quick
reminder, I define “family history” as the family narrative (anecdotes, legends
and stories) and “genealogy” as my lineage (who descends from whom).
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| John Baxter Black II in 2007 |
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| John's two volume book: A History of The Family of Frank Blymyer Black |
As I mentioned in a past post, John’s family history, which
covers one-eighth of my own history, was a great introduction to the concept
that caused me to make the distinction between family history and
genealogy. His stories were
fascinating! They brought
ancestors to life by describing their personalities, their quirks, their
actions and the reactions to them by others. In short, he made them people of interest rather than simply
names with life event dates listed next to them.
In order to tell the stories that brought these people to
life, John made use of many different resources – resources that are available
to many of us trying to bring some sense of interest and vibrancy to our own
family stories.
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| Jessie Baxter Black in 1929 My great-grandmother's sister and John Black's first inspiration for documenting family history |
He had one advantage that many of us do not: he assiduously
kept a journal of his observations and the events of his life starting in 1936
when he was just twelve years old.
Then, in 1940 when his grandmother, Jessie Baxter Black (my
great-grandmother’s sister) died, a sixteen year old John Black sat down and
wrote everything he could remember about his grandmother, including family
stories she had told him over the years.
Even at that young age, he realized that besides the loss of a beloved
family member, her knowledge of the family history was lost as well. His eulogy to her was to write down all
he could remember of her and what she had told him about her life and the
family. These notes he added to
his journals, which he maintained until 2014, the year of his death.[i]
Besides John’s written family history as a source for
information, his book gives us ideas of two potential sources for material:
journals or notes we might have kept ourselves or that we have from others in
the family; and the relatives around us who may have stories to tell.
Most people don’t keep a journal these days, but many of us
do sit down to write up notes when we face a significant life event. With the loss of a close relative, we
may write up our thoughts and recollections of the most significant times we
spent with them. Many people also keep
notes about trips they take, visits with elderly relations, the birth of a
child or that child’s graduation from high school. Further, most of us keep a record (written or electronic) of
our daily events – work and personal – in some form or another.
And even if we don’t have access to journals, most of us do
have the other resource mentioned above: family members and friends with their
own recollections. We have more
information available to us than we often realize. When I began my own family history journey, I started with
those resources that I already had at hand. Having long been the one who collected family documents for
preservation (and having long piled them haphazardly in a closet over the
years), I had all sorts of source documents:
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| A small sample of family documents in my collection that I have yet to review |
- Family trees and charts
- Birth, marriage and death certificates along with diplomas and other original life event documents
- Letters written to and from family members
- Journals of trips taken
- Family history books
- Wills, trust documents and other legal papers
- Papers and articles saved through the years
- Memorabilia, miscellaneous items that were precious to family members, and other items of interest
- Photographs, photographs and more photographs!
I've addressed my initial organizational methods (sorting by grandparent) in a previous post, "Getting Started and Getting Organized". But I needed to get an even better grasp of what was in front of me, so I
sorted each batch into two major categories.
I separated out the items that would provide me with genealogical
information from those that told the family history. Family history isn’t a full time pursuit – indeed, my work
schedule sometimes gives me precious little time to devote to it. This organization of resources allows
me to prioritize my documents and better focus my energy whenever I have time
to devote to this project.
When I have free time, I can either record more genealogical
information from one set of documents or organize more family history stories
from the other. I was lucky enough
to already have all of this at hand – although luck is certainly relative! Some of what I have is of no real
interest and it has taken me years to get through about half of it all, with a large
number of boxes still to go.
When I started to go through these documents, I prioritized
the genealogical information, as that segment contributes directly to my family
tree. I still take time, however,
to go through the other category too, given how interesting it is and the way
that it brings the family tree to life with real stories of the people listed
in it. In general, I’ll spend
about 2/3 of my time on the genealogy and 1/3 on the family history.
The documents one has at hand are still just a part of the
immediate resources we have available to us. Family members and family friends will have stories they’ve
been told, stories about their own experiences and papers of their own. Interview these people! Ask them about
their experiences and record their responses or take detailed notes. Find out how your parents and
grandparents met, what they remember about their childhood and any life events
that may have had an impact on their lives.
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| Lewis Sturtevant Woodruff Jr Patricia Mary Cassils Bunting at the time of their wedding |
I once came in contact with a fascinating man named Addison Merrick in Vermont, a descendant of one of my great-great grandfather’s sisters. I contacted him because he had photos of that generation that I hoped to copy. Then, in the course of our correspondence, he told me that he had attended my grandparents’ wedding as a young boy. He was able to share his young impressions with me, adding a perspective of that event I’d never before heard. You never know who will have the next story to help you bring your ancestors to life.
If they live far from you, create an interview form for them
to complete. Besides the basics,
ask open-ended questions, such as “what is a favorite memory from your
childhood?” “What was your wedding like?”
I recently received a fascinating survey from my ten-year-old
nephew. He is participating in a
heritage project at school and I am one of the two family members on whom he is
reporting. The survey questions
are attached (see link below) and make a really interesting start at getting to know someone’s
history beyond birth and marriage dates.
When you focus on the resources you have at hand, you may be
surprised at how much interesting content you’ll find. It’s there at your fingertips, all you
need to do is to identify it! Then
you can start the process of transferring what you’ve found into charts online
or in your own format. I save mine
in a pedigree chart I adapted from multiple charts I’ve tried over the years,
adding spaces for additional information I want to capture, arranging the
fields to suit my needs and formatting it as a PDF form.
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| A sample of the pedigree chart I adapted from multiple charts I've tried. These charts are the basis for all of my genealogy documentation. |
The information you’ve got at home may be just the beginning,
but it could be a really good beginning.
Not only does it give you a start in terms of data, but it creates your
own learning curve. As you sort
and review the papers at hand, you become better versed at family
research. You become
familiar with the methods of documentation that work best for you, you learn to
review broad-based documents for relevant information and you can take your
time, regrouping, revising your methods and determining what works best for
you.
The documents you have in your possession and the people you
know are the first stage in learning and getting into the groove of your
research flow. Once you’ve got a
handle on the resources you have at home, you can start to work your way
outward, broadening the search with more and more external resources, the
Internet, organizations, libraries, courthouses, etc. There’s no telling where the journey will take you.
[i] John’s
entire set of journals, along with select other journals and papers from his
family, were left to the New York Public library and can be seen, all 28 boxes
of them, in their manuscripts department.
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