I don’t care if I am related to some famous person and,
indeed, over the years I’ve been doing research on my own family, I’ve found
the lives of my “common” ancestors to be much more interesting. I also don’t care about becoming a member of
the various societies whose criteria for membership is your ability to prove
your descent from a particular group. I
hope and believe that I will always be judged on the things that I do rather
than the things my ancestors have done.
I research my family history for several reasons. First, it is like putting together a non-ending
puzzle, and each fact you discover adds a piece to the puzzle and gives you
some insight into how you became you.
Second, a successful hunt for information requires a combination of life
knowledge, logic and luck. You develop a
hypothesis and then discover facts that either support or refute the theory. Third, I find it interesting to discover the
rare cases where I end up being a distant relative of someone who is now a
close friend. Fourth, as you pursue your
research, you become much more familiar with other locales. You might discover that a particular location
has repeatedly changed its identity as national, regional or local boundaries
change. You discover things about the
government, religion and practices of these distant locations. Fifth, when I know what members of my own
family were doing at the time of various significant events in history I can
relate to those events in a more concrete manner. When I studied the U.S. Civil War in eighth
grade history I didn’t know what impact that war had on my family. When I am “hot on the trail” of information
about an ancestor, I devour everything I can find on that topic, and I end up
with a more complete understanding.
Finally, I enjoy sharing the information I discover with other members
of my family and with my interested friends.
Be aware that not everyone will think your wonderful genealogical
discovery is interesting! (What do they
know? J)
When I was on a debate team in high school, I learned that “evidence”
was a combination of facts and logic, and I still apply that standard to most
things in my life. So what exactly is a “fact?” As you talk with people you discover that
things you consider to be facts may not be considered facts by others. For me the “gold” standard for genealogical
research would be to have DNA evidence linking each generation. I would, for example, absolutely know the
identity of my parents if all three of us had submitted DNA and that DNA proved
our relationship. Even if you are lucky
enough to have two living parents, you will ultimately reach a point in your
family tree where this methodology is not possible because the needed DNA donor
is long dead. So we will inevitably be
using some non-scientific sources in our research and it will be up to you and
your readers to figure out how valid those sources are.
Moving down the believability spectrum we next encounter
governmental documents in which your ancestors are mentioned. There are many times in a person’s life when
their government requires them to submit information about themselves and these
documents can be a treasure trove of information for a genealogist. In today’s world, for example, a birth
certificate is filed with the local government almost the instant you make an
appearance in the world. When you go to
school, the school keeps records of your attendance and progress. If you get married, you and your spouse file
a marriage certificate with the local government. If you serve in the military, records are
kept of your service and of any benefits like pensions, land, etc. you derive
from that service. If you live in the
United States and many other countries, the government performs periodic
censuses of the residents and you might be recorded in those records. If you
purchase land the government has a record of the transaction. If you pay taxes, the government has a
record. And even when you die, the
government has a record. So governmental
records are potentially very valuable in your research. I will talk later about the various types of
records that I have personally used, but at this point I’ll point out two
things. First, because of privacy laws,
you might not have access to all of the governmental records you might hope for. And second, because governmental records are
based upon information provided by and recorded by humans, these records can
and do contain errors. It is not
uncommon to discover an ancestor who, in one census, is listed as having been
born in Georgia and in the next census is listed as having been born in Alabama.
There can even be discrepancies in the
fundamental things like a person’s age.
In the same vein as governmental records are religious
records. Even if you are not at all
religious it is almost certain that at some point in your family tree, you
ancestors WERE religious. One of your
jobs will be to figure out what religion your ancestor practiced. Some
religions keep better records than others, and the amount of information kept
by religious organizations has changed over the years. Because members of the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints (a.k.a. the Mormons) believe that you can baptize dead ancestors
even today, the Mormons are the gold standard when it comes to genealogical
research. Their religion encourages them
to do genealogical research. But other
religions have also kept good records.
In early New England, many town records were actually church records,
and you’ll discover that a baptism date is recorded instead of a birth
date. In Sweden the Lutheran Church
recorded not only baptism dates, but also kept up with how well a person could
read because of the desirability of reading the Bible. In Ireland a lot of governmental records were
destroyed during the “troubles” in the early 1900s and sometimes the only
records that still exist are parish records.
Once again, remember that these records were provided by and recorded by
error-prone humans.
You should also collect family anecdotes about your
ancestors, but be aware that sometimes these anecdotes have been
embellished. Like the old game of “telephone,”
the story of an event that happened two hundred years ago that has been passed
down to today by word of mouth may bear little resemblance to what actually happened. Personally, I am ALWAYS suspicious of
grandiose claims like “I am a descendant of Moses” or even “my ancestor
single-handedly fought off an attack by Indians and saved the village.” In spite of these problems, family anecdotes
can still be very useful and it can be entertaining to discover how the event
was “spun” over the years; you’ll frequently find that there is at least SOME
truth in the story.
As you collect information far enough back in your tree, you
will probably discover that other people are researching the same family. At the time I am writing this, I have
identified 132 descendants of one of my great-grandfathers, and several of
those descendants are interested in and are conducting their own research. I enjoy sharing information with other
researchers and hearing their theories about the family. But be aware that their standards for
acceptability are probably not the same as your standards for acceptability;
use their information as a guide but not as absolute proof.
So in the absence of “absolute” proof like DNA, how do you
make sense of data from these other sources?
Basically, you put on your Sherlock Holmes hat and keeping the quality
of the data in mind, you look for consistency between the sources. If four sources of information show your
ancestor as having been born in Georgia and only one shows the ancestor as
having been born in Alabama, you lean toward Georgia as being the
birthplace. Develop theories based upon
your data but don’t be afraid to abandon the theory if compelling evidence to
the contrary confronts you.
