Getting started: Use your birth certificate as a starting point.

When I talk to friends and acquaintances about genealogy, they often tell me that they know nothing about their family history.  Of course that really isn’t true.  Most people know where they were born and the names of their parents.  Even if this is true for you, I highly recommend that you begin your search by taking a look at your own birth certificate.  In the United States, almost all states began using formal birth certificates around 1900.  If you don’t have a copy of this very useful document, you can get one by contacting the state in which you were born.  Use Google to search for “Texas birth certificates” substituting the name of your birth state in place of “Texas.”  You want an official, certified copy of your birth certificate, so be certain that you go to the web site that is actually run by the state in question.  So for the state of Texas, you would go to this web site. Be sure to order the most detailed version of the birth certificate that you can get since you are on a quest for information.  I caution you to watch out for rip off artists who might charge you an extra fee for something you can get yourself.  There will be a cost for a certified copy of your birth certificate.  In the case of Texas, the current cost (in 2015) is $22.00 and it can take up to two weeks before you get it in the mail.  Once you have this certified copy, it can be used for other purposes as well – things like getting a passport, getting a driver’s license, etc.

Here is an example of a birth certificate from the state of Texas in the 1950s:

Looking at your birth certificate, you will learn or confirm many interesting things.  The exact nature of these things will vary slightly from state to state and across time, but in the case of Texas, we learn the city and place in that city where I was born (Brooke Army Hospital on Fort Sam Houston).  My parents were living at 758 Marquette Drive in San Antonio.  My 36 year old father was Floyd Wendell Miller and he was a captain in the U.S. Air Force who had been born in Greeley, Colorado.  My 32 year old mother was Dorothy Elizabeth Ostegren and she was a housewife who was born in Holdrege, Nebraska.  At the time of my birth, my parents had one other child (my sister).   When my mother gave birth to me, I was the only child who was born at that date and time so I don’t have any mystery twin brothers or sisters lurking in the shadows.  The informant (i.e. the person who provided the information for this form) was my mother.  And consistent with the idea that I am not a zombie, it is reassuring to see that I was born alive!

So what can we extract from this document?  First because my dad was in the Air Force in 1952 and since the Korean War was going on at that point in time, it is likely that he was somehow involved in the Korean War.  Since he was a captain that probably means that he had been in the military for a while in order to achieve that rank.  The Korean War began on 25 June 1950 (from Wikipedia), so his rank at least suggests that he had been in the military prior to the start of the Korean War…possibly during World War II.

Next we see that my father was 36 years old when I was born in 1952, so he must have been born in about 1916 in Greeley, Colorado.  My mother was 32 years old at the time I was born, so she must have been born in 1920 in Holdrege, Nebraska.   Already we have the beginnings of a family tree with you as the root and showing at least some information about your parents.

As I mentioned earlier, most states in the United States began requiring birth certificates around 1900, so guess what?   If your parents were born in the United States, you can also get a copy of THEIR birth certificates.  So in my case, I would go to the web site for the state of Colorado and order the birth certificate for a Floyd Wendell Miller who was born in Greeley, Colorado in 1916.  For my mother I would go to the web site for the state of Nebraska and order the birth certificate for a Dorothy Elizabeth Ostegren who was born in Holdrege, Nebraska in 1920.  Once I have those birth certificates, I will probably have the names of my parents’ parents (i.e. my grandparents) and where they were born.

Now you might be thinking that this stuff is really simple since all we have to do is continue going back one generation after the next, ordering birth certificates.  Well, of course, there is a gotcha!  Birth certificates were normally NOT used in American states prior to 1900.  So once we get back to someone who was born prior to 1900, we will not be able to get a birth certificate for that person and we must have a different way to continue our research.

There is one interesting exception to the 1900 rule.  When Social Security was enacted in 1935 in the United States, people who were registering with the system or who were applying for benefits needed to be able to prove their age.  This could be done in a couple different ways, but one fairly common method was what was called a “delayed birth certificate.”  The idea behind a delayed birth certificate was that a person could get a legal birth certificate years after their actual birth if they could find someone who witnessed their birth and would then swear to that fact before a notary public.  So for example, one of my grandfathers was born in 1888 when birth certificates were not used.  But he was able to get a delayed birth certificate in the 1940s because his mother’s sister (his aunt) was a witness to his birth and swore to that fact before a notary public.

One final note about birth certificates…many states have privacy laws that prevent anyone who is not in the immediate family from getting a copy of a birth certificate.  For some states like Texas, the critical information from a birth certificate (like the names of the parents) is already in the public domain via web sites like ancestry.com.  Many years ago I happened to be in Illinois near the county where my paternal grandfather was born.  So I made a side trip to the courthouse for that county and, to my surprise, I found that they had copies of birth certificates for everyone born in that county.  I pulled down the book and had just gotten to the birth certificate for my grandfather when a courthouse worker walked in and chastised me for looking at a “forbidden” book.  The moral of that story is that you should do your homework on local laws BEFORE you go to a courthouse!

Research objectives, the quality of data and what to do with the data you’re collecting

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.

Finally, I want to talk about organizing your data.  When you are pursuing a single branch of your family tree, it is fairly easy to keep things straight in your head.  But sooner or later you will read a dead end on that branch and you’ll start on another branch.  Inevitably you will stumble on something that might be relevant for the first branch, and your ability to “switch gears” back to the first branch is critical to your success.  As a software engineer, I wrote my own program to organize the data I collected.  But in today’s world there are many good genealogical software programs available.  Some of these programs are free and others are for sale.  I have NOT surveyed all of the possible programs out there and I continue to use my own programs as my primary tool.  As we move further along in future blog entries, I’ll talk about actual data sources I have used in my own research, but for now I’ll just mention that no matter what you think about Ancestry.com, they put a lot of work into collecting a vast array of data from all over the world – but you must subscribe to their web site (for a fee) to access the information.  Ancestry.com has a desktop program called Family Tree Maker that interacts well with their web site.  I own a copy of Family Tree Maker but still use my own program.  Family Tree Maker currently costs $40.00 and it will definitely help you organize your data.  But again, there are other choices out there and some of those choices are free.

A bit of background about me and my interest in genealogy

I have been employed as a software engineer since 1984 and have been keenly interested in genealogy since the birth of my son in 1985.  Organizing the large amount of data one accumulates from genealogical research is a task that is well suited for computerization.  My personal genealogical hobby has therefore been a marriage of these two passions and over the years I have used my genealogical hobby as the impetus for learning the seemingly endless stream of new software technologies that are needed in my career as a software engineer.

While working at Digital Equipment Corporation in the late 1980s and early 1990s I came into contact with other Digital employees around the world who shared my interest in genealogy.  I developed a set of applications for the OpenVMS operating system that allowed users to enter and organize genealogical information for their direct line ancestors and then shared this set of programs with this group of Digital employees.  Then I set up a method via which users could submit their data to a central database and built a server application that ran under the VAXeln operating system via which users could search the central database in an attempt to find ancestors shared by other Digital employees.

In 1992 I left Digital and began working for Corning, Incorporated, and in that position I began developing work-related applications that ran under Microsoft Windows NT.  Corning purchased a subscription for me to the Microsoft Developer’s Network and once again I fell back upon genealogy as a driver for learning this new set of software tools.  So I wrote a C++ application called GART (Genealogical Archive and Research Tool) that used Microsoft Foundation Class library functionality to allow users to enter and modify genealogy information that I had imported from the previous VAX-based environment.

In 2000 after moving to the Atlanta, Georgia area and taking a job with yet another software development company, I created the first version of the Genealogy at Holly Mill Run web site.  By this time, the data which began as a binary file on a VAX back in the 1980s was resident in a Microsoft SQLServer database and was displayed for web site visitors using a series of Active Server Pages (ASP).  If a user “logged in” to the web site they were able to see information for people who were currently living and were even able to enter data for new people.  I also eliminated the requirement that a person in the database be a direct line ancestor of my son.  In about 2005 an enterprising hacker was able to corrupt the database by taking advantage of the way I let logged-in users add or modify data in the database.  Ultimately I got the web site back on line albeit without the ability to add or modify data.

In early 2015, I moved the web site from a server in my house to a server operated by GoDaddy in Arizona.  Currently I am developing a Windows desktop application that will allow trusted users to enter data into the database.

Over this 30 year period (as of 2015) the Internet has taken off and the process of doing research has become much simpler.  In the 1980s the proximity of a researcher to a regional branch of the National Archives was a key to success.  And even with proximity to the National Archives, a researcher was still obliged to correspond with libraries, court houses and genealogy clubs by US mail.  Patience was indeed a virtue!

During this 30 year period I became familiar with a lot of genealogical resources and developed some very successful methods for extending my own research.  I am not a professional genealogist, but via this blog it is my intention to share the knowledge I have and the methods I have developed for myself in the hope that others who might be just beginning their research can benefit from the experiences I have had.