Researching Your Genealogy: Start with Living Family Members

[Sheldon Hudson]

A number of resources exist which can help you research your family
heritage. If you're lucky, one of the best resources is close at hand:
your own family. Stories passed down from generation to generation
contain nuggets of information that can help you begin your search.
Names of your parents and grandparents, and their parents, can take
you back three or four generations. Don't ignore spouses of family
relatives; not only do their personal stories add to the flavor of
family history, sometimes the spouse of a family member - particularly
the wife of a male relative - knows more about your family's history
than the relative does.
Interview your family members to see what they know about family
history. The older members in particular may have knowledge of your
family tree for generations, as well as what these ancestors did for a
living, where they lived, when and how they died, and personal stories
they're more than willing to hand down to another generation. If you
have birth or death certificates among family records, you're in luck;
birth certificates will contain a birth date, name of parents, and
location of birth. The place of birth in particular will give you a
clue as to where to look for further information.
Be aware that family recollections can be wrong. A couple personal
experiences: My middle name is May, which was given to me in honor of
my father's aunt who raised him. My parents ended up being upset when
they found out later that my aunt's name wasn't May, it was really
Mary. But it doesn't stop there: while I was researching my aunt's
death I came across her obituary in the local newspaper, and it turns
out her name wasn't May or Mary - it was Ruth!
Meanwhile, on my mother's side of the family, it was well known that
her grandfather's name was Francis Isaac Barrott, that he had lived
and died in Worcester, Massachusetts, and that he had actually worked
as a maintenance man at City Hall. I contacted the records department
of the city of Worcester looking for any records of Francis Isaac
Barrott, and found nothing. Later, I obtained my mother's father's
death certificate (he had died at the relatively young age of 37) and
discovered that his father had signed his own son's death certificate
- as "Frank R. Barrott".
Once you've gleaned as much as you can from living relatives, it's
time to access public records. Birth and death records, deeds, and
military records are among those available for research, as are U.S.
Census records, from the years 1790 up to 1930 (by law, census records
cannot be released to the public for 75 years). When searching census
records, start with the latest census and move backward; this way you
may be able to track the changes in family circumstances back through
the years.
Searching public records has become a lot easier since the
introduction of the Internet. A popular software program available
online, Ancestry.com, allows you to build your family tree and search
U.S. Census databases and other public records.
A lot of books are available to help you on your family search. One of
the best is Genealogy 101: How to Trace Your Family's History and
Heritage, by Barbara Renick in association with the National
Genealogical Society (Rutledge Hill Press, 2003). Renick offers an
organized approach to genealogical research that will save you a lot
of false starts.
If you've been thinking for a while about beginning a serious search
into your family's background, don't put it off. Your best resource,
your older family members, is a finite resource. Once they pass on,
their knowledge is gone forever.

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