Genealogy - One's Family History

[Ben Preston]

Genealogy is the study of who is in a family and whom they are related
to. The more general study of family history will also try to
determine important information about their lives and deaths such as
dates of birth and death and employment records. Genealogy has existed
since ancient times. Genealogical information was originally
transmitted orally and later, through written records. Genealogy was
vital in determining the ancestry of rulers and nobles. Detailed
genealogical records ensured that the passing down of titles would be
done without error. Genealogists helped people displaced by World War
II find family members who remained in Europe. Many Irish families
used genealogical records to help rediscover family members that have
been separated for two or three generations since their families
emigrated from Ireland. James Dent Walker founded the Afro-American
Historical and Genealogical Society in 1977. He aided Alex Haley with
his book Roots. This book inspired many African Americans to search
for their ancestors.
Major events in a person's life are usually recorded and stored at a
local, regional or national office. Genealogists locate these records
and use them to determine family relationships and recreate timelines.
Genealogists generally start from the present and work backward in
time. Genealogists may also conduct interviews with living relatives
to determine the same information. The success of a genealogist may
depend on the volunteer efforts of complete strangers. There are many
helpful message boards that will help you find people with particular
surnames or who lived in a particular region. Many genealogists
contribute their free time and participate in projects such as
preparing name indexes for records and placing them online. Other
genealogists can then use the name indexes to find these records.
There are other projects that transcribe records so that genealogists
can find records based on something other than a name. For example,
there are projects that transcribe deeds, which allows for searches by
land description. You may also look for help from the thousands of
genealogical societies around the world. These societies are generally
focused on a particular surname, geographic area, or ethnicity. Most
of the people who work at these societies are volunteers. These
societies have large amounts of genealogy material. They may also
publish a newsletter, provide research assistance to the public and
offer classes in genealogy. There are two other useful genealogical
resources: International Genealogical Index (IGL) and DNA analysis.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints copied most of their
available genealogical records onto microfilm. An important part of
the Mormon faith is tracing their family history, so there are a lot
of records. This resulted in the creation of the IGL. The IGL contains
hundreds of millions of records of people that lived between the 1500s
and 1870s. These records can be viewed at the Family History Library,
which is their main library, in Salt Lake City, Utah. They can also be
viewed at the more than 4,000 Family History Centers located near
their churches. If you prefer the Internet, then you can view the IGL
as well as the Ancestral File, 1880 U.S. Federal Census, Social
Security Death Index, Salt Lake City Library Catalog and some American
Army Indexes to those who died in the Korean and Vietnam wars on the
website FamilySearch. This is especially useful because you can do
multiple searches for names, parishes, dates, etc.
DNA analysis has proven to be useful to the field of genealogy because
the DNA from your earliest ancestors will be passed down relatively
unchanged. A genealogical DNA test can estimate the probability that
two people are related. The Molecular Genealogy Research Project is a
collection of genetic test results that will be used to match people
descended from a direct ancestor. The Genographic Project is a
collection of results that can be used to trace human migratory
patterns and to determine biogeographical and ethnic origin.