Friday, August 30, 2013

Genealogy Tip No. 1: Start with what You "Know"

I've been doing genealogy research for almost 15 years now. I don't purport to be an expert, but I have been pretty successful in tracking down my elusive ancestors. For the next few blogs, I'd like to share some techniques I've used in my own research that might help others who are just starting out.

One of the first things I learned about genealogy was to start with what you know. Many researchers make the mistake of trying to prove a connection to some famous person. They start with the famous person and try to work their way down to themselves. What they should really do, though, is start with themselves and work their way backwards.

If you're thinking about researching your family history, you should first find out as much as you can about your immediate ancestors: your parents and grandparents. Find out when and where they were born, when and where they were married, maiden names, how many children and siblings they had, etc.

If your parents and grandparents are still alive and lucid, interview them. Besides getting their vital information (birth dates, etc.), ask them about their lives when they were younger. Also ask them if they have any documents (like birth and death certificates) or any old photos. One of my biggest regrets is that I never had the opportunity to do this for my own family. By the time I started my research, my mother and my grandparents and most of my aunts and uncles were already gone.

Once you have interviewed your living relatives (and don't forget about older aunts, uncles, cousins, or close family friends), your next job is to verify the information they have given you. Don't take anything they say, especially names and dates, at face value. As we age, we all start to forget things and get confused about events that occurred many years in the past.

When I first started my genealogy research, I had very little to go on. I only had one living aunt at the time. She gave me a lot of information about her parents and sisters. Hovever, since she was the youngest child, she knew very little about earlier generations.

My best source of information about my earlier ancestors was a genealogical report written by another aunt several years before she died. Although the report gave me a lot of leads to follow up on, it was also full of misinformation and half-truths. For instance, my aunt stated that my grandmother had raised her youngest brother, Gene, because Gene's mother (my great-grandmother) had died when Gene was three.

I knew from other sources that my grandmother's family had belonged to St. Edward's Catholic Church in Baltimore, so one of my first tasks was to search the St. Edward's church records on microfilm for references to my family. I was able to locate a baptismal record for Gene in 1907. If my aunt's story was correct, that would mean that Gene's mother, Bridget Dell, died about 1910. However, the only Bridget Dell that I could find in the death records had died in 1931 and was buried at Wards Chapel Cemetery. I didn't think this could be my Bridget Dell, but I made a note of the information and made a photocopy of the record.

I had never heard of Wards Chapel, so my next task was to find out more about the cemetery. I learned that the cemetery was connected to Wards Chapel Church, a Methodist church on Liberty Road near Liberty Dam. This piqued my interest, because my aunt had also mentioned in her report that my grandmother grew up on a farm, near where Liberty Dam is now located.

If I had taken my aunt's information about her grandmother's death at face value and had ignored the conflicting information, I would have missed out on one of the most important leads I have ever encountered in my years of genealogical reseaarch.

As it turned out, my great-grandmother did in fact die in 1931 and was buried at Wards Chapel, and that cemetery turned out to be a "mother lode" of information on my family. Both of my grandmother's parents are buried there, as well as her father's parents and their mothers, not to mention hundreds of siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I figure that I am probably related to almost half of the people buried there.

Besides leading me to my grandmother's father's family, that one death record was also what ultimately led me to her mother's family as well. It was from Bridget Dell's death certificate that I obtained the first names of Bridget's parents (who my aunt had simply referred to as "Male Hickey" and "Female Fox"). See my blog of June 11, 2010, entitled "The Joy of Discovery" for that story.

In conclusion, if you're serious about learning the story of your family, remember these things: start with yourself; find out everything you can about your immediate family; and check in other sources to verify the information you've been given and to go back farther in your family tree.

No comments:

Post a Comment

More on Eve Dorothy Yingling Dell

I also have some circumstantial evidence to link Eve Dorothy Dell to the family of Christian Yingling, Jr., and Susannah Lehman. First o...