Week of April 2-8, 2009
The creation of your family tree begins with YOU ... and grows one branch at a time.
As much as we might like to, we cannot look into the future. But we do have the luxury of looking back … of gathering information about those who came before us and recording what we learn.
The essence of genealogy involves the linking of generations, one to the next, with each generation set in the context of its own period in history. To learn about these people ... not just their names and dates ... but about their lives ... is the goal of family historians.
With this as an objective, where does a budding family genealogist begin?
Back in the old days, family researchers had to travel to libraries, squint at microfilm readers, write away for vital documents and wait patiently for their arrival ... often to learn records could not be found. Today, the internet gives us fast access to genealogical records and more, making research easy, fun and instantly gratifying!
One thing that hasn't changed is the format researchers use to collect information. Be it on paper or in a database, you begin with yourself and grow your tree one generation at a time. But first, you need a place to record what you've learned.
LESSON 1: FAMILY GROUP SHEETS
Each bit of information concerning an ancestor and his/her immediate family is recorded onto a Family Group Sheet. Since the end result of your research efforts will be to compile complete, correct and connected families, the use of family group sheets from the beginning will make the compilation much easier.
[For a FREE download of a Family Group Sheet, go to: www.familytreemagazine.com/upload/images/pdf/familygroup.pdf.]
1. Carefully record the important facts of your own life and what you know of your parents and grandparents. Write out FULL given names, including Americanized versions, "Nicknames" [i.e. Boleslawa “Pauline” M. Gadomski] and maiden names.
2. Regardless of the form you use, get into the habit of recording actual and approximate dates as DAY/MO/YEAR [i.e. 01 Jan 0000, abt. 01 Jan 0000, bet. 0000 - 0000 or ca. 0000]. Always write out the year in full.
3. Record what you know of the location in which an event happened. For ancestors born in the U.S.: Oriental, Pamlico Co., NC; Oriental, NC; Pamlico Co.; NC; or simply NC. For European ancestors, this can become a challenge … especially where boundaries were affected by a war.
Unless you know the correct spelling of a name or place, record what you know (or think you know). For example: Starts with …; Sounds like …; Is phonetically …; or Contains... More often than not, you will find ancestors by using variant spellings on their name. If you know of common misspellings, make a note of them.
4. To the extent it is possible, collect and record whatever information you can find on siblings. As you go further back in time, you will run into dead ends. More often than not, turning your attention to a sibling will uncover clues you can use to continue your search.
Perfect practice makes perfect: Take your time, write clearly, be consistent and proofread your work.
Week of May 7-13, 2009
In addition to providing leads to resources where you might find information about your ancestors, biographical data fills in the spaces between limbs and branches … creating the “foliage” that will add personal interest to your research.
So it’s time to visit with members of your family to review your family group sheets and collect information they know or have gathered: You may find they have saved family papers, newspaper clippings, obituaries, family bibles, old photographs and other treasures that will be valuable as you continue your climbing your tree.
Don’t forget to bring your camera and, if you have one, a tape recorder. When you borrow photographs and vital documents, treat them with utmost care … copy them carefully and return them quickly!
LESSON 2: COLLECTING BIOGRAPHICAL DATA
When interviewing parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles the best way to collect biographical data is to ask open-ended questions (rather than ones with yes or no answers). The answers to some of these questions will be valuable when in comes time to search immigration records and U.S. Censuses. Here are some sample questions:
- What's your first memory about our family?
- Who's the oldest relative you remember (and what do you remember about him or her)?
- Where did your family live in (1910, 1920, 1930, 1940)? Tell me about your childhood home.
- Who was the first member of your family to migrate to the U.S.? Where did they come from (try to get a good spelling of their place of origin)? When did they arrive? Who were they coming to?
- Where did your parents meet? (If you don’t already know, ask when and where they married. Get maiden names also!)
- How did you meet your spouse? Tell me about your wedding day. (Again, ask when and where if you don’t already know.)
- If you served in the military, what branch? When were you discharged?
- If you went to college, where did you go and when did you graduate?
- Describe your first job.
- What haven't we talked about that you'd like to discuss in the time we have left? (This is a good way to begin wrapping up the interview.)
Perfect practice makes perfect: Without actual proof of an event (birth/marriage/death certificates, obituaries, etc.), it’s important to note sources of the information you collect. There is nothing more frustrating than finding new data which conflicts with something you’ve already recorded and not being able to put your hands on the original source.
Week of June 4-10, 2009
The only way to assure you’re climbing the right family tree is to collect proof that links each generation. While online sources provide a helpful framework on which to base further study, you cannot always rely on their accuracy or authenticity. Whenever possible, your proof should be in the form of actual legal documents that attest to a vital event and its characteristics.
An official certificate of every birth, death, marriage and divorce should be on file in the locality where the event occurred or state vital statistics office. The years in which vital record-keeping officially began in each U.S. state can be found at: www.familytreemagazine.com/upload/images/PDF/vitalrecords.pdf. Some counties or towns kept statistics earlier, and some were slow to comply with state laws, so check with your ancestors’ local government for record availability.
LESSON 3: HOW TO FIND VITAL RECORDS
Access to individual state and territory information can be found at http://cdc.gov/nchs/w2w.htm. To use this tool, you must first determine where the event occurred … then click on that state or area. Vital documents will include some or all of the following information:
Birth certificate – Date/place/time time of birth with father’s name/mother’s maiden name. Usually includes the occupation of both parents with their place of residence.
Marriage license – For bride and groom provides name, age and birthplace, occupation, residence, father’s name/mother’s maiden name.
Death certificate – Date/place/time/cause of death, occupation and SSN, place of residence, spouse’s name, names of both parents and place of burial.
Social Security Death Index (SSDI) – In addition to dates of birth and death, three locations may be included on the SSDI: State of issuance (where a person then lived and applied or the location of the office issuing the SSN; residence at time of death (this is really the address of record, but not necessarily where they lived or died); and death benefit (where the lump sum death benefit/burial allowance was sent).
To search the SSDI, go to http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/fto_ssdisearch.html. Type the name and click on “Search Now”. The result of an SSDI search on that site will also provide a hyperlink to a printer-ready letter where you can request a copy of the original SS-5 Application for Social Security Card.
At times, the SS-5 may be the only proof you’ll have for an ancestor's birth. For immigrant ancestors born in the 1860s to 1880s, it can difficult to pinpoint their place of birth. The SS-5 required that the applicant supply complete birth information. Also, the maiden name of the applicant's mother was requested, often critical information for a genealogist.
The SSDI may not include the names of everyone, even if they had a SSN. If relatives or funeral homes didn’t report the death to the Social Security Administration, or if the individual died before 1962 (when records were computerized), they probably won’t be in this database. The SSDI includes a few pre-1962 entries, but the majority of records in this index are from 1962 through present.
Other reasons your ancestor may not be in the SSDI might have to do with his/her occupation or lack thereof. Prior to the 1960s, farmers, housewives, government employees, non-employed individuals and those with separate retirement plans might not have had a SSN. It wasn’t until 1988 that all children had to have SSNs.
Perfect practice makes perfect: Beware of making assumptions about the state of residence at time of death. The "Last Residence" (more properly should be called "address of record") in SSDI is not necessarily the place of death. Take for example, an individual who may have died while vacationing away from his/her home state or the possibility that a person might have had two official residences as many "snowbirds" do. And keep in mind that ZIP codes given are those that existed at the time of the reported death ... ZIP codes have changed through the years.
Week of July 2-8, 2009
The U.S. census provides access to 150 years of detailed family data. Since information given is held confidential for 72 years, the most recent census available for research is 1930 … 1940 will be released April 2012.
Most researchers agree, the best source for searching censuses is Ancestry.com, which also provides unlimited access to its U.S. record collections. (For rate information, go to www.Ancestry.com and click on “subscribe”.) The Pamlico County Library provides FREE access to the Ancestry Library Edition.
LESSON 4: MAKING SENSE OF CENSUSES
Census worksheets allow you to see format and column headings for various years and provide a convenient method for transcribing data. Copy information exactly at it appears even when you believe it’s incorrect.
[For a FREE download of Census Worksheets, go to: www.familytreemagazine.com/censusforms.]
Because you’ll have knowledge or access to information on your 20th century ancestors, the 1920 and 1930 census is the best place to start. If you're looking for answers to specific questions, certain years are better to check than others:
1790, 1800, 1810, 1820 and 1830 – Lists only head of household, with a count of family members grouped by age/sex. Most useful for identifying ancestors in a particular locality, so you know where to search for further records. Also helpful in identifying immediate neighbors who might be related, locating possible relatives with the same name and spotting surname spelling variations.
1840 – Identifies the names/ages of Revolutionary War pensioners. Further searches of Revolutionary War sources for these individuals could uncover a wealth of genealogical clues.
1850 and 1860 – The 1850 census was the first to identify all family members by name and birth place. An indication of real estate ownership suggests that land/tax records should be searched. Questions on both censuses were essentially the same, so start with whichever one is closest in time period to other information you have on your ancestors.
1870 – First census where parents of foreign birth are indicated. Naturalized immigrants also identified, suggesting follow-up in court and naturalization sources.
1880 – First census to state relationship of individuals to head of household, meaning less guesswork when determining family relationships.
1890 – Almost completely destroyed by fire in 1921. Some states took their own between 1890 and 1900. Another source for 1890 is the Special Census of Union Army Veterans and Widows.
1900 – Only census to identify exact month/year of birth for each individual. Includes the number of years a couple was married (making it easier to identify someone as a second or third spouse), the number of children born to the mother and the number of those children still living (making it easier to match children up with the correct mother in the case of multiple spouses). This census indicates year of immigration of foreign-born individuals.
1910 – Especially useful for identifying/verifying Civil War service as it identifies veterans of the Union and Confederate Army or Navy.
1920 – Useful for tracing immigrant ancestors because it identifies the year of arrival, citizenship status (alien, first papers or naturalized) of every foreign-born individual and year of naturalization for those who became U.S. citizens.
1930 – Best census to search when trying to connect living relatives to deceased ancestors as many will be able to find grandparents living as children and young adults in this census.
Perfect practice makes perfect: An idea of alternate surname spellings and a record of siblings and spouses is often the key to tracing your ancestor. Also keep in mind that neighbors listed above and below your ancestor could be relatives (or not related yet). Before today’s mobile society, the most available candidates for marriage were people who lived nearby.
Week of July 30-August 5, 2009
My grandfather was 18 when he first saw Ellis Island in 1909. I've imagined that he must have felt the same mixture of exhilaration and relief as that recalled by an Italian immigrant in the book Ellis Island:
"Passengers all about us were crowding against the rail. Jabbered conversation, sharp cries, laughs, cheers and a steady rising din filled the air. Mothers and fathers lifted up their babies so that they too could see. Off to the left the Statue of Liberty, looming shadowy through the mist, brought silence to the decks of our ship. This symbol of America ... this enormous expression of what we had all been taught ... was the inner meaning of this new country we were coming to. It inspired awe in the hopeful immigrants."
Finding ancestors among the immigrants who crowded against those rails is one of the most gratifying experiences you’ll have during your research! If you’ve been following this series, you are more than well-prepared to embark on your own ocean voyage!
LESSON 5: SEARCHING SHIP MANIFESTS
Contrary to what some believe, officials at U.S. ports of entry did not change an immigrant’s name … they worked from passenger manifests coming from foreign countries. Due to changing immigration laws, shipping companies had to record different information about passengers through the years.
[For a FREE download of immigration forms, go to: www.familytreemagazine.com/immigrationforms and select the form corresponding to the year your ancestors immigrated to America.]
A comprehensive list of U.S. ports of arrival and their available passenger lists for 1820-1957 can be found at www.genesearch.com/ports.html This site includes Canadian and Mexican border crossing records, information on finding passenger lists and immigration records prior to 1820 and between 1820-1840s, a guide to finding U.S. naturalization records and much more!
Fortunately, there are a number of FREE sites where you can search ship manifests. These are my favorites:
http://www.castlegarden.org/ – Offers free access to a database of information on 10 million immigrants from 1830 to January 1892, the date Ellis Island opened. Registration is not required.
http://www.ellisisland.org/ – From 1892 to 1954, over 12 million immigrants entered the U.S. through this port. Registration is free and allows access to all of its resources and features. Start by clicking on “Sign In”. Before you embark on a search, click around the site to see all the wonderful features available to you!
http://www.familysearch.org/ – Registration is free and allows access to all site resources and features. Click on “See Prototype for Searching Millions of Records” for the best search results.
http://www.stevemorse.org/ – Steve Morse has gathered many different links (immigration, census and a wealth of others) and put them on one web page. The benefit of searching these web sites through his page is that the One-Step Portal performs better and more efficient searches of other databases than what the original database providers provide. As you look at the site, you will see that there are both free and paid sites. To best understand this website and how to use it, click on “About this Website and how to use it”.
Perfect practice makes perfect: Because every online source will have had its own team of transcribers, you will often find discrepancies from one site to another. If you can access it, ALWAYS copy your information from the original ship’s manifest.
Week of August 27-September 2, 2009
As you collect vital dates on your ancestors, list them in chronological order and check your dates against historical events that occurred during their lifetimes. Your list will help you to identify obvious relationship errors and point you to sources where you might also find missing people.
History Central – Explore complete time lines of major events in American and World history at http://www.historycentral.com/index.html.
Historic Disasters – GenDisasters is great place for information on disasters, events and tragic accidents your ancestors endured. Go to http://www3.gendisasters.com/ and browse by disaster, state or year.
Wars – For a complete list of wars (by country, date, region and type of conflict) go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_wars.
Worldwide Epidemics 1332-1952 – A complete list of worldwide epidemics can be found at http://www.familyhistory101.com/encyclopedia/epidemics.html.
US Federal Census – Always note the “official” date a census was taken when using it to estimate an ancestor’s year of birth. Go here for that and other interesting census facts http://www.1930census.com/united_states_federal_census.php.
The Great Depression 1929-1942 – Time line at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rails/timeline/index.html.
Work relief programs 1933-1935 – The New Deal was the name Franklin D. Roosevelt gave to a complex package of economic programs he effected 1933-1935. Start your research on the following work relief programs at http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/index-alpha/:
- Federal Emergency Relief Administration – Created unskilled jobs. (Replaced by WPA in 1935).
- Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933 – Employed young men to perform unskilled work in rural areas, under U.S. Army supervision.
- Tennessee Valley Authority, 1933 – An effort to modernize very poor regions (most of Tennessee). Centered on dams that generated electricity on the Tennessee River.
- Public Works Administration, 1933 – Built large public works projects using private contractors (did not directly hire unemployed).
- The National Youth Administration, 1933 – Addressed the needs of young men and women and worked on two levels: A student work program (which provided students with odd jobs that paid them enough to stay in school) and an out-of-school program (to set young people up with various jobs ranging from house painting to cleaning local parks … eventually came to include vocational training).
- Civil Works Administration, 1933-34 – Employed up to 4 million people by building bridges, schools, hospitals, airports, parks and playgrounds.
- Works Progress Administration, 1935 – A national labor program for more than 2 million unemployed. Created useful construction work for unskilled men, sewing projects for women and arts projects for unemployed artists, musicians and writers.
- Social Security Act , 1935 – Provided financial assistance to the elderly and handicapped. Paid for by employee and employer payroll contributions. Required years of contributions, so first payouts were in 1942.
Perfect practice makes perfect: By now, you’ve collected a few web sites you wouldn’t want to lose. Get into the habit of storing all your favorites in a folder named “Genealogy” (within that folder you can create subfolders by subject or ancestor). Then learn how to back up and restore your Genealogy folder at http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000524.htm.
Week of September 24-20, 2009
A challenge often faced by genealogists is learning to read and understand the older language forms and handwriting styles commonly found in historical documents, such as censuses and ship manifests.
These difficulties have lead to transcription errors in the indexes of those documents and will frustrate your research attempts. But having a basic familiarity with the penmanship styles found in older, hand-written documents will allow you to overcome some transcription challenges.
LESSON 7: DECIPHERING OLD HANDWRITING
There are numerous (free) old handwriting tutorials online that can help to get you started in reading older documents, most with examples of letter and number formations, commonly used abbreviations, spellings and suggestions for making out faded, smudged or sloppy text. Here are a few tips:
- Use letters from words in the document that you can read to piece together the letters in the words you are having trouble with. One trick is to start by looking for dates, which are usually present in genealogical documents. Then use the letters in the month, day of the week, etc. to help determine the writer's style.
- Handwriting styles have caused indexing problems where certain similar-appearing letters have been confused with others, including: T and F; J, G and Y; I and J; K and R; O and Q; P and R; U and W. Lower case vowels, l, m, n and w are also confused for other letters.
- Watch for the letter “S” in pairs. The first S in a pair was often written to look like a lower case “f”.
- If you’re having trouble deciphering a word, try saying it out loud in several different ways … for example, say it the way you imagine your immigrant ancestor might have pronounced it. Or trace over it, as if you’re writing it yourself.
- Keep in mind that words were often misspelled in older documents - especially surname and place names. You will even find various spellings in different parts of the same document. You can use other documents, atlases, etc. as sources to verify correct spellings.
- Your best clues will come from the document itself. Read the word or name in context. If the indexed version does not seem to fit (or is out of place in an alphabetically ordered list), you should rethink the spelling.
- Transcribe the document exactly as it’s written - misspellings and all. This will help to keep you from making assumptions that might trip you up in your research at a later date. Hopefully, as you go back through your records and documents, you will find new clues that were originally overlooked because the text was too hard to read.
- If you can produce a hard copy, scan the document and save it as a JPEG. Open it with a photo editing program and then enlarge/darken areas you cannot read to see if that improves legibility.
Week of October 22-28, 2009
This is not one of my typical lessons, but rather a glimpse back to 1918-1919 when more people died as a result of the Spanish Flu Pandemic than were killed during World War I. Between March 1918 and June 1920, the total death toll was an estimated 50-100 million worldwide; in the United States about 675,000 people died.
The pandemic emerged in two waves: The first wave, known as the “three-day fever,” appeared without warning in March 1918. Few deaths were reported and victims recovered after a few days. When it resurfaced that October, it was far more severe. Scientists, doctors and health officials could not identify this disease which was striking so fast and so viciously, eluding treatment and defying control. 200,000 people died during the second wave alone … some within hours of their first symptoms. Others succumbed after a few days.
My Aunt Bernice, whose mother (my Grandfather’s first wife) became one of its victims on November 20, 1918, remembers so many people were sick that there were not enough doctors to tend them. There was a shortage of coffins and the dead had to be put in the ground as soon as possible to prevent the spread of infection. No eulogies. No choirs singing. No services. The lack of ceremony for the dead in 1918 left a lasting impression on survivors for years to come.
The staggering statistics associated with pandemics sometimes makes it difficult to remember that each number represents a single, human life … perhaps an ancestor whose cause of death would likely have been indicated as pneumonia caused by influenza.
For an intimate look at the impact it had on both survivors and the families and friends of non-survivors visit the Pandemic Flu Storybook at www.cdc.gov/about/panflu/, where you may also submit your own family’s pandemic flu story.
TODAY’S LESSON: PREPAREDNESS IS A CHOICE!
The recent outbreak of the H1N1 Flu (formerly Swine Flu) reminds us that there is no way to predict the next flu pandemic. So it’s important that we learn from lessons of the past. Also:
1. Learn what you can do to stay healthy during flu season.
2. Be mindful of conditions that contribute to the spread of contagious diseases and take appropriate action to protect yourselves and those you love.
3. Stay informed and pay attention to public health advisories.
The best sources for information on prevention and treatment can be found at the following sites: www.epi.state.nc.us/epi/gcdc/pdf/H1N1Flu_FactSheet.pdf and www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/preventing.htm.
Week of November 19-25, 2009
Most everyone has at least one relative who was in the military. The resulting records are some of the best genealogical sources you can get. Service papers and pension applications provide details about a soldier’s life, his family members and the time and places he served. Military records even cover some who weren't in the armed forces: After the Selective Service Act of 1917, 24 million men aged 18-45 filled out WWI draft registration cards between June 1917 and September 1918.
Because of military records’ centralized nature (they largely originate from the federal government), the bulk of these records remain offline at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Some of these records haven’t been easy to get and much of it has not yet been microfilmed or digitized. Nonetheless, an arsenal of information from just about any war awaits you online … everything from a tiny town’s casualty list to huge, government-sponsored databases.
For example, the National Park Service has completed the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System (CWSS), a database of over 6.3 million soldier names, at www.itd.nps.gov/cwss. Paid sites, such as Ancestry.com and Footnote.com have digitized, indexed and posted thousands of military records. FREE sites, such as http://www.familysearch.org/, http://www.rootsweb.com/ and http://www.usgenweb.org/ are posting ever more actual records online. And http://www.heritagequestonline.com/, available through your library, has images of records from NARA microfilm and books of muster rolls.
In coming issues, I’ll discuss maneuvers that will help you navigate on- and offline genealogical records from the Revolutionary through Vietnam Wars, as well as information on how to order records from the NARA. But first, you need to know what to look for.
LESSON 9: SCOUTING OUT MILITARY RECORDS
Since the U.S. didn’t have a large standing army until the 20th century, most military records revolve around specific wars. What’s available depends on the war your ancestor served in. So begin by reviewing your family tree to find ancestors – especially men – who were born during the following time periods:
If the birth year is … look for records of the ...
- 1726-1767 … Revolutionary War (1775-1783)
- 1762-1799 … War of 1812 (1812-1815)
- 1796-1831 … Mexican War (1846-1848)
- 1811-1848 … Civil War (1861-1865)
- 1848-1881 … Spanish-American War (1898)
- 1849-1885 … Philippine Insurrection (1899-1902)
- 1872-1900 … WWI (1917-1918)
- 1877-1925 … WWII (1941-1945)
- 1900-1936 … Korean War (1950-1953)
- 1914-1955 … Vietnam War (1964-1972)
Perfect practice makes perfect: Before marching off on this mission, arm yourself with as much information as you can about your soldier: Full name (including middle name, alternate spellings, etc.), year of birth/death, place of birth/death, rank/kind of service, the war he served in and state from which he served.
