Family Hunting: Three Levels of Info

For almost two years now I have been bitten with the Genealogy bug in a very big way. It started innocently enough, when after dinner on a Sunday night my son Will announced he had homework yet to do before bed. “I need to create a family tree”, he told us, “and it has to include everything we know”. Yikes. I knew a little bit, had some collected papers and a few generations of info in an old Hypercard stack. But it was far from ‘everything’. We cobbled together what we could, and Will’s homework was complete. But for some reason, it was not enough for me. An obsession began, to learn all that was knowable about my own family history.

Fortunately, my obsession was well-timed. Facilitated by the explosion of the family tree information available on the Internet, it is easier than ever for a research to quickly find success in the ancestor hunt. In my efforts, I have found there are three basic levels of family tree information that you will encounter, and I share them here because… well, just because.

First, there is the first person account, the first step in any family search. The most important info you can find on your family is in the memory of living family members. Start with the living before you go chasing the dead, you’ll find a great deal of information this way. Also, you’re likely to find that you’re not the first to pursue at least some research on your family. So locate the other family historians and get their latest info. My hunt started with a couple of printed histories, copies of which had found their way to me. In each case I contacted the authors (usually some distant cousin), and begun a correspondence on their previous efforts and latest findings.

Second, there is the tangible type of information, in which you track down actual records from the paper trail your ancestors have left behind, hoping to discover additional information and new leads. In the last six weeks I have searched Census records online an at the National Archives. I’ve ordered copies of birth, marriage, and death certificates from County Clerks Offices, a copy of a Social Security Application from the SSA, and burial records from the cemeteries where my relatives are buried. This type of search can be slow and painstaking. Documents might provide no new information, but often provide helpful clues. For example, finding my Great-Great Grandfather, Chris Ross listed as a widower living with his daugher’s family in the 1920 Census, helped to narrow down the possible death date on his wife Josephine. This will likely lead to her death certificate (she was still there in the 1910 Census), and that in turn might lead to her parents names.

And third is the undocumented connection of your tree to the work of others. The Internet is awash with family trees. Self-published histories, and the wealth of data on the great Mormon web site (familysearch.org – check it out, you WILL find your family here). Take the name of your oldest known relative and try a search on Google or FamilySearch.org. As you click through the results, you’re likely to find that someone else has researched your family and posted information online. Be skeptical, and look for clues that provide real evidence of a match such as dates, locations, and children’s names that match. In many cases you’ll find discover a tree that pushes back for many generations further than your information. But can you trust this info? Without any source documentation, or direct knowledge of the researcher, you must take a leap of faith in the quality and accuracy of this information. This type of search can be fast and exciting, pushing you back hundreds of years in a single leap. So what if you can’t be certain about the details. I’d rather have a family tree full of long plausible theories than just short documented branches, wouldn’t you?

The key to quality genealogy is sound sources. Obviously, the farther back you reach, the more difficult reliable source information will be to find. The paradox of genealogy is that the greater your success in discovering past generations, the larger the problem becomes. In the end, all genealogists are doomed to fail. The fun lies in pushing as far back as possible along your tree until you hit that ‘brick wall’, and getting to know your own family along the way.