Be a modern genealogical researcher
Understand traditional research
Discover documentary evidence and where it is found
Learn about different types of electronic resources
Include DNA testing in your research
Integrate traditional, electronic, and genetic research
You are sure to have seen television shows and movies about police detectives investigating a crime. They are looking for evidence of all sorts to determine how it happened in a particular situation, and to substantiate their case with solid proof. Genealogy researchers are doing much the same thing. They are always looking for materials to help learn more about their ancestors’ families. Like police crime scene investigators, we refer to those materials that we discover about our ancestors as “evidence.” Throughout this book we will discuss different types of evidence sources in great detail. That will help you evaluate and analyze the evidence more accurately, and to reach reliable hypotheses about your family members.
There has never been a better time to be involved with genealogy. It hasn’t been that many years ago that genealogy and family history research was essentially a print-based process. Researchers visited libraries and archives to check books, periodicals, microfilm and microfiche, and other holdings to determine what evidence might be located in other places, and then they would write letters to request lookups and copies of documents. They would travel to courthouses and other repositories to locate, access, and view original documents. They might also have visited a nearby Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) Family History Center (FHC) to consult the catalog of the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, Utah, in order to identify potentially helpful records that had been microfilmed. They would ask the volunteers at the FHC to order the microfilm or microfiche from Salt Lake City, pay a rental fee, and then use the microform materials at the FHC. The other alternative was to physically travel to facilities where records were held or where evidence might be found. In addition, a researcher might have sent a written query to a genealogical publication, such as the now defunct Everton’s Genealogical Helper, to broadcast his or her interest in locating information about a specific individual. This kind of research was time-consuming and potentially very expensive. The wait for responses to letters and inquiries and the arrival of microform materials seemed interminable. As a result, the pace of the genealogical research progress was very slow.
The late 1970s and 1980s saw the development of dial-in Bulletin Board Services (BBSs) on which people connected to discuss common interests. Genealogy was a big use of BBSs, and online chats for general genealogical research topics, as well as location- and record-specific topics, became very popular. As time passed, commercial online services were introduced, including CompuServe, GEnie, Delphi, Prodigy, and America Online, and these capitalized on the high level of interest in family history research.
The origins of the Internet date back to the 1960s. The National Science Foundation provided funding in the 1980s for a U.S. backbone network for use by scientists and academicians. By 1990, the general public began using this network to connect with multiple network sites on a single dial-in connection. Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist, formulated the concept of the World Wide Web, and in 1993 the first graphical web browser was introduced. The addition of graphic images to Internet web pages revolutionized communications, marketing, research, and so much more.
For genealogists, the Web has facilitated the publication of digitized original documents, indexes, photographs, newspapers, manuscripts, and many other resources. It has unquestionably accelerated our research possibilities and reach. Millions of new document images and indexes are added to the Internet each month, not the least of which is the ongoing project by FamilySearch to digitize and make available on the Internet its billions of microfilmed document images.
Undoubtedly, not every record that was ever created will be digitized, indexed, and made available online during our lifetimes. That means that we still must rely on physically locating and accessing the original documents that we need as evidence using traditional research methods. Nevertheless, the unprecedented rate at which new materials are being added to websites truly makes this a golden age for genealogical research.
There are really three main categories of resources available to help us locate and access evidence today:
• Original source documents and printed materials This category includes original documents in such places as courthouses, churches, cemeteries, public record offices, government facilities, and a host of other facilities. One-of-a-kind resources such as manuscripts and loose papers may also yield important information that contributes to our research knowledge. Books, magazines, and newspapers found in libraries and archives or in personal collections are also critically important. They may provide unique information or they may point you to original source materials.
• Internet-based source materials This category encompasses a broad range of materials, including free and commercial database websites, message boards, mailing lists, reference sites, libraries’ and universities’ websites, government websites, and a host of other online reference and educational facilities.
• Genetic genealogy materials The introduction of DNA testing in recent years has produced a scientific category of evidence that is being used in genealogical research. It can be used to verify the research already done on paper and/or can help identify potential familial matches.
Your job is going to involve access to and evaluation of all of these types of materials in your research. You will always be working each type of information in tandem with the others. Let’s explore each of these categories in more detail.
Traditional research was and still is the central form of genealogical investigation, and it is essential for acquiring documentary evidence. In Chapter 4, we will discuss in detail the concepts of primary vs. secondary information and original vs. derivative sources. The most reliable evidence of an event is an original document created at or very near to the time the event occurred. It is not something transcribed or taken from a word-of-mouth account, because the details may have inconsistencies or may be incorrect. If you are unfamiliar with the concepts of primary vs. secondary information and original vs. derivative sources, feel free to skip ahead to the corresponding sections in Chapter 4 and then come back to this section.
Traditional research entails looking for clues that direct you to concrete documentary evidence about your ancestors and their family members. If you have watched any of the several CSI: Crime Scene Investigation series or comparable police dramas on television, you know that building a reliable case means searching for original evidence, studying it, evaluating it in relation to other facts or evidence, developing a hypothesis (or more than one), and substantiating the hypothesis with a strong body of original evidentiary proof. Does that sound complicated? Well, it is and it isn’t. Yes, your research should be done in a scholarly manner and must incorporate strong original evidence. However, this will quickly become second nature to you, and soon you will be enjoying every aspect of “the thrill of the chase.”
Traditional research will always involve working with a wide variety of materials. These include but are not limited to the following:
• Books, journals, magazines, and newsletters
• Manuscripts
• Indexes
• Histories
• Biographies
• Newspapers
• Documents from many traditional locations and sources
Printed books will always be an important source of genealogical information in your research. These are available at libraries and archives, at bookstores and newsstands, and through online booksellers’ sites. You will find books that contain everything from how-to information, such as this book, to transcribed records, to published images of original records.
Journals, magazines, and newsletters published by genealogical and historical societies, as well as commercial magazines, may provide details and/or case studies containing information about your ancestor or some facet of his or her life. There are sure to be articles about life in a particular community in which your ancestor lived. Therefore, even if your ancestor is not named, you can gain insights into what life was like in that place at a particular point in time. The findmypast databases include the Periodical Source Index (PERSI), a facility created by the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. PERSI (http://search.findmypast.com/search/periodical-source-index) indexes genealogical society publications from the United States and elsewhere, with more than 6 million citations.
Some older historical books are being electronically scanned and indexed, and these are appearing at a number of online sites such as Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com; see Figure 3-1), HeritageQuest Online (available through institutional subscriptions at some public libraries), WorldVitalRecords.com (http://www.worldvitalrecords.com; see Figure 3-2), Family History Books (https://books.familysearch.org/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=FHD_PUBLIC) of FamilySearch, Google Books (http://books.google.com), GenealogyBank (http://www.genealogybank.com), and other websites. These are typically every-word searchable and can provide you with access to resources otherwise available only at a remote library or archive.
FIGURE 3-1 Main page of Ancestry.com
FIGURE 3-2 US Book Collection search page of WorldVitalRecords.com
You will always want to invest time in researching the collections found in libraries, archives, and genealogical societies. Many of these organizations have also digitized and indexed materials and placed them online. These facilities can provide clues to guide you to the original evidentiary records that you want to examine in your research.
Original, one-of-a-kind handwritten manuscripts and typescripts are seldom found anywhere but inside a library or archive. You can often find these cataloged by the library or archive in which they are held. An unpublished family history may contain a wealth of information and clues that can lead you to genealogical treasure. However, don’t expect a manuscript to have been microfilmed or digitized. While some have been digitized and others may be digitized in the future, you will more than likely need to travel to the repository where the manuscript is stored in order to access it.
There are several important online tools for locating manuscripts:
• British Library manuscripts The manuscript collections of the British Library are an important part of Britain’s national heritage of manuscripts and other documentary materials. These are described in detail in the library’s online reference webpages, beginning at http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelprestype/manuscripts/msscollect/manuscriptscollections.html. The page link labeled Manuscripts – Other Libraries & Institutions (http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelprestype/webres/manuscriptsotherinst/index.html) points to other repositories around the country and abroad where important manuscript collections are held.
• Manuscripts Online Manuscripts Online is a facility formed through a collaboration in the UK between six universities in England and Ireland. It provides a search engine to access electronic content dating from the years 1000 to 1500. (http://www.manuscriptsonline.org)
• The National Archives (UK) The National Archives in the UK, also referred to as TNA, has consolidated its reference catalog of materials in its collection and to archives across England and Wales in 2014. The new catalog is called Discovery, and can be accessed at http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. It contains descriptions of more than 32 million records held by TNA and more than 2,500 other archives across the country.
• National Library of Australia The manuscripts in this collection document the history and activities related to the formation of Australia, its territories, and some surrounding areas. The individual states and territories hold additional manuscript materials that may also be of interest. (http://www.nla.gov.au/what-we-collect/manuscripts)
• National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) NUCMC is an electronic catalog produced and maintained by the Library of Congress. Its mission is to describe archival and manuscript collections held by repositories located throughout the United States and its territories, and to promote bibliographic access to the nation’s documentary heritage. (http://www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc)
In addition to manuscripts, oral history collections are being added to archives and libraries around the world. Don’t overlook the possibility that recorded oral interviews may include important details about the time and places where your ancestors lived. These can provide excellent information to place your ancestral family in geographical and time context. Oral histories may be available in both recorded and transcribed formats. Check with public and academic libraries to determine what they have among their holdings and how to access them.
Geography is an integral part of genealogical research. It is essential to understand the location where your ancestor lived, where the geopolitical boundaries were, how the boundaries may have changed during and since your ancestor’s residency there, and what governmental body had jurisdiction of the area at a specific time. While many historical maps have been digitized and are on the Internet, most exist only in library collections, archives, university special collections, or the holdings of individuals or organizations (such as the Library of Congress, whose collection includes the map shown in Figure 3-3).
FIGURE 3-3 Map showing Col. John Singleton Mosby’s route through Virginia and North Carolina during the U.S. Civil War. (From the Library of Congress collection.)
There are thousands of published indexes to original records of genealogical importance. P. William Filby’s epic and ongoing publication, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, remains the most important reference for identifying information about immigrants to the American colonies and the United States. Germans to America is another important reference. However, there are indexes to original documents worldwide. The Civil Registration registers of births, marriages, and deaths for England and Wales, for instance, cover the period from July 1837 to 2006, and more recent registrations are accessible up to 18 months prior to the current date. Indexes to names in censuses, bride and groom marriage indexes, land and property indexes, military service records and awards, and hundreds of other record types have been published. These indexes provide guidance to direct you to the original records, and you can then order copies and examine the exact content for yourself.
History books and other historical accounts, such as diaries and journals, may exist only in printed form or as a manuscript. These accounts can provide you with the context of a place and time in which your ancestor lived. In some cases, a local history may provide the only evidence of your ancestor’s presence and activities in an area. You can learn about the activities in which your ancestor may have participated and about events that may have affected your ancestor’s life.
Biographies and autobiographies of individuals are important sources of information and provide clues to original materials. Typically found in library collections, you can use these publications as you would a history book. A biography or autobiography provides the historical context for a time period and describes people, places, locations, and events. For example, while your ancestor’s name may never be mentioned, a biography of a military leader under whom your ancestor served will likely provide a chronological account of military engagements and details about the living conditions. This information is helpful in understanding that portion of your ancestor’s life and the events that influenced him or her and other people.
A newspaper chronicles a community, incorporating news and events about people from all walks of life. Original newspapers are not frequently retained in storage, for a number of reasons. They are certainly a fire hazard, and their physical composition may produce other by-products that can be harmful to public health. Additionally, newsprint from the late 19th century forward is highly acidic in content, and the acid and lignin can contaminate other materials, causing them to discolor and deteriorate.
Many newspapers have been microfilmed before the originals were destroyed. This is excellent news for researchers. However, unless the newspaper has been indexed in some way, your research will depend on knowing dates or date ranges of issues; otherwise, you may have to comb through image after image on many rolls of microfilm or many sheets of microfiche. These microform records are often found in a library or historical archive in or near the place of publication. Copies may also be held in a regional, state, provincial, or national library or archive. You will need to visit that repository to access these records.
More recently, voluminous quantities of newspaper titles are being digitized, both from the original paper and from previously microfilmed records. Most are being indexed using optical character recognition (OCR) software, thereby making them searchable. Tens of millions of historical newspaper pages are being scanned each year.
Many public, state, regional, territorial, and national libraries and archives are actively engaged in identifying historical newspapers, digitizing and indexing them, and making them available on the Internet. The Chronicling America collection of the Library of Congress (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov), shown in Figure 3-4, includes massive collections of digitized newspapers
FIGURE 3-4 Main page of the Chronicling America collection at the Library of Congress website
Online subscription sites such as GenealogyBank (http://www.genealogybank.com) provide access to many digitized and searchable newspaper collections available. The British Newspaper Archive (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) provides access to more than 8 million pages of more than 250 newspapers. Ancestry.com has a collection of newspapers, and findmypast, in partnership with the British Library, has made available more than 200 newspaper titles covering the period from 1710 to 1953. The findmypast collections also feature newspapers from the United States, Canada, Ireland, and some other international locations (see Figure 3-5). Other historical newspaper titles, such as those digitized and indexed by ProQuest and other commercial entities, may be available to you through public and academic libraries.
FIGURE 3-5 An image from the findmypast British Newspapers online database collection showing an account of a will in the Hull Daily Mail on 20 June 1941
It is important to remember, however, that because of the varying quality of the microform images from which the digitized images were taken, and the limitations of the OCR scanning capability, there may be unavoidable indexing errors.
Your research for original documents or exact copies will take you to many places. This book will help lead you to specific repositories in various locations in order to access those documents. Among them are government offices, health departments, police records repositories, coroners’ offices, land and property offices, civil, criminal, and probate courts, churches and religious offices, military records storage repositories, cemeteries and cemetery offices, manuscript collections, libraries, archives at all levels, schools and universities, genealogical and historical societies, and many more. The documents will be unique unto themselves. You will learn more about many types of documents and working with them throughout this book.
There has been a great acceleration in the availability of genealogical information in recent years. The Internet has greatly facilitated access to original source documents and printed materials. Reference sites and online catalogs have facilitated our ability to quickly locate what might be available, to inquire, and to more quickly access those materials.
Online genealogical subscription services have certainly proliferated on the Internet. These include Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com), Fold3 (http://www.fold3.com; see Figure 3-6), MyHeritage (http://www.myheritage.com; see Figure 3-7), Mocavo (http://www.mocavo.com; see Figure 3-8), and many others around the world. New online resources debut each year. Others may be acquired by other companies and folded into their service offerings. And some may simply founder and disappear.
FIGURE 3-6 The main page at Fold3 provides access to the largest collection of digitized U.S. military records.
FIGURE 3-7 The main page at MyHeritage provides access to billions of records and family trees.
FIGURE 3-8 The main page at Mocavo, the large, free genealogy search engine
Libraries and archives have also kept pace with Internet technology. Essentially every library or archive has a website that provides access to their electronic catalog, descriptions of holdings, policies, and other information. LibrarySpot.com (http://www.libraryspot.com) provides a place to begin locating libraries’ and archives’ websites around the world. The Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC) hosts WorldCat (http://www.worldcat.org), another excellent tool for locating specific books and other items in libraries.
As mentioned before, many libraries have digitized materials in their collections and have made them accessible through their websites. The Library and Archives Canada website (http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca) has digitized Canadian census records, and has produced an impressively informative set of how-to and reference resources in its Genealogy and Family History area at http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/index-e.html (see Figure 3-9). The diversity of digitized records that are accessible through libraries’ websites is phenomenal.
FIGURE 3-9 The Genealogy and Family History page at the Library and Archives Canada
In addition to the websites maintained by libraries and archives, these institutions frequently subscribe to important database services. Some of these may be genealogy-specific, while others, such as historical newspapers and obituary databases, may be fully searchable and provide access to invaluable information to help further your research. Many of these are typically accessible from your remote computer with the use of your library card number. Other databases may be accessible by visiting the public or academic library itself.
Your favorite web browser software provides you with access to resources worldwide: digitized documents and photographs, newspapers, digitized historical map collections, cemetery information and transcriptions, online newsletters and magazines, and much, much more. We’ll explore these further later in this chapter and elsewhere in the book.
You will find that there are many different types of electronic research resources, and that keeping them straight may sometimes be difficult. If you understand the difference between them and what they can provide, it will become easier to decide which resource(s) will be your best tool(s) to use for specific types of research. Let’s explore the major kinds of electronic resources you will use. We’ll cover all of these in more detail later in the book.
One of the most ubiquitous electronic tools in use today is email. It provides a rapid and inexpensive way to communicate with one or lots of people at once. Email allows you to send and receive textual communiqués and to attach files, such as word processing documents, spreadsheets, digital photos, audio files, videos, and data files, from many software applications.
Electronic mailing lists are a commonly used resource, allowing many people to subscribe and to send and receive messages sent by other subscribers. There are thousands of genealogy-related mailing lists, each with a specific topical purpose. There are surname lists, lists for specific geographical areas, lists concerning locating and working with specific record types, ethnic and religious lists, and lists on a wide variety of other topics.
Electronic message boards are similar to mailing lists, providing a means for exchanging information with others (see Figure 3-10). A message board, however, resides on the Internet, and you must proactively read it and/or post messages to it. The best genealogy message boards are those at Ancestry.com (http://boards.ancestry.com). GenForum (http://genforum.com) was also a prolific message board until September 2014 when Ancestry.com, its owner, retired the facility as active and discontinued the ability to post new messages there. The messages have all been archived, however, and are still searchable. Some other genealogy websites may also provide messaging facilities. (Some message boards also may be set up to notify you via email when there is a new message. However, email doesn’t play a role in posting to and working with message boards.)
FIGURE 3-10 A message board posting concerning the Pattersons of Londonderry, NH, Ireland, and Scotland
In addition, there are discussions of geographical areas, surnames, and record types at such places as Mocavo (http://www.mocavo.com; see Figure 3-11) and Genealogy Wise (http://www.genealogywise.com).
FIGURE 3-11 Surname group area from Mocavo
Web pages on the Internet contain a wealth of information, and there are literally billions of web pages accessible by visiting web addresses known to you or that you read about. These may include personal websites, free websites, and subscription websites, as well as blogs, wikis, and other resources. (We will discuss blogs, wikis, and other social media and electronic resources at the end of this chapter and later in the book.) However, your favorite web browser allows you to connect with Internet search engines and to seek out web pages using site names, keywords and phrases, and other criteria.
There are many websites that have compiled various types of materials for your reference. RootsWeb, a subsidiary of Ancestry.com (http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com), provides many how-to materials, access to mailing list resources, family trees submitted by other researchers, and a variety of online tools. Cyndi’s List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet (http://www.cyndislist.com; see Figure 3-12) is a compilation of more than 330,000 categorized links to genealogical sites on the Internet. It is the starting point for locating all types of research resources. Linkpendium (http://www.linkpendium.com) provides well over 10 million links to location and surname materials on the Internet. The USGenWeb Project (http://www.usgenweb.org) and the WorldGenWeb Project (http://www.worldgenweb.org) are two all-volunteer collections for United States and international genealogical information and resources, respectively. Find A Grave (http://www.findagrave.com; see Figure 3-13) is a massive collection of more than 116 million records of cemetery and interment information from around the world that have been transcribed by individuals and entered into a free online database.
FIGURE 3-12 The main page at Cyndislist.com
FIGURE 3-13 The main page at Findagrave.com
The compilations and indexes provide excellent information when you know what you are looking for, but the use of a search engine can exponentially expand your research. Experienced users of the Internet often have one or more favorite search engines such as Google (http://www.google.com) or Bing (http://www.bing.com). Fortunately there also are genealogy-specific search resources. Mocavo (http://www.mocavo.com) is the world’s largest free genealogy search engine.
There are many subscription genealogy sites on the Internet, all of which combined provide access to literally tens of thousands of databases. These databases include indexes to records, digitized and indexed original document images, scanned and searchable books and newspapers, and a host of other great resources. Leaders in this area are Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com), Archives.com (http://www.archives.com), Fold3 (http://www.fold3.com), findmypast (www.findmypast.com), MyHeritage (http://www.myheritage.com), and WorldVitalRecords (http://www.worldvitalrecords.com), among others.
Blogs are journals published online about many topics. One great place to locate genealogy-specific blogs that might be of interest to you is Chris Dunham’s Genealogy Blog Finder (http://blogfinder.genealogue.com; see Figure 3-14). In addition, the GeneaBloggers website (http://geneabloggers.com) also offers, in its Genealogy Blog Roll area, a searchable collection of almost 3,000 genealogical blogs. There are blogs about national and ethnic origins, religious information, genetic genealogy, software programs, news and events, and many more topics discussed by bloggers worldwide.
FIGURE 3-14 The Genealogy Blog Finder is a great place to find blogs for all areas of your genealogy research.
Podcasts are audio programs that are recorded and published on the Internet. You can listen to them at their website, download and listen to them on your computer or MP3 player/iPod, or burn them to a CD. I am co-host, with my partner Drew Smith, of The Genealogy Guys Podcast (http://genealogyguys.com; see Figure 3-15). Other genealogy podcasts include the African Roots Podcast (http://africanrootspodcast.com), the Genealogy Gems Podcast (http://www.genealogygemspodcast.com), and the Irish Roots Cafe (http://www.irishroots.com). Each of these (and others) provides news, research tips, interviews, book reviews, and/or other features.
FIGURE 3-15 The main page of the Genealogy GuysSM Podcast website
The video equivalent of a podcast is referred to as a “videocast” or “vodcast.” You will find genealogy videos at YouTube (http://www.youtube.com) by searching for keyword genealogy.
Webinars are live seminars presented on the Internet, and they are often recorded for later download and enjoyment. Genealogy webinars are presented on a wide variety of subjects. Ancestry.com presents webinars about using Ancestry.com and Family Tree Maker database software, and past webinars have been recorded. RootsMagic (http://www.rootsmagic.com) offers webinars about its product and about research topics. Genealogy webinars also are being offered by the leading genealogical speakers and by some genealogical societies. The Southern California Genealogical Society, the Illinois State Genealogical Society, the Wisconsin State Genealogical Society, and others offer webinars that are presented live and recorded for later access. You must register in advance to participate in a live webinar, and a logon ID is provided before the event. Other societies are jumping on the bandwagon to offer webinars as part of their regular meetings in order to provide educational variety for their members.
Organizers for major genealogical conferences are now offering live streaming video of select sessions from their conferences. These sessions are typically also recorded for later access. The sessions require advance registration, and a logon ID is provided. There may or may not be a cost to access a live streaming session, but if there is, it is usually a nominal fee. Some of the conferences that have today provided streaming video include RootsTech, the National Genealogical Society, and the Southern California Genealogical Society.
Genetics has grown increasingly popular with genealogists as a means of corroborating their paper research findings and/or identifying potential matches with other researchers. There are several companies performing DNA tests and maintaining sites on the Internet to facilitate researchers’ ability to connect and collaborate with other researchers with whom they have matches. However, DNA is just another tool that can be incorporated into your research strategies. We will be talking about DNA and genetic genealogy in much greater detail in Chapter 13.
The overview I have shared with you in this chapter is sure to have piqued your interest in the many kinds of resources that are available. Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of the differences between so-called “traditional,” “electronic,” and genetic resources. If you thought, “Wow! I can do it all on the Internet!” you would be completely wrong. While there is a great deal of material on the Internet and the quantity is increasing every day, there is much, much more that is not there. Your research must incorporate and combine traditional research and resources with electronic resources, and you can also add DNA test results to your research.
This chapter has prepared you to learn about each of the resources discussed throughout the book. Chapter 4 will expand on this chapter, and you’ll learn all about how to effectively analyze and organize the evidence you’ve already found at home. We will then discuss in the following chapters many of the most important record types and resources available to you in researching your family history.
You are already well on your way to building the solid foundation for effective genealogy and family history research that will serve you well on this journey of discovery. Read on!