By Susan Hopkins
I stood in a small Irish cemetery. The weather was unusually warm for Ireland. The sun shone brightly, and there was not a trace of the common soft Irish rain in the air. The grass grew very high, uncut for months, a traditional Irish custom I later found out, to help preserve the natural feel of the setting. The tombstone listed the names of distant relatives I had only discovered a year earlier.
With me amongst the graves stood my cousins, as I guess I should call them, very far removed in my family tree, but still family. Sean, a 30-something-year-old farmer, had an Irish brogue as thick as a pint of Guinness. His lovely wife, Anne, frequently had to translate for me. Their young son, Shane, ran freely among the old stone ruins of what appeared to be a church. I marveled at how amazing the experience was, traveling across an ocean to meet people I didn’t know but were still a part of me.
I was the first in my immediate family to travel back to the old country. This was my second trip to the Emerald Isle but definitely not my last. I wondered that summer day what my grandmother would have thought and I hoped she would have been proud.
My genealogy research took me to a place I never thought I’d see. What an unbelievable experience it was at the age of 23 to connect with strangers, in a distant land and different culture, who treated me as one of their own and warmly welcomed me into their home. This intensely human, emotional experience was made possible by the cold, hard, unfeeling wires of the computer. I would not have met my relatives without the Internet.
My research started online. I had tremendous success finding information not just on the Irish branch of my family tree but on others as well. Albeit, it does help if some member of your family began research in the past and left you his or her notes to ponder. But don’t fret if you are starting from scratch.
The Pros and Cons of Researching Online
There has never been a better time to research your roots. Gone are the days when you would spend all your waking hours searching through ancient, yellowed documents in dusty back rooms of libraries or churches. You might still have to do this, but now you can find a lot of your family history just by staying at home. Online genealogy research has quickly become a new technological and cultural trend in the Information Age. It accounts for 6% of online traffic. It is the second most researched topic on the web after, you guessed it, pornography. And it is also the second most popular hobby in America after gardening. An estimated 100 million Americans have researched their roots in some way or another. And at any given time, there are approximately 80 million Americans actively researching their roots, and more than 480,000 websites contain some kind of genealogical information. This is positive news, but there can be drawbacks to researching your roots online.
The convenience and 24-hour availability of the Internet, and the plethora of genealogy information floating around in cyberspace, can actually stall your research. Be wary of what you find. Information on the Internet is still put there by a human hand, and, thus, errors can exist. The only foolproof method is to obtain from reliable sources copies of the original papers documenting your ancestors birth, death, or marriage.
Also, the sheer volume of material available on the Internet can be intimidating and overwhelming. The easiest thing to do is to get out the archaic paper and pencil and devise a research plan. Know what you want to look for before you start looking. It is far too easy to get sidetracked online. Start by listing the family names you plan on researching. Then list all the related family members and everything you know about them. This may take awhile in itself, but its so important to be focused before you head to the Web. Gather what information you already have and then head online.
Where to Go
Deciding what URL to explore first can be a daunting task; however, there are several large sites that can be the backbone to your research. Try starting with <www.vitalcheck.com> if you still need to retrieve your ancestors birth, death, marriage, or divorce certificates. Vitalcheck provides links to state agencies where you can order the required records online with a credit card. This service is a little costlier than simply sending a letter and self-addressed stamped envelope to the appropriate agency, but it is a much faster way to move ahead with your research. Vitalcheck has a service charge of at least $7.00, in addition to the costs of the certificate(s) you request. If you want a single copy of a certificate, you can obtain one directly through your state agency for as little as $3.00. To bypass Vitalcheck and go directly to the website for the specific state or county agency, go to <www.vitalrec.com>.
When you decide to really delve into your work, Roots Web (www.rootsweb.com) is the oldest and largest free online genealogy site. (Must have credit card) The very popular surname lists consist of a registry of over 1 million surnames submitted by more than 225,000 online genealogists. This site also has more than 26,000 mailing lists and more than 11 million postings on 132,000 message boards, proof that millions of people have been drawn into this new era of family history research. But beware. It is easy to be sucked into the mailing list and surname sections, which rarely produce any results and can eat up much of your valuable research time.
One of the best things about Roots Web is its list of links to many useful resources: the Social Security Death Index, the U.S. Town/County Database, the WorldConnect Project, and many other search engines and databases. On Roots Web you can also sign up to receive free genealogy newsletters. This site is a great destination for achieving the overall picture of what online genealogical research is about.
Roots Web provides a link to the US Gen Web Project (www.usgenweb.org). This site is attempting to provide complete records of the federal census for every state at no cost. However, the project is solely organized by volunteers who, understandably, need time to enter all of this information. Therefore, you may not find what you are looking for on this site. But it is a good place to just check. Plus, you’ll find suggestions and helpful hints for how to start your online research on the Information for Researchers page. Through WorldConnect you can also view family trees that other researchers like yourself have posted, and you can submit your own family tree after you have successfully found who and what you are looking for. The WorldConnect Project contains more than 250 million ancestor names.
Roots Web is just one of the sites run by MyFamily.com, Inc. This leading network for connecting families and generations on the Web is the largest and most active online community of its kind. The other sites hosted by this network are Ancestry.com, FamilyHistory.com, and MyFamily.com. Ancestry.com is the most comprehensive, but mostly subscription based site for online genealogical research. Subscription plans range from $79.95 to $189.95 annually. Ancestry.com currently boasts a subscription base of over 800,000, proving that money is no object for many who are searching for information on their family’s past. Subscribers have access to hundreds of millions of individual records and historical documents, including 1,400 online databases and U.S. census records from 1790 to 1930. Only the Social Security Death Index is free, but this is very helpful if you are trying to locate an ancestor who died in the U.S. in 1937 or after. The Social Security Death Index lists the names of all deceased individuals who received Social Security benefits or whose families received survivor benefits.
FamilyHistory.com provides free family history message boards. These allow researchers to share their new-found information and post queries regarding surnames and different geographic areas. But remember, queries are rarely successful, and it may be months before you receive a response. But, in case you decide to post one, here are a few tips for posting queries:
Type your ancestors surname in all capital letters. It will be easier to read and more recognizable.
Keep the query short, but make sure to include the pertinent information: name of relative; names of spouses, children, and parents; dates of birth and death; locations of birth and death; and other information you are seeking about this person or their family.
Include your e-mail address so someone can respond to your query.
MyFamily.com is a popular password-protected genealogical site. Users can create family albums and talk to other researchers like themselves in a chat room or by live voice. Free online software is also available wherein family members can update the same family tree. This site lets you securely document the information you find and allows others in your family to share their successes as well.
Another option is to search the extensive genealogical records compiled by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Members of the Church believe that the family is one of the most important things in life, and family can also continue beyond death. Therefore, the more you know about your relatives, the better you’ll be prepared to meet them some day. In addition to online resources, there is the Family History Library, located in Salt Lake City, Utah, which is the largest of its kind in the world. Open to the public free of charge, this library contains over 2.2 million rolls of microfilmed genealogical records: The Ancestral File contains about 35 million names, and The International Genealogical Index database contains about 725 million names. A good bit of this information is available online at <www.familysearch.org>. The Latter-Day Saints also has several branch libraries across the country.
The Latter-Day Saints’ website includes searchable Census records, the U.S. Social Security Death Index, a vital records index, and the Pedigree Resource File, which contains over 50 million names. This is a database of records submitted by individuals through the FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service. This site also gives excellent step-by-step instructions to help you get started in your research process.
Finding Treasures and Obtaining Success
But what about the millions of us who have roots outside the U.S.? The main part of my genealogical research, for example, did not involve U.S. records. After my first trip to Ireland, which was 3 years before my second trip, I had a deep admiration for the country and was determined to find out the county from which my Irish ancestors emigrated. I was one of the fortunate ones; my mom had an old Roman Catholic family Bible dating back to the mid-19th century, and there someone along the line had recorded several relatives names and dates of marriage.
But the most important item in the Bible was a copy of an ancestors baptismal certificate that was dated 1850. The name on the certificate was Martin Grady, born June 4, 1840, baptized June 23, 1840 in the Parish Church of St. Michael, Ballinasloe. The town and parish listed did not seem American, so I went to the Internet to conduct a search on the town name. Sure enough, I found that the town was located in western part of Ireland. With that information I searched Irish websites for any information I could find on genealogical research in western Ireland. One site had a link to a family history society in the county where my ancestor was baptized. It would cost money, but I could send them the information I had, and they would search civil and church records for any related information.
Within about 2 months I was astonished and thrilled to receive a chart of my ancestors immediate relatives. The history society recommended that I write the county’s Post Master to inquire about relatives with the same surname who still live in the area. Several months later I received a letter back from the Post Master listing two men’s names. I wrote letters to both and included a copy of my family tree, which I had created with the help of Family Tree Maker software. A couple months after that I received a mysterious message on my home answering machine. A man named Paul from Atlanta, Georgia, called and left a message stating that he believed I had written his relatives. By returning his call I found out that he was related and had found the same relatives a year earlier and had already visited them in Ireland!
Paul and I exchanged copies of our family trees and made copies of old family photos for each other. By verifying lots of information, we found that we are indeed related, although the relationship is that of very distant cousins. I still have not met Paul face-to-face, but we talk on the phone every now and then and exchange letters. He has performed a lot of research and has information on more distant branches of our family tree. The distance some people are willing to go to find out their family’s history is awe-inspiring and commendable.
Although, if you are one of the many researchers who are simply looking to add to your family tree and not actually to unite with living relatives, there are many software programs that will help you organize and simplify your research data. The most popular software program is Family Tree Maker from Broderbund Software. This user-friendly program allows you to keep record of multiple generations, up to 2 million individuals to be exact, and generate charts to observe family relationships. Pedigree charts, descendant charts, outline reports, family group sheets, and kinship reports can be created in seconds, and the result is a visual documentation of your hard research efforts. You can even electronically send your family tree to the Family Tree Makers website (www.familytreemaker.com) for others to view worldwide.
Connecting Communities
Finding your ancestors can be a life-changing experience. Staying connected with them, however, can sometimes prove challenging. My relatives in Ireland live on a rural farm. They have a landline phone, even a cell phone, but not Internet access. It amazes me that even though I found my relatives partly by using current technology, to stay in touch with them I have found myself resorting to the almost outdated method of using pen, paper, and postage stamps.
The Internet is a convenient and useful tool for finding your roots. But don’t get frustrated if you don’t find all you are looking for online. A trip to your ancestors hometown, a day of sorting through old, dust-covered documents, or strolls through strange cemeteries may still be needed. But you will feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment when you have found what you were searching for.
Finally, understanding where your family came from makes your efforts worth it. Current technologies are in effect helping to bring to life and preserve family connections that were once only visible on pieces of paper. We now have the ability to interact with people all over the country and the world who share the same interest in genealogy research and who may actually be related to us. We have a wonderful new opportunity to find the missing pieces of our past and to stay connected to them throughout our whole lives
Published U. S. Legacies September 2003
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