Family Stories
Genealogy, or Finding Out the Truth About Your Family Tree
Genealogy is the word used for the study of family trees. It can be an interesting thing to research. It can be really frustrating. And you never know what you'll find...
I've been working on my own family tree since my kids were little. I worked on it for about 10 years, then took a long break. I've only dabbled in it since. But I've found out a lot.
I was most successful with my mom's family. Generally I run into dead ends when one family line are immigrants here (usually from Europe in my mom's family). I got lucky with the Turnpenny family. They were the most recent immigrants and the family was still in contact . I was able to meet with my Turnpenny cousins years ago when we visited London. They were kind enough to give me what they had of the family tree. I had conformation of the Turnpennys back to the 1770's.
The part of the family that had been in America the longest were the Van Winkles. They dated back to when New York was New Amsterdam, a Dutch colony. I was able to track them back directly on Staten Island for many generations. I still haven't made all the connections, but there are Van Winkles amongst the earliest Dutch colonists. I'd love to be able to prove that!
Mom's father's family were Irish immigrants. No luck there yet.
My dad's family, not so easy. I can go back about 4 generations on his mom's side. His dad's side, the Houks, pretty much nada. I knew the name of dad, his father, and grandfather. I had the family legend. Dad claimed that I was a 4th generation Californian. Proving all that proved elusive until recently.
Recent research gave me some real information. I had my dad's birth certificate. I had verification of his father's birth in CA. Now I had verification of his grandfather's birth - in PA! Was I only a 3rd generation Californian? Nope. I found records the indicate that the grandmother was born in CA. And there is a connection to the Geary family. That led me to look up Geary Carr, a man I met when I was young who was some sort of family member on dad's side. I found a connection. I still have work to do, but it is nice to finally get some real evidence.
But as I said, you will never know when will turn up. When my adopted brother (actually my dad's step cousin) came to visit I did some research on his family tree. What turned up was the fact that Doug Danley's father was Dwight Herman Fisher Danley. That extra middle name had me looking for Dwight's birth record. The birth father of Dwight was a man with the last name of Fisher. Mr. Danley legally adopted Dwight after marrying Dwight's birth mother. So Doug Danley could easily have been Doug Fisher. That was rather unexpected. More research to do. And Doug is still wrapping his head around it.
If you have never done any research on your family tree, cheer up, it's not hard. Start by writing down what you do know (or think you know). Who were your parents? When and where were they born? Married? Dates and location of the birth of your siblings? Then go back a step. What is generally assumed about the siblings of your parents? Any half siblings? Any info available on the grandparents? Any earlier? What are the family stories about earlier ancestors?
Once you have what you know written down, start checking free sources. Some local libraries have genealogy sections. Every 10 years the US government does a census of it's inhabitants. That information can be quite useful. Census information is also available for free from regional federal libraries. Another source are the libraries of the Mormon church.
Note: when you do go to these places, bring paper and pencils. Many libraries will not allow you to use an ink pen when viewing their records.
If you only want to use on-line sources (and I don't recommend that. The sources listed above are often really good and varied) do so. There are sources that are free. Beware, there are some sources that claim to be free, but a few clicks later they are wanting you to subscribe.
There are some subscriber sites that are worthwhile. Ancestry.com has links to a lot of sources besides the federal census. They also have subscriber boards. Someone that one of the subscribers is looking for could be one of yours.
Don't be afraid to ask for help. Find people who have been doing research longer and ask. Don't think you have to pay someone to research for you.
In the end, doing the family research is fun. There are a lot of rabbit trails you can go down. Try to stay on task. Good luck!
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