Is Your Family Tree The Truth?

I spent a couple of hours last week with a woman who wanted to learn more about her family history. She had found a family tree online that claimed that her ggg-grandfather came from a particular place in Scotland and she wanted to know if that was true. I imagine, that like many of you, she was having visions of visiting the "homeland," taking her children to see the place where their ancestors came from.

I think I interrupted her dreaming when I asked her how she even knew he was her ggg-grandfather.

HER: "What? What do you mean?"

ME: "How do you know that this guy is your great-great-great-grandfather?

HER: "Well, I found this family tree that someone put online..."

Do you see the problem?

As a professional genealogist, I have spent more time in the past year (time my clients have paid well for) VERIFYING family trees than I did in the first eight years I was in business combined. They come to me with these trees they've put together or inherited wanting me to extend their family story back another generation or two. But, when I ask for documentation I get blank stares. So I look to verify a few things and in doing so I'm finding that more and more often some or all of what they've handed me is false. Luckily, I'm getting really good at spotting inaccuracies - and quickly.

Why are people spending time and money to build family trees that are really just a giant lie? If you care enough about your family history to look into it, wouldn't you care that it was accurate?

Who Do You Think You Are? Seven Episodes Set to Air on NBC in March

NBC has finally announced that it will air Who Do You Think You Are? The first episode will be Friday, March 5th. If it is received in the U.S. with only a fraction of the response it was met with in the U.K., Canada and Australia, we are likely to see a HUGE resurgence in interest in family history in this country. That's great news for Ancestry.com (major sponsor of the show and my employer). It's also great news for those of us who do professional genealogy research.

You see, many people have the time, resources and interest to engage in this hobby themselves. But, many people just want a "finished" product - a family tree to hang on their wall, a printed family history to give as a gift to parents and siblings, or knowledge about where exactly in Europe their immigrant ancestors lived. That's where a professional genealogist comes in. I've spent months getting my life and my business ready for this. Bring it on!

The 2010 Census Has Arrived - Sorta

Today is the official start of the 2010 United States Federal Census enumeration. The very first town to be enumerated is in Alaska. Turns out they have to get up there and get everyone enumerated while they are all holed up for the winter because at the first sign of spring entire villages clear out for their commercial fishing season. You can read more about it at http://blogs.census.gov/.

For a genealogist the census is a pretty big deal. It is a foundational record (different from a vital record) for a large amount of U.S. family history research into the last 200 years. Unfortunately (though I guess I understand it), we have a 72 year privacy law. So, the most recently available census is 1930. The 1940 census will come available in 2012.

In the meantime, be sure to do your part to participate in the 2010 census - besides being a law that you provide complete and accurate information - imagine the delight of your descendants 72 years from now when they get to see your answers.

We Are All One Single Growing Thing

I came across this beautiful quote today. It reminded me of one of the reasons I spend so much time doing genealogy research (both my own and for clients) and I just wanted to share it with you.

Human beings look separate because you see them walking about separately. But then we are so made that we can see only the present moment. If we could see the past, then of course it would look different. For there was a time when every man was part of his mother, and (earlier still) part of his father as well, and when they were part of his grandparents. If you could see humanity spread out in time, as God sees it, it would look like one single growing thing--rather like a very complicated tree. Every individual would appear connected with every other. ~C. S. Lewis

I really believe that the more we come to know and understand our own family history, the more we are able to view each other through this lens of connectedness.  And, I would like to think that might change the way we treat each other.

What do you think?

Explain This To Me!

I get about three emails a week that start that way. I have a client who pays me a monthly stipend to do just that – explain things to him – genealogical things that is.

David has a subscription to Ancestry.com. He loves doing his own genealogy work – being the family detective, if you will. But he has had ZERO formal training as a genealogist. And he realized very quickly when he got into this hobby that there is a whole lot more to genealogy than just looking up records.  And he really doesn't want to take the time to learn how to do more than just search a few websites and talk to his elderly relatives.  He's a busy professional with three small children after all.

He knows how to use internet search engines. He knows about his family. What he doesn’t understand are the nuances of the records used in tracing genealogy. So, he’ll find, say, a census record from 1900 listing his great-grandfather and family. Most family history hobbyists will stop right there. “Yay! I found my family in 1900 living in Hoboken, New Jersey. There’s great-grandpa Fred and great-grandma Sal and their three children, Hannah, Mortie, and Abe.” What so many of them don’t know is that there is a whole lot more information listed and implied on that one page that can and should lead to more records and more discoveries.

Record analysis is just one of the many tasks that genealogists must perform. So, every week I take the two or three or five emails David sends me with links to a census image or a World War One Draft Card or a Naturalization Index entry found on Ancestry.com and I’ll write a report that explains what these records tell us, what that information means in context of his family and the history of the time, and what additional records that information could lead him to next.

And off he goes on another searching adventure – playing amateur detective with his own family – thrilled when he makes a discovery even if he isn’t always quite sure what that discovery means.  And once a year he and I bind up the records he discovered and the explanations I provided and he gives copies to his dad and his sister and whatever other family members may be interested.

This particular niche of clients has been an interesting sideline to my business. It’s a little like being a coach instead of the player on the field. I love, LOVE, playing the game but if there are people willing to pay me to coach – I’m happy to do that as well.

Who Do You Sound Like?

The other day a friend told me that I write the way I speak. My first thought was, “Well, why would I want to write the way someone else speaks?” On further thought I realized that a lot of people have a writing voice and a speaking voice and never the twain shall meet. Then I did a little research and learned that there are authors who don’t write their own books and bloggers who don’t write their own blogs. So I guess it isn’t just that some have a different writing voice than their speaking voice but that they are using someone else’s voice entirely. How weird is that?

I imagine there’s a time and a place for formal writing, following the rules of grammar and punctuation, doing your best to put your best foot forward. And I also imagine there are some time saving benefits to having someone else write your blog for you. But, when you want people to know who you are – and isn’t that one of the purposes of a blog - what’s the point of trying to sound like someone you aren’t – or using the writing of someone who isn’t you.

So, I'm taking up a couple of new blogs – me blogs – a blog here on a domain with my name on it and another here that will be a little more personal and a little less business. I’m not an expert at very many things. But I am an expert on being me. And I am an expert at family history research. And I am learning how to be an expert business woman, and daughter, and sister, and aunt, and friend, and teacher. So, those are the things I’ll talk about here and there. And I promise that it will be my voice you hear. Because if you are going to hire me, or work with me, or become my friend – shouldn’t my voice be the one you get used to hearing?

(First published on my first blogging attempt 28 Feb 2007. Some minor changes have been made.)