Tracing Your Family Tree

Blogger's Note: Last month, I began writing a column entitled "Tracing Your Roots," for my local newspaper.  Beginning here today, and continuing each Monday, I will be posting a copy of the article as it appeared in the newspaper on the previous Friday.

Interest in genealogy research, or tracing one’s family tree, is a hot topic these days. Once viewed by many as simply a hobby, genealogy has become one of the world’s newest industries.  In case you haven’t heard, family history research is the subject of two very popular television series, NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?” which airs on Friday evenings at 7 p.m.,  and the Sunday evening PBS program “Finding Your Roots,” hosted by Harvard professor, Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. If you haven’t watched either of these shows, I encourage you to do so.  

The current interest in family research and the fast growing number of resources available for conducting that research have made it easier than ever to search for one’s family roots.  But if you are like most individuals who want to begin the journey down the family history trail, you may be asking yourself the question “Where do I begin?”  And that’s what I want to discuss here today.

Family history research is like a puzzle - one piece is added to another, and another, and another, until the entire picture is visible.  Often the puzzle’s picture tells a story.  And the search for our ancestors sometimes begins with just one piece of information - the name of a known ancestor. Luckily for most of us, we know the names of our grandparents, possibly the names of our great-grandparents, and more often than not, we also know where they lived.  Armed with just a single name, one can successfully search literally dozens of online databases that contain bits of data about our ancestors.  

One of the best sources of genealogical information out there are census records, and thanks to www.familysearch.org, a website maintained by the Latter-Day Saints (LDS) Church, the information there is free. This same website also contains information gleaned from birth, marriage, and death records. Probably the most widely publicized source of online family history information is www.ancestry.com, which requires a subscription to access the millions of records contained in this huge database.  According to its website, the company “has spent more than a decade building the world’s largest family history resource” that includes birth, marriage, divorce, death, military and census record information.

Some of the least known but best sources of free information for beginning family history researchers are genea-blogs. When I first began blogging in 2008, there were only a few hundred of us who were writing blogs about our family history. Now there are over two thousand genea-bloggers who hail from around the world, and many have become leaders in the genealogy community. Thomas MacEntee, well-known as one of those leaders in the genealogy world and a blogger himself, maintains the www.geneabloggers.com website, where links can be found to each member’s blog.  This site also features a search function where anyone can search a family name contained in the many blogs listed there.  

An important source of free information for online researchers is the website known as www.findagrave.com, a site that contains information and photos of millions of cemeteries and gravestones throughout the world.  Founded by Jim Tipson, the website was originally maintained as a place for posting photographs of the celebrity graves he visited, a hobby of his. However, the site no longer contains just photos of celebrity grave stones - it contains over 80 million grave records, including photos of gravestones posted by its 800,000+ volunteers.  According to statistics available on the website, more than 11 million pages were viewed today by its visitors.

The resources mentioned in this article are but a few of the thousands of databases, repositories, and publications available to family researchers.  But if you are ready to start the search for your own roots, they are excellent places to begin.
   

Java Music and Books - Now Available Online

Along with genealogy, we love music and books. So it seems quite natural that we would open an online store. Rather than set up our own website, we decided to test the waters using space available on www.gemm.com. Our music inventory offers a wide assortment of 45s and LPs from the 1950s to the 1980s and includes Doo-Wop, Rock and Roll, R&B, Northern Soul, Jazz, and Rock from the 70s and 80s. To check out our new online store, visit www.gemm.com, select "advanced search," go to "seller," and type in "javamusic." This should bring up a list of our available items.

Although we plan to continue to sell books on Ebay, soon we will have our complete inventory posted on another website, the American Book Exchange. Located at www.abe.com, the American Book Exchange works in a similar fashion as www.gemm.com, but offers space, instead, for booksellers to post their inventories for sale. Our inventory is an eclectic one that will offer a wide selection of fiction and non-fiction items. Among the hundreds of books we plan to offer, many are First Editions and others have been signed by the author.

We hope you will browse our online selections soon.

Froggie's Friday Book Review - "The People of Shrock, Mississippi - 1895 - 1922"

Duncan C. Covington's book entitled "The People of Shrock, Mississippi 1895 - 1922" as seen by writers of local newspapers, is a compilation of Covington family history information and community news. The book was published privately in College Station, Texas, in soft cover form. Duncan graciously provided me with my own personal copy of his book, and I have been amazed with the plethora of information about Attala County people and events contained within its 273 pages.

Included in the book are transcriptions of local newspaper articles about families who lived in or near the Shrock community between 1895 and 1922. These newsy articles chronicle significant events in the daily lives of the residents of this early Attala County community and provide information about birthdays, engagements, marriages, and deaths. Various community events are chronicled, as well, and allow the reader a microscopic look at the social and economic life in Attala County around the turn of the twentieth century and continuing on into pre-depression years.

Also included in his book is a history of Duncan's own Covington family, told in story and in photographs. While many of the wonderful, old photographs are copies made from originals, some were made from glass negatives owned by the Covington family and included in the family's extensive collection of family documents and memorabilia. The book's 49-page index contains a list of "the people of Shrock" named in the publication and is a treasure trove of information for family history researchers.

In summary, if you are searching for information about your ancestors who lived or passed through Attala County, Mississippi between 1895 and 1922, I highly recommend Duncan's book as an important addition to your genealogy toolbox. In keeping with his reputation of being a dedicated Attala County native son, Duncan has donated a copy of "The People of Shrock - 1895 - 1922" to the Attala County Library in Kosciusko, Mississippi, part of the Mid-Mississippi Regional Library System Library, where it can be found in the genealogy research room.

"Who Do You Think You Are?"

No, I am not reminiscing about the pop tune with a similar line or am I trying to be, as my dear mother would say, "smart." It's the name of the new genealogy reality show scheduled to air on April 20th on NBC, back-to-back with Dancing With The Stars, which appears on another network.

The show, a take-off on a successful BBC show, will be produced by Lisa Kudrow, of Friends fame, and her production company, Is or Isn't Entertainment. The family trees of Kudrow, who is said to have Polish ancestry, along with actresses Susan Sarandon and Sarah Jessica Parker, will be the subjects of the first show of the series. Subsequent airings, I understand, will feature the ancestries of other celebrities. Although genealogy research has come into its own and has grown in popularity by leaps and bounds during the past decade or more, this show will almost certainly peak the interest of many new family history researchers. You can read more about the show here.