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.
   

Mocavo Plus - A Review

Several weeks ago, I was contacted by Katelyn Lazor, Marketing Associate for Mocavo.com.  As part of her community outreach efforts to promote the site, Katelyn offered me a subscription in exchange for writing a review on this blog about my experience in using Mocavo Plus. Although it has taken me a few weeks to write this review, I was not a total stranger to the site before Katelyn and I communicated.  I began following Mocavo on Twitter almost a year ago and had visited the site a number of times during its early development.   My recent visits to the site do allow me to make a positive observation that Mocavo Plus is an excellent place for linking researchers and for sharing information. And it is free. But the Advanced Search function, which seems to be the hallmark of Mocavo Plus, is limited in that a researcher must know the exact date of the life event(s) entered. While my own use of the Advanced Search feature was successful, the resulting information consisted primarily of links to my own blog posts. Overall, the site is a great resource for novice family researchers.  But more experienced researchers who need actual documentation, whether it is census record information or birth, marriage, military or death records, likely will use the site as simply a stepping stone on their genealogical journey. 

Google Analytics for 2010

Last year was a great year for genea-bloggers and for family history research in general.  Right now, it seems that genealogy is a hot topic everywhere you turn.  Not only is it the subject of several television shows, but family research capabilities are constantly being expanded with an increasing number of new and improved online databases and high tech devices that make successful research faster and easier than ever before. Family history research is no longer "just a hobby," it is becoming an industry itself.  And it is this increased interest in searching for one's roots that caused the readership of my blogs to reach an all-time high this past year, with over sixteen thousand visits recorded. According to Google Analytics, about three fourths of those who landed on my blogs were searching the web for specific names and locations for their own ancestors. And it still amazing to me to see where these visitors originate. Although a majority of the visitors to my blogs reside in the continental United States, others live throughout the world, including Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Canada, Russia, Netherlands, France, Ukraine, and Australia.  I am both humbled and pleased to think that some of these visitors may have found something on one of my blogs that helped them in their own family research.  

"Who Do You Think You Are?" - A Second Season

Now that genealogy research is hot, cable and network television have decided to air shows that appeal to family researchers everywhere.  Just in case you watched any of the six episodes of "Who Do You Think You are?" that aired on NBC last spring (and enjoyed them, as I did), a second season is in the works. 

Late last week, I received a copy of a press release (reprinted below) that announces how NBC and Ancestry.com have teamed up to produce the new show this fall.

PROVO, Utah, August 25, 2010– Ancestry.com is pleased to announce it has extended its relationship with NBC for the second season of the “Who Do You Think You Are?” television series. Ancestry.com worked with NBC on the first season of “Who Do You Think You Are?” that debuted in March 2010. The company provided important family history research for the show, including tracing the roots of the seven celebrities featured, and collaborated with NBC to promote the series. Each episode took one celebrity on an emotional, and often times soul-searching journey to discover the lives of family members who came before them. “It is remarkable to work on this series with the leader in the online family history category, Ancestry.com,” said Paul Telegdy, Executive Vice President of Alternative Programming & Production at NBC Universal. “A show of this caliber takes a lot of research and ground work to make the celebrities stories come to life. With the valued collaboration of Ancestry.com, we’ve been able to tell seven amazing stories in the first season, and look forward to even greater family history discoveries to be uncovered in season two.”

 “We are excited to continue working with NBC on this series,” said Josh Hanna, Executive Vice President and Head of Global Marketing for Ancestry.com. “The first season of the show has truly elevated awareness around the family history category and we couldn’t be more pleased to be an integral part of a television series that brings excitement to the discoveries people can make when researching their ancestral roots.”

“Who Do You Think You Are?” is produced by Wall to Wall Entertainment in collaboration with Lisa Kudrow and Dan Bucatinsky for their production company, Is or Isn’t Entertainment. NBC has announced the show will air in the 2010-11 season.

About Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com Inc. (Nasdaq: ACOM) is the world's largest online family history resource, with more than one million paying subscribers. More than 5 billion records have been added to the site in the past 13 years. Ancestry users have created more than 18 million family trees containing over 1.8 billion profiles. Ancestry.com has local Web sites directed at nine countries, including its flagship Web site at www.ancestry.com.

Did You Watch "Who Do You Think You Are?"

Yes, I did watch the show when it aired last Friday evening on NBC, and I plan to watch additional episodes that will air during the next few weeks. I thought the search for Sarah Jessica Parker's ancestors was an amazing one.

The show, I am certain, will draw others into the search for their own roots.

While I watched Sara Jessica Parker's coast-to-coast search for details about family members she had never known, the following quote came to mind:

In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep, to know our heritage--

to know who we are and where we came from.

Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning.

No matter what our attainments in life,

there is still a vacuum, an emptiness,

and the most disquieting loneliness.

-Alex Haley

Are You "Genealogy Wise?"

A new social networking website is up and running - its name is GENEALOGY WISE. When I began this post, the site already had 4,375 members! Family history researchers, genealogists, and others who have just started the process of uncovering their family's "roots," are flocking to this new website. When a new member signs up and creates a profile, the individual is asked to list the surnames they are researching, a feature that will certainly facilitate distance-sharing of data about common ancestors.

I can already see the genealogical handwriting on the wall: this site will make all of us who research, compile, and blog about our families' histories more "genealogy wise."