Lights, Camera, Action

The other day I was watching this webinar on Ancestry.com (they have great videos on genealogy) and I got some amazing tips but two really stood out and I wanted to share them here.



The first one was "don't get on the internet to quickly". My father also found this one helpful but mostly because it made him feel as if he had done his genealogy right. See it was years before he got on a computer to look but as he admitted most of that had to do with not understanding how to get on a computer.



I liked this one because it reminded me of what I had said a little here. That you need to speak to your relatives first to get all the information that you can. First because they are your best resource for living history and second because they probably know things you don't. But one of the best reasons is because right now if you are looking for information on anyone living past 1930 then they are almost all that you have.



The 1940 census won't be out until 2012 and you can always and should always go down to obtain court records for your immediate family but without dates, full names, and city's where they were born, lived or died then you still won't get very far and who do you think knows those things? However, don't take everything as hard facts. This leads into another tip that I had forgotten until now;"Don't take everything your family says as gospel". Not that your family would lie to you. More that they might be telling you what someone told them and that person might not have been sure. This is expecially true with African-American history. If someone was born during salvary your ancestors could have had everything wrong from the date of birth to the place. Records weren't kept even by the individual.



The best tip that I believe he shared was to "Record your interviews with your relatives". This was one that I hadn't thought of but as he said it I thought back to how great it would be to have a recording of my great grandmother telling her life and the lives of our family. That would top "Roots" and almost any other movie that thought to tell the history of our country or it's families. Think of those closest to you and those that you might not talk to all the time. How would you feel if something happened to them and the knowledge that they had was lost forever? But how would you feel if you not only had interviewed them but had a tape recording or video recording of them sharing all that they could about life and history, theirs and your family. I have lost many family members way to soon and I tell you if I had tapes of them somewhere speaking or a video that showed their personality as well as their life I would treasure them.



So that is my biggest tip that I can share and it wasn't even mine. Don't just interview your family; record them. You'll be glad you did. I know I will just as soon as I get a video camera :).




Ps. The webinar was called "Avoiding Traps of African-American Genealogy"(the photo is from there). It's with Tony Burroughs who is a well known genealogist and the author of "Black Roots: A Beginner's Guide To Tracing The African-American Family Tree". It is free as is all their webinars and you don't have to be a member to see them. They quite a few and I suggest you watch/listen to a few of them. The link is here for the webinars and here for Tony Burroughs website. He has some great videos that you can see as well as other helpful information.

Tools Of The Trade

I am a photographer and when going out to take pictures there is no way that I would leave without my camera, batteries, and flash card. Genealogy is the same way. Once you really get started there are things you find that you must have with you whenever you are doing research. They are simple things and you probably have them around your house but they aren't always the things that you would think that you need.

1. NOTEBOOK: Once you start interviewing people you are going to be getting information left and right and you are going to need something to keep all that information in. A notebook is the easiest option. A lot of websites will recommend a tape recorder and that too can come in handy but you still are going to want to take notes and that is where paper becomes your friend. Plus with a notebook all the information is right there so when you start looking other places than your family you have what you need at your fingertips.
2. PENCIL: This was a lesson learned for me. I have a slight pen addiction and I go nowhere with out at least three or five pens with me ranging in color, tip and usefulness. But after scratching out seven or eight pages worth of information and writing over top of what I already thought I had it became somewhat insane. Therefore, I recommend a pencil. You have a eraser if you get it wrong and if you still feel the need to scratch out anything it's not going through to the next page.
3. CALCULATOR: This one you probably never thought about but trust me it is needed. When you run across a 1920 census where your relative is 27 and you are trying to calculate back to get an approximate date of birth you will thank me for this. Yes, we all took math and we can all add and subtract in our heads but at midnight why would you want to? And you will be up at midnight or later if you really get into it.
4. FILE FOLDERS: There will be copies, printouts, and faxed pages as you go along and keeping them organized is important. You don't want to be looking for grandpa Peterson and find that you have put all your information on him in the file for grandma Thomas. You'll end up starting all over when you already have everything you need. This will drive you crazy and almost get you to stop.
5. LAPTOP: Okay this one is a luxury but if you can manage then I would recommend it. If you start going out of town and to libraries to research the last thing you are going to want is to be waiting to use their computers if you don't have to. Not to mention that there are a number of softwares out there that will help with you put together your family tree and you might want to have that close by. It isn't a necessity but it will help.

There are other odds and ends but those are the ones that I fully recommend. Like I said they are simple but very important and like my camera; I wouldn't leave home without them.

Just The Facts Ma'am

We have all watched a cop show at one point in our lives. If you haven't then what planet have you been living on? Just kidding. My point is that we all know about how they bring them in and sit them in the chair. They make small talk to get them comfortable or no talk at all to freak them out. They start off with the easy questions before they drop the bombshells on them and try to get the confession or the evidence that they need. Well, preparing to interview a relative is something similar.

See every family has someone who loves to talk. In my family that would be me :). But I'm not the only one. There are some people in my family that if you walked in and asked "Tell me about you parents?" you would get two hours worth of stories and nothing that helps your cause. They would tell you about their parents marriage and family trips and moms temper and dad's love of fishing. They would share about anniversaries and conversations and you would leave knowing them better as a person but with no real facts to follow up on. That is why you have to go in with a plan.

You have to know what you want to get out of them. You might be able to get the whole confession out of them or just evidence to lead you to the real culprit. What I mean by that is that this person might not be the one with the most family secrets but they might know who to ask without knowing it. However, if you just go in with simple open ended questions then you will never know.

There are dozens of websites out there that have list of questions that are good for interviewing relatives and I would recommend them all. They all have questions that overlap and those that are different but at the end of the day they all have questions that can help you. You more or less won't use ever question. Pick and choose which ones will work the best for you and what you want to figure out. I recommend questions about maiden names, full names, places of birth, anything with a date, children's names, and any moves to different states. Those will be life savers once your really get started.

You also what to make sure you have enough time to get all the information. Don't go when you have to pick up your kids in half an hour or when your on your lunch break. Conduct your interviews when you have time to spare. A Saturday when the kids are gone with friends or away at camp. Your day off when everyone else is busy. And please learn from my mistake. Holidays and family get togethers are not the best place either. With holidays everyone has their minds elsewhere. They are thinking about the food and gifts and enjoying the party or even football. They can't give you the focus that you will need. And with family get togethers it's to much. You know that saying "to many cooks spoil the meal"? Same thing. One person will start to answer your question and then someone else will jump in with their version of it and by the end you have one relative with six birth years and four different names. It's better to speak to each person individually that way even if you still end up with multiple information you know that it wasn't because they all thought they knew better but because that is what they were all told.

Interviewing can be tricky and there really is no right or wrong to it. When it is all said and done it is just about getting the information you need. If you accomplished that then you are way ahead of the game.

Roadmap

When you decide to drive to a city or state that you have never been what is the first thing you do? Besides google :). You pull out a map. You figure out the best route to take and how long it might take you. You look for detours and construction and then you set off for the journey ahead. Well I've come to realize that genealogy is sort of exactly like that. You have to have a road map and that road map is you.

You are the key. You know where your going in way and you know the pitstops. Think about it for a minute. You know if there might be something a little unseemly in your families past and you actually know more then you might think. So that is where you start. Sit down and interview yourself. Ask yourself these simple questions.

• How many relatives can I name?
• Where where my parents born? Grandparents? Great-grandparents and so on?
• What stories do I remember hearing?
• What kind of information do I already have? ie. funeral programs, pictures, certificates
• What information can I find? ie. court records, documents
• If someone else asked me where to start or who to talk to first where woud I send them?

That last question might be the best one of the list. Most do as I did. They start with their parents because we assume they know but most of the time they know about as much as we do. When you really sit and think about it who knows the most? If I had started with my great grandmother who was alive when I was in college then I might have more names then I do now. She could have possibly told me her grandparents names and their parents and maybe even their parents. She might have remembered last names that are harder to find now or actual names instead of nicknames that had been passed down from generation to generation. There was a fount of knowledge at my fingertips and I didn't take advantage of it. Sure I asked her a few questions but nothing like I would ask her if given the chance again.

So set out with a good roadmap and then move on to the next step. Talk to those you can while you can. For they are your window to the past.