One of my takeaways from RootsTech last week was how much one can learn about one’s ancestors by digging deep into the records. I learned techniques for how to use historical maps, military records and tax records to learn more about my ancestors. I can’t wait to dig in.
And that got me thinking: Do I want to learn more about my ancestors or learn about more ancestors? It’s a bit of a quandary. I find myself really excited every time I break into another generation on my tree. I’m anxious to try to verify my initial findings (using unverified sources), for example, that I descend from the Mayflower. I can’t do that if I’m still working in the 19th century.
But I realize that I want to know more about my ancestors than their dates of birth, marriage and death. I’d like to know how they lived, why they migrated, what their military experiences were like, among other things. And that’s going to require locating multiple sources about each ancestor and resisting the temptation to just climb the family tree.
I’m a big fan of spreadsheets and checklists, so I think I’m going to create a checklist of categories of sources to try to find on each ancestor before moving to another. This will also help me when I come back to an ancestor.
I can’t wait to see what I learn!
Photo by Juanjo+Willow via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.
Hello Janine,
I faced a bit of a dilemma a short while back when I asked myself the question “Am I researching a family tree or a family history?” I actually had to sit back and think about this for a bit, and it had a profound affect on how I approached my research.
My initial goal was to dig back as far as I can to find the “original” Amos Bannister in my family tree, but as I was doing my research I was finding so many little stories – newspaper articles, book excerpts, legal documents, etc – and I was becoming more and more interested in these stories. I realised that these snippets were putting the flesh on the bones of my family tree.
There have been a number of interesting pieces of information that I would like to get to the bottom of: why did my great-great-grandfather George Amos come to Australia? Why did his cousin, Raingill, come to Australia and why did it take 10 years for Raingill’s will to go into probate? Just who was the Amos Bannister who was crushed to death by a wagon in 1782? I know he was an apprentice to an ancestor of mine, but I cannot find where he came from. I cannot be satisfied by simply collecting a bunch of dates – the more I find out about causes of death, the more I want to find about how they lived.
Before the Genealogy Do-Over became a thing, I had already decided to re-do my own tree and I spent a couple months (re-)learning how to do “proper” (okay, “better”) research so I can be more confident about the conclusions I make. One takeaway from the Genealogical Proof Standard was that we should perform a reasonably exhaustive search. To me that means utilising all the available resources at my disposal, which means I am naturally going to be exposed to stories from a wide variety of sources. Focussing on on just the dates of vital events is like throwing out the baby with the bathwater – so much valuable and interesting material is out there and we owe it to ourselves and future generations to record what we find. Our ancestors are more than just their birth, marriage and death dates – they had rich and varied lives. I know I can’t ignore a great story and I am finding so many of them in my travel back through my ancestors’ lives!
Sure, I still want to find the original Amos Bannister, but I also want to know how I got here from there and the stories I am finding are very interesting indeed!
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Amos Bannister
Amos, thank you so much for your thoughtful and interesting reply. That’s a wonderfully convincing argument for not just climbing the tree! I appreciate your sharing it. Best of luck with those stories!
Janine,
I want to let you know that your blog post is listed in today’s Fab Finds post at http://janasgenealogyandfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2015/02/follow-friday-fab-finds-for-february-20.html
Have a great weekend!
Jana, thank you so much! I’m always thrilled when one of my blog posts makes your Fabulous Finds list!
Hello Janine,
Thanks for a thought-provoking post. I would be interested to see your checklist when you finish it, if you are willing to post it on your “Printables” page. After almost 30 years of genealogy research, I have developed something of a system (not on paper), but it is mostly based on what I find first, and when I hit a wall with one ancestor, I usually move to another, coming back to the initial “wall” ancestor after shifting gears a bit. This works well for me, but I would like to become a bit more organized and systematic and leave a “trail” of the research process.
Cordially,
Chris
Chris, thank you for your comment. It sounds like your process works for you, but it’s always great to be more organized and systematic. I hadn’t thought about creating a printable of the checklist I come up with (which I haven’t had time to create yet), but I’ll plan to do that. Thanks for the suggestion!
Hi Janine! This article and the comments couldn’t be more inspirational to me! I began climbing my tree a long time ago but I’ve stayed for the stories! But I would very much love to be as organized and methodical as you seem to be! I loved what Amos wrote and agree 100% with both he and Chris. I would also love to see your checklist of categories! And thank YOU for so many wonderful ideas!!!
Love, Rochelle
Rochelle, thank you for your sweet comment. I’m so glad you find the blog inspirational! I’ll work on putting my checklist into a form that’s easy to use on the website.