Tips for Finding Your Family Roots

I find I now have to do most of my research online now. I've gotten increasingly frustrated by sites that want a paid membership to look at records that used to be free. Just over the past couple of weeks, a large database of all the cemeteries in Texas has vanished. I’m hoping it comes back the way it was. I still had things to look up there.

Luckily, I stumbled on an archive site that has most of the US censuses online. The site is archive.org. Their mission is to build an internet library with permanent access to for researchers as well as the general public.

It is time consuming looking things up since you can’t just type in a name and have it pop up. You have to scroll though the pages just like in the old days when you had to scan microfilm. But it’s free and I rather like looking at pictures of the old torn pages that were all handwritten with misspelled names and all. 

Once on the site, look on the right and click on the box labeled “texts.” Then on the menu bar at the top, select “additional collections.”

About halfway down select “genealogy”.

I’m usually looking for censuses but there’s all kinds of good stuff here. I haven’t even scratched the surface.

I’m not good with paper. I have a large binder with pages stuffed in it and I can’t really find much when I need it. I have trouble figuring out how I should list people and how to connect them.

I thought about getting a genealogy program for my computer, but two things discouraged me. One is that I tend to accumulate programs and can easily fill up a hard drive. Another is, if the computer dies (I confess I don’t have a good backup yet) I’ve lost all that information

 I decided to put my history online so I could organize it and share it with my family. We’re all at some distance from each other so this way everyone could look at it. I decided to go with WeRelate.org. It’s a Wiki site and works like Wikipedia. Anyone can contribute information to the site.

Since my dad is also working on our history, he can add information as he finds it. I like the way the pages are set up with mother, father and siblings in a box on the right and spouses and children right below. A click will take you to any of those family members. It’s easy to edit a person and easy to add source citation.

I still get a little confused adding new families and sometimes end up with duplicates. I also uploaded some pictures and have yet to find out where they are.  Other than that, I’m very happy with the site and think I’ll figure out the system shortly. Being able to see relationships in a logical format makes it easier to see where I need to do some research next. Next I’ll copy some of these pages for a hard copy back up.

Another program that I'm using more and more is awesomescreenshot.com. With a click you can get a screen shot that you can edit, annotate and save either online or as a file on your computer. Files can be saved as a .png or .jpg.

A word of warning. This can be addictive.

I'm not sure why I'm so fascinated by genealogy. My dad wrote a book about his early life to pass on to his children, but I don't have children. I guess I'm doing it for myself, to see where I came from.

 More than once I've been up till midnight looking up just "one more thing!" It's like a treasure hunt and there's a sense of achievement when the pages are all updated an in order.