I apologize for not keeping up with my previous break-neck pace. I've been working on a couple of other urgent projects. One of which was to put together my new computer. The other is to get to grips with my family tree (some of which was being held hostage on a hard drive the past two years, now installed on my new computer!) If you've ever spent time on your family tree, you will know how much of a rabbit hold genealogy can be!
My church embarked on a great project - to put together the family trees of everyone they could. The purpose was so that we can invite personally, every member of our families into our spiritual family as well. (Believing that the spirit does not die with death - and still has the power to accept or reject salvation and our invitation to our eternal families.) You don't have to agree with LDS theology at all, but there are other reasons to work on your family history.
Knowing more about where you came from helps you to understand who you are.
My grandfather was known for his tomato and cucumber salads. (I have no memory of them myself...) My mother (a dietitian) always found them odd for his well-known German heritage. In her experience, these salads are more indicative of Eastern European lineage. Then, my dad discovered that my grandfather had a grandmother who was from Lithuania! He was a whole quarter Lithuanian! At last, the pieces came together and we understood where those tomato and cucumber salads came from!
Knowing your genealogy helps you to have empathy for the situations of other countries.
Huge parts of my family came from Scandinavia where they were having some very difficult times in the 1800s. Many families decided to leave or send just one member to the promised land... There are current TV shows in Norway, Sweden and Denmark talking about this saga and reuniting some members of the families back to Scandinavia. Showing each one just how Scandinavian they really are!
Knowing your family history can help you have a better understanding of history.
Suddenly, you have real honest ties into your mother countries and a reason to know what they were going through at the time. Stories that have persisted through the years. We have one where the family suffered the horrors of an Indian raid. (I am not discussing any probable motivations - just the story we've heard.) A baby was hidden under an overturned bathtub... the baby cried, was discovered and dashed against the side of the wall and killed. I love American Indians, but they weren't always peace-loving - and maybe this particular group did have sufficient cause to mount an attack. I won't know unless I manage to uncover more about what happened. But I do have a better understanding of the terror my ancestors went through.
Learning about your ancestors can help plug you into a wider world.
Knowing that you're related to presidents or princes or inventors/poets (the list goes on and on) can help you feel like you are part of a bigger picture. On one great-grandmother's side, we are related to many people in the political circles, many other big names... Presidents, recent candidates, current senators, the British royals, a cereal magnate, the founder of a store chain... all these show up in my family. Now, none of these famous people even know me! Which brings me to the next point.
Learning your family tree can cure you of arrogance.
Sure, I'm related to a famous princess, but so are the members of at least 5000 other surnames!!! Our common ancestor died over 350 years ago! Genetically speaking we have almost nothing in common over the 12 generations of separation.
So, why bother if you're not LDS?
Genealogy still makes a great family project. Untangling all the threads of people coming across the Atlantic on ships is very satisfying. And each new generation of found information is cause for a little celebration such as one time when my father and I were scrolling through German microfilms (I do NOT read German!!!) looking for a few familiar words connected to our familiar names. Finally, about two records from the bitter end, I found what we were looking for, my great-great grandfather who had stowed away on a ship from Germany!
What next?
(Today's image is brought to you by Pixabay)
Firstly, of all the genealogy programs out there to buy or have for free, I dislike them all! I've worked with almost all of them and they tend to have very similar issues. So, don't waste your money if you can help it.
Instead, get yourself a free account on Family Search. Yes, it's run by my church, but that's not the point - after all, they are not profiting from this project. The reason I recommend this site is because they have the best tools for constructing a family tree. Once you've got names in, past living relatives anyway - they vigorously defend the living, the software will give you "hints" which you can click on to examine. Then, you can apply it directly to your tree without much ado at all. So simple!
Last week, all I had was the basic information of my family. Sure, I knew some names because of my father's work, but I didn't have access to any of it anymore. Yet, I hadn't remembered all these dates, only enough names to get past the living. Then, suddenly, I found that the hints were plugging me into other huge chunks of the family tree! Now, the LDS does not "vet" the records, but relies on the integrity of the individuals adding information to their files, so you still have to do your due diligence, and I've already found some major problems when you get earlier than the 1500s (the software can flag some of the most common errors on its own.) Still, you can get a lot of information, and when sources are attached to trees, you can look at them yourself and decide whether the family in question is really yours or not - or make alterations as necessary. Now, I have some lines going back 45 generations (still subject to scrutiny) - to a point where we are unlikely to have any closer genetic connection than any other person in Europe, but it's still fun!
(Note: I do not know how many of the tools in the software are LDS only, but I'm sure some of the basics are there for non-members. And it's sure cheaper than Ancestry, who seem to have some of the same tools.)
If you are that prejudiced against the LDS, there is WikiTree who are basically trying to "open source" genealogy and get things all into one place. I think the LDS will always be a few steps ahead of them, but it would be a good next bet to make family history research truly free and available to anyone.
That's all until next time!
PS. (AD time!)
Oh, if you don't want to do the legwork yourself - despite the fact it's not that hard - I'm partly trained in the ways of genealogists and could do your work for you. I can't do it for free though and most professionals charge quite a lot more than the $30/hour I would charge. You would get the most bang for your buck in 5 or 10 hours - generally-speaking, the further back you go, the harder it is to get another generation, though also is the point where a professional might be more helpful.
Last year, when I was dating someone, I took his name and date-of-birth, and his father's name (that's all I had - only living names - and I wasn't building trees on Family Search, either) and found 24 direct ancestors in the matter of a couple of days.
If you don't want your data online, my dad has developed these unique family history sheets which I've found to be easier to use than any computer program (with the exception of Family Search's unique smart software.) If I was working for you, I could do that instead.
Lori Aberle Hopkins – photographer at Viking Visual, author, student-of-the-world.
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Today's picture is from Pixabay.
