For this post I thought I would mix it up a bit and have a guest post. When I asked my friend Elizabeth Swanay O'Neal for some hints or tips for my last post she went over and above...So I decided her note to me was too good not to share. I hope you agree. (PS. I love her sense of humor...you'll see what I mean.)
May I present:
Elizabeth Swanay O'Neal
See that… up there on the
wall? That’s my certificate from the Genealogical School of Hard Knocks. The
genealogy bug first bit me about 25 years ago, and if I’d known then what I
know now… I would have done just about everything differently.
Back in the day, there was no
Ancestry.com, no Google, no email, no internet… heck, hardly anyone even had a
computer. Need a death certificate? You actually had to write a letter and MAIL
it, and then wait and wait and wait for a response. Or, you had to leave your
house and drive to a library or your local National Archives branch to get the
record you wanted, and there was no guarantee that you would find it. Cranking
through reel after reel of Soundex cards and census records still might not
score a hit on Grandpa Fred’s family.
It was exhausting.
But eventually, I did get my
first computer, and I thought I was pretty cool beans entering data into the
PAF 1.0 database on my spiffy DOS machine. Forget about sources; it was all
about THE NAMES. I was confident that I would always remember where I found everything, and who had time to write it
down anyway? Seriously, I know what I’m doing. Leave me alone. And why is Aunt
Josephine bugging me with those BORING stories about when she was a girl? I’m much
too busy for that!
Times have changed, thank
goodness. Now you can look for Grandpa Fred from behind your computer in your
pajamas and curlers. But the basics of genealogical research have not changed
all that much. Here are a few bits of advice that I would give to my 20-something-year-old
self – after I finished slapping her silly – upon beginning her genealogical
quest:
Write it down. Your
database says that Grandpa Fred is the son of Frank and Mary Smith. But how do
you know that? Did you read it in a
book? Did Aunt Josephine tell you? Did you see it on Grandpa Fred’s birth
certificate? Even if you copied it off someone’s unsourced Ancestry.com family tree,
write it down! Don’t worry about writing perfect Evidence Explained source citations. Just leave yourself enough
bread crumbs to find your way back. Trust me; in 25 years you will NOT remember
what you ate for breakfast, much less where that piece of information came
from, and you will tear your hair out trying to retrace your steps. Here, let
me show you my bald spots…
Socialize. When
I attended my first genealogical society meeting about 20 years ago, most of
the members looked at me as if I were a space alien. Granted, I was by far the
youngest person in the room, but I was made to feel most uncomfortable, not to
mention ignorant. I attended a few more meetings, and then finally gave up. But
times have changed, and this attitude is not
prevalent among the majority of genealogical societies. Ok, so the thought of a
room full of Aunt Josephines might be daunting, but venture out and meet your
local gen soc anyway. If you find that one group isn’t for you, visit another.
You will eventually find “your people,” and the camaraderie and opportunities
for learning will be worth the effort. You might even meet a cousin or two.
Don’t be afraid of the old folks. Aunt Josephine might look scary, but odds are that
she’d love a good chat. Ask her to tell you what life was like when she was a
girl, and she’ll probably open up like a book. Be sure to bring along your
camcorder, audio recorder, iPhone, or some sort of recording device so you can
capture her memories for later transcribing. If she’s a good story-teller, you
may find yourself much to rapt for note-taking. And if she’s not a good
story-teller, well, you’ll have the audio to listen to later in case you nod
off. Oh, and don’t dawdle. Aunt Josephine is advancing in years, and may not be
around tomorrow to tell you where her grandparents came from… or may not be in
a condition to remember. If you don’t do it now, you’ll wish you had. I sure
wish I had.
So, there you go. I hope you
are able to benefit from my early genealogical mistakes and bad judgment. Trust
me: the Genealogical School of Hard Knocks is much less enjoyable than the NGS
Home Study Course.
