Genealogy: a Relevant Topic? by Hanna Kraft
Genealogy: a Relevant Topic?
Brief is the list of universal commonalities among the human race. President Reagan found one when he observed that “everyone who is for abortion has already been born.” Having “been born” is one shared experience that spreads wider than those of a single political persuasion; and if you have been born, I can guarantee you to possess a family history. Family history: the crux of genealogy.
Chances are, you know something about your family. You probably even enjoy discussing facts about your family, even if they (the facts) reach only to the recent generations of your grandparents or parents. Congratulations! You are already dealing with the material vital to a genealogist’s work.
True, every subject, hobby, or skillset attracts a limited set of readers—that’s only natural in a world filled with such diversity. But do you have a father and mother? A surname that hails from your forbears? Facial features and inherited traits that cause someone to ask you and your siblings, “Are you related”? If you answer “yes” to these questions, the field of genealogy relates directly to you.
True also, some people may live their whole lives without knowing the names of their great-great-grandparents, which life they live just as successfully and fulfilled as those who have found every ancestor back to the 17th century. Yet, though we should wisely heed Paul’s admonition to “avoid foolish disputes, genealogies …” (Titus 3:9), we also should, according to God’s Word, remember our origins. “I will utter … things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us,” begins Psalm 78. Not because of our great stature, but because of “the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.” (Psalm 78:4) Scripture teems with other passages urging us to remember—remember the past, where we were, and remember what God did for us, and where we’d be had He not delivered us from death. The study of our heritage is merely one way of discovering, and preserving in memory, how God worked in previous generations.
Stories of redemption, resiliency, boldness, and success despite the odds tend to bolster the human spirit. These stories litter the genealogical record, and though they occurred in history, they remain real enough for us to relate to today. Each of our family history stories are unique—that’s the beauty of never-ending research—but it is this very uniqueness that brings us together as the human race.
You don’t need to trace your lineage back to Adam and Eve to learn more about you and what God has done in the lives of your relatives. Won’t you join me in this genealogy hunt?
Have You Used These Four Websites for Your Genealogical Research?
Ask a genealogist what resources he uses for research, and he’ll likely give you the usual, such as county courthouses and local libraries. Those with Internet surfing skills will probably mention the one-stop genealogical sites of Ancestry, MyHeritage, or FamilySearch, which exemplify the increasing advantage of 21st-century technology.
Such genealogy-dedicated sites prove their worth to any genealogist, beginner or advanced. But solving a genealogical mystery oftentimes requires thinking outside the box, and that requires outside-the-box resources. Here are a few online resources that may help you with your project, no matter how odd they may seem to others:
1) Classmates
A site primarily dedicated to reconnecting old high school classmates, this website offers digital viewings of its collection of yearbooks back to the 1800s. With yearbooks, one can find an ancestor—often including a picture—and deduce an age or year of graduation from high school. Some yearbooks may include employment information of past graduates, and in case of high school romances, you may even be able to pinpoint an ancestor’s spouse! It pays to browse through a local yearbook.
2) Bureau of Land Management GLO Records
Don’t get scared by the BLM acronym; this government site holds digital images of early land patents primarily of Midwestern states, as well as a “land catalog” that lets you pinpoint an exact location of the land described in the surveying terms of Range, Township, and Section often used in land deeds.
Patents list the grantee’s current residence as well as the land’s location, which when not the same, can reveal much in a genealogical search.
This site boasts of providing etymological details of all names. Should you wonder from where an ancestor’s foreign-sounding name comes, Behind the Name will tell you its ethnic origin, so you can narrow down possible countries of origin for your ancestor. Behind the Name’s sister site, Surnames.BehindtheName.com, provides the same for surnames, much like Ancestry’s “Last Name Meaning” feature.
The very name suggests a collection of potentially valuable records, and “a collection” is exactly what you’ll find on Internet Archive’s extensive site. From digitized county histories or other books full of historical gems to New York birth indexes and various other record collections, if you can’t find a resource elsewhere—at least without paying a subscription—you do well to check Internet Archive. Census records, newspapers, and some yearbooks are also on Internet Archive. Think outside the box—you never know what you might find in a vast collection of digital archives.
The above websites won’t provide complete pedigrees of your ancestry or reveal all your DNA matches, but they will add to the story of your ancestors’ lives and provide clues to how your research should progress. Never dismiss an opportunity to discover historical information, no matter how insignificant it might seem.
Genealogy Query Column
Dear Expert Genealogist,
My ancestor James Herrick, born James Van Dycke (Dyke), was adopted as a two-year-old boy in 1918 in Montgomery County, New York, having been born in Sharon Springs (in neighboring Schoharie County) and being the charge of Schenectady County’s Superintendent of the Poor. He was the child of William Van Dycke and Ruby Shufelt, and searches of census records have revealed the parents every five years from 1905 to 1930 (excepting the 1925 NY state census), which included several other children, many of whom were inexplicably absent in one census record or another. My ancestor James himself never appeared in a Van Dyke census schedule, nor did his twin sister Edna. Besides census records, which I’ve tried to search exhaustively, how can I find any information about the biological siblings of James Van Dyke? I suspect my ancestor was not the only one adopted out to another family.
Sincerely,
Questioner
Dear Questioner,
Adoption records are difficult to obtain, the more so when the researcher is not a direct descendant. For children not adopted, a birth certificate will be on file for the town of birth, but for those who were adopted, other records will need to be tracked down. Poorhouses in New York State were not allowed to house young children, thereby motivating superintendents to place them with families (the ideal option), or in asylums or care agencies. Consider contacting Northern Rivers Family Services, which is a current combination of agencies founded in the 1800s in Albany and Schenectady Counties, and serves dozens of counties in eastern New York.
Search the New York death index, especially for male siblings (whose last name would stay constant even if they married). You can also look for record of a grave, obituary, and other death-specific information which can provide names of family members to contact. And never be unwilling to return to census records when you uncover new information!
~Expert Genealogist
Dear Expert Genealogist,
I have three records, each of which provide a different maiden name for my ancestor: Anna Salsburg (transcribed from the Cobleskill Index newspaper, death notice 12 June 1930 on Find A Grave Memorial page); Anna Salsbury (16 June 1930 newspaper death notice in the Schenectady Gazette newspaper); and Anna Sornburger (1914 marriage record of her daughter Rhoba Shufelt). How do I find her correct maiden name spelling?
Sincerely,
Confused Questioner
Dear Confused,
This problem is solved by finding more records for Anna and her family. Check the census records, even the ones where she bore a married name, in order to track her location through the years and make sure you have the right person. Find Anna’s marriage record, as well as any of her other’s children’s marriage records. These should list her maiden name.
With a multitude of records, the correct surname—even if there are slight variations—will probably present itself.
~Expert Genealogist