Genealogy: The Key Steps of Discovering Your Family and The Crest Legacy

– Mary Shirkey-Bishop, Packwood, Iowa

The elementary years had some interesting assignments that required conversations with our parents and grandparents that stirred the curiosity of family history and questions of past generations. Depending on the requirements of the assignment, the assignment goal involved creating a family tree of generations of names and birthdates from both sets of parents. The generation look back could be as far back as great-great grandparents. For a person who likes to research information in depth and play the detective role, family genealogy can be a journey of discovering family roots and so much about yourself. So the next question in the process is,” Where do I begin?” There are useful tips to get started on this research assignment. The thing to keep in mind is you don’t need to be a history professor or have a history degree to pursue this interest. What makes curiosity work is the willingness and motivation to learn something new with an open mind.

Any project required a thought out plan to achieve the goal. The steps should have a logic flow to keep the project organized and focused.

Decide exactly what you want to learn about your family. Most of the time when we reminisce about a particular family member, it leads to more questions. It could be for an example, your great-grandmother spoke no English upon her arrival to the United States. Your grandmother had to learn a whole new language to communicate to other family members. The challenges, feelings, and emotions by both family members felt raises the curiosity question of,” What country did they have to leave?” A clear defined research goal and developing the the plan leads to a productive outcome. Begin the research path to discovery with the person, you, yourself and then work backwards to generations. Instead of wanting to know about the unknown, you must start with what is already the known.

Explore what you have already have seen or heard about from family members. When interviewing family members about the same topic and details of that topic, sometimes there are variations to that detail. As generations age, bits and pieces may not be the same version. Family photos, cards, journals, letters, and heirlooms in a family hope chest are all vital tools that are the priceless piece of the family puzzle. Dates may not always be wrote on family photos and generations of grandparents may not have their photos taken in color. The photo itself can give valuable clues and some idea of the history dates such as the hair styles, clothing attire and trends, furniture, and posing style of the family member. A good detective writes down notes so when conducting research, you have an accurate comparison Everyone has their own style of note taking. The successful note taker uses color codes such as highlighters, legible hand writing, and short hand abbreviations.

Start doing the solid research. Now we all remember the research paper. Before the step is really discussed, what sites are good to be valid resources.

There are 4 top sites that provide genealogy tools.

• www.ancestry.com: This is the best one overall. The site contains 40 billion records that has an advantage to include family tree profiles and other submitted content. There is a fee for using the site.
• www.myheritage.com: This site does offer a free trial for so many days. The advantage it does display some fun features about family genealogy.
• www.findmypast.com: This is another site that is a free trial for so many days. This particular site focuses on Irish and British research.
• www.familysearch.com: This site contains 16.8 billion records in the form of searchable names or browse only and images from old records. This site is completely free and no trial period.

Each site has their own distinguished features that meet the need of our research. The family researcher/historian may use a combination of them depending on where the research begins and how the flow is proceeding. Think of this research as if writing a term paper that you have to give a short presentation. You are researching a valuable topic that sparks interest to others, your family. As you work backwards, it is okay to create more questions. As you dig deeper into the research, you will be utilizing more resources. Those resources help you find information that support evidence for your research question. A good rule of thumb is creating a research report or spreadsheet to track the notes, sources, and record information. Another resource avenue to information is the county courthouse with records on vital statistics and genealogy. Visiting cemeteries can be thinking outside the box moment. The general overall appearance and condition and where the location of the grave stone indicates a period of time of our ancestors. It is a blast of our past that can confirm interviews in the research process. Data collections can be in the form of images that are photocopied, hand written, or typed copies. Just like the research paper we cite our resources and include that information in a research log for credibility.

After researching the information to our original question, we analyze and correlate our findings. Questions to consider are; Is this relevant to my expectations? Do I need to do more valid research using different resources? Were my hypothesis correct to the original goal? This is the point in the research process to review any missing gaps. Was my notetaking rushed? Is my style not concise enough? Do I need to ask more questions with the family member I interviewed? Does my rough draft outline have a flow to produce the final results of the research goal? Once these questions are resolved, resources are valid, and format structured, the family genealogy product can be transformed into a family treasure.

Another part of the family history that sparks interest is the family crest or coats of armor as some would call. When we hear stories, family characteristic traits are communicated and expressed. The crest represents the heritage and lineage of a family surname. The elements in the crest work together to represent what makes the family so distinguished from another family. The design element provides strong insight to the family legacy.

Sharing with family and loved ones-this is the fun part. The research is complete, the format edited, and puzzle pieces fit together for the design for family to view the final work. The completed works of the family genealogy can be shared in different formats. A typed book placed in a protective binder with protective sheet covers preserves the sheets of paper. It is always wise to store any photos, documents on a software program that has the capability to scan all files. Have a separate file for just the genealogy research. Some may wish to preserve heirlooms in an organized spot in the home. Flash drives are useful when it come to sharing photos. A genealogy book makes a great and creative Christmas gift for future generations to have readily available of discovering the family history and legacy. After putting it all together, the end result is giving yourself a pat on the back for researching a time consuming project. In the end, the connection of family brings clarity, appreciation, and a sense of pride to roots of the past, present, and future. The past is our future and memories should never be forgotten.