Ancestry Magazine

You don’t have to be man and wife to go tandem, but like Daisy and her beau, you can peddle down the road of life and get more out of your genealogical journey when you go tandem. After all, families and friends have known for years how enjoyable a tandem bike ride can be: increased pedal power, companionship, and reaching your destination all the more rapidly. When you join forces with other researchers and interested family members, you can get better and quicker results and enjoy the camaraderie at the same time.

Early in my genealogical journey I learned the power of tandem research. In 1995, I received a letter from a fellow researcher in Atlanta. She said her great-grandmother had married a man named Zuckerkandel and that in 1980 she had interviewed a gentleman, also named Zuckerkandel, in her mother’s apartment complex in southern Florida. The ir conversation turned mostly to his family who perished in the Holocaust. Since she knew from the JewishGen Family Finder that I was interested in the Zuckerkandel name, she thought maybe I would find the results of the interview helpful to my own research.

I responded with some information I had on her family and included a photo of my grandmother. A few short weeks later, she replied with a list of the family members the gentleman had discussed and a copy of a photograph of him and one of his sisters that had been taken in Europe in the mid-1930s. She could not have known just how helpful her research was to me. The gentleman she interviewed turned out to be my grandmother’s brother. The listing of names included all their siblings who were killed. Unfortunately, by the time I began tracing my heritage, he had already passed away.

Most family historians believe that there’s an obligation to give back to fellow genealogists. Sharing is an integral part of exploring our families’ past and going tandem provides the vehicle.

Steer from the Front and Back
When it comes to developing research strategies, two heads are often much better than one. Joining up with family members or other researchers can spark new ideas for information sources, documentation, and even getting past curmudgeonly relatives.

In addition, splitting up responsibilities can help you divide and conquer research. Barbara Sloan of Connecticut and her cousins in Oakland, California e-mail each other regularly as they research their mutual grandparents. She says, “They can afford some memberships that I can’t, while I have more time than they have to search the Web. We’ve had some successes, and there are still some results that are unclear, but it is great to receive the occasional unexpected letter from them full of printouts and photos from our parents’ childhoods.”

Dividing the research can also lead to more effective and efficient use of funds. A California-based family historian interested in the Zuckerkandel family shared with me that she had hired a private researcher in eastern Europe to do some onsite archival work for her. I had done the same thing with the same private researcher. It turned out that this fellow was selling us the same material. We could have saved lots of money had we known that one of us had already contracted the researcher. Sharing resources and research strategies can be critical to ensuring that you’re traveling new ground together instead of the same ground again and again.

Tandem on the Web
Promotions for tandem bicycle riding state that they are well-suited for extended, multi-day touring. In today’s environment, there’s no better destination for touring, nor an easier way to find others interested in a tandem ride, than the Internet. Message boards and mailing lists can help you find people, even family, with similar interests. In one JewishGen online discussion group message, a woman from Israel was seeking a copy of the 1947 Zaromb Journal in its original language. She only had a copy in English and she needed to see the photographs because her family was in them. My grandfather came from the Polish town of Zaromb, but I wasn’t sure what this book was. I did, however, have a copy of a memorial book for the town, called Zaromb. Could this be the same book? It was indeed. Without spending thousands of dollars to get my version translated, I received the English version from this woman in Israel and she received a copy of my version with the photos. We both got what we wanted, inexpensively, while finding another researcher interested in the town. With the English version in hand, I was then able to construct an index of names and share it with other researchers.

Take a tour of the more than 100,000 genealogy message boards and mailing lists accessible through such sites as http://boards.ancestry.com. Millions of posted messages await you. Locality boards are organized by state and then county. From there, you can conduct a search for a particular town or city. Look to see if your locality already has a forum. Join in the discussion and see what tandem research possibilities may come up. For example, there were 121 messages posted to the Ancestry.com message board for New Jersey, Hudson County, Kearny–my hometown.

Similarly, many message boards are focused on single surname research, linking you easily to researchers with a similar interest. Once you get in touch with them, you can swap resources, exchange family data, and get or give help.

If any of the existing forums don’t match your needs, start up one of your own, inviting others to come along on your journey.

The relationships you develop as a part of tandem research can be enduring and enjoyable and may go well beyond research itself. Jointly working on your tree can forge and reinforce family ties. The road you travel is just as important as reaching your destination.

Coordinated Strength
Is it possible to have a tandem bicycle with room for forty people? We may never see a physical vehicle like that, but imagine a two-seater with its power multiplied twenty times. How swiftly that vehicle would move with eighty feet pedaling it. Sheer strength could help the entire group achieve more than any single individual might have previously thought or accomplished.

Such was the situation with a research family for the town of Borisov in the province of Minsk, Russia. We had about forty members. Almost no Jewish vital records exist for Borisov, so using the LDS films for the tax revision lists became a necessity if we wanted any information on our families. However, the Cyrillic language entries held many researchers back. Leveraging the power of collective interest, we banded together and pooled our resources to fu nd extraction and transliteration of the 1874 list. We were so successful that we did the same for the 1834 list. Those members of the family who were not able to contribute funds, contributed in other ways, including data entry. Now the English-language lists appear on the JewishGen Web site and are accessible to a wider audience.

I also belong to a research family for the town of Ostrów Mazowiecka, Poland. Through this group, I’ve gained access to town histories, photos, videos, and perhaps most important, vital records and tenant registers directly from the Polish State Archives. I could not have gained access to such resources on my own. The bargaining power of a group is far more persuasive. In addition, we have a Web site that includes a centralized catalog of resources and their owners as well as some sample documents, family histories, and photographs. This becomes important since members of the research family have come to learn through the collective research efforts that we’re related in a variety of ways.

An added benefit of group research: with all of us pulling together, none of us has to assume back-breaking responsibilities or tasks.

A Vehicle for Families
From the start, tandem bicycles were built as vehicles for family enjoyment. It seems appropriate then that going tandem works for family research as well. Are you ready to ride?

Barbara Krasner-Khait is the contributing editor to Family Chronicle and the contributing editor on Jewish genealogy to Heritage Quest. She is also the author of Discovering Your Jewish Ancestors (Heritage Quest, 2001).