Ancestry Magazine

I gently lifted the brown scrapbook from its storage space in the corner closet of the basement of my parents’ home. Tiny pieces of brown paper left a trail on the floor as I carried the book upstairs to the kitchen table. I carefully turned the tattered pages, and one by one the headlines captured my attention, beginning to tell me a story.

“Alzo breaks scoring mark…Tallies 36 points in Steelworkers Loop”
“Alzo and Medich Pace Team in Brilliant Victory”
“Alzo Sets Pace”

While growing up, I often listened to my father talk about his days playing basketball, first for his high school team and then for various independent basketball leagues and semi-professional teams throughout western Pennsylvania, until he hung up his sneakers at the age of thirty-seven. What I didn’t know was that my father received numerous awards and press coverage for his prowess on the court. He was named to an “All Tourney” squad in high school, and given such monikers as “crack forward” and “fancy marksman” by sportswriters for the Pittsburgh Press and other local newspapers.

My father never brags about his accomplishments. He simply loved the game. Instead, Dad collected all of his memories in that old scrapbook and tucked it safely away in his closet and forgot about it—that is, until his daughter, the inquisitive genealogist, stumbled upon it. Despite its tattered appearance, the scrapbook is a precious repository of newspaper clippings, photographs, and scorecards of twenty years of play, and a chronicle of Johnny Alzo’s life.

The Analysis: Sports and Genealogy?
Today, millions of Americans atte nd sporting events or enjoy watching games or matches on television. Fantasy leagues for baseball, hockey, and football abound on the Internet, and professional athletes are often among the most sought-after celebrities.

Unfortunately, in recent times the media has also focused on the more negative side of sports. Confrontations between players and fans, alleged reports of performance enhancing drug use, and other questionable or inappropriate actions have sullied the reputation of many athletes. With this in mind, it may be tempting to express a negative opinion about athletes or sports in general, and may lead you to ask what the connection could be between sports and genealogy.
While the world of sports defines a large part of our culture today, its role in our family and community histories is also worth evaluating. Many of our ancestors played organized sports in high school, college, or for a work-based or fraternal organization team. Perhaps your father was the quarterback of his high school football team, or you had an uncle who was a star swimmer, or maybe your grandmother was on the pep squad.

If someone in your family played organized sports in high school or college, or became a professional athlete, there should be a record of his or her participation in yearbooks, official team rosters, or scorecards. From such sources, you can glean names, dates, and places that will be useful in documenting your ancestor’s life. Looking at the games an ancestor played will also offer a glimpse into his or her personality—physical attributes, interests, connections with friends, neighbors, and teammates. All of this information will help to place your ancestor into an historical context.

The Pre-Game Warm-up: Where to Look for Information
As with any genealogical research task, the best place to begin looking for sports-related information is at home. Start by asking your parents and grandparents if they ever played any organized sports. If so, what sport? Was it in high school, college, or for a professional team? Now, to locate sources that will document this information. Below are some specific places to search.

Family Possessions and Stories. Photographs, scrapbooks, trophies, awards, souvenir programs, tribute booklets, or other memorabilia are excellent sources of information and can serve as a great ice-breaker for an oral history interview. Most genealogists appreciate that family history is more than a collection of names, dates, and places, and they often turn to oral history as a way of gaining a deeper understanding of their ancestors.

After finding my father’s scrapbook, I sat down with him (and a tape recorder) to peruse the pictures and clippings. I then asked him to identify details in the photographs and clippings. Fortunately, my father has an excellent memory and was able to add stories and anecdotes that expressed his fondness for basketball. I learned how he first played the game as a young boy with a make-shift backboard and a small rubber ball. Dad and his friends would fasten a galvanized water bucket with a hole in the bottom to a telegraph pole on his street and shoot the rubber ball through it. They didn’t go to the local sporting goods store to buy a basketball. Instead, they scoured the banks of the local river after a storm for old balls that would wash up, or sell scrap metal to buy a ball at the local five-and- dime store. I listened in amazement as my father remembered how he never even touched a real basketball until he was around twelve years old. His older sisters gave him the seventy-five cents to get a membership to the Carnegie Library in Duquesne, where the boys always went to play ball. The scrapbook served as a useful tool to persuade my father to tell me stories about his youth.

High School and College Yearbooks. High school and college yearbooks can be genealogical goldmines. One of the most valuable nuggets can be a picture of your ancestor. Many yearbooks also include sports photos and possibly even a summary of the team’s year and scorecard. Perhaps your ancestor was honored for breaking a school track record, scoring the most points in a game, etc., and will be mentioned by name in the copy. Also, yearbooks typically have a special listing for notable seniors who are dubbed “Most Intelligent,” “Most Likely to Succeed,” or “Most Athletic.” Perhaps your ancestor received this designation.

Most schools and some libraries have extensive collections of yearbooks and school newspapers available for viewing. Also, old yearbooks can often be found for sale on Internet auction sites like Yahoo or eBay. For example, a recent search on eBay for yearbooks yielded more than seventeen pages of results, with bids ranging from one dollar to hundreds of dollars.

Newspapers. Perusing current and old newspapers can often provide details about your ancestor’s affiliation with a particular sport or team. While my father’s scrapbook provided me with a collection of clippings from Pittsburgh newspapers from 1940 to 1957, sometimes you may need to search out suc h articles. You can check libraries and historical societies for newspapers (see page 21). Many newspapers keep back issues on microfilm, and a number of newspapers today have online editions—some even include information specific to performing genealogical research. Reference sites like Newslink and News Library at can provide more information about particular cities and availability.

Ancestry.com, through its Historical Newspapers database, has provided subscribers with an extensive collection of historical newspapers from numerous localities and years. The database is easily searchable. For example, my uncle, Joseph Figlar, played football for Duquesne High School, then Case Western University, and later went on to a career as a high school football and wrestling coach. Utilizing the Ancestry.com Historical Newspaper Collection, I searched for the name “Figlar” and located an article in the Elyria, Ohio newspaper, The Chronicle Telegram dated 8 September 1968 that mentioned my uncle, the athletic director at St. Edward’s High School in Lakewood, Ohio, during this time. The article included the following: Bill Duffy, athletic director at Elyria Catholic, has been in contact with his counterpart at Lakewood St. Edward, Joe Figlar. Figlar, however, has taken a “let’s wait and see what happens attitude.” Figlar wants to see the results of the sectional drawings before making a move.

Following up on this information and other previous research, I was able to obtain a football program from St. Edward’s High School that included a detailed write-up about my uncle. Further online sleuthing led me to the Case Western Reserve University Athletics page, which lists its Hall of Fame inductees, inc luding my Uncle Joe, who received the honor in 1993.

Historical Societies. One of the best places to look for information is the local historical society. Fortunately, town histories, church booklets, records from school, and other genealogical gems have been collected, donated, and preserved through the efforts of history enthusiasts. If your ancestor’s town does not have its own historical society, there may be one in the largest nearby city. For example, my hometown of Duquesne (a once-bustling steel mill town) is located twelve miles south of Pittsburgh, in western Pennsylvania. This area of the state boasts a number of famous athletes, from Stan Musial (who grew up in Donora), and many NFL quarterbacks like Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath—from decades ago—to more recent stars like Joe Montana and Dan Marino.

Fraternal and Social Organizations. When immigrants settled in the New World, they often formed their own fraternal benefit societies and ethnic social clubs. Local communities could have an Irish club on one corner, an Italian club on another, and German, Slovak or Russian clubs down the block. Many of these groups sponsored bowling leagues, basketball or other teams, and organized celebrations to commemorate milestones and perhaps documented the event with a program or special booklet. Fraternal organizations often published their own newspapers or newsletters and these may be available in their archives, or on microfilm in a collection at a library, museum, or historical society. For example, collections held at the Immigrant History Research Center at the University of Minnesota and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania may be of particular interest. Also, check the Family History Library Catalog. Additional links to fraternal groups and societies are available on Cyndi’s List under “Societies & Groups.”

Learning the Rules
In order to better understand the sport your ancestor played, there are an endless number of resources available in printed format or online. A bit of research into the history of the sport itself; or the history of a particular team, may provide valuable insight into how or why your ancestor enjoyed playing football or tennis, or liked to box or wrestle.
Technophiles can surf a plethora of websites dedicated to sports trivia on the Internet, including “Hall of Fames” for practically any sport. In addition, Ancestry.com has a new database, Professional Baseball Players, 1876-2004, you’ll want to check out. You can find information on players from Babe Ruth to Curt Schilling in this database, which contains more than 15,000 professional baseball players who played between 1876 (the year the National League was founded) and 2004. The information provided includes each player’s first and last names, nicknames, birth date and place, dates of first and final games, death date and place, and more. Corresponding photographs or baseball card images are also included for many of the individuals who played the game between 1887 and 1938. The player cards can be browsed by clicking on the corresponding letter for the last name of the athlete, or you can use the search feature by entering specific criteria into designated fields.

Not on the Team?
What if your ancestor did not participate in a sport? There is still a possibility that he or she can be traced through one of the sources listed above. Teams often had athletic trainers, assistant coaches, equipment managers, and statisticians. Or your ancestor could have been a fan or sponsor of a local sports team. If your ancestor pledged monetary support as a patron, or if he or she owned a business, you may find his or her name among a special list or advertisement in a game program or commemorative booklet.

All in the Family: Famous Athlete in Your Family Tree?
A number of famous athletes seem to have a gift for athleticism in their genes, with multiple generations playing or participating in the same sport (e.g., the Boone and Bell families of baseball, the Manning family of the NFL, and the Earnhardt and Petty families of NASCAR fame). If you think you might be related to a famous athlete, take a look at the famous family trees at Genealogy.com. You can view the ancestry of such sports figures as Muhammad Ali, Dale Earnhardt, and Vince Lombardi.

The Player(s)
Once you’ve traced an ancestor’s sports history by using any of the sources listed above, you will want to evaluate the information. Beyond the basic facts, what do the sources tell you about your athletic ancestors? Were they dedicated to their sports? Were they described as fierce competitors or team players? Was the sport a mere social activity or a way to obtain a college education?

Also, for some athletes, playing a sport for the socialization it provided was almost as important as t he physical exhilaration or the success of winning a game or match. One of the most interesting things I learned about my father was how many people in the local area remember him from his days as a basketball player. My father still maintains friendships with many former teammates, seven of whom recently attended a surprise birthday party for him to reminisce about the “good old days.” Basketball brought these friends together in their youth, and served as a tool to reunite them some fifty years later. Perhaps a connection to baseball, football, or golf can do the same for a member of your family.

The Scorecard
In order to keep track of the newspaper clippings, yearbook pages, photographs, and souvenir programs that chronicled my father’s sports history, I transferred the old brown pages into acid-free page protectors in a new scrapbook, journaling everything with information provided by my father. In addition, I thought it would be useful to have a reference sheet to index the clippings. I compiled the information in a spreadsheet using Excel and listed the title of the article, date, team, newspaper, and other information. I have also scanned the images so I have an electronic backup.
Finally, I have started a writing project about my father’s days as a basketball player, using information from all of the sources to create a narrative about this part of his life as a keepsake for him that will also be preserved for future generations. I also plan to make duplicate copies of the completed project and donate them to the local historical societies in Pittsburgh as a reference for others who may be searching for information about their ancestors.

Post-Game Wrap-up
While your ancestor may not have reached the status of a Michael Jordan or Peyton Manning, with a little digging into sports history, you might just score a genealogical slam dunk and uncover some additional clues about his or her life. Sometimes the information finds you when you least expect it. Little did I know that I would learn so many details about my own father through an old scrapbook he had forgotten about years ago. When I asked my father why he never told me about all of the accolades and press coverage he received during his days as an athlete, he simply responded, “I was leaving it to someone else to tell you.”
Perhaps there is someone out there, or some source—like a scrapbook, program, or yearbook—waiting to tell you about one of your family members or ancestors.