My near death experience began as whimsy.
Six feet under Fillmore County soil, my Minnesota territorial relatives were resting in peace. I dutifully paid respects to them each Memorial Day and other days in between. But I longed for a larger picture, about 826 square miles to be exact—I envisioned myself a tombstone tourist visiting every Fillmore County cemetery.
It’s 1825 and our ancestors in America are enjoying some relaxing family time on a summer evening. The pre-teens don’t have personal DVD players. The teenagers aren’t grooving to their iPods. Mom isn’t chattering on the phone. Dad isn’t staring at the television. And absolutely no one is surfing the Web.
Ten years doesn’t sound like a long time. But in the last ten years, we’ve seen tremendous changes in how we approach family history—the Internet, digital cameras, online communities, e-mail, faster and more accessible scanning technology. So what will the future—even just the next ten years—bring to our pasts?
Change is good.
It’s trite, it’s overused, but sometimes that simple phrase makes a point and summarizes a reality. Like in the world of computer technology purchases.
Change comes frequently today when we attempt to keep pace with technology and a busy world, and choices come at us more rapidly than they ever did for our ancestors.
Five steps to wander based on the direction of a single census record.
You found your ancestor in the 1910 census—now what do you do?
1. Ancestor—William White: Check the 1900, 1920, and 1930 censuses based on the 1910 information. Check a few census pages before and after William in each of these censuses for other family surnames.
2.
In response to my request for orphan heirlooms (any item that’s strayed from the hands of the family of origin) to rescue, I received the following from Barbara Corotto of California:
“My mother was a genealogist who lived many years in Iowa. When she died, I started through her papers and was able to donate some research files to the Napa Genealogical Society.
Taste, see, feel, smell, hear. Where else but the kitchen, where the central dramas and basic building of a home and life take place, so embraces all the senses? The heft of a well-used knife, the aroma of onions and garlic in olive oil, the laughter or arguments over a meal. Food has the power to take you back to a particular moment, a particular place, and recreate it for you.
The unspeakable happens: a flood, fire, or other disaster strikes your home, and all of the family history records you gathered over the years are destroyed. Fortunately, you’re prepared, right? You made a backup copy of the data and stored it at a friend’s house.
But once you start your research again, you wonder why you came to certain conclusions.
If they weren’t missing, exactly why was this family so hard to find?
They, of course, were not lost. They knew exactly where they had settled, where and whom their children had married, and where eventually they had died. I was the one with the problem—searching for them year after year without finding them.
I hate footnotes!
When I finished high school, I danced a polka, thinking there were two things I’d never have to do again: science projects and footnotes. Dumb thought.
Still, there is a difference in the footnotes I did in high school and college and those I do now. Back then, I cited sources because teachers demanded them; to me, it was a pointless exercise.