Tips for Successful Online Genealogy

Two strangers were sitting near me one morning as I sat outside the local library waiting for it to open. When they struck up a conversation about their own efforts to do genealogy research, I couldn’t help but listen, thinking I might learn something helpful, since I was fairly new (a year or so) to Internet genealogy. The first person said, “oh, I tried to find some of my family on the Internet, but I couldn’t find anything, so I gave up.” The second replied, “Well, you need to go to the Mormons site, they have everything and they’ve already done all of the research on the stuff at their website.” Then she proceeded to give the first person the wrong web address. How many mistakes can you count in this conversational exchange? For starters, try the right website for the Latter Day Saints: www.familysearch.org

This is a very valuable resource for people of all levels of genealogy research, but you need to know how to use it to your best advantage depending on what information you need. The information available includes lots of research done by individuals, and just because it’s on a legitimate, reputable website, that does not make all of the information there necessarily well-researched. As I’ve said before, the information will only be as good as the researcher who compiled it, and we are all subject to human error. Read on for some more tips:

1. Consider the Source.

· Do not make the mistake of assuming that someone else has proven what they claim is true about their (or your) family. Actual images of records are best, and even these can be fallible. Next best are documented transcriptions at reputable websites, such as Rootsweb, USGenWeb, Ancestry, etc. If you find transcriptions at personal websites, have these been documented in such a way that you can easily find the original source? If you’re reading postings on bulletin boards or mailing lists, or visiting individuals’ websites, contact the poster and ask about their documentation. If all they’ve done is compile other people’s trees, you can use the names and dates as a starting point only.

2. Get original documentation and do your own analysis as time permits, even if the source is trusted.

· Like everyone else, I’m always thrilled to run into someone who is researching the same family lines and can provide me with some new information. If they are willing to share their documentation with me, I quickly get a feel for how thorough and careful their research is. It is always best to double check and verify the sources. Genealogy is not a finite hobby, and everyone’s time is limited. With that said, I must confess that despite my best intentions, I have at times incorporated other people’s work into my tree. When I do this, I always make notes as to the source(person) and the eventual plan to document it personally.

3. Do your homework.

· If you start looking for ancestors on the Internet, without having done the basics first, you will find yourself wasting countless hours without finding what you really need. Instead, buy a good basic genealogy book, or check a few out of the library, and familiarize yourself with beginning genealogy techniques. Have you written down what you know for sure about your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, and the siblings in each generation? Have you talked to older family members who might know or remember more? Find out what kinds of sources are available and which ones are the most accessible to you. Is there a Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints in your area? If so, do they have a Family History Library? Is there a genealogy club or society? These places can be your gateway to many resources, not the least of which are more experienced genealogists who can point you in the right direction and answer questions.

4. Be patient.

· Genealogy is not a hobby for the hasty. No matter what you have heard, do not expect to go online do a couple of searches and “find all of your ancestors”. For one thing, no one is likely to ever find all of their answers. For another thing, even if you did find connections with names listed, you have no assurance of the accuracy of the files without doing significant amounts of research yourself. Finally, what’s the fun in downloading something in its entirety? You’d miss all of the fun of the search!

5. Post queries on several appropriate forums, rather than just one.

· If you’re trying to find the answer to a specific question, it may help to post on one or two very specific message boards or forums. For example, you want to know the availability of local history or genealogy compilations for a given county. Go to the website for that county at Rootsweb and at Genealogy.com, and you will reach three large bunches of people interested in and/or knowledgeable about what’s available for that county. But if you want to hook up with other researchers working on a particular line of ancestors, you need to cast your stones more broadly. For example, you are interested in ancestors and descendants of Moses Babcock who lived in Marshall County, IN in 1850. For such a specific query, you would get the best results by posting on Babcock surname message boards or mailing lists at major genealogy websites (at least at Rootsweb or Ancestry - they access the same bunch of consolidated boards-, and Genealogy.com), then ALSO post messages on the board for the most specific location(s) you know for that person, (in this case, the Marshall County Indiana message boards at each of these locations.) If you’re brave, and/or have a Post Office Box, consider leaving your snail mail address in addition to your e-mail address. You never know when a relative who is just starting to use the internet, or is more comfortable with snail mail, will find you. I had the pleasant surprise of a whole packet of information in my P.O.Box one day, sent by a distant cousin of my husband, who was new to e-mail. I would have missed out on it if I hadn’t included my mailing address at the bottom of my webpage.

6. When using search engines, …

· Learn how to make your searches more pertinent. Rather than entering one name, or a set of surnames, try to add a specific location (county and state, town and state, country and province, etc.), or other detail which will narrow your search results. To keep your search to more genealogy type results, try adding one of the words “born”, “married”, or
”died” to your other search terms. Use “AND” or “OR”. Typing CHAPMAN AND GARRETT will help on sites that might otherwise return a whole list of results with only one of the pertinent words. In my experience, Google is one of the better search engines for returning genealogy specific results.

7. Exhaust the free resources available before purchasing paid genealogy subscription services.

· More free resources are appearing online every day. The quality varies greatly, as does the information available from one area to the next. Several sources I’ve found have been very helpful without my having to pay for subscriptions, including free lists of marriages in Rankin and Simpson Counties, Mississippi, many of the cemeteries in Simpson County transcribed online, transcribed census data, marriage indexes, will indexes, etc. for Kosciusko County Indiana (including every name indexes for the 1820-1870 Federal censuses.) While there are valuable resources at paid subscription sites, also, they tend to over-represent their holdings and exaggerate what will be available and when.

8. Don’t waste money purchasing items online just because they contain your surname.

· A huge variety of genealogical materials are available for sale online. Business is booming for many of the people selling these items. Having bought an assortment of different books, family group sheets, etc., I would venture to say that you are not likely to find anything helpful without getting substantial information about the item before you buy it. More worthwhile may be local or county history books which may compile records, family biographies, and generally give you the flavor of life to the early residents of that area, even if your family members aren’t mentioned specifically. Before deciding to purchase a particular reference, take advantage of the many lookup services online to find out whether this book is the one you need and will gain new information from. If you have access to a Family History Library (look in your local phone book under “Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints – Family History Center”), use the Family Search to find out as much as you can about a particular reference. If it looks pertinent, you may be able to order it on microfilm or microfiche and view it at your Family History Center to find out if it’s one that you really would like to own. At the FamilySearch website, you can also get locations of nearby Family History Centers, do searches of many of their valuable resources, and look for references before you ever begin to shop. When looking for a specific, out-of-print book, consider submitting a request for e-mail notification of your favorite searches at EBay.