Sitting hunched over while squinting at faint images of old-fashioned handwriting for long periods of time is rough on the body. If you’re prone to migraine headaches, this is almost a guaranteed recipe for success. It was worth it every agonizing throb in my skull, because the moment I saw my great-grandfather’s name was electric. I recall exclaiming to myself, in an inappropriate volume, “It’s him!” Heads turned in my direction, but instead of being told to 'shush', I noticed nodding heads and smiles of understanding.
I had located my great-grandfather’s Civil War unit; a piece of information my family didn’t have until that very moment. The volunteer handed me forms to fill out and for a nominal fee I was able to order copies of his military records from the National Archives. A bulging manila envelope arrived in the mail a few weeks later and now I was really hooked. The process was thrilling eventually, but rather lacking in the ‘instant gratification’ department. Aunt Bessie was quite pleased, by the way; she had the information she wanted and she knew another member of the family had ‘the bug’.
Microfilm can also be ordered to examine at a nearby LDS Family History center if you know what you need, thus bypassing the whole bus trip experience. Somehow I just never got around to exploring that system during the ensuing years.
Periodically I worked on organizing boxes of photographs I had inherited. It was time consuming and frustrating; most were unidentified. I had everything from inexpensive snapshots to antique tintypes. I arranged branches of the family tree by typing out the layers of generations and adding bits of information along the way. Most the time I did nothing at all. I suppose one could say my ‘sickness’ went into remission for about 15 years. Last winter, however, two cousins (also successfully infected by dear Aunt Bessie) and I spent some time together comparing notes on our common ancestors. The result was that the fever is upon me again.
Procrastination actually paid off, because now I can sit in the comfort of my own home and squint at digitized images of faded documents in nearly illegible script for hours on a computer screen. No cramped bus trip or sack lunch required.
The computer age has made adding names to the family tree so much easier. I can’t imagine tackling this any other way. The rewards are accelerated over the research methods available in the recent past; but there are pitfalls waiting throughout the maze of websites.
I spent about seven months sporadically poking around in search of reliable, safe websites with free information. You might say I’m cheap, but I prefer the word ‘frugal’, if you don’t mind. One I have recommended to beginners is, not surprisingly, the LDS website. It’s easy to navigate and understand. Although the records have not been completely transcribed yet, it’s quite impressive.
Researchers need to keep in mind that just because you didn’t find something today doesn’t mean that it won’t be there in the near future; more information is always being added to every database out there. Volunteers are hard at work squinting and typing. That leads to a cautionary note about human error; don’t blindly trust any transcribed text. I’ve encountered numerous errors. If the digital image is available, absolutely take advantage of it and study it thoroughly. You may even discover extra information that could be helpful in solving any mysteries you encounter along the way. If you’re lucky, the date a census was recorded might narrow down the window of what time of year your ancestor was born, or frame a known event that happened within those twelve months. I’ve even picked up valuable information by observing the names of other families living in the same vicinity as the person I’m researching.
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