"We seldom get into trouble when we speak softly. It is only when we raise our voices that the sparks fly and tiny molehills become great mountains of contention."
For
years, family history research — a.k.a. looking at historical
records about dead people — has gotten a bad rap among new
family historians.
Maybe
it’s because they hear people talk about searching for ages
without finding what they’re looking for. Or maybe it’s
because they scrolled and scrolled (and scrolled some more) through
old rolls of microfilm until their eyes went blurry and their arms
got sore. Maybe it’s because they couldn’t even find
the roll of microfilm in the first place.
Whatever
the case, it’s time to debunk the myth. Looking at historical
records of our ancestors and their descendants isn’t impossibly
difficult or unpleasant. Rather, it can be fascinating,
heartbreaking, or even fun. Challenging sometimes? Sure. But that’s
okay. The reward is more than worth it.
First,
we should be clear what we mean by historical records. We’re
talking about records of major events in people’s lives:
usually birth, marriage, or death, and even emigration to another
country or military service. These records are typically kept by
churches or governments, though families may keep their own records
too — for instance, in a family bible.
Historical
records also include censuses. Censuses are counts of a country’s
inhabitants taken by governments for taxation, military, and other
purposes. In the U.S., Canada, and England, for example, censuses are
taken every 10 years and have been since the mid-1800s. They’re
particularly valuable because they can provide a snapshot of a family
through time.
These
records tell the story of our ancestors’ lives. For instance, I
remember the poignant feeling that washed over me as I looked at a
census record on which the parents had carefully recorded the names
of their one living child and five deceased children. That’s
unusual for a census, because typically only living people are
recorded.
But
I can’t help but think that the spirit of Elijah was moving on
the family even then, because their careful record made it easy to
find birth and death records for the deceased children. They’ve
now been added to Family Tree so they can be sealed as a family.
I
remember tracking another individual through the census. In one
census he was a young adult boarding with a family and working on
their farm. By the next census, he had married the farmer’s
daughter and they had started their own family. (I can just imagine
the farmer’s daughter: “Have you seen that new guy Dad
hired?”)
Where
do you find these records? Not just on microfilm any more.
FamilySearch has put more than a billion historical records online for free.
(If you’ve done indexing,
you’ve helped make these records searchable.)
Companies
such as Ancestry, My Heritage, and Find My Past also make vast
collections available to their subscribers. (Members of the LDS
Church can sign up for free accounts
with each of these companies.)
Why
do historical records matter? Mainly for two reasons: 1) They help to
identify uniquely each person in our family lines; 2) They provide
clues to help us find people who need to be added to our family
lines.
For
example, you may know when and where an ancestor was born, but you
may not know her parents. If you find a birth record for that
ancestor, it’s likely you will learn the names of the parents,
and possibly other information about them, such as ages and
occupations.
Now,
here’s the activity for this column. Indexing is a great way to
become familiar with historical records. If you’re currently an
indexer, do another batch and pay special attention to the
information on the records you’re indexing. How might this
information be helpful in family history research?
Next,
go to FamilySearch Historical Records
and look around. See what record collections are available, and try
searching for one of your deceased ancestors. If you find a record
with a digitized image, take a look at it. Do you see information
about your ancestor that you didn’t know before?
In
the next column, we’ll cover attaching sources from
FamilySearch Historical Records to people in Family Tree.
Kathryn Grant is a user assistance professional with a passion
for usability and process
improvement. She also loves family history and enjoys the challenge and
reward of building her family tree.
As a child, she lived outside the United States for four years because of her father's job. This experience fueled her natural love of words and language, and also taught her to appreciate other cultures.
Kathryn values gratitude, teaching, learning, differences, and unity. She loves looking at star-filled skies, reading mind-stretching books, listening to contemporary Christian music, attending the temple, and eating fresh raspberries.
Kathryn teaches Sunday family history classes at the BYU Family History Library, and presents frequently at family history events. For more information, visit her Family History Learning Resources page
