Discover your Family Tree
Posts tagged Pedigree
Free Family Tree
May 2nd
When you find a family tree for free, please recognize that someone else has gone to a great deal of time, effort and perhaps expense to make that information available to you. You are the beneficiary of their hard work.
There are several ways to find out whether someone has prepared a free family tree for you or one of your ancestors. One is simply to ask your relatives if anyone in the family has done any work on the family tree and would be willing to share it with you. Most people who research family history are not doing it for profit but for the love of it. They are usually very willing to share their findings with others. If they have incurred expenses along the way, they may ask for a donation to help defray the costs. Family reunions are great places to go to get more information for free on your family tree. Not only can you get the genealogy (names, dates and places) but you are more likely to get stories about your ancestors’ lives and personalities.
Another way to find out if there is a free family tree is to type the name of one of your ancestors into a search engine such as Google or Ask. If someone has prepared a family history or gone to the effort of putting it on the internet, then you immediately benefit. Please make sure you actually do tie into the free family tree you are looking at! There is a greater variety of names today than there used to be, and a plethora of John Smiths out there! While the information on the internet is free, the family tree may be printed and that will cost you the paper and ink it takes.
Libraries are also a good place to look for family trees. My husband once found, in the Library of Congress, a chart showing his ancestors from the original immigrant, Jacobus Breckenridge, on down to his grandfather with various siblings and branches. Other than the cost of photocopying, he was able to obtain this family tree for free. Most public libraries have historical records of the area where they are located and published books about families who lived there. Occasionally they will place used books, or books that are less frequently used or for which they have multiple copies, on sale and you can pick up family tree information for next-to-free.
Whether or not you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you can access their online databases of family tree information for free. Simply go to www.familysearch.org and then you can choose to search for an ancestor by name or see whether they have a book with your family surname. If you search for an ancestor by name, you will also need some basic information about that person such as approximate birth, marriage or death year and the place where these events occurred. When you find your ancestor, and you are sure it is the correct person, you may be able to get their pedigree or immediate family (spouse and children). This depends entirely on whether the information was submitted as a pedigree or as an individual. The books they have at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, are usually on microfilm and you can order them for only the cost of shipping the film to your local family history center. Their collection of books is indexed so that it includes all surnames in the books, not just the dominant family surname.
In all of these cases, someone else went to the effort of researching and compiling family tree information for those who follow. If you find an error, please let the author know (and submit documentation showing why you think you are correct). Most groups or individuals who publish books will also publish updates and addendums. If you wish to submit updated information to FamilySearch, they are in the process of combining all possible duplicates in New FamilySearch, which is currently available only to members of the Church.
Whichever way you chose, family tree information can be found for free.
Family Tree Database
Apr 13th
A family tree database is any collection of information for use in compiling one’s family tree. The word data implies some sort of empirical evidence. In the case of family trees, this evidence usually involves documentation of life events such as births or christenings, marriages, and deaths or burials. These events usually have been recorded by churches or governments at various levels, such as city, county, state or national. Other sources that serve as databases for family trees are personal recordings such as in Family Bibles, journals, diaries or letters. Military records could also be considered a family tree database, as could hospital records, land records, probates, and tax records.
Another family tree database is one we often start with – censuses. Censuses were originally taken for military purposes. In the Old Testament, we read of the numbers of males belonging to each tribe, so that they had a count of how many men they could put into battle if need be. It is interesting to note that they counted only the males, a detail which the early census takers in the United States followed. Between 1790 and 1850, censuses asked only the name of the head of household, numbers of males and females between certain ages, and whether they were bond or free. The further along we got, the more information they asked for until people felt that the government was getting quite intrusive. As this is 2010, we completed a census this year and, while the scare tactics were certainly plentiful about the privacy issues of the census forms, the form I received required only very basic information about who lived at our address. While, as an individual I appreciate my privacy, as a family historian I understand the value of certain questions on census forms. I think that family history researchers a hundred years from now are going to be quite disappointed in the 2010 census!
Censuses are appealing as a family tree database because they do include the whole family, or at least as much of it as was present at a particular address on a certain night. National online indexes make it easy to locate families and to find out a lot about people at a glance. Many web sites (usually subscription) offer censuses for various countries. Often subscription sites are available for free at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, and a few affiliated Family History Centers throughout the world. They are also available on microfilm at most locations.
Most government agencies make their family tree databases available to the public, usually for a fee. Indexes may be free but the actual certificates usually come with a price tag, whether it be in the form of buying the certificate from the relevant agency or subscribing to a family history web site such as Ancestry and its affiliates. Ancestry, Footnote and others have paid to use the censuses and birth, marriage and death certificates. They also pay staff to index the material so it is easier for you to locate what you are looking for. You can still order certificates from governments but it takes time and you might not get the right one. It is certainly worth-while, if you are a serious researcher, to pay the subscription cost but make sure the site you subscribe to carries the material you are likely to need. Try their free trial first.
If churches put cemetery or baptismal, marriage and burial records online, they do not usually charge. They might, however, request a donation if you write to them for particular information. Remember that they have a staff to employ, photocopy expenses and mailing expenses.
Other family tree databases can be found in homes. We mentioned Family Bibles, letters, journals etc but they could also include military records, wills, photos, newspaper clippings of weddings and funerals, and family histories compiled by someone else. And some web sites, like OneGreatFamily, encourage others to submit family trees, hopefully with documentation. Wherever you look, you will find databases that are useful in researching your family tree.
Family Trees
Mar 15th
Many of us are interested in our family trees, and some of us are even fortunate enough to find them ready-made. A lot of books, both the paper version and available on the internet, have been written and published about people’s family trees. In this article we will discuss different types of books that record people’s ancestry, and the different types of information that will be found in them.
First, there are descending and ascending family histories. The descending variety is the most common and starts with a single person or couple. This person could have been chosen as the starting point of the family tree because they are the furthest back someone has been able to find documentable information on or because they were the immigrant person or couple or because they were famous for some reason. Parents and siblings of this person or couple may be recorded but the emphasis of descending genealogies is on who they married and who their children were. They follow the children’s children and their children on down the line. The last generation before publication can number into the thousands.
Ascending genealogies start with the person who wrote the book and work up the line to their parents, grandparents, great grandparents etc. You get the picture. Siblings and spouses are included as well but not the spouses’ parents.
Good family trees will include much more than just names, dates and places. I’ve seen some that don’t even do a good job at that! Good family trees will include information on each person’s occupation, military service if any, health, education, wealth, and perhaps a physical description. They may also include maps, photos, copies of censuses, letters, wills, probates or inventories. And good family trees will include documentation so you can find the original source if you want.
I have also seen family trees that are just that – pictures of trees that includes family information. These are more convoluted to follow and give less information but are good for the visually-minded. Each branch extending from the main trunk (which could depict either the original couple or the person who published the book) is a child or a parent, and the smaller branches and twigs represent the next generations.
Pedigree charts and family group sheets are often bound and available at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, and at public libraries. These can be cumbersome to figure out especially if there is no numbering system on the family group sheets. This is when pedigree charts act as an index.
Some family trees are used as decorations. I see them framed in homes and in libraries. Often you see so-called genealogies of Biblical proportions – literally – going back to Adam or even further. I would like to see their documentation!
You should be particularly suspicious of royal family trees. It seems to be a mark of some pride to tie into royal lines when, in actuality, not many of us actually do. In the days before DNA testing, any illegitimate mother could claim that her child was the son or daughter of their favorite royal male person. And, if usurpers to thrones wanted to prove that they were the rightful heirs, they claimed the “divine right of kings”. In other words, they hired genealogists to come up with family trees that went back to Adam, proving that they were predestined (or of Royal blood) to be the rulers. This predestination came complete with the ability to rule in God’s behalf and with absolute authority. If genealogists wanted to keep their heads on their shoulders, they came up with the requested family trees.
Whichever type of family history you find, use it with wisdom. Some are better than others and, unless you just want the decorative kind to show off, it is always best to have documentation.
My Family Tree
Mar 7th
For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in learning about my family tree. I hope you don’t mind me sharing some of the things I found about my family tree.
My father’s parents divorced when my father was still young and the oldest of three boys, and my grandmother had raised the children by herself. Later, my father bought a business from his uncle, and his grandfather was a frequent visitor to our home so I knew most of his family except for his father, who I never did meet. As I grew up, we often visited my great aunt and uncle and my father’s cousins who lived on a farm. My great aunt had a lot of family photos and stories which she shared with me. Just recently Ken, one of my father’s cousins, came for a visit and we had a great time talking about the family and great memories!
When I was ten, my family took a road trip to the west coast. On the way we visited others in my family tree whom I have not seen since, but I remember meeting them and listening to some of their stories. I have some of the family photos they gave us. We did not meet the adopted brother of my grandmother and great aunt. It turns out there was a good reason for that. Ken explained to me, when he visited last month, that the boy was one of the children taken across Canada by train after World War I and lined up at the railway station for people to come and choose, like so many heads of cabbage. Being a farmer with two young daughters, it is understandable why my great grandfather wanted another male, so he chose Wilfred. I presume he was older than my grandmother. At some point he left the family and moved “west”. Not long ago, I found the death certificate of an infant son of my great grandparents on Ancestry.ca.
I called my father’s father’s father “Grandad”. He told me that his family came from the Alsace-Lorraine region between France and Germany. It turns out that was not quite true. According to census records, my family tree came from England! In fact, his grandfather’s cemetery tombstone identifies him as “English John” to differentiate between him and the twelve other men with the same name in the village. When Grandad went to live with his sister, I remember there being a huge old family Bible on a bookstand in the front hallway. I found out much later that no names, dates or places had been recorded in it.
My mother’s side was completely German – they spoke German, cooked German food and were devoutly Lutheran. My mother’s grandparents died before I was born so I never knew them, but I did meet her aunts and uncles. Generations before, the family had immigrated to Canada in 1848 to join other family members. We knew where they were all buried, and the local library had a great collection of genealogical records for the county. Many of these records are now online, and cemetery records are available on the Ontario Genealogical Society web site.
As I grew older, I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and realized why I was so interested in my family tree. I have followed my family tree on both my father and mother’s lines back to Germany, England, Scotland and Switzerland. I would love to follow my family tree into Ireland but that ancestor came over so early that records in both Ireland and the United States are scarce and I have been unable to locate him.
There are a lot of things I would love to learn yet about my family tree. Unfortunately, records end at some point in time either because they were not kept any earlier or they were destroyed or I simply cannot pinpoint exactly where the immigrants came from. The only way I was able to locate German records to continue my family tree was because my 2nd great grandmother kept a journal. There are a lot of sources you can use to trace your family tree.
Family Tree
Jan 3rd
In recent years, people have become more interested in their family tree. To begin your family tree, you need to know some basic facts. Start with yourself. You likely know your name, birth date and birth place. If you are adopted, you may need to find this information. If you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and have been sealed to your adoptive family, you may choose either your birth parents or your adoptive parents to follow. As a reminder, always use your full name given to you at birth (most family tree programs allow you to record name changes), your day, month and year of birth, and the city, county and state/country of birth. In the United States we put the month first but world-wide, and in most computer programs, the day comes first. It resolves the confusion concerning whether 2/3/56 means 2 March 1956 or February 3, 1856. Always write the year in full too. If you are married, you should know your wedding date and place. Women should always use their maiden name.
Let’s talk for a few minutes about how to arrange your family tree information. Most of us use computer programs, and there are lots of them out there. Personal Ancestral File (PAF) is a free one you can download from www.familysearch.org. Please feel free to talk to someone with some experience in different programs before going out and purchasing one. If you plan to submit names for temple work, make sure the program you purchase is compatible with Family Ordinance Request, which replaced TempleReady.
New FamilySearch is a relatively new program designed to help put people in their family tree into context. Relationships and missing temple ordinances are brought to light. Paul Nauta, public affairs manager for FamilySearch, said, “New FamilySearch is where you can build your personal family tree and prepare names for temple ordinances.” (http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_living/family_history/?id=12891).
If you want to use paper and pencil to record the information on your family tree, there are pedigree charts (which show only direct-line ancestors) and family group sheets (which record siblings and their spouses). You can print these from www.familysearch.org or purchase them at bookstores or family history centers. Whichever way you choose to record family tree information, organization is of the utmost importance. Even when you’re well organized, intermarriages or many ancestors with the same name can be very confusing. Don’t start out that way!
Once you have recorded your information, do the same for your parents. If they have died, add death dates and places (or burial dates and places). Talk to your parents or other living relatives and ask them for information. Use what they tell you as a guide but try to verify it. You can do that by visiting cemeteries, ordering birth, marriage and death certificates, or looking for photos, newspaper clippings, or letters in the trunk in the attic.
Do the same for your grandparents and head on back. Make sure you verify all information. Complete dates and places for your siblings, your parents’ siblings (your aunts and uncles), your great grandparents’ siblings (your great aunts and uncles) and so on. If ancestors married more than once, make sure you have the right children with the right set of parents. When you get back far enough, you may not find birth dates and places but you might be able to find christening dates and places in church records. The same thing goes for deaths. Churches recorded burials instead. You may be able to find your ancestors in census records as well, which will give you information leading you to places where your family lived, and the paperwork that recorded their life events.
As you write down information on your family tree, be sure to look at their ages when they married and died. Record causes of death, if known, and see if they could have served in the military. Look where they lived to see what historical events they may have witnessed. Knowing your family tree is more than just recording dates and places – they were living people with joys and sorrows of their own. They lived their lives too!
