Ancestry Daily News
Michael John Neill – 6/6/2001
The Education of a Genealogist
I am often asked "how I got started in genealogy" and "how I learned to be a genealogist." Some of the answers are simple and some are not. There's no short path to becoming a genealogist.It has been a long time since I started my foray into family history research. I got hooked when my brother had to complete a four- generation family tree. I was in the fifth grade. Being on a child's budget, I hand-wrote family group charts and my mother made copies using some type of duplicating machine (all I remember is that everything came out in purple ink). It was several years before I migrated to pre-printed forms. It was before the Internet and largely before the computer, especially for use in genealogy. The letters I sent out were typed on my mother's 1960 vintage typewriter. I even used carbon paper. And I still "beat" on the keyboard as if hitting the keys harder will make the image on the screen darker.
And so it went from there. When I began genealogy, I had three living grandparents and one living great-grandparent. I obtained information from them as best I could and continued to fill out my charts. I had my parents drag me to as many cemeteries as possible. At some point in the process, I began going to the library and utilizing census records. I was fortunate that the librarian was a genealogist and took an interest in helping me to get started. The library had a few guidebooks to genealogy and I read them voraciously. They all kept mentioning records in the courthouse.
And so it was not long before I made my first journey to the courthouse. I was extremely fortunate to live a few miles from the courthouse in the county seat where many of my family had lived since the 1850s. It was a small town and I was allowed to view the records with little difficulty, even when I was still too young to drive. Once it was realized I was going to be careful and not leave things in a complete mess, I never had a problem. The fact that I grew up in a small town where everyone knows virtually everyone else (and knows their parents, grandparents, etc.) also played a significant role.
I was given an initial introduction to the records and their indexes and then I was on my own. Much of my learning was done by simply taking books off the shelf, and seeing what information they contained (except for the vital records which were off-limits). I can remember making numerous copies of the bound volumes of will transcripts only to learn later that the actual wills were filed in packets. The wills themselves were infinitely easier to copy and also contained the actual signature of the testator. The packets of papers also contained information I never dreamed of finding.
The case files were stored in metal boxes fourteen to fifteen feet high. Invariably the box I needed would be in the very top row of boxes. Obtaining the high boxes was done with a pole that had a hook on the end. The process is similar to fishing for metal boxes. The hook on the end of the pole is inserted in the handle of the drawer. The drawer is then pulled from the wall. With a little nudge the box would come free and be hanging on the end of the pole. It was a couple of years before I felt confident enough to use the pole myself without fear of knocking unconscious any of the legal secretaries using the other records.
In many cases, I knew how to find things without knowing what the records actually were or why they were created. For what I thought was some unknown reason there were (for a time) two separate series of indexes to court records. One usually contained the good stuff (divorces and partition suits) and the other usually contained a large number of financial matters. It was years before I learned and read enough to realize there were different "courts" for different purposes and they each kept a separate series of records. I just knew in which series of books to look for what I was after. In some cases, no one was familiar with some of the abbreviations and record keeping systems before 1900 and determining what the abbreviations stood for was a great process of trial and error.
Upon graduation from high school, I purchased the first edition of "The Source." I read it virtually from cover to cover. It explained some of the things that had previously confused me and helped me to realize that there was more information "out there" than I had realized. I had read manuals discussing some of the records before, but reading about the records again after using them for a while taught me much more than I had learned the first time. This is a practice that continues to be true today as well.
I learned a great deal about land records, partially because land records are so voluminous. The main reason was that virtually all of my forty-some ancestors who lived in Hancock County, Illinois, owned land there at one time or another. There was a fascination with finding out where the family lived and for farm families (at least those that owned property) land records are the way to do that. I also was obsessed with learning how much they had paid for their farm and how they obtained it. And for those who moved to the area as adults, land records are one of the first records in which they would be mentioned. The somewhat mathematical nature of land records only added to my fascination with them.
I wrote letters to potential relatives, including what information I knew and a self-addressed stamped envelope. And I am certain that I made many mistakes and made requests that would have required heaven and earth to carry out. Many of us make similar mistakes when we are starting out.
And I got extremely confused. Half of my ancestors are from a small
area of Germany where the spoken dialect is not really German. They have
naming customs that are different from other areas of Germany. These
customs can be confusing enough to a research with experience under their
belt. To a sixteen-year old kid they were initially very confusing. Today
there are societies and genealogy mailing lists for this area of Germany
that provide great help to researchers from this area (just as there are
for many areas of Europe). However, when I first started, I never found
anyone who knew where Ostfriesland was, let alone how to help me figure
out answers to my questions. So, I studied as many of the families as I
could and drew conclusions based upon what I observed. Sometimes there's
not much else you can do.
In most ways, I was really self-taught,
at least initially. I read whatever genealogical material I could get my
hands on, but like most, my knowledge and study focused on those records
that helped me research my ancestors. I had researched for several years
before there was even a short course in my area on how to
research.
Frankly I never learned what enumeration districts
were for the census until after I started researching my wife's family.
All of my own ancestors were rural, one could easily research in all
census records without worrying about enumeration districts. All one ever
needed to know was the name of the township (and a county map) in order to
locate them. The few who retired to "town" lived in communities of several
hundred people or so. Enumeration districts aren't usually a problem in
these areas.
I performed research for others as a way to earn
extra cash during summers in college (I NO longer do this). Researching
other families was fun and provided a diversion from researching my own
families. I saved the money to hire researchers in other areas to perform
work for me. Desperation had set in on one of my Kentucky lines and I
decided to hire a researcher to perform work in the court records. The
work (and well over one hundred pages of copies) cost me around $80, which
to this college freshman was quite a bit of money (it also used virtually
all the research money I had saved that summer). The huge packet of pages
arrived shortly before I was to be home for Christmas break. When my
mother told me over the phone the material had arrived I immediately had
her open it and read the letter. Unfortunately the letter did not mention
whether or not the records contained the information I needed. I could not
wait for finals to be over. I spent my first several hours at home reading
copies of court records from the 1820s and 1830s. I was nearly shouting
when I read the paragraph that proved the parentage I had desperately
wanted to find.
Spring breaks during college were never spent on
the beaches of Florida or Texas. Usually two or three days were spent at
home cleaning out the cattle barns after the spring calving. It was an
unpleasant job to be certain. My seventy-five year old grandmother would
always insist on helping. There were usually one or two days that could be
spent in the courthouse once the task was complete---it wasn't a total
loss.
I began reading genealogical journals and other publications,
mainly in the stacks at the university I attended. Fortunately for my
genealogical development, my alma mater (Western Illinois University) was
the home of the Illinois Regional Archives, where I had access to a great
body of material for my research. Unfortunately the archives closed at
4:00 P.M.! Fortunately my grades did not suffer. I desperately wanted to
be an intern at the archives, but unfortunately I was not studying the
"correct" discipline. This gave me time for my own research, so it
actually was a good thing.
I had been researching nearly ten years
before I attended my first genealogy workshop. Workshops, conferences, and
formalized instruction are another great way to learn about genealogy. The
difficulty can be in fitting them into work schedules and budgets. Even
today, I try and attend one workshop a year where I'm not somehow
involved. When I am involved, I try to attend sessions that I think will
help with my own research. Genealogists have to continue to learn, whether
it's about sources they have never used, areas they have never tried to
"tackle" or technology they think can augment their
research.
Learning can take place in many ways:
— Doing
research
— Reading journal articles, magazines (and yes, e-zines!)
— Attending conferences and workshops
— Taking classes
However, there's a critical ingredient in all of this that can be
found in a book, journal, magazine, conference lecture, class, or
courthouse. That's the willingness to THINK! Sometimes all of us (myself
included) need to be made aware of this.
But no matter what, our
genealogical education is rarely complete.
Michael John Neill,
is the Course I Coordinator at the Genealogical Institute of Mid America
(GIMA) held annually in Springfield, Illinois, and is also on the faculty
of Carl Sandburg College in Galesburg, Illinois. Michael is the Web
columnist for the FGS FORUM and is on the editorial board of the Illinois
State Genealogical Society Quarterly. He conducts seminars and lectures on
a wide variety of genealogical and computer topics and contributes to
several genealogical publications, including Ancestry Magazine and
Genealogical Computing.
Copyright
2001, MyFamily.com.