About Families Online

Feature Articles for June 2003

Tracing Your Family Tree
by Sheila Wray Gregoire

Twenty years ago I stood in St. Catharine’s House in London, England, poring over the marriage records for 1902, the year that my great-grandparents were supposed to have been married. I was 13 years old, and after searching farther and farther back, to no avail, we began to search farther forward. We finally found them in 1903. I did some rapid arithmetic.

“But that means she was pregnant when she was married!”, I cried out, as several dozen grey-haired, spectacled researchers looked at me in disdain.

Genealogy has changed immensely over the last twenty years, but one thing that remains the same is the thrill of discovering how your ancestors lived, though hopefully your children won’t discover such secrets! The difference is that today it’s much easier. St. Catharine’s House is no longer an archives; it’s an art gallery, and all those records it once housed are now on computer. You don’t have to travel to London, Edinburgh, Paris, Prague, or Mexico City to find your ancestors; you can find them from home, if you have an internet connection. But to spark your children’s interest in genealogy, you don’t even need that.

Where do You Start?
To get your kids started tracing their family tree, all you need is a notebook, a photo album, and a comfy couch to sit on while you ask Grandma, Grandpa, or aunts and uncles some questions. What was it like growing up? What games did you play? What did you do for Christmas? What were you doing when Kennedy was assassinated, or when we landed on the moon? Where did you meet Grandma? Your kids can collect these stories on tape, or they can write them out for Christmas presents for extended family. Ask for family pictures, and make a tree with a branch—and a picture—for each person.

As they ask these questions, your kids won’t just be learning names and faces. They’ll be learning about people, and in the process building strong relationships with older relatives who may not have seemed very interesting before. Genealogy gives your kids a chance to picture these relatives as kids like themselves, with dreams, hopes, and lots of energy!

Delving Deeper
Stories aren’t all we need. We also need details: names, dates, and places that give us the clues to trace farther back. Most people can’t name their great-grandparents, and many don’t know where their grandparents were born. Once you know these facts, tracing backwards becomes possible. You can do this in person, at county archives, but if you can access the internet it’s much easier. If your children are old enough to navigate the web, they can make use of the many kid-safe genealogy sites available. Enter in Great-Grandpa’s name and birth date, and a world of resources opens up.

Some of what they will discover in this quest will be sad. Until a century ago, losing children was common. In one week in 1848, my husband’s ancestors lost their four children to smallpox, though they went on to have eight more. In other families, mothers died in childbirth. If you continue with genealogy, you’ll have to assess how ready your children are to learn of such things. But if you present it in a comforting way—think of how grateful we can be that we have doctors and medicines now so that we can stay together—most children can handle this.

Deciding whether you want your children to unearth the family skeletons that have been hiding safely in the closet-like my great-grandmother’s wedding date-is another issue. Michael John Neill, a frequent web contributor on genealogy and board member of the Illinois State Genealogical Society, recommends that if one family has significant skeletons, you choose to research a different line until you think your children are mature enough to handle it. Of course, often the skeletons are what make genealogy interesting, but you must be the judge of what you want your children to know.

As you delve deeper, resources other than just birth or death records become available to you. Wills can be especially fun, as they tell what your ancestors owned, and often offer you a glimpse of their personalities. One of my ancestors left all his money to his sons, and none to his daughters. “And if any drop of evil alcohol touches their lips, their money should be taken and given away!”, he wrote. It made me very grateful I never met him!

Census records can also be illuminating, and many are online (once they’re over 100 years old). They show how old each person in the household was at a given time, and list everyone who lived in the house, even if they weren’t family. Did your family have boarders or servants? And don’t forget to check who lived next door. Were there children the same age that your ancestors could have played with? Maybe growing up a few doors down from Great-Grandpa is the little girl who you know better as Great-Grandma.

Make History Come Alive
As you trace your family tree, wars, battles and other events no longer seem so stale. Take a trip away from the computer and visit battlefields, homesteads, farms or even cemeteries. On my England trip, I found a grave for five members of my extended family, all killed just outside London on September 7, 1940, during the Battle of Britain. Bombings, that occurred on another continent decades before I was born, suddenly took on new importance.

But not only do you learn about tragedy, you also learn about how your ancestors played a part in history. Among my husband’s ancestors was the first mayor of Quebec City, taking office in 1620. His family crossed the ocean in the first voyage to New France, when the trip was enough to make many pray for an early death! In response, my oldest daughter and I have been reading Wendy Lawton’s Almost Home, a fictional account of young Mary Chilton coming over on the Mayflower (around the same year as my husband’s ancestors). If you have ancestors who also made that voyage, you can discuss why they were making the trip, and how brave and determined they must have been to build a better life for their families.

Because America is a melting pot, many of our children have very diverse heritages. As you discover relatives who lived through the famine in the

Ukraine, persecution in France, or even a slave ship from Africa, history becomes real. Read books to your children about these events, too, so they can imagine what life was like for those who came before them.

Genealogy roots kids in history, in their families, and in the world. It’s a wonderful hobby, and best of all you’re never done. You can always go further back, or choose a different line. It’s a quest that can give a lifetime of pleasure, and it can start right now as children seek out their grandparents or great-grandparents with a new enthusiasm. Unearth your roots, and find out who you are. You’re never too young—or too old—to start.

Sheila Wray Gregoire, author of the upcoming To Love, Honor and Vacuum: When you feel more like a maid than a wife and a mother (Kregel), takes turn homeschooling her two daughters with her husband, Keith. She can be found at www.SheilaWrayGregoire.com.