Quest Column
TRISH HACKETT NICOLA

This was followed by a lengthy article explaining whom my great-grandfather was visiting, how the accident happened and the antidote. Suddenly my genealogy wasn't just a listing of dates and places. I knew a lot more about my great-grandfather and his life in a small farming community in western New York state in 1912. Yuck, Gramps used to eat raw eggs.

The U. S. Senate has designated October as "Family History Month." Every month about 14 million Americans use the Internet to research their family history. Genealogy is the second most popular hobby in the U. S. with more than 80 million people searching for their roots.

You don't need to use a computer to get started with your family history; there are many ways to begin your quest for family information. You can go low tech, high tech or a combination of both. Start by writing down what you know about your family: the facts–names, dates and places of birth, marriage and death of parents, grandparents, and their parents and all the children of each generation. Go back as far as you can. Use the standard genealogy forms if possible: pedigree/ancestry charts and family group sheets. You can find the charts at the Seattle Genealogical Society, 6200 Sand Point Way NE, (206) 522-8658, a Family History Center of the Mormon Church, or download them from various web sites. They are available at pbs.org/kbyu/ancestors/charts. These forms will make it easier to see where you are missing information and will help organize your data. Once you have the "bones" of your family chart, start filling in the more personal information.

If you are writing a personal family history for your immediate family, you might want to fill in a physical description, medical history, hobbies, job history, religion, places they lived, and any interesting facts you remember about them.

After you have written down much of what you know about your family, start talking or writing to members of the extended family. Everyone remembers different things and they also might remember those facts differently than you remember them. Have an open mind and don't try to correct someone else's memories.

Has anyone in the extended family saved newspaper clippings of obituaries, birth or marriage announcements, wedding anniversary, retirements or other significant events in the family? Is there a family bible? Baby books, scrap books, photo albums, yearbooks, diaries, autograph books, and letters are all good sources of information. Documents you may find around the house or in a bank deposit box include military enlistments and discharge papers, school records, deeds, baptismal, birth, adoption, confirmation, marriage, divorce and death certificates, and cemetery records.

Once you have exhausted all of these sources, you can start obtaining missing documents at state or local governments such as citizenship and immigration records, wills and probate, deeds and mortgages, and tax records.

The U.S. census records are also a good source of information. The Pacific Alaska Region branch of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is located on Sand Point Way in Seattle. Each branch of NARA has the federal population censuses for all states from 1790 to 1930. Establish where your family was in 1930 and take them back a decade at a time.

As for organizing your information: If you don't have a computer, you might want to think about getting one. If you have a computer, this is the time to find a good genealogy program for it.

Enter all the data you have accumulated. If possible, store the documents you have found in acid-free archival folders which you can find in catalogs and specialty stores.

Document all of your sources. For example, if you talked to Aunt Betty on the phone last week and she gave you ten family birth dates and places, make a note for your files telling who gave you the information and the place and date of the conversation. Be sure to record Aunt Betty's full name, address and phone number. Put all of this on an 8½ by 11 sheet of paper (no little scraps of paper!) or enter it immediately on your computer.

You may come across sensitive family information. It is better not to bring up some facts until the people involved are long gone. If great, great, great-uncle got in trouble with the law for tipping over an outhouse that might seem amusing now but Aunt Matilda might not want the world to know that her son was arrested for smoking pot in the 60's.

If you become overwhelmed by an overload of information, just slow down. Take one family line at a time. If you hit a brick wall start another line. Work on the troublesome line at a later time or get help with genealogy problems. Take a genealogy class at the library, a genealogy society, a community college, or on the Internet or ask for help from a genealogist. The staff at the local branches of the Mormon library are very helpful with novice genealogists.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of types of genealogical sources available and thousands of genealogical web sites. (If you are really serious about genealogy, learn how to spell genealogy. Also learn how to spell cemetery.)

Be sure to make your genealogy into a family history. Don't simply record the facts about your ancestors–record the story of their lives. Start writing down information about your life. Many people say they haven't done anything important enough to write about. Our descendants are going to wonder how we lived our daily lives–who our friends were, what our favorite music or movie was, what games we played, where we worked and what kind of car we drove.

Technology is changing so quickly that anyone who was born after 1975 doesn't know what life was like before microwaves, computers, televisions and VCR's. If you are writing about life before 1960 you probably should explain how a manual typewriter worked and that it didn't have spell check. Or that at one time we made pop corn by pushing a pan back and forth over a stove burner. Long before that it was made over the fireplace; there was no microwave. These things may seem unimportant now but in another 50 years no one will remember how we did these things.

Start a family project at your Thanksgiving get-together. Interview the older people in the family on audio tape or video. Get them to tell family stories. Have the younger family members tell their parents or grandparents' life story. Get out your photographs and label them. Write a chapter or two of your family history for a wonderful holiday gift. It will be a true gift of love!

Patricia "Trish" Hackett Nicola is a Magnolia resident. She can be reached at www.familytraces.com, (206) 284-5232 or by e-mail at phn@familytraces.com.