The Family Tree
By Terence L. Day
Terence L. Day, genealogist and journalist, is on the Washington State University faculty. He welcomes e-mail at genealogy@moscow.com, or regular mail in care of the Tri-City Herald City newsroom, P.O. Box 2608, Tri-Cities, WA 99302-2608.
Internet bring genealogists, family history closer
This story was published April 27, 1997
It's only a matter of time until someone makes the movie; Honey, I shrunk the world!
It will be a true story of how personal computers and the Internet are shrinking the world to the benefit of everyone, especially genealogists.
Recently, I polled genealogists on the Kentucky Roots discussion list on the Internet, asking them to describe how the Internet has helped them.
High on their lists of benefits are convenience, speed, new sources of information, meeting unknown cousins and encountering other genealogists who sometimes go far out of their way to help a stranger.
Convenience
After nearly 20 years of genealogizing, Barbara Kelsey Boese, Dodge City, Kan., discovered Internet genealogy, about a year ago.
It allows her to spend more time at home with her retired husband and still research her family history.
Patricia A. Hopkins Baldwin, Denver, Ky., notes the Internet is there" 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. "It's 'there' when you can't sleep."
Patricia Anita Bentley McDaniel, Greenwood, Ind., enjoys doing genealogy on the Internet during the early morning hours. "I don't have to worry about traffic or pay for parking," she says.
Carol Switzer Dean, Orem, Utah, writes, "I am disabled and unable to stand the long hike from the parking lots to the libraries and then through the libraries to where I need to be."
Speed
On the Internet you don't need paper, pen or stamps to write letters. Mail travels at the speed of light.
Elvina (Meyer) Hiatt, Fort Worth, Texas, enthuses, "Sending a letter to a fellow genealogist might take two months to find out if they were willing to share anything. With the Net, sometimes turn-around time is almost immediate. At the most you usually get an answer within a day."
Meeting cousins
After 16 years of genealogy, Marjie Lebens, Boise, discovered genealogy on the Internet.
"I met a fellow genealogist who turned out to be a third cousin," she relates. "We didn't even know the other existed and we've been able to help each other a lot. I also met another cousin who helped me find the grave of my great-grandfather. I had been searching for him for 15 years and had almost given up!"
Beth Renee Solomon, O'Fallon, Mo., has met at least six new cousins on the Internet and extended her tree at least three generations on most branches in just the last two years.
Diana Lynn (Parris) Smithson, Cottonwood, Ariz., is in contact with a cousin in England and has extended a line back six generations.
Joe Wayne George, Eureka, Calif., is in contact with five cousins discovered via the Internet.
They are in Arizona, Texas, Indiana, New Mexico, and Virginia. They formed a research "gang" and help each other. "And, of course, get in arguments about things we find," he says.
McDaniel says, "I found a cousin of my husband's who lives in Iowa. He sent me a picture of his great-great-grandfather and my husband Dave's great-great-grandfather (they were brothers) sitting side by side with their wives. This picture was sent to him by a lady in Mississippi. There is no way we would have had access to that picture taken in the late 1800's without the Internet connection."
David Blair Dollard, Wright City, Mo., is one of the more sophisticated Internet users. He has a "page" on the World Wide Web.
He created the page to find others who are researching the Dollard name and soon found it brings people to him with information on many other lines he's working on.
Helping hands
Often it isn't a relative who has important information, or who guides you to a source that proves to be pure genealogical gold.
Nancy Bray Cooper, a middle-aged grandmother from Corpus Christi, Texas, was cruising the civil war forum on America Online when she contacted someone who sent her the Civil War service records of an ancestor.
This stimulated Cooper to learn about his unit and the campaign that cost him his life.
Marie Aline Winton Bartholomew, Van Nuys, Calif., says, she posted her maiden name in the Roots-L group.
"I received a reply from a gentleman back East who mentioned a certain book with my surname in it. I posted the name of the book in the roots group.
Another gentleman in Tennessee went to his local library, copied the pages of the book I needed, sent the pages to me via snail-mail, but also posted the info via E-mail.
Because of this, I made a connection I had been chasing for over three years. I could not have done it without the Internet."
Expanded sources
Robert Gale Fender, Renton, says, "It has allowed me to search truly world wide for my ancestry instead of just locally," Fender says. "I have found ancestry in Europe through new connections that I would only dream of finding otherwise.
I have made connections on several lines that I tried the conventional ways of research for 20 years."
But Sandra K. (Laughery) Gorin, a historian and publisher of historical and genealogical books in Glasgow, Ky., probably summarized the hopes of most Internet genealogists.
She says, "We are on the cutting edge of a new technology linking libraries, researchers and historians across the world. I believe this is the genealogy of the future."