As we planned ahead of time, I thought, “What do I do
when I only have a limited time at a family history center?” I realized I would have to have
laser-focus and make it as quick and easy as possible to bring other people up
to speed on my problem.
Laser-focus means you
concentrate on one person or one couple. That gives you direction. You also decide what you want to know about them. (Yes, you want to find as much as possible,
but choosing a few things helps you focus further.)
To efficiently bring
consultants up to speed, it helps to create a summary sheet of everything you
have found out so far about the person or couple of interest. Take this summary sheet with you and
use it when talking with the consultant as you describe your problem. List birthdays, death dates, summaries
of censuses, and even name variations.
It will be a helpful visual aid for yourself and the consultant, and it
will also be a place to scribble down things you discover and ideas for other
places to look.
I had my little summary of
data about John Schafer and Elizabeth Albert. My summary had their data from the 1860 and 1880 censuses
and where the censuses were from and occupations and things. That made it really easy for me to talk to the consultants,
especially since I talked to three different ones. It made it easy for them to think about where to search and
I noticed it helped me so much that I
think from now on any time I go there I should take summary data with me.
As I said, I talked to three
consultants. The first one got
called away to help someone else before he could finish thinking of a search
strategy for me. The second one
seemed a bit uncertain about where to search next, and he called in a third to
help. The third guy seemed to have
a lot of experience searching for different kinds of documents, so his
involvement was very helpful.
Does this mean that 2 out of
3 consultants at family history centers aren’t going to be able to help? No. It just means that in
my case I had already exhausted the easily findable sources and I really
needed help. And I got
it.
So what did we (I and the
consultant) find?
·
We found the
Schafer-Albert couple in the 1870 census with yet another instance of a
wacky-spelled last name—Scheafer.
(Michaela rolls her eyes.) We
knew it was them because it was the right people at the right ages in right
place at the right time.
·
We figured out
that vital records didn’t go far enough back to find any birth records for
Elizabeth.
·
We figured out
that Elizabeth Albert’s mother was from “Elsis” according to the 1880 census
and that was an attempt to write “Alsace” from France. (I had no idea what “Elsis” was, so
that was a big help.)
·
We also figured
out that John Schafer probably owned land, and we searched for and found a
microfilm to order which would tell us which of another set of microfilms to
order to find his land records.
I’d say that’s quite a bit
of progress for a single two-hour session with the last consultant of three
that looked at my case.
How did my visiting teachers
do? One of them was excited
because she found two people in her family that she didn’t know about. The other didn’t find anything, but
could see that she was going to have to do more personal preparation in order
to make progress. She spent the
time trying things out in Familysearch and learning to navigate the site.
I feel pretty good about
this fieldtrip. I’m happy that we
could support each other and pull each other into it.
One of my visiting teachers was
a little discouraged because she just wanted to find the people and take names
to the temple. The research aspect
didn’t interest her at all. But I
can totally see why she felt that way.
In fact, I remember feeling the very same way about five years ago while
I was taking a class from ASU on “Writing Family History Narratives.”
That class required me to
focus on just the ancestors in my four-generation pedigree chart, finding
documents for them and gathering information on them. I remember resenting all the research I had to do on people
so “close” when I just wanted to focus on my treetops on and find new people to
do temple work for.
However, over time, I came
to enjoy the searching process, especially when it led to finding new
documents. I came to enjoy the
methodology of taking care to record and cite sources. The main semester assignment to write a
narrative for each person in my four-generation pedigree chart required me to
take time filling in details and learn about these people more deeply. When the semester was over and my
narrative was finished, I felt much more emotionally connected to those
ancestors of mine. I felt like I
knew them better and they felt like real family, not just names.
We all hope to feel the joy
of finding new family names to take to the temple, but I learned that isn’t the only time we can anticipate
feeling joy as we do family history research.
·
From that class,
I learned that finding traces of my
ancestors in documents gives me joy,
·
As each trace
adds to the picture I’m building of what they did and what they were like, I come to know them better, which also
gives me joy.
·
Building that
picture also accumulates evidence with clues about where to find
their parents and helps me identify and
recognize them with confidence, which gives me joy.
·
Recording what I found and citing carefully so that
others will have an easier time in the future also gives me satisfaction that I am making it easier for others to retrace my
steps.
·
Sharing what I’ve found also gives me joy because I’m helping my family know my ancestors too.
Also, I learned that
practicing search strategies on people in my tree whom I knew about would help
me become a better researcher for the future when it came time to look for
people that I didn’t know about. (This is why instructions for
starting family history research always say, “Start with who you know.”)
When the church talks about
family history, it always talks about the doctrine and the ultimate end of
taking family names to the temple.
The thing is, in order to get to that end, you have to do a lot of
research. And the research is fun (and also frustrating at
times).
But the church doesn’t talk
much about the research process except in context of telling miracle stories of
how someone finally found their GGGGGGgrandfather. So we members get the impression that family history research is 1) not worth enjoying for
its own sake and that it is 2) something that can be done in a cursory, hasty,
perfunctory, sketchy, and brief fashion, like we can find the one magic
document with all the names and dates and then move on to search for the next
people up the line. And we discover to our chagrin that this isn’t true when we
try it. (I describe these notions
because I’ve had them myself.) Or
3) we get the impression that every effort we make to do family history will be
attended by miraculous divine intervention, no matter how small that effort is.
This is like holding the
firm belief that an ‘A’ in math is desirable but also holding notions that the ‘A’
should be achieved without taking a class in math, or studying math, or trying
to work math problems. It is like
holding the idea that the Lord will help us get the ‘A’ on the Calculus test
when we haven’t even learned how to multiply.
Here’s something I’ve
realized. Educating myself about
the search process is just as necessary as learning the doctrine and learning
the Lord can help me with miracles.
As an aside, I recommend taking
a college class on family history for a number of different reasons.
1) Having an assignment with
a deadline attached creates the traction you need to make lots of progress.
2) You’ll have a supportive
learning environment and someone to ask for help.
3) You’ll learn about all
the different kinds of records that exist which will broaden your horizons.
4) You’ll learn search
strategies and strategies for keeping organized.
5) You’ll learn to create
your own records with more of an eye toward helping your descendants learn about you.
Taking that college class
was an intense experience. When it
was done, I breathed a sigh of relief and didn’t touch family history again for
another five years. But when I
started up again, I still had my notes to refer to. I also found I had internalized principles from the class,
which helped me.
In short, doing family
history research is a skill that can be learned. It has best practices.
It has tools. The church is
trying to make their tools easier and faster to use, but we still have to learn
how to do it so we can use what we’re given in an intelligent way.
Suppose the church were to
talk at length about the research in general conference in ways that might help
members get over their hang-ups?
If they did, then talks would become like a how-to research guide. But there is so much to learn that that
information is better delivered by family history research classes and webinars
which we’d find if we’d just go look at family history research library
sites. Plus there are plenty of
awesome resources at Familysearch for learning the “how.” There’s a massive wiki on research
topics. There are conferences
completely devoted to family history research. All of this we can find if we go looking. So, the church keeps the focus on that
ultimate end of taking family names to the temple.
If we think about the
principle that sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven, then finding miracles are for people who
educate themselves on the search process and are working it as best as they can
and still get stuck. Those miracles are for people who
would never find what they need because it is hidden in a weird place. Those miracles are for people who would
never know what they need to know unless the Lord sent someone to them who
could tell them.
Some Resources:
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