Family history treasure trove out of the bluePosted by Administrator on November 17th, 2009

From out of the blue, I have happened upon a treasure trove of family information from my father’s side. Last night, I just happened to be talking to my little brother about learning more about our genealogy. We know our father’s family comes from England, Scotland, and Prussia. We know some of them immigrated to America aboard the Mayflower. But as far as names and dates, we were clueless. There was a Cherokee princess in there somewhere, but that was about it.

As result of our conversation, my little brother happened to bring it up when he was talking to our father this weekend. That’s when my father, who has done a substantial amount of family history, passed him a file of hundreds of names and dates. In one fell swoop, we were able to get better acquainted with several generations, where they were born, where they were married, and where they died. There are uncles and aunts in there, too. 

Sometimes, to get started, I guess all you need to do is talk about it. Parents and grandparents can be an invaluable resource in getting started. Sometimes your questions can spur something they had forgotten. Something is bound to come up. Pretty cool, huh?



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Michelle Obama and How Genealogy Tells Us Who We Really ArePosted by Administrator on October 14th, 2009

The revelation that First Lady Michelle Obama’s family history extends back to a white Georgian slaveowner and a slave returned the national spotlight to genealogy. Indeed, it casts a spotlight on the fact that underneath every celebrity, politician, and average joe is a rich story, a family history. 
 
So often we like to define ourselves and others by occupation. We introduce ourselves, "I’m a banker" or "I’m a soccer mom." Others prefer to define themselves by ethnicity. "I am Korean." "I am a Hungarian Jew." Still others pick neighborhood or socio-economic status as their identifier. But are any of these what really define us? At best, they represent a very short-term, rootless worldview. At worst, they represent a forgetting of our true roots.
 
Study after study has shown that family history has a stronger bearing on one’s development and personality than occupation, location, economic status, or even ethnicity. Not too long ago, people identified themselves as the son or daughter of their father or of the house of a certain family. They understood the link from them back to their ancestors and the value that created. It was social capital, as long as your family was respectable. In our individualist society, however, all traces of this practice are being wiped away and with it our conscious ties to the past.
 
Michelle Obama was known as the First Lady, a fierce legal practitioner, and a community organizer. Thanks to genealogy she is also now known as the successful daughter of black slaves, a symbol of the slow redemption of African Americans from the blight of slavery. What do you think drives her more or shapes her character? I’m willing to bet it’s the latter.


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Overcoming Family History Dead EndsPosted by Administrator on October 6th, 2009

What do you do when you come to a big dead end in your family history research? Genealogists rely on physical records, like baptism, marriage, or death records, to complete each part of their family tree. But when these records have been lost, damaged, or never existed in physical form, family history research is stopped dead in its tracks.

Take my Japanese side, for instance. There are a few things we know about my great-grandfather. We know he was named Takei. We know he left Japan as a boy to travel with a Chinese circus (yes, a circus). We know the circus eventually traveled to Hawaii and that Takei opted to stay in Hawaii rather than return to the Orient. Then, on its way back to Asia, the ship struck a reef and sank, taking its manifests and records with it. Takei was befriended and eventually adopted by a British official and his family, his name becoming Takei Doyle.

Because Takei left Japan in secret and the ship’s manifest was lost, there are many things we don’t know about him. We don’t know if Takei was his first name or his family name. We think he may have been from the farmland around Mt. Fuji, but we can’t be sure. In fact, our family has been to Japan several times to search out clue to Takei’s origins with no luck. In our pedigree chart, Takei represents a big stop sign.

I have heard of many family history researchers who have encountered this very situation and been able to make a connection with a distant relative by chance or by miracle. The internet makes it easier for different branches to hook up and eliminate these loose ends.

My family hopes to locate Takei’s family someday. How that will happen we do not know.

When you come up to a roadblock like this, how do you get past it? What tricks and tools do you use to find that missing piece?



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