I have been doing family research to some degree for about forty five years or so, some people have said it's similar to detective work and I guess there is some truth to that being you are investigating not only people from the past, but also here in the present as well. For the first several years it was all done with pencil and paper and going to various places checking on what ever records were available.
By the mid 1990's computers were coming into play with just about everything including tracking your ancestors. I was on a job in south Florida during this time and since the job was only running daylight hours I had nights free. I went to a local Walmart mainly to get items to take to work for lunch when I walked back in the electronic section into where the computer software was.
While checking out the computer programs I saw one that caught my attention, the name of it was Family Tree Maker. Since I had a computer at home that would run this program, the computer was running Windows 95, I had to have this program. Even as primitive as Windows 95 may seem to us today, it made doing family research much easier, as slow as the internet was back then it still beat having to go to a library or some other place and look up physical records.
As with everything else Family Tree Maker made advances in the program and improvement regularly. Now days with Ancestry and dozens of other programs available you can find and check records from all over the world without ever leaving your home. If you have ever done family research using Ancestry but like me a few years ago kind of got burned out on it, you might want to check it out again.
They added the DNA feature a few years ago and now they have made some good improvements to that, if a family member takes a DNA test and you have already taken one some time ago, that person will show up on your list of relative pretty quick, and the relationship will be pretty accurate.
The DNA test now show how your DNA matches others in you family line. It's pretty standard for the DNA test to show what percentage your ethnicity is, where your ancestors came from and what part of the United States they first settle in, and now some will even show your health trends.
One of the features that has been added recently is when you enter you family into a family tree, instead of having to wait and do the physical research yourself now the Ancestry tree will in many cases show you the potential mother or father of the ancestor that you recently added. I find this feature makes doing research much easier, you have the option of checking on the potential relationship and adding or not adding that person to your tree.
If you get into family research these days, you probably already have a very handy tool with you, your smart phone. If you talk to a older family member who might be the only source of information, be sure to record your conversation, I can tell you from experience if you don't, one day you will wish you did.
You might be surprised who you find is your family member. I've found on my mother's side of the family we are related to Sidney Rigdon. This could be where my great-grandmother got her middle name, Nancy Missouri Rigdon. According to history Sidney Rigdon had some very exciting adventures in Missouri, some good and some not so good as when they tried to kill him there.
On my dad's side of the family we are related to the Rikards, who had Rikards Mill in Beatrice AL years ago. I've even found some royalty in the older sides of the family, especially those from Scotland. If you have any interest at all in your family history, I would say to you to start digging into your history, you might find it more exciting than you think you would.
The ASHS meets at 6 PM on the third Tuesday of the month at the Leach House Museum at Fourth and Jefferson in Century, please join us.
