I have written about family research several times but I'm always finding new information about not only my family but others in this area. I got interested in my ancestors at a early age. I remember talking to several family members about my family. I first started taking notes with a regular school notebook and pencil back in the 1970's, when I would talk to the older people in the family.
One of the best sources of information back then was libraries, where you could look up old records. A older family member who was also very interested in family research told me to get a tape recorder and record my conversations with the older members of the family. This was almost forty years ago and at the time the smallest tape recorders you could find were old reel to reel ones with something like four inch tape reels, but these things still weighed about four or five pounds.
Then one day I was working a job in the Everglades, it was a daylight only job and so at night sometimes I would go to a local store to pick up my items for lunch for the next few days, since we were almost twelve miles from the nearest paved road and over twice that far to the nearest store. By this time computers were starting to become more of a common item in homes. I had one that was running Windows 3.1 at the time. I happen to go to a local Walmart and having time to kill just walked all around the store, I got back to the electronics department and saw a computer program called Family Tree Maker, I knew where this program was going to go to. Even though very primitive by today's standards it and a new website called Ancestry.com make research a lot easier.
Now we have several DNA sites to track down our ancestors, according to Ancestry DNA I have right at 99,900 people with shared DNA around the world.
Another good source of information that I have found is to check cemeteries, especially if you know you have just one ancestor there. A while back I started helping with a service called Find A Grave, where you go to local cemeteries and take pictures of headstones someone has requested. The first one I did about a year ago was for a person that lived in Alaska, but had a family member buried at a cemetery in Escambia county Alabama.
I recently went to one cemetery where I knew I had one ancestor and after walking the cemetery over I found nine more people that I thought might be my ancestors, I took a picture of each headstone so I wouldn't be guessing about the name and dates, and checked my family tree and found that I had all but two of those already on it, and was able to add those two after a little research. I feel like I was able to correct a mistake on my family tree just this week while I was looking for a headstone for the Find a Grave service.
I didn't know where one of my cousin's father was buried but I saw the name on a headstone and knew right away who it was. When I got home I checked the tree and found the birth year was different from what was on the headstone, it was off by one year, I feel the person that paid for the headstone was probably more careful about the date than someone just recording a record.
Finding this headstone also created a new mystery for me, there is a baby buried right next to the man but I haven't been able to find a record of the birth at all, according to the date on the grave if the baby had live it would be in it's mid seventies now. If you are a person who likes a mystery, there might be plenty of them in your family history.
The Alger Sullivan Historical Society is coming up on it's busy time of the year, May 2nd and Sawmill Day might seem like a long time off but it's only a little over three months away. Start making your plans, as usual there will be plenty of exhibits and items for sale along with entertainment and good food.
The car show is always a very interesting event for anyone with any interest in cars. The ASHS meets the third Tuesday of the month, at the Leach House Museum at 610 4th Street in Century. The museum is open on Saturday morning, to give tours and help people learn a little more about our local history. Our next regular meeting is February 18th at 6 PM, Larry Manning a potter will be our guest speaker at this meeting. Everyone is welcome to come to the meetings and to join the ASHS.
