Getting to the roots of your family tree

August 23, 2009|By Bill Daley, Tribune Newspapers

Curious to know more about your family history but don't know where to start? Here's simple advice from a pro:

"You need to start talking to your family. Talk to them while they're still around," says Peg Zitko, vice president of public affairs for the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation Inc. The New York City-based organization shares information online about the many thousands of people who sailed into New York before and after the turn of the last century.

With all the computer technology out there, it's almost ridiculously easy now to search and gather information. For example, has a program that will connect you by telephone with whoever you want to talk to and record the conversation. The company, based in Provo, Utah, even has a list of questions you can ask on various topics.

No wonder boast 950,000 subscribers and 11 million family trees.

"That's 11 million possible cousins or family members," said Mike Ward, a company spokesman.

Genealogists, librarians and genealogy Web sites offer similar advice for beginning and growing a family tree. Here are some tips to follow:

*Start with yourself. Write down all your important dates -- birth, graduations, marriage, divorce, remarriage, etc. Write down all the names you've been known by, even the goofy nicknames. Write down where you lived, where you went to school, where you worked. Were you in the military? If so, what did you do? Write down the names of your parents and grandparents and siblings.

*Repeat all of the above for your parents and your siblings. Then move on to grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins. The idea is to build your family tree on a solid foundation where basic facts, oft repeated and confirmed by various family members, will make up for any lapses in memory or incorrect information. The more you know about someone, the easier it will be to move back through the generations.

I've been working on my own family tree, and when I got one side, the Smiths, back to the 1860 United States census, I was able to pick them out because I knew all the kids' names and roughly when they were all born. And I found them despite the fact the census-taker had put down a wrong first name for the father.

*Make an appointment to talk family history with family members. Sounds formal, I know. But this way they aren't surprised when the topic comes up. They can start thinking about it and maybe pull out old photographs or mementos to share with you.

*Keep the tone light and conversational when asking questions. Remember, you are talking to your family!

*Ask about what you need to know, but let the talk go where it will. You never know what clues you'll learn.

I could never find the Ellis Island passenger record for Bridie, my grandmother. Then one day I heard my aunts talking about her.

"Remember how mother hated being called Bridget?" Auntie Pat said.


I found the passenger record for Bridget Mahoney in less than 10 minutes, found exactly where she had lived in Ireland and where she was going in America. That innocent remark would lead me to siblings and unknown cousins, each with his or her own story.

*Write it all down. Or use a tape recorder or video camera to record the conversation. Many people keep family trees and other family history online. Print out copies every now and then in case something ever happens to your online records.

*Looking at family photos can often trigger stories about other family members and big family moments.

*Save the tough or emotional questions until the end. You want the person you're interviewing to be relaxed, in a good mood, conversational.

*Corroborate any information you get from the conversation with other family members or historical records found at your local library or city hall or online.

*Exercise all due caution in publishing or posting the information you uncover. You may be amused your grandmother was born out of wedlock, but publicizing that fact could anger her children.

Be careful not to divulge too much information about living people. Online services, such as, screen data to thwart identity theft.

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Tongue-tied? 27 questions to get the family story going

Not sure what questions to ask your family in creating your family tree? Get the ball rolling with questions such as these from "Climbing Your Family Tree," by Ira Wolfman. Written for the Statue of Liberty -- Ellis Island Foundation Inc., the book is aimed at children, but folks of any age will find it useful:

Home and community life

What do you remember about the house you lived in?

How many bedrooms did it have?

Where did most of the family activities go on?

What was the neighborhood (village) like?

What kinds of people lived there?

What did you do for fun?

Who else lived in the neighborhood (village, etc.)?

What kinds of activities went on there?

Personalities and relationships

Tell me about your parents; what kind of people were they?

What was most important to them?

Did they have a good marriage?