I’m one of those people who doesn’t have much in the way of family. I was raised as an only child, and I only ever met one of my grandparents, on account of two of them being in Germany and one of them having died many decades before I was born. So genealogy always seemed to me to be a lost cause. I’ve made several attempts over the years at trying to find out who my ancestors were, but since I didn’t have much information to go on, I kept running into dead ends before I ever really got started.
Now comes the part where the internet enters the picture and saves the day. There are so many skilled amateur genealogists out there researching their families, but it never occurred to me that someone could be out there researching my family, or that indeed many people already had. Thanks to the network of family tree gardeners out there, I’ve finally made the breakthrough I’d been trying to make for twenty years: finding out who my grandfather was and getting a copy of his death certificate. That has opened up the floodgates, as it were, and just that little nugget of information has now led to me finding no fewer than 105 relatives over the past week. I feel overwhelmed and shocked and emotional and everything else you might expect.
I’m particularly surprised and delighted at the number of old photos one can find online. Above is the family of Thomas and Ardelia Glimp (seated), and the woman standing fifth from the left (behind the rocking chair) is my great-great-aunt, Ardelia Glimp Baker. I can’t believe how much I’ve learned about my history in such a short time. A week ago I had no idea any of these people ever existed.
Wow, all spooky coincidences hey? I’ve had a genealogy file which my father started over a decade ago, same story as you, am not a genealogist and always frustrated by the lack of progress so it’s been gathering “bit mist” on a CD. About two weeks ago I thought I might try again, and was surprised that I suddenly had just over 100 names in the family tree and got back as far as 1740ish. And my family? All Austro-Hungarian, so not too far apart geographically.
Have you noticed that various churches seem to be the main force behind those genealogy sites? Reader’s Digest have been doing it for decades with their sweepstakes garnering lists and details, and now LDS Church and a few others are the primary sponsors and archivists behind several online genealogy sites.
Well, LDS was always the go-to place before genealogy was possible on the internet – LDS centres were your first port of call for any family search, because they had all the good information. That’s been the case for many decades (maybe even more than a century?), so no surprise there. I haven’t heard about any other churches getting involved in terms of hosting or sponsoring genealogical efforts, and to be honest I haven’t looked elsewhere because LDS almost always comes through with the goods.