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Shaking Your Family Tree

May 20, 1999
	Embrace Their Past by Myra Vanderpool Gormley, C.G.
Family Chronicle, launched in 1996, is a slick, beautifully illustrated magazine that is published six times a year. It is aimed at amateur genealogists to help them learn how to discover information about their ancestors. However, many of its articles are of interest to family historians of all levels of expertise. Introduction to Genealogy is the magazine's latest creation. It is a 188-page, colorfully illustrated, softcover publication containing 38 articles which cover such topics as: - Genealogy and History - Finding Your Vital Records - Passenger Ship Lists - Organizing Materials - Ten Common Mistakes - Computers for Genealogy - Genealogy Software Primer - Genealogy Web sites Worth Surfing - Heraldry Fact and Fiction - Tartans (the history of tartans with more than 100 examples) It also includes tips for researching in various countries, along with maps of: the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Benelux countries, Denmark and Iceland, England and Wales, Finland and Sweden, France, Germany, Greece and the Balkans, Ireland, Italy, Norway, the old Russian Empire, Scotland, Spain and Portugal, and Switzerland. According to one of the articles, among the most common mistakes made by beginning genealogists are: - Working forward, not backward. Trying to find a connection between a distant ancestor by working down their line to find a link with your own line will almost always be a waste of effort. The logic of genealogy is always work back from what you know. - Thinking that genealogy can all be done on the Internet. The Net is a powerful tool, but you will have do a great deal of research the old-fashioned way -- using libraries, archives, films, and books. - Assuming your family had a coat of arms. In most Western countries a coat of arms was issued to an individual -- not to a family. Even direct descendants of the handful of individuals with a genuine coat of arms were not and are not entitled to the original version. There are peddlers at malls and on the Net who will sell you a potted family history and a colorful coat of arms with your surname on it. This is big business, but it is not family history. Uninformed consumers keep these outfits in business. - Name collecting. Beginners often think if they collect everything they can find on everyone with the same last name that eventually everything will fall into place. Collecting names from a particular time period and locality where you know your ancestors resided is valid, but a wide sweep of everyone you can trace anywhere will be a waste of effort. - Not recording your negative searches. It is a virtual certainty that you'll find yourself looking at the same source again if you fail to keep such a record. Introduction to Genealogy is available ($25 postpaid) from Family Chronicle, Box 1201, Lewiston, NY 14092 or toll-free (888) 326-2476; on the Web at: http://www.familychronicle.com/. (c) 1999, Los Angeles Times Syndicate –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Myra Vanderpool Gormley and Julie Case are co-editors of Missing Links, a free weekly genealogy e-zine. To subscribe, send your request to: Missing Links Newsletter –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Return to Myra Vanderpool Gormley Main Page Return to Columns Main Page
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