Overcoming Your Fear of Geneologists - MLA pre-conference 2013

Since spending time at the warehouse during our renovation, I am woefully out of practice helping genealogy researchers.  I decided that this seminar, given my Mary Mannix at FCPL, would help ease me back into familiarity with genealogy resources in preparation for our move back to Potomac Street.

The biggest thing I took away from this pre-conference session was that genealogy researchers are more than happy to take referrals, so it is most important to know where to find information and resources -- most will not expect us to do their genealogy research for them.

Free online resources for genealogy research:

• Cyndi's List -- metasite for genealogy information
• familysearch.org

Libraries that offer interlibrary loan of genealogy materials

• St. Louis PL, Missouri -- home of the Nat'l Genealogical Society
• Mid Continent PL, Utah -- owns a small circulating collection
• Enoch Pratt holds duplicates and triplicates of local Maryland history and genealogy materials
• Some academic libraries have hidden gems that were donated to their collections and circulate via ILL, check worldcat.org
• Researchers can view LDS holdings at their local family history centers for a fee

Useful resources:

• The Source: A guidebook to American Genealogy
• Federal Census (available through Ancestry.com and HeritageQuest databases)

Other tips:

• Newbie genealogists should start with what they know and fill out a family tree 
• They should then write down everything they know, and think they know about their family
• After that, talk to relatives and write down everything they know and think they know
• Use the resources available to prove or disprove what is written down
• Always start with the most recent (yourself or most recently deceased) and work backwards
• Census records
• 1790-1940 available on Ancestry and HeritageQuest
• Prior to 1850, only heads of households were listed by name in the census
• The majority of the 1890 census was lost in a fire
• Not every census has been indexed
• There are a lot of discrepancies in the census, so spellings may not be correct
• Primary sources are best though indexes, abstracts and transcriptions are helpful
• Some primary sources: mortality, slave, agricultural schedules; vital records (birth, death); obituaries; church records (marriage, christening, death, cemetery surveys); wills and estate documents

This was a great crash course in genealogy research, and it definitely helped me get over the fear of going back to Central and having genealogy questions again :)

~Liz Jones (WCFL reference)~