ROOTS & BRANCHES

I’d love to belong to every historical and genealogical group that exists. Unfortunately, I don’t have unlimited money for my own existence, which means I have to pick, choose and “sample” membership in some organizations. Of course, as someone who’s primarily a writer and editor, the publications put out by a group often tend to …

Someone’s probably come up with a snazzy term for the way I deal with technology: I’ll settle for “Not So Early Adopter.” That is, I’m not a luddite and don’t fear it, but I’m not first in line to try out the latest and greatest. Prime example: I rather religiously am always at least two …

Not every hunch that you play in genealogy pays off. In fact, to use another cliché: Over time, you encounter a lot more “dry holes” than “gushers” in researching family history … even with well-targeted searches, many of more of them will fail to return to the results for which you’re looking. But this is …

Whether you are personally religious or not, learning about ancestors’ membership in a church (or lack thereof) is often one of the most important facets of genealogical research. While it’s often impossible to know exactly how someone actually felt about their faith – unless he or she was one of the minority of people who …

I recall the late Tim Coyne, a gentleman who served on the board of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania while I was executive director there, opining that “it’s possible for historian not to be a genealogist, but it’s impossible for a genealogist not to be a historian.” What I think Coyne was getting at was …

Thomas R. Liszka, an Associate Professor Emeritus of English from Penn State Altoona, posed an interesting question to your “Roots & Branches” columnist. “I wonder if you have any suggestions on finding pictures of people,” he mused. “I have already been in touch with and collected photos from the older members of my wife’s and …

I’m not going to name the particular church that motivated this column because that’s not completely the point. What, then, is the point? Well, as a Pennsylvania German genealogy specialist, knowledge of churches and church records comes with the territory (Faithful “Roots & Branches” followers will recall that it was not too many columns ago …

Between this “Roots & Branches” column and a long-running article in German Life magazine, I’m blessed with many correspondents for whom a particular column here or there spurs a reply. One of these individuals is David H. Pardoe who wrote to me recently about the immigrant father of his grandmother Birdie Sedicum, who was known …

When I get a chance to read the publications of the various genealogy groups of which I am a member, it’s common to find out new information. After all, the further I go on in life, the better idea I have on how relatively little I know! A couple of this year’s issues of the …

There’s been much talk in the world of genealogy programming for a decade or more that has run in parallel with the Internet-inspired growth of the hobby: Are in-person conferences still a worthwhile endeavor? Some national conferences have turned into financial failures for both their sponsors and vendors attending them. More societies, genealogy-related businesses and …

Your columnist rarely steers “Roots & Branches” into territory that might be considered political. Rarely but not never. I’ve watched U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s claims of Native American ancestry from a distance over the last decade or so. My opinion – shaped by some 30 years of doing genealogy and having many people find their …

When people say “There are no second acts in American lives,” they’re shortening an F. Scott Fitzgerald quotation and turning it on its head in the process. That’s because the full quotation is: “I once thought that there were no second acts in American lives, but there was certainly to be a second act to …

I met Mike Staab at a recent genealogy conference in York County and an e-mail conversation developed about his ancestor George Badders of Fawn Township in that county. “George died intestate, and his son Levi was his eventual heir,” Staab wrote. He sent along the few documents from George’s estate and asked: “Does Levi’s signature …

Original records are messy. Original records are often difficult to read. Original records still sometimes have errors. But accessing original records makes the difference. What kind of difference? Just ask Gary Mauchmar, a Michigan descendant of the same Machmer / Machemer / Magemer family of Berks County from which I hail, too. Mauchmar for years …

Earlier this month, I traveled to Tarrytown in the Hudson Valley for the New York State Family History Conference, primarily as a vendor of the several commercially published books I’ve authored. And while sales were great and I had the chance to sneak a few listens to lectures from some of the genealogy world’s top …

It’s not often that I’m an “early adopter” of, well, just about anything. Normally I like to see a track record – especially before I plunk down money to purchase a product or service. But when Katherine Schober of SK Translations, a German-English translations service, decided to offer a “premium” membership with her company, she had me at the proverbial “hello.” Of course, Schober …

It’s sometimes the case that genealogists get a little single minded. (Beat) OK, now that those of you who are single-minded genealogists (or know one) have gotten the laughs out of your system – what genealogist, uh, isn’t single minded? – we can proceed with our regularly scheduled column. Because what I’m going to opine …

I’ve opined – more than just once or twice – that the local expertise of genealogists can be worth more than many database searches. This is because the “granular knowledge” that such experts possess – about the history, geography and people of single townships or even part of a township – is an often-overlooked asset …

It’s been awhile since your “Roots & Branches” columnist had heard from C. Arnold McClure, so it was a welcome thing to get an e-mail update from him. “I wrote to you some years ago about my experience with DNA tests,” McClure began. “I also sent you a copy of my book that you called …

As I’ve worked through the just-completed series reminiscing about my genealogy curriculum, I’ve been waiting patiently to publish a few of my frequent correspondent Rick Bender’s newspaper finds. Following up on last week’s “Roots & Branches” column that admitted I omitted newspapers from that curriculum seems like a good time to do that. Bender has …

Of course, this “Roots & Branches” series comparing genealogy today with the continuing ed course I taught about it in 1991 wouldn’t be complete without talking about newspapers. Which is more ironic than I care to admit – because I didn’t mention newspapers at all in that course a quarter century ago! Now having written …

What a trip down memory lane this summer of “Roots & Branches” columns has been! For those who haven’t been reading the series every week, I’ve been reflecting back on the first time I taught a genealogy class – a continuing education course for the Lebanon Campus of Harrisburg Area Community College in 1991. This …

When I wrote the curriculum for a continuing ed course in 1991 that I’ve seen analyzing during the last few “Roots & Branches” columns, I know that I was building up to a “big finish.” And that “big finish” I called “Making the Trans-Atlantic Connection.” There was more than a bit of conceit and Euro-centrism …

As I’ve been writing this series of “Roots & Branches” columns as reflections on my first stab at teaching genealogy in the early 1990s, I’ve been thinking that I got a fair bit right in my curriculum for that continuing ed course. But one thing I got very wrong was not introducing my students to …

One of my all-time favorite icebreaker anecdotes is the will of a woman named Kate Daub, who disinherits two of her children – with the claim that one of them had tried to kill her! – and left a life estate for a live-in boyfriend. She was truly a woman ahead of her time, since …

As this “Roots & Branches” series comparing the genealogy basics from a quarter century ago with today continues, it’s time to wax a bit nostalgic about one of my first entrees into serious genealogical research. My mother’s mother, Luella Emma Frederick, was born illegitimate, though thankfully she was given her reputed father’s surname. When I …

We’ve spent the last couple of “Roots & Branches” columns talking about some of the massive changes in the genealogy world since I first taught a continuing ed class on family history in 1991. One of the things that hasn’t changed – though it’s no longer the first thing that most people do as a …

Last week’s “Roots & Branches” began a journey backward in time – all the way back to 1991, when I first was the instructor for a continuing education class on genealogy. Neither the Internet nor DNA were a thing. But one thing I do recall telling the students in that class was that genealogy could …

As people who know me well have heard, I was not born a natural public speaker (there’s even an incident in which I caused to be “lost” a collage about which I was supposed to speak in front of the class in fifth or sixth grade). And while I never expect to become the most …

It’s often said that you don’t truly appreciate something until it’s gone. For me, that “something” is village of Blue Marsh and the so-called Pleasant Valley along the course of the Tulpehocken Creek in western Berks County. This tiny village and the valley surrounding it are gone because a dam was built that flooded the …

If you’re followed the last couple of “Roots & Branches” columns as I have become aware of more information about one of my ancestral families named Miller, you might be thinking, “Wow, doesn’t this give you hope that even lines involving common names will be solved!” But if you’ve followed “Roots & Branches” through its …

Last week’s “Roots & Branches” column gave a nod to a correspondent of mine, Brian S. Miller. His information had extended my “umbilical” line – that is, my mother’s mother’s mother and etc. – a generation, breaking through what had been one of four Miller brick walls in my lineage. In this case, information from …

When I was relatively new to genealogy – this was the 1980s, before Internet and way before DNA – a researcher who was somewhat of a mentor to me said that he especially liked tracing “umbilical lines.” In its strictest sense, this is what we now call the mitochondrial DNA line (mtDNA for short) because …

“You should have known better.” I heard that a bunch of time growing up since it was my mother’s favorite way to rebuke me. I thought of the phrase again – for the first time in a long time! – when looking at a blog post by Dick Eastman a couple of weeks ago. Under …

Faithful readers of the “Roots & Branches” column will know that Eric “Rick” Bender of New Mexico is probably the column’s most prolific correspondent. I’ve met Bender in person, too, a few times over the years – most recently at the Lancaster Family History Conference a couple of weeks ago. Bender says he had a …

A long time ago in a dating galaxy far, far away, I had a disastrous first date in which I had to explain that “genealogy” was not a single lecture topic and that family history conferences could stretch on for several days with hundreds of topics. Her reaction sealed the fate that there would be …

Last week’s installment of the “Roots & Branches” column talked about “presentism” – taking an (often unintentional) view that things in the past have been the same as we think of them today – as a curse of assumption that may afflict our genealogy. While I was using that as a jumping off point to …

One of the things I tackle in my new book The Family Tree Historical Newspapers Guide is what I call “presentism.” What “presentism” is, in short, is making assumptions about the past based on our own present-day experiences. An example from the newspaper world is assuming that the writeups of individuals’ deaths we now call …

When the first great wave of genealogy happened in the late 19th century, it was ignited by the United States centennial in 1876 and continued with the publication of many county biographical histories into the early 1900s. These county histories – often called “mug books” because they have photographs of many the individuals featured, usually …

For something that often goes by the name of “family history,” genealogy in the Internet age has become as much or more solitary as social. This is as a result of the ability of genealogists to access so many records at home from their computer desktops instead of going out into the world chasing those …

Some 20 years ago, my late mother Mildred H. Beidler had a visitor from the Midwest. The visitor was one of those distant cousins you meet through genealogical happenstance. Her name is Michelle Potter and she was a descendant of Elias Machmer, who my mother recalled having been talked as a brother to mom’s great-grandfather …

The Lancaster Family History Conference has been around for 39 years – just a little bit longer than I’ve been involved in genealogy! – and was already a well-regarded get-together when I first attended in 1990. Over that time, I’ve seen it grow from a Saturday-only event to several days of activities that culminates in …

Last week’s “Roots & Branches” column profiled readers Niels Witkamp’s attempt to extend his Dutch surname line into Germany, based on a couple of entries in the Netherlands that pointed to either “Salm” or “Westphalia” as the origin of his Witkamp family. The first entry was a marriage of the Roman Catholic Jan Hendrik Witkamp …

Niels Witkamp is a devoted “Roots & Branches” reader who is also my go-to guy for Dutch genealogy, so I guess it’s natural that he decided to return the favor when it appeared that his Witkamp line was going to extend into Germany. “I am stuck with my Witkamp line and was wondering if you …

In the increasingly online world, digital, virtual world, idioms from the that pre-modern, pre-computer world sometimes lose their context. “Hanging up” a phone? Fewer and fewer people know where that literally comes from. And then there’s the phrase “where you stand depends on where you sit.” When so many times communication is virtual instead of …

I’ve been fortunate enough to benefit from loads of good relationships in the larger genealogy world during my years of participation in it. But it’s fair to say that among the very best of those ties is with the folks at F+W Media, who put out Family Tree Magazine as well as my three commercially …

Last week’s “Roots & Branches” column on DNA and genealogy struck a chord with Ebensburg reader Charlie Moyer, who went from skeptic to believer overnight after taking a test a couple of years ago. “The subject of DNA is very special to me,” Moyer wrote. He said that he’s an Ancestry.com subscriber but had been …

There are rarely many days in the week in which I don’t get someone asking me about DNA and genealogy. In many cases, it’s someone who has taken a DNA test. Other times, it’s someone thinking about taking a test who learns I’m a genealogist and wants to know my opinion about the state of …

I’ve written any number of “Roots & Branches” columns about cemeteries and tombstones. And I’ve written a fair number of columns reviewing books about genealogy in the last three decades. But I’ve never read as perfect a book as The Family Tree Cemetery Field Guide: How to Find, Record, & Preserve Your Ancestors’ Graves by …

It’s a not infrequent experience for me to encounter a genealogist – at a conference, by e-mail or even an occasional “cold call” on the phone – who utters the magic phrase, “Well, I’ve searched everything.” Sometimes these folks are talking about a website. Or a library. Or a courthouse. Or one particular type of …

Even though I offer research-for-hire as part of my genealogy business, I’m not super-aggressive about promoting it since I’m often busy traveling to lecture as well as writing columns such as this one. But when a high school classmate of mine named Peter Engel posted an ancestral tombstone on Facebook – in reply to a …

Some people are still avid readers of each day’s newspaper obituaries. I’ve never been a word-for-word, everyday reader … but I do scan over them. Some days it’s seems that everyone dying is over 90 – and that brings a bit of smile to me at the thought of so many having decades in their …