Week 1: In the Beginning

Now that I have retired (although we are still in the process of building our new home) and will still be involved with renting out our cottage, I've decided to make another attempt at the 52 Ancestors.

I can't remember a time in my life that I didn't have an interest in my family history.  Growing up visiting both sets of grandparents (my parents were from the same village in Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada) every holiday weekend I had the fortune of knowing not just my aunt, uncles and cousins, but second cousins and other extended family, including one of my maternal great-grandmother.  And of course funerals required a stop at cemeteries where many ancestors were buried.

I can remember a school assignment (maybe as far back as Grade 1?) of doing a small family tree - just basically names of grandparents and great-grandparents.  Mom had no problem providing information for her side, but I still remember being frustrated with getting information from my father.  He assured me that both sets of his grandparents were named John and Mary.  Of course, my teacher did not know whether it was accurate or not.  [In later years, my genealogy research revealed the names to be William &Mary Jane and John & Annie.]

As an adult, as my grandparents and their generation started to pass away, I tried to get into genealogy.  I had a Commodore 64 and the programme Roots.  Beyond entering the names of the extended family I was familiar with in person and by names in family lore, I never made the time to start research into the usual physical print and microfilm genealogy sources.  Which, in hindsight, was a shame as I worked at an academic library and the Documents Unit was a repository for Canadian government publications (including census on microfilm).  I did eventually take advantage of the resources, but as more and more information was available online, I found it quicker to search online.

My work at the university of course gave me access to the internet in the very early stages, as well as purchasing computer equipment on the payroll plan - so I had internet access at home.  One evening I decided to start searching ancestor names - probably on Netscape or similar (definitely pre-Google).  I had made half-hearted attempts over the years, but never got very far:  Robert or William Allen from England was too common to pinpoint my Robert or William.  Similar John Schell, a Mennonite, was also too common.  

The stars aligned one evening when I started searching on RootsWeb.  (Yes, I know much misformation, but it was good to get started.)  I found a tree that had a George Schell as the son of John Schell and Mary Deadman.  Bingo!  My grandfather and his parents.  No wife listed for George, but there was for some of his siblings and there was ancestor information for John going back to the Schells in Herkimer County in New York.  Looked to be too good to be true - but my continued research for the past couple of decades has proven that I am a descendant.

Miracles continued as that same evening I discovered another tree with Robert Allen and Mary Ann Widdis and other family members that matched my information.  Turns out that the Allens were actually Irish, not English as I had always assumed.  Growing up, I never heard references to being Irish - even on Saint Patrick's Day.  But I certainly heard about the Orange Lodge and Orangeman Day (July 12) parades.  Although I have never seen the family bible, I was told that the front page had an entry about Robert Allen, age 6, sailing to Canada from Liverpool in 1831.  My subsequent research revealed that Robert's youngest sibling was born in England but other siblings were born in Ireland.  So I guess the one sibling was born before the family embarked for Canada.  

Except for a day trip to the Historical Society in Herkimer New York and some Ontario cemetery visits, I have yet to venture out into the field.  Most of my genealogy research time is spent on Ancestry and other websites.  In the beginning, I started a subscription when the Canadian Ancestry site came to be around 2006.  But by renewal time, I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade to the World subscription.  I had already been finding links to people in England, Wales as well as the United States.  I found the constant trips to the local public library to search the Library Edition very limiting: had to book time (in short segments) on a computer and the 5.25 floppy disks did not hold many records.  A World subscription has been worth it as I can search the world 24/7 from the convenience of my home.

I never did have to do the paper/pencil method of record keeping.  As previously mentioned, in the beginning, I started with a programme called Roots.  When I got serious with my research, I purchased the Broderbund version of Family Tree Maker and over the years purchased several of their cds.  By 2009 or 2010, I was getting frustrated with what I viewed as the corporate greed of whatever company owned FTM at the time.  I decided to try RootsMagic which was promoting their new version 4 with RMtoGo.  The purchase price for new customers was a fraction of the cost that the latest annual version of FTM was being offered to existing customers.  Definitely not a case of "you get what you paid for".  I am still an RM user today.

In the beginning....start with what you know.  Use whatever resources are readily available to you at a minimal, if not free, cost.  Genealogy can be expensive, but it can also be done with minimal cost.  As time goes on you may feel more comfortable upgrading or investing, in additional tools to assist you in your genealogical journey.