Week Two of the Intro to Genealogy Class

Week 2 went very well last night! All were in attendance and we covered a lot of ground. Everyone did their “homework” and turned it in on time… They all had to fill out their own pedigree charts to at least 3 generations. I think they learned quite a bit about their families and some even came up with answers they didn’t expect.

I asked them all to try their hands at navigating the Family Search site with next to no guidance. As I expected a few were very successful and a few needed some coaching. But all in all, it was a good experience.

This week we covered Vital Records. I was able to show them some documents from the 19th century and demonstrate the amount of data that can be gleaned: name, dates, locations of birth, parents’ names, etc. One of the questions someone had was “How can I be sure that the person I’ve found is the person I’m looking for?”. The Vital Records are one of those ways by comparing parents’ names, locations of birth, etc usually you can deterring by ages if the “found” person fits into what you’re putting together.

I also was able to show how a newspaper’s obituary may not contain the right information. I showed an obit for a cousin of mine who died in 1918. The newspaper stated (because the family reported…) that she died at the home of her daughter. The death certificate, however, stated that she was found dead in her room at an asylum…a mental asylum! Quite a different story.

Finally, we discussed census records from 1790 right up to the latest available record, the 1940 census. We took a look at a 1790 census that describes some of my Bassett and Makepeace ancestors. Then we looked at the 1940 but with the use of Enumerations Districts which are necessary because the entire census has not yet been indexed.

Three more classes to go!