The United States is the great American melting pot, rich with contributions from all over the globe. Most of these immigrants try to blend into American culture when they arrive in America, but have you ever wondered where your ancestors originated from and what their lives were like in their homeland? My grandfather became interested in genealogy after a trip to Ireland in 1996. He has traced our family tree back to 1763 in France to my 6th great grandparents.
What can you do to start tracing your roots? Well, the first thing you can do is to interview your relatives. Unfortunately, relatives do not live forever, and most of them have knowledge that can help your research. Ask for the names of ancestors and other relevant information, like where and when they were born, died, and married.
Next, you can go to your local library to check out the 929 section that contains books on genealogy, and you can talk to a reference librarian. Ask if the librarian knows about any local groups and then attend a meeting. Most libraries subscribe to Ancestry.com, and you can use it for free while you are there. Ancestry.com is a great source for census information, military records, and other useful legal documents. These documents often include information like parents names, places of birth, dates, etc., that can bring you to the next generation. The census records do not become available until 72 years after that census, so 1940 is the most recent census that is available. The New York Public Library on 42nd Street has a special genealogy and family history section. Or, you can see whether your library subscribes to Family Tree Magazine to get advice on your next step. The Mormons have their own website, www.familysearch.org, and have collected millions of names which are available to anyone. They have facilities in Salt Lake City that are also available to use for research.
You might also want to explore specialized ethnic groups. For example, the Irish Genealogy Society International has been a useful tool for my grandfather to trace our roots. A historical society should be a great source to tell you what life was like when your relatives lived there. They can provide the interesting details about the culture, politics, economics, etc. The dates and places are interesting to a degree, but when you can find out about the daily life of one of your relatives, then it can bridge the gap between that person and you. Imagine how exciting it was for our family to discover that we had a relative who was born at sea. Can you envision how scary it was for the pregnant mom to get on a boat traveling from Ireland to New York and then to go into labor before arriving? Well, the baby survived, or else I wouldn’t be here today. The above suggestions have been cost-conscious, but there are many books on genealogy that are available for purchase. You can also travel to cemeteries. There is often useful information included on a headstone, such as place of birth, date of birth, and parents’ names that can be very useful. And, of course, you can travel to the homeland of your relatives in order to research records from before they immigrated to America.
Unfortunately, there are some ethnicities where you will eventually hit a wall and be unlikely to learn more about your families. These are generally races that were persecuted at one time. For instance, I am 87% Irish, but it is the French side of my history that can be traced. In Ireland, it was usually the priest that kept the records for the town. So, if the church ever had a fire, the records for an entire town were lost. When England invaded Ireland, most priests were killed or had to go into hiding, so those records were also lost or destroyed. African Americans will have a difficult time tracing their roots before emancipation. Slaves were generally nameless when listed in wills, and there were not many other legal documents that recorded their existence. Eastern European Jews are another group that were forced from their homelands in fear of their lives. Their records would likely be lost as well.
Ellis Island was the gateway to the Americas. Many immigrants walked off of the boats and to the Lower East Side. The Lower East Side Tenement Museum provides a glimpse into the lives of these immigrants. The ethnicities in the Lower East Side changed along with the waves of immigrants, and the museum represents the different time periods. The lower floor is an 1870s German saloon, and there is an Irish apartment restored to the 1860s. There is also a Jewish apartment that reflects the turn of the century, and another apartment commemorates a Greek Sephardic family in 1916.
There are currently at least two television shows that focus on tracing family roots. On the PBS show, Finding Your Roots, with Henry Louis Gates Jr., they perform DNA tests to provide definitive information about where the ancestors originated. Even as a television viewer, it is thrilling to see an African American learn which African country is their homeland. On Who Do You Think You Are?, they often find the ship manifests from Ellis Island, which included information of exact addresses for where the person was going, past occupations, and the amount of money that they brought with them to America.
Finally, please be careful if you post your findings online. Many security questions are about your family, so private information, including your mother’s maiden name, your place of birth, etc., should not be posted online. If you would like to post your family tree, be wise and omit information that could be used to hack into your accounts.