ROOTS - TRACING YOUR FAMILY TREE
(Otherwise known as Genealogy)

by Bill Wood: ws.wood@zetnet.co.uk

In my earlier article, 'My Experiences With Computers. Bye, Bye Commodore', I briefly mentioned my interest in Genealogy. I was asked by the Editor if I could expand on this topic. In this article I will endeavour to explain how to go about researching your family tree. I must make it clear at this point that I am not a Genealogist, but one who is interested in finding out about my family and where the family originated from.

I originally started research on my family tree in the early 1960's. A pad of foolscap paper, (before the introduction of the metric sized A4), a ruler, pencil and eraser were the essential tools. A good place to start with is you. Examine your birth certificate. It contains a wealth of information about you and your parents, where you were born, your fathers full name and occupation, your mothers full name and maiden surname.

Editor: - Alf Murdoch writes to say that the amount of information on a birth certificate depends when the certificate was issued and what type your parents got at the time. His daughters had the information Bill is talking about but Alf's and his my wife's certificate tell you only their names and district of birth.

I would strongly recommend any one that may wish to start down this most interesting road to organise all their notes in a standard format. Then you can look back over them and find the blank spaces, then try to find answers to the missing information and try to fill the blanks. I have created a proforma listing for this purpose. If anyone wishes a copy please e-mail me and I will let you have a copy, which is in Microsoft Word (Office 97) format or ASCII format.

Note that I am only conversant with the content of certificates issued in Scotland where registration was made compulsory in 1855. Prior to that date you are dependent on the content of old parish records. These records were not always accurate and depended on the ability of the Parish clerk.

Since I laid hands on my early notes on the family tree, I decided to have another attempt to see if I could make more progress in my research. One of the reasons for it being laid aside was that I could not find the date of my Grandfather's death. To date I have still not found it. However, I now know the date of his marriage.

As it appeared that the computer was a prime contender for Genealogy a search began for a suitable software program for the family tree. Several demo programs were downloaded from the Internet for evaluation.

There are several companies selling Genealogy software on the Internet, the following web pages are well worth a look:

TWR Computing	http://www.dungeon.com/~clapstile/software.htm
S & N Genealogy Supplies	http://www.genealogy.demon.co.uk/
Sierra	http://www.sierra.com/sierrahome/familytree

The first two companies sell various packages and are well worth a comparison of prices. From the S & N pages you can download evaluation copies of some of the programs. They are both UK based. At the Sierra site a demo copy of Generations can be downloaded.

The program that appeared to serve my purpose best was called ReUnion so the 1967 notes were input to see how it performed. As seems to be my luck, by the time I had finally decided to purchase a copy the company had been taken over by Sierra. No supplier had a copy of ReUnion in stock. Eventually Sierra released the program with the name Generations - this was ReUnion under a different name. Generations was purchased and now the family tree back to 1799 is on computer. With all family files being stored on floppy disk progress was at last being made.

The infrequent articles by Betty Clay on this topic have been of particular interest to me, in particular her description of her visit to the Church of the Latter Day Saints (LDS) at Salt Lake City to do research. The family history centres of the Mormon Church are well worth a visit if you are researching your ancestry. They have a wealth of information and can also requisition documents on loan from Salt Lake City to help with your research. The volunteers who staff the centres are most helpful and will guide you through their facilities should you require any help. This is a free source available to the public, (they do not try to indoctrinate you), they have many family history centres so it is worth checking to see if there is one near you.

The Church of the Latter Day Saints (Mormon Church) web site is well worth a visit, not only for their links to other sites, but most importantly for their 'how to' guides. The site can be reached at:

http://www.lds.org/en/2-Family_History/Family_History_MAIN.html

At my local family history centre I have been able to view the filmed index of births, marriages and deaths for the whole of Scotland since 1875 and obtain the year, entry number and office of registration of many of the persons with whom I have a connection. This information will greatly speed up my search when I eventually go to the General Records Office for Scotland. The Census Returns for the years 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871 and 1881 will also be of help if you know where your ancestors were living, as you will also find out the members of family and occupations. It should be noted that it is not anticipated that the 1891 Census Returns are likely to enter the Public Domain until some time after 2000 in order to maintain confidentiality.

The LDS (Mormon Church) has the largest database, known as the International Genealogical Index (IGI). This is a searchable database with filters, which allows a search to be made on Surname, Location or Country. My ancestors all come from Scotland so my research with the IGI is based on Scotland. The search program has a facility that allows you can to open a holding file on the hard drive to which you store information of interest. It can hold approximately 200 entries, which may be printed out or saved to a floppy disk. I extracted all marriages of the Wood family in Scotland to 5 floppy disks, each disk holding 18 files downloaded from the holding file on the hard drive. These files are downloaded in a format called Gedcom. There are several programs available for reading the information contained in these Gedcom files. You may wish to note that the disk save program will only show 14 files from your floppy, so you may wish to make a chart so that you can keep a record of your file numbers and so maximise on the content of each disk. The contents of your floppy disks should be loaded onto your hard drive. This is handy when importing these files into other programs to ensure that they have all been input. By having the files in numerical order (01 etc.) makes life easier when you store the information you have gathered on your hard drive and when writing to CD-ROM.

The program that I use is called 'Birdie', which allows you to import the Gedcom files and create a database of all the information. This in turn can be displayed on a map showing the distribution by county of a family. The database can be searched with filters so, for example, a specific period or a particular county can be examined. The earliest date for which I have information is in the 1500's.

For further information on the program and to see a screenshot of 'Birdie' visit the site at:

http://www.tdrake.demon.co.uk/genindex.htm

As mentioned earlier the program that I use for storing the information on my ancestry is now called Generations Grand Suite by Sierra, who bought the PC Version of ReUnion from Leister (who retained ReUnion for Mac). So far my research has taken me back to my Great Great Grandfather to a date of 1799. I have still to spend a day in the General Records Office for Scotland doing research, which hopefully will help me to fill in a few blanks in my later ancestry (i.e. after 1855).

The Sierra Generations Web Site, in addition to information on the Generations program, provides links to other genealogical sites of interest.

There are three magazines on the subject of Genealogy:

Practical Family History

Family Tree Magazine

Family History Monthly

If you decide to trace your roots you will require a lot of patience, as it can be rather frustrating at times, but just hang on in there.

The following web sites are worth visiting and are just a few of the many sites devoted to Genealogy:

Journal Contents