Random Thoughts of a Lazy Genealogist

As a member of www.ancestry.com for the last 19 years, I have invested countless hours in building a family tree that includes over 22,000 people--not just my family but those of my husband, my daughter- and son-in-law, and to some degree the families of my husband's siblings' spouses and the spouses of my aunts and uncles.  I don't regret doing this, in part because the act of doing the work is like walking through a cave with a flashlight.  You shine your light at one part of the cave, and you will see something different from what you'll see in any other part of the cave.  If you are interested in rock formations--or family formations--it's quite fun.

Over the years www.ancestry.com has become much more sophisticated in assisting the genealogist by developing a search engine that can bounce records or "hints," as ancestry.com calls them--census data, birth/death certificates, tax records, probate records, and data assembled by other genealogists, etc--to the genealogist based on the names, dates, and locations the genealogist has entered into her/his tree.  Many of these records are indexed to link information on a series of family members associated with the record, e.g., a birth record will include the names of the mother and father as well as the baby's name, and these names and the associated data can be added to the tree with a few clicks.  This is quite amazing to someone like me who has spent a career trying to link together information from disparate sources.

The downside of this advancement, however, is that it has enabled me to become a lazy genealogist, especially when combined with the fact that my tree is enormous.  I've become dependent on www.ancestry.com to feed me records now, whereas before, I used to dive in the data that ancestry.com offered me (conveniently arranged based on what appeared to be most likely to be associated with my research subject).

As in the case of many things in the United States that are available for better or for worst, self-discipline and good judgment are the keys to addressing a wealth options.  I give myself credit for good judgment--I am judicious now at deciding what to add to my tree, recognizing that just because ancestry.com might pop up a hint that it thinks is related to one of my tree members doesn't mean that it is related.  You actually have to think about it to confirm that time/place/and name all fit.  

I know many ancestry.com users are careless about this because when ancestry.com offers me hints that another genealogist has assembled regarding an individual and the individual's immediate family, I've noticed that some have associated individuals with the same last name to be parent and child when the child's birth date is earlier than the parent's or made similarly irrational connections.  Initially, I trusted my fellow genealogist's family trees on such things without attending to these details but learned a hard lesson in doing so, because mistakes in genealogy compound very easily. I have on occasion had to delete a dozen or so individuals from my tree to correct for careless and inaccurate associations.

Alas, I do lack self-discipline.  Often times, I will hop from family line to line, based on the hints that ancestry.com offers me rather than on purposeful research.  This approach has resulted in countless "quick wins," but it has not made me an expert on my family in the sense of knowing the individuals and the triumphs and hardships of my direct ancestors.  

For example, I recall that one of my grandfathers of several generations past was one of the first graduates of Harvard, but I don't recall which one.  I could figure out, sure, because the information is in my tree, but to me, I should know that off the top of my head.  Similarly, one of my Massachusetts born grandmothers of several generations past was tried and executed as a witch in Salem.  Very cool stuff in a grim kind of way, but what was her name?  Can't remember, would have to research my own tree to track it down.

Inspired in part by my fellow genealogist and sixth cousin's excellent summary of her genealogical finds, I think it's time for me to start writing the stories of different family lines and to make more systematic use of the great data trove of the Internet to enrich these stories.  My cousin created a tree on ancestry.com but is no longer a member.  Even without membership, ancestry.com allows you to maintain and add to your tree and to search for the existence of records in its database--although you cannot see the data in the records, and my cousin has used these capabilities to the max.  But more importantly, she has dug into the Internet to discover other resources or individual pieces of data, including photos, that make her tree far more than a catalogue of names, relationships, and residences.

My cousin and I, although we have never met, are somewhat distantly related, and live in different countries, have established a real partnership when it comes to genealogy, and this interaction has been almost as enjoyable as growing my tree.  Ancestry.com to its great credit encourages genealogists to contact one another for help or to enjoy the simple fact of sharing a family history.  

I am always annoyed to when ancestry.com members keep their trees private, meaning people like me can't see their trees to "freeload" off their hard work, because a tree is not a work of art--it's a type of history, and history is no one's property.  The knowledge that the vast majority of my direct ancestors were British and came to America in the first Great Migration from England in search of religious freedom instead of economic advantages would certainly have made me a much better history student in high school and college.

That said, one of the most helpful genealogist colleagues I had in my early days of research was a gentleman who lives in my home town of Terre Haute, Indiana, and maintains a private tree.  Our families overlapped slightly--we had a second or third cousin in common but were not related by blood because I was related to the cousin's father's side and he was related to the cousin's mother's side.  

The gentleman was an accountant and rigorously vetted each bit of information he added to his tree, while I, as hinted at above, am more of the "add it if it passes a prima facie test and dump it later if it proves wrong" type.  For whatever reason, for several years he kept a watchful eye on my public tree (ancestry.com provides this capability), contacting me at any misstep.

We never met but would have extensive email discussions about genealogical challenges and approaches.  He had gone all over Indiana and Kentucky to government offices and libraries to gain information for his tree and in general scoffed at arm chair genealogists like me.  But he realized that getting back to Indiana to do this type of research was impractical for me and took pity on me.  

I had bemoaned my inability to find when my great grandfather and great grandmother had married, noting that Indiana, which makes its marriage records public, had nothing for them nor did a record turn up from any other state.  Not too long afterward, he sent me the information--they had been married in Kentucky, which does not make marriage records public--at least not for free.  

I had also mentioned to him that I could not find an obituary for my great, great grandfather Adley Dowell or any other information on his death.  After a while, the gentleman sent me a four line notice that had appeared in a Terre Haute newspaper about the death of Adley Dowell at the age of 91 at his son's home.  He died from black small pox, a particularly nasty version of small pox, and the son's home had been placed under quarantine.  Absolutely fascinating stuff from a complete stranger who helped me out for no reward other than my gratitude and the joys of successfully concluding The Hunt.

I will give myself credit for doing some field work but not as much as I would like to do.  Occasional visits to Terre Haute would allow me the opportunity to roam through local cemeteries, which are excellent data sources, and to visit the genealogy section of the Vigo County Public Library--to my frustration, this section has very limited hours.  

I have spent some time in Maryland's State archives, which is conveniently located in Annapolis and has records for my earliest US-based Dowell ancestors, who oddly enough first settled in Anne Arundel County, where I live.  Still a mystery is where my Dowell family's founding father, Philip Dowell, came from in England--a question other genealogists in the family have tried to track down by traveling to the UK to check records there.  

I have this feeling that Maryland's archives hold this information--probably just a small reference waiting to be discovered, and I haven't set my mind to doing it yet.  When I think about this, I remind myself that at one point I was convinced that all the Dowells in the US have a common ancestor and that I would be able to prove this by putting all of them in my tree.  So stupid.  After a little more education on the genealogical facts of life, I accepted others' conclusion that there is no tie and am still deleting those alien Dowells from my tree whenever I spot one.

The last frontier of the genealogist is the development of DNA information as an analytical tool to determine or verify relationships.  Ancestry.com is getting into this approach, and after I took the site's DNA test, it has offered me a number of new DNA-based familial connections or possible connections that have enabled me to expand my tree and verify relationships.  

I sent my DNA data to a free site, www.gedmatch.com, which holds out all sorts of possibilities for deciphering connections.  That said, when it comes to DNA as a tool for genealogy, it depends on the willingness of individuals to offer up their DNA results.  Like an online dating service, you can only be linked up with other people who have agreed to participate in the site by contributing their DNA information.

Someday I hope that DNA will come up with an answer to questions like who were Philip Dowell's kinfolks back in England and who are my distant family members in Belgium, my great grandfather Bouillez's home country.  By then perhaps I will have written my narrative overview of my family and will be able to plug those facts in.  Perhaps one day I'll travel to England and Belgium and look over the turf and sites that were not dear enough to my ancestors to prevent them from leaving.