Start growing your famiily tree

You’ve been meaning to start a family tree, but somehow you haven’t done it yet. Maybe someone has passed along a family history, but you’re not sure how you tie into it.

Now’s the time to write down your information on a pedigree chart, which looks like a tree turned sideways. You can download various forms free at www.familysearch.org and print them off.

After each piece of information you record – such as a date or place for a birth, marriage or death – it’s important to record something about your “proof” of that information. For instance, if you have your own birth record – and I hope you do – you might write “cert.” for certificate or “VR” for vital record.

Gather any certificates or other documents you may have for your parents or other relatives and record that information on your chart.

Do you have any Bible records? Note that they may be “contemporary” – each date recorded at the time – or records that were compiled all at once. One of my family Bible records was put together by family, recorded by at least three different people.

How about obituaries that you or a relative may have clipped over the years? These are good sources of information. Of course, keep in mind that an obituary is a “secondary” source of information because it was not provided by the town or other governmental entity where the death was recorded.

If you don’t have an obituary for someone, but you know the death date, check nearby libraries to see if they have any old newspapers on microfilm. Bangor Public Library, for example, has the Bangor Daily News, the Bangor Commercial and the Portland paper on microfilm, and the University of Maine’s Fogler Library has other Maine newspapers on film as well. Your local librarian may know the nearest place you can check for microfilm of a newspaper.

Sometimes we don’t know all the death dates, and this isn’t the best time of year to go tromping through cemeteries to check when Grampa died.

Fortunately, the death index for Maine is online for 1960-1996 at www.maine.gov/sos/arc.

(You will find that the same Web site also has Maine’s marriage index for 1892-1966 and 1977-1996.)

But what if your relative died after 1996, or in another state? Try the Social Security Death Index at ssdi.rootsweb.com. That resource also will tell you the last town and state where the Social Security benefit was paid. That may not be where the person actually lived – for example, an older person living in a nursing home may have had a legal guardian whose address was where the benefit was recorded.

The more dates you find, the more obituaries may be available to you.

I say “may” because not everyone had an obituary, or at least, not in a daily newspaper. Sometimes I’ve had no luck looking for an obit in the 1920s or 1930s, while it turned out that someone who died before 1900 did have an obituary. And of course, many of us have had the experience of searching for years for an obit that turned out to be no more than a three-line death notice.

Your nearest library may have town or county histories that may help you, as well.

And one of the best sources of information is U.S. Census records. The University of Maine’s Fogler Library and the Maine State Archives in Augusta have Maine census records on microfilm every 10 years from 1790 to 1930 (except for 1890).

Keep in mind that the census does not list everyone in the household until 1850 and after.

Beginning in 1880, the census recorded the state or country of each person’s birth, as well as the birthplace of the person’s father and mother. The later censuses also listed value of the real estate and what the person did for work.

It’s worthwhile to look at the census on microfilm, but keep in mind that all of the 1880 census has been transcribed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

You can use that resource free on the Web at www.familysearch.org. It also includes the 1881 census for Canada and Britain.

You’ll notice countless vital records on this Web site, too. Notice where each record came from.

Those which are extracted from town records are considered more accurate than those submitted by church members. What a church member has contributed may be right, but it hasn’t been documented.

Here’s another source – for sources. If you’re interested in what’s available online for a particular topic or a particular state, go to www.cyndislist.com

You may find that some vital records, cemetery records or other information on some corner of the country may already be online – free.

You also may have heard about paid databases such as ancestry.com. That particular resource is available free at Bangor Public Library, Ellsworth Public Library and Oakland Public Library.

Happy hunting!

Send genealogy queries to Family Ties, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; or familyti@bangordailynews.net.