If you are like me, cousins regularly contact you wanting to help research common ancestors.
Sometimes, they have great research skills and are a huge asset in your ancestral quest. At other times, the opposite is true, but their desire to participate can’t be denied and should be encouraged.
What is the balance point where the impact on our precious research time in teaching them how to do genealogy research and maybe even how to install and use genealogy software far eclipses any help they will provide?
We want to help others get started in genealogy. It is a very enjoyable activity that keeps minds active, expands our social network and helps us know more about ourselves through the discovery of our ancestors, their traits, their trials and their lives. Of course we want to share that fun with others.
Give your ‘new’ cousin a quick quiz to determine their research skills. If their skill level is sufficient to cross the threshold into your research cousins team, let them in. If not, direct them to sites where they can obtain the minimal skill set needed to not be a resource drain on the team.
Case in point. A distant cousin recently sent me a note stating that they now had time in their life to devote to genealogy research. After looking through my site, they found that I had included the name of their great grandfather. "We must be related. I want to help you find our common ancestors."
Before contacting them to ask about their research skills, I sent them a copy of two birth records that I’d found on our common family earlier that day. Within an hour, a response arrived in my mailbox.
"Thanks for the papers you sent. What are they?"
Ten minutes later: "Are birth records important?"
Thirty minutes later: "I can’t read the writing on the papers you sent. It appears to be English but who can read old handwriting?"
Forty minutes later: "I’m writing down all of information about my ancestors that I’ve found on your site. Do you use a binder? Where are you getting your forms?"
Obviously, they failed to qualify to join the cousins research team at this point. The questions rapidly evolved into what software to use, how to use it and even how to install it.
Time is precious for all of us. Becoming a permanent help desk for this cousin isn’t helping me achieve my own research goals nor those of the cousins team. I offered a little assistance, told them of my limited time to provide support and referred them to the online research training available on several websites.
Software: I’ve been a beta tester for Legacy for years and know the great training videos that Geoff Rasmussen has created for Legacy users, so the first bullet item said go here and get Legacy. Next Step: watch the training videos online. If you like the program, buy the full version and the training videos. Geoff has included so many genealogy research helps in them, that the research content alone is worth the price of the CD’s. The training that pertains to unlocking enormous power of Legacy is just an added benefit.
Research: In addition to the research training on the Legacy disks, there are a number of great web sites that offer free training and training videos online.
My two favorites are:
FamilySearch Research Courses. The training is great, covers numerous countries, skills and languages. We’d all benefit from reviewing the information here.
BYU Independent Study – Free Family History / Genealogy courses. Excellent courses including testing to confirm that you are absorbing the content. French, German, Huguenot, Scandinavian research along with vital, military and family records courses are on the along with others. Again, we can all benefit from taking this training.
My note asked them to complete the training, and then do some research independent of the cousins team to practice the tools and skills they’ve learned and then shoot me a note.
We would like to have them on the cousins team, but as a contributing member. There is nothing wrong with being a beginner, but beginners have to be sensitive to the ‘free cycles’ available in the the lives of others to help them.
When I wear my genealogy teaching hat for the courses I teach, I include time to help class members with questions from A – Z, but the available time allocated to that persona is already very busy.
I concluded by suggesting that they should also find a local genealogical or family history society or a church sponsored genealogy class and attend. Folks there welcome newbies and have purposely set aside time to help them.
Joining in the ancestral quest fray is easy for anyone, as long as we pay the initial fee of studying the basics ourselves so we can understand the terms and can ask semi-intelligent questions of the wonderful folks who will be our mentors.
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Do you have any advice for prying documents from family members hands? My aunt has several old family bibles and every time I ask to get a copy or info from any thing she says “I don’t know where there are” which is scary or that she doesn’t want to share the info because one day she will get around to putting all the info together. If I didn’t live across the country from her I’d offer to search her house for them. Any words of wisdom on how to get her to share the info and these docs?
Thanks for all the hard work you put into your blog, I’m enjoying reading through it.
I’ve always found that offering them something in advance usually opens the door. Maybe it is a cake, but usually it is a copy of their genealogy either printed or on a CD / DVD.
If your software has a report feature that shows underlined blanks to denote missing data (dates, places, etc.,) send them a copy of an ancestral book for 5 or 6 generations that starts with them.
They will hate having their information or that of their parents, etc., show on reports like that and will usually give you the data.
Also, since you are looking for the bible, offer to take photos of the pages or scan them on site and to send them a copy. They may be afraid of losing the bible to you.
And of course, there is always the ‘Black Sheep’ facts that they want to stay buried. Sometimes, the only way past that wall is the warmth of your personality and the trust you build with them.
Good Luck!
Where would you recommend a newbie go to ask questions (a forum, twitter, etc)? I’ve been working on this a few months & have done lots of research. But I have questions that I know a long time genealogist would think are silly. Thanks
You can always leave posts like you just did on blogs that comment specifically on items that are of interest in your ancestral quest. You should get a reasonable response from the author.
I highly recommend posting your questions on the FamilySearch Forums. See: Forums > Research Advice > Other category at: FamilySearch Forums
The moderators and users on the forum come from all over the family history community and bring a wealth of knowledge and information with them.
Questions and answers posted there are valuable to all of us. They bring a knowledgebase to the community that is all but impossible to create in books or sites without the resources available from FamilySearch.
There isn’t a question too ‘dumb’ to post. We’ve probably all had the same question at some point in our research experience and thus the resultant answer will benefit other researchers.