Digging into your roots

Armed with an overstuffed three-ring binder filled with old hand-written notes and photographs, Sally Crouch of Seymour couldn't wait to begin the journey into her past.

Truth be told, she has walked that path before, but now she has more time and more resources. She's ready to see just how far she can go.

"I'm so excited," she said.

Crouch is one of many local residents who has found genealogy to be more than just filling out the boxes on a family tree.

"It's completely fascinating and better than fiction," Crouch said of her genealogical research. "There are so many stories and it helps you appreciate your family and the life we have today."

She has learned that one of her distant relatives was a young girl captured by Indians who later escaped, and another female relative was put into a mental institution for symptoms Crouch believes could have been no more than malnutrition and postpartum depression.

Interest in studying her family's history started with her mother, she said.
"When my mother was a young woman she handed me all the family files that my grandmother had passed down to her and said it was my turn," Crouch said. "I just stuck them in a drawer and kind of forgot about them until about 20 years ago when I was home with the kids and had time to work on it."

Together, Crouch and her children started organizing the information and filling in blanks where they could.

"We would take trips to the cemetery to find names and dates, and we had fun," she said.

After Crouch went to work, she found she was too busy to continue her genealogical studies. She recently retired from Mann Bookkeeping, however, and is ready to resume the hobby.

This time around, she is looking to learn more about the people and stories that go with the names and dates.

Through research on the Internet, records and personal interviews, a genealogist is "putting flesh on the bones and finding out what their ancestors really did," said Charlotte Sellers, Jackson County Public Library's local and family history specialist.

With an intense interest in her own family history as well as helping others on their searches, Sellers is leading a series of genealogy and family history classes through February at the Seymour Library.

The first of those classes, Genealogy Basics, was held Thursday. A small group of people, including Crouch, learned how and why to get started studying their ancestors and worked on filling out a simple five generation family chart. This was Crouch's second time to take the class.

"I think it's wonderful, and I needed a refresher," she said. "Charlotte is such a valuable resource and the classes make genealogy so much more approachable."

Other classes will offer in-depth looks at various family history resources, both in print or microform and online, including the U.S. Census, newspapers and the Internet.

Sellers said there is a wide variety of places to find family history information such as obituaries, government records, marriage licenses, inheritance records, probate records, real estate records, death records and church records.

"Courthouses are great places to find information. So are cemeteries," she said. "But you can start by looking around at home. Lots of families record information like birth, marriage, baptism and death in family Bibles."

The best place to start your genealogy research, however, is with yourself, Sellers added.

"Start there and work back," she said. "It's easier and that way you don't have to kiss a lot of frogs to get to the prince you're looking for."

Then you fill in the family charts and do more research and then more research and more research, she added.

"You've got to do what works for you," she said. "Some people like to do handwritten charts and notes while others use computer software. It's best to come up with a system you like and stick to it."

The most family information can be found going back to 1850.

"Anything earlier than that becomes much harder," Sellers said.

Just what can you expect to find out while scanning all those Web sites, sorting old records and sifting through family photos?

"You never know," Sellers said. "Genealogy is one of the most fascinating journeys you'll ever take. I hear so many people say, ‘Oh my ancestors were just farmers,' but after they do some looking they find out that yes, they were farmers, but they were fascinating people."

Or in some cases you might find you're not even related to someone, like Bob Wilson, of Seymour, did.

"For many, many years we had a family picture of a woman on our wall, but we didn't know who she was," Wilson said. "So we started to dig around and come to find out she was never a part of the family."

Wilson, who also attended the Genealogy Basics class, said his interest in his family history comes from his father.

"I just love the stories that come out of it," he said of genealogy. "It can help you put the pieces together."

Sellers agreed.

"It's like being your own detective," she said. "I'm fascinated by what I find. I think the interest comes from not knowing where I came from. Genealogy makes my ancestors real and it lets you see things in a whole new way."

Coming up

Upcoming genealogy and family history classes at the Seymour Library

Digging Into the U.S. Census - 6 p.m., Tuesday

Online Genealogy Basics Parts I and II - 2 p.m., Thursday and 2 p.m. Jan. 29

Extra! Extra! Read All About Your Ancestors! - 2 p.m., Feb. 19 and 6 p.m. Feb. 24

More Ancestor Research Online - 2 p.m., Feb. 26

For information or to register for these classes, call the library at 522-3412, ext. 243.