Family Searcher

The most common reason I hear for not doing genealogy is lack of time. But I know from experience that family history research fits into the time you have available. There are many things you can do in just a few minutes, and you can pick it up and put it down as it suits you. I do that all the time.
    Certainly, I can spend all day on it, and I sometimes do, but for the most part, it’s an hour here or there. The thing you need to understand is that the “time” that genealogy takes is spent waiting for results to accumulate, but they will accumulate! When Cindy and I started, we were only able to devote an hour or two every couple of months to our project. We would get together for part of an afternoon to discuss, plan, and maybe actually get some work done. We read a few articles on beginning genealogy, and so we knew we were not going to suddenly answer all our questions. Over the years, we have come to enjoy searching for information as much as we enjoy finding information.
Doing microfilm research at the Bangor LDS Family History Center, sometimes just viewing the library catalog gives us ideas. In actually reviewing films, we have found really fascinating and unexpected information. I was reading early town meeting records looking for a marriage record; instead I found where my ancestor’s little Massachusetts town had voted not to do anything about the “recent trouble in Boston Towne in which a quantity of tea was thrown into ye Harbour”.
Looking for our great-grandmother Kitty in the 1880 census, we unexpectedly found her future husband living on the same street. This explained both why we couldn’t find him in his hometown, and how they most likely met. What a find! And the time it actually took for such a discovery was quite small in balance: Fifteen minutes online to find the film to order, five minutes at the library to order the film, thirty minutes to find and read the right page. Less than an hour, and we learned so much about our family in the 1880s, and, found two great-aunts, a great-uncle and an adopted great-aunt we had never even heard of!
There are many things you can do with just a few minutes, and they add up to serious research. Read an article on how to begin genealogy. Review a birth certificate and note the questions it raises. File a small stack of papers. Spend 10 minutes “Google-ing” the hometown of your great-grandfather. Spend a few minutes at the library on your way to run other errands. Fill out a few lines on a pedigree chart. Spend a few minutes learning to do something new on the computer. Go through a family photo album. Read my column and e-mail a question.
The more you do, the more ways you will be able to fill small blocks of time. Take a few minutes now to think about how you will start!
Editor’s note: This regular column is sponsored by the Aroostook County Genealogical Society. The group meets the fourth Monday of the month except in July and December at the Cary Medical Center’s Chan Education Center, 163 Van Buren Road, Caribou, at 6:30 p.m. Guests and prospective members are always welcome. FMI contact Edwin “J” Bullard at 492-5501. Columnist Nina Brawn of Dover-Foxcroft has been doing genealogy for over 30 years, is a freelance genealogy researcher, speaker and teacher. Reader e-mails are welcome at ninabrawn@gmail.com.