I have been looking at the NARA handout for this week. I went to the Seattle NARA website and the general NARA site and have picked out a few names in my family that might be appropriate to research on these sites. There are several that it appears were born out of this country but died in the US. I have at least two who might have had bounty land which could be on these sites and many with military connections. So, my plan was to start the hunt.

Before I got started, I ran into one of those hints. You know the new items that pop up on the major databases now and again and I ran into a bible entry that someone had posted about one of my ancestors. It got me thinking about the process and about motivation and about why we do this research.

I realize that I jump from one family line to another frequently. I tell myself that it is in the name of fairness to the ancestors that I carry the lines out evenly. Really, Heidi! It also made me go back and re-watch a video I often watch by Dewitt Jones, a photographer for National Geographic. I won’t go into details, but I highly recommend it whether you are a photographer or not. (CELEBRATE WHAT’S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD! | Dewitt Jones | TEDxSouthLakeTahoe) It is a TED talk about changing your lens and seeing what is “right with the world.” It made me think that it is ok to change lines of research. It keeps my passion for the work stronger as I search and find new things with a fresh eye. Isn’t that what keeps us going? I get stalled when I can’t find anything new. That is where a new perspective helps that comes from talking with other family historians, taking a new class, searching on a new site, helping others find their ancestors, etc.

As we go further back in the generations, it is harder to find those primary sources that give us birth, marriage, and death records in the usual places. We must be creative and think about the times they lived in. Historical information helps us think about how they might have lived. Church records, land records, immigration and naturalization, wills, passport applications, military pensions and other military records, and county histories are some of the early records we can search for. And what are we looking for? Why are we doing what we are doing? Keeping the passion requires that we keep that last question in mind.

That brings us back to NARA where at least some of that information can be found. What I am learning is that this is a site to find information in a different way. It means we can’t always stick a name in a search engine and pop out a world of information. The more information we have about what we are looking for, the more likely we will be to be able to find something. That may mean contacting an archivist who could help us find the right location to research and perhaps locate the documents we want. We can go to the archive itself, or we can request information that they can search for, and if found, send to us for a fee.

As always, lots learned and lots more to learn. Until next time.
Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com