Interested in recording your own personal history? If the idea of throwing on a ‘detective’ hat and digging up pieces of your ancestral past seems daunting, I promise you, it’s easier than you think—and worth every ounce of effort. When I first took on the task of unearthing my family history, I was terrified. I spent two…
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Put together a list of questions and sit down with the folks in your family who might be able to share some answers: your parents, your grandparents, your great aunts, your second cousins. Bring along a phone or a digital voice recorder to capture your conversations (I find face-to-face interviews are a lot more productive…
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If key family members are fuzzy on the details or have passed away, look to close family friends for insights. Thanks to the lovely World Wide Web, I was able to track down my grandfather’s one-time Czechoslovakian fiancée, Eliska, whom he met aboard a ship sailing for Brazil in ’41. Eliska was 88, and living in…
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Since by now you’ve designated yourself the family historian, take it upon yourself to start a tree. My family uses the online tree-builder, Geni. The basic version is free, easy to navigate, and includes fun features like the ability to send birthday or anniversary wishes. You can also use Ancestry. Basic searches and tree building are also free, and…
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If you feel like your research has hit a dead end, or you’ve exhausted your personal connections, reach out to others in your community who may share a piece of your family history. In an effort to learn more about my Polish heritage, I did a little sleuthing online and discovered the Polish Home Association…
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Whatever your personal history, I guarantee with a little digging you’ll find a library of related books, articles, essays, and films. Authors, academics and screenwriters pride themselves on being experts on their topics of interest, often spending years learning everything there is to know about a certain event, period, or era, in order to paint…
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Whatever your interest—birth, death, or marriage certificates, old addresses, military records—spend a couple of days researching the archives, indexes, magistrates, memorials, ministries and embassies in your cities/states/countries of interest (see Tip 8 for some specific examples of the resources I've used). Many of these archives (e.g., the U.S. and U.K. National Archives) are searchable online and some are even…
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Local librarians are wonderful resources. They know where the information’s hiding, and can save you loads of time. Keep in mind museums often have libraries, too—I searched for days trying to track down the number of Jews from my family’s home town in Poland who were lucky enough to have survived the Holocaust. In a…
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There is a growing body of resources available to those of us researching our Jewish heritage. Here are a few sites I found especially helpful: JewishGen (powered by Ancestry and affiliated with the Museum of Jewish Heritage): a collection of databases, resources, and search tools that currently hosts more than 20 million records and provides a myriad…
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