So you want to explore your family tree?

A good friend asked me recently:

"I have an interest in my family tree. I looked at ancestry.com and have not committed to anything yet. I did, however, start the basic family tree on the site for free. I understand you have done (extensive) research and may have some ideas and experience with web sites. When you have time, I would be interested in your feedback."

Here was my answer, with notes on software and web sites.

I am assuming you want to build/record your family tree. The best programs are Reunion on the Mac and Family Tree Maker on a Windows PC. Family Tree Maker bought ancestry.com a few years ago so they are linked and it is a powerful pitch for using FTM. FTM just (finally) came out on the Mac. I would google for reviews of Family Tree Maker on the Mac if I were to go that route.

You may or may not know or recall that the reason I threw away my Windows (Dell) PC and got a Mac 3.5 years ago was because of Family Tree Maker. Well, not exactly but close.

FTM - at least back then - had a nice feature that automatically saved your work no matter what you did - meaning, after you opened up the program, did some work on your family tree, and closed the program, all changes were automatically saved. That was good....except that the program saved the files to their own special partition on the drive - like it's own separate file cabinet. One day I got a Trojan worm that I researched and realized it would take 6-8 hours of work to get rid of. So I called in The Geek Squad. They came, recognized the problem and "blew away Windows." (reinstalled it). They saved all the files in the normal places....but not the FTM files which were hiding in their own special little spot. And so. Ten years of work down the drain. Gone. Vanished. (I did not back them up becuase...I did not know where they were) That's why I switched to a Mac - no viruses, no worms, no trojans. Ever.

So, when I did this I found that.....FTM was not available on the Mac. I researched it and found Reunion was the best Mac program. I have it and use it but sparingly. Sadly, my interest is carefully typing in all of the basic info, getting the dates right etc etc has waned. I just don't have the heart.

OK, so Ancestry.com. This site is useful but it is also a typical internet money-suck come-on huckster site. Have you ever tried to look up a person on the web? Or a phone number? The most basic info is available free. BUT the REAL stuff you want is behind a paywall! And if you pay a little, they'll show you a little more. But then if you want, say, criminal reports....you can pay more....and then.... It's like Internet porn - (or....er....so they say!!)

So....I have not used ancestry.com for a while. There is a little available for free. Then they want your money. And they will keep wanting your money, endlessly. Let's say you want the ship your great grandfather came over on....buy the Ellis Island ship registry database. They will tell you if there are people named, say, "Bill Johnson" in the database. Why yes there IS a Bill Johnson in the database....buy now! BUT is it YOUR relative??? They have no idea. Of course they are motivated to have as much info as possible and as many names as possible to suck you in.

Ancestry.com also is big on linked family trees. Let's say my mother's cousin has "done" her family tree. Well that's almost the same as mine!! That can be a big help!! BUT sometimes these are inaccurate (I should say, "usually" they are inaccurate). So you might find a gold mine, you might not.

What I would do and I am contemplating this is pick the 6-month period or one year period when I am ready to dive into this stuff again and then buy a 6-month or 1-year subscription and get taken gleefully by ancestry.com again.Go ahead and prepare to spend maybe a few hundred dollars. MUCH of the stuff they have is in the public domain, but what the heck. It gives you a huge head start in some cases. It is certainly not all bad. The Web is the best friend and worst enemy of family tree research. It offers a wealth of information (for example, there are people who go to graveyards and copy down all the info on the stones and put the info on the web - invaluable!!), but lots of the info is INACCURATE. Real family tree research involves primary records: birth, marriage, death certificates and other on PAPER official records (think Obama!). You have to have the backup. I have a large tree on my mother's side and there are plenty of places on the web where amateurs who are linked some way in my tree (strangers) have things wrong. So you have to be careful with what you find on the web - use the web as a resource that leads you to some way of verifying what you learn.

Who should care? If you get it right, future generations will thank you and it's your unique personal history, shared only by brothers and sisters. Your kids will thank you.

By the way, the best place to start is free and it's called familysearch.org This is the Mormon site. You may know that the Mormons have the largest genealogical research facility n the world out there is Salt Lake. Why? I am told that the Mormon's believe that if you convert to Mormonism, then all of your ancestors were secretly Mormons too. Therefore it was important to them to know who your ancestors were! I have not confirmed this.

Hah - Now I have:

"The Mormon interest in genealogy is closely linked to their doctrine of baptism for the dead and their belief that the family unit will continue to exist beyond mortal life. Mormons trace their family trees to find the names of ancestors who died without learning about the restored Mormon Gospel so that these relatives from past generations can be baptized by proxy in the temple. Once baptized, if the ancestor's spirit has accepted the Gospel, they will be able to be together with the rest of their baptized Mormon family in the celestial kingdom. For the Saints, genealogy is a way to save more souls and strengthen the eternal family unit."

So, to answer your question. If you just want to fool around, go to familysearch.org. If you want to build a family tree using software, try Family Tree Maker for a PC (which includes 6 months free of ancestry.com I think) (although how deep they let you go is another story), or, on a Mac either Reunion of FTM for the Mac (which again has the ancestry.com free offer). Also, once you start searching around, there are many many many places to find stuff. Ellis Island ship registers are freely available for example. You just have to google and search around a little bit.

have fun!