Word: genealogist
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Beyond research, the Web is a genealogists' agora, invaluable for trading information and connecting with living relatives. Dave Distler, who works at an electronics firm in Greenwood, Ind., lost track of a great-great-great-grandfather, Friedrich Jakob Distler, who was born in 1814 in Germany, Prussia, Rhineland or Northern Bavaria, according to vague records. Surfing the Net, he found an organization, Palatines to America, which referred him to a German genealogist who found his grandfather's hometown, Hinterweidenthal. When he entered the village name in a search engine, he found a private e-mail address. Three weeks after...
...James Jeffrey. They root around local historical societies and county courthouses for land deeds, wills and probate, and tax rolls. "There's nothing like the smell of musty records, the feel of heavy deed books, the irritated look on the clerk's face when you say you're a genealogist," writes Sharon DeBartolo Carmack in The Genealogy Sourcebook. But the rewards are worth it: Alice Wilkinson, a retired Houston schoolteacher, found an inventory of a relative's 18th century will listing 12 fur buttons, an ax handle and a three-legged stool. "Back then, people had fewer possessions and more...
Names, one discovers, can be tricky--even without adoptions, divorces and illegitimate children. "Drunk census takers and bad penmanship can drive you insane!" says Rawlings, the Florida real estate broker. Lorraine St-Louis-Harrison, a Canadian genealogist, had a hard time tracing her French-speaking grandfather until she realized that an English census taker had transcribed St Louis as "Salway." Likewise, immigrants disembarking at Ellis Island found their names arbitrarily Anglicized. And some families, wanting to assimilate, did so later on their...
...TRACE YOUR AFRICAN-AMERICAN ROOTS by Barbara Thompson Howell (Citadel) meets the special needs of the black genealogist, and the author's enthusiasm is contagious...
...MASTER GENEALOGIST from Wholly Genes software (about $89 for the gold version; $49 for the silver; Windows), one of the most expensive programs but also one of the most powerful, handles an unlimited number of people, relationships and sources. "There are easier programs," admits Wholly Genes president Bob Velke, 36, "but they're nowhere near as powerful. This has all the power and flexibility that professionals need, but you don't need to be a pro to use it." (www.wholly genes.com or call 877-TMG-FAMILY...