No More Research Girdles: Expanding Your Family History Horizons with RootsTech

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Photo by genibee, 
CC BY-NC 2.0
Have you ever had an old memory surface at the oddest time? I was in the dental chair having an implant screwed into my jaw, and there was so much pressure! When they were doing something else, I said, this feels just like the first time I ever put on a girdle. I was giggling about it, and nudged the assistant, and said, you know what I'm talking about! She was giggling too, and then she said to the doctor, you do NOT know, but ask your wife! The silliest thing about it was that I was in seventh grade! Who needs a girdle ever, much less in seventh grade? It was not about the boys; they never looked at us then. And really, we all thought the other girls were noticing, but I think all of us just wanted to fit in. For the record, let me just say that while I can't recall the last time I squeezed myself into a girdle, I do not miss that pressure one bit!


Why mention this weird old memory? Well, it paints a picture of adolescent life before pantyhose, back in the day when we girls all wore nylons to school every day. How times have changed, and for the better, in my opinion. Kids have much more freedom to express themselves than we felt then, in the mid-sixties. 


The Olden Days of Family History

I'm thinking of the state of genealogy research back then, pre-personal computers, and before civilian internet. Some of us remember those days fondly. After all, the repositories that are  critical to our basic research were open to the public, and the public servants at the local, state and federal levels were on the job, keeping accurate records, and creating ever-better indexing methods. 

In those early days, genealogical, historical and lineage organizations were doing their work, and much of it has stood the test of time. Some of it has been reconsidered, and corrected. Now that we have the advantage of a wider lens, more records, and most importantly, a wider group of people examining the research, we can see the early weak methodology. Now we have tools like the Genealogical Proof Standard to help us do better work right from the start. Confirmation bias is a constant danger, and part of being human, so good research methods and habits are vital. The GPS is not a girdle though, instead it requires us to expand and deepen both our research and analysis of records and evidence.

Tunnel vision can be a "girdle" to our brains. When we look at the social history of the group of people to whom our ancestors belonged we can better understand their lives. Researching the geology of the places where they lived can tell us how they made a living. Huge events like Rootstech can introduce us to new cousin-researchers now, before events begin. 



Each of those 23 thousand cousins can be contacted if I'm interested. So far, I've found three descendencies from my McBee direct ancestors that I did not yet have in my tree.


How To

To do this, log into FamilySearch, ensure that you are in the FamilySearch Family Tree and connected to all the ancestral lines of interest. Be sure to allow messaging and fine-tune your permissions. Head to RootsTech Relatives. Here you will see various ways to choose which cousins to investigate. 


My favorite way is by ancestor; move through the lines of interest. Once you have chosen someone to investigate, click their nickname. More choices.




I generally click the contact button first, so I don't forget. This adds your cousin to your list of contacts. Then click Relationship, which pops up a window. 

Close popup to get back to Rootstech Relatives

Here you can clearly see how your cousin is related, IF the tree is correct. If it is incorrect, now is the time to jump over to the tree and fix it. I suggest adding and connecting all missing records while you're there, with informative "reason statements" as you link each record to the persons named in the record. Those numbers under the dates of birth and death are clickable so you can get right to the person profile you want to repair. 

The final step is Chat; I usually greet the person using their nickname, mention if we have talked before, give them my email, and often ask them one question, such as "have you tested your DNA?" I often hear back!

I can't wait until the talks start, but until then, RootsTech Relatives is gardening while it's raining!


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Send your stories to m.strickland@skcgs.org

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Valorie Zimmerman

Thank you to MaryLynn, Bob & Claude.ai for their help. Claude suggested the title.

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