Mickey Meece
For those on a genealogy quest, large or small, these are exciting times. Amateur family sleuths are taking advantage of the vast and growing trove of digitised records on sites like Ancestry.com, FamilyLink.com and Geni.com. More often these days, researchers are turning to social networks for help in discovering connections to the dead, and to the living.
Revelations can be serendipitous, and shockingly fast. Last November, for example, it took Laurel Axelrod just two hours to locate the birth mother of her husband, Nicholas, who was adopted as a toddler. She started with crucial biographical information on Ancestry.com and finished by poking around on Facebook. Within a week, Nicholas spoke to his birth mother on the phone for more than an hour. ?It?s sweet,? Laurel said, ?now it?s every weekend.? This spring, the couple, who live in California, flew to England to meet his birth mother and a few other family members in person. ?It?s really, really amazing,? she said.
Axelrod, who is in his 40s, said he tried to search for his mother a decade earlier but found too many obstacles. He even thought of hiring a private investigator, but that would have cost thousands of dollars. Requesting documents by mail back then took months, he said, whereas the request was fulfilled on Ancestry.com in an instant for about $25. ?I knew her maiden name, which was probably the most important thing because we were able to find her birth certificate and a couple of marriage certificates with her maiden name on it,? he said.
Indeed, Ancestry.com is positioning itself as a tool to make such connections to relatives, said Eric Shoup, senior vice president for product. Most of its 1.6 million users are looking back in time, he said, but ?we?re also using our technologies to bring you forward in time? to connect families via social media. ?The more we can help members, the more we all benefit.?
Not every genealogy search is so productive. Some companies want dabblers in family lore to have fun. On the new Family Village Game, for example, players discover unknown ancestors and find out facts about them. In this genealogy game, which is reminiscent of FarmVille or CityVille, players build villages, amass fortunes, buy houses and cars, immigrate family members and assign jobs. As the village grows, according to Jeff Wells, founder of Funium, the game maker, Family Village works behind the scenes to find family connections and real-world documents, including census records, newspaper articles and marriage records. Players can then examine the records, print them or store them in their personal game library.
Jennifer Gray, who played the game this winter as it was being tested, said, ?It is addicting.? As she played, she found an obituary for a great-uncle and for her grandmother. ?Now I have copies of these,? she said, which led to a conversation with her mother about their family history. Even though she lives in Utah, ?the genealogy capital of the world,? she never had a deep interest in her family tree. The game changed that, she said, and now with the aid of a son, Spencer, who helps her collect coins in Family Village to buy more artifacts, she is excited to dig deeper and share what she finds with her family.
While the genealogy game is new, family trees are not. They are popping up in all corners of the Internet, and on mobile applications, as interest in genealogy grows. Thomas MacEntee, a genealogy educator, writer and speaker, said the explosion of interest in genealogy was because of ?an alignment of technology planets.? First came software, then the Internet and now social networks, he said.
?In the genealogy world, we have always been a social group,? said MacEntee, founder of GeneaBloggers.com, a community resource hub. ?In a way, social media is a natural progression.? Facebook and Twitter users are flocking to the sites that cater to their need for social interaction and collaboration. WikiTree.com, for example, is a free and collaborative project created in 2008 to connect personal family histories with one worldwide family tree.
Contributors who abide by an honour code, edit the content. Each profile page on WikiTree.com has a trusted list that enables people to share information but protect confidential information. As of last week, more than 27,000 people had created more than 1.4 million profiles. ?This is a great time to be in genealogy,? said MacEntee.
While much data can be found free, many sites offer premium content for a monthly fee. Membership rates vary depending on the length of the subscription. For example, an annual membership at Ancestry.com costs $12.95 a month for United States records, and $24.95 for worldwide records.