Finding Your People.(African American genealogy)(Brief Article)
Author/s: Taiia Smart Young
Issue: Feb, 2000
Genealogy on the Net
"WHO ARE YOUR PEOPLE?" It's a warm southern refrain meant to gently unravel your family history. The answer can reveal much: wealth, activism, education. Both Damita Drayton Green, owner of Diggin' Up Roots, a genealogical and consulting agency, and Dee Parmer Woodtor, author of Finding a Place Called Home: A Guide to African-American Genealogy and Historical Identity (Random House, $17.50), agree that we should know more about our relatives than that they "lived, breathed and died." Details about property they owned and churches they helped build illuminate their identities and personalities.
The Net can be a powerful tool for uniting distant cousins and unearthing truths about bloodlines. It can eliminate long-distance calls and searches through county archives and libraries for documents; you can also connect via E-newsletters or chat rooms with others doing similar searches to trade tips. But finding the pieces to the genealogical puzzle can be tricky, especially if your ancestors were enslaved. (It's easier if your clan migrated from the Caribbean in the late 1800's, as documentation--visas and ports of entry--exists. For sources tailored to West Indian ancestry, go to www.rootsweb.com/~caribgw.)
The first step in connecting the branches of your family tree happens off-line. Woodtor advises folks to interview the oldest relative and gather (and label) photos, obituaries, family Bibles, marriage certificates and any other paperwork to substantiate her stories. "Oral history is crucial. You can't do a satisfactory project without it," she adds. Green, who lectures about using documents other than the census to track ancestors, also notes that some records--deeds, wills, tax and pension files--aren't available on the Web. When you've completed that leg, you can begin cybersleuthing. These tips can get you started:
* Compose a family tree. After you learn that Aunt Shirley is really your third cousin, add names to your tree. Print a sample pedigree chart--a graph of marriages, births, deaths, dates and locations from www.everton.com/charts/freeform.html.
* Leave messages. Posting queries on message boards and in chat rooms links you to other folks researching the same name. A note on AfriGeneas.com (the oldest Black genealogy site on the Net) might read: "I'm seeking descendants and information about David Carroll, born 1905. He married Beth Smith and they lived in Warren County, North Carolina." Scanning the county archives on rootsweb.com may also net results.
* Investigate surname databases. After Emancipation, some freed Blacks kept their owners' names (perhaps because of blood association), while others shed them for new identities. One of AfriGeneas's most useful tools is its extensive list of surnames. For example, a general search for the Stiths is too broad, so location and time periods are key; if you know that Margaret Stith lived in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, in the late 1800's, start there. If she lived abroad, access the International Genealogy Index at www.familysearch.org. Also review the, Soundex (at www.rootsweb.com), a mechanism that locates soundalike name derivations.
* Find public documents. Blacks weren't included in the census (www.census.gov) until 1870, so it's best to look for your relatives in the 1900's census and work backward. Birth, marriage and death certificates provide important clues, too, such as parents, spouses, cause of death and burial site, respectively. For tips on ordering vital records, visit www.vitalrec.com.
* Join a group. Untangling the Web can be frustrating for beginners. Green suggests joining a national organization such as the Afro-American Historical and Genealogy Society (AAHGS). It's essential to learning the practices and methodologies of genealogical research and finding a mentor who can offer tips and shortcuts. The AAHGS holds its annual conference in October; find it on-line at www.rootsweb.com/~mdaahgs/ or call (202) 829-8970.
Taiia Smart Young is the new-media editor at ESSENCE.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Essence Communications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group
Using a Search Engine Effectively
Sometimes directories and genealogy specific search engines are just not going to provide you with the information you need. That is where the major search engines come in. Search engines such as "Google", "Alta Vista", "Excite", and "AlltheWeb" use electronic spiders to index billions of web pages then rank them according to how relevant they are to the "keywords" you type in to the search box.
However (as discussed previously), typing in your surname by itself means being presented with an often unsurmountable list of pages, the majority of which are of no use to you.
I am now going to show you a few tricks which will allow you to substantially narrow the quantity of search results retrieved.
"+" and "-" symbols
Using "+" and "-" signs in front of your keywords is a useful technique supported by most major search engines. By adding a "+" in front of a keyword you are telling the search engine that you are searching for pages which contain all of the keywords you have entered i.e. +Wagner +Nicholas.
If I searched only for "Wagner", the search engine would return any page that contained the name "Wagner".
By simply telling the search engine that I want only pages returned that also contain the name "Nicholas", I will substantially improve the quality of my search results.
Using the "-" sign allows you to search for pages that have one word on them but not another word. This is useful if you share a surname with a well known celebrity. For example if your surname was "Cruise", entering Cruise -Tom into the search field would be a good idea.
You could extend this even further by entering +FirstName +Cruise -Tom -Nicole -Kidman. This will tell the search engine to exclude any page that mentions Tom Cruise and his now ex-wife Nicole Kidman.
Phrase Searching
While using "+" and "-" symbols is a useful technique, it is not so useful when searching family sites that contain pedigree information in large databases. There are often so many names in these databases that all the names you are searching for are likely to be found. For example, if you search for +Pat +Bishop, it is likely the database contains "Pat Stockwell" and "Sam Bishop". Thus even if "Pat Bishop" is not in the database your search will still retrieve unwanted results. This is where "Phrase Searching" comes in handy.
Phrase searching is a technique that tells a search engine to find pages that contain words in the exact order that you specify. This is done by enclosing your keywords in speech marks i.e. "Nicholas Wagner".
The search engine will view two words enclosed in speech marks as one search term and will only return pages that contain the name "Nicholas Wagner" etc, as a phrase where the two words are next to each other. The main problem with this technique is that any page that lists the surname first, i.e. Wagner, Nicholas will be excluded.
Phrase searching is supported by most of the major search engines.
Tip: Combine the "+" and "-" techniques with the phrase searching technique i.e. "+Wagner +Nicholas". To demonstrate how effective this technique can be I entered +Wagner +Nicholas without quotation marks into the google.com search engine and received 83,000 results. I then entered "+Wagner +Nicholas" and received 235 results!
Wild Cards
A wild card search allows a searcher to enter a character (*) to search for plurals of a word or variations in spelling.
For example, if you search the surname Sims, you can also search for the singular Sim. The wild card search would be: Sim*
This would return all matches for Sim and Sims.
The major search engines which currently support wild card searches are "Alta Vista", "AOL Search", "HotBot", "MSN Search", and "Yahoo".
Refining your search
Include Given Names
By searching for given names alongside surnames, you will help to substantially focus the search. This will increase the chances of finding a site with highly relevant information. Remember the "+" "-" and phrase searching techniques for even better results.
Include Place Names
If you know where your ancestors came from, you should include this information in your search .i.e. +Trump +New +York. This dramatically increases your chances of finding sites with relevant information.
Search for uncommon names
If a keyword is uncommon, it is likely to return significantly less web pages than a common keyword. Thus if your family tree contains an uncommon surname you should try a search on it.