(00:00:00) First off. I may I say that Alex Haley has brought about a small Revolution as far as people doing their family histories and I don't want anyone to think that it's necessarily an easy job. It wasn't easy for him and it isn't easy for most of us there for my first suggestion would be that you put down on paper in some kind of logical fashion all of the information that you know names dates and places and you talked to all the relatives that you can get all the information that you can from them and include it in what you already know. Then you start searching into various sources like the family Bibles all you go up into the attic and you find the packages of letters and documents like marriage records and death records and so forth that you actually have on hand and then you can start doing Some searching in a source like the Minnesota Historical Society. How (00:01:05) does a person go about using this as a tool? The historical society is a tool. (00:01:11) Well, once you know some basic facts and you have a name of a family that you're interested in you bring the information down to the Historical Society will be glad to help you in give you some resources of where you can look now. We have approximately 13,000 published family histories within our collection in addition to that. We have many county histories and town histories Church histories published vital records for various parts of the country not Minnesota admitting lie, but primarily New England. We have Census records for all of Minnesota covering 1850 to 1900. Well, actually 19-5. I should say we have Census records for many other places in the United. Eight and Census records are valuable source of information. We have all the newspapers of the state of Minnesota and there are a wealth of source for articles like obituaries and biographical sketches, particularly the small town newspapers. They're lots of fun to read those kind of little Source materials once people come down and they become familiar with what we have. And as I say, we'll be glad to help them then they come back again and again and some days they'll have good ones, you know where they'll find lots of things and other days. I'm admitting they will be frustrating but hopefully they won't give up and they'll come back again, but they have to go from one source to another and back again and it does take a little bit of digging. (00:02:48) So no one hears going to do it for them. But you will provide some direction as to how to do the research and then it's up to the individual to carry it (00:02:56) out if individuals do not find That they have the time to do it themselves. We do have a listing of what we call Professional researchers who do research for a fee and we'll be glad to give them that list and they can contact the individuals and get some help from them. Also. Also people might be interested in joining some kind of an organization like the Minnesota Jenny illogical society, which does have most of its meetings here at the Historical Society and it is a kind of organization where members help members they don't do research for people but they do help each other and they have a lot of workshops and programs which will get people on the right track and doing they're searching (00:03:43) suppose people live in a part of the region where they can't make use of the resources that are here at this torkoal Society in St. Paul. What are some of the things that they can do on their own to do this kind of research into a family tree. (00:03:56) Well, are you thinking in terms of Minnesota people? Can't get into the Twin City area. Well for one thing they can write to us and we do do research for people who have not the access to come in admitting lie again, it is not a thorough family history, but we certainly will check our major resources like our card catalog of what books we have our biographical indexes. We do some senses searching and we do some newspaper searching if we have dates of particular events such as marriages or deaths. So we will do a limited amount of searching in the only charges that we have are for the photocopies that we might make for individuals. It is not just minnesotans who write to us. We do do research for people all over the United States as well as foreign countries. We have people writing to us from England who are trying to search their family members who have come to this country or from the Scandinavian countries or from Canada who Moved into Minnesota. So we tried to be helpful. Sometimes we can't do as much as we would like. If it turns out that we can't go beyond a certain point then we again recommend some researchers for them. But as to further amplify that one if people who are living outside of the Twin City area certainly have access by mail to getting their death records and birth records from the various County courthouses, they can write to us and we will give them information sheets about where sources are available many of our minnesotans do not have Minnesota families that they're working on. You know, they're working on somebody from New England or or the South or whatever. It might be we can give them resources in other areas to tell them where to do their writing. (00:05:54) So there may be a historical societies and other states that perform functions similar to the ones that were Talking about now (00:06:01) very much. So most of the State Historical society's of course are getting just as much correspondence and inquiries as we do here and some of them have been limiting the amount of research they will do but they too will recommend researchers locally most of the state while all of the states have historical societies many of the counties within each state have a little County Historical Society and then of course the County courthouses all do research for for a modest fee. I mean, it's not a extensive then there are of course places like national archives in Washington DC who will do searches of certain kinds of Records. So there are a number of resources, (00:06:47) but the best place to start is as close to home as possible. (00:06:50) Generally Oh by all means if you don't have full names dates and places and not everybody has all of that data to begin. That's when you start coming in and doing your research in a library and you can go into your local library and find sources even if it isn't in the Twin City area, but you really do have to have some basic facts to go on before you start your searching and it's surprising when people start putting down on paper what they know how much they really do know and how many names they have got and once they start talking to relatives it starts snowballing and they'll be able to find a lot more than they think go back several Generations before they have to do any major research (00:07:37) Alex Haley, of course eventually had to cross back over the Atlantic to continue tracing his roots. What are some of the things that some of the tools that are available in this country for people who have reached that point where they've traced Generations back to the first immigrants. What are some of the tools that a person should look for should be a can be able to find and use Trace ancestry is in Europe or in Africa or other parts of the world. (00:08:04) Well, of course some cunt foreign countries foreign to the United States countries have more information than others one major collection of materials involving other than the United States. Is that gathered by the Mormon church and they have microfilmed the records both perish and civil records of most of the major European countries. And all of that information is available here in the United States by contacting the local Mormon church Branch library, and in in the Twin Cities area, for example, there's one both in Golden Valley and one in st. Paul and you have access to the materials that are housed in Salt Lake City a marvelous resource. You can also write to these various foreign countries and there are address books and guidebooks to doing searching in all of these countries and we have most of those there welcome to use them here. We also have a very large collection of material particularly on french-canadian the Scandinavian countries German materials and Great Britain a lot of material and they'll be able to go back quite a ways in what we have right here. (00:09:22) So it's not necessary to plunk down two thousand dollars for a round trip fair and two or three weeks in the country across an ocean in order to trace ancestors who were your ancestors before those immigrants came to this (00:09:35) country. We can't use that as an excuse for traveling anymore. Although that's a nice idea. We've had people commenting that they have gone to Sweden for example and come up against a library and say, you know, I'm trying to find my family history and they say well all of our records are Available in Salt Lake City through the Mormon Church libraries too bad, you know you could have saved yourself a trip. But at any rate, no, you don't have to go and do the foreign traveling that you would have had to do prior to this time. (00:10:09) Are there any other things that you can think of that beginners ought to to know about before they start tracing family trees family histories? (00:10:18) Well several little things. There are a number of very easy to read and interesting guide books on how to do family history many of them are in pocketbooks and inexpensive and I think it would be advantageous for anybody to pick up one of these little guidebooks. It will give them all kinds of Clues as to what records are available in censuses church records County records and so forth. Also, another possibility would be to have some kind of standard form in which they put their information down on paper so that they know what Means they are working on what the names are how the names interrelate and especially when you get back a few generations and you have quite a few surnames to work on they get to be confusing after a while. So you want to keep them straight. I suggest using even just a loose-leaf notebook to put your paper in and then you can add and subtract as you want. We do carry here in the library two kinds of forms that people can buy if they like we keep a supply on hand and one is called an ancestor chart which is what we would call the family tree with you your parents your grandparents and so forth and then there's the other kind which is called a worksheet which describes one person in a family unit and they're very easy to use and will be glad to supply anybody who comes and wants to purchase them. They're very inexpensive.