The Genealogy Hobby is Becoming Very Interesting
Monday, July 26th, 2010As a long time genealogist who has been working on our own family lines for several years we have seen some major changes in the hobby. Several new online resources and also scientific testing is considered normal and we take full advantage of these new methods.
Very interesting indeed! Using Sites like Ancestry.com, footnote.com and the Mormon site at FamilySearch.org you are able to find your families on the U.S. Census listing others in the household, with their ages and locations of birth, marital status and occupations.
By comparing the census information with online cemetery records and old maps and the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) you are able to create family groups and to study the history of the areas where they lived, and most all of this is available online either for free or by subscription websites.
A huge help to family history research is to use the online newspapers that are available. Really old newspaper articles will bring your families to life. You will see how the news of the day would have affected your ancestors and learn things about the world conditions, wars, economic fluctuations, and just about anything that you can think of to search for.
Now in the past ten or so years the use of DNA sampling has been put to good use in the genealogical community. Genealogy DNA Testing has been standardized down to a very simple, pain free process of just scraping the inside of your cheek with a little scraper paddle and sending the sample off to a testing lab.
The simplest method to do this process is with a home DNA test kit as in some cases you may want this information to connect up to an existing set of previously tested people in the data base, and some times the information might be required to show the paternity of a child.
In all of the above situations you have the internet to thank, along with scientific DNA studies to help put your family picture in perspective.