The items were laid out peacefully on the auction table like the remains of a relative.
Tintype photos in beautiful cases of relatives long gone. Small personal books and Kodak photos. A heavily worn Bible in a plastic bag. A Lincoln Farm Association certificate. Another thick Bible stacked beneath equally weighty books.
The auction staffer had given these items more respect than the family whose history they embodied. They were a genealogical treasure that someone had taken the time to record, compile and save.
That family member had left handwritten notes identifying some of the items:
“Keepsake book of … who died in 1838 age 17.
Poetry etc. copybook by my great grandmother … – presumably written at the boarding school she attended in Wilmington, Delaware. Dates ca 1847.
Snyder Bible.
Cards purchased by June’s great aunt (from France and Spain) … I believe on their trip around the world in the 1920’s.”
Now, all of that hard work had been discarded, left to be plundered and picked over by auction buyers who’d clamor for the best of it – the tintypes, for sure, because they sell well. The items were from a family that lived in an upscale suburb of Philadelphia, the auctioneer said. The handwritten notes indicated that they were a white family of means.
Seeing so much of this history on the auction table was disheartening. Like many African Americans, I have only a smidgen of knowledge – much less documents – of my family’s yesterdays, most of it culled years ago from old census records for a family reunion newspaper.
If I had continued the quest and found more, what would I have done with it, if no family member wanted it?
I put that question and others to Karin Berry, a journalist who has spent the last 25 years researching her own family history and helping other African Americans to do the same. With our fractured history in this country – obviously not of our own doing – it’s tough to find out much about who our people were. The trail ends much earlier than it does for some other families.
Karin teaches a class called “Use the Internet to Find Your African-American Ancestors” at the Mt. Airy Learning Tree in Philadelphia. Her next class begins on June 8, 2013. It ties into a class that a collector-friend and I teach at the Mt. Airy Learning Tree called “Historical Treasures in Your Home.” We help people research their vintage and antique items, catalog them, determine their market value, and decide whether to keep, sell or donate them. Our class will be held over two nights on May 13 and May 20, 2013.
Here’s what Karin had to say about researching your family history and preserving what you find:
Question:
What types of items have genealogical value aside from the obvious, such as family Bibles? I’ve come across WWII ration books that offered info about members of a household.
Answer:
Just about any item that you can confirm is connected to your family is of genealogical value. However, I would be on the lookout for printed materials. For example, my late cousin kept his mother’s diary. It didn’t yield any family history, but it was a valuable glimpse into her life as a teenager in the 1930s and ’40s.
Question:
What should one do with the documents, photos, etc., once the history has been compiled? Are there museums or institutions interested in one’s family history? What can be done to get other members interested enough to hang on to the stuff?
Answer:
Family historians should decide what happens to their research. That seems to me the only way to avoid their hard work being thrown into the trash after they die. They may want to write a book about the family that incorporates their research and distribute copies to their relatives.
They (or their survivors) can also contact local historical societies, libraries, state repositories, and genealogical organizations about how to donate family papers. Family history collections aren’t restricted to famous people. Family historians’ research can help others who are researching in the same area or even the same family.
Question:
How does one get started tracing the family’s history. What’s the first step?
Answer:
The first step is to interview your oldest and/or most knowledgeable relative. Ask for the names of all of your relatives – mother, father, grandparents, great-grandparents – as far back as the person can remember, and where they lived (state and county).
Record the information on a family group sheet – birth dates, death dates, marriage dates, children, etc. Then go to the Internet and search for them in the U.S. Census, beginning with the 1940 and going back 10 years for each census. Keep in mind that whoever you are researching is 10 years younger or not even born yet, so your search may shift from a child to a parent to a grandparent.
Then fill in the blanks on the family group sheet as you discover siblings, aunts, uncles, etc. My article for TheRoot.com explains this process and includes a printable family group sheet.
Question:
What resources are available to help someone in their search?
Answer:
Plenty of websites explain how to research your family. I recommend Cyndi’s List as the best place to start. Cyndi Howells has been compiling genealogy websites (last count: 326,940) for more than 15 years. There are dozens of categories – click on Beginner, of course.
Question:
How important are oral interviews since most are anecdotes? Do you have to verify the information?
Answer:
You must confirm oral history with documents. In many instances, the family story has a grain of truth – but maybe only a grain. It’s like the game of “Telephone”: The more the story gets passed on, the more it changes.
Question:
Tell me a little about yourself and the research you’ve done on your family. How long have you been researching it? Are you finished? What has kept you at it? Did you ever feel like giving up? Tell me about the genealogy course that you teach.
Answer:
I started researching my family with my sister shortly after my father died in 1988. I felt a need to connect with his family. I realized I was intensely curious about both sides of my family and just continued researching from there. I am researching multiple lines of my family, who lived in four states – Kentucky, Ohio, North Carolina and Louisiana.
When I began researching my Brown family, my sister and I asked my maternal grandfather about who his people were. My grandfather told me his grandfather was lynched. I waited more than 20 years to document the lynching, mainly because I wasn’t sure that I would be able to find any details. I found a newspaper article written about the lynching, which occurred in September 1879 in Wilkinson County, Mississippi. I was very happy to show my grandfather a copy of the article.
Genealogy is fascinating and addictive. I love digging into old records. The research is never over because there always seems to be family to find, and you discover you don’t want to give up looking for them.
I have a lot of brick walls, and plenty of questions, mostly connected to my slave ancestors. Where did my great-great grandfather’s surname come from? Berry is not the surname of his last slave owner. I have a physical description that indicates he was mixed-race – light-skinned with green eyes. Was his father a slave owner?
I have taught my genealogy class, “Use the Internet to Find Your African-American Ancestors,” since May 2009 for Mt. Airy Learning Tree. My students are always interesting – I love to hear about their research discoveries. It’s a thrill knowing that I helped them to figure out how and where to look.
