Tending to the family tree

Computers and the Internet are helping to make genealogy one of the fastest growing hobbies in the world.

Vast storehouses of information are available at the click of a mouse or tap of a key. Of course, one needs to know how to navigate through this often bewildering maze of data to find needed information.

On March 28, the third annual Charlottesville Family History Conference will present a slate of 25 classes designed to help people research their ancestry. The free event is sponsored by the Charlottesville Family History Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Central Virginia Genealogy Association.

The day-long event will be held in the church’s new facility at 1275 Timberwood Blvd., just off Airport Road.

“The classes we’re going to be offering range through a variety of topics, many of which are research orientated,” said Robert F. Roberts Jr., who is organizing the conference with the help of Katie Derby. “For example, there’s a class on researching immigrants or military ancestors, which are areas that are sort of specialized.

“I’ll be teaching a class on genealogy gadgetry and another on family history and genealogy software. Susan Emert, president of the CVGA, will be teaching a class on heritage scrapbooking.

“This is where you’re putting old documents, pictures, records and so forth into a useable and attractive form. Our goal is to put forth a quality, well-rounded conference that will have something for just about everybody.”

The Family History Center, established in 1970, recently moved to the church, which opened in November. (Open house tours will be held from noon to 4 p.m. March 21 and 22.)

The new facility’s genealogy center is available to the public, and is being lauded as one of the best equipped genealogical research facilities in Central Virginia. It’s open from 9 a.m. to noon and 6 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Trained consultants are available to help visitors with everything from how to get started to possible ways of breaking through an ancestral impasse. The center also provides free access to a number of commercial genealogy search engines.

History: Everyone’s got one

“The main purpose of the Family History Center is to make all the family history resources available to everyone, not just members of the church,” said Donneitta Quillon, director of the center.

“Members of our church believe families are eternal, so all our vast work of family history is directed toward binding families together for the eternities. There are many people in the community who don’t have that same goal, but are very interested in discovering who their ancestors are.

“The church has always been very interested and involved in humanitarian efforts within the community. Helping everyone learn more about their family history, whether they’re church members or not, is part of that community involvement.”

The center is equipped with seven computers, one of which is used to print images off the microfilm and microfiche that’s made available from the church’s genealogy library. There’s also access to many books, papers and periodicals related to genealogy.

The Mormon Church has a huge depository of genealogical information stored in its Granite Mountain Records Vault in Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah. Nearly two acres in size, the facility has a roof of solid granite 700 feet thick.

The vault’s gigantic steel doors weigh 32 tons and are beveled so that a nearby nuclear explosion will only seal them tighter. Such measures were deemed necessary to ensure the safekeeping of some of mankind’s most valuable records.

Much of this information can be accessed via Family Search, LDS’s genealogy Web site. It’s available by going to www.LDS.org and clicking on the Family Search icon on the main menu.

“The future of genealogy is to take it out of libraries and places like this and move it to your home,” Roberts said. “There is currently a five-year project under way to convert all the microfilm and microfiche in Granite Mountain to digital.

“They’re also putting old microfilm onto a new polyester microfilm that has a 500-year life span. Even if digital technology disappears for some reason, we’ll be able to look at these records with just a lens and a light for the next 500 years.

“Right now the information contained in Granite Mountain is said to equal the content of more than 130 Libraries of Congress.”

Information for all

Quillon said another goal of the project is to get all the information and research material in Granite Mountain onto the Internet. But having access to the Internet doesn’t negate the necessity for conducting basic genealogical groundwork.

“Many times people will come into the center with a few dates and a name or two written down on a piece of paper,” Quillon said. “The first thing we tell them if they’re just starting their genealogy is it’s good to be organized.

“If they’re organized it’s easier for us to help them, and it’s easier for them to see where they are and where they need to be. We’ll give them a pedigree chart to fill out, and we encourage them to talk to any living relatives they have to get family information.

“Many times, once these relatives pass away, there’s a lot of information that’s lost. Write down any surnames, dates of births and deaths, as well as information found in family Bibles, wills and those kind of things.”

Technological advances

Roberts said the technology associated with genealogy has advanced tremendously in the last few years. He largely credits this to the increase in computer capacity, both in processing power and storage ability.

But the long-held computer axiom “garbage in, garbage out” still applies. The upcoming conference has classes designed to help beginners avoid frustration and get quick results.

“We’ll have a class called Basic Genealogy 101, which teaches you how to do basic research and what kinds of things you should be looking for,” Roberts said. “It tells about the importance of having evidence, such as birth certificates, and how to go about finding that evidence.

“We’re going to have some areas that are geared toward teenagers. We believe it’s extremely important to involve our children in our family history, because they’re the ones who will be passing the information on to future generations.

“There will be a class on oral history, and another on how to use land records to find information. We also have a class called Research Resources, which will be presented by Margaret O’Brien, who is with the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society.”

Lifetimes of research

The keynote speaker at the conference will be Scot French, director and associate professor of the Virginia Center for Digital History. The Web site can be accessed at www. vcdh.virginia.edu.

“This is a Web site that’s doing phenomenal things,” Roberts said. “It has a virtual Jamestown, and has recently created a site dedicated to tracking the history of former slaves from Virginia who moved to Liberia after the Civil War.

“The conference will be offering a lot of information, and we encourage people to spend the entire day. We suggest they bring a sack lunch, and we’ll provide beverages.”

Quillon has been interested in genealogy since she was a young girl. During the three years she has served as director of the center, she has seen many examples of how new technology has helped people discover their ancestral past.

“One day an elderly man came in and said he was here to find his family tree,” Quillon said. “I told him that some people spend a lifetime doing that.

“But he was certain he could find his, so we put his name in Family Search. Lo and behold a huge family tree came up that went back for generations.

“He was totally assured that it was his, because there were certain names along the line that he knew. I think what fascinates me more than anything else is the excitement and the love that makes people want to do genealogy.”