Just because you are family

Guest Post on Genealogy from Sissy

The TV show sponsored by Ancestry.com has started a resurgence in popularity of all fields of family history.

I am a newbie when it comes to family history. My sister has been at it for about 30 years.

She now has me hooked. That being said, she was doing it WITHOUT the internet.

A lot of time was spent manually going through papers and photo coping.

There were phone calls and letters to different county seats in all the different states where we had ancestors. There were research costs and copy fees for each one of them.

There was and is a huge cost in just the copies from the local libraries.

I firmly believe some etiquette is required.

This should be common sense but……

Do not believe that you are entitled to all of their research. Just because you are family.

Do not believe that if someone has a document that they should give it to you.

Just because you are family.

Do not get into a war over paper. Think how you would feel if you had spent years of your life gathering all of this information and someone (family or not) thought that they could just take it.

Do let them know that you are interested and are willing to help.

Do take on the hard ancestor that no one could find. The internet is a wonderful tool.

Do look outside the box and not just cover the same avenues that have already been mined.

Do get your hands on any local historical documents. The local genealogy societies are a great place to start.

DO SHARE your findings as soon as you get something. The excitement is contagious.

If you help and show that this is not just a fad; that you are truly interested they will more than likely share what they have already collected.