How Did You Find Me?

I've been climbing my family tree for thirty years, now.  I've collected a lot of information from other researchers through the years, tracing the various branches of my ancestors back through the centuries.  For most of those branches I found other genealogists who had already done the intensive research.  When I found a connecting ancestor, they were always more than happy to share their work.

 

Three separate works have been done regarding my Mother's New England Huckins family--1881, 1916, and 1989.  My maternal grandmother's mother's family were Mormons who had diligently traced much of their ancestry because of the dictates of their faith, so a full eighth of my genealogy was done with no contribution of my own.  My  paternal mother's family was full of genealogists on both sides who left much of their work available for posterity's sake.  My great-grandmother Stafford was born a Guynes, and anyone who carries the name is related to us, because it was a made-up spelling--I suspect the first man to use it was trying to get away from his very colorful past--but researchers from that family had an EBB back in the early days of the world wide web.

 

But of my many ancestral lines, I found no one who had fully traced the Staffords.  Some had an interest, a passing curiosity.  I knew many of my great-grandfather's cousins who had long, sharp memories and willingly shared everything they knew.  But no one had tackled the task until I started connecting the various distant branches to the same trunk, amassing a 7000-page printed document contained in 18 large, three-ring binders.  Who knows how many pages it would be if I added all the digital information I have never printed.  I have about 500 printed pages of documentation on our immigrant ancestor Richard Stafford alone.

 

I've visited lots of libraries, court houses, and cemeteries.  I've met distant cousins all over the country, and corresponded with even more.  For the last twenty years, I've been grateful for the advent of the Internet and its many genealogical sites.  It has made tracing the family from its origins in Hampshire County, Virginia, circa 1800 to the mid-1940s simple.  With census records online for those years, and now more birth, marriage, death, and burial information online, with discussion boards and collaborative sites like findagrave.com, the search for the dead is made easy.  The search for the living, however, takes a little more detective work.

 

Phone books, 411, and the white pages online put me in touch with descendants.  I don't remember how many phone calls I made, spontaneous introductions through Ma Bell (this was before cellphones) that led me to many wonderful connections.  Message boards like those found at rootsweb and genforum led me to more.  Obituaries for the more recently deceased filled in whole families on the tree.  And, of course, the social networking that is Facebook.  Over 300 Staffords and kin are part of our Facebook group, many of them also my Facebook friends, almost every one of them contacted through whatever means the ever-changing settings of Facebook will allow, and they graciously responded to my introduction and requests for information on their families.  What might be even more surprising is I have sent hundreds, if not thousands, more messages and friend requests than have been answered.

 

So when I'm asked the question, "How did you find me?"--as I frequently am--the story goes something like this.

 

From one of Richard Stafford's children, I traced the family through the census, through county birth and marriage records, through family researchers and publications, down to the mid-20th Century.  There are lots of folks recorded in the 1940 census who are still alive, or have only recently died.  For the living ones I found addresses and phone numbers.  For those who have passed on, I looked for obituaries that listed their survivors, and repeated the process.  Facebook is so popular, with settings now that allow one to list their family relationships, I have gleaned lots of biographical and genealogical information from hundreds of walls.  I wrote messages, sent friend requests, and waited for replies.

 

Through those methods, I have contacted living descendants in all five of the branches of Richard's children that I have traced; three more lines have yet to be identified in the historical records of the early 1800s.  And using those methods still, the search continues.  This latest trip through the family tree has taken me the last three years, and is about 80% complete.  I'm hoping I can finish by the end of this year.

 

But if you ever wonder, "How did he find me?" let me assure you, it wasn't easy!