Getting Started Or Rednecks, Class Projects and Climbing the Family Tree

There are a lot of good reasons for starting to research your family roots. Medical History, Looking for Rich Uncles, Slow Saturday night, Ego gratification, basic curiosity or like in my case a homework assignment. About four years ago my oldest daughter was assigned the task of making a four generation family tree and to write as much history about them as she knew. We all sat down at the kitchen table and started building the tree. The First generation was easy that was me and my blonde (although getting her to admit her age was a toughy). We knew our birthdays, wedding date and important places. The second generation (Our Parents) was a little harder. I mean I knew my Dad was born in back woods Alabama but I had no ideal which patch of woods. So we made a few phone calls out found out some interesting things. Dad was born in Tuscaloosa County, Momma’s Middle name is Emma (Big Grin), LV (my Blonde’s Dad) is really LV they aint initials and her Momma was from Mineola, Texas.

Now I was getting full of myself at this point. We were halfway through and it was still an hour till the game started. Then my kid started asking questions that reminded me of why I always believed Children should be seen and not heard.

She asked me what was Granpa Moore’s full name, I sat there for a minute looking at her and then said " aaahhhh Granpa?" Where was he born? "aaahhh Texas" When was he born "aaahhh a long time ago" When did he marry Granma Moore "August". She gave me that puppy dog look and said "Dad you aint helping a whole lot."

Ok back on the phone. Eunice Francis Moore, Delta County Texas, June 2 1914, Aug 19 1931. Then we went through the same tortured process with my blondes grandparents except we couldn’t find most of the stuff. Then we moved on to my Dads family I wasn’t worried about this one cause I grew up listning to stories about Granpa Hocutt. William Jackson Hocutt, Tuscaloosa County Alabama 12 Apr 1859, Married Grandma in 1910. Then I realized the only thing I knew about Grandma Hocutt was that she didn’t have indoor plumbing when I was a kid and she made great Fried Chicken. Back on the phone but all Dad could add was that her name was Stella. (Three years later I discovered her name was actually Mary Estella).

Then we tried the 4Th generation back. It quickly became obvious we only knew 3 out of 16 names. At this point any normal person would have said we done our best lets move in. I guess either I was born with the Genealogy bug or I just enjoy torturing myself because I said that wasn’t good enough.
We spent the next six weeks annoying my relatives and visiting cousins that I aint seen in 25 years. (and let me tell you they got bald and fat) We didn’t make much progress.

At this point I had run out of ideals and was thinking about giving up. Then my sweet Blonde suggested I either get a book that could tell me how to find the rest or I try searching on the Internet. Well Duh, I never thought of that.
I went on line and found out about all the tools out there. I learned about FHC’s (Family History Centers) which are staffed by real nice people that almost laughed at my questions. I found out about Court Houses and what all is available there (Much to the dismay of County Clerks all over North Texas). Thus began my adventures in Genealogy.

Once again we have reached the end of an Adventure with some lessons learned. (1) Start with yourself and work backwards (2) Don’t get discouraged when you realize you don’t know your Grandma’s maiden name. (3) There are lots of tools available to help you in your research. (4) Don’t ever worry about asking dumb questions. You can’t possibly ask any dumber than I did. (5) Court Houses are a treasure trove of good information and finally (6) The Dallas Public library down town is a fantastic research facility (Yes I know I didn’t mention it but its too good a resource to leave out)

NOTE: This is the truth about how we got started almost 10 years ago into genealogy. This was written in 1999