1. Tracing your Heritage Part 1
An Overview
Tracing your Heritage Part 1
John Samuels
March 2011

2. Definitions…
An-ces-tor: one from whom a person descends, either through the father or the mother, at any distance of time.
Gen-e-al-o-gy: an account or history of the descent of a person or family from an ancestor; pedigree; lineage.
Her-i-tage: something handed down from one’s ancestors or the past, as a characteristic, culture or tradition.

3. But, why?
To fill in all the details you should have asked about when growing up, but didn’t
To find relatives you didn’t even know you had
To provide a feeling of continuity
To preserve family data for your descendents
To provide insight into medical problems
To do detective work

4. How I got started…
Aunt Sis and Aunt Sister’s Book
Early Attempts
Family Tree Maker

5. Sources… Your own recollections
Sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and their friends…
Family bibles, diaries, birth, marriage and death certificates, correspondence
Photos, films, handed-down stories, items
Registry offices, churches, synagogues, schools

6. Other Sources… Internet:
Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormon church) FamilySearch.org
Boards.ancestry.com, boards.rootsweb.com
Google, Intellius ($), etc.
Ancestry.com ($)

7. Getting it all organized…
A notebook and pencil
A program
Family Historian (shareware)
Gramps
Family Legacy Tree
Family Tree Builder
GEDTree
Family Tree Maker

8. The Willy Samuels Mystery
The Greeting Card
1966

9. Initial Info… What my father told me… What my mother told me…
2 brothers, 2 sisters
What my mother told me…
“Willy? We brought him and his family over from Germany before the war.”

10. Plan… Search for William, Willy, Wilhelm, Willi, etc. An idea…
Only found 1944 name change document – William Nathan Samuel to William Samuels
Dead End
An idea…
Jackpot!

12. Gerhard
Kurt

14. Then…
Put out a message on the SAMUEL boards looking for Kurt and Gerhard.
Added info to my tree and published it.
Contacted by Arnold Samuels of WA. In the army he changed his name from Kurt to Arnold and added the “S”. His father, Wilhelm Samuel came over two years later. I finally found his record.
Arnold shared his whole ancestry tree with me, filling in all the info from Max (my grandfather’s brother) on down, and much else.

15. Justin Weinshenk
The Search
The Message
Response!
The Story

18. Family Tree Maker
Purchased software to capture, schedule, research, print, and share your ancestry
Build descendent and ancestry charts
Save, import or export your data
Link to online services ($) to search over 6 billion records – birth, death, census, passport, immigration, etc.
Well integrated.

19. Tracing your Heritage Part 2
An Overview
Tracing your Heritage Part 2
John Samuels
November 2011

20. Getting Started Obtain forms Fill out the Ancestor chart for:
Yourself, your parents, your grandparents
Your spouse, his or her parents and grandparents
Use Family Group Sheet for recording more facts
Do the research (Bible, letters and papers, recollections,
Libraries, government records, Google, etc.)
Expand your history and include your children and grandchildren

23. Bottom line… Professional researchers use many forms and tools
Unless you have unlimited time and funds, you are better off using a PC program integrated with online search tools

24. FamilyTreeMaker Ancestry.com
A PC-based program which includes all the tools of the professional researcher .
Ancestry.com
Ftm 2012 $40 basic, $80 with books, CDs. Ancestry.com US $13 x 12 = $156, Int’l $25 x 12 = $300
An online database of over 6,000,000 records of use to genealogical researchers.

25. Ancestry.com Learning Center
Starting your tree:
Searching:

26. Live Demo!