Can you fill in the basic data for your four grandparents?
Name: surname at birth, married surname
Born: date and location
Married: date and location
Children: name and date born
Died: date and location
Buried: date and location
Beyond the basic data we document on a family tree, where else may we find out who our grandparents were?
Emigrated: (I have my grandfather's 1912 passport printed in Russian (in 1912 Russia ruled Finland)
Immigrated: My Finnish grandfather came through Quebec, up the Great Lakes, and entered the USA through the port of St. Albans in Vermont on Lake Champlain in 1912 - all records are online.
Naturalization records: records for my Finnish grandfather are online
Moved: changed residence? My Finnish grandfather is on 1920 and 1930 census records,
Education: school, apprenticeship, etc.
Taxed: valuated on tax records
Military: My grandfather served in WWI, and his military records are online.
Profession: Grandfather Kustaa was first a logger, then saved enough to buy his own boat and fish for salmon on the Columbia River.
Religion: Christened, Baptized, Ordained, etc.
Elected Office:
Other:
A basic family tree entry for a President and a felon looks the same in the data. They were born, may have married, may have had children, they died. It is in the records generated beyond birth, marriage and death that we understand who they were. One lived in the White House, the other in the Big House.
The short list given here for other records is just the start for where to discover the lives of our ancestors. Other records may include newspaper articles; obituary; fraternities, court records; personal journals, letters, ethnic societies (my grandparents belonged to the Finnish Brotherhood); draft cards (cards for both of my grandfathers are online); and much more.
Like the pointillist style of painting, genealogists fill in one little piece at a time, until suddenly - voila! a picture emerges that is startling in the colorful details it reveals.
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