All in the Family
By Jane Silverman, Member Since 2012
When I think of my Great Uncle Charlie running away from his NY home in 1887, I can only imagine the travels and travails he faced. He was just 13 at the time (so the family legend goes…) and had just immigrated to the US from Prussia. He followed a road of adventure towards the Wild West and spent the next 20 some odd years on the left side of the Mississippi. I learned he fell in love in Utah with Maude Pratt (granddaughter of Parley Pratt, one of the original Mormon founders in the Quorum of the 12 Apostles) and married her in Sweetwater, WY in 1901 when he was 27 and she was 20. They settled down in Kemmerer, WY where he managed the Kemmerer Hotel and later owned a saloon; he was befriended by JC Penney (whose first store, the Golden Rule, was at the time a big success).
Seek & You Shall Find
All of these dates and facts came alive for me from my research in the astounding Family Search Library and its app created by the Mormon LDS church at familysearch.org. It is the world’s largest free genealogy database helping you to discover your family history and connect the past with the present. Its vast resources include billions of original scans of historical records from around the globe (censuses, marriage licenses, death certificates, newspaper articles, birth and baptism registries, draft cards, cruise ship passenger lists, and more, dated from the 1400s to the present). The sheer volume of their scans of original documents is awe-inspiring and the site and app are very easy to navigate. Search for your relatives and add your memories to their global family tree.
Finding Your Roots
Ancestry.com and its Ancestry DNA app are also a part of the Mormon dynasty on family history. Buy the Ancestry DNA saliva sampling kit and follow a road of discovery with the company’s 20 billion historical records and over 15 million DNA samples in their network. Discover detailed family origins, your ancestors’ migration paths around the world, and historical insights; research the meaning of your surname or investigate potential health concerns. My friend discovered a sister she never knew she had, and another friend found his birthmother. Wow. (Disclaimer: you own your DNA data and they will delete it anytime you request. Your name is never attached to the sample, just an ID number. Keep in mind that women can only trace back the maternal line with their XX chromosome; men have XY chromosomes and can trace both their maternal and paternal lines – so women if you have a brother ask him to take it instead).
Gateway to Freedom
Libertyellisfoundation.org is the home of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Foundation. It is a great website to learn more about the country’s leading lady and the history of immigrants in America. Click on the free PASSENGER SEARCH button to find family members who passed through Ellis Island. The site maintains the Port of New York Passenger Records 1820-1957 for almost 65 million immigrants, passengers, and crew members. You can discover the date of arrival, ship name, age on arrival, and more. There are even original historical manifests scanned and over 900 ship images with the history and background of each ship that brought immigrants to America. Once again, thanks to the Mormons, these manifests have been transcribed into an immense digitized archive, which you can navigate for free.
Honor Thy Family
One of the most inspiring of the Foundation projects is the American Immigrant Wall of Honor® libertyellisfoundation.org/about-the-wall-of-honor. Located at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, this forever wall bears the names of nearly 775,000 immigrants whose descendants inscribed their names. Registrations are now being accepted for a new phase of the Wall (a great present idea).
If you would like to learn more about your family’s past, sign up for the genealogy class at the Art League with Tamara Hallo hallogenealogyservices.com on Tuesday, November 26 from 10 a.m. to noon.