Branching out your family tree
Dennis Ayers learned that an eighth generation great-grandaunt on his father’s side was one of the victims of the infamous Salem Witch Trials, hung as a witch in 1692.
Dottie Alshire found out that her grandparents were arrested for selling whiskey during Prohibition in the 1920s.
And Ann Herron recently discovered a host of relatives on her father’s side of the family in Benevento, Italy.
They are three of the 134 members of the Howard County Genealogical Society, which is helping residents study, preserve and collect family history records. Founded in 1976, the society is a local resource for those who share the country’s burgeoning interest in tracing family history.
While hard figures are not easy to come by, ABC News has noted that “genealogy is hot,” and is now probably the second favorite hobby in the country after gardening.
The online genealogy site Ancestry.com was recently sold to a European firm for $1.6 billion. Tim Sullivan, the website’s former owner, said that genealogy “is no longer a niche,” and that the website now has more than 2 million paid subscribers and earned a billion dollars in revenue in 2012.
The majority of the Howard County society members are older adults. But what was once thought of as a pastime for little old ladies in tennis shoes has also now caught on with many male retirees who have the time — and the money — to spend on trips to garner information about their families’ past lives.
Bewitching discovery
Ellicott City resident Ayers, 71, who is now president of the society, has been digging into his family history for 20 years. His emotions were stirred, he said, when he found out that his long ago relative was one of the female witchcraft defendants at Salem.
Through his research, Ayers found that Mary Ayer (the “s” was later added to the family name) Parker insisted that she was innocent of the witchcraft charges for which she was hanged. Those defendants who “confessed” to being a witch were spared their lives. Such was the judicial system of the early Puritans.
Ayers has been able to trace his family tree even further back in time. His forefathers came from England to America in 1635, and through English relatives he learned who was who in his family dating back to the Battle of Hastings in 1066 C.E. It gets dicey before that because there are no records of last names, Ayers said.
He explained that the original American settlers have a comparatively easier time of finding out their family history than descendants of those who were part of the massive immigration from Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In general, it’s easier to trace records in the United States, and those with ancestors on the Mayflower and other early ships from England have a fairly straightforward path for finding information — and it’s in English.
Centuries of wars, border changes, fires and famines, make finding ancestors more difficult, but certainly not impossible, he said.
Teaching others
Dottie Alshire — who has been digging into her mostly Eastern European roots for the past 30 years and has published three family histories — gives genealogy classes at Howard County Community College.
The Ellicott City resident said she tells her students first to fill out a “pedigree chart” listing their name, date of birth, marital status, the name of their spouse, the names of their parents, when and where their parents were born, when and where they were married, etc.
Then the students are told to interview all the living relatives they can find. “Ask them the background of their families, what they remember of your family. That’s the quickest way to get information,” she said.
Also to be checked are passenger lists (manifests) of ships sailing from the homeland of ancestors, possible newspaper accounts of their exploits, and census records. “Each step you take, each document you find, tells you a story,” Alshire said.
She also has students look into the 1940 census, whose full information was released in 2012 after a 72-year waiting period. The release of the 1940 records marked the first time researchers, genealogists and history hunters could find detailed records online in one place for free.
One group that gives free access to the census is the nonprofit FamilySearch. Search the census by name at https://familysearch.org/1940census.
Alshire said the release of the 1940 census records was “a very important genealogical event for everyone who had a family member who served in World War II.” It was the last time the men and women killed in the war were recorded with their families, she said.
The government kept the records from public view all these years to ensure privacy for the respondents during their lifetimes.
Of course, the history can get convoluted, especially if, like Alshire’s family, most of its members came to the U.S. in the 1870s and 1880s from Poland, Austria, Germany and Lithuania.
You have to know European history — what country was ruling what lands in Europe at the time, who was speaking what language. Also, which wars, floods and fires may have taken their tolls on the census, church, tax, and other records in the old country.
“If you can trace your roots in Eastern Europe back to the 1600s, you’re doing well,” Alshire said.
Why has she spent so much of the last 30 years digging into her family history?
“It’s a human thing,” Alshire said. “Like Sherlock Holmes, I need to know. One of the first things a child says is, ‘Where do I come from?’ Everyone wants to know.”
The family finding that surprised Alshire the most was a story in a newspaper about her grandparents, who had owned a tavern in the family’s home town of Baltimore. During Prohibition, they opened a candy store. But old business interests apparently were difficult to leave behind, and her grandfather and grandmother were arrested for selling illegal liquor and fined $500.
“My grandmother was a tall, stately woman. I’m sure she must have been greatly embarrassed” to be arrested, said Alshire.
Finding her father’s family
Ann Herron joined the society about 10 years ago. Herron, who puts her age at “over 60,” said she is involved in finding her family history because “as we get older, we want to have the history to pass on,” in her case, to her daughter and granddaughter.
Five years ago, Herron, whose parents were of Italian origin, visited a small village near Benevento, Italy, which she knew was the hometown of her mother’s family.
She found to her surprise that her paternal side was also from the area. By showing relatives there a photo of a cousin that she was given by a deceased aunt on her father’s side, she was able to make contact with her father’s family.
“It was a very serendipitous experience. It opened up a whole treasure chest of new relatives for me,” Herron said.
The Howard County society charges its members $15 a year and meets the second Wednesday of each month, September through June, at the Ellicott City Senior Center. Family history experts address the members, who also share their research techniques in trying to trace their family roots.
Learn more about the society at http://hcgsmd.org or by calling (410) 750-7430.