Dig up your family roots with the web

Discover your genealogical background online

By Kathy English

Discovering your family roots used to mean hours of digging through musty archives. Now the quickest route to your history can be found by following the information highway.

Genealogy explained

Genealogy, the study of family lineage, has never been easier. An ever-growing number of online genealogy sites, tools and communities allow those searching for their family roots to seek and find information more easily than could ever have been imagined before the advent of the Internet.

“Tracing your roots is a bit like doing a crossword puzzle; you have a few clues and you have to find something else to confirm your answers,” says Len Chester, a Toronto-based member of the Ontario Genealogical Society who has spent “decades” tracing his mother’s family back to the 1600s. “The Internet can be quite effective in helping to find information. It certainly has changed things.”

But, warns Chester, information available online is still considered secondary-source material and should always be double-checked. “Just finding a name online is no guarantee it’s the right person, even if they are in the right place at the right time,” he says.

Benefits of digging up your roots

While most genealogists search their family roots to satisfy their curiosity, Chester says there might indeed be medical benefits to uncovering your ancestry. For example, if you learn one of your ancestors died of a genetic disease, you could add it to your medical history and perhaps take preventative measures.

The basic rule of genealogical research is to begin with yourself and work back through the generations to uncover your family past and document your ancestors’ births and deaths. The Internet offers a wealth of resources to help you locate those important records and opportunities to link up with others who might be searching for the same ancestors.

Start searching in Canada

One of the best places to begin your search for your Canadian ancestors is Libraries and Archives Canada which includes a section about genealogy and information about where to find Canadian records. Another good source is the Canada Genweb Project, a virtual library for genealogy research and the Canadian Genealogy and History site. The Ontario Genealogical Society is also worth checking out.

Navigate through the web of information

While the Internet has proved to be a virtual motherlode of the vital stats needed to trace your family roots, it’s easy to get lost online amidst the thousands of genealogy sites that now exist. One site alone, Cyndi’s List, maintained by Cyndi Howells, the author of Netting Your Ancestors: Genealogical Research on the Internet, contains links to more than 177,000 genealogy resources such as census data, immigration records and birth and death listings. It also includes dozens of links to essential Canadian sources and is another good starting point for your search.

Next, log on to FamilySearch, the online database maintained by the Mormon Church, which contains 285 million names of deceased people in its International Genealogical Index and a free family history computer program to help keep track of the information you gather.

Other general sites to launch your journey into your past include Ancestry.ca and Genealogy.com. While both these sites charge subscription fees to unlock the full set of features, they also offer software to create family tree charts, how-to articles on searching for information and active online communities of others tracing their roots.

Involve your kids

Researching and documenting your family tree is an ideal project to involve your children with, says Peterborough, Ont., writer Ann Douglas, author of The Family Tree Detective: Cracking the Case of Your Family’s Story. “Genealogy helps kids to feel rooted. They get a sense of where they fit into the family,” she says.

Douglas says it is also a “highly educational” undertaking for children. “You can get your kids involved in doing some of the initial searching online and e-mailing people for information and then even interviewing people,” says Douglas, who recommends a parent supervise this process. “After all, what better way to learn about World War II than by interviewing Grandma or Grandpa about their memories of the war years?”