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| A net gain for your family tree |
| Tricia Tomiyoshi on a hi-tech boost for the ancestry business |
| IT is a theory of relativity,
but one that never passed the lips of Einstein: a person
with relatives, some spare time and a healthy curiosity
for family affairs will be incapable of resisting the
call of genealogy. And once that person has embarked on
such a task, they will stay on board. Ancestral research has traditionally been big business in Scotland, withgenealogical services and family search centres setting up north of the Border on a regular basis. The amount of computer software on the market dealing with genealogy, the ambitious family websites that clutter the internet and the worldwide name search engines ("Ooo, let’s see if there’s another me in the world") are testimony to the fever surrounding this hobby-cum-obsession. The task of finding one’s roots has now become even easier with the launch of the mother of all genealogy websites, the International Genealogy Index, provided by the Mormons to further fuel our fascination with where we come from. The site, containing the world’s largest collection of birth, christening, and marriage information, lists the names of 400 million people from Britain, the United States, Europe, Asia and Japan, with Mormons and non-Mormons alike included. Among these are the details of around 13 million Scots. The database contains records from as far back as the mid-15th century, and is a major leap forward for family history centres around the country, many of which have relied on more archaic and time-consuming approaches when setting forth on an ancestral hunt. With a further 200 million names expected to be added soon, the site intends to have information on some 0.6 per cent of all the people who have ever lived. The information is now available free of charge worldwide to anyone with internet access. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – the Mormon Church’s full name – has always shown an interest in genealogy. This is due to an ethos which holds that salvation comes only to those who have been baptised. But unlike the more traditional Christian view, Mormons believe salvation can come long after a person dies. The church performs post-mortem baptisms on deceased ancestors to secure their path to heaven. Their database is a tool to help Mormons identify their ancestors so they may then be baptised at a Mormon temple. Although the website was only unveiled on Monday, it has already had a significant impact. Companies in the ancestral heritage research business, such as Scottish Roots and the Scots Ancestry Research Society, both of whom have put their business on the web, have attracted a marginal number of website hits (3,600 visits and 211 visits, respectively, in their first month) compared with the phenomenal 200 million people who have already accessed the Mormon site in its eight-week trial period. Those intent on pursuing their own family history can now do so without paying a trained genealogist, or hopping from library to registrar’s office, poring over records and certificates, microfiche slides and clippings. Most people conduct their family tree work DIY-style and will be grateful of any help that they can get. The site includes a collection of records and certificates amassed from printed family histories, government archives and other sources. Genealogists estimate that an average family history search, done the old-fashioned way, can take about two hours to track back through history to the 19th century. Using the database will greatly reduce that time. However, the further down the years a searcher travels, the scarcer the records become. The quest becomes a much more involved task, requiring the supply of far more information about your distant relatives, including who married who and where they lived. But why bother? Just what is so attractive about genealogy? John Priestly, genealogist at the Caledonian Researchers’ Family History Research in Edinburgh, says that in most cases, "people from older generations like to pass on to their descendants information about the family; or people want to establish Scottish ancestry in order to become a member of a clan society. I also get inquiries related to money, from people who want to establish information about a family because there’s some money involved somewhere. And then sometimes people are trying to solve little mysteries, like one family where I found their children had emigrated and they wanted to know more about their ancestors here. But they had no idea that their father had married a second time." Others want to see if insanity will skip their generation or if they really did get their bushy eyebrows or two left feet from their Uncle Bernard. And then there are those who are focused on finding out if they have any links to royalty or celebrity. Film star Robert Redford, who claims his father was a milkman in Edinburgh, went on a brief genealogy kick last year and claimed to have discovered that he had ancestors from Aberdeen and Cluny and that he may have been descended from Mary Queen of Scots. It is stories like these which drive many into drawing up their family tree for posterity, while for others it is just the thrill of the hunt. But for those who assume they can bang away at the computer, press return and come away with a perfectly graphed family tree, Priestly offers some words of caution. "I think it is an excellent idea," he says. "But it should be remembered that the information on the internet, which is already available on the microfiches in various libraries such as the public library, does not include all the information that one sometimes needs, particularly in Scotland, to distinguish between two people. "If you look at records of births and marriages, they refer to people coming from different towns. So many people have the same name that you can only distinguish one family from another by knowing which town they came from. However, it’s a very useful source, particularly if the name is not a common one." So the Mormon database is a more valuable tool if your name is Engelbert Humperdink, but not if you were are christened John Smith. The Smiths of the world, as ever, are still in for the long haul. The International Genealogy Index is at http://www.familysearch.org |
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