This document provides an overview of genealogy and family history research. It discusses getting started in family history research, including organizing files, determining who to include, and using software or not. It emphasizes the importance of remembering one's heritage and faith, as well as goals of understanding oneself and preserving family culture. Tips are provided on sources like primary documents, software features, connecting with relatives, and sharing what is found.

1. Bill Leslie
WilliamLeslie99@gmail.com
Genealogy & Family
History
Part 1

2. Where are we going?
● How to get started in family history
● Use software or not?
● How to organize your files
● Who to include in your research - where do
you stop?
● Building a family culture that remembers
● Sign up to access these notes online
● Genealogy vs. Family History

3. Things to remember:
● Remember who you are… include your faith
● How much to share before boredom sets in
● Your spouse
● Go relational!

4. Why?
• Your past is not meaningless. It may
contain what you need to face today, or to
prepare others to face the future. Help
others to learn what you know.
• Alcoholism
• Short-term team electronics
• Mufasa’s cub

5. “When a society or a civilization perishes, one
condition may always be found: They forgot
where they came from.” Carl Sandburg
… applies to a family, a country, or a church…
and to a person.

6. Primary Sources Birth Certificates
• Access limited
• Pre- 1920
• Post 1920
• Chaining birth certificates
• Delayed certificates of birth
• Church christening records
• Reliability - who completes them?
• Cost

7. Primary documents
Death Certificates
o Who prepares them?
Marriage certificates
 Limited value
 official vs. unofficial
o How important is it to get all primary documents?

8. Family Group Sheets
● Which family groups to include?
● Controlling the scope of your project
● Data collection and data sharing
● Primary source documents
● Names, dates, and places
● Don’t assume… my aunt…

9. Ancestor Chart
● Conventions
● Names & nicknames
● Places
● Dates
● Write legibly
● Identity theft

10. Research Log
● What is it?
● Why use it?
● How keep it?
o handwritten
o typed
o google doc
o blog

11. Research log examples
20 Dec 2009 Found Isabella La Haie (sic) in Oregon Death Index .
She died 2/14/30 in Marion County, Oregon. Certificate No. 128
05 Jan 2010 From Ken Lantz, who visited Dayton in June, 2010:
Leslies in the CC phone book, I believe to be area code 775-
Leslie, Kirk Carson City 882-7275
Leslie, M Carson City 883-4079 19 Jan 2011

12. Research log examples cont
7 Jan 2010 Found the following on Ancestry.com
Peccoux family from Alpine
Found a border crossing record for Claude Peccoux
(listed as Claudius) for 1914. He was crossing the border
at Eastport, Idaho, heading to Monroe Oregon where his
father lived at box 34. His contact in Hudson Bay
Junction Saskatchewan was his sister, Rosalia. There is
also a Claude Peccoux living in Saskatchewan in the
1916 census. No sign of his parents in Canada though.

13. More Research Log Examples
Jan 16 2010 Called Josephine County Tax assessor to
query about location of Condit ranch, which is identified
as Township 035 S (south), 005 West, SE 1/4, NW 1/4,
section 19. Talked to Dan. Very helpful. It is smaller,
now 78.20 acres, has had several adjustments. Tax lot
ref is 35051900 #205. Owned by Marion Alderton
Trust, 927 SW Princess Circle, GP OR 97527, since
071591; purchased in 1991 from Betty Carla Guth,
price not revealed.

14. Software
● Family Tree Maker, Legacy Family Tree
● Roots Magic, PAF
● Easy to share
o family
o upload
● Easy to make changes
● integrated search function
● Cost

15. Software Features
All commercial products will offer:
● Family tree in various formats
● Family group sheets
● Search of a database
● photo organization
● Notes
● Some error correction
● file sharing

16. No software
● Simple learning curve
● Portable
● Inexpensive
● Harder to share

17. Family Tree Maker Group Sheet

18. Organizing your work
● Notebooks & sheet Protectors
● File folders
● Safety of documents
● Scrap books
● Where to store

20. Your Three Genealogy Hats
● Finding other people’s research
● Creating new research
● Sharing

21. Connecting with Family
● Warm and cold
● Connecting with distant relatives
● 8th graders
● Do no harm
● Destroy no information

22. Family History 102
Bill Leslie
williamleslie99@gmail.com

23. Why Family History?
“If wealth is lost,nothing is lost.
If health is lost, something is lost.
If character is lost, much is lost.
If heritage is lost, you are lost.”
Sikh proverb

24. Understand who you are in the epic of your
family’s history
• Son, grandson, great-grandson of ministers
• Never became a minister.
• Never spoke for any church
• Was he a disappointment to his family?
• “..the nation's most influential evangelical
leader.” Time Magazine
• Who was this man?
• James Dobson

25. Preserving Your Family History with
Objects
 Coins
 Franciscanware
 Cradle
 Wrench
 Shadow Box- Doris Lantz
 Shadow Box – Judy & Dick Green

26. Step One - Where to start?
● You!
● Biography
● Statement of faith
● list of jobs
● list of residences
● One paragraph about big moments in your
life

27. Step 2 … And then?
● Older relatives
● Is there anyone that you know of who…?
● Be patient
● Short visits
● Photos are perhaps the biggest contribution
you can make with the least work
● not interviews

28. Step 3 And then?
● Every visit should be a win!
● Magnetic pages
● Writing on photos
● Scans

29. Special Resources
● Published family books
● Family organizations
● Local newspapers
● City guides
● Magazines
● Ethnic and national organizations
● Census

30. Special resources
● Local histories
● Cemeteries
● Obituaries
● correspondence

31. Special Uses
● Medical
● Age at Death, cause of death
● Family tree… by faith
● Daughters of the American Revolution
● Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War

32. What is in a name?
● Changes over time
● On immigration
o German
o Jewish
● LaHaie
● Eastern bloc Leslie

33. Pitfalls of Genealogy Research
• “Books on the ______ family”
• Adopting an entire tree without verifying
• Same surname means related
• Relying on memories
• Yearning for royal ancestors
• The race to the past

34. How to Share What you Find
● Family newsletter
● Cards
● Gifts
● Books?
● Notebooks
● Blogs

35. Sharing… part 2
● Photo cards
● Websites
● Scrapbooks?
● Historical societies
● Finding someone to follow you…

36. Miscellaneous
● No clue too small
● The arc of history
● Substitute family histories

37. Creating a culture that remembers
● Ralph Lantz
● Cradles
● Oyster Stew
● Franciscanware
● Grandma’s plants

38. Sources of Info
● Mormon Church 181st N of Powell, or in
Sandy, on Bluff
● Library
● Databases, like Heritage Quest, Ancestry
● Family Tree Maker
● Portland Genealogical Forum
● Oregon Historical Society

39. Sources of info
● Clackamas County Library
● Paid personal subscriptions
● Magazines
o Family Chronicle
o Family Tree Maker
o Heritage Quest
o Discovering Family History
o Computer Genealogy
o History

40. Assorted magazines OWR&N wrench Ralph’s coins
Grandma shadow box Grandma binder blank family tree
forms
blank family group sheets Articles to give away Leslie hat, tie
cradles
old journal Print out of research log
Bud’s gold Local history boooks
Newsletter – LaHaie Big Bend country

41. More Resources… outside of the
box
• Land records
• Criminal records
• Oregonian Archives
• Other Newspapers
• Military Records
• Findagrave.com