The Warren County Library offered an online Zoom lecture titled ‘Building and Understanding the Family Tree’ on Thursday evening, November 10th.
Eric Migdal from “It’s All Relative Genealogy” turned his hobby into a business during the Pandemic. He started out with a lecture at his town library, this proved successful and now he has lectured in many libraries state-wide.
Migdal has helped many friends and family reunite, estate lawyers find family members and a client find his Native American ancestors.
He first became interested in his lineage 26 years ago after the birth of his daughter. He became curious about who his biological family might be because he was adopted. He had very little to go by, only knowing the name of his biological mother and what State she lived in and that was all. Sometimes wrong information makes the task harder.
In his case, the age of his mom was wrong. With patience and tenacity, he plowed on.
He spoke about how to gather information, starting with the mother’s birth record setting a solid root in the family’s history.
His valuable tips include writing everything down, stories you may have heard, record birth dates, marriages and death dates. Look up Census records, ship records and obituaries.
There are some good websites offering information to help with this process.
FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization and website offering genealogical records, education records, and free software.
Start the tree with you then add your parents, their siblings and your cousins. Then work on your four grandparents and follow the same path. It can be hard to find documents.
FamilySearch is a non-profit operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is closely connected with the church’s Family History Department, this website is free.
Fold3 features premier collections of original military records. These records include the stories, photos, and personal documents of the men and women who served in the military. Premium Membership is about $80.00 per year.
Newspapers.com is the largest online newspaper archive consisting of 617 million plus pages of historical newspapers from 19,600 newspapers from around the United States and abroad. Newspapers provide a unique view of the past and can help us understand and connect with the people, events and attitudes of an earlier time. Cost is about $19.99 a month.
Another helpful tool is DNA testing. This simple test is a spit test into a tube that is sent out and analyzed. At that point it may be possible to contact your matches. Migdal shared his own story about how he has become very close with a relative he found, now they talk often and spend time together.
Ancestry.com is a popular company that allows users to build a family tree online and the ability to download the data so it can be used in other places. Ancestry.com has free tools, but the subscription account is better, prices range from $24.99 a month to $37.99 for the World Edition.
23 and Me is another company that will assist in building a tree from the DNA test results. Testing can cost $99.00.
My Heritage allows users to build a limited family tree for free. Subscription required for larger tree builds.
Migdal’s lecture was informative. He enthusiastically provided the tools to do genealogy research to make a family tree. This hobby can be exhausting, but well worth the effort. It can connect families and provide closure.
Migdal is open to new clients, and he offers a free consultation if interested. Check out his
website at, https://itsallrelativegenealogyllc.com/
“To be without trees would, in the most literal way, to be without our roots.”
― Richard Mabey
MB Journe, Contributing Writer
My name is Marybeth Journe, I feel blessed to be living in this part of New Jersey. I have enjoyed this community taking advantage of the lakes and woods. Always supporting the local businesses that make this my home. As a local artist myself, I know many of our residence if not by name, at least by sight. I feel comfortable interviewing others. I have worked for The Paulinskill Valley Chronical where I provided articles, photographs and billing. I consider myself an artist, journalist, naturalist, gardener and a teacher for the YMCA Camp Mason. I look forward to the work ahead
