Roots Mania

RICH FRISHMAN FOR TIME
GENEALOGICAL SUPERSTAR
Wrapped in a quilt sewn by her great-great-great-great-grandmother, Cyndi Howells rests before adding another page to her website, www.cyndislist.com, background, visited by 2 million people each month. With her is Evan, her family tree's newest twig, holding his great-grandmother's picture. "Find leads on the Internet," she advises, "then go off-line to find the sources you need."

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JAY DICKMAN FOR TIME

A MODEL OF DETERMINATION
Using only an old Smith-Corona and working mostly in one library, Ida Quintana Foraci created a history of the Spanish in the Southwest when she wrote her family's 22-volume saga, which surrounds her in her Denver apartment. "Never take the word of others," she stresses. "Get the document itself"

Beyond research, the Web is a genealogists' agora, invaluable for trading information and connecting with living relatives. Dave Distler, who works at an electronics firm in Greenwood, Ind., lost track of a great-great-great-grandfather, Friedrich Jakob Distler, who was born in 1814 in Germany, Prussia, Rhineland or Northern Bavaria, according to vague records. Surfing the Net, he found an organization, Palatines to America, which referred him to a German genealogist who found his grandfather's hometown, Hinterweidenthal. When he entered the village name in a search engine, he found a private e-mail address. Three weeks after e-mailing, he got a response from a local resident with the phone numbers of two Distler families in the town. In May 1996, three New World and 14 Old World Distlers met at a cozy German inn to celebrate. "Old Uncle Fritz had told me about the mysterious Distlers who journeyed to the other side of the Atlantic," says Brigitte Schubert, a newfound German cousin. "I was so glad to sit beside Dave, I didn't want to let go of his hand."

Digging for Documents
As you embark on your search, think of yourself as part historian, part detective. Federal records, vast and varied, can be researched at the National Archives and its 13 regional branches as well as at major libraries--and not necessarily online. Because of privacy laws, the U.S. Census is made public only after 72 years have passed since the time it was taken. Next to be opened is the 1930 census, which will become available in 2002. Early censuses, beginning in 1790, are sketchy, but by the mid-19th century they begin to provide rich detail, listing everyone in the family by name, age, occupation and place of birth. Starting with 1900, one can find out the year of immigration, whether English was spoken and whether a home was owned or rented. Robert Stokes, a retired Dallas high school principal, has traced his family from 17th century Maryland through Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and Mississippi to Texas. "It is such a thrill when you find a census about an old relative that shows he owned 26 pigs and a wagon," he says. "Then you have to go to the next census to see how he made out. If he had horses, and more pigs, he was doing well."

Federal records are rich troves for census, immigration and military records. Prison logs can be helpful too: "Pray that there were sinners in your family," says Denver Public Library genealogy specialist James Jeffrey. They root around local historical societies and county courthouses for land deeds, wills and probate, and tax rolls. "There's nothing like the smell of musty records, the feel of heavy deed books, the irritated look on the clerk's face when you say you're a genealogist," writes Sharon DeBartolo Carmack in The Genealogy Sourcebook. But the rewards are worth it: Alice Wilkinson, a retired Houston schoolteacher, found an inventory of a relative's 18th century will listing 12 fur buttons, an ax handle and a three-legged stool. "Back then, people had fewer possessions and more land," she says. Another souvenir from the hunt: four bricks from her great-grandparents' house in Tennessee. Local newspaper archives can tell you more than you want to know. Dennis Rawlings, a Fort Myers, Fla., real estate broker, unearthed an account of his great-grandparents' wedding in Cedar Bluffs, Neb. The guests were named, the bride's dress described and the presents listed, including five pickle casters. "Pickle casters must have been the late 1800s equivalent of can openers," Rawlings jokes.

Overcoming Obstacles
Root seeking inevitably demands patience--and ingenuity. Joseph Silinonte, 42, from Brooklyn, N.Y., had scoured U.S. Census, Naturalization and Board of Election documents for the birthplace of his great-great-great-grandfather, saloon owner Charles O'Neil, to no avail. Even an 1887 obituary in the Brooklyn Eagle was no help. Then he remembered that the record of O'Neil's son's marriage in 1872 had contained a little mark indicating a dispensation of banns--forgoing the public announcement, on three successive Sundays, of intention to wed. Silinonte persuaded a diocesan official to take him to the Roman Catholic archives in Queens, where he found the 19th century ledgers stored in a corner. On the page was the elder O'Neil's place of birth: County Leitrim, Ireland. "You have to be stubborn," says Silinonte.