Genealogy event provides glimpse into family lineage

Bowlby Public library will be hosting a “Genealogy workshop” for four consecutive Thursdays from 5:30-6:30 p.m. This event will occur on April 6.

Each of the four classes, which are taught by junior psychology major Sydney Shultz, will hold a different focus. The first class will be an introduction to genealogy research and will provide students background into the basics of learning about their ancestors.

The three following classes will focus on resources locally and on the web, and how they are most efficiently used for research.

“Google, for an example, is a big source that isn’t used often in genealogy because it isn’t used properly,” Shultz said.

Shultz will discuss how to use resources such as public sources of marriage and death certificates, www.ancestry.com and www.findagrave.com.

“Ancestry is a great resource for discovering ancestors, and I will show my students how to use it the most efficiently that they can,” Shultz said.

Find a Grave is a website that contains the records of over 159 million graves, where people are able to search by name and location to find where their ancestors may be buried.

The final class, which will be held on April 27, will focus on the new trend of using DNA samples collected from saliva to discover which countries that students may originate from.

Locally, there are a variety of resources to further genealogy research according to Shultz.

“A lot of my family is from Greene CCounty and it has been interesting to see how my ancestors have interacted with each other,” Shultz said.

Shultz, who considers researching her heritage a “hobby” of hers, was inspired by her curiosity to help others.

“They were looking for people to teach, and since I enjoy spending my time doing research, I volunteered to help other people in the community as well,” Shultz said.

Kathy Douglas, who does public relations for Bowlby Library, said she understands Shultz’s curiosity in finding her heritage.

“I think that when people get older, they tend to wonder about where they came from. If they have kids, they would want to learn about your family to pass it onto them too,” Douglas said.

“The point of the class is to offer something like this to the community, and to give them the opportunity to discover about their lineage,” Douglas said. “It will guide them in their research, so that they can continue to do it outside of the class.”

To Shultz, her curiosity isn’t only centered around her bloodline, but discovering how her ancestors helped shape the world.

“I truly believe that any small event can influence the rest of time, and you have no idea how your family has affected the world today,” Shultz said.

The class will help each student discover about where they came from using a variety of resources, while also having a special focus on how it brought them to where they are currently.

“It really helps you understand yourself and how your family influenced where you are today,” Shultz said.