Week 18: Social (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks)

Week 18's theme is "Social." Maybe you have a story or photo of an ancestor at an ice cream social. Maybe your ancestor was part of a society, like the Masons or Odd Fellows. Maybe you've made a connection with a cousin or made a great discovery thanks to social media. Whatever it is, write it down! Click here to check out all the themes for 2022.

When I think of social and genealogy, I think of collaboration.  

I started my first major collaboration with my maternal Aunt Mary. I have two Aunt Mary’s; both my mother and father have a sister Mary. Anyway, I never realized that my Aunt Mary was interested in genealogy until I attended a family reunion in 1990 and my aunt had started a family history book on her maiden name. She was a retired teacher; while I had a computer degree and I proposed that we work together to compile a formal book. Over the next year we visited courthouses, libraries, cemeteries and even relatives and collected information, family stories and I typed all the information up into Word Perfect. 

We published “The Hafenstein Family” in 1991 and did one update in 1992. Many years later, I managed to scan the entire book and created a version that family can purchase through LuLu and you can find it here. Keep in mind, this book is 30 years old and many updates have occurred in our family, including the birth of my fourth child and the death of my aunt. However, this book is a snapshot of our work from 1992. This was my start with documenting and sharing of my genealogy research. 

Through the years, I have connected with many distant cousins who were generous in sharing their genealogy research. Some shared written genealogies, some share specific documents, I even had one visit a courthouse and surprised me with my 2nd great grandfather’s will. A type document that I never really explored until I received it.

It is with these social connections that allowed me to expand my tree, expand my research skills and to develop friendships along the way.  This is one of the reason’s I started a blog. A way to share my research and skills with others. I even started a Facebook page for my Revolutionary Patriot, Johannes Spanknable and I have connected with various descendants. A cousin had a family site on the now defunct website of MyFamily which I turned into a private Facebook group. However, I spent many hours, downloading all the data on the site and shared with my distant relatives by sending them CD’s with this information. My relatives took me up on my offer.

So my advice, don’t be afraid to be social with your genealogy. Create small books on your family branches and share them with your siblings or other relatives. Don’t be afraid that it’s not perfect, or that it’s not complete. My personal genealogy motto that I didn’t come up with is “I think I shall never see a finished genealogy”. Thus, share what you have, it is a snapshot of what you found as of that day. People are born every day, people get married and unfortunately, people die too and thus we will never be done. Start somewhere and share what you have.

Remember, Just do Genealogy!