Week 41: Travel (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – 2023 Version)

The theme for Week 41 is "Travel." Travel impacted our ancestors in numerous ways, including migrating, traveling as part of a job, and traveling for vacation. What about any genealogical travels that you've taken? Click here to check out all of the themes for 2023.

When I started my genealogy research back in the early 1980’s, traveling to do research was a must. The internet was a thing of the future. My ancestors lived in neighboring Wisconsin counties, and thus visiting courthouses, libraries and cemeteries was the extent of my travels. I even took isolated one-day vacation days from work so that I could spend the day doing research.

I think about those early days of researching and how I wasn’t very organized and my trips could have been a little more fruitful. I didn’t record where I didn’t find something, and I am sure I revisited places looking for the same information. Once I started recorded what I didn’t find, my research became more fruitful. I started creating research to-do folders for certain courthouses, libraries and cemeteries. 

However, when we moved to Arizona in 1999, I was lucky that the internet was starting to have more and more items online. Those research to-do folders became even more important for my trips back to my home state, so I could do a little in person research.

Even though I do a majority of my research on-line today, there is still so much to be found that isn’t on line. When my son was in the Navy, he was stationed in Ballston Spa, New York where he was attending Navy School, I had just started researching my maternal grandmother’s maiden name family of Hiltz/Hilts. They had lived in the Little Falls, NY area. While sightseeing in New York State, I made plans to spend a day in Little Falls. The public library is located inside a historic home and I found so many books about my Hiltz/Hilts family. I hadn’t planned enough time to do proper research, I did manage to write down a list of books that I found that talked about the family. I took pictures with my phone of pages.

When I returned to my Arizona home, my local genealogy library had a few of the books that I wrote down. I never realized these books were in their library. I even volunteered there and I didn’t realize the goldmine in the library. I am lucky that I even managed to obtain some of the books for my own library collection when duplicates were donated to the library.

I still enjoy travelling to cemeteries, courthouses and libraries. I now always have a plan on what I am going to research. I have my priority list, the items I will look for first. These items I am very confident will be found here. I have second list of items if time permits that I could look up. These are items that might be found at the location. Finally, I have a third list, because sometimes, you don’t always find items from the first two lists, and since I made the trip, I will see if I can find anything. This list is usually just surnames to see if I can find anyone with that surname in the area. Then I might try to see if they are related to my people.

Why do I still travel for my genealogical research? Because everything really isn’t on-line. Just because you don’t find it online doesn’t mean it isn’t somewhere. Good luck in your genealogy travels!

Remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy!