Family historians and genealogy researchers labor long and hard to locate and organize their roots. It is a labor of love and a job that is never quite complete. For the majority of researchers the end product is the Family Tree that takes the shape of an “hourglass.” The tree converges at the researcher him/herself and expands upwards into countless ancestral generations and downward into similarly expanding generations of progeny. Such is the family tree of a single researcher.
To another family historian or genealogy researcher the shape of their family tree is the same. Their tree converges on themselves and expands upward into their countless ancestral generations and into the generations that follow them.
For a community such as Monroe County,
Ohio, about 75,000 family trees could be constructed if each resident of the
County (about 15,000) and descendents of Monroe County ancestors (about 60,000)
were to construct their own family tree.
The majority of these family trees would share many of the same
ancestors, however. In fact, many of
the individual ancestral family lines would be identical in many trees and most
of the 75,000 family trees would share a surprisingly large number of ancestral
lines with other trees.
The reality of family history and
genealogy is that while each of us defines our own special family tree, each
family tree is actually a member of a family forest. This forest is made up of all the family trees that share a common
ancestry.
A sad, but true, fact of family
history is that the majority of family trees, the products of all that labor of
love, will either die with or will be lost shortly before or after the death of
the historian or researcher. Because
researchers tend to focus only on their own family tree, because the amount of
work to build a family tree is so great, because family trees seldom get
finalized and are lost within a few years of the death of the researcher, the
“art” of family tree making has never progressed very far. Since each family tree is in reality a
member of a family forest, family history seldom gets beyond the construction
of what turns out to be a “temporary” family tree. As a result, the full benefit of family research and history is
never quite realized. These benefits
include developing a full family tree including information that may be
“fringe” information to one family tree but central to another. Another benefit is being able to crosscheck
information between trees. The accuracy
that comes with many people of different orientations working on the same data
is seldom accomplished. And, the
benefit of having a figurative “army” of researchers scouring the many sources
of information to be found in many different places is not achieved. Finally, the benefit to a researcher of
identifying kin whom they do not know – kin who may be working along side them on their own specific family
tree – is not realized.
One of the major objectives of this Family Tree project is to provide an opportunity for family historians and genealogy researchers to go beyond the “usual” single, hourglass-shaped family tree and begin to build a lasting Family Forest of the descendants of ancestors of Monroe County, Ohio. Although there are about 75,000 potential individual family trees that could be made by descendants of Monroe County ancestors who are alive today, there are only a relatively few family lines or surnames in that group. An analysis of the Monroe County, Ohio, vital statistics data indicates that about 90+ percent of the 75,000 descendants would be included by only about 1,500 family trees. The same analysis suggests that 70 to 80% of the 75,000 descendants would be included in only 700 to 800 family trees. The current Family Forest project is well on the way toward including the needed 700 to 800 trees.
One of the first steps toward realizing the goal of building a comprehensive Monroe County Family Forest has been to set up a website into which individual family trees can be collected. A second important step is to construct common links between these trees. As an example, when a person from the Weber family tree marries a member of the Young family tree, a link (hyperlink) is made for each member of the married couple between the Weber and Young trees. In a similar way, links between couples of the Weber and Christman trees are linked and marriages between the Young and Lumbatis trees are linked. And, so it goes – on and on. These are clickable links that take the historian or researcher from one tree to another in less than a second. In this way, the individual, stand-alone family trees are linked together mirroring the connection between the actual people and families. A “walk” through the Monroe County, Ohio, virtual Family Forest can be most enlightening, exciting and sometimes entertaining. It gives a new meaning to the cliché, “Be nice to everyone because you may be related to them.”
The Monroe County Family Forest is healthy and growing. You can be part of it. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. In addition to increasing your awareness and database about your family line, the Family Forest project is a great way to expand your own personal tree and discover kin that you probably never knew you had. Please contact Dick Harrington if you would like to participate. It is easy, fun and free. Dick can be contacted at the e-mail address: [email protected]; by telephone at (703) 780-9109; or at the postal address of 9517 Mount Vernon Landing, Alexandria, VA 22309.
The Monroe County Family Forest project is sponsored by the Ohio Monroe County Historical Society (MCHS). Related projects of MCHS include the series of Monroe County Record books on CDs. For a list of CDs available from this project visit: http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~harringtonfamilies/CD-Status.htm. More information about this and related projects can be found on the MCHS website at: https://sites.rootsweb.com/~ohmchs/.
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