Genealogy Research: Finding Your Family History

I have recently started to research my family history. Let me first say that I am pretty anti-family so for me to begin this journey seems a bit out of the norm for me. Several years ago I just scratched the surface of my family history and then lost interest. Then family turmoil turned me against everything I came from. Shame on me for letting others take something away from me. I now feel empowered again to take something that I find intriguing and pursue it.

I am a Fitzgerald and I knew that my ancestors lived in York, ME. That's pretty much all I had to work with. I am very lucky that I live in a town where we have a genealogy library right down the street. I didn't act quick enough to get information from my grandmother before she passed and my father has painfully little information to give as he was not in contact with his own father for most of his life. With so little to work with I knew it might be difficult to figure it all out. So I grabbed some paper and a pen and headed for the library. After getting a tour and an explanation of what materials they had I found a comfortable chair and started opening books. It helps that I love to read. I have had a library card for as far as I can remember. The knowledge contained at your local library is thrilling!

Some of the most preliminary things I found were some old cemetery records showing three family cemeteries with their vague whereabouts in York, Maine. I was able to establish who was buried in these cemeteries. I get very excited every time I find even the tiniest piece of information and it pushes me own to look for more. I then dug out the micro film. I don't know if you have ever had a chance to search micro film for anything, but it is so tedious. I pulled to roll corresponding to the years and names from the heavy metal drawers then fiddled with the machine trying to thread it. Finally I was able to look at the records, one by one looking for Fitzgerald's of York, Maine. It takes hours really to find the records I am looking for but I am energized when I do find some vital records that pertain to my family. I was able to find many birth records which are terrific because they show parents names and birthplaces. I was surprised to find so many generations had been born, lives their whole lives, passed away and where then buried right there in the little New England town. I sit and daydream about what life must have been like for them back in the late 1700's and early 1800's. I was able to find that I have a relative that served in the Revolutionary War as well as the Civil War.

After looking through what the local library had to offer me I took a field trip to the Old York Historical Society. As I drove through the village I tried to imagine what it looked like all those years ago when my ancestors settled here. I looked at the church and imagined them coming to get married there. I found a wonderful elderly lady working at the historical society. She was a terrific help to me and pulled lots of resources from the shelves. While there I was able to find a school group picture from 1916 in front of the one-room school house on Mt. Agamenticus. In that picture were four of my relatives looking back at me. They were all under the age of 16 in that picture. I also found a picture of a house that another Fitzgerald lived in. The woman at the historical society was able to tell me the area my family had lived in and that they were farmers. My family came here in the early 1700's from Ireland where they were farmers.

I have since been able to find a photo of my great-uncle who served in the Civil War and passed away in York in 1911. I also found a picture of his very loving and moving obituary portraying him as a loved member of the community. The most interesting tidbit that I found out was that my father has other siblings that he was not aware of. I found that my grandfather had been married just a few years before marrying my grandmother. There were three children of that marriage. In learning that, I felt sad. I wasn't sure why exactly that it made me sad though. I want desperately to find those other siblings so that perhaps my dad could meet them. I don't know how to find them though. I have only a birth record for the first son.

I am thrilled will all the information I have been able to find so far and look forward to learning how to dig further into my history. I hope to take a class with the historical society to learn how to use the vast sources of information available to all of us how want to find out where we came from. Wish me luck and if you have any hints or tips feel free to let me know!