Family History

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Okay, let’s be honest. I am a very casual family historian. I’ve done enough of my family history to know where the holes are in my family tree, but sadly I don’t spend as much time as I’d like throughout the year developing my family tree or identifying ancestors for whom my family can perform temple ordinances. That means I know fairly well in what cities, counties, provinces, states, or countries my paternal and maternal ancestors have histories or roots. And I’m at least subconsciously keeping abreast of resources online that might give me quick family history discoveries and temple service opportunities for my ancestors.

It’s sort of like the allegory of the lazy man fishing with a mere bobber and bait. Online FamilySearch volunteers and major FamilySearch partners (Click here if you haven’t registered to take advantage of these premium services available for free to Latter-day Saints) create a continual river of fresh flowing data for family historians to easily “fish” for ancestors. Instead of constantly casting my line and retrieving or moving up and down the river for hotter spots of activity, I keep my line in the and occupy myself with other interests or priorities, always keeping a quasi-watchful eye on my bobber for any subtle or abrupt movement signifying some action or hit on my bait. Then I jump into action and try to reel in my prize.

My approach to family history is similar. I subscribe to FamilySearch.org’s weekly collection updates, and monthly I’ll use my free LDS subscriptions to premium websites Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, Findmypast.com, and AmericanAncestors.org to see what new collections and content they have added that can help me identify more ancestors. These sites collectively add millions of new records online weekly in addition to the records FamilySearch publishes. Sometimes they’ll send me an email prompt, or if I log in I might see a shaky leaf or illuminated hint icon telling me they’ve found something relevant to consider in my family tree. In most cases, these hints are pretty accurate and give me welcome new tidbits or clues about my ancestors.

Take for example my paternal line. My grandpa Antonio DiNauta (anglicized as Tony Nauta) migrated to the United States in the early 1900s. The rest of the family remained in Italy, where I’ve focused my searching. He married Teresa Benvenga (anglicized as Theresa Bomenka). I know lots about my Grandpa DiNauta, but I know very little about my Grandma Benvenga’s forebears. They have proven very elusive.

In my “lazy fishing,” I noticed in an index for the 1925 New York state census was recently published online. I thought to myself, “Hey! I’ve got ancestors from New York during that time frame. Let’s see if I can get a possible nibble!” I quickly went to the online collection and looked up my grandparents, who I knew were living in New York in 1925. Sure enough, I found my grandparents living in Staten Island, New York—no revelation there. But I quickly looked at the attached image for other members of the household listed and found a person previously unknown to me. “Antonette Rota, 79 years of age, aunt to the head of the household,” the census image read.

I knew my grandpa didn’t have an Aunt Antonette Rota, so this must have been my Grandma Benvenga’s aunt! I had a new clue to the mysterious Benvenga branch! Antonette could possibly be the sister to one of my Grandma Benvenga’s parents—the mystery branch of my family tree!

Thanks to the power of a new indexed record collection online, I now have another ancestral family line to explore for possible temple service!

All of us have these personal discoveries waiting for us. FamilySearch has 230 camera teams in 45 countries every week digitizing historic records from archives that have never seen the light of day—nor the eyes of very many patrons over the centuries. It publishes over 200 million digital images of these historic documents online every year. These include births, marriages, deaths, christenings, baptisms, censuses, court, immigration and a host of other record types just waiting to reveal the stories of our ancestors. There are over 1.2 billion images of these documents at FamilySearch.org today.

Indexed records of my Italian ancestors included in these collections have allowed me to research my family’s history back to the 1700s in Italy without ever having to leave my house in the United States. Now that’s where the power of indexing comes into play!

To be able to simply type an ancestor’s name into a search field and have your computer comb through billions of historical records online to return a result of your ancestor, it requires an index. FamilySearch digitizes far more historic records a year than the current throngs of online volunteers are able to index. Many more are needed—particularly those who can read a foreign language.

Are you looking for a meaningful new or additional way to serve that will have a great impact on the work of salvation?

Millions of members of the Church are the beneficiaries of hundreds of millions of new names indexed and made readily discoverable online for free every year by online FamilySearch volunteers like you and me. It enables members to quickly find more names of deceased ancestors for their family to take to the temple.

From July 15 to 17 of this year, FamilySearch is inviting 72,000 online volunteers to rally together over the 72 hour period to index as many of the world’s records as we can.

Would you spread the word through your network of family and friends and join us as an indexing volunteer? Anyone can do it. You just need eyeballs, a PC or laptop, and Internet access.

Find out more at FamilySearch.org/indexing.

To pay the gratitude of personal discovery forward, I make it a point to help by personally indexing at least a couple of batches of records a few times a year online at FamilySearch.org. After all, even a lazy fisherman has to get up, stretch, and change his routine on occasion.

Paul Nauta is a guest blogger at FamilySearch.org. He’s a family and family history enthusiast and loves just about everything Italian and outdoors. @nautapg.