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Do You Know Your Thirty-Two Great-Great-Great-Grandparents?

Tuesday April 15, 2008

By M. Stuart Parks

  Do you know the names of your eight great-grandparents?  How about your sixteen great-great-grandparents or your thirty-two great-great-great-grandparents?  Most of  us don't but in the past few years genealogy has joined the list of great American pastimes.  It has been estimated by some that genealogy is the second most popular  use of the internet, but even that technological marvel won't help much until you have the basics.  

   The basics are the names of your parents and grandparents and their dates and places of birth.  If they are Vermonters you can get by with just names and a visit to Vermont Vital Records in Middlesex.  There you can learn their vital statistics and  add another generation or more to your tree.  For those whose parents were born in another state the path is a bit more time consuming but still pretty simple.  It means  doing business by mail after researching the rules of that State regarding vital records.  The internet is really useful here.

   Vermont is full of genealogical opportunities.   Although Town Clerks kept records from Vermont's early days it wasn't until around 1860 that towns were required tosend birth, death and marriage records to the State.  Many Town Clerks sent all their records including those prior to 1860.  Cemeteries are a goldmine of information;just checking out who is buried next to whom can be illuminating.  Family plots  were often next to each other.  Every town has a Cemetery Association, or some other body, which has a record of who is buried where.  The Town Clerks in Addison County are noted for their helpfulness.  They are allowed to charge a small fee for their help. Some do and some don't but it's worth it if they do.

    The Henry Sheldon Museum and Historical Society of Addison County is the place  to go if you have ancestors in Addison County.  They have many very old Vermont histories, Vermont military records for the Civil War and the war of Independence and genealogies of old Addison County families.  Also in their collections are the original early newspapers of the county.   One of the best bargains around is a  membership in the Museum.  A family is $45.00 per year; a single person $30.00 per year and a student is $10.00 per year.  

   Middlebury College has the Vermont censuses on microfilm from 1800 to 1880 and from 1900 to 1930.   They also have a collection of many interesting genealogical  books.   The Ilsley Library has several early local newspapers on microfilm.  It'sbest to know the approximate dates you are looking for because there is no searchfeature. The collection does not have every issue of every paper, but the Library does have a member benefit that will be revealed in the next article which willdeal with genealogy and the internet.

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