Total: 5,511 Responses
- 78%, Yes
- 21%, No
- 1%, I can’t remember.
Kathy Sullivan, Saugus, Massachusetts: I began my research 58 years ago, when I was twelve. When visiting my grandparents, my parents believed children should be seen and not heard, so we kids were to "entertain ourselves." On one visit I read all the genealogies in volume 3 of the History of Jaffrey, New Hampshire!
Brooke Harlowe, Lock Haven Pennsylvania: Before the internet, there was the NEHGS lending library. This past summer I came across a folder full of old library receipts. I lived in a rural community in the 1980s and 1990s and large city and university libraries were too far away to access on a regular basis. The lending library brought key resources right to my house. I kept the receipts because they helped me keep track of the resources I had already consulted. (Digitization does have its drawbacks. My right arm no longer gets a workout from cranking through rolls of interlibrary loan microfilm!)
Pat Flaherty, Boston, Massachusetts: I remember going to the McCormack Building in Boston (where vital records were kept) in the 1970s. We had to sign in and then were let loose in the stacks to look up whatever vital record we wanted. The clerk usually said, “If you see an adoption, just don’t look at it.” Things were much looser back then.
Bill Kirnan, Walden, New York: In the late 1970s, I would regularly drive several hours to the New York State Library in Albany with an elderly friend to go through old censuses on microfilm. We would enter the library when it opened at 9 a.m. and we would continue until it closed at 5 p.m. My friend would generally take a break for lunch, but I never stopped, only munching on a breakfast bar. I didn't want to waste even a minute.
Merrilee Carlson, Hastings, Minnesota: In 1979-1980, I was newly married and living in the woods outside of Webster, Wisconsin. I was researching my great-grandfather, who was born just outside Madison, in Dane County. I found the title of a book I wanted and was lucky enough to be able to request it through the bookmobile that came to town once a week. The History of Dane County, Wisconsin gave me so much information on Peter Borst and his family!
James A. Streeter, Coarsegold, California: My family history research began about 1962 when I was 14. My Dad's mother gave me a list of names that took me from her grandfather back eight generations to John Alden of the Mayflower. I currently have proven lines that connect to thirty Mayflower passengers and continue to research daily.
Rachel Dobson, Cottondale, Alabama: Did I begin my genealogical research before the Internet? No, I began researching in 1998, when I started a new job and learned how to use computers for the first time. However, my uncle gave me a copy of his legal-sized, multi-paged, paper pedigree chart with lines back to Charlemagne, so I got an incredible head start. He had done all his research in the late 1960s and 1970s at the Los Angeles County Public Library. So, although I am grateful for the ease of access that the Internet provides, my research stands on the shoulders of the hunched-over family members and library patrons of old.
