Event shows appeal of genealogy – Mount Airy News

DNA


The third-floor meeting room of Mount Airy Museum of Regional History is filled with people during a Saturday gathering geared toward family tree research. Tom Joyce | The News

The third-floor meeting room of Mount Airy Museum of Regional History is filled with people during a Saturday gathering geared toward family tree research. – Tom Joyce | The News
Joan Jones, left, attended the event from her home in Chester, Illinois, due to having ancestors in this area. Jones is reading a Surry County heritage book while also being assisted by Wanda Lewis looking up information on the Ancestry.com site. – Tom Joyce | The News
Members of the local Tar Heel Junior Historians group play a board game during Saturday’s genealogy event at the museum. The game is similar to Monopoly — including fake money and dice used to determine moves — but with a theme built around the Surry County of yesteryear. – Tom Joyce | The News
These are just a sample of the books on display, including ones devoted to historic court, land and other records. – – Tom Joyce | The News
Greg McCraw, standing, of Cana, Virginia, and Helen Easter Patrick of Mount Airy discuss the Easter line documented in a written family history McCraw is flipping through. – – Tom Joyce | The News

Genealogy has been declared the second-most-popular hobby in America, right behind gardening, and the second-most-visited category on the Internet, after pornography, which was evident Saturday in Mount Airy.

The third floor of Mount Airy Museum of Regional History was filled with people drawn by what was billed all-encompassingly as the sixth-annual Ancestor Fair/Family History and Genealogy Swap Meet and Get Together.

Everywhere one looked were tables filled with resources available to trace his or her roots or explore this area’s heritage in general: written family histories, books, government records, old photographs and other traditional items.

These sat side by side with more modern tools including computers linked to genealogy websites such as Ancestry.com, manned by knowledgeable operators eager to assist those attending in researching names of distant relatives.

And other experts were on hand to help fill in the gaps, including representatives of groups such as the Surry County Genealogical Association, Daughters of the American Revolution and Surry County Historical Society.

“People want to know who their families are,” Surry Genealogical Association President Esther Johnson commented while surveying the beehive of activity during the scheduled six-hour event sponsored by her group.

Tracing one’s family history has been a favorite pastime of Americans for decades, boosted by the publishing of the 1976 novel “Roots” by Alex Haley. And the hobby has spiked in recent years with the prevalence of online resources such as Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org and Findagrave.com.

“It may be that DNA has them more interested in their families,” Johnson added regarding another growing trend of people learning about their heritage through scientific testing that can determine where their earliest ancestors lived.

Joan Jones is among those who have taken the DNA route. But on Saturday the visitor from Chester, Illinois — a town near the Mississippi River in the southern part of the state known as the “Home of Popeye” because of that character’s creator being born there — was utilizing the swap meet resources.

“I have not ever been to this event,” said Jones, who saw a posting for it and decided to come, because of family ties to Surry County.

“I do know that I had some ancestors that were in this area,” added the Illinois woman, who browsed through a Surry County heritage book considered a “Bible” for family research and also took advantage of online databases. She was interested in the Wright, Hayes, Barker and Winters surnames.

Jones came to Mount Airy with her sister and a friend, calling it kind of a girls’ outing. “They’re still in bed and I’m here,” she said during a morning break from her research.

Getting started

“I have been actually doing it for a bit,” the visitor from Illinois said of genealogy work, which typically can take one down many roads to a variety of places seeking elusive tidbits that help build a family tree.

And such versatility is a key to unlocking mysteries of the past, according to Johnson, the Surry Genealogical Association president, who said the roots quest requires assembling all kinds of information from here or there to complete the picture.

Online databases and similar tools are fine, but researchers also must be willing to traipse through old cemeteries or visit other locations to seek facts, she believes. “Talk to people and get out,” is her advice that is aimed at doing more than sitting behind a computer screen.

“People now think they don’t have to go to the courthouse,” Johnson said of one resource that’s still important even in a digital world.

As has been the case in previous years, she will teach a genealogy course for beginners, a five-part series that commences next month.

“Start with grandparents and go back four generations, back to your great-grandparents,” is an important first step Johnson says she tells to her students.

The third-floor meeting room of Mount Airy Museum of Regional History is filled with people during a Saturday gathering geared toward family tree research.

Joan Jones, left, attended the event from her home in Chester, Illinois, due to having ancestors in this area. Jones is reading a Surry County heritage book while also being assisted by Wanda Lewis looking up information on the Ancestry.com site.

Members of the local Tar Heel Junior Historians group play a board game during Saturday’s genealogy event at the museum. The game is similar to Monopoly — including fake money and dice used to determine moves — but with a theme built around the Surry County of yesteryear.

These are just a sample of the books on display, including ones devoted to historic court, land and other records.

Greg McCraw, standing, of Cana, Virginia, and Helen Easter Patrick of Mount Airy discuss the Easter line documented in a written family history McCraw is flipping through.

Tom Joyce may be reached at 336-415-4693 or on Twitter @Me_Reporter.