"Know thyself" is good advice; one fascinating, deeply satisfying path to self-knowledge is through your own relatives and ancestors. This workbook helps bring you in direct, active contact with your heritage, using the tools of genealogy.
Genealogy (from a Greek word meaning 'tracing generation or descent') is a very old, honorable discipline for determining who truly belongs (by blood or marriage) to a family. Its visible result is a family tree, or pedigree. Formerly pedigrees were necessary to princes and aristocrats to prove their birthright; today anyone may take pride in his or her family past. This book enables beginning genealogists, including young children, to take the first steps in discovering the origins and growth of their lineage.
Rosemary Chorzempa began tracing her Polish immigrant family's roots as a teenager, and now lectures on genealogy. She has designed this introductory volume as a workbook in which the reader is a participant, researcher, recorder, and pedigree-maker. The pages provide the family historian space to document information (including photos) on self, father, mother, brothers and sisters, and other relatives paternal and maternal. Instructions clarify the making of a basic family tree and pedigree chart; important rules of research method and etiquette teach the beginner good genealogical technique. In addition there are pages on autographs, family tales, heraldry, geography, foreign languages, ethnic crafts, foods and customs, a sample notebook filing system, correspondance record, glossary, bibliography, ideas on further study and projects. As a final note, Mrs. Chorzempa provides her own autobiography and family tree.
This is the only genealogical primer easily accessible to the youngest historian. But anyone can learn these fundamental research principles and begin the search, part-science, part-detective story, that may ultimately lead to years of discovery, enjoyment, and even self-knowledge.
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