Genealogists are often seen as older people who are familiar with history and use records that end with the 1940 census. When a Millennial, someone born between the early 1980s and 1995, comes to us and asks us to ‘find their family,’ we may not have the answer. Millennials born in 1982 are 35 years old today. Their parents were possibly born in about 1957 to a couple born around 1935. So we must ask: “Who were your grandparents?
This can be a difficult question to answer. In the mobile society that was created after World War II, many young men and women moved away from family to seek higher education and better jobs. The traditional bonds created among families who stayed in their hometown for many generations were stretched and often broken. It was too far to travel for Thanksgiving dinner. Telephone calls and airplane flights were expensive.
Many Millennials have only a vague idea of where their grandparents lived in the 1930s. Or they may know only one side of the family because of death or divorce. But when a genealogist sits with a Millennial, we ask questions and try to gather all the random memories they have to share. “I think grandma’s name was Otterman,” they say, or “Here’s a picture taken in 1958 of my mother as a baby.” When a 1940 census appears for Otterman, they suddenly remember Uncle Clyde or Aunt Minnie. More information spills out. “Now I remember. They lived in Nebraska,” or Maine or Oklahoma. The excitement builds.
It’s that personal interaction that enables that search for people of every age. The amateur working alone on Ancestry may not be able to navigate all the databases. Working with an experienced researcher who knows how to navigate the websites, databases, and records may be able to connect the generations.
~ Carol Cooke Darrow, CG, teaches free Beginning Genealogy classes at the Central Denver Public Library on the 2nd Saturday monthly, 10 am – noon.