Congratulations on your decision to begin researching your genealogy, and welcome to “Go Ask Bubbe”! I hope you’ll give me the opportunity to help you as you begin your journey.
Why “Go Ask Bubbe”?
I believe very strongly that the most critical resource in your genealogy arsenal is your family’s own oral history. I encourage people interested in genealogy to begin by interviewing their oldest relatives. This can include your “Bubbe,” the Yiddish word for Grandma, but it can also include parents, cousins, grandparents’ cousins – anybody who might be able to provide some insight into your family history. You should absolutely ask for names, dates, and locations, but after you get the hard facts, you should ask for family stories. You can look up census records, birth and marriage certificates, ship logs, etc. but once your family’s older generations are gone, their stories are lost forever, as is the memory of those who lived before them. You’ll do your ancestors, yourself, and your children a great service by recording those stories for posterity.
