Students and faculty gathered to learn more about genealogy research during the Tracing Your Roots event held Feb. 25 in the Fish Tank on TR Campus.
A student-led genealogy research club, Discover Your Roots, has recently been reestablishing themselves to offer students a chance to explore their family histories and connect to their roots.
The TR library alongside the Fort Worth Public Library History Center talked about the multiple types of genealogy research resources available for free. The guest speaker, Fort Worth History Center genealogy librarian Suzanne Fritz, talked about how to get started on building a family tree.
Fritz listed the ways one can get started. People can begin with themselves and work their way backward in time, gathering information from family scrapbooks, Bibles and photographs. She said people should be looking for dates when looking for place of birth, marriages, death, children’s name and military service.
Tracing roots involves exploring family history through researching historical records. This can help build a family tree by uncovering details about past relatives and their relationships.
“When I first heard about it, I didn’t know much about the topic or what exactly the event was,” TR student Ronaldo Salazer said. “After sitting down and listening, I realized it was an event to help you trace back your lineage and all the resources they provide.”
The Fort Worth History Center provides several resources, including over 18,000 volumes with emphasis on Texas, other Southern states, international collections from Mexico, Canada and Ancestry Library Edition. Fritz mentioned how Mexico is wonderful for genealogical research because they were very detailed record keepers.
“As a first-generation Mexican American, I have no roots here,” Salazer said. “I figured it would be harder for me to research and look back into my roots since I don’t know much about my family history, and my mother is an only child.”
TR librarian Mandrell Bufford helped create the event to offer students and other attendees a chance to develop valuable research and technical skills by exploring genealogical databases and resources available through the Fort Worth Library.
“I had no idea that so much of this was free, to be able to go into the library and use their resources there,” TR library student worker Alia Maynard said. “I just assumed that all of this would be paid service since we have 23andMe and Ancestry.com.”
