Do You Know Who You Are?

Doing family tree research is one of the best parts of being the historian for the Muskego Historical Society. In a small city like ours, it's especially interesting to see how the original pioneer families became related through marriage. Many of their descendants still live in Muskego and the surrounding area.

Resources for tracing family tree records include newspaper clippings, library records, obituaries, city directories, old phone books, census records, birth certificates, military records and cemetery records. The internet has become a great resource for helping in your search. The website, Ancestry.com is a gold mine of information and includes the ability to place your family tree online and have other relatives contribute to it. The television show, "Who Do You Think You Are?" follows celebrities as they trace their family roots and often offers surprising results. This show gives examples of how Ancestry.com can help find useful information.

Another website that is helpful in finding family records is, "Find-A-Grave.com". It is a database of cemetery records that individuals can search and contribute information to. This website is free while Ancestry.com charges a fee for most information.

There's an old saying, "in order to know where you're going, you must know where you came from". Learning the stories that come from your family history can offer insights into yourself that you might never have expected.