Web site helps find family treasures
Your Heritage’ is a new monthly feature of the Weekend Pinnacle,
that will appear the fourth Friday of every month. Send comments,
column ideas or questions to [email protected].
Although searching a family tree is mostly a
”
manual
”
job of hunting through records, libraries, and archives, much
can be found now through automation. Family information has been
loaded up at an exponential rate. Interestingly, it’s not only
family information coming on board. Toady you can see what
unclaimed family memorabilia is floating around on the
Internet.
Web site helps find family treasures
Your Heritage’ is a new monthly feature of the Weekend Pinnacle, that will appear the fourth Friday of every month. Send comments, column ideas or questions to [email protected].
Although searching a family tree is mostly a “manual” job of hunting through records, libraries, and archives, much can be found now through automation. Family information has been loaded up at an exponential rate. Interestingly, it’s not only family information coming on board. Toady you can see what unclaimed family memorabilia is floating around on the Internet.
Edward W. Elliott, Web master of “Your Past Connections” (www.pastconnect.com), has provided a free meeting place for individuals searching their roots. Elliott, a collector of antique memorabilia himself, enjoys finding old documents, and family Bibles that have gotten separated from their rightful owners.
“I’ve found in talking to people that things get lost in the shuffle,” Elliott said. “Then their descendants two or three generations down the line are searching for the stuff. The idea is to try to get it back to them. Here with no charge, people from all over the world can come and look.”
Elliott’s basement has become a testament of his collecting things that once belonged to other people. For example, he had a tiny leather-bound New Testament, presented to a Benjamin Davies in 1880 in Swansea, Wales, “On the Occasion of the Centenary of Sunday Schools.” Other documents include marriage certificates from the turn of the century and an entire range of records in between, all just waiting to find their way back to the original families.
The Web site makes searching and connecting easy. You can “Submit a Request”, or “Submit an Item.” The site takes you through step-by-step. Typical users of the site are seeking family Bibles, documents, or certificates, but nearly anything can be found, or submitted. For example, one searcher from Nova Scotia was looking for an ancestral cradle, hand-carved in the 19th century and, tragically, sold for groceries during the family’s tough times in the 1970s. The searcher added, “Would recognize on sight.” Yet another genealogist is hunting for a collection of oil paintings by a deceased relative, placed in storage and then lost by the estate executor. “My family’s history was tossed out like trash by this woman,” the searcher writes. And one gent tells of his father’s gold watch, complete with ivory or mother of pearl fob in the shape of an alligator. The watch was stolen when his father died in a mine.
Fantastic stories and reuniting people with their family treasures is what “Your Past Connection, Inc.” is all about. Public response to the Web site has been unbelievable since its inception in 1998.
“We’re flabbergasted. Pleased, but flabbergasted,” Elliott said. While scrolling through the “Submit a Request” items, Elliott came across a familiar name: Benjamin Davies. Someone in Swansea, Wales, is seeking the little 1880 commemorative New Testament he picked up awhile back. Elliott’s reaction?
“I sent him an e-mail last night.”
