About 65 individuals had a difficult time sitting through
the Traveling Through Time seminar with speaker William Dollarhide. Within
minutes of his opening remarks there was a desire to leave the room and
research.
The first session of the all-day seminar was titled “Dollarhide’s
Five Rules – Essentials for
Successful Genealogical Research.” Rule number 1
was “Treat the brothers and sisters of your ancestors as equals.” With this
rule Dollarhide encouraged everyone to obtain those important census records,
vital records, and various historical documents on all collateral lines. He
provided a great case study of locating his own Dollarhide Family Bible by
following this rule. Most genealogists, he explained, focus so closely on their
ancestral line that they overlook the very important clues that are available
by examining records left behind by aunts, uncles, and cousins of every
generation. With this he also told everyone that they had an awful lot of work
to do. It was a difficult way to begin the day as we knew that we were only
beginning to understand how little we had done.
In his second session Dollarhide taught about the American
Migration Routes from 1750 to 1800. With easy delivery, as if he was explaining
something very simple to an attentive child, he took us on a tour of how one
road was built to lead to the need for another, or to connect an already
important route. He explained that many of those same routes are still being
used today and encouraged us to acquire a 1941 Rand McNally Road Atlas. The
Interstate System was not developed until 1956 so many of the most used roads
were built on historically proven routes developed over several hundreds of
years of travel.
The Civil War created a massive amount of records, many are
still available today. Not all of these were federal records either. In
Dollarhide’s session titled “Genealogical Resources of the Civil War Era” he
gave us information on where to look, both online and on microfilm at the
Family History Library, for records created during this time.
The day ended with tools to find living people by using
online resources. Dollarhide shared the story of his own research in the 1970s.
City directories and telephone books were extremely important and he lived mere
blocks away from the Pacific Bell Telephone Company. He spent weeks pouring
through various telephone books in order to locate other people with the
surname of Dollarhide. The Internet has provided many websites that have taken
away the need for telephone books, yet the information is still available if a
researcher knows where to look. He endorsed ZabaSearch.com as a free website
that was worth a visit that would provide at least a 75% success rate. Pages of
additional websites were also provided to help fill in the 25% gap of
information.
The day was packed full with easy to understand methods and
freely provided tools. Instead of rushing to research we stayed, partially
because we were stunned with the amount of information that we were being
given. The other reason we stayed is that the Reata Springs Baptist Church was
a wonderful and comfortable venue. The salad and sandwich buffet, stocked by
the church’s teens, made a perfect lunch which was enjoyed at round banquet
tables decorated with interesting and beautiful historical artifacts. There
were Door Prizes, a Silent Auction, and Show and Tell items that also kept our
interest.
When we left we hit the digital highway to look for a
variety of documents and information that we may have never really examined
before listening to William Dollarhide. We may have even done a few
ZabaSearch.com queries to find our long lost friends and tell them about our
wonderful day at the Traveling Through Time seminar.
