Many in Durango are digging up their family roots
“It’s like a treasure hunt,” said Jeannine Dobbins, a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, who is tracing her 36th line back to an ancestor who contributed to the American side during the War for Independence. “This will be my first female ‘patriot.’”
Members of the Daughters of the American Revolution probably have been doing it the longest – 120 years since the organization’s founding in 1890 – but they have been joined by millions of Americans who are trying to learn more about themselves and their ancestry. More than 10 years ago, Time Magazine reported that genealogy was one of the four most popular hobbies on the Internet, and it has exploded since then.
“It’s historical research but your own history,” Lynn Constan, current regent of the Sarah Platt Decker Chapter of the DAR, said. “It turns almost into an addiction.”
Constan spent eight days in October in Missouri with a sixth cousin whom she discovered on a genealogy message board.
“She knew who her ancestor was, and I knew who mine was,” Constan said. “Her father’s DNA and my brother’s DNA were a perfect match.”
Julie Pickett understands how addictive learning about one’s family can be.
“I just wanted to know,” she said. “I was just dabbling at first. I didn’t get serious until about three years ago. I just like visualizing these ancestors’ daily lives, wondering why did they transmigrate from one place to another?”
Deciphering clues
When Pickett says she’s serious, she means it. She’s given up amenities like cable TV to pay for her genealogy work and spends three to four hours a day on her computer doing research. She has created a family tree on the website ancestry.com that includes 3,800 people and goes back to the 1600s.
“I’m very fluent in Google,” Pickett said, referring to the Internet search engine. “If they offered a degree in Google, I’d have it.”
When she’s not working on projects like mapping and researching the Animas City Cemetery, she volunteers as a resource for people looking for local information at www.raogk.org – random acts of genealogical kindness – and www.findagrave.org.
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Enlargephoto STEVE LEWIS/Herald
Regina Fallace, left, and Jeannine Dobbins, members of the Sarah Platt Decker Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, visit the Greenmount Cemetery headstone of Minnie Pearl Roberts, a charter member of the chapter, which was founded in 1917. In September an insignia was installed on the headstone commemorating her lineage back to a patriot who contributed to the American cause during the Revolutionary War.
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