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NEW: Is Smoking Part of Your Family History? See below

Genealogy-Research and Fact Checking

The first place to check when researching, is your immediate family. You can probably gather a great deal of information from them. Undoubtedly some of your research will require extensive investigative work. Researching and fact checking family history will presumably take you a lifetime.

When tracing your families' history the most valuable thing to do is:

1. Interview Family Members: In addition to birth statistics like: name, DOB, size, weight, hair and eye color. Ask about degrees of schooling, hobbies, achievements or sporting interests. What organizations did they belong to? Who did they enjoy spending time with? What was their occupation and where did they live at that time? Did they have a religious affiliation? Always ask if they wish to provide any special notes or tidbits.

2. Specify a date, or at least narrow it down. When interviewing, try to get people to give you a date, or time-frame.

3. Don't be afraid to ask questions! Did I spell that name correctly? Which battle did they fight in? Have you seen it documented? How were they relation to me? Do you have any photos of them?

4. Tell family members: "Do not throw it out, till I've looked through it!" It never ceases to amaze me the amount of people who pitch old papers (heirlooms), without looking through them. Photographs, family notes, copies of reports will assist you in searching your personal history. Computer software and filing cabinets, can assist you in being a more organized "collector"

5. Check, check and check again! Always evaluate your sources as printed material is often difficult to read or inaccurate.

6. Research Information:Obtain copies of birth and death certificates, marriage licenses and divorce decrees. Search through census reports, military records, documents, newspaper excerpts, family bibles,newspapers and photographs.

Is Smoking Part of Your Family History?

At some point smoking touches many of our lives and becomes a sad part of our history.

In Feb.1990 my Dad was diagnosed with a brain tumor. When questioning "family/medical history" one of the specialists first questions "Did he, or someone in his household, smoke?" "Yes, 20 years ago. But he quit smoking!", we told the doctor. We children could not remember Dad smoking. But when I asked Dad , "Do you miss smoking?" His answer, "Initally, I did, but these past 20 years have been the best of my life. When I asked why he quit smoking, he said, "I didn't want to harm you kids, or be a bad influence."

Dad went through extensive treatments and we never were really sure why his cancer progressed so rapidlly. But 3 months later, in May, he passed. That was a rough year! Not only did my mom bury her husband and we young kids (16-22) bury our dad. Grandma buried her only child.

When you're going through the grieving process all kinds of things jump to mind! For those of you who have never had a loved one with a terminal illness, or worked in Nursing, as I have, the grieving process often starts long before the actual death. I believe we grieve for what could have been. In our case, my dads parents lived to be some 20 odd years older than he. And we all would have loved to have 20 more years with him!

In the past 5 years, we've had numerous relatives and friends die of smoking related dieseases between the ages of 40-70. Smoking-related diseases claim more than 600,000 (smoker and second hand smoker) lives a year in America. And it's is the leading preventable cause of early death .

The Miss America Program was a springboard for Becky Snyder creating Project Never Start ". See why she chose this platform.

Need Help and Support Quitting? Anyone with Internet access knows the web is alive with resources. You have the ability to access a site and get a page full of links to groups that will give you support and encouragement in fighting this addiction.

1999-2001