Maley shares tips on uncovering the past

Genealogy is a process.

Just ask local historian Dale Maley in Livingston County who has spent many hours researching families in the area. If you are from here, he can do your family tree in two to three hours.

The research process involves setting goals and saving the results in an organized way.

“Printed and framed family trees are more difficult to do,” said Maley during a presentation to the Fairbury Rotary Club this week.

Maley uses a non-profit called Archive.org to upload documents and he examines information from local historical societies and libraries. Since the Internet offers so much, he rarely has to leave his office to do research but the Internet can’t offer everything.

“If nobody put the information online, it’s not going to be there,” Maley notes.

He uses Power Point to create family trees and another good tool is Ancestry.com which is $25 per month with easy access to records.

Where do you begin for genealogy? Gather existing information first from scapbooks, newspaper clippings and papers. Create an account on Ancestry.com or visit find-a-grave.com and try out a Google book search where you can find old trade magazines.

A great resource is a two-volume book set on Livingston County cemeteries by Mary Petersen Erickson in Dominy Memorial Library or search local cemeteries at the library. Looking through old newspapers is another possibility.