Tracing Family Trees Rooted in Facts

Like many people, Brandy Sacco was curious about her family tree. But unlike a lot of amateur genealogy buffs, she wasn't content to take information she found on the internet as facts. 

"Just because you are copying information from someone else on a website doesn't make it true," she said. "People can say they traced their family line back to King David, but without source-verified documents, it's not credible."

Enter OurFamily-ology, a genealogy website the Franklin Lakes resident launched in 2009. The site allows users to search through records, upload documents, and track their progress. To date, more than 1,000 credible and sourced family trees have been added to the site. 

It was Sacco's personal family tree search that lead to the creation of the site. Her grandfather was adopted and throughout his life claimed he did not know who his parents were. After 17 years of searching—and finding lots of incorrect information along the way—she discovered her grandfather had two siblings.

"Two years ago, I was able to get my mother in touch with her first cousin, and he had pictures of my mother from when she was a little girl," Sacco told Patch. "My grandfather did know who his parents were, and he kept in touch with them."

The path it took for her to find the truth was littered with false information. "I was finding my  own information on websites that was not true," she said. 

Family-Geneology.com, or OurFamily-ology for short, is similar to ancestry.com, in that it allows users to create their family tree online, but offers different features. 

"Unique to us, is a progress-rating chart, that helps you to understand where you need to find more documents to fill in your family tree," explained Sacco, who lives near the Market Basket. "So many websites just let you publish information, but because you have the date and its copied from someone else, doesn’t mean its true."

With an annual membership fee, users can add up to five nonmember contributors at a time and create as many different family trees as they would like. The site is also FamilySearch certified, which gives users access to a huge database of searchable documents they can seamlessly add to their family tree, Sacco noted. Users can also upload their own documents and photos, and share them with other members. 

"It's a great collaboration tool that allows families to keep all their information in one place," she said, noting that genealogy research can be tedious works. "It's definitely a labor of love."

But when people find that missing piece of family history, it is all worth it. It's those eureka moments that Sacco relishes hearing about.

"One person found his grandmother was married to someone else and he has cousins he didn’t know about," she said of one of the many stories that have been emailed to her from the site. "That gives me goose bumps. I love genealogy stories, to hear people get closure to things or find things out that they never knew about." 

For more information and a 100-day free trial of OurFamily-ology, visit www.family-genealogy.com.