ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 11, 1996 TAG: 9602090105
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA
SOURCE: EDWARD COLIMORE KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Gene Stackhouse was searching for family, dead or alive. In a cluttered library of his stone duplex in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, he tapped out a query on his Dell desktop computer, then sat back and let the Internet do the rest.
``I'm looking for anybody named Stackhouse,'' he wrote. ``Any place, any time frame. ...''
Ten minutes passed. Fifteen minutes. Nothing. Maybe nobody was out there. Then, 20 minutes after the message went out, he got an answer - from somewhere ``deep'' in cyberspace.
``A large number of Stackhouses here in Tasmania,'' wrote a woman at her home computer thousands of miles away in Australia.
Stackhouse's eyes widened.
``If you would like,'' wrote the woman, ``I will send you a Xerox of a printed genealogy from a published book.''
``My gosh,'' Stackhouse told his wife, Dianne. ``I got a message from Australia! It came so quick.''
The 56-year-old genealogist (and professional editor in medical and biological research) found more than two dozen distant cousins in the 18th and 19th centuries - and filled in another branch of the family tree - because of a home computer and the information highway stretching around the world.
That exciting moment of discovery, when long-lost ancestors are found through Internet connections or CD-ROM databases, is now attracting thousands of new converts to a hobby that usually conjures images of dusty records, not high-tech equipment.
And the converts aren't young people who've grown up with computers, but their parents and grandparents who have the time, money and inclination to search out relatives, to put flesh on the bones of ancestors, using the latest tools.
They're storing data on computer hard drives and disks, and eliminating mountains of paper. They're creating computer bulletin boards and online genealogy clubs where hobbyists can share information. And they're inexpensively communicating with other researchers in many countries, cutting down on travel time.
``Any time you get an answer like I did from Australia - in 20 minutes - it's astounding,'' Stackhouse said. ``When I can find somebody so far away in time and space, when I can make a hookup, especially one so dramatic, that's why I do this. It's like solving a puzzle.''
Putting the puzzle pieces together with computers came slowly at first. In the 1980s, all the records were still on paper and microfilm. Genealogy software was limited or didn't exist. And relatively few people had computers in their homes - even if the software was available.
But Tom Deahl could see the potential. He was sure the new technology could do more than store surnames on floppy disks.
At a state-sponsored genealogy conference held in Grantville, Pa., in 1986, Deahl stood up at the end of a meeting and asked the crowd whether there was a computer ``special interest group in the state.''
No one answered - so he formed one.
About 25 people signed Deahl's legal pad at the front of the hall and the Genealogical Computing Association of Pennsylvania (GenCAP) was born. It now has more than 150 members across the country and is one of the leading genealogical computing groups in America.
``The speed of the computer is the key for the growth of the hobby,'' said Deahl, a retired information systems consultant. ``The older, retired set are running out of time, so anything that helps them get the facts faster is good.''
The organization started a bulletin board; members and others who have computer modems can leave and receive messages without stepping out of their homes. GenCAP also started its own home page on the Internet.
``I know people who are buying computers just to pursue the hobby,'' said Deahl, 66, of Philadelphia. ``The hobby comes first, but then you realize how complex the record-keeping is and you start looking for help.''
When Deahl gave a genealogy speech last spring at the York County (Pa.) Historical Society, most in the audience were at least 65 years old - and they were talking about computers like experts. ``Older people,'' he said, ``are not stupid, and the computer is their tool of choice.''
It was around 1985 that companies started developing genealogy software that created ancestral charts at the push of a button and helped store and organize information that used to be typed on 3-by-5 file cards and shuffled into other paperwork.
By 1993 and 1994, as personal computers came equipped with CD-ROMs, genealogists got another tool for their hobby: disks carrying tremendous amounts of information.
Two CD-ROM disks now carry the Social Security death benefits index for all Americans who died between 1937 to 1992, including their full names and addresses when they applied for the benefits. Another disk contains the information in all the phone books across the country, and another holds street atlas information with all the streets and zip codes.
``I had a great-uncle who migrated to Kansas at the turn-of-the-century, but the family lost track of him,'' said Deahl. ``I searched the Social Security death index for Kansas, looking for everyone with my surname who was born in the mid-1800s and died in the 1930s.'' Deahl pinpointed three towns where the name was concentrated and - with the help of the phone book and street atlas disks - located possible relatives. The old ways would have been agonizingly slow in comparison.
As Deahl readily points out, ``A lot of primary source material is still found only at county libraries, courthouses and churches,'' but using those materials is made easier by computers, too. Some programs will tell genealogists what information they're missing on various relatives so they can concentrate on, say, birth and death certificates in certain locations, making the most of their journeys. Internet queries can prep a hobbyist on a library's hours and holdings, making field work more efficient.
During one side trip to York County, Pa., Deahl followed a lead in a published family history about a 18th-century mill once owned by his ancestors. He stumbled across the remains of it as he explored underbrush along Mill Creek near the city of York. Rough-hewn timbers were all that was left, but he was ecstatic.
``Every genealogist hopes for these moments of revelation,'' he said. ``There's a real joy of discovery.''
Increasingly, those discoveries begin at a computer screen - and wind up with the blood pumping in excitement over a surprise ``family get-together'' in cyberspace.
Francis D'Attolico was getting closer to his Italian grandfather with every step.
First came the discovery six months ago of his name - Rocco D'Attolico - on a CD-ROM database of names at a Family History Center in Cherry Hill, N.J., operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church). Then, on another CD-ROM, he identified the town - Binetto - where Rocco was born in southern Italy.
``I was elated,'' said D'Attolico, 64. ``But I wanted to know more.''
He got more, much more. The database also showed the existence of several rolls of microfilm with information on births, deaths and marriages in Binetto. D'Attolico ordered them from the Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City and was scanning the names on a microfilm screen at the Cherry Hill center when his eyes fell on his grandfather's name.
``I said, `Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!''' he recalled. ``I thought I'd never find him.''
But that wasn't all.
Minutes later, D'Attolico, a retired New York City police detective, found his grandfather's parents in the records, then 40 other relatives. And then, his mother's grandfather and more relatives.
``That was a thrill,'' he said. ``I thought I was at a dead-end and wound up finding 50 ancestors - all because a computer directed me where to go.''
Mormon Family History Centers can be found all over the country. They are open to everyone and charge only for ordered or duplicated materials. Mormons research ancestors as part of their religious beliefs, and the centers have computers and microfilm and microfiche readers - and they are usually better equipped for genealogical study than most libraries and historical societies.
Not only a storage tool and Internet access point, the computer has also become a tour guide for reseachers. If it doesn't show them where to go, it lets them communicate with others who can find the information, no matter how far away.
Gary Steiner, president of GenCAP, put out one Internet query that brought answers from an amateur genealogist in California. Steiner, 32, was trying to track down an ancestor who had begun tracing the family history in 1910. The ancestor, Robert Harmer Countryman, was the nephew of Steiner's great-great-great-grandmother, and had written letters to historical societies as part of his investigation.
``I didn't get to the bottom of `Countryman's' research, but a guy on the Internet found his newspaper obituary for me,'' said Steiner, a computer-systems analyst who lives in West Berlin, N.J. ``I found out that he was a prominent person who once ran for mayor of San Francisco. His son Harmer Countryman was playing around on the side and wound up in a very nasty divorce.''
Genealogists have developed a kind of Internet etiquette, often checking microfilm or performing research for others, especially if they're already planning to be at a library for their own work. ``The idea here is that if everybody does something for somebody else,'' Steiner said, ``it will eventually get back to you.''
One Internet acquaintance Steiner made - Graham Langshaw - had the same last name as Steiner's great-great-grandfather, Robert Langshaw. Graham Langshaw responded to a query from his home in Australia. ``This sure beats the typewriter and the 3-by-5s my grandmother used when she was researching,'' he said.
Another GenCAP member, John Kille, 81, of Audubon, N.J., said he's not sure ``what the thrill is,'' but it's there and it's addictive. He remains fascinated by the hobby and has been drawn further in by the computer.
``Some people get a thrill from playing Trivial Pursuit,'' said Kille, retired partner in an air-conditioning and refrigeration business. ``For us it's another kind of pursuit. It's a search for puzzle pieces that we put together one by one.''
To reach the Genealogical Computing Association of Pennsylvania: To use its computer bulletin board, dial 215-438-2858 via computer modem. E-mail: 71571.3203compuserve.com
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