The following teaser is from an excellent article about the state of genealogy research, published in the May 24, 2012 edition of the Columbus Dispatch.
NEW YORK — America suddenly knows that Rob Lowe has an un-American ancestor.
On a recent episode of Who Do You Think You Are? on NBC, the actor who played freedom-loving idealist Sam Seaborn on The West Wing learned that his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, a Hessian soldier, bore arms against the Continental Army and was taken prisoner in 1776 at the Battle of Trenton.
“You mean to tell me my five-times-great-grandfather was trying to stick it to George Washington?” Lowe said in astonishment.
His odyssey from California to Washington; Trenton, N.J.; and Germany might have involved more time and money than most people could spare.Yet the less-extraordinary quest to trace familial roots has become a popular pastime.
Since November 2009, in fact, the genealogical research site Ancestry.com has gained 800,000 subscribers — an 80 percent increase, said J.P. Canton, public-relations manager.
And the availability of digitized, online records makes reconstructing one’s family tree easier than ever, professional genealogists say, although some see pitfalls amid the accessibility.
