Branching Out: MATC Students and Staff Trace Their Family Roots

Britney Ruiz was on a quest. 

And it was drawing her deep down south into Mexico.

The Milwaukee Area Technical College student was on the internet, bound and determined to find her paternal grandmother.

“Her name was Guadalupe Roman,” Ruiz said. “She was born in Veracruz, Mexico, in 1965.”

She entered the information into Familysearch.org and waited.

Nothing.

“Well, that’s the other side of researching your family history,” said Myrelene Saunders, president of the African American Genealogical Society of Milwaukee and a former MATC instructor. “You might not find anything.”

But Saunders urged Ruiz to keep looking. “Before computers, you had to go places to look up records,” she said. “Things are a lot better now.”

On Wednesday, February 25, Saunders and three other members of the genealogical society showed two dozen MATC students and staff how to research their family trees.

The presentation, held at MATC’s Downtown Milwaukee Campus, was part of the college’s celebration of Black History Month and was inspired by a similar event held last February.

Saunders was joined by Cheralyn Randall, a retired MATC administrator and the society’s treasurer; Chuck Powell, the society’s recording secretary; and member Brenda Thompson.

The society, founded in 1992, is a nonprofit organization committed to the preservation of the history and culture of the city’s Black residents. The society encourages research, recording and documenting personal family histories, and preserving records within families and the community.

“We’re here to help you show how to begin,” Saunders told the crowd.

Saunders asked attendees to choose one relative, then helped them start computer searches on those names.

While Ruiz came up empty, one student found her mother’s name in Mississippi records and another saw her grandparents’ names in handwritten census records.

The society volunteers also distributed packets with family data sheets; ancestral charts, used to track biographical details like birthdates, birthplaces, marriage and death dates; and data sheets that document the sources and documents used in research.

Also included in the packets was the society’s quick start guide to tracing family history, which suggested anyone researching their roots should:

• Write down what you already know: names of relatives, where they lived, who they married. “You may not know all of it, but write down what you do know,” Saunders said.
• Talk to older relatives. They often can lead to other relatives and places.
• Check census records, which are available for people born between 1790 and 1950, and death certificates.
• Use websites such as Legacy.com, Ancestry.com and Family Search that offer a wealth of resources and assistance for genealogists.
• Make copies of everything you find.

“Genealogy not only helps people understand their identity, history and place in the world, it also honors the people who came before us,” Saunders said.