Sandy Brummund, of Omaha, started doing research on her family in 1983. Soon, she had added dozens of names to her Christmas card list. Later, she traveled to Germany and Denmark to get in touch with long-lost cousins that she knows almost as well as she knows the people who gather around her Thanksgiving dinner table each year.

For her, genealogy is about more than collecting sepia-toned photos and old, worn documents.

Family Tree Findings

"Genealogy is more than just dates and places," Brummund said just days after returning from a trip to Germany. "You need to make it come alive to have a good time with it and reach out to the relatives. You can get to know them better doing research. I met cousins I didn't know. We have reunions and research genealogy together. Sometimes my family's eyes glaze over. But when you hook up with the people that really care, it is so exciting."

Brummund said she started as a way to help her grandmother keep track of birthdays and is now in up to her eyebrows.

Before the Internet, Brummund made one of her first big breakthroughs after she wrote a blind letter to a church in Germany. She was looking for Armbrust family members -- her maiden name -- and she hit on the right parish, which helped her start corresponding with distant cousins.

"Elli Armbrust and her son, Andreas, spoke England-accented English. We corresponded for several years before I met them and more Armbrust cousins in an area north of Hamburg in 1994," Brummund said.

Together, they figured out that one branch of the family had immigrated to Nebraska, but another had gone to Australia.

Online World Brings People Together

In the Internet era, searching for relatives' birthdays, death certificates, marriage licenses and more has become immensely easier, Brummund said.

The killer application, according to amateur searchers, is the Mormon Church-run Web site FamilySearch.org. Public affairs manager for the site Paul Nauta said the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints currently gets millions and millions of Web hits per month, making it one of the most highly trafficked sites in the world.

Genealogy is considered one of the hottest hobbies in the United States. A 2000 Maritz Marketing Research poll found that up to 60 percent of Americans are interested in their family history -- up 15 percent from four years earlier.

About.com reported that the Internet genealogy industry is worth an estimated $200 million annually. Ancestry.com has tiered services priced up to about $30 a month. Genealogy.com has memberships from $70 to $200 a year.

Working through the Mormon site is free. Or researchers can visit any of the church's 4,500 centers in 70 countries for personal help and free access to premium services, such as WorldVitalRecords.com, the Godfrey Memorial and Footnote.com. The centers also have local records, documents, books and microfilm.

The church currently has 200 camera teams working in 40 countries to find and record more, Nauta said. It just launched two projects to tap the hunger for genealogy research and expand its offerings: FamilySearchIndexing.org taps volunteers from across the globe to upload data, and FamilySearchWiki.org allows users to share what they've found for use and discussion by others.

Go Beyond Computers

Don't get too caught up in computers, though. Joelene Johnson, of Lincoln, Neb., said she's worked her way back in family history to the 1600s largely by quizzing family members and doing the legwork herself. For 25 years, she's used holiday get-togethers and family reunions to ask and re-ask family about what they remember, who they knew and what they've heard.

"I keep up with who has gotten married, how many children, grandchildren -- that's more what I'm doing now, instead of going back," Johnson said.

She has poured over historical society records, dug through libraries and trekked to gravesites to collect her family's stories.

"I've got some relatives that have been remarried and remarried and remarried. It's very interesting," she said. "One incident on my husband's side -- there were 10 children. I noticed that a 10-year-old and 2-year-old died within a week of each other and I figured there must've been an epidemic of some kind."

Get Help

At the point where a family tree branches overseas, you can hire people in those localities to dig. Janet Noll, of Omaha, said she had trouble researching her Catholic family through FamilySearch.org. She was able to figure out that some ancestors lived in the Darmstadt region of Germany and moved to Pennsylvania. Through a Catholic diocese in Pennsylvania, she found the town's name.

"I hired a researcher in Germany to find the church records. He was able to get records back to the 1700s for me," Noll said. "When you find a piece of the puzzle, it is exciting."

It can be tedious, though, she said. Research goes farther faster if you know a lot of names, dates, cities and spellings -- which can be tough since immigrants often saw vastly different interpretations and spellings of their names when they arrived in the United States.

As you collect tidbits, there are numerous software and Web site applications to organize and save it.

Brummund and Johnson said they've both created several books of data, photos, documents and stories. They haul them along to family Christmas so everyone can share their finds. Brummund's relatives can pay to have the books published and she keeps adding more detail with each trip and each passing year. Other Family Features:

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