Uncover the stars and skeletons of your past at Ancestry Day

Venture into your past.

That is, if you dare.

“If you research your family history long enough, you’ll find saints and sinners and scalawags,” said Steve Excell, archivist at Washington State Archives. “I have an Australian convict who was sent from Kent, England, on a prison ship to Tasmania.”

Learn the tricks and traps to studying your roots at Ancestry Day in Tacoma on Sept. 24.

The conference is co-hosted by Ancestry, Washington State Historical Society, Office of Secretary of State’s Washington State Archives, Washington State Library and Legacy Washington.

“The Washington State Archives is the largest digital archives in the nation. We have 180 billion records preserved online,” Excell said. “We have the paper records and we’re open to the public. So if you want your great-grandma’s birth certificate from 1897, we have it and we can pull it.”

Looking for a long-lost uncle? You might also want to search prison records and other such places.

Workshops will cover a range of topics including records research and DNA testing.

“DNA is a very hot topic to further your family research,” Excell said. “A lot of people are using it now to find adoptive parents or missing siblings. There are people interested in planning trips abroad who want to discover their roots, wherever those roots might be.”

Not only can you nail down your ethnic heritage, DNA tests can offer medical data. “You might find their death certificates and learn the cause of what was in their nature of their health and makeup,” he said.

Tests also can identify predispositions to certain diseases.

DNA test takers have the option to connect with others where there’s a family match. Or you can opt out.

There are also blogs and forums to unite you with your common — and uncommon — ancestors.

“You may find out you have an ancestor related to Davy Crockett and all of a sudden there’s an invitation to a Davy Crockett Society trying to find all the living descendents of Davy Crockett,” Excell said. “There’s a Jesse James Society.”

The list goes on.

Once you get started with this stuff it’s hard to stop.

“I will warn you it’s very addictive,” Excell said. “You can stay up until 2 in the morning in your pajamas doing family research and making discoveries.”

Need help? No problem.

“Usually people who are serious family researchers enjoy helping others. We call it ‘random acts of genealogical kindness,’ ” Excell said.

Excell did the DNA test.

“My mother was 100 percent Finnish,” he said, “and I think half of Finland is related because when I did my DNA test all of a sudden I had all these Finnish distant cousins contact me and say, ‘Hey, we’re related.’ ”

One match was practically right down the hall.

“I found out that one of my distant cousins works in the same agency over at the state library,” he said.

He plans to someday visit his kin in Finland and England, where his father is from.

“It’s on my bucket list.”

Contact Andrea Brown at 425-339-3443; abrown@heraldnet.com. Twitter:@reporterbrown.

If you go

Ancestry Day is Sept. 24 at Tacoma Convention &Trade Center, 1500 Broadway.

Cost is $35 and includes admission to all classes presented by Ancestry. Lunch tickets can be purchased for an additional $15, which includes a box lunch and the lunch speaker. On-site registration is 7:30 to 8:45 a.m. The first presentation, an Ancestry 101 class, begins at 8:15 a.m.

Pre-registration is encouraged at www.sos.wa.gov.

Speakers

Christa Cowan, Ancestry genealogist, known as The Barefoot Genealogist, has a weekly YouTube show to help people discover their family history.

Anna Swayne, AncestryDNA specialist with a focus on educating on the power of DNA and the story it can unlock, how it can answer ancestral questions or assist with genealogical roadblocks.

Craig Bullough, Ancestry content acquisition manager involved in digitization projects to help people discover, preserve and share their family history online.

Legacy Washington

Throughout this year, Legacy Washington has released a series of online profiles about fascinating, accomplished Washingtonians, capped by the recent launch of its “Who Are We?” exhibit in the front lobby of the Office of Secretary of State, located on the second floor of the Legislative Building on the Capitol Campus in Olympia.

Legacy Washington has a new contest that asks students in grades 6 to 12 to share who they are and who they hope to become. Contestants can submit entries in writings, film projects or two-dimensional art. The contest ends Nov. 30. Judges will announce winners in 2017 from categories for grades 6-8 and grades 9-12. Winners will be invited to a ceremony in the Secretary of State’s office and receive a certificate and gift card. Winning pieces also will be posted on the office’s website, featured in publications and appear alongside the Who Are We? exhibit.

For more information, contact Laura Mott at laura.mott@sos.wa.gov or 360-902-4171.