How to grow your family tree

In 1930, my 20-year-old Polish-born grandmother was living in an apartment in Brooklyn. Her parents were paying $35 a month, and they didn't own a radio, which was a luxury at the time. Their neighbors were the Kleinmans, who lived with brother-in-law Isidore, and the Rapchiks, who had eight kids. The Rapchiks had a radio.

These details didn't come from my grandmother's stories. I learned these bits of information from the 1930 Census, which I accessed through Ancestry.com. Knowing who her neighbors were never struck me as important, but now that I do, I'm able to imagine what her life was like. I can just picture her walking down the hall to the Rapchiks' to listen to Berl and Schmerl, the Yiddish Gentlemen, on their radio.

Genealogy websites such as Ancestry.com are helping me and millions around the world discover bits of information that paint a clearer picture of our forebears' lives, going back several generations. (Ancestry.com, which has almost 10 million unique visitors each month, has records that date to the 18th century.)

Recent TV shows — such as Who Do You Think You Are? on NBC and Faces of America on PBS — also have piqued interest among many people who had never before considered researching their family, often because of the time commitment they thought was involved. "The older generation seem to latch onto it a bit more," says Mike Ward, public relations director at Ancestry.com, which sponsored WDYTYA? on NBC. "But the show has anecdotally opened up the world of genealogy to a younger demographic. Our goal is to make family records more accessible by digitizing them — we have more than 5 billion records we've added to our site. This turns what would be a weeks-long process into a few basic search queries."

On WDYTYA?'s first season last year, people watched actress Sarah Jessica Parker learn about a young relative who was accused of witchcraft 300 years ago. They saw former NFL star Emmitt Smith find out more about his slave ancestors. And they discovered with actress Brooke Shields her connection to a king of France. This year, starting in February, they will have a chance to see a whole new batch of celebrities' stories.