DENVER - Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak knows her name may cause some people to do a double-take.
"I don't know what's stranger, that I found another Smolenyak to marry or that DNA testing shows that we're not related," she said. "It's a total fluke!"
If there is anyone in the world who knows how to find her family roots, it is Smolenyak. She is a genealogist who has traced the roots of celebrities like Michelle Obama. She has been a genealogical consultant for several television shows, including the NBC series "Who do You Think You Are?," which traces the ancestry of celebrities.
Now, Smolenyak is offering her advice to help you figure out who you are.
"It's easy, these days, to get a running start. There are little tricks, and all the hidden gems and where to go - the right little archives and libraries," Smolenyak said, adding that the Internet allows people to do research more quickly than she could have when she developed an interest in genealogy decades ago.
"What would take me months, you could often do in half an hour," Smolenyak said. "I always tell anybody who's new to it that they were so brilliant to wait because you can get a very fast start."
She suggests starting with the people who are closest to you.
"The best thing is to first start at home. Do a scavenger hunt," Smolenyak said. "Look through your drawers and attic, and find old family albums with names scribbled on the back. If you're lucky to have some bible records, old certificates or diplomas, just piece that together."
You can combine the information you find with the Smolenyak's next suggested step.
"Call any relative you've got who's even 20 minutes older than you, because they are living libraries. They know so much," Smolenyak said. "And once you do that, you're going to have a lot of information to start organizing."
Smolenyak says the first public documents that most people go to when tracing their ancestry is census records.
"You're going to get their names, their ages, where they're born, where their parents were born [and] their occupations," Smolenyak said, adding that some census records even include quirky details like whether or not a family owned a radio.
"What you can do with the census record is mark back a decade at a time, and then you pick up grandma's parents and so forth," Smolenyak said.
Smolenyak also references other records that can help you get beyond what genealogists call "brick walls." Those other reliable records include church records, birth, marriage and death records, cemetery records, the social security death index, military records and immigration records.
"There are millions of those [immigration records] online," Smolenyak said.
Often times, a number of records can be found online. Some of the website she recommends are:
Although online resources are plentiful, Smolenyak says they do not always contain 100 percent accurate information. Therefore, she also recommends joining your local genealogical society.
It is something that local resident Buzzy Jackson did, when seeking to find out more about her family history.
"Thank goodness I made a very good decision in the beginning, which is to go to my local genealogical society, which was the Boulder Genealogical Society," Jackson said. "They had a course, which was an introduction to genealogy so I signed up for it. And it really set me on a path for how to get started."
Jackson combined that resource with DNA testing to trace her ancestry line back centuries. She saw some of her family history in person and even met some new relatives when she took a trip to Alabama.
"We found these old abandoned cemeteries in Alabama. And the names of these people on these headstones and their name is Jackson just like my last name is Jackson," Jackson said.
Jackson, though, had to prepare herself for some of the emotions that come with tracing ancestry, like when she found one of her ancestor's wills which included slaves.
"The slaves are being divided," Jackson said "You can only imagine if it's a mother and a son. And they're treated like any other piece of property. That was really intense."
Jackson has since joined an organization connecting descendants of former slave owners with descendents of former slaves in order to help them trace their ancestry.
"In African American [ancestry,] very sad to say, what you have to get very good at is property records," Smolenyak said. "Because, prior to - we call it the wall of 1870 - is the first census where former slaves are finally listed by their full names If you want to push back prior to that, what you have to do is figure out who owned your family and look at their property records."
Smolenyak said that not only is African-American ancestry one of the most difficult to trace, it can also be one of the most emotional.
"You have to brace yourself because the most jarring thing is the dollar signs," Smolenyak said. "I remember I traced Al Sharpton's roots a few years back. I wound up discovering his great grandfather was owned by a relative of Strom Thurman."
Smolenyak added that Irish-Catholic ancestry can be very difficult to trace, as well.
"There are a lot of issues with that," Smolenyak said. "Unfortunately, a center of their national archives got blown up. So a lot of wonderful records got destroyed there . Also, for long stretches of time, it was essentially illegal to be Catholic there. And so if your family happens to be Catholic, you're going to have a harder time."
But she suggests would-be genealogists to think creatively, when trying to trace the path of a long-forgotten ancestor.
"You have to be really flexible when you're doing genealogy. Don't discount somebody because they don't spell their name the way you spell it today or because their birthday is two days off," Smolenyak said. "Half the time, the immigrants didn't' even know when they were born. You have to just be real open- minded."
Help in tracing your roots can be found at the Denver Public Library's Downtown Branch. The Genealogical Library, on the fifth floor, is one of the top 10 genealogical research libraries in the country.
"If your family is from anywhere, you can research them here at the Denver Public Library," James Jeffrey, a genealogical specialist, said.
He added that the library holds classes for people beginning their genealogy journeys on the second Saturday of nearly every month.
Smolenyak urges anyone wondering about their past to dive into the field of genealogy. But she warns, once you start solving your family's mysteries, it could be hard to stop.
"It's the thrill of the hunt," Smolenyak said. "It's your own personal history mystery. And that's what makes it addicting."
(KUSA-TV © 2011 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)