The road Joan Schreiber has taken to uncover her family's past is as well traveled as it is long.
Schreiber, a Ball State professor of history emerita, knew little about her family's history when she returned to her home state of Iowa in 1985 to help relatives sell off her great-grandfather's farm.
"I had never had much interest in my family's past, but when I got out there and started walking around that farm, the tears just started to flow," Schreiber said. "I just thought, 'I can't lose this. I can't let this be sold.' It meant too much to me."
The buildings on the property were to be razed upon the sale of the farm, but Schreiber was willing to pay the ultimate price to ensure they would not be destroyed.
"I tried to find someone who would buy the farm land and let me keep the buildings, but it was no use," she explained. "To get what I wanted, I had to buy the farm - property and all."
After purchasing the property, Schreiber found herself wanting to learn more about the members of her mother's family.
"I started going through old diaries my family had left behind and discovered entries about an old general store my family would go to in order to get their mail and sell items they had grown on the farm," Schreiber said.
A visit to the old store, slated to be destroyed to make way for a new exit to the interstate, moved Schreiber to take action once again.
"The owner was crying when I visited her and desperate. She told me if I saved the store, she would give it to me," Schreiber said.
Despite the cost it would take for her to move the property, Schreiber relocated the store to its current location - the family farm.
But the former history professor did not stop there.
When a woman who had read about Schreiber's preservation efforts in the newspaper asked for her help in saving an old schoolhouse, Schreiber stepped forward once more to preserve a local landmark.
"She told me a farmer wanted it moved, and she needed help, so I bought it and had it moved to the farm," Schreiber said. "Why? Because my cousin taught in that school and I wanted it saved."
Today, the farm, which Schreiber had added to the National Register of Historic Places in the late 1980s, is a piece of history that draws visitors from Iowa and surrounding states each year.
"I'd say I go out there to check up on things at least once a month," Schreiber said of her continued visits to the Iowa farm. "It's about an eight and a half hour drive, but my car knows the way on its own by now."
Although her family's story may be unique (Schreiber's great-grandfather immigrated to America from Prussia in the late 1800s with his wife following two years later), Schreiber's passions for genealogy and intensive research are not.
"Once you start researching, you begin to find all these interesting things you can't ignore," Schreiber said, relating family tidbits of history she has gathered in her 17-year search. "You find yourself itching to learn more."
Schreiber said the joys she has found in preserving landmarks of her family's past have been well worth the cost.
"Everybody has choices in life," she said. "I chose not to do other things so I could use my money for this.
"It's so important that we make the effort to preserve our family's heritage."
With October being recognized as Family History Month, Schreiber said there has never been a better time for students to start their own research.
"You'll find yourself spending hours and hours searching and it'll require you to dig through old newspapers and county records," she explained. "You can't just sit in front of a computer and find all of your family's history on the Internet."
For students interested in starting their own genealogy research, M. Teresa Baer, editor of the Indiana Historical Society's quarterly, The Hoosier Genealogist, encourages them not to give up in what may become a challenging task.
"When someone first starts digging, the tracing can be difficult where research is involved,' Baer said. "People may have questions they can't find answers to in census data or government records."
Baer said IHS's library, located in Indianapolis, has a huge collection of published works, including yearbooks, Indiana records and other rare source material, that can be useful to students along the way.
"The Indiana State Library has some great genealogy resources as well, and someone who is really interested in genealogy can always join a local historical or genealogical society in their county or region," Baer said.
In addition, Baer recommends a visit to Fort Wayne's Allen County Public Library.
With more than 52,000 complied genealogies and census records for all of the U.S. and Canada, the library's genealogy department is the largest in the country.
"We have more than 100,000 people who come here to do research every year," said Steve Myers, assistant manager of the department. "And we add about 1,500 books to the collection a month."
As Schreiber points out, resources such as state libraries and genealogy Web sites are key assets in a thorough research of one's family history.
"When you take the extra time to utilize all types of resources, you start to put more pieces of the puzzle together,' she said. "And it's absolutely fascinating when you do."
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