Latest / Stories That Live In Us / A Whole Other Tree of Possibilities (with Todd Godfrey) | Episode 25

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A Whole Other Tree of Possibilities (with Todd Godfrey) | Episode 25 · Stories That Live In Us

• 0:02
  Todd Godfrey: That was really magical.
• 0:03
  Todd Godfrey: It's not philanthropic I'd stop short of that.
• 0:05
  Todd Godfrey: Obviously it's a commercial organization, but it's a really good cause at the same time, and that's fun, and so they win.
• 0:16
  Todd Godfrey: We're excited to work on them, to have the work, and every day I mean even today, right now someone this hour is going to make a discovery from that collection.
• 0:26
  Crista Cowan: Stories that Live In Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family past, present and future.
• 0:34
  Crista Cowan: I'm Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist.
• 0:39
  Crista Cowan: I've spent my whole life discovering the power of family history and I know that sharing the stories that live in you can change everything.
• 0:46
  Crista Cowan: Today, I have a conversation with Todd Godfrey.
• 0:52
  Crista Cowan: He is the vice president of global content for Ancestry.
• 0:57
  Crista Cowan: Now you might wonder what that is.
• 0:59
  Crista Cowan: He'll share a little bit about that, but he'll also share some of his story in family history.
• 1:04
  Crista Cowan: Todd comes from a background of adoption and I didn't know that for years working with him until he started getting a little curious about how to maybe learn more about his biological family and I had the privilege of helping him with that and he'll share that story.
• 1:27
  Crista Cowan: Well, todd, thank you for being here.
• 1:30
  Crista Cowan: I'm so excited to have this conversation, so tell us all a little bit about your journey into family history.
• 1:39
  Todd Godfrey: Well, let's see, I was living in Virginia for a few years after kind of raising my family initially here in Utah, and had a chance to come back this way.
• 1:48
  Todd Godfrey: And I had a friend that I worked with in Virginia that had gone to work at Ancestry and so, as I came back here, connected with him, did some interviewing, found out that it was an exciting opportunity, and so I came and joined the company and it happened to be a block away from my house.
• 2:03
  Todd Godfrey: Well, that's convenient it.
• 2:03
  Todd Godfrey: So I came and joined the company and it happened to be a block away from my house well, that's convenient it was great.
• 2:09
  Crista Cowan: Who was the friend?
• 2:09
  Crista Cowan: Oh, christopher tracy, oh okay, yeah, I worked for Christopher for a while yeah great guy.
• 2:15
  Crista Cowan: Um so what?
• 2:17
  Crista Cowan: So did you have any interest in family history really, before you came to work for ancestry, or was that that the doorway in I?
• 2:24
  Todd Godfrey: think like in the family.
• 2:26
  Todd Godfrey: Growing up, family history was a pretty common discussion.
• 2:29
  Todd Godfrey: We had great records or at least great family tree and attracting both sides of the family and that type of thing Lots of talk about.
• 2:37
  Todd Godfrey: I was very familiar with great grandparents and all of that in that discussion, so that was wonderful, maybe a wonderful seating, but I hadn't done anything specific on my own.
• 2:45
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, and what were you hired to do at Ancestry and what's been kind of your journey with the company and how long, how long.
• 2:52
  Todd Godfrey: Yeah, 15 years.
• 2:52
  Todd Godfrey: Okay, Actually, I'm sick almost 16 years coming up next month.
• 2:55
  Todd Godfrey: So, um, which has been fantastic and really surprising.
• 2:58
  Todd Godfrey: I don't think I've stayed in place more than three or four years.
• 3:00
  Todd Godfrey: So uh, it's, and I don't think I'm going anywhere.
• 3:04
  Todd Godfrey: This is a terrific role and terrific opportunity to be here.
• 3:07
  Todd Godfrey: It's very unique in the world to do the thing that we do.
• 3:10
  Todd Godfrey: But yeah, when I originally came, there were a few kind of product ideas that I think Tim Sullivan, who was the CEO at the time, was interested in exploring, and so I was paid to go kind of sit in the corner and figure out if there was anything to any of those.
• 3:23
  Todd Godfrey: A couple of them made sense and we worked on, and then after two years I actually switched over and got involved in what we call content, which is kind of the record side of Ancestry.
• 3:34
  Crista Cowan: So, as you're in this new role in content, what was one of the first really big things that you acquired or were able to connect with that made you think, oh yeah, this is the right job for me?
• 3:46
  Todd Godfrey: Yeah, so it was working with an archive.
• 3:49
  Todd Godfrey: So our mutual friend Quinton Atkinson right has been an Ancestry for well.
• 3:54
  Todd Godfrey: I think you and he and a few others compete for the longest employee and he's certainly done wonderful things for this industry.
• 4:00
  Todd Godfrey: But he wanted to you know, let me cut my teeth on talking to an archive and so I think he found a pretty friendly one.
• 4:09
  Todd Godfrey: It was the state archive in Tennessee Tennessee State Library and Archive and he said so why don't you take that deal?
• 4:17
  Todd Godfrey: And he gave me some advice and direction and things.
• 4:21
  Todd Godfrey: And I flew out and I met with and started this wonderful conversation with the archivist there, who's a great person, great, and that was my first project that I worked on and so I remember walking through with them.
• 4:35
  Todd Godfrey: They had a sense for what Ancestry did, how we had worked with other states nearby and colleagues of theirs, and so they had a bit of an understanding.
• 4:43
  Todd Godfrey: But I remember walking through their we call them their stacks where they have the records.
• 4:48
  Todd Godfrey: They have these huge banks, walls and walls and walls of these drawers.
• 4:52
  Todd Godfrey: You'd pull out these tall cabinets that had microfilm of deeds.
• 4:56
  Todd Godfrey: We're going to get to that very soon here, but my genealogy.
• 5:02
  Todd Godfrey: I know, you know microfilm rolls and rolls of deeds, but it was an opportunity.
• 5:08
  Todd Godfrey: Actually, what they had there was kind of all of the kind of the genealogy kit in one, you know, birth, marriage and death records and property records, other kinds of records that were fascinating, and so, yeah, that was the first kind of agreement that I was able to kind of work through.
• 5:23
  Todd Godfrey: I think Quinton was kind about it, the archivists were certainly kind about it, and that for me, was when acquiring content, getting access, we say acquiring it belongs to the archive, it's not our records, but getting access to be able to digitize those collections and then bring them to the site and then provide them back to the archive, who probably didn't have another way to do that, that was really magical.
• 5:52
  Todd Godfrey: It's not philanthropic, I'd stop short of that.
• 5:54
  Todd Godfrey: Obviously, it's a commercial organization, but it's a really good cause at the same time and that's fun.
• 5:59
  Todd Godfrey: Good cause at the same time, and uh, and that's fun.
• 6:03
  Todd Godfrey: And so they, when we're excited to work on, to have the work, and every day, I mean even today, right now, someone, this hour, is going to make a discovery from that collection that we, that I, signed back in.
• 6:17
  Todd Godfrey: What would that have been?
• 6:17
  Todd Godfrey: Maybe 2010, 2011,?
• 6:20
  Todd Godfrey: Uh, and we'll next hour, and we'll 10 years from now.
• 6:23
  Todd Godfrey: It never goes away.
• 6:24
  Todd Godfrey: And will next hour and will 10 years from now.
• 6:26
  Todd Godfrey: It never goes away.
• 6:26
  Todd Godfrey: And once I understood that that your work has kind of that lasting value, like once a record is digital, it doesn't go back on the shelf.
• 6:35
  Todd Godfrey: I knew that was an exciting place for the business to work and that it was an exciting thing to do for the community.
• 6:44
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, every name on every record represents a person, but the further back in time you go, every one of those people could have, in some cases, tens of thousands of descendants looking for them.
• 6:58
  Todd Godfrey: Yeah, exactly right.
• 6:59
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, and that you've been with the content team now how long?
• 7:03
  Todd Godfrey: Boy 13, 14 of those years Okay, yeah, a long time.
• 7:06
  Crista Cowan: And I started in content.
• 7:08
  Crista Cowan: That was my first role at Ancestry and so I'm very familiar with how records are acquired.
• 7:14
  Crista Cowan: And then there's the whole process of digitization and indexing and getting those records published on the site, and so it's super fascinating to watch that now from the outside in my view, but from your view on the inside, is there something about that content process that you find most interesting?
• 7:33
  Todd Godfrey: Well, it's kind of like takes every different skill set going through At the very beginning.
• 7:38
  Todd Godfrey: Someone has to go talk to this government archive or agency and say you know that really important stuff that you've been paid to like not let anybody touch.
• 7:46
  Todd Godfrey: We want to touch it and we want to touch it like a million times and scan all the pages and we don't want to charge you anything to do that, and so it's just this ridiculously crazy conversation for a government employee to hear.
• 7:58
  Todd Godfrey: But it's kind of the business model and how things work in reality, and so that was actually where I started and we called it acquisition.
• 8:06
  Todd Godfrey: But it was kind of this business relationship you develop with an archive that has the records and in the end they're thrilled because something they never thought they could digitize gets digitized.
• 8:17
  Todd Godfrey: But that is an amazing long game, long exercise you have to go through.
• 8:25
  Todd Godfrey: I did one in Norway, worked with the National Archives in Norway.
• 8:27
  Todd Godfrey: It took five years to get that agreement in place and they're wonderful friends and partners and it was terrific and a beautiful archive.
• 8:36
  Todd Godfrey: But these things can take a long time and sometimes they go quickly and so that's great.
• 8:41
  Todd Godfrey: The digitization process is amazing, just the ability for people to come in and kind of scan and then all the transcription to make it searchable.
• 8:49
  Todd Godfrey: It's all fun.
• 8:51
  Todd Godfrey: So that's got an operational element to it, so like it kind of scratches my like chess playing, kind of you know negotiation type, but it also kind of really scratches that it's for me of like operations and putting things in order and getting things done well.
• 9:04
  Todd Godfrey: And we just have a great group of people the folks that do that have been around for so long.
• 9:11
  Todd Godfrey: They're probably the most kind of tenured employees in the company generally, just because they love what they do.
• 9:15
  Crista Cowan: It's interesting because, as you explain that, one of the things that I love about family history is how it's kind of a puzzle and you have to make all the pieces fit together in order to really get a clear and true picture, and it sounds like maybe that's a little bit of the fun of the role that you have, as well as fitting all the pieces together.
• 9:33
  Todd Godfrey: Yeah.
• 9:33
  Todd Godfrey: Yeah, there were like two projects that kind of, I think, a few years in, because initially you want to do a good job for the company, for the team that you work with, and so you're focused there.
• 9:44
  Todd Godfrey: But I think within the first few years there were like two interesting events that for me kind of started to personalize the work that we were doing.
• 9:52
  Todd Godfrey: One I don't know if you remember, there was this older couple in Massachusetts, jay and Delene Holbrook.
• 9:58
  Todd Godfrey: I want to say they had built a little small business for themselves where they would go around to every township in Massachusetts and scan records and they'd scan them onto this microfiche microfiche and they would license that to libraries you know Harvard, the others that were there in the area and they were done Like they needed to retire and this was their life's work and they were looking for a home for this work and so, for whatever reason, I stumbled in, I took the call and got to spend this wonderful couple of weeks negotiating and talking with them.
• 10:34
  Todd Godfrey: They were just absolutely lovely and in the end we were able to kind of bring their collection in and make it all digital and searchable and hopefully we made them proud and I didn't think much of it.
• 10:45
  Todd Godfrey: I just thought that, well, this is great.
• 10:46
  Todd Godfrey: Now we Massachusetts is a very important state and now we have you know records, so our you know ancestry subscribers will find it.
• 10:53
  Todd Godfrey: And we have this thing on the site called Hints, which is like the you know the background, the algorithms in the background, looking for records that might match your people on your family tree and you know, before that time I had thought that the Godfrey's and Barlow's are kind of my family lines and I had thought that those started somewhere in the US somewhere in the mid 1800s.
• 11:15
  Todd Godfrey: But I'm getting hints from that collection or recommendations for records in that collection that showed me that no, I had ancestors in like the 1700s and in Massachusetts and there was a whole line that kind of unfolded because we had done that particular agreement and worked with the Holbrooks and that's the kind of thing that like when you're on that team you get all the time.
• 11:40
  Todd Godfrey: You have no idea what is, whether or not kind of your ancestors are related to a collection, and it's full of surprises, and so it's kind of an extra special place to work.
• 11:49
  Crista Cowan: I don't know that I've ever heard you tell that story.
• 11:51
  Crista Cowan: That's that particular record collection 453, I think, towns in Massachusetts.
• 11:58
  Crista Cowan: And I remember hearing the story about that couple and just had this vision in my head of them going town to town, right Like for however many years I think they said like almost two decades yeah, that they did this work and, yeah, the fact that not only could we give it a home but that we can enable those discoveries.
• 12:17
  Crista Cowan: And Massachusetts is unique in the United States in that they started keeping birth, marriage and death records at a town level in the 1600s.
• 12:26
  Crista Cowan: So we've got 400 years worth of records and they're pretty detailed and have pretty broad coverage.
• 12:34
  Crista Cowan: So if you've got family in Massachusetts, you're going to find them in that collection.
• 12:38
  Todd Godfrey: Yeah, it was really cool.
• 12:39
  Todd Godfrey: So that was kind of, I want to say like three or four years in, maybe, kind of working with the content area, and then we came around to what would have been 2012.
• 12:50
  Todd Godfrey: Every 10 years is a census in the US, and so that's when the 1940 census became available.
• 12:56
  Todd Godfrey: There's like the 72-year rule of privacy or something like that that makes it available, and so you know, at Ancestry and you know, for the team that's a big deal because it's records for everybody in the country at one moment.
• 13:12
  Todd Godfrey: But I knew that that would be the first one that my dad was in, because he was born in, of course, the year prior.
• 13:17
  Todd Godfrey: And so you know, sure enough, the collection comes out and we get our first, you know, crack at seeing pages from.
• 13:23
  Todd Godfrey: At that time I think he was living in Salt Lake City and so I got to see the page that he's on.
• 13:30
  Todd Godfrey: And as we were doing that project we actually ended up working with it was the University of Minnesota.
• 13:34
  Todd Godfrey: They have, like in the United States, they are the experts and they have this large research center around census data and so they just know everything about it.
• 13:42
  Todd Godfrey: Dr Ruggles and his team, they're amazing, shout out to them and they really helped us understand what was written on the page in ways we didn't understand before, and one of the indications that they shared with us was look to us like chicken scratch, and it was when the census taker, the numerator, would go to the door for that particular census.
• 14:04
  Todd Godfrey: I don't know if it's on every census, but they would make a little mark indicating who they spoke to at the door, and so it was a little X with a circle around it.
• 14:12
  Todd Godfrey: It was very small, it was kind of, you know, not always in the same place, but it was there on the page and it was great.
• 14:26
  Todd Godfrey: And so when I understood that, and then I looked to see the page that had my father on it, right as a young baby, there was that little X with a circle next to his mother, my grandmother.
• 14:31
  Todd Godfrey: We called her grand honey because my grandfather called her honey and we called her grand honey, and she was amazing and was a hairdresser and totally lied about having a home business on the census form and said no, I don't have one on the census form, and said no, I don't have one, she totally did.
• 14:49
  Todd Godfrey: But also that same little mark next to my dad's name, and so, what have you been?
• 14:51
  Todd Godfrey: Four, four months, five months?
• 14:52
  Crista Cowan: old something like that.
• 14:53
  Crista Cowan: He's not talking to the census taker.
• 14:55
  Todd Godfrey: No no, which was like some sweet census taker and I looked at the name this morning so a woman named Wanda, who was who was, you know, there at the door like, took a sweet moment and I imagine my dad at that age would have been probably being held by my grandmother in her arms and she marked him too.
• 15:12
  Todd Godfrey: So what it did is it just brought an image, a very clear image of her.
• 15:17
  Todd Godfrey: She passed away when I was younger, but I remember her and so of her, of trying to picture my dad as a baby, which is very hard to do, but just in the doorway in their home in that small little Salt Lake neighborhood and yeah.
• 15:31
  Todd Godfrey: And so you know, and ever since then it's just, it really comes alive and, yes, you jump back in work mode and you're working through big projects and trying to get a lot done, and that's great.
• 15:40
  Todd Godfrey: But you have these moments that completely pull you out of it, and those are a couple for me that just really stood out.
• 15:47
  Crista Cowan: I love that.
• 15:47
  Crista Cowan: Thank you for sharing.
• 15:48
  Crista Cowan: The census is such a fundamental record set for US genealogists for this opportunity when we very first start exploring our family history.
• 15:59
  Crista Cowan: You go to the census and we do have that 72-year privacy law.
• 16:03
  Crista Cowan: So the 1950 census just came out in 2022.
• 16:08
  Crista Cowan: It's going to be 2032 before we get the 1960 census.
• 16:13
  Crista Cowan: But those moments of finding your family whether it's your dad as a baby in arms for me it was finding my grandparents with my aunt.
• 16:21
  Crista Cowan: My mom was born two months after the 1950 census was taken, so she was not on that census.
• 16:28
  Crista Cowan: But one of the things that I did with that record was that I took it to my mom.
• 16:34
  Crista Cowan: I printed out the page and I took it to my mom because that's the house she grew up in.
• 16:38
  Crista Cowan: She lived in that house until the day she married my dad and as she walked through the neighborhood, right Like telling me about all of the neighbors and everybody that lived on the street that was listed there on that page, those were the memories of her childhood and, in a storytelling family, the fact that with that one simple piece of paper, I heard stories I had never heard before, because it jogged her memory.
• 17:03
  Crista Cowan: So I love that.
• 17:04
  Crista Cowan: For you, it was this image that it brought to your mind.
• 17:07
  Crista Cowan: For me, it was stories that it brought forth, and that's the power of those historical records and actually looking at them and having that personal experience.
• 17:17
  Todd Godfrey: Yeah, I agree, I agree.
• 17:19
  Crista Cowan: So, todd, your family history or your family story is a little unique in that you were adopted.
• 17:27
  Crista Cowan: And you've shared that with me and we've had some experiences together through you coming to know more about your biological family.
• 17:36
  Crista Cowan: But what I'd like to know is is that something you always knew?
• 17:39
  Crista Cowan: Were you raised, knowing you were adopted?
• 17:41
  Crista Cowan: Was that news that came out later in your life?
• 17:44
  Todd Godfrey: Oh, yeah, I always knew.
• 17:45
  Todd Godfrey: I remember as a young child I don't remember like a sit down conversation, so, however my mother and father did it, they it was just always something that I knew.
• 17:54
  Todd Godfrey: Uh, my older sister knew it too, and so, unfortunately, from time to time she would remind me of that.
• 17:58
  Todd Godfrey: No, I love, I love her.
• 18:00
  Todd Godfrey: But, um, but, yeah, no, it was something that I always, that I always knew about.
• 18:04
  Crista Cowan: And is it just the two of you, you and your sister?
• 18:06
  Todd Godfrey: Actually, it's interesting, my, my parents had my older sister and then for four years, you know, tried to have another child and couldn't, and adopted me, and nine months later my sister was born, and then there's three more after that.
• 18:18
  Todd Godfrey: So I have four sisters and a brother, and they're all amazing, and you know, and I'm, and I, you know, unusually I'm, and usually I'm just not the odd one out, I'm just part of them.
• 18:27
  Todd Godfrey: Yeah, for sure, which is fantastic.
• 18:29
  Crista Cowan: Now is there.
• 18:30
  Crista Cowan: Was there ever any stories around your biological family that were shared with you?
• 18:36
  Crista Cowan: Or was that just I'm adopted, I'm part of this family now, and we've left that behind?
• 18:47
  Todd Godfrey: Yeah, I guess there was very little information known so, other than I just remember my mom constantly saying she was so grateful that this woman put me up for adoption and that I could join their family, and I certainly remember that.
• 19:03
  Todd Godfrey: But I didn't have a lot of other information kind of growing up and I didn't really have a desire necessarily to kind of find out.
• 19:09
  Todd Godfrey: I guess I was kind of rooted, very rooted in the family that I have, my family today.
• 19:14
  Todd Godfrey: I love them and they're amazing, and so I guess people search for lots of reasons.
• 19:20
  Todd Godfrey: I think for me the search was much more kind of curiosity and maybe being as an adult, being in a place where, like no, I can handle knowing about that a little bit, whatever that story is.
• 19:31
  Todd Godfrey: And so, yeah, and it's kind of shaped like how I've approached it too, which has been, you know, pieces at a time.
• 19:38
  Todd Godfrey: I view it as like snacking.
• 19:39
  Todd Godfrey: So, like I learned, I reached out to the adoption agency in the back of the 90s and they had a little bit of information and it was genericized.
• 19:45
  Todd Godfrey: But you know, oh, there's, you know, the.
• 19:48
  Todd Godfrey: The father played piano, or you know I played piano.
• 19:50
  Todd Godfrey: That's interesting, or, you know, I, they were german, it was.
• 19:53
  Todd Godfrey: I was something that I heard about the, the, the father's line, and and I saw it, you know.
• 19:59
  Todd Godfrey: Oh well, maybe I should start liking things in germany, you know, and and uh, we'll talk a bit about what we actually learned, but small pieces, really not the whole, until really DNA technology came along Was there any like when you first had children did that reason, but I did want them to have a sense for heritage, kind of they have heritage, they're Godfrey's and Barlow's right, and so in that sense you know they do, of course they do.
• 20:38
  Todd Godfrey: But also you know understanding, kind of where they were from from an you know, ethnicity perspective or otherwise, and their background and maybe a little bit of a growing and it, you know, becomes more all the time.
• 20:43
  Todd Godfrey: You know ethnicity, perspective or otherwise and their background and maybe a little bit of a growing and it, you know, becomes more all the time.
• 20:49
  Todd Godfrey: You know more as we get older, a growing desire to understand.
• 20:52
  Todd Godfrey: Well, is there any kind of medical thing I should be on the lookout for?
• 20:55
  Todd Godfrey: Because you know that is the one challenge with being adopted is you can't just kind of say, oh well, you know heart disease runs in our family or that kind of you don't.
• 21:04
  Todd Godfrey: There's just no context at all and so, yeah, and so maybe that was starting to be a thing I wouldn't say the leading thing, but probably the leading thing was curiosity.
• 21:14
  Crista Cowan: Are your?
• 21:14
  Crista Cowan: Are your parents still around?
• 21:17
  Todd Godfrey: My father passed away a few years ago, but my mother is, and and you know, as I was, as I was kind of searching it.
• 21:24
  Todd Godfrey: But I do remember when I, when I reached out to that old kind of original adoption agency back in the 90s I think we were living in Virginia at the time, so maybe it was, but no early 2000s I remember kind of hesitantly raising it with my mom, Just I didn't want to offend her because I didn't mean anything other than I was curious, and she was great.
• 21:45
  Todd Godfrey: She just didn't skip a beat.
• 21:48
  Todd Godfrey: She just said find her.
• 21:49
  Todd Godfrey: I want to give her a hug and tell her thank you.
• 21:51
  Todd Godfrey: I mean, that was just, it was just no question.
• 21:53
  Todd Godfrey: And then it was just easy from there.
• 21:54
  Todd Godfrey: And you know, of course my siblings were all just curious when did this guy come from.
• 22:03
  Todd Godfrey: That's right.
• 22:04
  Todd Godfrey: How did he join us?
• 22:10
  Crista Cowan: So Ancestry started doing DNA testing in 2012.
• 22:12
  Crista Cowan: Did you immediately jump on that bandwagon.
• 22:13
  Crista Cowan: Did it take you a minute?
• 22:13
  Todd Godfrey: Yeah, I took one of those original tests, probably within a year or two of that timeframe.
• 22:17
  Todd Godfrey: I think I took one from another company as well, but the matches were fourth cousins, fifth cousins.
• 22:26
  Todd Godfrey: These networks were pretty small back then and so it was never anything that would tell me much.
• 22:32
  Todd Godfrey: But it was like oh, there's people I'm genetically related to out there and that's great.
• 22:37
  Todd Godfrey: Yeah, curious, yeah.
• 22:38
  Todd Godfrey: And then the ethnicity estimate.
• 22:40
  Todd Godfrey: Were there any surprises in that or anything?
• 22:42
  Todd Godfrey: That was curious.
• 22:44
  Todd Godfrey: I don't think so.
• 22:44
  Todd Godfrey: At first it looked an awful lot like Godfrey's and Barlow's right and of course that evolved a bit over time.
• 22:50
  Todd Godfrey: I was, I was certainly looking for kind of Germany to be cause.
• 22:54
  Todd Godfrey: That was the one part of the story that I understood.
• 22:57
  Todd Godfrey: So I was certainly looking for that and you know, I don't, I don't know if it ever got above like 10%, but it was.
• 23:03
  Todd Godfrey: You know it was in, that, was in the, it was in that pie chart and evolved over time.
• 23:06
  Crista Cowan: Sure.
• 23:07
  Crista Cowan: So at what point then in that process did you finally decide you wanted to get serious about maybe making a discovery?
• 23:17
  Todd Godfrey: So I was adopted in Washington state and Washington state is one of the kind of few states in the U S that's pretty closed about adoption information and look, I get there's two sides to that and both sides have to, you know, want to connect.
• 23:33
  Todd Godfrey: You know, usually and that's fine.
• 23:36
  Todd Godfrey: And I had gone through kind of as a mediator process there.
• 23:39
  Todd Godfrey: I had gone through just to understand, reach out, have someone else reach out to see if there was, you know, a desire to connect and you know, and all I got back from that was kind of some generic information about there's really no specific health thing which at least checked the box for me and it was great.
• 23:55
  Todd Godfrey: But I think that kind of set in motion for me this well, I understand how DNA works.
• 23:59
  Todd Godfrey: I mean, I work at Ancestry, I watch it.
• 24:01
  Todd Godfrey: It is inevitable that those cousin matches are going to move from fourth to third to second right, and so we'll just kind of not rush it, not kind of like research ahead of it, but let a few second cousins show up and then we'll see and whatever that is, that was great because you know, again, I'm snacking along the way, I'm learning little pieces and I'm not in a rush and I certainly don't want to upset you know anybody else on the other side of this right Birth, and I certainly don't want to upset anybody else on the other to solve it.
• 24:47
  Crista Cowan: But you also wanted to be involved, and so you didn't just want to hand it to us and say here go find my biological parents.
• 24:55
  Crista Cowan: And so two of us sat down in a conference room with you with a big whiteboard on the wall and tell us a little bit about what that experience was for you.
• 25:06
  Todd Godfrey: Yeah, that was amazing.
• 25:07
  Todd Godfrey: So Jenn Utley was with us, right, who also does wonderful things for representing Ancestry, and for a few years she had just very gently, softly, had just said hey look, if you're ever interested in kind of learning more, let us know it was great.
• 25:25
  Todd Godfrey: And then a couple of years had passed and she'd let us know it was great, and then I just okay, then a couple of years had passed and she'd let us know, you know, and she'd raise it again.
• 25:31
  Todd Godfrey: It was fine, but not in a pushy way.
• 25:32
  Todd Godfrey: It was, it was fantastic, actually, she was wonderful, and both of you were just wonderful, and uh, and so when that time came, I knew that door was very open.
• 25:39
  Todd Godfrey: Um, but yes, I wanted to try to understand how you did it.
• 25:43
  Todd Godfrey: So I said I at least need to be in the room, I want to participate.
• 25:47
  Todd Godfrey: And so, yeah, it was a Friday afternoon, the office was pretty empty and we just grabbed a conference room and a whiteboard and laptops and you two were off to the races and I was trying to keep up.
• 26:01
  Todd Godfrey: I was trying to add value in some way, and you probably threw me some silly searches that were irrelevant to make me feel good, but I was trying to go through this together and you were building this matrix that's white on the whiteboard, I remember and it was.
• 26:13
  Todd Godfrey: I think my description of it would be I've got, I've got these matches.
• 26:18
  Todd Godfrey: Could you, could, can you start by putting the matches together into family groups, right?
• 26:22
  Todd Godfrey: So you end up with kind of four different family groups.
• 26:25
  Todd Godfrey: That that as you're, as you're putting people in those piles, you're starting to see some direction of kind of what are they to me, which is very interesting, and so that was fascinating to watch.
• 26:37
  Todd Godfrey: That's my horrible description of a very complex process you did well, but it was fantastic.
• 26:44
  Todd Godfrey: I got to like pick the colors and code them and I remember that on the website and that was maybe my job.
• 26:49
  Todd Godfrey: But yeah, and it, you know, was it two hours later or something like that, which is amazing to me.
• 26:57
  Todd Godfrey: I remember you like stood back to your laptop and you you had you were looking in the yearbook collection and you just kind of like turned your screen and you said, do you think this is your mom?
• 27:10
  Todd Godfrey: And it was a photo of a girl in high school that I mean spitting image of me and it was, wow, it was there was no, it no.
• 27:29
  Todd Godfrey: It was like yes, you found it not like uh, well, this process indicates it might be this person.
• 27:34
  Todd Godfrey: it was like done that's her and that was really amazing and, um, and so I was.
• 27:40
  Todd Godfrey: I was just floored.
• 27:41
  Todd Godfrey: I was floored that the process would work that way, um, and that quickly and that and that quickly.
• 27:47
  Todd Godfrey: Yeah, and, oddly enough, you know, reflecting back on that kind of grateful that we were able to get out in front of that moment, instead of that moment just happening organically, just like one day I'm on the website and up pops you know a sibling match or you know parental match or whatever, that kind of like shocked somebody else, right, and it's shocking me, and I'm not prepared for it, and they're not prepared for it.
• 28:13
  Todd Godfrey: And so I felt like I think I felt really kind of blessed and grateful that we could have that moment kind of on our timeline and with your help and Jenn's help.
• 28:22
  Todd Godfrey: And then, you know, I've had a few years to process through that, which is fantastic and it's and, yes, those matches keep getting closer, right, and and some of those people starting to probably go, who is this Todd, you know person, it's a last name we don't, we don't, we don't recognize, but but I'm more prepared for those conversations.
• 28:41
  Todd Godfrey: So, yeah, and then I think it was another like 45 minutes and you know we found the birth father as well, which is pretty amazing.
• 28:58
  Crista Cowan: Jenn and I work on a lot of these cases where people have come to us asking for help finding biological family.
• 29:03
  Crista Cowan: That was the first time one of the seekers was in the room with us, and so to have that experience with you and to be able to see how you leaned into it and how you wanted to be involved and how you were processing the information as it was coming to light.
• 29:21
  Crista Cowan: It's a messy process, and so one of the things that we're always so hesitant about when we do these cases is we always want to make sure we have it right before we tell someone, because there's so many emotions involved and you never quite know how it's going to land, because this is new territory, and so to have you in the room was a little unnerving, because if we took a left turn or made an incorrect conclusion or had an incomplete hypothesis and you grabbed onto that before we were ready to say, no, we think this is her.
• 29:53
  Crista Cowan: Like we didn't want to lead you down a trail or mess with your emotions, and so that was like.
• 29:57
  Crista Cowan: Jenn and I were very conscious of that in that moment.
• 30:00
  Crista Cowan: So it was delightful when we found that picture because she did look so much like you and we looked at the whiteboard and we knew we had done the cousin clustering and the centimorgans correctly to lead to her, and so it was a unique experience for us as well.
• 30:19
  Todd Godfrey: Yeah, it was fantastic.
• 30:20
  Todd Godfrey: I mean, obviously everything else is a blur for like 72 hours, because I was in a good way, like you know, a moment of bliss of just.
• 30:29
  Todd Godfrey: You know, this information is unlocked and it was just great.
• 30:33
  Todd Godfrey: It was all those emotions were great.
• 30:37
  Todd Godfrey: I took that photo that afternoon and I just texted it to my family.
• 30:41
  Todd Godfrey: We have a you know check text group and I didn't say anything other than guess who this is and you know, the engagement was immediate and I think one of my brother-in-laws was the first one.
• 30:54
  Todd Godfrey: He just thought it was me and I was goofing Like I had you know altered the photo or something like that and so, yeah, and they were just immediately embracing and thrilled and wanted to hear the stories and, you know, altered the photo or something like that and so, yeah, and they were just immediately embracing and thrilled and wanted to hear the stories and, you know, learn all about it.
• 31:08
  Todd Godfrey: They could, and that's great For me in family history it gave me a brand new tree with only two people in it, and so for me, for the first time, because my family, my adopted family, you know, are those trees were been done for a long time, and so there were always new discoveries, of course, but the the tied to the work that my, I did with my team, uh, records for my family, but I was able to build that tree from scratch, you know, uh, every, I didn't add any anybody to the tree until I had a couple of records.
• 31:41
  Todd Godfrey: The records were all like reliving stories for me of collections and projects that we had worked on.
• 31:49
  Todd Godfrey: As we're unfolding these stories, which was amazing, a few of them were, you know, opportunities for me to see.
• 31:53
  Todd Godfrey: Wow, that was a little hard for me to find.
• 31:55
  Todd Godfrey: I think it was.
• 31:56
  Todd Godfrey: You know, one of those was the, the naturalization records when you become a US citizen.
• 32:00
  Todd Godfrey: It was a little hard to find.
• 32:01
  Todd Godfrey: What can I do to make those easier?
• 32:02
  Todd Godfrey: Because when I found mine it was amazing and it talked about this on the father's side, the grandfather and he's a cabinetmaker and they make cabinets and pianos and my father plays piano and I love playing piano Anyway.
• 32:17
  Todd Godfrey: So it's just all of this kind of from there, all this kind of great satisfaction in kind of the work, and it really pulled me into the hobby itself and anyway and it's great.
• 32:33
  Todd Godfrey: So now every time I put something out or we have a new collection launch or something, I have a couple of groups of families to check and see if there's something there for me yeah, which is kind of broadened the base of, of your connection to to the content collections, yeah, yeah so it was fantastic that is fantastic.
• 32:50
  Todd Godfrey: Yeah, it's a great experience and I'm I'm forever grateful to you and jenn for doing that and, uh, you really transform things.
• 32:57
  Todd Godfrey: My, my kids I have two sons and a daughter and they're, they're and they're adults now and they all have DNA tests.
• 33:04
  Todd Godfrey: The tests they use ancestry, they kind of manage their trees.
• 33:08
  Todd Godfrey: My oldest son is just really into history and really into military events and others, and so he just loves diving into the records and they're all travelers, world travelers, and they just love figuring out where are we from.
• 33:25
  Todd Godfrey: So that German line, for example.
• 33:26
  Todd Godfrey: I thought, oh, I'd immediately find records, because we've done a lot of work in Germany, I'd immediately find records.
• 33:32
  Todd Godfrey: Well, it turns out that family were some of the ones that went to Russia for all those years and then from there went to the US, and so when I saw that naturalization record and it said a city in Russia, I was a little puzzled.
• 33:45
  Todd Godfrey: But no, they're German and that's how it anyway.
• 33:47
  Crista Cowan: Do you have the DNA community of Germans from Russia?
• 33:50
  Todd Godfrey: I do, do you.
• 33:51
  Todd Godfrey: So it's fascinating.
• 33:52
  Todd Godfrey: It's just so much there, and every time a DNA update comes out, or anytime in my work life, it's interesting to have it so connected personally, anytime, and we're constantly doing new work everywhere and trying to get all the records that we can and probably will never be done.
• 34:10
  Todd Godfrey: There's so many out there, but you know, every time something comes out there's a chance to jump back to your trees and see did that?
• 34:18
  Todd Godfrey: Was there something in there?
• 34:20
  Todd Godfrey: For me personally, and I think that has just ramped that up a notch Plus, it gave me a whole other tree of possibilities.
• 34:27
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, I love that.
• 34:28
  Crista Cowan: A whole other tree of possibilities, that's a lovely way to put that.
• 34:33
  Crista Cowan: So, as you look at this journey that you've taken in family history right, kind of starting with this family of origin that you grew up in, coming into this family that you created with your wife and then as you've now started to explore your biological family and your connections to them, you've been patient about it and maybe thoughtful about it, which is interesting because I think sometimes a lot of genealogists feel this urgency or this anxiousness right there, always feels like there's this ticking clock, that time is running out and I have to find all the records, I have to get all the stories.
• 35:15
  Crista Cowan: But you've been a little bit more methodical about it and as you kind of look forward to what's next or how you continue to navigate this journey, is that going to continue to be a theme?
• 35:27
  Todd Godfrey: Yeah, it's interesting.
• 35:28
  Todd Godfrey: I found out two things through that mediator process in Washington State, you know.
• 35:33
  Todd Godfrey: One was that for whatever reason you know for her, this time she wasn't interested in connecting.
• 35:39
  Todd Godfrey: I respect that and that's fantastic.
• 35:41
  Todd Godfrey: There were no siblings there, so I was able to get that information.
• 35:44
  Todd Godfrey: But what I also understood was that he didn't know, and so I've just been and it is interesting because in this world we live in today, it's easy to find out everything about each other, where we live, the value of our homes, all the different things you know, and our jobs and employment and things is the internet.
• 36:07
  Todd Godfrey: And so I have, you know, two half sisters and I know where they live and what they do and on the, on the, on my, on my father birth father's side, and I know where he lives and it's within, you know, 30 minutes of where I lived when I lived in Virginia, and so all that is very noble, but it is interesting.
• 36:28
  Todd Godfrey: I think the one thing that and I don't know if this is necessarily the block, but and I do appreciate that taking time is that first phone call.
• 36:39
  Todd Godfrey: How do you not come across like a telemarketer?
• 36:43
  Todd Godfrey: How are you able to get enough sentences out that they don't just hang up the phone and anyway?
• 36:51
  Todd Godfrey: So, and yes, you could write or you could you know email, but you know even ways we communicate changes so fast.
• 36:58
  Todd Godfrey: It's hard to know, and I'm not a big social media person I probably should be, so I can use that as a tool.
• 37:06
  Todd Godfrey: So, yeah, I think the tactical, how do you do it?
• 37:10
  Todd Godfrey: Sure, and could I work through that?
• 37:12
  Todd Godfrey: Well, of course I could.
• 37:13
  Todd Godfrey: I mean for my job I reach out to Archives cold.
• 37:16
  Todd Godfrey: I know I could do this.
• 37:17
  Todd Godfrey: But yeah, it does feel like that kind of moment is coming soon.
• 37:24
  Todd Godfrey: But it is interesting to just sit in it a little bit and it kind of relates to my initial search, kind of, with that adoption agency.
• 37:34
  Todd Godfrey: I sat with that information for several years and was actually really helpful.
• 37:40
  Todd Godfrey: Like I learned a bit.
• 37:41
  Todd Godfrey: I don't know if I'd say I don't want the journey to be over.
• 37:44
  Todd Godfrey: Maybe I don't know, I've thought about that.
• 37:47
  Todd Godfrey: But it is interesting and I appreciate that every day I'm running some risk.
• 37:54
  Todd Godfrey: But yeah, so maybe in the next year or two I'll come back and let you and Jenn know I finished the journey.
• 38:02
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, interesting.
• 38:03
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, so the respect that you have for your biological mother and her, you know at the time not wanting contact, so your mom has not gotten to hug her yet, not yet.
• 38:15
  Crista Cowan: And then this idea of being thoughtful about approaching your biological father is it is interesting and, yeah, sometimes there is some urgency and sometimes there doesn't need to be.
• 38:27
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, so I like that.
• 38:29
  Todd Godfrey: Yeah, it is.
• 38:30
  Todd Godfrey: It surprised me because I thought that I would immediately move on it.
• 38:34
  Todd Godfrey: Right, and it's funny, my daughter is a bit of a sleuth and for work, she, she does some kind of background check work and things on folks, so she's like, and she's a photographer, so she's like I can go find them.
• 38:47
  Todd Godfrey: I can like I'll go, like I'll hop on a plane and you know, and, and that's wonderful and sweet.
• 38:51
  Todd Godfrey: But I think, um, and all my kids is that the same thing, and they and they would, I know that they would love that experience.
• 38:58
  Todd Godfrey: Um, yeah, it, it, it will come and I think it'll be great experiences.
• 39:03
  Crista Cowan: As you look to the future, take this how you will.
• 39:07
  Crista Cowan: What is your hope for the future of family history, either in general or personally?
• 39:15
  Todd Godfrey: Like I care about this kind of industry and community a lot.
• 39:21
  Todd Godfrey: I think we're already seeing what I hope for the most, which is make it easier for more people to get involved, and that's having more data from the records that's available so more stories can be told, quicker ways to build your family trees.
• 39:38
  Todd Godfrey: All that really comes by work your cousins have done, and so as the hobby grows and grows, the next person coming in really gets to just benefit from their 50 cousins that have found a lot of things, and that's great because you still have to do the work and that's important, but you can spend more time just enjoying the stories, and so my job at Ancestry and I feel like my contribution in this community is build a huge pile of records, and that's what I'll work on every day until I retire is building the biggest pile of records we can possibly have for the community, and doing so with everybody in the community, all the other companies and organizations, and that's terrific, I think.
• 40:23
  Todd Godfrey: For me personally, I hope that I raise kids that and they raise their own children to be curious and to want to know and to enjoy, like I did, knowing who your great grandfather and great grandmother is and knowing why they're special and why they're unique, and I think it's interesting that I grew up with that in a non-digital world and a couple of times I remember looking at a printed sheet of a tree, but that was all through storytelling, that was all through my parents, my grandparents, caring about that, and so I hope they feel that same way and pass that along with their children as well.
• 41:08
  Crista Cowan: Beautiful Thank you, and thank you for being here.
• 41:10
  Todd Godfrey: Hey, you're welcome.
• 41:11
  Todd Godfrey: Great to be with you.