by Paul F. P. Pogue

Robert Goode, of Noblesville, Ind., became interested in his family's history as a child, during yearly trips to his great-great-grandfather's grave in southern Indiana. It sparked a lifelong interest in genealogy, which led him to discover he's related to none other than ... Barack Obama.

He certainly didn't expect such a find when he began poring over microfilm at age 12. But it's the sort of discovery that can come out of nowhere, and often from unexpected sources, when tracking a family tree. "The more you get involved in genealogy," he says, "the smaller you learn the world is."

Although not everyone may discover they're related to a presidential candidate, tracing family histories is nonetheless one of the most popular hobbies in America. According to a recent Angie's List poll, 71 percent of members say they're somewhat or very interested in their family history.

Thomas MacEntee of Chicago has tracked more than 7,000 relatives all the way back to 1510, but says he never gets tired of the thrill of the chase. "It's like CSI work," he says. "I've always loved puzzles, the challenge of putting it all together."

Experts note that every so often, family history research enjoys a boost from a cultural phenomenon. In the 1970s, the bicentennial celebration and Alex Haley's "Roots," which traced his own ancestry back to Africa, sparked a resurgence of interest. In recent years, the explosion of digital records has made genealogy more accessible than ever.

The U.S. Senate, citing its growing popularity, passed a resolution in 2001 that established October as National Family History month. Genealogists and family researchers continue to celebrate it each year.

Genealogists recommend people just beginning their research start with what they know and work from there. "If you document everything you have on yourself and move to your parents and grandparents and have some source or proof, then you're on the right path," says Pamela Sayre, education and publications director for the National Genealogical Society.

Kathleen Hinckley, executive director of the Association of Professional Genealogists, suggests interviewing older relatives as soon as possible. "The biggest resource is the hearts and minds of our family members," she says. "They have information that's not in records."

Elizabeth Bechtel of Minneapolis says she wishes she'd done so while there was still time. "I had so many questions for my father, my grandparents, my great-aunt, but it was too late," Bechtel says. "Why did they name the cabin what they did? Who were people in old photographs?" But, she adds, genealogy turned out to be the next best thing.

Family researchers have access to a wide variety of resources in their quest. "The digital world is an extremely valuable augmentation to what we do," says David Rencher, director of records and information for the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, the world's largest repository of genealogical documents.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which maintains the library, also distributes records through more than 4,000 Family History Centers and makes their database available for free online at FamilySearch.org.

Speed and easy access are the most important components of digital genealogy, says Loretto Szucs, vice president of community relations for Ancestry.com and a founding officer of the Federation of Genealogical Societies. "The Internet blew things wide open," she says. "Someone could do in a week what took me 30 years of cranking microfilm."

Ancestry.com is the most popular family research website. It went live in 1997 and now contains information about seven billion names. Most of its content is for paid members (ranging from $7 to $30 monthly, depending on access level), although it also includes free community tools and message boards. "We were the first pioneers to put databases online," Szucs says. "This drew in many people who wouldn't have otherwise become interested in family history."

But despite all the conveniences the Internet offers, sometimes nothing can beat sifting through dusty old records - for aesthetic as well as practical reasons. "A lot of information is online, but there are many records you'll never see unless you go out there in person," Sayre says. "When you can sit there and touch something your ancestor touched, it's like reaching across time. You get chill bumps."

Indeed, according to many genealogy buffs, the real thrill comes not from dry lists of names and dates, but finding a personal connection to our pasts. Scrapbooks, diaries and letters create ever-more-vivid portraits of our forebears. Many such artifacts can only be found through dedicated personal research or visiting archives and historical societies.

"Our lives aren't just made up of immediate family, birth, marriage and death dates," Sayre says. "There's a whole lot that happens in between there. We want to know who these people were."

Some people, lacking the time, patience or resources to do their own family research, turn to professional genealogists for their help and expertise. "You can stumble around for weeks or months trying to find an answer, but a professional will know the best places to find it and have the skills to interpret the documents," Hinckley says.

Amateur family historians can also seek help from one of the 2,000 genealogical societies nationwide, which focus on specific areas of research, whether it's a particular geographic area, ethnicity or surname. "They play an incredibly important role, and they're right in your own backyard," Szucs says.

Every family researcher, whether a professional or novice, gets into genealogy for different reasons. Many want to find a sense of connection with their family's past. Some continue research started by another family member.

Others begin in order to fill a far more specific void. Angela Clode, of Naples, Fla., emigrated from England to the United States in 1981. For years, she thought she was the only member of her family who lived in America but then learned of a long-lost uncle, John Patrick McDonough, who moved here as a young man and lost touch with the family in the 1950s. Although Social Security records indicate McDonough died in 1968, Clode doesn't know where or how he died. She only knows he married and had three children in Wisconsin.

"His wife and children are a mystery to me, and it's made me more determined to find them and his records," Clode says. "It seems a pity that I have cousins and I'm not in touch with them."

She used numerous online databases and family interviews to create an extensive family tree. In the process, she's discovered numerous European relatives her family never knew about, but John McDonough's fate and family remain unknown. "I'm at a very dead end, but I keep plugging away at it," she says. "I just need that one link."

Genealogists call them "brick walls" - the point where every trail seems to end and every option is exhausted. They arise for a variety of reasons. Sometimes records are incomplete or lost. Name changes during immigration also cause problems. Tracing your mother's line is particularly tricky, as not all records indicate a maiden name, especially those further back. African-American genealogy presents its own challenges given the slave trade.

Brick walls have as many solutions as causes, and each is unique. But the best ways around them are to check every record, think sideways rather than straight back and, most crucially, never give up. "If you branch out and go sideways, you can find more answers in an indirect way," Sayre says. "Following the collateral lines, like brothers and sisters, is what makes it a tree rather than a branch."

Sometimes luck plays a role. Bechtel says she was fortunate to have literate ancestors who kept records back to their relations to the Plantagenets, a line of English and French royalty. "From there, it was smooth sailing all the way back to learning I was related to William the Conquerer," she says.

Bechtel is one of the 41 percent of Angie's List members who say they can trace their roots to leaders or royalty, which isn't surprising. The numbers grow exponentially the further back one goes. Researcher Steve Olson estimates that by the time you get 20 generations back, you have as many as 1 million ancestors. Make it to 120 generations, and everyone in the world is related.

Experts predict even more online records and revolutions in DNA research in the future, but the real innovations will involve digitally organizing and analyzing the data. "We haven't hit the biggest changes yet," Rencher says. "Phenomenal analysis will be possible. You can't compensate for the human touch, but you'll be so empowered with the data at your fingertips that conclusions will come at a much more rapid pace."

As for Robert Goode, he made the Obama connection through a decidedly circuitous route. He visited an Ohio cemetery to find the grave of some 1840s ancestors and discovered a few names that weren't on his family tree. His follow-up search led him to a distant cousin's website, which included very carefully sourced notes. The site displayed an "Obama 2008" banner, which struck Goode as odd, since he says political statements are rare on family history sites.

When he asked his cousin about why it was there, she showed him detailed records that linked herself to Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, a white American of Irish descent. With those records and his own sources, Goode calculated that he and Obama are ninth cousins.

Though Goode has hundreds of relatives - and, apparently, one presidential candidate - pinpointed, he says he's not done. He looks forward to more online records and plans to travel to Germany to learn more about his family. "These are age-old questions for most people," Goode says. "Why are we here? How did we get here? It's a quest to learn the answer. And it's a lot of fun."