KENNEBUNK — When Bil Martineau showed up to the monthly meeting of the genealogy group at the Kennebunk Free Library on Saturday, he was unsure as to what he would find. Answers, perhaps, to the questions that have been weighing on him: Where did he come from? To which lands can he trace his roots? Where are the missing pieces that together comprise his identity?

To date, those answers have proved elusive. But that’s the group’s specialty: Giving people the tools and the resources to dredge up the pieces of an individual’s story that have been obscured by time.

“I have never known any of my ancestors,” said Martineau. “There were no roots in my family. I have Native American heritage, so that proved difficult to find.”

While the group will occasionally hear lectures from renowned speakers such as professional genealogist Pam Eagleson, who helped kick-start the group’s inaugural meeting in November of 2009, Saturday’s meeting was dedicated to helping people overcome research obstacles.

An important resource for the group is the Internet ”“ particularly Ancestry.com, a site to which the library subscribes, and which has proved, over the years, to be the nucleus of the group’s efforts; a kind of starting point where documents can be located, histories researched and answers found.

“It was an effort of mine to get this program launched,” said Kennebunk Free Library Assistant Director Janet Cate, who explained that the Ancestry.com subscription was the impetus to take the study of genealogy a step further. “It was well used, but we wanted to use it even more. We used it as a catalyst to get the group going.”

A grant from the Virginia Hodgkins Somers Foundation, which provides education funding to a variety of charitable organizations, allows the library to cover speaker fees for the group. It also allowed for the purchase of a microfilm device, which can be used to download pieces of microfilm as digital files ”“ convenient, since much of the research entails the extensive use of computers. The grant also allowed the library to provide its members with access to the New England Historical Genealogy Society, another invaluable resource, members said.

Richard Thompson, a longtime member of the group, has been using those resources to find more information about his maternal grandfather, George Washington Griffith.

“He was always my favorite grandparent, and I’d like to know how he got that name,” said Thompson. “I find it intriguing. I think it’s very addictive. People get wrapped up in this kind of stuff. It’s a way of personalizing history.”

Ellen Ahrens, who, along with Laurie Parkinson, helps to moderate the group, said that having a communal structure to genealogical searches can help individuals who are having difficulty parsing through historical documents, some of which are vague and can contain misspellings and other bits of maddeningly inaccurate information.

“The ages are always off, and the names are always spelled differently,” said Ahrens. “For example, my father’s family had changed their name when they moved here from Ireland, probably because of the pronunciation.

Genealogy is “an obsession,” she said.

Each month, like-minded historians get the opportunity to problem-solve and share in that obsession. Stories are shared, histories parsed. Even the moderators get a chance to indulge in their own curiosities.

“My grandfather’s family was part of a wider family living in Manhattan,” said Parkinson. “They arrived in the 1870s. I’m trying to find living relatives, which is my goal. I’m going through these siblings’ (histories) to see if there are any family lines that are still active.”

On Saturday, group members shared searching tips that have worked for them in their own studies, including seeking out different name spellings on Ancestry.com, as well as combing through census information and naturalization records. One of Parkinson’s ancestors was a city inspector for New York City; one member suggested that the city may have records of his service that could be of some use.

Cate feels that the group dynamic is a terrific resource.

“One thing it does is make the world smaller,” she said. “People are looking at ancestors that are from all kinds of places. It’s a healthy world view.”

And for some, like Martineau, it’s the key to unlocking some tantalizing mysteries.

“It gives me a peace of mind I hadn’t had before,” he said. “It helps me to know myself better ”“ who I am, what I am, and why I am.”

— Staff Writer Jeff Lagasse can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 319 or jlagasse@journaltribune.com.