My friend Dan isn't very handy, but his relatives always claimed there'd been a "great tinkerer" in his past. Imagine my friend's surprise when he unearthed US patent number 1,724,221, issued to his forebear, Dante Raso—who, it turns out, invented the pilot light used in gas stoves.

Is this kind of inventive history waiting to be discovered in your family tree? Don't worry—you needn't be related to Edison or the Wright brothers to find a family inventor. Since 1790, millions of otherwise ordinary people have registered their tools and gadgets, submitted their songs and stories, or otherwise used the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to document their creative efforts.

Among the nation's oldest federal record bureaus and established "to assist such persons as invent or discover any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter," USPTO repositories today hold millions of documents filled with priceless genealogical details. If most records chronicle peoples' lives, these preserve their hopes and dreams—their visions for the future.

Inventing a Nation
"There is not a farmhand here who lacks some scheme for improving a machine," one English traveler noted while touring early America. Nineteenth-century magazines encouraged inventiveness; some even advertised patenting services. Aspiring Edisons often drew their ideas from everyday life, fired by that flash of inspiration about how to do something better.

They hailed from everywhere, from the teeming cities to the still-wild territories. New immigrants such as Gustav A. Weiskopf (patent 881,837, Aeroplane) registered their ideas even before completing citizenship; others sent applications ahead from the old country. The worst life predicament couldn't stop true innovation: Born into slavery, Granville Woods' Improvements for Induction Telegraph Systems (patent 373,915) made him "the black Edison."

Ingenuity wasn't just for men. Mary Nolan probably first entertained her own children with patent 186,604 (Building Blocks). Anna Connelly's descendants might still use her 1887 brainstorm: the fire escape. In all, the visions of America's 6 million-plus innovators have ranged from the eminently practical (patent 157,124 for barbed-wire fences) to the patently absurd (number 730,918, Eye Protector for Chickens). But "if Italians paint and Greeks sculpt," went one old saying, "then Americans invent." Of course, the average patent didn't make a fortune for its inventor.

Did your kin financially back someone else's new device? His or her name will likely be listed in a patent, too. Even if your ancestor didn't invent it or back it, wouldn't you love to learn the "inside story" behind the victrola that's been passed down through your family for so many years, or maybe how your great-granddad's tools actually work? Now you can, and you can get a rare glimpse at the devices—from buggies to bottle-openers—that your ancestors used.

Add up the millions of copyrights and trademarks on record, however, and the chances become overwhelming that you're somehow related to a documented innovator. So are you ready to rediscover your Victorian ancestor's Improved Blacksmith's Anvil from 1871? Or your great-great-aunt's book of poems? Such priceless finds may be waiting for you, along with other vital clues that can illuminate your ancestors' lives.