The theme song to NBC's “Apprentice,” starring over-the-top rich man Donald Trump and a gaggle of go-getting Trump wannabes, drives home how important the green stuff is. We seemingly devote half our lives to making it, and the other half to worrying about it (or ostentatiously spending it, in The Donald's case).

If it's so difficult to make ends meet nowadays, imagine life for our forebears. Way back when, it wasn't uncommon for a major bank collapse to send the country into an economic tailspin and your family into a struggle to get by. Wages were low, but then again, goods were less expensive, so your ancestor's net worth would stretch further — right? How do you know whether your family lived large Trump-style, or scrounged for every meal like the castaways on the CBS hit “Survivor”? The answers are in documents you're probably familiar with: census, tax and estate records, plus social history resources. All of these can do more than just give you names and dates. They'll also tell you about your ancestors' economic standing — if you know how to tease out the clues.