Back in 1810

This is an example of one of an 1810 Federal Census from Chazy township, Clinton County, New York.

I don't know if there is still a Chazy township or a Clinton County in the state of New York. If there isn't, it wouldn't be the first or last time that a census record outlived a name.

If you click on this image you can make it larger. This image, even with the bleed thru of the ink is still around 100% readable. It's not easy. First there is the task of learning how to read handwriting from over 200 years ago. Just as the words we use have changed, the way we made our letters in 1810 has changed over the last two centuries, too. Sometimes not a lot and in some cases, the changes are stagering.

To give you an idea of what a genealogist faces, this site has some great samples at the bottom of the page. Click on the century you'd like to view.

Not all handwriting is created equal. And in this case when there is ink bleed thru it can be a challenge.

Another problem is there was a very large portion of the population who did not know how to read or write in 1810. In a lot of cases the census taker couldn't ask them how to spell their given or their surname. Plus it was a great big melting pot with various accents among this brand new country.

If you're still following me, take your surname or a surname of any of your family lines. Click on the picture and try to find it there. As a rule, while you maybe can't read every thing written there, you can tell pretty easily if that page of the census contains the surname you're attempting to locate. Handwriting, bleed thru, the whole ball of wax. Can you with confidently state that the surname you opted to search for is there or is not there?

I'd rate the image quality from fair to poor. Where the bleed thru is located it's poor, the rest of it is fair. Still, it provides me with the proof I'm trying to locate. My ancestor was not enumerated on that image number in Chazy Township, Clinton County, New York.

Another thing I try to remember, when the hand writing gets very sloppy, this same man wrote all those names for that enumeration district. Some of them in a day. His hands were probably very tired at the end of the day.

Back in 1810, a man started out one morning to make an accounting of all those living in this district. At some point in that day he stopped at each of these homes and learned the age ranges and gender of each person in his district. Two hundred and two years ago. Probably this time of year, since a lot of the early censuses were conducted in July and August. Was it hot in your area today? It didn't stop that census taker. He had a job to do.

Today you've had the honor of observing a part of his job, but also an accounting of every family on this page. Each line with a name represents the whole household. Look at all the people you've got a small sampling of their lives by viewing one page of a federal census. They all were alive 202 years ago. Right now, as you read their names, these unknown names for the most part, there's a small flicker of their lives from over 200 years ago.

Feels good, doesn't it?

Imagine

For a minute, pretend that you are a census taker. Your job is to go around to your neighbors and ask them questions. As they give you answers you type their responses into your laptop. From sun up to sun down, you're out there with your laptop, enumerating all those in your district.

You feel good about your job. After all, by getting an accurate number of people in each township, you know that life will be good when all the gerry-mandering starts...I mean the redistricting. By making sure every person in your district is accounted for, your area will get their fair share of income redistribution...I mean fair share of Federal tax money for all the projects most people in your district didn't know they wanted...err, I mean needed.

See how easy it is to take something like the Federal Census and turn it into something political. That is not what I want to do. I do hope the humor there was obvious. Each person views the census and census taker completely different.

However, let's go back to our current day census taker with his/her laptop.

And imagine.

Imagine 150 years from now your dusty laptop is pulled out of a storage closest with all that wonderful data on it. They turn it on and they can see all the information that was collected 150 years ago. Right? I doubt it. A computer from 20 years ago isn't much good today. Files from 20 years ago are for most people unreadable with today's software. So, 150 years from now, what's on my computer or your computer today is pretty useless.

Yet...today I've spent most of the day reading documents that contain data that was collected over 200 years ago. I didn't read the original document, but I read an image of the original document.

The census taker in 1810 went from house to house, either on foot or horse and or buggy. Maybe a mule. He, yes it was a he, she's were not census takers in 1810, carried a supply of quill pens with him and a bottle of ink, plus plenty of paper. The names and hash marks he made in 1810 are readable today. Well, for the most part they are. Some haven't held up well over the last 200 years. Some have names that are very hard to read due to water damage or the name is at the top or bottom of the page or near the crease and the ink shows wear and tear. But overall, most of them are over 99% readable. I'm not talking one or two documents. I'm talking hundreds of pages of documents are still readable today. If I were where the original documents were kept I wouldn't need any special equipment to read them. Just my eyes and my hands to turn the pages.

As I read the 1810 census I wondered if the guy who wrote all those names and made all those hash marks could even imagine that in 2012 someone would be reading his writing, searching for information. I doubt it.

I'm sure he was only doing his job so redistricting was based on accurate numbers. And in those days, the federal government didn't have anything called an income tax to give back to us. So even that aspect of it was lost on him.

Would he shake his head in wonder that so many of us are looking for clues about our ancestors from over 200 years ago? Probably.

Imagine for a minute that you were he.

Now ask yourself, what types of things do you have that have the potential to be found and usable in 200 years?

Imagine...something of yours lasting that long.

The sinkable undone tasks

It doesn't matter what hobby or profession one pursues, it's very easy to discover that there's a lot of "i"s to be dotted and "t"s to be crossed.

If we dot and cross those letters as they appear they do not seem unreasonable. You don't look at them as if you're supposed to wash the Empire State Building, top to bottom, in an hour. Even a week would seem impossible. Just having that job is enough to make one want to rip their hair out of their head. 

Today I realized that I have over 1500 people to organize and determine what documents I still need for them and then put them in a system that makes sense. The paper copies. Remember, even if we scan everything into a digital file, we still have to keep those paper documents somewhere. 

I'm ten to twenty three ring binders short of being able to organize things into a system that might make sense. 

Anyway, I'm off to start. I have an idea. We'll see if it works. Sigh. Why didn't I do this from ancestor one? 

Tools for the genealogist

Every hobby and profession has a list of tools to help them.

Genealogy is no exception.

Here's a list of some of the tools I have that I believe makes life a little easier for me.

1) Computer.

2) A good quality printer. An all in one is great, a scanner, printer and fax machine.

3) A hand scanner.

4) Memory stick(s).

5) Digital camera.

6) Acid free paper.

7) Acid free protective covers for your papers.

8) Assortment of three ring binders.

9) Ancestry software.

10) Ancestors.

Do you have to have all of the above? Of course not. The only thing you have to have is number 10, ancestors. Since we all have those, we all have a starting point.

The other nine items help us keep track of the information pertaining to our ancestors. Some of them help us acquire new information easier than if we didn't have it, i.e., the computer.

I can sit at my computer and find the 1820 Federal Census for New York state. I don't have to use the computer to get a copy of that Federal Census page, but it makes it easier and it takes less time than writing to the repository, guessing which county and township I'm interested in and having them pull up the exact page and shipping it to me. Not only do I not have to wait for the mail service to deliver my request to them, or their search results to be returned to me, I don't have to pay for postage, search fees or copying fees.

When my mother was alive and working on genealogy, it was all paper and ink. Today you have a choice. You can do a lot of it electronically, or paper and ink. Most of us use both. We have our information stored in an ancestry program or our trees stored online at one of the many places where you can enter the information into your online tree, and we have backup copies in three ring binders.

Why store it both ways? If you have it stored electronically, it's so much easier to share your information with cousin Jane who lives several states away. Just email her the file. The paper copies are for your protection incase something happens and you lose your electronic files. Sometimes you lose your paper files. It's best to have both.

Once you start finding information, acquiring documents, photographs, etc., you'll notice something interesting. The documents and pictures on paper are still here today. We don't have electronic files that are a couple hundred years old or even older. We do have paper documents that are that old and still readable today. Paper has a history of lasting a very long time if you pick a quality paper and protect it with an acid free environment.

Just a few tools that I find very helpful and my reasoning behind why I have things stored electronically and in binders.

Sobering wake up call

Once again, there is much debate, negative and positive regarding the DNA test through ancestry.com.

Crista Cowen posted a most interesting blog that presented a challenge to me. Go read it. I'll wait for you.




Okay, you're back. How did I do? Sigh.

Generation 1-4 I have 15 out of 15 names. 100% Yay.

Generation 5 I have 16 our of 16 names. Another 100%.

Generation 6 I have 28 out of 32 names. Still not bad.

Generation 7 I have 28 out of 64 names. Oops. We dipped way below the 50% mark.

Generation 8, 8 out of 128 names.

Generation 9, 10 out of 256 names.

Generation 10, six out of 512 names.

Out of 1023 direct ancestors, I've found 111 of them. That's a staggering 10.85%. Yes, you did detect just a teeny tiny big of sarcasm there.

There are some holes that I could fill in fairly confidently. However, even if I filled in every blank spot with very likely ancestors, the truth is fairly sad, it might move me up to having located 15% at the most of my direct ancestors.

For those of you not terribly familiar with all this, I am generation one. I have one mother and one father, and they are generation two. Each of them has one more and one father and they are generation three. Each of my grandparents has one mother and one father, for generation four.

Me =1
Mom and Dad = 2
Maternal and Paternal grandparents = 4
Great grandparents = 8
Four generations = 15 people.

All we're looking for in this ten genration chart are the parents of each of our direct ancestors.

The really interesting aspect is when you attempt to figure out what century you'll end up in when finding the tenth generation. We usually think of the age between one generation to the next as 20-30 years. To keep things somewhat uniform, let's average it to 25 years. So, let's say that you were born in the mid 70s. Your parents were probably born in the early 50s, your grandparents around 1925 and your great grandparents around the turn of the century. Using this 25 year theory between generations, the fifth generation, your great, great grandparents should have been born about 1875. The sixth generation about 1850, the 7th 1825, the 8th about 1800, the 9th around 1775 and the tenth around 1750.

The truth is, one some lines it will hold true, and ten generations back will be around 1750 if you were born around the mid 70s. Yet some of your lines will be back into the early 1600s ten generations back. Not everyone married at the age of 24 and reproduced at the age of 25. Some married younger and some married older.

I have a great, great grandfather whose wife was 25 years younger than him. Was she a second wife? I don't know. I can't find proof of another wife, but that doesn't mean an earlier wife didn't exist. It only means I haven't found any evidence there was a wife prior to my great, great grandmother.

Plus, if your direct ancestor is the eldset of 12 children your time line going backwards will be different than if your direct ancestor was the youngest of 12 children.

This is only a range of when how long ago 10 generations happened based on when you were born, not on the harsh reality of when your ancestors were actually born. Ten generations will be around 225 to 350 years ago from when you were born. Let's make it easier and round it to a nice even number of 300 years.

I can account for less than 11% of the people directly responsible for me out of the last 300 years.

The Ancestry.com DNA test goes back several hundred to possibly thousands of years in our genetic ethnicity. Well, guess what? I don't know enough about my cultural ethnicity with the numbers I've just shared to know if my genetic ethnicity is correct or not. 89.15% of my direct ancestors from the last 300 years are completely unknown to me. How can I say the test was wrong? I can't.

What I can say is dang, I'll be some of those 89.15% came from Central Europe.

Anyway, another post hoping to show other genealogist the numbers so maybe they won't be upset by their DNA results. I believe between all the posts I've devoted to this subject lately many aspects have been considered.

But that 10.85% of direct ancestors for ten generations was very sobering to me. I knew I had a long way to go. I didn't realize I'd have to live to be 7,958 to have a chance of finding all of them.

More thoughts on the DNA testing for genealogy

More and more people are getting their results back from the DNA testing that Ancestry.com has been offering.

Some are very disappointed to downright angry. Some think it's a fraud because it doesn't agree with what they've proven.

This is going to be somewhat technical. I'm sorry for that. I  hope I don't bore anyone too much.

First and foremost, in a previous blog, I talked some about the differences between our cultural and genetic ethnicity. You can read it here. It starts toward the bottom. If you read the whole post, you'll see that I didn't expect the results to solve much of anything. It's a tool, not magic. I still believe it's a tool and not a magic bullet.

Another thing I want to point out that any DNA test that is priced at a hundred bucks is not highway robbery. Honestly, it's a bargain basement price. Especially since it tests several thousand markers. It was either 70,000 or 700,000 markers. Good grief, if you think that's expensive, you have not had much lab work done. Need a blood transfusion and if we find an antibody in your screen, you'll know that it costs a lot more than 100 bucks to find out what antigen (which is a marker) that you don't have but you've developed an antibody to from a previous transfusion. That's one marker for a lot more than a 100 bucks.

Now for the science to genetic testing. I'm going to use what we  know about our little red blood cells. We have a genotype and a phenotype. Some people's genotype and phenotype are exactly the same.

Red blood cells 101. As a rule, we think of four blood groups. Type O, Type A, Type B, and Type A,B.

Your blood type is your phenotype. It's what we can test and observe. It does NOT mean it's your genotype though.

Your genotype is the set of genes you carry. Your phenotype is what we can observe in the lab.

Confused? Let me give a very brief and I hope simple fact of life. You inherit one set of genes from your mother and another set of genes from your father.

Type O blood only means that it lacks the antigen associated with Type A and Type B. Type A blood has a different antigen than Type B, which is why we can observe and note with confidence your blood phenotype.

Remember, we inherit one gene from Mom and one gene from Dad.

Let's say Mom is Type A, B and Dad is Type O. What that means is our mother inherited Type A from her mother or father and Type B from her mother or father. Since your dad is Type O, it means he inherited neither the A or B antigen from either his mother or father. What will your parent's children blood group be in this scenario?

Their phenotype will be either Type A, or Type B.

Mom---------->        A antigen             B antigen

Dad
  |
  |
O antigen                A,O                      B,O

O antigen                A,O                      B,O

The genotype (the actual genes that you have) can only be A,O or B,O in this case. Your phenotype (what we can actually measure) will be Type A or Type B.

In my case, my phenotype is Type A. I do not know what my genotype is. It is either A,A or A,O. If I had had a child with Type B or Type O blood, I'd know that my genotype was A,O. But if my children are either Type A or Type A,B, then there's no way to know what my actual genotype is. Any Type O blood cells that I may or may not have received from one of my parents is still hiding if they exist. We can't pick them up with our testing. We can only find them when Type A and Type B are both absent.

Your blood type is one marker. Only one marker. And you see how you can believe you're one thing, yet you could be so much more than that one thing you think you are. If you're Type O, it's cut and dried. Your genotype and phenotype are the same. Ditto with Type A,B.

But I only inherited half of my genotype from my mother and half from my father. Both of them inherited a gene for their blood type from their mother and their father. I've lost half of each one of my parents traits, since each of them was only able to pass on 50% of their genes to me. My siblings got some of the ones I didn't get. And some of them went to the grave with my parents, never to be seen again in my direct blood line.

As we go back in our trees, it's becomes easy to see how many things do get lost and how something can be hidden and comes to light today that shocks us. It's always been there, but since we can only test phenotype (what can be observed) and not genotype (our actual genes) then it's easy to see when a DNA test uses 70,000 or 700,000 markers how we can all be shocked beyond belief.

If you want to learn more just type "genotype versus phenotype" into your favorite search engine. Google really is our friend. :-)

What makes a family?

In genealogy we focus on blood families. Sadly, if you're not related by blood, a lot of times you get shoved to the background.

I'm sure that my great grandfather, John Asher Knight, felt a deep love and affection for Abraham Trubey, the man who raised them after his own father died when John Asher was four years old. While John Asher had Knight blood in his viens, it was Abraham Trubey who took the young boy as his own and instilled all the good things in the man John Asher became. I'm positive his blood father had a lot of good and instilled a lot of positive in him in those four years they had together, but when John Asher thought of his father, he thought of Abraham Trubey.

Abraham did not adopt his step children. But he did raise them as his own.

In my own immediate family, my husband started out as a step father, then became an adopted father to my children. When they think of their father, they think of him. He is their father in spirit and on paper, but not by blood.

None of that can be ignored. He is their father. Just as Abraham was John Asher's father.

That's only part of the story. We have step parents. Blended families. Extended families. Some of the people who we think of as our most reliable family, we don't share blood with. Some of them we do.

There are times as a genealogist when I forget that family is more than shared blood.

It was brought home to me yesterday.

What makes a family? So many things.

Yesterday, I lost a person that I consider a family member. We didn't share blood. However, we shared relatives that shared blood from both of our lines. One niece and four nephews of mine lost their grandpa on the other side of their family. And it's as if I lost a family member, too. I think back and I can't remember life without Gerald in it. First as a part of the community and then as an extended part of our family. I do remember him from before his daughter married my brother. The marriage might not have lasted, but the family tie between our families was strong enough that divorce couldn't shatter it.

Today, I'm not a genealogist. I'm just a human mourning the loss of a man that I thought of as family. A smart man. A creative man, who knew how to get things done and if he didn't know how, wasn't afraid to learn how to do it himself. A crafty old guy. But mostly, a gentle and kind man. He wasn't perfect, but he was perfectly human.

He will be missed by so many.

Today, family is all of us, blood relatives, neighbors, and friends who help celebrate his life while missing him. Our hearts don't care if we shared his blood or not. It only cares that we shared memories with him and his blood family.

Rest in peace, Gerald.

For Gerald McMurray

Dillingham, Alaska 2005

In memory of Gerald McMurray. May he soar above with eyes crystal clear and see the sites he dreamed of seeing.

Rest in peace, dear friend.

The Larison Family

George Larison married Harriet Adeline "Addie" Jacobs in Feb 1901 in Jewell County, Kansas. George was 39 years old and Addie was 26 years old.

They welcomed two daughters into their lives. Ruth Naomi and Thelma Marie.

Ruth married Arthur Bowles and they had eight sons. Thelma married Roscoe Birdsell and they had one daughter and two sons.

One of Thelma and Roscoe's sons was my dad.

While others look at the picture and see Ruth, George, Addie and Thelma, I see Aunt Ruth, Great Grandpa George, Great Grandma Addie and Grandma Thelma.

George passed before I was born. Addie passed when I was about 11 months old. Thelma passed when my father was four.

I saw Great Grandma Addie and Aunt Ruth. I do not remember Great Grandma Addie. I do remember Aunt Ruth.

Robert E. Jacobs (the picture on the floor) was Addie's father. The picture behind George is of Mary Ann Stevens Jacobs, Addie's mother. I don't know who is in the picture above Aunt Ruth. I don't know what happened to that picture either.

But this picture is of my Larison family. The part of my Larison family that I knew the most about until Thursday when I made my trip to LeRoy, Kansas to learn about George's family.

George was 69 years old and Addie was 56 years old when they sold out in Grant County, Kansas and moved back to Jewell County, Kansas to help raise their three motherless grandchildren.

I hope they knew how much those three children loved them. Even today, as the last one is still living, what George and Addie did for them is evident.

After they'd helped raise their grandchildren, my aunt made sure they had a comfortable home for the rest of their lives. I'm sure she felt an obligation toward them, but that gesture on her part was done out of pure love for them. They weren't only her grandparents, they were her second set of parents.

During the final illness of my dad's life he was adamant about making sure the world knew how much he appreciated everything George and Addie did for him after his mother died. The only thing he stated that he wanted in his obituary was how they'd given up their retirement years to come raise them. It meant that much to him.

Not long ago, I took a picture of an older George and Addie to show to my uncle. The magic transformation that happened was stunning. An 80something year old man lost decades from his face as he looked at that picture. His eyes brightened. I could see in his mind that he was a young man again. "Georgie Pordgey" is what he said.

And through this recent journey back through the Larison family, a question has been answered for me. One that no one could ever tell me. What was my grandma Thelma like? That answer is in her three children. She's raised them for a few short years, and then her parents raised them. To learn who Thelma was, all I have to do is remember her children.

Rest in peace my Larison family. We're here. There's a lot of us to carry on. Between Granddad and Grandma and Aunt Ruth and Uncle Arthur, we'll be around for many generations to come.

Did you ever want to be a detective?

Seriously, genealogy is a lot of detective work. Somethings I take pictures as evidence. Usually pictures of gravestones. Sometimes I take a picture of a document if a copier or scanner isn't handy.

For the most part, I spend a lot of time looking for and at documents. Or trying to figure out what repository will have the document I need to prove or disprove a theory.

As I attempt to prove a theory or gut feeling, I'm also working as hard to disprove that same theory or gut feeling.

Instead of investigating the lives of those still living, I spend the majority of my time investigating the lives of those who have passed on. At least I don't have them telling me one thing, knowing they're lying to me so I won't find the truth. However, I don't have them talking to me, telling some of the basics. Such as their parents names. Or who was with them when they left their birth state and migrated, usually westward.

If I'm searching for a male relative, they will usually leave a trail of documents. Sometimes the females leave nice trails, too. If it's before 1850, the females don't leave a lot of trails though.

Today I've been tracing my Larison family backwards. I want to find Abel's parents. I went to 1820 and searched the census for all the Larison's and the various spellings trying to find his family. I found one that was a good fit. A perfect fit. Until I found an entry into a book on the history of that county in Illinois. Alas. They did have a son named Abel. Born where my Abel was born. However, he was born about ten years later. Married a different woman, had different children and died after my Abel died. While I found several documents that would have been a great start to prove this was the family of my Abel, I also found enough that disproved this wasn't my Abel's family.

I haven't come away completely empty handed today though. I did find my Abel living with a family with a different surname than his. I noticed they had all come to Iowa about the same time. Going back to genealogy 101, as a rule, our ancestors did not migrate alone, I checked to see where the head of the family was born. Not the same state as my Abel. However, the wife of the family was born in the same state as my Abel and three years before he was. Is she an older sister?

I don't know. Possibly. Likely. I do know that Abel's second daughter has the same first name as this woman and her middle name is the same as one of Abel's possible nieces first name. Also, that family with the different surname had a son named Abel.

One wouldn't think it should be too tough to figure out if they were brother and sister, but it's not easy. If they are brother and sister, they were both in their father's home during the period of time when the only one listed in the Federal Census was the head of the household. They'd only show up by their gender and age range.

I've used that type of information to help prove parentage, but I would have to have a lot more information than I have at this time to do so in this case. In the past, I knew the name or names of the possible father. With the research I'd already done, I knew they had remained in the area for several census years. In this case, I don't know how long they were in the area. Nor do I have anything but a surname. In time, I'll take all fifteen families scattered throughout the USA with that surname that had a son the right age as Abel was in the 1820 census and try to trace them out. To not only prove, but to attempt to disprove they're his correct family.

So if you love mysteries, if you love investigating people, if you love a good puzzle, genealogy might be for you.

And then there were...

Abel and Hannah Sellers Larison were married around 1860. Since Hannah was 25 years younger than Abel there is a chance that there was an earlier wife, but at this time I haven't located a previous marriage.

Abel and Hannah had seven children. Four sons, three daughters.

There should be lots of branches and new twigs on this tree.

All I have to do is look at how many of us are a direct result of their son, George, marrying Addie. Yes, George and Addie only had two daughters. One of them my grandmother. But between their two daughter, George and Addie had eleven grandchildren. Ten grandsons and one granddaughter. One of their grandsons was my father. Imagine how many more grandchildren they would have had if my grandmother hadn't died at age 25.

My goal when I went to LeRoy, Kansas was to find the rest of our Larison family. Those who have passed on and those who are still living.

The sons. Four sons. That should mean a lot of grandchildren for Abel and Hannah. Out of those four sons, one died at the age of 21 years, unmarried and childless. Two remained single for the rest of their long lives.

George, my great grandfather, was the only son of theirs who married.

Would I have better luck with my great grandfather's sisters? Yes and no.

All three sisters did marry. Pauline and her husband had one daughter, Edna. Edna had two daughters of her own.

It's possible that Iris, Pauline's eldest daughter, had children, but not probable, since there's only mention of her husband's children from his first marriage. My hope is on Norma. When her husband joined the military during WWII he listed that he was separated with dependents. I haven't found those dependents, but I shall look for them.

The next sister of George's is Annie. She married and had two sons. The obituary for her eldest son mentions a wife, but no children. I have not found any children for her youngest son either. A wife, yes. But not any children.

Last, is Kate, she married and either divorced or was a widow. Different Federal Census say she was divorced and another one states that she was a widow. Kate and her husband had one daughter. At the time of Kate's death, her daughter was still unmarried and in her 50s. Very little chance of her having had any children.

What does that mean?

It means, unless I find children for Norma, the only line continuing the Larison blood from Abel and Hannah are the two daughters that George and Addie had.

And then there were...just us. The direct descendants of Ruth Naomi Larison and Thelma Marie Larison.

Asking for help

Today was my field trip to Coffey County, Kansas. My first stop was at the LeRoy Cemetery just west of LeRoy, Kansas.

I stopped and found the graves of my family there. Not all of them, but the ones that I knew or suspected were there. The above picture is of the Larison Family plot. To the right of the Larison family is a double stone for VW and Pauline Crotts. Pauline was a daughter to Abel and Hannah Sellers Larison.

I was able to locate two marriage records and several obituaries. The information found in those obituaries will probably result in another trip to Coffey County in the future.

All in all, it was a very productive trip. I learned a lot about my ancestors today. I love it when they're forthcoming with information on who they were.

All I had to do was ask them to show me who they were. They did, oh did they show me who they were.

Happy Trails

Tomorrow I'll go to LeRoy, Kansas and Burlington, Kansas to learn more about Abel, Hannah and their family.

After yesterdays DNA results, I'm glad to be back on familiar ground. I plan to visit their graves. See what other family I can find there, too.

These are things I can wrap my brain around. They lived. They died. They had lives. My job is to find out as much about their lives as I can. To record that information for future generations.

I don't know what else I'll find in LeRoy. Will the school that my grandmother attended still be standing? I hope so. I wish I knew what the address was of the house where they lived. Even if the house is no longer there, I'd love to go by the place my grandmother called home.

My grandmother, Thelma, granddaughter to Abel and Hannah has always been a mystery to me. She died so young. For one reason or another, the memories her husband had of her, and her children had of her were never shared.

Those who knew her are gone or were too young for any memories to survive over the years.

But the roads she walked as a child are still there. The town she grew up in is still there. Her grandparents remains are still there.

Will I learn anything new about my grandmother? Probably not. But I think she likes the idea that I want to go to the area where she spent most of her life.

I will find information about her grandparents though. Maybe some new information about her aunts and uncles.

I don't know if any descendants of the family are still there. I will look in the phone book and see if I can find any. If they are, I'm sure they have a different last name, since I believe it was only the daughters who remained in LeRoy who married.

For me, happy trails are finding the trails my ancestors traveled and exploring them, trying to invision my ancestors when they were in the same physical space. Very happy trails when the wind whispers a soft "thank you for coming to find us."

The DNA results are in

Well, as I suspected, while it's kind of fun, the DNA results are nothing more than a tool. At this point, I'm not sure how useful of a tool it is. With what I know about, which is very little, it's not very helpful to me.

Remember, this doesn't tell you if you are a direct descendant of Ivan the Great/Horrible. It tells you what your ethnicity is based on the information those doing the testing have in their data base. My breakdown is the following: 63% Central European, 32% British Isles and 5% Uncertain.

But what does it mean? What do they mean by Central European?

This is a cut and paste from my results page. Enjoy

 

About Central European Ethnicity

Modern Day Location

Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein.

Did you know?

In Switzerland, there are 32 mountain peaks above 4000m (that’s about 13,000ft), the highest of which is Dufourspitze.

About Your Region

Your ethnicity points to Central Europe, a broad expanse stretching from Amsterdam's sea-level metropolis to the majestic peaks of the Alps. Geographically dominated by France in the west and Germany in the east, it is a patchwork of nations with distinct cultural identities. From Munich's boisterous beer gardens, to Bordeaux's sun-soaked vineyards, to Switzerland's alpine dairy farms, it is a land of charming cultural diversity.

In a very simplistic sense, the region can historically be divided into two parts: France and The Holy Roman Empire, which roughly covered what is now Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Liechtenstein, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic. Not to be confused with the ancient Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire was formed after the old emperors moved east to Constantinople, leaving the western empire to be overrun by Germanic invaders including the Goths, Vandals, and Franks. Left behind in Rome, the pope crowned the Frankish king, Charlemagne, emperor, laying the foundation of a new empire that would last until the 19th century.

The Middle Ages and pre-modern era of the region was characterized by nearly incessant fighting, as nations drifted in and out of alliances and struggled with one another over the thrones of Europe. The 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries saw waves of revolution sweep through the nations. The power of the monarchs was stripped away as the region moved, in fits and starts, toward democracy. It was hardly a smooth transition however, as failed republics gave rise to authoritarian dictators and would-be emperors like Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler. The World Wars, fought over politics, nationalist identities, and imperial aspirations, were really more of the same for the region, just on a global scale.

Despite the regular upheavals in this historically war-torn region, it has made great contributions to the worlds of science and art. Gutenberg brought the printed word to the masses; Kepler, Planck, and Einstein each revolutionized our understanding of the world; and visionaries like Mozart, Beethoven, Rembrandt, Monet, and Van Gogh left their own indelible marks in the history of art.

Migrations into this region

The major migration into central Europe is arguably the Neolithic expansion of farmers who came from the Near East. From about 8,000 to 6,000 years ago these farmers filtered in through Turkey and brought with them wheat, cows and pigs. Their population growth was particularly dramatic in central Europe, likely three-fold faster than the earlier inhabitants. The rise of the Vikings was another incursion into Central Europe, though these invaders came from the north, (e.g. Denmark, Sweden). However, the Vikings appear to have been reluctant to settle in central Europe possibly due to already dense populations living there and mostly marauded coastal communities. One exception is the region of Normandy in France; the word for Normandy derives from the meaning “north-man”.

Migrations from this region

Although “Celtic” is often associated with the people of Ireland and Scotland, the Celts originated in central Europe more than 2,500 years ago. From an epicenter in Austria, the Celts spread through France, into Spain and Northern Italy. With their successful iron technology, the Celts even came to culturally dominate much of Britain and Ireland. Continental Celtic culture was eventually dismantled during the Roman Empire, but outposts of Celtic people and their languages remained in the British Isles.

 

About British Isles Ethnicity

Modern Day Location

England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales

Did You Know?

The English language, predominantly spoken in this region, is descended from German settlers.

About Your Region

You're from North-Western Europe, an area including the modern-day United Kingdom and Ireland. It is a group of islands separated from France and the rest of continental Europe by the narrow English Channel. It is the rolling, emerald-green hills of Ireland, the craggy, weathered peaks of Wales, the rich history of the city on the Thames, and the deep, mysterious lochs of Scotland.

This is where Shakespeare wrote his plays and poems. It's home to the legends of King Arthur and Robin Hood. It's produced some of the world's most adventurous explorers and greatest political and military figures—Sir Edmund Hillary, Winston Churchill, Admiral Horatio Nelson. Brilliant scientific minds such as Sir Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell laid the foundations of modern physics. And it's the place where a rainbow can lead to a pot of gold. Maybe.

The history of the region is one of periodic invasions and settlements by various groups including the Angles and Saxons from Germany, the Jutes from Denmark, the Vikings, the Normans from northern France and, of course, the Romans. English, a Germanic language brought by the Angles, is obviously the primary language spoken. But a few of the older languages spoken by the ancient Celts still exist—a rarity in post-Roman Europe.

The people of the region have been witness to sweeping political changes and amazing technological progress through the centuries, from the Glorious Revolution to the Industrial Revolution. But despite their penchant for reform and progress, they have always found a way to preserve the past. From royal families to prime ministers, ancient languages to international diversity, from thousand-year-old cathedrals to glass skyscrapers, their culture is a fascinating blend of old and new.

Migrations into this region

Despite being a cluster of islands separated from continental Europe, Great Britain and Ireland haven’t been insulated from outsiders. Although they weren’t the first, the Celts from central Europe spread throughout the Northwest Isles about 2500 years ago. Then, as with everywhere else, the Romans came. After the Romans withdrew from the area, tribes from northern Germany and Denmark (the Angles, Saxons and Jutes) came to conquer much of what is now England. About this same time, the mighty Vikings also left their imprint, particularly in southern Scotland, Ireland and western England.

Migrations from this region

Religious and political upheaval in 17th and 18th century England played a critical role in establishing and defining early American history. Called the Great Migration, religious dissidents including the Pilgrims, Quakers, and Puritans left England seeking religious freedom and a new way of life. Although the migration was not large in overall numbers, it laid the foundation for American culture, including the concepts of church-state separation and religious tolerance.

The Great Irish Famine, also called the Potato Famine, was triggered by an outbreak of potato blight, which destroyed potato crops across Europe in the mid 1800s. Already enduring widespread poverty and massive unemployment, Ireland was hit harder than any other nation by the disaster since potatoes were a dietary staple. Ireland lost nearly a quarter of its population. Those who could leave, fled mostly to England, Australia, Canada, and the United States, creating a world-wide Irish diaspora.

Thoughts on this in a late post.

Ancestry Road Trips

I'm lucky to live 10 miles from where I was raised. Nine miles from where William and Mariah homesteaded in the early days of Kansas. I don't take this honor lightly. I don't take the family history lightly.

Where I live is within 20 miles of where several family lines homesteaded.

While I don't forget the ones who didn't come here to homestead, it's harder to go to where they were from and explore that area.

Except, this week, I have a day off on Thursday. While Leroy, Kansas isn't much closer to where I'm at right this second, one day home is dangling a carrot in front of me and taking it back. When I go home I want to be able to stay home for a few days. So on Thursday I'll go the other direction to Leroy and Burlington, the county seat of Coffey county. My paternal grandmother came from Leroy. Her parents are buried close to her in Jewell County, but her paternal grandparents and a couple aunts and uncles are buried in Leroy.

Leroy is where she was born. Jewell County is where she died.

I want to see the town where my grandmother was born and raised. I want to see the graves of her grandparents. I want to see Leroy.

Sometimes ancestry road trips are day trips. Sometimes they take longer.

I'm making a list of what I want to find the short time I'm there. The list gets longer and longer.

The other day while I was visiting my uncle, I told him I was going to Leroy on my day off. He said maybe we could finally figure out how George met Addie. That's a very good question. George was from Leroy. Addie was from Burr Oak. It takes 4 hours and 37 minutes to make that trip today. George and Addie somehow met and married before 1901. Their mode of transportation wasn't as fast as ours today, nor were the roads the same as those we travel today.

How did George meet Addie? Good question. But they did meet and they married and they had two daughters. One of those daughters was my grandmother that I never met. I never met George either. I'm sure I saw Addie, but I was so young, I don't remember seeing her. It doesn't matter. They raised my grandmother. Not only that, George and Addie raised my father after his mother died.

It's time I went to see where George, Addie, Aunt Ruth and my grandmother, Thelma, lived part of their lives.

I'm ready for this road trip.

What familial grounds do you want to explore?

Ancestry.com DNA program

Ancestry.com has several DNA tests that people can get on a waiting list and take to discover their ethnicity.

All of that is great and wonderful.

We can also tie it into our family tree that is located at ancestry.com. At first I thought this was a fabulous thing.

Now? I suspect it will be somewhat of a wasted time attempting to contact total strangers to see if we share common ancestors.

Why would I think such a thing?

Pull up a chair. Because I know of one tree on ancestry.com where we share a common set of great, great grandparents. Yet, as I look at hints for other lines that we do NOT share, this same person has people that they aren't related to in their tree. Why? Shrugging. No clue. I have enough ancestors and ancillary relatives that I share common blood with that I don't have a need or desire to trapse up and down the branches of people I'm not related to.

There's another tree that has some of my line in it. I know for a fact that the creator of the tree and I are not related. Or if we are it's so far back that neither of us have found it. We are NOT related through the ancestors on that person's tree. Why are they on that tree? Not really sure, but I do know that this person's current spouse's late spouse was a sibling of my uncle's wife. (Yeah, it does get confusing.) I can see why my aunt and uncle are in the tree because of that connection. I can see why my grandparents are even listed. It's kind of a nice thing to do to list the parents of the non blood spouse. It lets those of us who are related to them know we have the correct family. Why it went past my grandparents is beyond me. But it's not my tree so it doesn't matter. Also, when I've sent corrections for misinformation pertaining to my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, great, great grandparents they've been fixed to show the correct information. I can live with them being on that tree.

However, if this person also decided to have a DNA test done and attaches it to that tree it will show we might be related because my parents, my grandparents, my great grandparents and my great, great grandparents are in that tree.

The truth is, the DNA test is not a magic bullet. I suspect some thought it would be that magical bullet that proved so and so was their ancestor. It was never designed to do that. Not at that price.

It's just a tool. Just as the trees on ancestry.com are tools. You can take some of the information of the DNA test at face value, which is more than you can do with the trees. Your ethnicity will be pretty accurate, even if you don't agree with it. As someone pointed out on one of the boards, you have two ways to view ethnicity, culturally, and genetically. The DNA shows you your genetic ethnic groups.

Culturally, I'm a fifth generation Kansas farm girl. I have a niece who is sixth generation Kansas farm girl. Her daughter is seventh generation Kansas farm girl. We know what a Corn Show is. But that's our culture, not our genetics.

Genetically, will be completely different. Probably some British Isle, probably some Scandinavian. No clue what else will be there. That's the fun of it. I know what culturally things were going back many generations on several lines. This will show me what it is genetically. Where did my ancestors ancestors come from.

Will it prove that you are related to me? Not this DNA test. Won't do it. Those ever important documents will do it. That's why the unsourced trees and the undocumented trees are still meaningless even if there's a good DNA match. Without sources and documents to back up the people in your tree, they are just names and if you can't be bothered to provide sources and documents, I probably won't spend a lot of time on your tree when it suggests there's a high DNA match. How do I know if these people are even your relatives? I can't and if you're not concerned about proving the people in your tree are related to you then I'm not going to spend my time proving your linage. I have enough ancestors willing to be found.

There is nothing that is concrete in proving anything in genealogy. We have to have many sources, many documents making cases.

The DNA testing is just another tool that might be helpful or not.

The click of the camera

My great uncle Glen Birdsell wrote a 12 page story about his life in 1983.

I still savor all the tidbits he wrote about his siblings (my grandfather was his oldest brother), his parents, his grandparents, all the relatives who have gone on. Some of them were gone long before my birth. Some of them I knew for only a brief time before they joined their ancestors. Some of them I knew for years, decades.

The one thing he said that has stuck with me: When I was small, life seemed to be unending and now it has just been like the click of the camera.

I remember the unending days of my childhood. While I hope the camera isn't ready to click on my life just yet, I've seen so many where the click of the camera has happened.

My mother's parents are gone. Her two siblings are gone. My mother is gone. We are the oldest generation left as the direct descendants of Denzil and Esther Shane Knight.

My father's parents are gone. His sister is gone. He is gone. He has one brother left who is very ill.

As children we can't wait until we can sit at the adult table at family gatherings.

What I had never considered once I got to the adult table was the day when my generation would be the oldest generation at the adult table.

That is not near as exciting as just reaching the age to sit at the adult table. 

The camera is clicking. It has clicked for everyone who was in the above picture. Plus so many who weren't even born yet when the picture displayed was taken. Sobering when you realize the picture is only 101 years old.

Don't put off seeing those in your family and extended family. You never know when...click.

Where does one start

Each person who comes to genealogy arrives here for their own reason.

Maybe they want to see if that family story about there being Indian in the family was true. Maybe they want to see how long one of their lines has been in America. Maybe they're only attempting to help one of their children with a school project. Maybe, like me, they only wanted to get the works of one of their ancestors preserved before time destroyed all those papers.

The reason is not important. The reason usually doesn't limit one on how far they go with tracing their family.

But where does one start?

In your own home. Who do you have the information about? Yourself.

When were you born? Where were you born? When and where were your married?

Who was/is your father? Who was/is your mother. When and where were they born? When and where were they married?

Do you have siblings? What are their names? When and where were they born? Are they married? If so, to whom? When and where was their spouse born? When and where were they married?

For each of these people, you'll eventually want to ask permission to see a copy of their birth certificate and marriage license. For any of the above people who may have passed on already, you'll want to see a copy of their death certificate. You'll want to note where they were buried or if they were cremated what became of the ashes. You don't have to state that you have the ashes, just something like "the ashes were given to family."

And once you complete one generation, you'll go back another generation. If you're only doing a direct line, meaning you, your parents, their parents, their parents, etc., etc., etc., you'll have fewer people to keep track of as you document their lives. The down side to this is it doesn't take long before you run out of people to ask about your ancestors. If you include their siblings and then follow those lines back down to the current living generations, you'll find people who actually knew your great uncle, the brother of your grandmother. The chances are they'll have different family stories than you grew up listening to. They'll have their own set of pictures. Sharing with your relatives who want to start their own collection is easy. Scan the image and everyone can have their own copy.

But as you go up the tree to the older generations, you'll need these other relatives to help you in the search. Each family had a family Bible. But only one child was able to have it passed on to them. So if great, great, great grandma and grandpa had seven children, six lines down to your generation don't realize that family Bible even exists. The family with the Bible probably don't have any idea what happened to your great, great grandmother who is listed in his family Bible. For all he knows she died without every marrying.

As you can see, where it starts is the easy part. Where it ends is up to you.

The important thing...start it. Don't talk about it, do it. And don't forget to document everything you state as fact. List the source for each fact. You'll thank yourself when your family tree of 20 people grows to 200 or 2000 or 20000.

Have fun.

I want to find...

Not all, but several people, who trace their families do so hoping to find someone great. Which relates to finding they descended from someone famous.

I'm not a direct descendant of this person, but he was somewhat well known in his day, and there's a lot of history on him in Illinois. Possibly even in Kentucky and Ohio. He married my direct descendants sister. I read his autobiography. Based on his autobiography, he is not one of the ones I'd want to meet. I'm sure he was a nice enough man. I'm sure he went through plenty of hardships and sorrow. The truth is, I found his writings to be on the pompous side.

So much for a semi famous ancestor.

If you want to find someone famous, go for it. Me? I have found so many who were great and I'll take those over the famous ones any day of the week.

Roscoe Birdsell. With the help of his in-laws raised his three motherless children.

Claude Slate. With the help of family raised his five motherless children.

Oscar Birdsell. With the help of his family, especially his sister, Tute, raised his four motherless children.

Mariah Birdsell. Opened her home to her son, his ailing wife and their four children for the rest of her life.

William Birdsell. A man who had a wife and six children and has the belief in himself that at the age of forty he had what it would take to move over 400 miles in a covered wagon and claim a homestead.

Marion Birdsell. A man who wanted land of his own for his family and loaded his wife and three kids in a covered wagon and moved from Kansas to Washington state to claim a homestead.

Alfred Ellis Birdsell. A man who wanted his own land and migrated from Kansas to Southern California to claim his homestead.

Martha Matilda Gaines Knight Trubey. A woman with four children and two step children and found a way to carry on raising them, even as she lost her two step children to death and one of her own daughters.

James Watt Braden. A man who lost is beloved wife and raised his motherless children by himself.

Emma Campbell Coffield who buried three children, two of them within six weeks of each other and still found the strength to help raise two of her grandchildren.

The list is endless. That's not counting the ones who sacrificed for this country. Or the ones who actually immigrated here with nothing more than a belief in a better life and a prayer.

None of these people are famous, but these are the fathers and mothers of this country. They are the brothers and sisters of this country. They are the ones who took chances for us.

Go ahead and search for your famous ancestors. I'm so very happy with my unknown, but great ancestors.

Something completely different today

A friend of mine has a book coming out tomorrow.

Go read her blog and wait with her for her book to come out. Then order your very own copy.

Our ancestors will wait for us to read a good book.

I can say, that I have read a lot of Carol's works that weren't published. I haven't read this one, but based on her writing style and experience, it will be work your time and the money.

Now don't stare at my screen. Go order her book.

Our Responsibility

As a genealogist we have many responsibilities. We MUST respect the wishes of our living relatives. If they don't want their information shared, then we can't share it. They have their right to privacy. We don't have to understand or like with their decision, but we do have to respect their decision.

Not only do we have to respect the information our living relatives give us and ask us not to share with the world, we have to respect our living relatives, period.

In genealogy we spend the majority of our time researching those who are long gone. We share that information with our living relatives. We do this for not only ourselves, but for our living relatives. After all, there is nothing a genealogist likes more than sharing with others. It's our biggest thrill. Too many times we find a document that we didn't think we'd ever find and we shout it out to anyone who will listen. Most of us have learned, a large percentage of our living relatives don't really want to listen.

Still, there is no reason to make public any skeletons that will hurt the living. In most cases it would hurt the innocent living.

One case, in at least one branch of the family a somewhat distant relative was never allowed to be alone with young girls. There was a reason for this. This relative is gone. However, this relative still has immediate family who are very much alive.

This case is a pretty easy one for the genealogist. There is no reason to document anything negative about this particular relative. I heard a first hand report from one person. There are no records, no charges were filed, no conviction. At this point and since most of the parties involved have passed on, it's hearsay and nothing more. There is no written record, or statement from anyone who claimed to have been assaulted by this person. Do I believe what was told to me? Yes. I do believe it. But I can't prove it, nor will I spend any time trying to prove it. Innocent people could be hurt.

I'm not a genealogist so I can hurt people.

Would my responsibility be different if there were actual records, statements or a conviction? Yes and no. The first question I would ask myself, would I hurt the living? If the answer is yes, then I would not go after those documents. Especially if some of the living that I'd hurt were victims, too.

If there were a conviction, the truth is, those records are public records. They just aren't public records I'd opt to find myself. Not if it hurt any living relative. If they were sent to me, they'd go in the large file of information that I haven't had time to sort yet. My guess is they'd remain there until my successor found them.

The next question that comes to mind: What if someone hired me to research their family and I found something like that in their family? Then I have to present all that I find to the person who did the hiring. It's not up to me to determine what they use regarding their family. It is up to me to present them with the information they hired me to find.

Genealogy is about facts, but it's about facts pertaining to our families. All of us are members of our families first. We have a responsibility to our family. Does this mean I hide facts. Some will say yes. Some will agree with me, what I'm doing is selecting some items that won't come out of my "to do" pile during my lifetime.

Another example, I have a copy of a marriage record of an ancestor. This marriage record is about 175 years old. No one involved is living. No one who knew any of those directly involved are living. Yet the copy of the marriage record is just there. If it's the same person of my ancestor there's a good chance that this ancestor was a bigamist. The reality is: with what's available today, there is no way for me to prove this person is my ancestor, nor is there any way for me to prove this person is not my ancestor. There were many people in that area of the country and that time frame with the same first and surname as my ancestor. Perhaps not in that county, but in that state. It's not worth my time to prove or disprove if this ancestor was a bigamist. The record is in my pile of records. I haven't hidden it. I haven't destroyed it. I'm just not going to work on proving or disproving this record since what's available would make it impossible to prove or disprove.

For those of you who don't do genealogy, right now that marriage record is nothing more than a piece of paper. By itself, it proves nothing, other than a man by one name married a woman by one name on a specific date at a specific location. Since one of the parties had a fairly common name, that piece of paper does not prove it's my ancestor, nor does it disprove it's my ancestor. Until it's been proven or disproved that paper has no business being shared as a family document.

My responsibility to my whole family, not just one or two branches, is to spend my time gathering information on as many people as possible. Spending years trying to dig up scandals or disproving a possible scandal on a handful of ancestors is not the best use of my time. If any of the various family members want only the scandals or only the squeaky clean parts of the family, they can do their own genealogy research.

My goal is to get the most facts on as many people as possible, while making sure I treat not only those who have passed on with respect, but also those who are still living.

Do you agree or disagree that I'm doing things wrong by not making public all the information I have? Or do living relatives have the right to ask for privacy concerning themselves and any unpleasant information they've shared with me?

My mother the...

My mother was many things. Today we're going to focus on my mother the genealogist since this is what the posts have been about for the last several months.

She taught me a lot about life. I didn't realize it, but she taught me a lot about genealogy.

Ask anyone who knew my mother, she was a great friend, but make no mistake about it, she was a formable enemy. But today is not about how she treated those who did her family wrong. Today is about how she treated the ancestors and others searching for their ancestors.

Mom believed in proof when it came to genealogy. She wasn't a certified genealogist, but she was a professional genealogist. She did work for others for pay. She published one family book, several local indexes, and had stories published in some local genealogical/historical books.

She walked, if not every cemetery, most of the cemeteries in at least three counties gathering information on those buried there. She sorted through marriage licenses on the local level in several counties so they could be indexed. She read through old newspapers and made a list of who was mentioned in each issue.

She devoted a lot of time, energy and money to obtain information for her family, my family and creating indexes so others would have an easier time finding information on their family.

My mother was very, very giving to those she knew and those she didn't know.

However, she learned a very valuable lesson. She published a story about my great, great grandfather and mother in a local historical collection. She stated as fact who his father was. She later learned she was wrong. That Reuben was not William's father. She spent the rest of her life providing information that proved she'd been wrong. To this day, there are still many who refuse to believe her new information. What information did she have to make that claim. Actually, none. What information did she locate? Marriage records, various censuses with a male child of my great, great grandfathers age during that time in the household of the married family.

She died knowing some were more willing to believe the undocumented information than accept the documented information. Why? I don't know.

But the fact is, forty years after the inaccurate published story, it still haunts our family. Eighteen years after the death of my mother there are those who refuse to believe her documents and rely only on her earlier unsourced, undocumented statement. It bothered her to the end. The fact that she published wrong information. The fact that no matter how much proof she shared with others that she had been wrong, they refused to budge.

It bothers me.

My mother was a professional genealogist. My mother was a giving genealogist. My mother learned a very hard lesson very early in her genealogy hobby and later genealogy profession, do NOT release unproven information.

So, if there is something that I'm not willing to share right now. A theory that I can't prove, please don't think I'm selfish or stuck up or whatever the other words that aren't fit for typing just because I'm working on something that I can't prove and won't share it until I can prove it.

My mother taught me a lot about genealogy, even though I didn't realize I was a willing student at the time she was talking to me about it.

When it comes to genealogy and a lot of things, I am my mother's daughter.

Accept my decision to adhere to not only my mother's lessons learned, but also my decision to adhere to the code set out by the Board for Certification for Genealogists. I am my mother's daughter.

Private trees on Ancestry.com

Why are some of the trees private? Why bother putting them online if others can't see them?

Those are only a couple of questions being asked recently about private trees.

I have a private tree. In fact, if you search, you not only won't find it, you won't find any documents that I've uploaded to it. I think it's horrible when someone uploads something to a private tree, allows others to know they have a picture or document and then won't share any of the information.

Honestly, if you're going to do that, make it so nothing in the tree shows up on the searches. It's very easy to do.

Why do I have a private tree? Why even bother to put it online?

Simple. When I started I bought Mac Family Tree as my genealogy program. I can't attach documents or photos to people in Mac Family Tree from Ancestry.com. I've tried. I even downloaded the GEDCOM file and none of the attached information would upload to Mac Family Tree.

So, I made the tree private and did my research there. Since then I've switched to Family Tree Maker, which is supported by Ancestry.com, but my FTM is for a Mac and not all things are equal in how it works with a Mac and how it works with a Windows based machine.

It's easier to do the research at Ancestry.com and attach things to the people in the tree, than to do it through FTM.

Because I'm picky and I want to make sure things are right, my tree is private until I have everything verified. To me, and I know this is just me, making my tree public at this time is equivalent to your favorite author letting you see the first draft of their current work in progress. Trust me on this, if you have never read a first draft, there is a reason why they are typically called shitty first drafts. You would be appalled to see the drivel that is included in a first draft.

It's who I am. I don't want it public until it's right. Or verified with everything that's possible to find at this time. This is genealogy, and what we prove today can be unproven tomorrow. But everyone can see the steps reached to come to the conclusion. Honestly, if you can't follow in my tracks, I have not done my job. There are still plenty of ancestors in my tree where the trail is pretty skimpy and you won't be able to follow in my tracks.

My day job is in the medical field. I have been trained, and rightfully so, to not release information to other care givers until I know that the information is correct. It does not always make me popular. However, it has saved the lives of patients. I can't nor will I turn that training off when it comes to genealogy.

I realize the majority of people in my tree are long gone. They still deserve the respect that we give the living. They deserve to be put with the correct parents and siblings. They deserve to be married to their spouse, not some other person who married someone with the same name. They deserve their own children to be listed as their children, not some unknown children that belongs to that wrong spouse.

I'm sorry, but before my tree is public, I have to make sure the claims in it will hold up not only to my verification, but to yours, too. I want you to have your questions answered pertaining to how I came to that conclusion by reviewing the documents I've attached to each person.

Even being that picky, I know there will be mistakes. But I want them to be as few as possible.

With that said, if I use something from your public tree, I will contact you. I will also give you the chance to view my private tree. Even if I don't use anything from your tree, if I see we are working on the same family, I will contact you and there's a very good chance that I will invite you to view my tree.

I know there are others out there with family trees who keep them private for other reasons. Some don't want to share. Some think they're special if they know something that no one else knows. Some want you and the world to know they have information that you have to beg to see.

Shrugging. Chances are they are the type of person I wouldn't care to know in real life either. I can bypass them on the internet, even knowing there's a very good chance that we're related. I've found plenty of awesome relatives without having to endure the ones who are sloppy, lazy, liars, sneaky and forgot their scruples and that people, living and deceased, should be shown dignity and respect.

Not all of us who have private trees are like those people, just as not all who have public trees copy and paste everything they see, no matter how wild.

I don't understand why

I joined the Ohio Genealogical Society this past week. Since so many of my ancestors migrated there before moving on, I felt it was a worthwhile thing to do.

One of the areas I can view now is the list of cemeteries in the various counties. They don't have the names of those buried there, but at least there's a list of the names of the cemeteries by county, or the ones they are aware of. When we consider there have been ancestors in Ohio in the 1700s that's a lot of burials and many of them, especially the earlier ones, weren't done in what we call proper cemeteries today.

However, it saddens me when I see the list of cemeteries and the ones where not only are all the monuments gone, some from natural wearing and some through destruction, but where they believe all the remains have been destroyed, too.

Why? Why would someone do that? I don't get it.

Everyone of us will become remains at some point. Every last one of us. What type of person has such disregard for the remains of those who have passed on.

I'm not talking about someone who now owns land along the Sante Fe Trail and digs up an unmarked grave. I'm talking about people who go into known cemeteries and destroys not only the markers, but the remains of our ancestors.

How can you be so disrespectful?

Not all of the destruction is done out of malice. Some of it is done for profit. Someone buys some land where there's a family cemetery and they bulldoze the markers and everything else so they can plant it to crops. Really? You can't let those ten or twenty people rest in peace? That small amount of space will not make a difference in your survival. But it makes all the difference in how you'll be viewed by others and how your own family will view the sanctity of your own remains.

Basically, our respect or lack of respect for those that are now gone reflect the same respect we show for those who are with us now. Not only do we need to treat their remains with respect, but the lives they lived. You don't want to make up stories about their lives any more than you'd want to dig up their remains and scatter them about.

I don't think I'll ever live long enough to understand the thought process of someone who will willingly go into a cemetery and destroy the markers and the remains though.

Bucket List

The Bucket List was a great movie and all across the country people created their own bucket list after either watching the movie or hearing about it.

Genealogist typically have our genealogical bucket list. I know I do.

Not necessarily in order of importance:

1) Go to Washington and Morgan County Ohio where several branches of my family migrated to.

2) Find and visit the grave of Martin Birdsell.

3) Trace all lines back to the immigrant ancestor.

4) Become a certified genealogist.

5) Publish articles in the top magazines.

6) Publish books on several family lines.

7) Visit the area where Marion Birdsell homesteaded.

8) Leave well researched and documented material for the next genealogist in the family to stumble across so they can pick up where I left off.

What's on your bucket list?

The video

I don't know how to continue from here.

I was going to post a link to the video, but after thinking about it, I just can't do that. I don't have it in me to supply my audience, small as it may be, with pictures and a name of a genealogist who willingly or not is being discussed in some genealogical circles. I wish I could say that everyone was impressed. Well, we are, but not in a positive way.

However, I don't know how much of what the news station decided to show is actually how this man believes. How much editing was done? I don't know. Giving this man the benefit of the doubt, I hope that it was the studio who makes this man's research look non existant and not the man himself who doesn't know what is proof in genealogical circles and what is wishful thinking.

I hope he knows the difference, because he's been doing genealogy for 30 years. Not as a professional, but even as a non professional, there are standards one should pick up along the way.

Such as undocumented maybes can't be presented as true statements. There are exceptions, but it would take a very long post to explain those exceptions. The short version, you may not have a document stating that Henry Jones is the son of David Jones. However, you do have someone of Henry Jones' age living in the household of David Jones for the first twenty years of Henry's life. Then you have David deeding Henry 100 acres. All the documents show a very close family tie between David and Henry. Upon David's death his will states that his first born son already has his share, so the rest is divided among his remaining children, who are listed. Henry is never listed as a son, but his age is that of the first born son. Also, Henry is listed as the executor of the estate. There is no known document that states Henry as David's son, but there is so much supporting documentation that shows Henry is treated like a first son during that period of history that you can safely state the Henry is the eldest son of David Jones.

When you make comments that you clicked on a hint on ancestry.com and saw that you're direct descendant of Charles the Great, Cleopatra, etc., etc., etc., it gets a lot of rolling eyeballs from those of us who spend a ton of time on ancestry.com and know how unreliable those hints really are. Yeah, some are spot on. A lot of them are dead wrong. Like the one that suggests an aunt of mine went on a little trip to England in between giving birth to her second and third child. Someone by the same name went to England. I haven't asked my cousins if their mother took a little trip to England. Maybe I will one of these days, but if she did it will shock me.

I've had some of those hints show a woman by one name marry in 1857, a woman with a name close to that name goes on a voyage in 1862, and yet another woman by a name very close to the name of the other two is living in New York City, single and I've seen people attach all the records to the married woman. Well, the woman getting married in 1857 is twenty something, the single woman, three years later, is 16 and who knows how old the woman on the voyage is? Doesn't matter they attach it because the names are almost alike.

Going back to the man in the video. He states on the video, which is run on a local news program, that the stuff on ancestry.com is reliable. The documents, more than likely. The hints, NO. The trees, HELL NO. Most of the trees are put up during the persons two week free membership and then abandoned when it comes time to pay up. They're left there for others to copy and spread the sloppy work.

There was a comment the reporter stated that gives me hope for this genealogist. She did state that he gets records from various places. Some of those places are not places where the Internet genealogist would go to find them because it requires getting off your butt and sorting through dusty documents in person.

I do believe the station made him look stupid with their editing. They don't know anything about genealogy, so they don't know that cutting this and that will make their "feature" genealogist look stupid and like a hack.

So out of all those involved in the production of the video, I can see where the gentleman is presented in a way that those of us who do this, too, will roll our eyes. I can see where the editor in the studio won't know that cutting the the five minutes of conversation after he clicked on the ancestry.com hint that suggests he's a direct descendant of Charles the Great and going straight to the part where he says it's undocumented won't mean much to him, but will make this man look like a laughing stock in genealogy circles.

My biggest concern lies with ancestry.com. The link was posted on their facebook page by ancestry.com. No disclaimer about how important research is, or how important documentation is to creating accurate family trees. It was more or less, gee isn't this great, this guy found his 35X great grandfather who happens to be Charles the Great.

Come on Ancestry.com, you are supposed to be the professionals. I know you have several professional genealogists on your staff. I know this is NOT how they do their work. I know this is NOT how they present how to conduct research.

Don't you know that a lot of us who follow you on facebook take our work seriously? Don't you know that we get frustrated with the ever so popular sloppy, undocumented trees? Don't you know that your professional genealogist who give workshops also bemoan those trees?

Don't you think posting this video with an atta boy is a little irresponsible on your part? I do.