Stupid Idaho

Here I am, ripping on the Potato State again (it has a problem with trans people, and I have a big problem with that). $109 for a damn death certificate! And I'm not even allowed to request the damn thing because my relationship to the deceased isn't on the approved list! Could this stupid state suck more??

::::series of deep breaths::::

In other news... I'm getting ready to join a new heritage organization, which is why I'm hoping to procure all the birth, marriage, and death certs I can get hold of. 

I'm already a member of NSDAR through Alice, but would like to add to my list of patriot ancestors, which will require documentation, starting with mine. Of course there are distant cousins who joined, but as far as I know, none of my direct line female ancestors joined, so I can't use their applications like I used Alice's. It's all a big question mark because I have very little knowledge of my patriot ancestors. 

At any rate, I contacted my local chapter of NSDAR online and expressed my interest in reinstating my membership, and heard back from them about paying a reinstatement fee along with my yearly dues, in September. These groups take summer breaks, so I plan to start attending meetings this fall, if they fit within my schedule.

The Daughters of the Pioneers of Washington and I have been emailing back and forth; they're going to send me an application. My Dysarts and Tinsleys moved to the Washington territory before statehood, which makes me eligible to join.  Fortunately these vital records will be mostly available on Ancestry.

Aside from Adina's mother Lena, who emigrated from Germany in the 1870s, my family has been here in America for quite a long time, some since the early 1600s. If I could document my relationships more completely, there are many genealogy groups I could be part of. It's been fun to look through the list and see which ones I qualify for; some of them are so exclusive that members can only join by invitation. Sounds pretty snooty, and I'm not at all interested in the social aspect - but HOW COOL would it be to find out that an ancestor was a member of the House of Burgesses, or Order of the First Families of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, 1636-1647, or some such thing.

Finding the documentation and applying to join the groups and becoming a member of the ones I'm qualified for feels like a fun, rest-of-my-life quest. Puzzles are fun.

Genealogy Library - Day 3

Will someone please invent a time machine so I can go back to 1860 and find out if Florence and Frances are the same person??? Or slap the census taker who wrote down her name as FLARNCE? Dude. 

FLARNCE (must always be capitalized) is frankly an awesome name, and while I'm still at the genealogy library and haven't had the chance to try it yet, I imagine it must be a fun name to yell (Kid #2 also pointed this out). Watch out, future pets, one of you will be definitely named FLARNCE - not that you can read this warning.

In other news, I'm reading the obituary of my aunt/cousin Dicie (none of that is a typo) and having a heck of a time figuring out her surviving people. For one thing, one of her half-sisters, a Mrs. Jim Sherfey, is not among my people, and now we get to play "process of elimination" to see which of her sisters Jim Sherfey was married to. (Hopefully it was FLARNCE.) 

Secondly, it's possible that Dicie's "grand nephew" Frank is actually her unmarried daughter Bertie's son - according to Frank, Bertie indeed was his mother. But is this true? 

There was a cute story about how Dicie had been raising Frank since he was brought to live with her from the age of two years old. Bertie was 41 when he was born, so it's possible that she was Frank's mom. I hate to possibly besmirch anyone's name by accusing anyone of giving birth out of wedlock or creating sweet fiction for an old lady's obituary, but in reality, we know people did stuff like this, especially back in ... forever. 

On the other hand, and tossing the whole thing into a tornado, is the fact that Dicie's father had five wives and a total of ten children - only the first four wives had children. Even before Dicie's obituary came on the scene, her family of origin was a fun mystery/nightmare to unravel, and now we get into the big question of whose kid Frank is. 

Frank may very well be Dicie's great nephew, considering she had nine half-siblings and it's possible one of them let her, or needed her help to, raise Frank. He was ten when she died in 1933. I have his obituary, Social Security application, World War II draft application... he's extremely well documented but heck if we'll ever know who his parents are. I wonder if anyone in his family has taken a DNA test. Who knows. 

One thing I do know is that yacht rock is the perfect accompaniment for genealogical research - one must avoid being caught grooving too hard by the staff, though. THAT'S HOW MUCH I FEEEEEEEEEL.... 

LATER: I just found Dicie's missing sibling, Mrs. Jim Sherfey! HOLY HECK I have never heard of this sister. COOL. Dicie's dad now has eleven children and I'm geeking out big time. Her name was Jerusha Keen, and YA MO BE THERE

P.S. I went ahead and merged Florence and Frances. Their missing census records synced up perfectly, just like THAT FROZEN CONCOCTION THAT HELPS ME HANG ON

Genealogy Library - Day 2

Well hello again from Salt Lake City. 

Today I find myself in the classic genealogical version of "fish or cut bait?". Do I spend time cleaning up my family tree, something I can do at home, or do I research the snot out of my brick walls? Research seems like an obvious choice, especially right now while I'm surrounded by books and films and fiche, but the idea of being thorough and perfect is SO tempting! The MyTreeTags on Ancestry are just way too much fun. 

I haven't mentioned this yet (I don't think) but last month, I counted up my couples - great grandparents, 2nd greats and 3rd greats - divided them by 365, and assigned them a yearly spot on the calendar. Each couple has six days when I'll be focusing on just their family. My greats are mostly finished - sometimes I find a new surprise; my 2nds are in varying stages of done but a few stragglers still need help, and with the 3rds - things will get especially exciting around June 18, when they will start their time under the microscope. 

I needed some way to decide whom to work on, when. Otherwise I could lose my mind. Some families' facts have been well documented for a long time, and other families are still hidden under a rock. It's so easy to get caught up in the voluminous information for the established families and let the lesser-known folks wither on the vine.

This week belongs to Elijah Keen and Rebecca Morgan of Tennessee. Eli was a Union soldier in the Civil War, which I think is pretty remarkable, since Tennessee was the last state to secede from the United States. I can't even imagine the stress those folks were under as they had to decide which faction to join. Not all of my ancestors during that era chose the better cause, but Eli did and I'm proud of him. It couldn't have been easy. 

Okay, back to it. 

LATER: Just found another enslaver ancestor.....yuck. 

Here at the Genealogy Library *

Having a killer time so far. I'm working on Brown County, Ohio, finding where folks are buried - lots of flipping through books. I wanted to leave a few notes to myself to remember for next time, which may be tomorrow, or the day after, or months in advance. We just never know.

- Little post-it flags would be cool to have for marking pages I want to copy.

- Do we need a little rolling suitcase for future genealogical excursions? I think yes. I brought the laptop, cord, and mouse in my regular backpack and that's fine, but it would be cool to designate a separate space for the laptop and the files and writing utensils and notebooks I'd like to bring. And snacks. 

I have a little square rolling dude at home that I think I'll try when we get back. Pretty soon, with all my bags on trips, I'm gonna look like Old Rose from the Titanic ("Doesn't exactly travel light, does she?").

- Have a list of usernames and passwords ready for everything I have to log into.  

* yes I realize this is no longer its name - I refuse to get with the times, hence this hobby

Mr. and Mrs. Keen