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

Kansas, Is There A Problem?

Alice and Kathryn, I'm on the trail. Too bad I can't just fly to Pratt right now.

This all started with a list of birth/death days for my deceased grandparents, aunts, and uncles, kind of an "honor our ancestors on their special days" project, which became a topic of interest for my oldest son and me as we noticed that family members' deaths sometimes happen around the same time. Siblings, parents and children, or sometimes a grandparent, parent, and child, will die years apart, but in the same month, same week, or one day apart. It's weird.

To make my list, I worked my way up the family tree and eventually, my Smiths in Kentucky entered the picture. I found that I had no death date for auntie Alice Smith Anderson - just a death year (unacceptable!). Having conducted some half-assed research in the past, I still had no clue what happened to her daughter, 1C3R Catherine/Katherine/Kathryn Anderson Thomas. I did find them tonight in the same cemetery in Pratt, Kansas, along with a death year for Kathryn, which is more than I previously knew.

Kansas seems to be quite tight-lipped about who did what in their state, so on Monday I will call the cemetery to see if they can tell me anything about these ladies. If I have any luck, I'll be able to order Alice and Kathryn's death certificates from VitalChek, maybe, since I'm just a lowly niece and possibly unworthy. Hopefully, since Kathryn died almost a hundred years ago and Alice about fifteen years later, Kansas will take pity on me and cough up their death records.

Why is Kansas being so weird about their dead? Hmmm.

Happily, I will add that this is the kind of project that puts me in INTENSE RESEARCH mode. I'm still learning to add more details in my information for Future Me to see, such as adding the names of cemeteries to my loved ones' burial info - like, why would I not do that in the first place? - or add the entire date to census records (looking on the record for the day and month, not just the year). This is just another project that creates these deep research opportunities, along with the chance to do some of this detailing. I love that my brain works like this. 

There Was An Opportunity

 ... to visit the Family History Library (except it's now the FamilySearch Library) in Salt Lake City today, so of course I milked it. 

After creating a list of my direct line ancestors, mostly to determine whom I had parents for and who needed more work, I observed that my most problematic "problem child" is Mr. Alexander Keethler of Brown County, Ohio. I'm sure he's lovely, except that he has proven to be quite elusive.

While Hubby decided to rove SLC and amuse himself with his camera, I went upstairs to the third floor and found the books, and had some luck with a book of "walked" cemeteries in Brown County. While Alex continued to elude me, I did find his son's wife's mother, Caroline, buried with her parents and sister there. (I know where Alexander died, but have no record of his burial yet.)

A fun time was had and I can't wait until I can go again. 

The Portable, Durable Family Tree

Warning: Swear words

Since things have been so - what's the word? - frightening lately, I've been thinking about the possibility of having to evacuate my home, perhaps in a hurry, to escape whatever foreign or domestic shitbags may be invading or whatnot. 

Being prepared to leave is always a concern, although we're usually thinking of natural disasters causing such a situation, but with the current guy in charge, our chances of some dumb political thing happening within our borders just went way, way up. 

Along those lines, lots of "what ifs" are popping into mind - what if, after the shit hits the fan, I can't get to Ancestry, or we don't have electricity, or while fleeing the area, I forget to bring the laptop? How will I access my family tree? Maybe at that point, we won't really be worrying about such things, but my family history research is important to me, and I will want to have a copy with me. 

Paper copies will become necessary at that point, but bringing a whole stack of notebooks isn't realistic, so I've decided to do something a little different. It's probably nothing that hasn't been thought of before, but it seems like a workable solution for the above problem. 

At my workplace, I bought a stack of hole-punched white 3x5 cards with dividers, loaded onto a metal ring. On each card, I wrote the name of my direct ancestors with a number (1 for Dad or Mom, 2 for Dad or Mom's father, 3 for Dad or Mom's mother), along with their birth and death info, and burial place. 

So here's how a card looks:

1. DAD'S NAME

Father: 2. Dad's Father's Name

Mother: 3. Dad's Mother's Name

Born:

Died:

Burial:

The numbering system is nice because it just doubles. Any father will be double the number of his child, and any mother will be double +1. 

I'm thinking of also adding spouses, children, uncles (on blue cards), aunts (on pink), first cousins, records/sources for each fact, more possibly. 

At any rate, I'm feeling good about this much more portable system of analog family history records. 

Life Sketches

 This is a new project I've embarked upon, hoping to make sure I have all the same information (levels, amounts, quantities, qualities) for each of my ancestors. As one does, I started with myself. Trying to decide on which details to include has been challenging, yet fun. 

As a result of taking this on, new and more accurate information has been discovered: My 2nd-great grandmother Lucinda, wife of Jason Newberry, now has a last name, and parents, and a new family branch for me to explore; my 2nd-great grandmother Elizabeth Ann Zane Fox's death year has been corrected (how on earth was I a WHOLE YEAR off??). 

As the years have passed, more records have been added to the various repositories, which has allowed me to see their actual death certificates, as opposed to viewing only the transposed information. 

It's an ongoing process, isn't it? I'm so grateful that there just doesn't seem to be an end to genealogy projects. 

Checking In With The Folks

While at a genealogy meeting this summer, I met a woman wearing a T-shirt on which a map of the United States was printed. She had added little stars to indicate where her ancestors were from. I want that.

Here's where my stars would be: 

Vancouver, WA

Walla Walla, WA

Gillette, WY

Hysham, MT

College Place, WA

Elkton, KY

Sundance, WY

Fergus County, MT

Thedford, NE

Arlington, OR

Bridgewater, MN

Fall Branch, TN

Norfolk, NE

... and a few others. 

Booo

That's all I have to say. I'm dealing with some frustrating Findagrave stuff. Hopefully it will be fixed soon and I can get my family members' memorials back!