Blankies, Free Time, Whiskey and Find My Past

Image courtesy of iosphere at 

FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Now that I got your attention, it’s been one of those weeks around here.  Many of you know that I have an ongoing illness and last week was a bad.  Most days found me curled on the couch with my pillow, fuzzy blankie and a mindless movie.  On the days where my head was clear enough I did work on deadlines and do a bit of research.

Which brings us to Friday.  The first day in 5 that I was feeling good.  I took my laptop out on the back porch, sat with some tea and cruised the Find My Past website.

It hit me earlier that week that I had not done any personal family history research in months.  MONTHS!  I have been writing, lecturing and doing client work but really have not had any time to do anything on my or my husband’s trees.  Well, now that I was feeling better that was going to change.  I gave myself the weekend to play and have fun.

In the past I have found some really great items there for my husband’s family in Somerset.  Plus I discovered some great newspaper articles for my father’s family from his hometown.  This time, however, I was going to try a new feature.  Well a new to me feature, their family tree feature.

You can upload a tree or start from fresh and using their new hints (it is still in Beta) feature it will

show you matches from their documents and databases.  Yeah, I know, they and every other company have this ability.  I do try them all though hoping that one day I will find one that I love.  So, seeing as this is new, with a Beta version of some features, I was up for trying a new one and seeing where it could lead me.  What’s the worst that could happen? It should be fun!  Right?!

Yes, I did upload a tree.  Yes, I have a lazy streak in me.  Well, honestly I wanted to see how easy it would be.  I have the worst luck with uploading files.  I was pleasantly pleased that it went without a hitch and I had literally hundreds of viable hints with a few minutes.  So many hints, to real DOCUMENTS, that I deleted my tree.  Don’t freak on me.  It was just a tree.

Well, I thought to myself, if I can get that many so quickly why don’t I start with myself and then start building out like, well, you are supposed to do.  I wanted to see where these documents lead me.  That thought then lead me to the decision where I sat down on Saturday and just went for it.  It wasn’t until I entered our parents in the tree that I started to get any hints.  It surprised me, really, but made me a little happy that no hints popped up for the hubs or me.  Within 30 minutes I was 4 generations back on my father’s line with census, marriage, birth and death records.  Yeah, I couldn’t believe how fast it was going.

Then the whiskey came out.  Yes, genealogy research really is heightened by a good glass of whiskey.  Okay, it also helped with the cough and aches.

I only have a couple critiques.  I prefer a sideways pedigree chart and only a top to bottom pedigree chart when I am looking at a specific family.  Unfortunately the top down pedigree chart seems to be the default setting in the family tree page. I had to keep clicking back over to the “pedigree view” from the “family view” each time I finished looking at a document.

Also, the house icon with my family tree title does not take you to the home person for the tree like I thought it would.  From the hints page (or the person you are looking at page) it take you back to the family view for that person.  You have to re-navigate back down to the home person. 

While it shouldn’t be a big deal, it was annoying.  These things are still being worked through obviously so hopefully they will come along in future versions.  Unless I am completely missing the boat then hopefully someone will point this out to me!

So yeah, a productive weekend to say the least.  With summer just starting and the kids getting out of school I think we will have some fun genealogy lessons using Find My Past.  It should keep them busy for the next 10 weeks…right?

Two books to read and no time to do it!

I am still processing, reading, and organizing all the information that I gathered in Indiana last month. It is going to be a while before I can do any posts with significant information in them about what I discovered.  However, there were a couple things I found and I wanted to highlight them, mostly because they are so awesome.

While in Vincennes at the McGrady Brockman House I found and replicated the typed notes of my 2^nd great aunt Eliza Jane Combs Emmons Kinman.  On the front cover was a very nice memorial to the woman who put it together.  Since she is still living, and it gives her lineage I do not feel comfortable placing it here on line.  The compiler, Jean, is of my father’s generation and is the granddaughter of Eliza’s next oldest brother George Washington Combs.

This book is the typed record of all her research notes and diaries.  Jean does not state how she came to possess this information or where the originals were located at the time of transcription.  I would give anything to see the originals as I am already finding transcription mistakes like reversing of numbers when typed or hitting the 9 and not the 8 in the years.  You know, people weren't born 100 years after they died type of things.

Spanning the years 1966 to 1980 these not only gave me the opportunity to read along with how and when she made discoveries but also what was going on in the community and her family.  It was a little shocking at times to run across names of members of my family, but I knew that was to be expected.  After all, she was my great grandfather’s baby sister.  To keep all the information organized and flowing I purchased a notebook that I placed inside the three ring binder the photocopies are in.  I write facts, addresses (there are tons of correspondence notes), draw trees, and make comments about what I want to do to prove if the statement was true or not.

On a separate trip to the Carnegie Public Library in Washington, Indiana I made the amazing discovery of a family book that took one of my female brick wall lines back another four generations.  My 2^nd great grandmother was Rose Ann Brothers.  From records I have found I knew her parents were Jerome Brothers and Elizabeth Minerva Cissell.  That is all I knew.  I didn’t even know very much about her parents, it was a big wall.

Sitting on the shelf in the complied family history section of the genealogy library I discovered a binder about Cornelius Brothers and his descendants. I am sure you can imagine my excitement, and my father’s amused grinning, as I squealed and clapped my hands together.  It was an amazing, well researched, footnoted, and cited collection of information on this family. Of course at this rate my colonial Maryland ancestors are quickly outnumbering all the other colonial ancestors I have.

I have only skimmed it and it is next on the list of things to read after Eliza’s notes.  Fingers crossed I get to it by next spring since until then I am swamped with the BU course.  However, I did glean the following things:

•  Jerome Brothers was the son of Samuel S. Brothers and Catherine Gates.  Samuel was born about 1797 in Kentucky and Catherine about 1793 in Maryland.  They had 8 children from 1816-1834 and died in Indiana. 
• Samuel was the son of Jeremiah Brothers and Elizabeth Henry (widow of Basil Booth). Jeremiah was born in St. Mary’s County, Maryland in the 1770s.  They only had one child, Samuel Brothers.
• Jeremiah was the son of Cornelius Brothers and Elizabeth Thompson.  He is the earliest known ancestor for this line according to this report and was born in St. Mary’s County, Maryland in the 1740s.  They had seven children and died in Washington County, Kentucky.

As you can see, these two tomes of knowledge will have me busy for a long while.  It is going to be so much fun!

FGS, Indiana, and my trip so far

Well, we made it!  Sorry that I have not posted since last week, but I had family needs arise that caused me not to be able to write like I wanted to.  Not a problem, let’s play catch up now shall we?

After much discussion we left last Friday night. Why drive it all in one day (Virginia to Indiana) if you don’t have to.  Left home on Friday evening and drove to the half-way point, Charleston, West Virginia.  That made a much nicer drive as we arrived into my hometown just after lunch time on Saturday.   The next 4 days where a whirl wind of family visits, library hops, and history opportunities for me and my kids. 

Sunday I actually drug the whole family around Martin County visiting 5 different cemeteries. It should have been 7, but I was nice and didn’t make them backtrack to the 2 we accidently skipped.  The boys thought this was fascinating.  We found ancestors that were Revolutionary war Soldiers, War of 1812 Soldiers, and Civil War Soldiers.  I showed the boy the “howling cat” tomb, which, incidentally, is a lot smaller than I remember it!  Seeing these markers for myself was a moving experience.  Yes, I had seen them in other people’s pictures and on find-a-grave, but there is nothing, NOTHING, like seeing these stones for yourself.

Monday was Daviess County day.  The morning was spent driving though Oak Grove Cemetery looking for my father’s ancestors.  We didn’t make it to the second cemetery, St. John’s, as we spent 4 hours at the first one.  Amazingly the caretaker was there mowing.  He rode over after he saw us wandering around (we knew where some of the markers are) and asked if he could help.  After talking to us for a few minutes he went and retrieved the “dead books” from his home.  One was the index, by last name, of every stone in the cemetery which appears to be updated every 10 years.  The other was the burial registry of all internments after 1955.  He wouldn’t let me take images of these pages (I asked…3 times) but I did get to see my grandparents’ entries and several aunts, uncles, and cousins entries. 

GRC Memorial
Vincennes, IN

After the hot and humid walk through the graveyard my dad, my boys, and I went to the local library.  This is where I made a couple great finds.  First off, lots of local indexes, records, and resources for multiple counties that I needed.  Most amazing of all was a typed up family history of the Brothers family, which was done by a local resident.  It looks amazing because, you know, it contains citations and footnotes!  I have not made it through the 150 page document, yet, but it looks like it gives me good sources and leads for 4 generations I didn’t know about!  This helps with my mother’s line, and made the family dinner with her cousins that night very interesting.

Tuesday was Knox County day, and the only thing I wanted to get on my whole trip, the Eliza Jane Manuscript.  For those of you have read my blog on and off you may recognize this name.  Eliza Jane was the baby sister of my great-grandfather.  She was the family historian that my grandmother received all her information through. In the genealogy library in Vincennes, Indiana there is a typed copy of her research journals that a cousin of mine created.  I skimmed it while I photocopied it and I can’t wait to devour it later.  Lots and lots of good things!

We took the boys over to the George Rogers Clark Memorial also.  They loved it, and I have to say it always takes my breath away.  If you get to go make sure you watch the video and have the ranger on duty take you inside the monument.  The murals inside are breath taking.  Plus, how else can you learn about the amazing capture of Fort Sackville during the Revolutionary War?

Wednesday was the drive from Southern Indiana to Fort Wayne.  My parents, the boys, and I registered quickly that afternoon and explored a bit.  They were all tired from the trip so I sent them back to the hotel while I stuck around the conference center.  I enjoyed meeting up with some fellow IDG people and being talked into writing a lot more.  I know, more, can you believe it? 

We all went over to the opening night social and had a good time talking.  I meet quite a few people, heard some interesting things, received good advice, and laughed so much!  The down side was that my kids did not get to bed (because I made them go) until after 10pm.  This was not a good thing as they were up at 7am.

Thursday, today, my first full day at the conference, and there is a lot of stuff!  We missed the keynote but it was more important for me to get my kids up and fed than it was to rush them here.  All 5 of us wandered around the exhibit hall and quickly checked out of the vendors.  I received my honorable mention certificate in Category II from the ISFHWE and had my picture taken. (WHOOT!)  Next we wandered over to Family Tree Magazine where I met Diana Haddad and Allison Dolan in person.  It is always great to meet people in the flesh after you have talked to them over email and phone in the past. 

My parents decided to take the DNA track today.  Dad said it was so he could understand what I was doing better.  Mom went with him even though she already knew all this.  She is a doctor after all.  The boys attended 2 lectures with me.  They were well behaved, I was thrilled.

First up was Tom Jones’s “Planning and Executing Efficient and Effective Research: A Case Study.” Even with the technical difficulties around the projector, it was a great presentation.  I enjoyed just sitting and listening to him present the family history, the evidence, and taking us step-by-step through the process.  It reminds me a lot of his new book.  Which, I absolutely love.  I had planned to have him sign a copy of my Mastering the Genealogical Proof, but I forgot it in the hotel room.  Good thing I have 2 more days.

After lunch I took the boys to the BCG Certification seminar.  This is something I really want to do.  I can’t explain it, almost like I want to prove I can do it.  Also, in my gut I feel like this can give the “new kid” some credibility.  I may be completely off base here, but I did learn a lot that will help me make that decision later. 

The boys did fine until about 4pm when they completely crashed and burned.  8 hours in a conference is pretty good for any small person you have to admit.  We were killing time in the exhibit hall waiting for my parents and the final straw was the brother on brother brawl at The Irish Ancestral Research Association.  You have to admit, that is kind of funny considering their ancestry.  However I had one in tears and the other fit to be tied after I grounded them from TV and video games for the night.  Luckily the grandparents showed up just then and whisked them away. 

So here I sit, in the media hub, getting ready to go wander around the booths again and waiting for the door prize drawings.  Feeling like I should go grab a drink too, after all someone has to come back and get me in a few hours.

Back home again

Sorry I have been a bit AWOL; this time of the year does it to me.  I am sure you all can relate to some degree. There were Kids activities, visiting the parents, getting everything together for various celebrations.  Yes, celebrations, as in multiple birthdays in the family this time of year, and, the anniversary of my and my husband’s first date.  In a few weeks it will be the 20^th anniversary of that event; it is still hard to believe.

However, our annual trek to let the kids visit their grandparents has once again come and gone.  We gave each of them a blank leather bound journal and a list of questions that the boys wanted to know about.  A way of getting our parents started on all those questions I get asked every day about them but in some cases have no idea what the answer is!  My dad said “you gave me homework for Christmas?”

I also had a wonderful conversation with my father-in-law and was able to share with him all the interesting tidbits that I had found out about his grandfather Bennett’s parents and grandparents.  Oh, and silly me, forgot to tell my mother-in-law about all the DNA testing we have done this fall.  I am going to start keeping better records or who I tell what.  Never quite sure who knows what in the family…maybe they should read my blog more.

Same as last year I went through more old boxes at my parents’ house.  Amazing treasures once again, and I made my dad promise that they would not be stored on the back porch but in an interior closet!  The mid 1800’s photograph in its frame was the most jaw dropping discovery of the afternoon.  Now, if I only knew who he was. 

Tucked in the boxes were little notes from my grandmother, grandfather, and even my mother.  We decided that one of the boxes must have been hastily thrown together after the water heater broke in the house about 10 years ago.  There was stuff from my room, a couple things that were my husband’s, some of my mother’s papers, and a box of slides and negatives from my grandparents.  It must have been the closest plastic box at hand when the stuff was all wet. 

I love reading little notes written by people.  The grocery lists were interesting, the Wal-Mart receipt from the late 80’s was fascinating (and cheap!), and then there was the cryptic note from my mom on the back of a gauze 1x1 “The Crucial Ligaments ‘Red, Nose level’.”  I read it, looked at her, read it again, and finally said “what the hell does this mean mom?”  She looked at it, giggled, and then took me to her office.  She had written directions to my dad years ago about where to find a book, The Crucial Ligaments.  There were other notes in there too.  Like this one I discovered from my grandfather: “This and a fur coat when we get where we can find one. Probably Detroit.”  I would love to know what this card was attached to!  Grandma had a fur coat that she wore everywhere in the 40’s and into the early 50’s.  It was damaged at some point and she had it turned into 2 fashionable stoles.  I have one, and my mom has the other.   They are amazing to say the least.

Of course I couldn’t go home without another marathon scanning session.  This time I mainly copied old photographs that look like members of the family but have no identifiers written on them.  I sent copies out to the family email list hoping that someone can give me a clue to their identities.  Best of all we found my grandfather’s service record from when he retired.  So now I have a listing of his complete military record since I am unable to get it from the St. Louis Archives. (Darn that fire)

This should keep me a busy for a few weeks you know: cataloguing, reading, analyzing, filing, those sorts of things.  Lots to do!

Power outages stink but the things you find are great

Friday night we were hit by the same really strong thunderstorms that hit the Midwest Friday afternoon.  Personally my family was out of power for four days, there are still many without power.  So… how would you spend the weekend without electricity? (Luckily we had water, even if it meant cold showers) 

Optimistic that it would be a short outage we took the boys to see Brave with some friends on Saturday during the heat of the day and then headed back to their house.  They have a generator!  When we woke up on Sunday morning still without power my hubby and I took it as a sign to work.  Yes, in that heat we threw open all the windows and doors and began to clean out drawers, cabinets, and desks.  Then my hubby found a gem I didn’t know I had.

When my grandmother Combs died I got odds and ends from her.  She started passing items out months before she died from cancer.  I have a small box of papers and pictures, and occasionally I will find things of hers that I didn’t know I had in the weirdest places.  Sometimes it is almost like she is reaching out to me and guides me to something I need.  My husband was cleaning out a basket that had become a catchall for stuff.  It has been sitting on a stool in our kitchen nearing on six months.  It started out as a temporary storage for a few items that had to come out of our truck.  Then more and more things got piled into it.  At some point in time a small three inch spiral bound notebook was placed in there.

My hubby asks me what I want to do with these notes I have made on the family.  I looked at him perplexed and asked for the book.  It was not my handwriting, and it only took me a few seconds to realize that it was my grandmother’s.  Even better, they were notes from her genealogy research.  Maybe the only pages I will ever have after the landfill incident. 

The pages state:

John, son of John S.

b. 2-7-1761

in Warren Co. Va.

Rev Veteran-

                Pension papers

                #S35,85 / Virginia

Not in Archives

Enlisted Jan 1, 1777

                Frederick, Shenandoah Co. Va.

Served 2 yrs 4months

                12^th Va. Regiment

under Capt Jonathan Longdon and Benjamin Casey

Pension $96 per annum

John’s 2 wifes

1^st name unknown

m. Surry Co. N.C.

2^nd late 1790’s

Names Margaret

1^st W’s children

Jeremiah b 1782

Shadrack 1784

Born in Va.

Mason 1795

Kingsport Tenn.

Millie

2^nd Wife

Margaret

Sallie

Samuel

Harvey

Thomas

Both Margaret and Sallie m Combses

Now to figure out whom these people are….

photo credit: VinothChandar via photo pin cc

Week 4 of Abundant Genealogy

Week #4 – Free Offline Genealogy Tools: For which free offline genealogy tool are you most grateful? How did you find this tool and how has it benefitted your genealogy? Describe to others how to access this tool and spread the genealogy love.

Family, plain and simple.  They tell you the most wonderful things, help you uncover history you never dreamed of, and give you stuff they don’t want anymore.  Without them you wouldn’t have a family to research and do genealogy studies of! 

I am shy, and reserved which makes it very difficult for me to just pick up the phone and call people.  Even contacting my aunts and uncles that I have known all of my life on occasion seems like a daunting task.  The butterflies in the tummy never go away, but I realize that if I don’t take that initiative and call the answers will never be found.  Too many missed opportunities have already happened, no more are going to be allowed to pass without a fight.

So take a moment and thank your lucky stars for the family you have.  Then go grab a notebook, pen, recorder (video or audio) and talk to your relatives before it is too late!  Maybe they will give you a box of stuff as a “favor!”

photo credit: zen via photopin cc

Today not Tomorrow, the other meaning of TNT family history

I knew that my great aunt Margaret (or Mickey for many of us) had done a lot of research into the family history of her parents immigrant ancestors.  My aunt died in December 2009, several years before the genealogy bug finally took hold of me.  On a hint from my dad's sister I called Mickey's son and asked if there was anyway I could get copies / have / see her stuff.

There was silence on the line...

"Oh, I am so sorry.  No one came and took it so I threw it all away about 6 months after she died.   I had to sell the house and clean it up."

To say that I almost cried is an understatement.  I was speechless and all I could muster was an "Oh my."  He told me he would look through the house and see if anything was kept, but essentially I shouldn't get my hopes up.

I was not able to make it home for her funeral due to extremely bad weather there and here.  Many of you may remember the 2009 -2010 winter as especially bad in the Mid-Atlantic States.  We spent several days buried in snow without power.  My dad could not make it due to my mom being very ill.  If I had only known...

My first phone call after this revelation was to my father, who of course swears that he was never contacted by his cousin.  Dad is a historian, and a pack rat.  He would have driven the 20 hours to Indiana from his home in the southwest and cleaned out the rooms himself to save the files.  Of course dad now wonders how much of his mom's research, that was given to Mickey, is now gone forever too.

Morale of the story:  act TODAY and not TOMORROW on your family history artifacts, others in your family may not have the same longing for knowledge that you do.

photo credit: jana shea via photopin cc

New Year goodies

You may have noticed the badge on the page.  This is a series that I am going to be participating in for the next year called "52 weeks of Abundant Genealogy".  The idea comes from AmyCoffin of The We Tree Genealogy Blog, and is the 4^th set of yearly blogging prompts she has done.  Way cool!

It is my hope that this will keep me going here.  At least there will be one post a week for sure for the next year!  Over the last week I have also been looking at the daily blogging prompts from Geneabloggers.  At least now I know if I run into a brick wall on what to write I can always go out there and get an idea from a creative person.

Looking up blogging prompts was only the tip of the genealogical iceberg from the holiday.  Mom and I got through 1 of the 3 Rubbermaid boxes that I packed for her from her mom’s house.  There were some mighty awesome things in there.  Including a WWII ration book with stamps still in it!  Hubby had a good time educating the boys on what rationing was.  Lots of pictures, very few labeled…kills me every time.  Also, much to the amusement of my mom, report cards from when my grandparents were in high school.  You should have heard her talk about her dad’s grades…something like “I got in trouble for better grades than that!”

In addition to that I also spent a day, yes a whole day, scanning in photos and documents.  Mostly from my mother in law, but I got quite a few of my parents images as well.  200 scanned images in total, which means I am going to be very busy for a while.  Be on the lookout for those images to come up in future posts!

=>  After I posted this I found another set of prompts...adding to the list as we speak.  This is from Olive Tree Genealogy Blog, by Lorine McGinnis Schulze.  Called "Sharing Memories" and looks very good.

*Image from the Library of Congress, What shall I write to Grandpa

Arvin Family Slides

My goal for this afternoon was to clean my bedroom closet.  I was tired of living out of laundry baskets at the foot of the bed.  Frankly my husband is about ready to kill me as he sits every morning on the floor trying to find a pair of dress socks in the sock basket.  I figured I could make good headway, but most likely not get it all done today…then I found the box.

The box has been sitting in my closet (in 2 states now) for about 10 years.  I knew it had slides in it but didn’t really pay much attention.  Today, the box opened up and spilled a drawer of slides into my lap while I was moving it.  As I picked them up I looked at them through the light.  WOW!!!  These were color slides of what looks like my grandparents duty stations in Alaska and Colorado.  There were even family hiking/camping trips in amazingly good condition.

Now I need to find a way to view them, or possibly even have them converted to digital.  I bet my mom and her brothers would love to these again.

And now....I go back to the cleaning.

*Image from Easy Vectors