New Website and Social Media alert!!

 So I started a thing...

I started my own Genealogy and Family History resource website.  It is a place for people to go and get lots of tips and tricks and ideas. It talks about different research resources you can use, how to get involved, and different aspects of family history that is more than just filling in the names and dates on a pedigree chart.  I decided to call it "preserve your tree", because in doing your family history and genealogy, you are preserving your family tree for generations to come. It really is about finding out who your ancestors were as a whole person, and not just a name and date on a chart. It's about immersing yourself in their life and history to help you discover where you came from and how that has shaped you as a person!  I did a website, an Instagram and a facebook group.

The website is called Preserve Your Tree

Instagram:  Preserveyourtree

Facebook Group (Public)  Preserve Your Tree.

WHY???

I have been doing family history and genealogy for 35 years. It started when I was young and we had a little class on it in my girls church group.  We had to complete a 4 generation Pedigree chart, and it set something off in my brain.  I remember having my mom help me and she pulled out some letters from her cousin that talked about her side of the family, and pulled out the genealogy folder from my aunt that talked about my dads side of the family, and we went through and started plugging names in.  I remember thinking just how cool it was. It only went back 4 generations, but thats when I got the bug!  I consulted with my best friend who was also doing the chart, and she said that her parents were able to get all the way back to the 1500s.  I was so jealous I couldn't see straight.  I couldn't get back that far, and boy did I want to! 

I remember being a young teenager, when we went to Tennessee and visited the area where my moms relatives had settled. We went to the large library and sat and scrolled through microfilm, looking through the C.S.A records, and census records and just ANYTHING we could get our hands on to try and find SOMEONE!   I remember as a young married woman, going to the main library in Cincinnati with my mother in law and scrolling through hours of microfilm, again just hoping to find SOMETHING on some of my more elusive ancestors.  I remember taking my mother in law to a local church and cemetery in North Carolina because she knew from land records thats where her great great grandfather had settled during the revolutionary war.  We went into the church building and there were a few gentlemen there who were genealogy consultants for that church and the one man and my mother in law had ancestors that had dealings with each other and possibly cousin connections!   I remember going on to ancestry and family search and putting in my great grandmothers name HOPING for ANYTHINGG, and seeing that green leaf pop up and opening up and there was the census record with her on it. The census record I had never been able to find!  I found her mother and father and their death records!  I found military records and things I never dreamed of being able to find.

I remember doing research on my German side and finding an address on a certificate of my ancestor.  I looked it up and there was a photo of his bakery and house!  I was also able to find a picture of him, and as the photo uploaded I felt almost this sense of relief, and I thought I heard a whisper say "you found me!".  I thought "my dad has his eyes"! 

I also remember back in the day of PAF files and Gedcom software merging my husbands genealogy records with mine and we did a duplicates search.  I remember that sense of dread when we both had a Mary Jane Smith as one of our direct great grandparents, and I just KNEW that somehow I had married my cousin, ad that whole southern stereotype was true!! Not to worry,  turns out they were NOT the same woman, just had the same name. PHEW! 

I started indexing so I could help others have the records online and be able to experience the joys of doing genealogy.

I have kept up with genealogy and I have watched people make mistakes. I have felt the frustration in my research, I have hit the brick walls.  But I have also had the breakthroughs, and  I love it.   I want to help others to love it and be part of the fastest growing hobby! 

So head on over and check it out, follow me on IG and join the FB group!  I would love to help you get the most out of your research as possible!!

OCTOBER IS FAMILY HISTORY MONTH

 

 October is Family History Month.

September 2017 A blog post by Rachel Coleman on Familysearch.org says: "The United States celebrates October as National Family History Month and for good reason. Knowing, recording, preserving, and sharing our family histories can provide countless benefits to individuals, families, and entire societies. Family history is more than pedigree charts, censuses, and birthdates—it can be a powerful antidote against adverse life experiences that we face today, giving us a stronger understanding of who we are and motivating us to deepen our roots for generations to come."

So how do we get started?    Through the month of october, I will be posting on how to do your family history, getting started when you dont know where to start, the biggest mistakes people make in doing their family history and I will have ideas, sources and sites to share where you can go to get started on your family history.

Ask yourself WHY do you want to start this journey?  I will tell you once you start this journey of genealogy it is a hard habit to break. There is a positively addicting quality about family history!  Maybe you are starting from scratch...thats ok!!  Maybe you have a family member that has done a lot of the work already, and thats great too!  Perhaps you did geneaology  years ago and put it away and are now looking to get back into it...wonderful!  Maybe you want to get those side lines moving and shaking.  Many people start and go in a straight line of parents-grandparents-great grandparents-great great grandparents and go until they run out.  Well what about the siblings of those parents? Those grandparents? The other children of those grandparents and their families??  See what I mean? It is a never ending job...and SOMEONE has to do it!!

So the number #1 tip most genealogists  is to work from the known to the unknown.  

-IDENTIFY WHAT YOU KNOW: start with yourself and your parents. Capture key pieces of information like dates and places of birth, marriage and death.  Interview your relatives. Write down stories and ask questions! Start with what you know 100%.  Boom, step one complete.\

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:   these are some great starting point questions I found on Americanancestors.org

1. Where did you live when you were growing up?
2. How did your family come to live there?
3. Were there other family members in the area? What were their names?
4. What older relatives do you remember, and what do you remember about them? What were their nicknames and where did they live? Do you remember any traditions associated with them?
5. What was your family religion?
6. What family stories have you heard about your parents? Your grandparents? More distant relatives?
7. What stories have you heard about the European (or other) origins of your family members and their immigration to America?
8. Is there a naming tradition in the family?

--WRITE IT DOWN!!  A huge component of Family History is research.  When I started I had a legal notepad and I started with my parents. Then went to my grandparents. Each person got their name, their birth and death date, their marriage date. Any bits of info would go under them as well. Then as I kept digging my notepad got fuller and fuller and then I ran out of paper. If there was a birth certificate or death certificate I would jot that down as well, the certificate number and the state, the source I found it under. I wrote EVERYTHING down.  (but caveat...see next tip)

---MAKE AN ELECTRONIC COPY!!  Everything I wrote down was not backed up.  Transcribe your notes and keep them in electronic format as well and keep them on a flash drive or external hard drive. All copies of pictures and certificates etc.  Because guess what happened to my notebook?  Somehow it got lost and ALL THAT RESEARCH was gone!!  That was back in the day when you did GEDCOM files and there was no cloud. Once it was lost it was lost. my GEDCOM files were backed up on a diskette (HAH!!) somewhere, and technology became so advanced and GEDCOM was a thing of the past. Thankfully with all the sites and computer advancement and cloud storage capabilities, keeping what you have already done is a lot easier!

--CITE YOUR SOURCES.  Write down or download copies of pictures, birth, marriage, death certificates,  Cite the census with the year, city and even page number,  so much is available online now that you can screenshot or attach it as a source.  Consult multiple sources.  One time I was working on my moms side of her family history online,  and someone had posted some false information, going on family lore and was trying to change the files to fit what she had heard.  I was able to produce all my research with cited sources, the marriage certificate and census records etc  and was able to keep her from changing the files. 

--ANALYZE ALL INFO:  Look at the birth and death dates. If something isnt adding up, then keep researching.  I saw someone who had posted  Mrs Sally So and So as their great great x8 grandmother but their birthdate and deathdate didnt match up with what they were trying to do. She would have been 7 when giving birth. Not logical.   I have relatives from Germany, and in the 1700s and 1800s they all lived in the same area of Germany, had the same last name and all named themselves after each other.  So was it Johann or Johann that was my GGGF?  Was it Johann N or Johann F that was the grandfather??  WHich  Frederick married Frederika and which Johann married Johanna?  Or was it the other way around.  Did Peter and Kristine have a son named August in 1782 (making them 8 and 10 years old when their child was born) , or did another Peter and Kristine have a son named August in 1805 (making them 18 and 20 when their child was born?)   DO THE MATH!!  Remember that those unique names were no so unique, and you will find many many many people from the same geographical area and timeframe that could fit the bill. 

WHAT YOU NEED TO GET STARTED:

Start with a pen and paper. easy peasy,

You can find family tree sheets (pedigree charts) as well. These are a great way to get started! They are easy to follow and have all the info at your fingertips.

This book can be helpful for those trying to learn how to organize their famiy history research.

Stay tuned and check back for upcoming family history posts and how to get yourself started! I will have tips and tricks from genealogists and family history consultants and professional consultants as well.  So lets gets started and go on this exciting new journey together!