Are You Serious? Really?

I'm always leery when I go poking around on Ancestry.  It's been so long since I've found anything there worth really considering even noting in my files. 

Its a love hate relationship.  I'd love to be hopeful that someone there has original work but I hate the fact that if there is original work there I haven't yet found it.

Late yesterday I went looking for a family there just to see what I could find.  There were four trees that matched the family I wanted.  Interesting - four sources.  Okay we'll look at this one.  Hmmmmmpppphhhhh  four sources, all census, didn't really tell me anything I didn't know.  So this person has images of wills but the stuff in the wills doesn't match what is on the charts.  Numerous questions with no answers posted - ok maybe it was in a private conversation. 

BUT if you can source with a census why not tell us where you got the birth date and your statement that he was born in Scotland?   How can you show his will but have the wife dying in 1856, but she's very clearly named BY NAME in the will as being very much alive (1865) at that time?   Why are ALL your dates 01 JAN XXXX ...   I know that's a default for most genealogy software, but even when you are estimating on the death you still have a birth date with 01 JAN.  

While we're discussing the things on this entry, lets talk about the marriage that you have in Indiana in 1741, you know, when Indiana wasn't even a place yet?  I doubt this couple even ever left West Virginia or Virginia but marrying in Indiana?  REALLY? 

I used to think that if I could find a tree that had some sources maybe there was hope.  This one made me truly doubt that.  I left questions in the comments, lots of questions.  I guess the real question is will this person even try to answer?   Seriously?  Really? 

Tricks & Tips Thursday - How Many Rabbit Holes Can You Explore?

I really hate it when I decide I need to do a bit of genie surfing and I end up not really finding anything.  Usually that happens because I end up chasing down way too many rabbit holes.

You know what I mean, you do it too, you just haven't admitted it... yet.  Chasing down rabbit holes is when one leads to another, leads to another and soon you have 42 windows open and you really didn't find anything, and none of it was really what you wanted anyway. 

Today's tips are quite simple actually.  Both have to do with those rabbit holes.

First - Always keep a word doc or some sort of notepad (electronic preferred) open when you are surfing.  When you find a link that you think you might come back to,  copy & paste it on your notepad.  Then you'll never have to worry about closing the page or not being sure what was where. 

Second - When I get in the mood to do online research, whether I'm using Ancestry or Mocavo, I always print off one or two group sheets on the family that I want to work on.  If the rabbit hole doesn't have that family, I don't go there.  No exceptions.  Staying focused by using the group sheets really helps keep you on track so that you don't just go off chasing any rabbit down the holes, searching for whatever comes along. 

Hope these two tips help!

Karen

Frustration Friday - The Search For Francis Ligon

Sometimes I just wonder why I bother!  I pay to use Ancestry, as if paying isn't enough, they don't even listen when you "talk" to them.

Example - Searching for someone on a census, the other day it was Francis Ligon.  I had found this clipping regarding the death of Francis Ligon. 

Some South Carolina County Records, Vol. 2, Pg. 268 -
"Letter from Z. S. Pension Agency, Knoxville, Tenn. Letterhead: J.M.Stewart, Clerk of Court, Pickens Co., South Carolina. Dated: Jany 24, 1891. WM. Rule, U.S. Pension Agt., Sir: I write to inform you of the death of Mrs. Francis Ligon. She died 19th of this month. I am a son-in-law of hers and she made my housoe her home and died there. Will you please be so kind as to furnish me blanks sufficient to draw the Balance on this quarter. Also blanks to be filled defraying burial expences, nursing and etc. I bought up all claims in said estate. Very truly, J.H.G.McDaniel." Another page: I, J.M. Stewart, Clerk of Court for Pickens Co., SC. hereby certify that I am personally acquainted with J.H.G. McDaniel and know the statements contained in his letter to be true. J.M. Stewart, C.C.P. Form letter from Pension Agency." Apparently, pensioner was a widow of a soldier of the war of 1812. (typed in entirety as found in source)
 
I went to the US Federal census hoping to find Francis in 1880.  Regardless of the parameters I gave the search feature it would not locate Francis.  I asked for White female in South Carolina.  It gave me black males.  After a few searches I finally found her but I must say I worked for every letter in her census entry.  It was so frustrating.  What good is it to have the ability to search with the parameters if they don't work? 
 
Turns out Francis is the widow of John Townes Ligon who died 29 JUN 1857 in Greenville, South Carolina.
 
I know that Ancestry was having problems earlier this week, but this seems to be an ongoing thing.  I'm just saying...

On Your Mark, Get Set, Go!

Everyone is all ready to go, proclaiming the word, sharing the word, telling everyone they know!  What you ask?  Why the fact that Ancestry is going to share the 1940 census for a almost a year with the entire world!

Great! Awesome! Wonderful!  Or so you say!  Okay, so all of you are ready, you've already demonstrated that with the way this news has spread like wildfire.

My question is, "Is Ancestry ready?"  I mean seriously.  Every time Ancestry offers a freebie weekend those of us who pay for our subscriptions end up either seriously slow or getting messages to try again later.  I personally usually end up with a slower response when I am browsing in search of something.

Okay, when its a weekend of freebie,  I can avoid it, find other things to do.  But really Ancestry, a year of freebie?  Are you really ready for the amount of hits that your website is going to take?  Are you ready to listen to the subscribers who have issues with the site because of the increase traffic? 

Sure hope they have quite a few customer service reps on duty to take the calls of the subscribers who get caught up in this!  As for me...  maybe I'll just spend more time out in the gardens.  No traffic tie ups out there unless its at the bird feeder.

Happy Researching!
Karen

Frustration Friday - Ancestry

I don't make many new year resolutions - I have one or two and I've been working really hard at trying to keep the few I made. 

One of the resolutions I made was to try and be more positive.  For some stupid reason I tend to lean towards thinking the worst. My inspiration for this is my friend Diane.  Seriously, she is the MOST positive person I know.  She gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, always sees the positive in just about everything.  I really admire her for that. 

So when I get frustrated and want to just really blast something or someone I try to stop and think like I think she would.  And I must admit with the exception of once or twice that really is working (Thanks Diane!). 

One case where it doesn't seem to work is this week with Ancestry.  Maybe I'm doing something wrong?  But It frustrates the heck out of me when I say I want this person in this place on a census and the first entries that show up have nothing to do with what I asked for, or maybe I'm looking for a marriage in one of the marriage data bases and I say it took place in 1847...  and it gives me marriages for 1965.  The urge to slip back into the negativity really grabs me. 

I know alot of people blast Ancestry for alot of things, but really where would we be without them?  This is that positive spin thing - I'm thinking of all the great databases that they provide and how difficult it would be to even surf those databases if it weren't for Ancestry. 

See, I am working on it! 

Happy Researching!
Karen

So You Call Yourself a Genealogist? Really...???

Sometimes I think some people just don't get it.  Let me see if maybe this time it will get thru... 

As a general rule 100 year old women don't give birth.  Seriously, when was the last time you actually knew of a woman that old giving birth? Let me explain.

Everytime I go digging around on Ancestry trees I find stuff like this.  It's actually very irritating when you are digging for some clues on your own family tree, you find some names that match.  You click and go for a visit.  When you get there you find wrong info, things like parents who birth babies at 100+ years,  children born before parents,  all sorts of stupid (and I do mean really stupid) stuff that never should have made it up there. 

So you take the time & drop a line - a friendly line, provide some documentation and send it off.  You get a response, "oh yeah, I must have missed that"...  thinking maybe it would be corrected.  NOT!

Next time you go digging there are now 10 others who now have posted this ignorant information on their family trees.  HELLO?  Doesn't anyone read any more?  Don't you pay attention or do you just CLICK & CLAIM to fill those family group sheets? Don't you ever update your tree when corrections are offered?   Is anyone out there actually paying attention?  Are you actually researching and finding real material?  There is so much ACTUAL scanned documentation available online that just Clicking & claiming is plain stupid.  No other way to say it.

Want me to take you seriously as a genealogist?  Then fix it when someone draws your attention to the errors, communicate and most of all DOCUMENT before posting!

I'm just saying...

Are You Really Who You Think You Are?

Are you like many of the people out there who tune in to NBC's- Who Do You Think You Are? every Friday night? Tune out the world and dive into the genealogy of the rich & famous? 

Don't get me wrong I think its a great show, and I've actually remembered to tune in. But there are a few issues.  The biggest one that I have is that they make it look so simple, and that commercial about logging onto Ancestry.com and finding their whole family tree makes me really NERVOUS!

I think the issue is that they don't mention the hours & hours it can take to do all that research, nor do they urge you to document all those goodies you find on the website!  Personally I think the show should add a disclaimer, but I doubt that's ever gonna happen!

Personally my descendants are important enough to me to make sure that each & every piece of information I find, whether its on the website featured on the show or anywhere on the web, is fully & totally documented with sources OFF the web.  You know - real research.  I know without a shadow of a doubt that what I have has been proven & fully documented. 

How about you?  Are you really who you think you are?  Is your work proven & documented or are you using the stuff off the line & assuming its correct?

With This Ring I Thee Wed...



Over the past two months I've been really focused on several projects.  One project at a time drives me nuts so I always seem to have several on the back burner.  The primary focus of this current project is marriage records. 

I've been amazed at the amount of marriage information I've been finding on line. Between Ancestry & Family Search I've been able to find literally hundreds of marriage dates & other marriage related details that I previously did not have.

On the family search site I found not only marriages but really good information on marriage records for children I did not have in my files and marriages as early as the 1670's and as late as the 1950's.  Some of the marriage dates I found had parents names & more!  Obviously not all the marriages I've wanted have been found, but I must say I was impressed with just how many states have marriage records available thru these two sites. 

It seems that as genealogists we get so caught up in the birth & death thing that we overlook the marriage stuff.  I was suprised when I did a report on my data base how many marriages I had that had either no date at all or the date was incomplete! 

One of my goals for 2011 was not to focus on adding persons to my file, but to go back thru my data base, find things that for some reason are missing sources or facts and fill in those gaps.  Sort of a spring cleaning for the genealogist!

Time consuming but so worth it!

Happy Researching!

Karen

Blogger Code of Ethics?

Recently in my blog wandering, I stumbled across a blog that really disturbed me.  I consider myself an honest person.  I think most people are honest people.  But this blog, which I won't include the url for, actually advocated cheating Ancestry & and other pay site that you felt the need to use.

I guess the thing that bothered me BESIDES the fact that she was advocating cheating was the fact that she has the geneablogger logo on her website. 

I don't know anyone that has time to read every single geneablogger blog that is out there, I certainly don't.  But I do know that when someone gets "splogged" as they called it, everyone gets up in arms and writes alot of posts about it. 

Here's this blogger with the geneablogger logo, she's an affiliate at Ancestry and has supposedly won all these awards, Top 100 genealogy blogs, Kreative Blogger award etc., and its okay for her to post this "share the membership crap" on her blog?

Don't you think that as a blogger she has a responsiblity to at least attempt to have some ethics?  I found it interesting when I posted the question on Facebook, "Is it okay to share a membership at the online paid sites"?  I was suprised at how many people said it was okay.  Most basing their comments on the fact that they couldn't afford it, so that made it okay.  Some said Ancestry makes too much money.  That has no bearing on it,  they pay the salaries of the people who run the scanners, answers the phone, and do the indexing (even the bad ones!).  They pay taxes just like every other company.  Quit justifying your stealing with bad excuses, you don't steal from the electric company or drive away from the pump when you get gas. 

Sorry guys, even those of you who are my friends.  I don't agree with you.  Life is about choices, and we all have to make them.  Stealing is WRONG.  There is NO justification for stealing.  NONE.  And advocating it while wearing the logo of the geneabloggers is just plain out of line. 

My mom always said it doesn't matter if its a penny or a thousand dollars, there is no difference.  Stealing is stealing. 

What do YOU Think?

Everything I Needed to Know I Found On Ancestry...

At least that is what some people think... In my travels over the past few years I've come to realize that most people really believe that everything they need to know about researching (and finding) their family history is on Ancestry. Its as though the whole internet boils down to this one website.

I find it disappointing that people really believe that this is the only way to find anything on their family history. It's a shame actually, because there is so much more to the internet & genealogy besides Ancestry.

It's almost like people are afraid to jump out of the comfort of their "nest" and try flying errr searching on their own. With search engines there's so much more to find, and the best part? There's no cost. Try Google, Yahoo, Dogpile, Bing to name a few.

Try this: Print off ONE group sheet for a family you would like to focus on. Just one. Now sit down at your computer and spend a few hours with each of the search engines. Playing with surnames, playing with places named on that group sheet. Try searching for place names & vital records. Try searches like "South Carolina Archives" or "Missouri Death Certificates". Stay away from the commercial sites. Try using " __", try using + and - with words, don't forget ( and ) with your words as well. Be creative with your searches. Try searching for your ancestors names, with and without dates, with & without locations. How about searching for your ancestors name with & without a religion attached? Ever thought about looking for newspaper archives or obituaries without using Ancestry? It can be done.

I'm not knocking Ancestry but there really is alot more to the internet than just Ancestry. Have you looked at FamilySearchLabs? How about Cindi's List? Expand your horizons a bit and try searching using your search engines. It just might surprise you what you can find.

Happy Researching!
Karen

Resource - Kentucky Vital Records Data Base

Spent most of last week & the weekend continuing my prep for the May trip to Kentucky. Mark's family on his mom's side has Kentucky roots, primarily in three counties - Hopkins, Christian & Todd. A few wandered out of those counties and into others, but the majority managed to stick pretty close to that basic 3. Searching for them in Kentucky records has at times been frustrating, mostly due in part to horrid indexing. But other factors also come into play as well.

Might help if there was some consistancy in the records. Most times whene I can not find someone its due to that particular county not having the records for that particular year. Ancestry covers from 1852-1953, but the Kentucky Vital Records project covers basically from 1911 to ? , they accept donations of vital records certificates but also maintain their own death certificate images. They do have some earlier records but it is hit or miss.

Many times I've been able to locate persons on this site that I could not locate on Ancestry. Whether its the indexing or something else I don't know. But when I can not locate on one I always try the other. The Kentucky Vital Records project is staffed by volunteers so they don't do any lookups or offer any genealogical assistance. No fancy bells & whistles - just a good basic genealogy resource for those with ties to the state of Kentucky!

Happy Researching!
Karen

Gone Fishing

[If this note comes in single spaced I apologize, I tried several times to format and it doesn't seem that blogspot is going to allow that today.]

No, not this sort of fishing.

This is my brother John with one of his great catches. Although I really enjoy the kind of fishing John used to do I'm talking about genealogical fishing.

Sometimes when I hit a brick wall in my research I bring up the internet and sometimes even Ancestry.com. I'll print a group sheet for the family I want to fish on and then start fishing.

Using a search engine I'll play with surname spellings, adding dates, places and other details just to see what might be lurking just beneath the surface of lake internet. My favorite search engine is "google". Sometimes I use (+) and sometimes I just use words. But, by playing around with symbols & spellings I often get many different results when I do my fishing. I find neat things this way. Not everyone has their information posted on Ancestry (GASP!). Many times I find lots of family websites full of information, many times with sources & photo's by using this method.

Other times I get my "tackle & pole" and go fishing over at the Ancestry pond. The discouraging thing about Ancestry is that very few people submitting their information there are original with their information. Everyone has everyone else's gedcom and so wrong information is just spread around like mud on a clean floor!

Finding information that has sources beyond "so & so's gedcom" or the census is a rare thing. Good thing is that if you do find someone that has information and it has names & dates, they at least have provided you with a good road map to follow. Hopefully you'll treat this cautiously and verify the information that is found here.

So, drag out your "fishin' gear" and toss the line a few times, you just never know what you'll find. After all, just because it wasn't there last week doesnt' mean it hasn't shown up yet this week. What have you got to loose???

Happy Researching!

Karen

Extra Extra Read All About It Con't....

The other day I did a post on newspapers and all the great things that can be found there. Today I want to touch on places to find the newspapers you need.

There are quite a few possiblities when it comes time to begin searching for newspapers in the area's where your ancestors lived. A really good place to begin is in that city itself - especially if you live in the area or live nearby. Check with the main branch of the local library. Usually they have the older issues on microfilm.

Nothing really compares to just sitting down and reading the newspapers of your ancestor. Pick the time around a wedding or important occassion to start your search, that gives you something to focus on. Then start reading. Birthday's, weddings, baby births are all good reasons to start reading as well. The social pages are a really good place to start. This is not the time for scanning quickly thru the pages, you want to take your time and just read thru. You'll be glad you did.

If you do not live nearby and can not get to the area where your ancestor lived, then perhaps an interlibrary loan could be arranged. This is usually done thru YOUR library, where a form is filled out and sometimes a small fee is to be paid. They bring in the time frame or issues you want to look at on microfilm and you have a window of time in which to read the film and then it gets returned. You will have to check with your local library to get the details on that.

Another option if visiting the area of your ancestor is not an option there's always the internet.

The websites I am going to mention here are for "Pay" sites. It will cost you to use these sites, however if you can not get to the area where your ancestor lived, this may be your best option. I am not advocating that you run out & buy yourself subscriptions to these sites, most do offer trial subscriptions - read the policy very well before you commit, know the rules on how to cancel and make sure you are well within the bounds when you do cancel.

Besides knowing the rules for canceling your subscription (trial or otherwise) also make sure you know what the holdings of the site are. Why pay for a site that doesn't have the papers you need for the time frames you want? Make sure you do your homework so that you don't sign up for a site that has nothing you need. Also check to see if they have different plans, maybe you don't need a years subscription, maybe six months would be better. Do your homework before you plop down the plastic or write the check.

• Ancestry.com - has both newspapers & a very big obituary collection
• Newspaperarchive.com - allows you to view a portion of the obit and then if you want the rest you pay to get it.
• Footnote.com - site also has lots of military records as well.
• Genealogybank.com - biggest advantage this site has is that the collection is extensive and goes back into the 1700's. Something that not all of these sites can boast.

All of these sites have search engines on them allowing you to search by surname. However, my past experience shows that you can NOT depend on these search engines for everything. If you are searching for information on a wedding or other event, take the time to manually search the papers for information - I usually go as much as two weeks after the event in my searches. Keep in mind that if you ask for a Mary Smith in the search engine and her obituary or whatever has her as Mrs. John Smith you may not find her. So a manual search may be in order.

There are other sites that have newspapers on them, I have given you the top four in my opinion.

As with your software and other issues in genealogy I encourage you to explore ALL your options, find the one that works best FOR YOU, and then work it! You'll be amazed at what you can find when you take off the blinders and find the good stuff!