Genealogy research

[Susan1]

Sometimes the men married when they were older because they waited until they had a certain amount of money before marriage. One set of my Mom's grandparents were engaged for something like 10 years because they waited until he had enough money to buy a farm before they got married.

Yeah, coming from Germany when he was 18, I'm sure he wasn't rich. The census occupation says "Axlemaker Iron" whatever that was. I guess in a factory in Cincinnati?

Funny, both of my grandfathers (mom's and dad's fathers) worked at Frigidaire (the old major refrigerator factory here).

So, the reference librarian used the same familysearch website I've been looking at! Duh. But it was a lot of work for someone who is not even a member of the family. And she did find an obituary from the paper in 1958, but it didn't have any information about his parents or birth date or anything.

And my dad's mom's side (Houser and Mills) all seems to have come from Ohio and Indiana as far back as I can get. Maybe I'm part American Indian. Or a pilgrim descendant. ha ha ha ha

[nerdycool]

And my dad's mom's side (Houser and Mills) all seems to have come from Ohio and Indiana as far back as I can get. Maybe I'm part American Indian. Or a pilgrim descendant. ha ha ha ha

If your family lived in that area prior to Ohio and Indiana gaining statehood, you could try looking for records in the Northwest Territory (no, not the Canadian province).

[jenlyon60]

If your family lived in that area prior to Ohio and Indiana gaining statehood, you could try looking for records in the Northwest Territory (no, not the Canadian province).

Depending on what part of Ohio, a lot of families moved to Ohio from either PA or VA. Also a chunk of early settlers in NE Ohio moved there from upstate New York.

[Susan1]

Depending on what part of Ohio, a lot of families moved to Ohio from either PA or VA. Also a chunk of early settlers in NE Ohio moved there from upstate New York.

I'm going to the library today. The reference librarian said they have a free subscription to ancestry.com. But geez, how do you research Henry and Mame AND Henry and Minnie (both in Indiana and have the same birth years) who both have daughters Hattie, Edith and Mary OR Matie. (I know it's Mary, my grandmother) Mame and/or Minnie's parents are either both from New Jersey or from New Jersey and Louisiana. Henry's parents are from a combination of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, depending which census you look at. And like I keep saying - if I knew which one was right, I wouldn't have to be going to these sites in the first place. So aggravating.

[nerdycool]

For my birthday gift, my husband is getting me a 6-month subscription to Ancestry just in time for the 1940 census release! Just thought I'd share.

[victorskid]

Be aware, nerdycool, that the 1940 census is not yet indexed (by name). As I understand it, you will need to have pretty exact addresses to be able to find those for whom you are searching.

[nerdycool]

Yep, I know. A pain in the butt, but exciting at the same time.

[smurfy]

I got a nice fat package from the library with about 20+ obits that I mentioned on an earlier thread. Lots of info, pretty overwhelming.
The one question I wanted answer of course was not resolved. I know my great grand mothers parents names, and found folks with those names in a cemetery, but not sure if right people. Still have some digging to do there.
But on other relatives I got some info, more relating to siblings, but as I get more info, it will help confirm others. Plus on ancestry, I was given a few hints after I entered the data.

The lady at the library went above and beyond, pulling additional obits that she thought were connected. Some were, some were not. But she even went to ancestry.com and did solve where my great grandmother was in 1910. I had her in the 1900 with her husband, and then 1920 widowed. The census is correct, but in ancestry, electronically another last name got connected, so I never saw it. Somehow the librarian figured it out. But once I looked at the actual census, realized it had to be them (8 kids including my grandmother, all about the right age, birth order and location of their births (3 different states for the 8 kids)).
The information was great, but now I have even more questions, have to circle back to some places and keep digging.

Question for those that have done this for awhile. How are you organizing? I have a 4+yr old pc, and plan to buy a mac when it dies, so do not want to buy any software until I have the mac(within a year or so i would guess). everythng is entered in ancestry.com, but I have a bunch of papers (copies of obits, ssn data, cemetery data, birth cert etc), plus want to print out stuff from ancestry. Any recommendations for organizing would be appreciated. Right now I have folders by last names. Thanks.

[nerdycool]

I guess I deal with paper as little as possible, so I can't help you too much. Usually when I have access to a scanner, I'll scan in everything I have so that everything is electronic. I'll keep the official stuff, but other info that's just printed off the internet, I'll toss. All my e-files are on the hard drive of my computer, as well as backed up on my external hard drive. These files are contained within folders named by the surname, and if there are a lot of files for one particular person, I'll make a sub-folder for that person. Otherwise I just make sure that I label each file with obvious ID. All my paper documents are stored together in general order... but I don't have that much, so it's easy to keep track of.

Using paper exclusively, I imagine it'd be a little more involved, but you could have a "family" section divider, and folders for specific people within that section.

[jenlyon60]

Question for those that have done this for awhile. How are you organizing? I have a 4+yr old pc, and plan to buy a mac when it dies, so do not want to buy any software until I have the mac(within a year or so i would guess). everythng is entered in ancestry.com, but I have a bunch of papers (copies of obits, ssn data, cemetery data, birth cert etc), plus want to print out stuff from ancestry. Any recommendations for organizing would be appreciated. Right now I have folders by last names. Thanks.

I use RootsMagic, which I happen to prefer over FTM. A lot of people like FTM and they're basically the "10-ton gorilla" of the genealogy business these days. A lot of people also store their info on Ancestry.com's trees, but if you do that, be careful how you set it up, in terms of information sharing. I personally have chosen to not put my research on Ancestry.com for personal reasons dating back to when FTM (which is now part of the Ancestry.com empire) started publishing their "World Family Tree" CDs.

Also, wrt the public trees on Ancestry.com, I would strongly suggest that if you find anything on public trees, that you double-check/validate it independently. There is a lot of minimally researched data out there (Ancestry.com and other places). Years ago, the LDS's Ancestral File had very little in the way of validation and a lot of less than accurate (or not verifiable) info got into their files and has never come out. That info has since been carried into many family trees that are searchable on Ancestry.com and Rootsweb and other resources.

Just my 5-cents worth...

[victorskid]

For many years I used Family Tree Maker (FTM). beginning with about version 4 and buying into the regular new revisions. It was actually more of a spreadsheet than a database through the revisions up to about 16. It was becoming more "hinky" in terms of being able to handle large databases and other programs that were really databases were passing it by in terms of capability/capacity.

A massive revision was undertaken, turning FTM into a real database. Sadly it was released before many of the bugs were taken care of. A lot of folks were very upset with the resulting difficulties. A new revision, correcting the problems came out fairly quickly and there have been additional revisions since.

At about the time of the ill-fated FTM revision I made the decision, after quite a bit of research, to move my database to Legacy. It was an excellent decision IMHO.

I have never considered putting any part of my database online. Part of my rationale has been a disinclination to possibly put more errors out into cyberspace to be perpetuated forever and ever....

Trees that I find online can be useful as pointers but I certainly try to validate the data in them through primary records.

I am happy to share data with others in a variety of ways but always with caveats about the potential for errors.

There are a number of genealogy programs available, not all of them run on non-Windows platforms. Any good program, however, should allow you to save your database in the form of a "gedcom" which can then be opened in another genealogy program.

[smurfy]

Thanks for info. I have a ton of paper, so will continue to file by name. I do have to start scanning, but I did start dabbling in this over 15 years ago, plus documents from my parents and their parents, I have documents that should be kept since they are cool/beautiful penmanship etc.
For married women - do you file under their maiden name or their married name?

Good news! From all the data I did receive this past weekend - I input into ancestry.com. Had lots of info on my grandmother siblings(6 of them). By adding that info, I got a hint to another family tree - and have corresponded with its owner. We are 4th cousins. I was finally able to confirm that the folks I suspected as my great grandmothers parents were here parents. Key data matched, but not sure if just similar. But since my great grandmother had so many siblings, born in 3 different states, the cousin had that data so a match!!

In the past month I have uncovered the names of 2 great great grandparents and 6 great great great grandparents.
And I still have several viable leads for additional data. This is so addicting!

[barbk]

FWIW, you can maintain a tree on Ancestry as "private" -- other people who are searching can find a hit in your tree, but they can't see the tree itself (or look at the details on the person) unless you grant their user id access.) I do this, and I've always been happy to grant access when requested.

I second the suggestion of verifying information. But that said, I've gotten some amazing leads from people researching someone who's also in my tree, and it is amazing how often different people researching the same person can find some very different source material, bringing different family memories and data points into the process.

[nerdycool]

For married women - do you file under their maiden name or their married name?

I personally would file under maiden name, mostly because that's how my ancestry stuff is input on the computer. If it's a paper file and you think you might be confused at a later date by putting it in the maiden name file, you could add a little note stating the married name and husband's name.

But I wouldn't recommend splitting up a person's documents, no matter what name is on them. I once put one of my ancestor's documents into separate files, depending on which of her names was on the document. Super confusing once I came back to her later on.

[Marilou]

I personally would file under maiden name, mostly because that's how my ancestry stuff is input on the computer. If it's a paper file and you think you might be confused at a later date by putting it in the maiden name file, you could add a little note stating the married name and husband's name.

But I wouldn't recommend splitting up a person's documents, no matter what name is on them. I once put one of my ancestor's documents into separate files, depending on which of her names was on the document. Super confusing once I came back to her later on.

I do the same - file under maiden name. I have also made up a label template which includes name, birthdate and spouse. This is especially helpful when there are several people with the same name - which in my case happens a lot! On occasion, I even include the fathers name. On one line I have several brothers who all named one son after their father, Jonathan. There are a least a dozen Jonathan/John Lanes in the family

If there are multiple people named on a document, I make mutliple copies and place one in each file. Every document is also scanned and saved on my hard drive, in addition to a memory stick.

[skatak]

I guess I'm very lucky not to bother doing it, several people in my family already did it. It goes up around 1200, with plausible connections up to before 1000 (which i've learned in Nice this week, thanks Worlds !). It's quite fascinating, the elder branch extincted, my ancestor took part in the Crusades, etc... The old first names are quite something.

[smurfy]

Etiquette question - I see in ancestry.com someone linked to my great grandmother. I have confirming info on where/when she was born and her mothers maiden name.
Someone linked to her and when I looked at their family tree, they took someone with my great grandmother's name and linked wrong year of birth, location of birth and wrong mother/mother maiden's name which linked them to other wrong people.
I am thinking of sending a message offering the correct info, or should I just ignore it?
Thanks.

[victorskid]

Smurfy - I would make contact and politely offer the correct information. Leaving erroneous information on the Net simply causes it to be further proliferated.

[jenlyon60]

And that is one of my problems with Rootsweb Worldconnect (now owned by Ancestry) and the Ancestry trees... There is too much proliferation of inaccurate/incorrect and downright bogus info out there, and a lot of "newbie" researchers tend to assume that "because it's on Ancestry it must be correct" or "because its on the Internet, it must be correct" or such.

And trying to refute or remove this incorrect/bogus data is nigh on impossible.

[Marilou]

And that is one of my problems with Rootsweb Worldconnect (now owned by Ancestry) and the Ancestry trees... There is too much proliferation of inaccurate/incorrect and downright bogus info out there, and a lot of "newbie" researchers tend to assume that "because it's on Ancestry it must be correct" or "because its on the Internet, it must be correct" or such.

And trying to refute or remove this incorrect/bogus data is nigh on impossible.

I have my tree on Ancestry, but I don't use other trees as sources (sometimes, if someone's tree looks like they have put some real work into it, I will contact them with the hopes of collaborating.) That said, I source everything I put in my tree so that if people look at mine, they can see my research. I also know I won't be around forever, and perhaps future generations, can use what I have done.

As has been said, we live in a "cut and paste" society, and there are many errors that continue to get repeated. In my own research, I was able to determine that a piece info from a newspaper article, taken as fact, and is all over the web, was really false. So on my tree, in the story section, I wrote an explanation of what I had found and why I believe what I do. In a small way, I hope it will help to combat some of the misinformation out there and get even one person to think about their own research techniques.