Author: Erin

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Digital Sticky Notes

I have been working (almost daily for the last three months) on Zittel Zygology mentioned in this post. The idea of working on connecting family lines for two DNA matches has exploded to epic proportions. I am currently working on connecting lines for 20 known DNA matches to my Zittel line. It looks a bit like this…

Scapple chart of Zittel descendants
Descendants of Johannes Zittel and Elisabeth Stempfel

There are over 50 couples in the first five generations and more than 50 children (most with spouses and even more children) so far in the sixth and seventh generations. (Seventh generation not shown on chart.)

I’ve written and deleted several posts about how this is coming together in my Research Quandaries notebook. Maybe once I finish up trailing the descendants of the oldest son of Peter Zittel and Rosina Hauck (far left of chart), I will get something posted. In the meantime, can I just sing the praises of Sticky Notes? My (laptop) desktop looks like this…

The Sticky Notes app is another of those things that you might not know you have on your computer unless you hunt it down. Click on the magnifying glass next to the Windows icon and search “sticky notes.” Then open the Sticky Notes app. Clicking on the + sign opens a new note.

Click on the menu icon (the three dots). From there you can change the background color, see a list of all your notes, or delete the current note. The notes can be resized vertically and horizontally. The icons at the bottom of the note are to change the text of your note: Bold, Italic, Underline, Strikethrough, and Bulleted List. The last icon is used to insert a picture into your note. Your notes are saved until you delete them. I usually close down the computer with my notes still open on the desktop and they are all there when I restart it.

I am using Sticky Notes to jot down the list of names from the indexes for the communes in Bas-Rhin where I need to then go and look up the original record in a different register. I also have a list of citations to copy and edit once I add the source to my OneNote pages for a person/couple. Extremely helpful! I only wish there was a way to permanently pin a note to stay on top of the browser window I am currently viewing.

I’d be drowning in paper if not for OneNote and Sticky Notes! (You’re welcome.)

Until the next time,
~Erin

Cite This Page:

Erin Williamson Klein, “Digital Sticky Notes.” My Family History Files, 11 December 2020 (https://myfamilyhistoryfiles.com/organization/digital-sticky-notes/ : [access date]).

Please do not copy without attribution and link back to this page.

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ON2016 and ON for Win10

A reader contacted me recently to ask the how my notebooks look in OneNote for Win10. I’ve taken a few screen shots of the same page in my Schraven notebook to show you a comparison. The main difference for me, and why I prefer ON2016, is that my Sections are shown across the top of the notebook and Pages are down the left side.

This is Henry Schraven’s Section in my Schraven notebook in ON2016. DNA connections that listed Henry and his wife, Christina Jansen, in their trees accidentally led me to figuring out that my father is a Schraven and not a Williamson. The Schraven surname stood out because there was this “family friend” named Jack Schraven that my brothers and I called Uncle Jack. Jack was Henry’s grandson and my grandfather.

One of the main differences between ON2016 and ON for Win10 is the way you navigate through your Notebooks and Sections because of the way they are displayed. This Section showing my father’s paternal line is a Section Group. In ON2016, to go back to the main Section of my notebook or to navigate to the other Section Groups (Non-Direct Line and A to Z Surnames), I need to click the Green Arrow. Clicking the Down Arrow brings up a list of the rest of my ON Notebooks.

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This is how that same page looks in ON for Win10.

In this view, the Navigation Pane is open — indicated by the purple icon. On the left are the Notebook Sections (note that all of the Sections and Section Groups can be seen) and on the right, the list of Pages in the current Section. When you click the Down Arrow, the Navigation Pane switches to show a list of your ON Notebooks.

You can close the Navigation Pane completely by clicking on the Navigation Pane icon as shown below.

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Or you can have the Navigation Pane opened all the time by using the Legacy option. To see a list of your ON Notebooks, click the Arrow.

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To turn on the Legacy option, click the Settings Menu (the three dots) on the top right of your screen > Choose Settings > Scroll down to > Navigation > Legacy navigation panes. You will have to restart OneNote when activating or deactivating the Legacy navigation option.

Until next time,

~Erin

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Research Plan for Johannes Zittel

In the ON Templates Section of the Surname notebooks, there is a template for a Research Plan. (A special thank you to Christine Sisko Clause for letting me borrow heavily from her original template to create mine all those years ago.) It’s rather fancy-pants and I have used it on occasion. I like using it when I am trying to solve just one problem for a person or family group. If it’s more complicated, I end using the Initial Research Page that I described in my last post. I filled out a Research Plan for you as an example using the research I did for the death date and place for Johannes Zittel.

This is what the Blank Research Plan template looks like: Blank Research Plan PDF

Blank Research Plan Template

 

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On to the plan… Trees online at Ancestry had John Zittel’s death on 8 Oct 1847 and burial in St. John’s Cemetery in Sheldon, New York. But a change to the FindaGrave.com memorial I had attached to his death put that information in doubt. I did some digging and found my answers.

The template for a Blank Research Plan has some basic instructions and several different tables grouped together to complete the plan. Always start with what you know and give details from the sources you may already have acquired. I filled out the first table in the Research Plan with what I knew, the new, conflicting information and sources (documents) I got the information from.

Partial Johannes Zittel Research Plan

The example above shows the information I originally had and where I got it from as supporting the original conclusion. The next two lines (last line not shown in image above), detail the known conflicting information about Johannes Zittel’s death date. [As a side note: Originally the trees on Ancestry showed Johannes Zittel having the given name of “John” probably because of this FindaGrave.com memorial that is now in question. However, as I have researched more on this family in the last few months, I have discovered his given name to be Johannes.]

 

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The next three tables are for your Research Question, Clues / Hypothesis and Tasks / Places to Look (for new information).

Another portion of Johannes Zittel Research Plan

In my Research Plan, I wrote the specific information I was looking for as a Research Question. Then I detailed some thoughts about where to look for more records and other thoughts I had before I hypothesized that Johannes may have actually died in Cleebourg, France:

  • Given that his wife and several children traveled without him to New York.
  • The fact that I did not see him living close to family members in the 1840 US Census in Sheldon, New York.
  • There are no other apparent records for Johannes in what was then Genesee County, New York.

However, I did search methodically through the records as I outlined in my Clues / Hypothesis table rather than jumping right into the Cleebourg death records just to make sure I had not missed him.

 

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Given that the conclusion is fairly straight forward, I am not going to analyze the new sources (documents) using a Source Description Template nor did I use the table for the Research Log that is included on the Research Plan template. I just put images of the sources (documents) at the bottom of the page with their source citations. (For the most part, at least.)

Conclusion Johannes Zittel Research Plan

 

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Johannes Zittel died on 5 Jan 1819 in Cleebourg, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France according to the death record I found there. To corroborate that this was indeed the right Johannes Zittel — the one married to Margaretha Motz — I then looked for their marriage record. The parents listed on the death record and marriage record for Johannes are the same so I concluded that the death record was his. A PDF of the completed Research Plan is here.

Cleebourg 1819 death record1

Death Record

Cleebourg 1798 marriage record2

Marriage Record

 

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No, I cannot read French nor German. Google Translate and I are becoming fast friends. Regarding the marriage record, I am trusting the person who listed the marriage date over at FamilySearch.org for Johannes Zittel’s profile. The year is correct judging by the volume I found the marriage record in, but I do not see at the top of the record where it says “vingt thermidor” which is the date of the French Republic Calendar for 7 August 17983. I am going to have someone who has more experience translating French and German records confirm the date for me.

Date calculation

 

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My original reason for using the Research Plan in a more formal way for that genealogical problem was to document my conclusions and turn it into a PDF that could be attached to Johannes Zittel’s profile in my Ancestry tree. Because the death information is pretty straight forward, I am going to add the information with a PDF of the death record from the Bas-Rhin Archives and the citation to his profile instead. Which I am going to attempt to go do right after I upload this blog post, because I have a tendency to skip that part while chasing after more bright shiny objects and falling down numerous other rabbit holes, etc.

Until the next time,

~Erin

1 “Cleebourg Death Register – 1819” database with images, Departmental Archives of Bas-Rhin (http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/detail-document/ETAT-CIVIL-C74-P1-R56411#visio/page:ETAT-CIVIL-C74-P1-R56411-3077231 : accessed 1 May 2020, image 2 of 9 > No. 1 > 5 Jan 1819 > Entry for Johannes Zittel.

2 “Cleebourg Marriage Register – Year VI” database with images, Departmental Archives of Bas-Rhin (http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/detail-document/ETAT-CIVIL-C74-P1-R56276#visio/page:ETAT-CIVIL-C74-P1-R56276-289673 : accessed 1 May 2020, image 3 of 5 > Entry for marriage of Johannes Zittel and Catherina Margaretha Motz.

3 “The Republican Calendar” date converter app. Napoleon.org (https://www.napoleon.org/en/history-of-the-two-empires/the-republican-calendar/ : accessed 2 May 2020); converted > 7 August 1798 Gregorian calendar to French Republic calendar date of 20 thermidor an VI.

Cite This Page:

Erin Williamson Klein, “Research Plan for Johannes Zittel.” My Family History Files.com, 2 May 2020 (https://myfamilyhistoryfiles.com/research-plan/research-plan-for-johannes-zittel/ : [access date]).

Please do not copy without attribution and link back to this page.