Posted on Leave a comment

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge

Amy Johnson Crow of NoStoryTooSmall has issued a challenge to family history bloggers to post about an ancestor a week during 2014. I read about the challenge on the Ancestry blog and thought I would participate.

52ancestors

The challenge: have one blog post each week devoted to a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, an outline of a research problem — anything that focuses on one ancestor.

The whole idea appeals to me for several reasons. First there is the motivation to stay on top of my blog and post consistently. [I’m hopeful!] I also think that focusing specifically on an ancestor a week will give me direction in cleaning up my files and reorganizing them — one of my goals for 2014. Finally, while much has been researched and written about my mother’s side of the family, on my father’s side of the family there is next to nothing. Well, that’s probably not quite true… it’s just that in comparison, it seems like very little.

My mother’s paternal ancestors were famous shipbuilders from Scotland who settled in Quebec, Canada. There is a point on a bay with a lighthouse named after them, their original settlement still stands, there are histories, stories, songs, photos and even paintings supposedly done by a princess about members of this family. On my mother’s maternal line, there are cousins that are family historians who are the keepers of the stories and the photos.

[I was hoping to find my box of photos today that are in storage to add in some pictures of my brothers and me with our Canadian cousins but I cannot find the box. I will update this when I come across it.]

In the summer before I turned fourteen, my family took a vacation to visit my mother’s parents in Canada. Family crawled out the woodwork up there. There was a grandmother AND a grandfather, aunts and uncles and cousins galore! Back home in New York, there was my grandmother, my aunt [my father’s mother and his sister] and her husband — that was all. There were no other aunts and uncles, no great aunts and uncles and definitely no cousins. I wanted to know why. What happened to everyone? And wanting to know is what started my obsession with genealogy.

In stepping up to the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge, I hope to add a little life to the people I’ve found in my father’s lines. I might even share a little about my mother’s ancestors as well.

Posted on Leave a comment

Favorite Genealogy Pins for January

New pins to my Genealogy board this week include links to two new [to me] resources that may be helpful in researching my mother’s Irish and Scottish ancestors.

The following two links are to an article and a video lesson on FamilySearch.org that are relevant to current goals and research:

Because I don’t want my family history to just exist as files on my laptop, I pin links to creative ideas that showcase ways to display and use my family history records but not the typical scrapbooking page.

I really like this chart!

Pinterest, for those who do not know, is a way to categorize and bookmark links on the Internet in a visually appealing way. You can create a board on any topic of interest and “pin” a link to almost any website you find of that you want to bookmark for your chosen topic. The pins show up on your board using a photo or graphic from the website. You can write your own descriptor for the link.

For more pins to genealogy resources, articles and creative inspiration, be sure to look at my Pinterest board at Pinterest.

Posted on 3 Comments

Plans for 2014

Juliana Smith writes on the Ancestry.com blog about 6 Resolutions to Get Your Family History on Track for 2014. I don’t make resolutions but I like to make a list of things I want to accomplish in the upcoming year. My list is supposed to keep me focused. [Anyone who knows me personally is now laughing hysterically…]

to-to-listHaving an unnatural love for list-making, I like to spend the first week of a new year making lists of things to do. It doesn’t matter that I don’t accomplish half of what I list and I don’t even dwell on that fact. For some reason, it soothes my soul to look forward to doing new things rather than lamenting all that lies unaccomplished. This parallels my thinking in my other obsession [quilting], where at the start of a new project — the designing and planning stages and finally beginning the project — is much more exciting than the finishing-up stage. [Don’t ask me how many quilting projects I have currently underway. Hehehe.]

I have just gotten back to my family history after a 10 year break so I want to focus, focus, focus. Trying to re-enter old work and documenting new discoveries has me running in circles. Which explains the reason why I feel the need for a list, I think. Using Juliana’s 6 Resolutions and her comments about them, I came up with a list of goals for my family history research for 2014. Here’s a summary of Juliana’s resolutions:

    #1. Make it a priority
    #2. Meet with my ancestors
    #3. Learn, learn, learn
    #4. Organize file – electronic and otherwise
    #5. Read history
    #6. Preserve stories and share them

Making my research a priority is not a problem–keeping it from being an obsession is probably a better goal for me. I cancelled my Ancestry membership temporarily to get a handle on the obsession thing. I need to make it a priority to get everything entered from my old files before I continue adding in new. My ancestors aren’t going anywhere, right?

    #1 Finish entering information from old family group sheets, Duthie history, and McEvoy booklet into Family Tree Maker[FTM].

As I enter the old information into FTM, I need to review and inventory all the materials I’ve gathered for each person. I may need to print new family group sheets. I want to make sure I have sources cited and take notes on what information is missing on sources previously searched.

    #2 Refile old documents and add new information and documents.

I want to use some sort of timeline-chart format for each direct line family to see where vital information is missing or not sourced properly. By doing this, I will also be able to form some new conclusions based on new information and connections and see new avenues to follow to form new research plans.

    #3 Take notes, form timelines and make new research plans.

I use OneNote to keep track of my life and lists. I have notebooks set up for my family history but have not completely worked out a way to use them cohesively with FTM. I need to work on that. Part of the reason I am having to re-enter all my data and notes is that my old FTM files were on 3.5″ floppies. Yes, ancient technology… When using OneNote everything can be stored on SkyDrive, as well as USB, so maybe a similar situation can be avoided in the future. [I can only hope.]

onenote family history

    #4 Work out a plan to store documents electronically with OneNote.
    #5 Organize scanned documents on hard drive into OneNote notebooks.

About eight weeks ago I made a task list in FTM of people in my direct line who needed names, immigration and death dates found for them. Recently Ancestry was offering free access to records in the UK, I added a few more names to my lines and completed a few tasks. A new task list is in order, I think.

    #6 Compile a new task list in FTM for my direct lines and use it along with the timeline charts to form some concrete research plans.
    #7 STAY FOCUSED!

When Ancestry.com offered the free access to UK resources, I took advantage of it. [I only had access to US resources at the time.] I was able to add the parents of my original Williamson immigrant ancestor including the female surname. I am hoping to be able verify her parents names next. I searched records for the Isle of Man and added to my Cormode line as well. This brings me to Juliana’s third resolution–learn. Now that I’ve taken those two lines back over the pond, I will need to learn about research and obtaining documents in Lancashire, England and Lezayre, Isle of Man. Which leads to my next goal:

    #8 Learn more about resources and documents available in England and the Isle of Man starting with the free Ancestry Research Guides and videos and then other online sources and books.

Moving on to my last two goals… just for personal satisfaction:

    #9 Connect and correspond with distant cousins.

And finally, again, as a constant reminder:

    #10 STAY FOCUSED!

 

 

tasksLet the check-marking begin!