Tips – Page 22 – GenealogyAtHeart.com

Making the Most of Your Research Trip Part 2

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 11 Aug 2016

By the second day of my research trip in Pennsylvania I was much more familiar with the area and had a better sense of how long it would take me to get from point A to point B, thus I could organize my day efficiently.

Before any trip I plan extensively from home so I don’t waste time and miss resources while I’m on the road. Sometime I get lucky and connect with “boots on the ground” folks who are willing to provide me needed information immediately. In those situations, I like to take a minute to visit in person when I arrive to personally thank them for their help. That was on top of my agenda for the day.

I rose early and didn’t want to wait around for repositories to open so I drove to nearby Greencastle where a Dunkin Donuts had just opened. I bought a box of donut holes with the intention of bringing them back to Waynesboro and giving them to the office staff of a church who had so graciously emailed me copies of original records. Those records took me back a generation and I was very greatful!

Not a lot of traffic so I arrived back in Waynesboro 30 minutes before the church office opened. That was fine, though, as I had previously identified on a map the location of where 3 of the people I was researching owned a business in the mid 1800’s on Main Street. I had a copy of the map in my phone download so I could bring it up and orient myself to what the present area looks like. Since the business day hadn’t begun I was able to park easily and snap photos of the lots. All of these lots had been verified by deeds (remember, I had first gone to the Court House and had from home, rented Family History Library films).

I also like to take photos of the view from the lot. Why? This gives me a sense of what the ancestor may have seen from their land.

Of the 3 lots, one still viewed mountains off in the distance. I could imagine the Rebel Army swarming down on the night of 3 July 1863. How did I know that had happened? Before the trip I had read several histories of the area available on GoogleBooks. I also had the Civil War claim of one of the individuals and two newspaper articles by eyewitnesses of the events of that evening. The day I visited, thank goodness, the view was not threatening!

I still had time before the church opened so I drove by two other churches . I took pictures of those places, along with closeups of the visible cornerstone. This told me that one of the churches was indeed built at the time the ancestor lived in the area. The other church cornerstone clearly showed a later date. This was important because it confirmed that the church bought the lot from another church that had previously used the space for a cemetery. The bodies had been removed to another cemetery in the 1920’s. Two known people I was researching had been reinterred due to that real estate sale.

Stopped by the church office, dropped off the donuts conveyed my appreciation and was off to visit cemeteries. Check back for more!

Making the Most of Your Research Trip Part 1

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 7 Aug 2016.

I’ve been blogging about my recent genealogical hunt in Pennsylvania. After packing essential research tools and visiting the County Courthouse I was off to the Franklin County Historical Museum. Problem was, due to my rental car delay, I arrived later than I anticipated and with only a half hour until closing, I didn’t want to spend the $5.00 research fee and have to return the following day and pay again. I opted instead to drive about 20 minutes to nearby Waynesboro where the Alexander Hamilton Free Library was open until 7 p.m.

Lucky for me, there was a parking space right in front of the library and I had coins for the meter in my research bag. Whenever I enter a new library I always ask where the genealogy section is housed if there was no map online. The sweet librarian pointed to stairs and told me there were “a few rooms.” More than one, seriously?! I like that! The room at the foot of the stairs was awesome, too:

After climbing the stairs I discovered the Civil War room was to the left and the church/cemetery/county histories and genealogies were to the right. A third, smaller room held file cabinets of clippings and donated genealogy records.

What I found strange was that there was NO staff member or computer to access the holdings upstairs. It was also extremely HOT. If there was air conditioning it wasn’t working. (And I’m from Florida so when I say it was hot, it was really hot!)

I quickly walked through the Civil War room. Although the family I was researching lived in the town during that time and had been affected by the War, the materials were not specific to the area. Several series of volumes were placed on the shelf in mixed up order and my OCD tendencies kicked in – I just wanted to put them in sequence. Time was a wasting so I moved on to the next room.

I would love to tell you that this room was in better shape but it wasn’t:

Messy libraries make me nuts! I decided I would just start at the northwest corner of the room and read the shelves. By reading, I mean I don’t just read the books that have their names on the spine. I pull out books that don’t and sure enough, within minutes I found the following:

It’s hard to see in the pic due to the small size but the book was once owned and signed by Clarence Harbaugh. I was researching the Harbaugh family. Although I wasn’t focused on Clarence I did have him in my tree so I took the book to a nearby table and took a picture with my phone. Now I had Clarence’s signature so I could add it to media in my tree. If I ever extend the project I’m working on then I have a good start for another generation!

I had a list of areas I wanted to check – city directories, town records, historical maps and the cemetery and church records I was told were housed there. I was disappointed to find the oldest City Directory was only from 1905, much too late for my family. The church records were missing the index. It was a derivative and I already had the original from the church emailed to me earlier so no loss for me but sad for anyone else who needed that. Since I couldn’t find a burial location for the father of my Generation 1 individual, I really was hoping to locate a cemetery record from a cemetery that no longer exists. I had been told on the phone twice that the library had the Union Cemetery records but I couldn’t find them. I did find an 1843 tax list and the folks I was researching were listed so that was a happy dance.

I moved on to the file cabinet room but there was nothing on the family I was researching. I still had an hour before closing so I went downstairs and asked the librarian where I could find the Union Cemetery records. She looked on the library holding database but couldn’t find it. There is a volunteer genealogist but he wasn’t available and staff didn’t know his schedule. I decided I’d try again the following day as I had emailed twice and left two voice messages but had never gotten in contact with him. The librarian signed me on to a public computer as a guest since I didn’t have a library card and I happily spent the next hour checking out the remaining newspapers that had been digitized. Due to the fragile nature of the originals I was only able to view the digitized copies. Better than nothing! They aren’t available at Newspapers.com, Chronicling America or Genealogy Bank so it was very important for me to see. I did find two references to the family I was interested in – jury duty and an advertisement for a sale. Very nice finds!

The library was supposed to close at 7 but the computers shut down at 6:45. I was almost done with the newspapers but would have to finish the next day.

Soon after I had eaten dinner and checked into my hotel I checked my laptop to see if my phone’s pictures had synched. I don’t carry the clunky laptop when I research anymore but I do take it with me on extended trips as it’s easier to manipulate the photos on the laptop then my Kindle, especially when my old eyes are tired after a long day researching.

I save the photos of places to a Word document and place a caption under each so I don’t forget why I took the picture. I also save pictures of book pages and place the individual pictures in a created folder. For example, I usually take a picture of 1) the index which I then flag with a stickee, 2) the pages that the index pointed me to and 3) the title page. Using the stickee helps me flip back and forth from index to the page I’m directed to quickly. To create the folder to save the pic, I use last name, first name of the individual found and what was the find. In this case, Weaver.Christin.1843TaxList. In the folder I place the picture of the index, the title and 2 pages where I found info. All of the finds are then slipped into another folder labeled with the repository name and date of visit (This would be HamiltonPublicLibrary.WaynesboroPA.14Jul16.. That way, when I get home and merge the pages together to pdf, I can add to media on my tree and note where and when I found the source. I’m old school and like to cite the location of the find in my notes.

Stay tuned for more hints in Part 2.

Researching at the Courthouse

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 3 Aug 2016.

Last blog I mentioned two rules I use to make a research trip rewarding – KNOW BEFORE YOU GO and PACK EFFICIENTLY. Just back from researching in several states and in various libraries and archives so I’m going to share what worked for me at the different locations I visited.

My first stop in Pennsylvania was the Chambersburg (Franklin County seat) Courthouse. I had called ahead to verify the times the facility was open and that the old deeds and wills I needed were available. I knew the cost of the copies and how they accepted payment (cash/credit/debit). I knew which building (there’s an old and new courthouse) and what department and the floor I needed to go to. I also asked where I should park. This allowed me to save time and money when I arrived.

I had also previously identified what the deed dates I was interested in finding by using an index on Familysearch.org. I had ordered the film for the actual deeds but when it arrived in June, it didn’t contain them. Sometimes the films are mislabeled and you don’t get what you expect. One of the films did have a deed but it was of such poor quality I couldn’t read most of the page no matter how I tried to play with it. I was hoping for a better copy. I also knew exactly what Will Book and page I needed based on an index I found on Ancestry.com.

Since the area was just north of the Mason-Dixon line I wondered what the family I was researching’s views were during the Civil War when they lived in the area. I had a hunch but hunches are useless without a document to back it up so I also wanted to check out if any voter’s records survived.

So, in this complex of one stop, I had 3 missions – a will, deeds and voter’s records.

My necklace did set off security which was odd since it didn’t at the airport. Next time, no jewelry! When I entered the Recorder’s Office I introduced myself to the clerical worker and ask for directions to secure what I need.

Directed to a computer I was able to pull 5 deeds in 5 minutes. The printer was a little slow so while it was still printing, I asked about finding the will.

This is not the first time I tried to find the will – I’ve been to the site before and I hired a researcher to also try to find it. Again, I was told it was lost. This time, I whipped out my business card and asked to speak with the head of the facility. I explained to this gracious woman why it was so critical that I find this document and asked if I could go into the basement where the originals were stored as I believed that the will had been misfiled. She informed me policy prohibited anyone but employees from going into the basement. I showed her an email I had received from the state archivist that showed, according to their records, the will was located in the basement. I suggested that the box of wills be brought upstairs and I would go through them to make sure that it wasn’t misfiled. She agreed and sent an employee to bring up the box. All 3 of us went through the box and sadly, it was not there.

Had I been allowed in the basement, I would have gone through every box but that wasn’t going to happen as I had pushed it to just have one box brought upstairs. There is still some hope as the missing document was placed on the “missing list” that a county archivist maintains and if it is discovered, I will be contacted.

The deeds also turned out to not be for the person that I was researching but that’s okay, I have additional information on a related line and the one poor copy I had from the Family History Library microfilm was readable and what I needed. Two down, one to go!

It was a short walk from one building to the next (and through security again – this time my jewelry didn’t set off the alarm!) to the voter’s registration office. The clerk told me that by law, only 10 years of records needed to be maintained so none were available for the years I wanted. She suggested that I go to the historical society as she wasn’t sure when the law was passsed and perhaps, they had older records. That was my next stop and just around the corner! Stay tuned…

Research Tips

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 30 Jul 2016.

I spent the past two weeks researching in several states. Each archive I visited had different policies and procedures but there were commonalities that helped me use my limited time efficiently. On a visit to one of the libraries I had a co-worker tag along and she asked me to share how I found so much so quickly. Since she’s a dear reader, per her request, I’d like to share how I plan my research trips.

KNOW BEFORE YOU GO – Your time is valuable and you don’t want to waste it! The only way to make to the most of your visit is to PLAN AHEAD. How do I do that? As soon as I know I will be arriving in a distant area I identify who is in my tree that lived in the area I’ll visit and what additional information for that individual I’d like to find. I look at the sources I have and focus on what’s missing. I next go to Familysearch.org and do a search for archives I may be interested in visiting to quickly plan the visit.

Here’s an example from my recent trip to Franklin County, Pennsylvania. I click on Familysearch.org and under SEARCH at the top, use the drop down and click WIKI. On the map of the world I click the US, then Pennsylvania, then Franklin County. Up pops wonderful information! I scroll down to the bottom where the repositories are located. I snip to Word (or if you are using a Kindle – copy/paste to Evernote) and in just a minute or two have created a guide of where I need to go. Is the list complete? No, but it’s a wonderful tool to start with. Using the identified places that look promising – Courthouse in Chambersburg (for deeds and wills), Alexander Hamilton Library in Waynesboro (for obit), and the Franklin County Historical Museum (for knowledge of the area’s records in general) I can visit those websites for opening/closing times, admission costs, records that are housed there, and policies in place. I add that info to my Word document. As I’m Googling to find additional information about these places I discover more archives to add by looking at the right hand bottom of the Google search results page under “People Also Searched For.” To make sure I’m not missing any smaller gem that may not receive alot of internet traffic, I also Google “Franklin County Pennsylvania USGenWeb” Voila – scrolling down under Historical & Genealogical Societies and Museums is listed Waynesboro Historical Society. That’s a place I need to add to my Word/Evernote document as I know that the folks I’m searching for lived in that location. Depending on the time I have to spend in the area, I add churches (baptism/marriage/death/parishioner records) and cemeteries (family plot info), too.

In a perfect genealogical world, I would have time to contact the repositories ahead of my visit to make sure that the old deeds are still housed in the courthouse and weren’t moved to the museum but sometimes that’s not possible and I just have to wing it. For this trip, though, I did call ahead or search the website to verify who had what.

I then prioritize what I wanted to find as sometimes life doesn’t work out the way we want. Several years ago I planned a trip around a library in Morristown, New Jersey and guess what?! The day before I arrived they had a gas leak and the library was closed when I got there. I had nothing else identified to visit in the area and the trip was an expensive waste of time. Live and learn!

Once I’ve identified my list of sites to visit I route based on my priorities. On the Franklin trip, my number one priority was to find a will, then the deeds, as I hoped that would lead me to a firm death date and I could then locate the burial site. If they weren’t available my backup was to find an obituary.

Even with planning, sometimes life gets in the way so you have to be flexible. I arrived at Reagan National in DC mid day on a Thursday. I had pre-paid for the rental car thinking I could drive in 1 1/2 hours to the courthouse to get the will and deeds, go next door to the county historical museum to check out their index of county burials and then head to the library (which was open late that evening) to find an obit. Well, it didn’t work out as planned. Arriving early at National I then encountered a long wait at the rental car counter as it was lunch time and there was only 1 employee available who was arguing with the customer ahead of me over company policy. The kiosks were all down due to a computer glitch. I waited and waited and finally another employee came back from lunch. He was new, though, and couldn’t find my reservation even though I had a copy of my confirmation with me. Then he found it but the transaction wouldn’t go through as the credit card I had used to pre-pay had been compromised two weeks earlier and I had a replacement card with another number. He told me my option was to rent a car at the going rate (much higher) and deal with getting a credit on my pre-payment after my trip. Nope! Asked to speak to a manager and none available. Meanwhile, the clock was ticking…. After two calls to corporate customer service I was permitted to update my credit card information and get the rental. Thinking it would be smooth sailing ahead I happily followed the employee’s directions to go to the top floor of the parking garage and find the car in the space he wrote on the paperwork. Except there were no rental cars on the top floor – he should have sent me to the 3rd floor. Took me several minutes to figure out where to go. When I got to the designated space I couldn’t get into the car. I then had to hunt down an employee who told me they rented me the wrong car and I needed to go back downstairs to get it straightened out. When I arrived downstairs there was a long line and seriously, the first employee was still arguing with the customer who had been there when I first arrived. Thankfully, the nice people in line let me take cuts and the new employee again didn’t know what to do. A manager now magically appeared and they found me a different car. Back to the 3rd floor and another wait to get out of the parking lot as there was one employee to check me out. I lost an hour plus that I had expected to use researching. Deep breathing helps!

2. PACK EFFICIENTLY – Below is a pic of what I keep together to make my research trip more efficient:

This is all I take – my Kindle as it contains my tree, my phone so I can take pictures of my finds, a small change purse with quarters for parking meters, locker rental or snacks, a thumb drive to save what I find, identification (those are Library of Congress and NARA library cards but I also put my drivers license credit cards and a few business cards in the change purse), a pencil, red pen, black pen and highlighter, stickees (to flag the index as I’m going back and forth in a text), hand sanitizer and a magnifying glass.

All of this fits into a quart size baggie:

Remarkable how everything fits except the Kindle! Sometimes I take a large rubber band and band the baggie to the Kindle so I don’t drop anything.

This small amount of needed tools helps me move quickly through security and not spend time digging through my purse to find what I need when I’m in the stacks. I also check out quickly as employees can see I haven’t “accidentally” taken something out that I shouldn’t have. This set up is a win-win for everyone!

I actually prefer mechanical pencils to the standard shown above but I was out so I used what I had at home. I’ll get those mechanical ones when the back-to-school sales start this week.

It’s important to know the repositories policy as some do no allow you to take paper, pens, pencils or highlighters in with you. At the National Archives, I had to leave my Kindle case in a locker, too. Again, flexibility is needed.

Next blog, I’ll give you hints for being effective and efficient when you reach your destination. Happy Hunting!

Lighting A Fire

A former client informed me today that she thought about me all night long. I could be flattered by that but the reason why was unsettling. It’s summer in Florida and during this time we experience torrential storms. Last evening was over the top with lightning and thunder and subsequently, one of my client’s neighbors home was hit and caught fire. Thankfully, the fire department was able to extinguish the flames but the home sustained much damage.

Why my client thought of me at that time was due to my insistence a few months ago that her family documents be scanned and saved in several places. She never got around to it. Typical excuses – work, family, vacation, and it’s not fun to scan. I’m not saying that those excuses aren’t valid but last evening she realized how quickly everything can be instantly destroyed.

First thing this morning she contacted me asking for help in cataloguing and scanning her documents and photos.

Please, readers, no more excuses! Make the time now to save these valuable heirlooms today.

Adding Flexibility to the Genealogists Repetoire

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 7 July 2016

It’s a benefit to genealogists to be flexible. This post will be short because of my necessity to be flexible today.

Yesterday evening son asked for a ride to the airport for a business trip he was taking today. No problem! Then I learned he needed to be there by 5 AM. So I’m now operating on little sleep. Coffee can be a genealogists best friend. I’ll be back to the airport tonight late to pick him up.

I got home and thought I’d start the day with some light reading before I started on an article I plan on submitting to a journal so I opened my email. Bad news! Sidengo, which provided my website template, has changed their policy effective August 1st so if I stay with them I’m going to have to start paying. That led me to find Canvas, which is free, that my webhost, Namecheap, can work with. I just spent the last 3 hours between Namecheap and Canvas as there was some glitch with my transaction going through. I then had to rebuild the website. Got everything there EXCEPT I haven’t figured out yet how to link the blog posts from here to there. Will work on that this afternoon.

I’ll be on the road again next week, first for some personal research in Pennsylvania and Maryland and then on to a conference in DC for my education job, then a little more research at NARA at the end of the trip so I really don’t have the time to spend on getting this website recreated. I’m hoping you’ll be able to experience a seemless transfer! The names the same – genealogyatheart.com

With my upcoming travel I will most likely have to post less frequently; again, it pays to be flexible as who knows what awesome discoveries awaits me in the next few weeks that I’ll just have to share. So my need to be flexible impacts you, too. My apologies! It’s great, though, to identify another way we’re all connected – Happy Hunting!

No Headstone? Here’s Some Ideas

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 3 Jul 2016.

“Memory has become a sacred duty of all people of goodwill.” Elie Weisel

Hubby and I went to the cemetery last week – not to check a record, take a picture for a memorial request or to honor an ancestor. Instead, we went to check on space availability for what would become our final real estate purchase. It was a very weird experience.

We grew up with the Jackson 5, literally. There are some historical moments that most Boomers claim to remember for the impact that it made on the world and to them personally – where they were when the Kennedys and MLK was shot, the moon landing, and 9-11, for example, but one of the most pivotal moments to me was the death of Michael Jackson. Seriously. I grew up about a mile away from the Jackson family household in Gary, Indiana. As a student council representative as a freshman in high school I was placed on a committee to select a band for an upcoming dance the organization would be sponsoring. That was how I first became involved with the Jacksons…

I am tone deaf – most people say they can’t carry a tune but for me it’s so bad that people ask my to stop singing I can dance, though, and quite well. So keep this in mind as I tell the tale….

The committee met one day after school to listen to 3 bands that had been narrowed down, I guess, from others that had expressed interest in playing the upcoming dance. The Jacksons were one of those bands. It was before they were famous. I’m not sure if Dianna Ross was dating Mayor Hatcher then. Likely she hadn’t yet arranged for all those talented people to transform the Jackson family into – The Jacksons. Michael was still too little, as was Janet, when the band auditioned. I’m older then both of them. The song they played was not danceable. Very weird beat.

I was not impressed with the Jackson’s performance and neither was the others on my committee. Which says a lot about our ability to recognize talent or about how much practice (and the right coaching) makes perfect. Either way, we selected another band. Can’t remember their name, can’t even remember the dance very well but I remember the Jacksons because within a very short time after this they were everywhere.

Gary’s previous favorite sons were Karl Malden (who had gone to high school with my uncle) and George Karras, who’s brother owned the house next door to us and who I price gouged once but that’s another story. Oh, Gary was also famous for the dumb song from the Music Man that repeats “Gary, Indiana.” Gary was not known for music so your can imagine the city’s pride in the Jackson 5. They performed a concert at Gleason Park, just 3 blocks from our home. They sounded great that night.

Like the Jacksons, my husband and I left Gary to follow our dreams elsewhere. I haven’t been back there since 2001 when my mom passed.

When Michael Jackson died I was on a bus with fellow educators on I 75 south of Tampa coming back from visiting a then brand new state of the art community college that had been built out in the sticks. It had been a tiring day and we were being driven back to where we had all parked our cars so we could go home. A counselor who was sitting a few rows up had gotten a phone call and I heard her exclaim, “Oh, no. That’s …” and her words trailed off. I knew she had an elderly mom and assumed something had happened to her. The woman ended the conversation, rose from her seat and half standing, announced, “Michael Jackson is dead.”

I couldn’t process this sentence. How could he be dead? He was younger than me. Certainly my lifestyle was not as stressful nor did I make the life choices that he had but….. he was younger than me. Certainly I had experienced in my lifetime the passing of those that were young – several fellow students, friends of the family, colleagues and neighbors’ children. But Michael, well, he was bigger than life. In my mind, he was permanently young and invincible. My memory wasn’t of him after the numerous plastic surgeries. I still remembered the little kid and I was stunned.

I told my husband as soon as I returned home that afternoon. I reached the conclusion, on the drive home that day, that our preparation for death needed to occur. So we scheduled an appointment with our attorney the following day and had our wills updated. That was as far as we got – didn’t think further than that.

A few weeks ago I received a thick packet in the mail from a rural Indiana county. I was delighted to examine the probate file of a couple I was writing about. My delight soon turned to sadness as I read that the grown children had to come up with the money for the burial, repay the man’s debts and take in their mom, all due to the lack of planning on the couple’s part. When the mom died several years later the kids again had to put their money together to make sure the burial was paid.

I don’t want that to be me. Hubby and I discussed it and decided that he, too, was going to donate his body to science. I’ve previously written about that so check out my blog Death and the Genealogist from 23 June. He wants his cremains returned so that’s how we ended up at the cemetery last week.

Burial is big business and expensive. I am thrifty. We reached our decision of where to be buried based on

where we live – we wanted it close to this area that we’ve called home for many years,
what the place will be like in the future – have experienced too many forgotten cemeteries so we wanted assurance there would be some level of maintenance
reasonably priced

That led us to a local city owned cemetery. On the way there the song, Stairway to Heaven, played on the radio. Had to snicker about “and she’s buying a stairway to heaven…”

When we arrived we learned there was a problem (why is there always a problem?!). The cemetery was running out of space. We looked at the limited options and Hubby jokingly said it was kind of noisy, being right off the main street. I laughed and reminded him we both grew up on main streets so it would be coming full circle.

In our community we can no longer be buried in ground. Looking across the expanse I saw lots of empty space so I didn’t understand how there wasn’t much space left. I was informed that many people didn’t have markers. Lots of reasons for that – the cost, lack of planning, couldn’t decide, it aged and fell apart, and so on.

That made me really sad! I recently did some client work and that was the case with the woman’s great grandma. Buried between two of her children she was the only one with no marker. The client was upset and said she was going to see that a marker was put up. So I really wanted a marker

The cemetery employee said we could order the brass plaque now and they’d put the final dates, included in the price, on it later. We sat in an office and looked at insignias to add to personalize the plaque and wasn’t real impressed. Discovered my real first name, with my maiden and last name, is too long for the plaque so had to go with initial of my maiden name. Can only put the year of birth and death and no relationship to each other. Wow, so much for helping out a genealogist in the future. I will be leaving in the cemetery file copies of our birth and marriage certificates and the obits for our parents so at the very least, if requested, the future inquirer will have a start of a paper trail. Check to see if that’s available when you do your planning.

Yesterday, hubby and son were building a brick bbq grill in our backyard. He had laid the cement foundation a long while ago but had never gotten around to finishing the project. Last night, he remarked about an idea that came to him when he was building. I have to admit this is quite humorous to see how one’s mind works but here is the trail…. Building the bbq grill reminded him of my family stories about my grandmother’s house that had a bbq grill just like the one he was working on. That led to him thinking about my mom who loved helping us with around the house projects and who would have loved to know that the crematorium had sent us a rebate after death because she had over paid. That made him think about the cemetery we had just selected and the people who had no stones and why couldn’t inexpensive “stones” be used. He recalled laying the cement for the bbq and he figured, if he could do it, anyone could and a cemetery base could be prefab and easy to install, too. Always looking to recycle, why can’t someone use excess countertops, like Corian, and engrave the deceased’s name and dates, then affix it to the cement base? I dunno! Why can’t they? Probably because there’s no money in it! All I know is that as difficult and strange is the experience to select one’s final resting place for us, it’s done and we can happily live the rest of our lives knowing we planned til the end.

Death and the Genealogist

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 23 June 2016.

My friends and colleagues like to kid me about my genealogy passion and my organizational skills by asking if I’ve already written my own obituary. My reply is always, “I haven’t – yet!” I really will, though, and just might get a start on it this summer. Although I wish my kids would write one like the son of a recently deceased woman’s did: “Faced with the prospect of voting for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, Mary Anne Noland of Richmond chose, instead, to pass into the eternal love of God on Sunday,” the obituary read, which was published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Tuesday, May 17.”[1] I’ll spare my children having to come up with something clever and will do it myself. I plan on keeping it short but definitely not like this obituary, the shortest ever published: “Doug died.”[2] Perhaps a genealogists nightmare as there is so little information provided but it is telling about the gentleman’s personality.

I think it’s important to be prepared so that my living loved ones don’t have an added burden. My mom had her will drawn and paid for her cremation more than 20 years before she passed. I greatly appreciated that; her death was not unexpected as she had suffered with Alzheimers for many years but her loss was difficult for me, none the less. Her planning ahead made it much easier.
My mom was a product of the Great Depression and would have been very pleased when a small check was sent to me several weeks after her cremation – she had earned a rebate. Perfect last business transaction!

Following in my mom’s lead, hubby and I have our wills done and our financials all up-to-date with our children able to pick up immediately when we’re gone. What we haven’t done, however, is make a choice of a final resting place. I want my body donated to science as I’ve spent my entire life in the educational realm and figure it’s a good way to end it . The process is called “silent teaching” which would be a first for me – teaching without opening my mouth. I’d be happy to enhance a medical student’s education. Hubby has decided he wants to do that, too, but still wants our remains together after the students are done.

Unfortunately, some states have little to no standards regarding cadaver “donations” so if you’re thinking about it, make sure you’ve thoroughly investigated the laws where you reside.

When I write “donations” I need to clarify, too, that the donor is paying for some of the costs. This is not a free burial. In fact, some organizations will only take embalmed bodies with that cost incurred as a responsibility of the donor. The (c)remains may or may not be returned to the family. If they are, there is a cost involved there, as well.

Since hubby wants a standard burial I figure we’ll get one plot and do a two for one! We have set up a meeting next week with our city cemetery to get additional information.
Then we have to decide on the marker. Wow, designing a tombstone is a whole other area where I get to be creative! Click to view some genealogist epitaphs I came across this week.

Thinking about tombstones led me to ponder about the discoveries we make on Find-A-Grave and Billion Graves. For example, I know I have a distant cousin buried in a cemetery but the family couldn’t afford a stone so there is no visible sign of the interment. The individual has a memorial on Find-A-Grave but no place of burial is listed. That will be problematic for future genealogists!

I have also found a family member who has two stones in two different cemeteries. Since obviously one cannot be buried in two places at one time there’s a problem here! Turns out that the first stone was inscribed with the name and birthdate of the individual while married to wife 1. Individual decided after marrying wife 2 to be buried elsewhere. Without checking the cemetery records you don’t know for sure where the individual was buried. Yet another reason to seek more than online sources!

Do your descendants a favor and leave no genealogy mysteries about your life!

[1] http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/this-woman-chose-death-over-voting-for-trump-or-clinton-in-funny-obit-w207281

[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/01/obituary-two-words-doug-died_n_7710444.html

Photographs Unveil Information in a New Light

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 16 Jun 2016.

I’ve had a very strange week – genealogywise! It started with this recent family photo tree purchase:

tree

I always wanted to place family photos on the wall in my office but I couldn’t decide which pictures to use or how to group them. I saw the photo tree concept online but the reviews weren’t good; some said it was difficult to put together and others complained it wouldn’t stay up on the wall. The trees were pricy, too, and I didn’t want to waste time and money on a product that would frustrate me.

A few weeks ago I found the tree pictured above offered through Books R Fun locally. The reasonable price and the easy directions worked for me! Within minutes I had the tree up and then it hit me – why not use couple photos. I could display more people that way and since my husband and I share an office, it would serve as a nice reminder of our many grandparents.

I didn’t think it was going to take me long to finish the project as I sort of knew which photos I would select. First problem I encountered was my photos were missing from Google Photos. I’ve blogged previously about how Google Picassa has morphed into Google Photos and I thought that I had successfully transferred all of them from one program to the other a few months ago. Evidently, most did not take. Please check if you did that, too, as it’s better to know now then when you need them.

No worries, I thought, I have them saved elsewhere. That’s when I realized the computer where I had saved them had bit the dust. I checked Dropbox; they weren’t there, either. I must have removed them when I reached the max allowable on my plan. They were on Ancestry.com but to have to go through the gallery to locate them would be time consuming. I have backups on cd but those were saved by family surnames and I would have had to keep flipping through the various cds to find what I wanted. I then remembered that I had installed Picassa on the desktop of an old laptop. Sure enough, there they all were! Since I had taken the time to place all the photos in albums it was a breeze to find what I was looking for quickly. I’m glad this happened now as I have since backed up the laptop pictures to 2 hard drives and again, to Google Photos. The $8.00 tree purchase saved me future grief!

Being a thrifty genealogist, I decided I wouldn’t print the photos to photographic paper until I had them perfect as most of the photos I selected didn’t fit easily into the frame size. I plan to make them real photos this weekend and add children of the couples to frames that will surround the tree.

As I was arranging and rearranging the photos on the tree itself I was startled to discover how much of a strong family resemblance my father-in-law had to his mother and grandmother! My husband bears a remarkable resemblance to his maternal grandfather who he never knew. I have seen these photos for most of my adult life; none were new to me. It wasn’t until I placed them in the tree that I noticed the similarities between individuals.

I’m not sure if it was because they were now almost all the same size, shape, and color, the angle on the wall or the proximity to each other. Looking at them from this perspective was nothing short of startling. I highly recommend trying this! You may discover things about your family in a completely different way.

When I looked at myself, however, I was stunned. I don’t look like anyone! I blurted out that I must have been adopted but hubby pointed out that I have the original birth certificate and that there are photos of me in my mother’s arms in the hospital shortly after I was born. Mom clearly looked like she had been through labor! I knew I had my mom’s eyes and figured my hair was just a blend of both of my parents – my dad’s blonde and my mom’s dark brown. Looking at the photos I realized I had my paternal grandmother’s hair, my maternal grandmother and great grandmother’s nose and my paternal grandfather’s chin. Okay, so my dna is all mixed up – I am a true red blooded American mutt!

The photos didn’t just unveil family similarities; they also showed up some commonalities uniting all sides. I always thought my preference for pearls was a result of watching Leave It To Beaver as a child and channeling June Cleaver! Nope, in just about every photo a female is wearing pearls. I shared this insight with my daughter who just happened to be wearing pearls. Nice to know that trait got passed along to another generation.

I also discovered that one of the great great grandpas was wearing some type of insignia. I never noticed it before and it’s another mystery to solve. Taking a look back at your old photos may just lead you to more amazing family discoveries.

Random Genealogy News

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 9 June 2016.

Maybe due to the recent passing of Tropical Storm Colin through my area my thoughts are fairly random today! Several days of heavy rain and wind is pushing me to get outside and do some cleanup yard work so this will be brief!

First up – did you know that Family Tree Maker is back. They have a newsletter that will keep you updated as to when they are going to start synching again with Ancestry.com. If you’re a faithful reader you know I gave up on them about two years ago but now I’m thinking that maybe the problem was that I had the 2012 version and when they moved to the 2014 version it interfered with the synch. Neither FTM or Ancestry ever asked me what version I was using when I repeatedly called which says a lot about their customer support. Anyway, the software is now owned by mackiev which used to make really good products, like Kidspics that my own children loved back in the day. For $29.95 they’ll sell you their latest version of FTM at a discount if you had a previous one and I may do that as another backup. To sign up for their newsletter click here.

Update to my last three blogs about frugality in genealogy – Should have definitely mentioned Linkedin and Facebook. I use both and they are free! Did you know that there are over 8,000 genealogy sites on Facebook?! To view the list of them click here.

Two more reason to DO IT NOW! – Had a colleague from my educational job thank me for giving her the “Mean Momma” look when she told me two weeks ago that she had 14 boxes of family documents stored in an unair conditioned shed near a major river that floods. I told her to move them in her house pronto but she insisted that she was going to spend the summer going through the boxes, one a week. She had gone through 3 of the boxes when the flood advisory hit the area and she wasted no time in getting the boxes relocated in her home. With the storm, she had time to go through them and found some wonderful genealogical stories that I’m encouraging her to write about and publish. She’s an awesome writer so in the near future, look for a guest blog from her.

Another colleague asked me about how to go about collecting family history information. I pointed her to my website that houses all of my blogs (www.genealogyatheart.com) and strongly encouraged her to talk with her parents when she went home for Memorial Day weekend. When she returned the following Tuesday she told me that she relaxed all weekend and never got around to talking to her parents about the past. Five days later one of her parents had a stroke and has lost the ability to speak. Understandably, she is devastated on so many levels. If that isn’t a wake up call for all of us, I don’t know what is! Don’t delay – send that email, make that phone call, take the older relative to lunch and get the info today!

Those are my three random thoughts for the day – got to go get on the garden gloves and start picking up Spanish moss.