Category: Tips

We’re Related – What to Do if Your Tree is Too Large for the New Ancestry.com Ap

Recently I wrote about my inability to get “We’re Related” – the new Ancestry.com ap working. Every time I tried to switch my Main Tree to yes I’d get an error message.  I surmised that it was because my tree was too large and I’m still going with that theory.  I figured out a work around and if you’re interested, here’s what to do:

  1. I created a new database in RootsMagic7 (Click File – New) and made the file name:  Lori’s Lines.  You name yours whatever you want!  I disabled WebHints and clicked “I know where the file is.”
  2. Next I dragged myself from my Main Tree gedcom that was already uploaded in RootsMagic to the click person location. A pop up asks what you want to drag and drop and I selected “Ancestors of myself.”
  3. On this new database, I then went to File – Export and unchecked LDS information, addresses, multimedia, note formatting and extra details because I wanted to make the new gedcom as concise as possible.  I clicked “Privatize living people” and then clicked ok.  I saved the gedcom on my desktop.
  4. Clicking on the ribbon “TREES” on Ancestry.com, I used the drop down menu to click “Create & Manage New Trees.”  At the bottom, I clicked “Upload a Gedcom file.”  I chose the file sitting on my desktop and named the tree the same as the Gedcom.  I also made the tree private.  Why?  Because I only want people to use my Main Tree on Ancestry and not this subset tree.  Back in the day, I had several lines separated and when people would email me, I never knew which tree they were referring to.  I will never be doing anything with this newly uploaded tree other than using it for the ap so I also went to settings and made sure I turned off the hints.  I DO NOT want more email telling me they found something!  (Personally, I’m really tired of seeing the “Direct Bloodline” and pics of red crosses.  To me, those aren’t hints and I wish there was a way to filter that stuff out.) Then I clicked the little box that I accept the submission.
  5. You’re almost done!  Now, open the We’re Related ap on your phone.  (If you haven’t downloaded it go to Google Play Store on Android or whatever you do on IPhone and install it).  I then selected the newly uploaded tree – “Lori’s Lines” and slid the no to yes.  I selected myself as the person in my tree.  It stays on and works!

I decided to do the same for my husband’s lines and followed the same process above.  I did have to select myself as him on We’re Related because I wasn’t an available choice.  Remember, I had pruned these new Gedcoms to bare basics -on my tree only my direct ancestors so our marriage, siblings and children weren’t imported.  Can’t wait to get in a crowd and try it out!

Genealogy Gift Ideas

Tis the Season to Merrily Spend!  Here’s some things that I requested Santa get me this year:

  • A Stranger in My Genes by Bill Griffin.  I’d like the Kindle edition.
  • Genetic Genealogy in Practice by Blaine Bettinger.  I’d like the paperback edition.  Yes, it costs  a whole bunch more than the Kindle edition but I want to flag pages.  It’s also one of my New Year’s resolutions to learn as much as I can about DNA in 2017.
  • Red Pens – I still underline relationship info with them.
  • Renew my memberships to my state and local society – they’re due January 1st!
  • Register for the National Genealogical Society Conference that will be held in Raleigh, North Carolina May 9-13.
  • A sterling silver charm shaped like a tree that I saw at a local art’s festival.
  • A package containing primary source documents for relationship of any of my numerous brick wall ancestors.  No preference of person!  I’d be thankful for any tidbit placed where I could find it.
If you’re a Santa’s helper and are looking for the perfect gift for the Genea in your life, here’s some ideas:
  • A scanner.  Check out Flippal
  • A jeweler’s head magnifier to better read those records.  They start at $7.85 on Amazon.  I have a different model that came with interchangeable lenses that I love.
  • A genealogy mousepad
  • A genealogy license plate holder
  • A genealogy travel mug
  • A subscription to – Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, Fold3.com, Newspapers.com, LegacyFamilyTree.com, National Genealogical Society, New England Historic Genealogical Society, New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, your state or local society.  These organizations offer classes/workshops/conferences, journals/newsletters, and a community of like minded helpful individuals for support and ideas.
  • DNA test kits for the entire family (Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, FamilyTreeDNA.com, 23andme.com)  Check the pricing and buy the lowest.
  • A promise you will not roll your eyes, sigh or look bored when your Genea excitedly begins to tell you about the most recent discovery.  That’s the best gift ever and it’s free!

Test Driving MyHeritage.com and Making an Amazing Find!

I had a free account with MyHeritage but I was never a subscriber until recently when a 50% discount offer was made for members of the National Genealogical Society.  I believe the discount is now offered for a limited time to everyone – check it out here.  I decided to give it a try and I immediately scaled a brick wall on my Duer line that I’ve recently been researching.  Here’s how I did it…

I downloaded my gedcom from Ancestry.com to my home computer and then uploaded to MyHeritage.  My tree is large so I received an email from MyHeritage once it had been loaded and was ready to go.  The following day I went on the site and it was easy to upload a site photo (I used my Genealogy At Heart logo that I keep jpg’d in Dropbox and my Google+ pic, added a blurb about what my research interests are and what I’m currently investigating.  I happened to write that my brick wall was to determine the link between John Duer and his purported son, Thomas.  Thomas died in 1829 intestate and John, in 1831, with a will that omitted Thomas, understandably since he was deceased, but did not include any of Thomas’ children.  That wouldn’t have been odd, however, John did include a grandson who lived out of the Trumbull County, Ohio area, who was the son of one of John’s deceased daughters.  Why include a grandson that lived in another state and not the grandchildren that lived next door?  Hmm.

I have researched probate, land and court records, cemetery records, tried to find Bible and church records, obituaries, collateral lines, biographies, area histories, and contacted area genealogical societies and libraries but found nothing. The census and tax lists just aren’t helpful since they do not show relationships that far back.

I put the research aside for a month but it’s been gnawing at me.  I originally made the connection of John and Thomas through the work of Edgar Duer Whitley, a gentleman who had found me on the internet 6 years ago from a Rootsweb posting I had made in the early 2000’s.  My tree proved lineage to Thomas but I couldn’t go farther back.  His tree showed lineage to Thomas’ son John who had a daughter, Maria, that I’m descended from. Edgar emailed me and kindly sent me an electronic copy of all his years of sleuthing.  He never had a citation, though, of how Thomas and John were related. Shortly after he emailed me he no longer responded to my emails.  He was quite up in age and I figured he was deceased.  Thus, I couldn’t know how he knew that Thomas was the son of John.

I would love to tell you that MyHeritage found the answer super quickly but that didn’t happen.  I actually didn’t receive any Record or Smart Matches from them.  I assume that’s because my uploaded tree is well sourced.

I decided to snoop around their Family Trees located under the Research category.  I entered birth and death location and death year info for Thomas Duer.  A number of trees popped up with displays similarly to Ancestry.com.  I clicked on the first one and didn’t find anything exciting.  The citations were all from Ancestry trees.  Ugh!

Then things got interesting – I clicked on Thomas’ wife Hannah as the tree owner had her listed as Hannah Preston.   I had her listed as Hannah Byrd.  When I went to Hannah’s page I discovered that she had remarried to a James Preston in September 1831 in Trumbull County, Ohio.  How had I missed that?  Interestingly, here’s how the marriage license is written:

 
“Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-2013,” database with images, Family Search (https://familysearch.org:  21 Nov 2016), Trumbull>Marriage licenses 1828-1839 vol 2>image 55 of 181; county courthouses, Ohio.

Notice the right side records Hannah’s surname as “Dewer” but in the body of the text as “Duer.”  The record is indexed by Dewer so I never found it.  The tree owner had found it because he was descended from James Preston.  Putting in “James Preston” in the FamilySearch.org search form would have brought it up.

How do I know that the Hannah Duer is the wife of Thomas.  There was only one other Hannah Duer living in the country in 1831 and she was 10 years old, residing in Pennsylvania.  My Hannah and James were both born in New Jersey in 1775.  James’ first wife died in 1829 in childbirth with twins shortly after Hannah’s husband, Thomas, died.  Both had young children in the home so it makes sense they would have blended their families.

I went back to Ancestry.com, Familysearch.org and Rootsweb’s World Connect Project, to see if other’s had this information.  Nope!  Only the one tree on MyHeritage.  For me, this was definitely worth the price.

It looks like the marriage didn’t last long which could explain why no one else has the information on their trees.  By 1840, James was living with the children from his first wife and Hannah was living with one of her children as the tick mark in the age category for a female most likely is for her.  That age tick mark is lacking on James’ record.  In 1850, the couple remained separated per the census records. Hannah’s tombstone notes her first husband’s name, Duer.  James lies next to his first wife.  It appears that this was a relationship that both sides wanted to forget.  This could also explain why Hannah’s first husband’s purported father, John, omitted her from his will written in 1830.  I’m now searching for a divorce record.  This story just gets more interesting with every find! I’m very happy to have found this information that quickly with MyHeritage’s site.  Once I’m done with my Duer’s I’ll be searching their site for other clues on additional lines.  Happy Hunting!

DNA Lab Analysis – The Accuracy is Questioned

Recently I attended a workshop by Dick Eastman on Cloud Computing provided by my local genealogy society.  Dick spoke briefly, a lunch break was given and then the workshop resumed.  Although his information was interesting, it was the side conversations I overheard during lunch that piqued my interest.

I need to offer a disclaimer first – one of my children is employed by a large laboratory in the U.S. and part of the job responsibility is to trouble shoot and then correct problems that individual labs are encountering.   The troubleshooting my child does is regarding equipment and not results.  To my knowledge, none of that organization’s business is in DNA analysis.  Even so, this proud momma often hears from family and friends who got results back that there must have been some mistake – how could whatever level that was being measured be so high, etc.  It was with this background that I brought to eavesdropping on the conversation at the next table…

A woman was explaining that she had recently had her DNA results returned and she wasn’t matching with anyone in her family.  She is unmarried and has no children so none of them tested.  Her parents are deceased and she had no siblings.  By matching, she was referring to cousins.  A man at the table conjectured the lab had made a mistake and mixed up the samples.  Another attendee reported that his results matched with his children, siblings and first cousins but not with relatives from 3 generations back.  He, too, originally thought the lab had erred.  Then a match occurred with a surname which he was not familiar.  He thought he had somehow missed that line in his research so he went back over his records and low and behold, discovered that the matching surname lived in the same boarding house as his 2x’s great grandmother.  Hmm.  And yes, great grandma was married to who he had assumed was his great grandfather at the time.  There went all of his research on that great grandpa’s line!

Could a lab make a mistake?  Absolutely!  The likelihood, though, is not as great with the processes and procedures that are in place as is the entanglement of human relationships.

The following day I was reading a list serv to which I belong and an individual had posted how she had inadvertently given a female DNA test kit to a male relative.  The lab caught it and asked for clarification.

My advice if your returned results give you unexpected findings – get the test redone at another site.  Prices are dropping for the holidays so the cost is negligible.  There are “rumors” that Ancestry will run a special beginning November 25th for $69.00 to beat the FTDNA price of $79.00.  I don’t have that in writing so check around on the 25th to see what happens.

When the test results are returned, if they’re similar, well, you know you need to explore other lines to determine who’s the daddy.  If they are not the same, I’d contact the lab and share your findings.  You’d probably get your money refunded if the lab made the error and an offer for another test as a thank you for letting them know there is a quality control problem.  Personally, I’m betting on the relationships and not the lab as the culprit.

Family Tree Maker’s Fall Newsletter Makes Me Feel Vindicated!

Well, well,  I’m feeling pretty righteous!  I recently received the Fall Newsletter (which, BTW, is the ONLY newsletter that Family Tree Maker has emailed to me this year so it correctly should be labeled as the “First Fall Newsletter” since Software MacKiev bought the rights for the Microsoft version which is what I formerly used.)

The newsletter was designed to notify the public that they are running behind and don’t have the synch ready as they had earlier stated would occur before the end of 2016.  Okay, glitches happen and I am pleased that the organization is taking ownership that they will not be able to meet their self imposed deadline.

IMHO, this is a major step forward.  I’ve been blogging for quite a while about my frustration with FTM not syching with my large Ancestry.com tree.  Every time I called customer service they would blame Ancestry.  I’d call Ancestry and they’d tell me to call FTM.  I’d wait a day or two and try again as I was hoping whoever was on duty would have the knowledge to assist me.  I posted for help, too but no one seemed to know what the problem was.  The only “help” I ever received was twice when I was emailed a useless pdf that supposedly would get the synch back but that never worked, either. The final time I called, the rep tried to tell me I couldn’t follow instructions.   So much for service! That was the day I switched to Legacy Family Tree’s standard edition.

But back to the newsletter… I quote, “…So, should you get the latest build right now then? Well, it depends. The improvements are mostly in stability and performance. So if FTM is crashing or has slowed to a crawl with large trees, then have at it. ” Finally, they admit that the product doesn’t work well with large trees!  Now it’s official who owned the problem and I don’t blame Ancestry.com one bit for cutting the prior company owners’ off last December.  What a nightmare it must have been for Ancestry staff to have to take all those calls from unhappy FTM users!  I also give kudos to Ancestry’s staff for handling the calls I made to them in a professional manner.

I tried to link to the newsletter but I don’t see it posted on their website so I’m providing the link to sign up to their Mailing List instead.

I would like to see FTM offer a goodwill gesture by providing the new version for free to anyone with a large tree to make up for the wasted time and lack of support.  FTM could determine the size of the tree for the offer.  For now, that’s the only way I’d be back.

Ancestry’s New Connection Ap

I downloaded Ancestry.com’s new ap “We’re Related” on October 25th.  The first day I couldn’t get it to stop loading the “Who are you?” page.  I tried several times in the following week and always time out getting the “Error communicating with server, please try later.  Error getting trees.  We seem to be having trouble pulling up the roots.”  Cute but annoying.
I’m not sure if it’s because my tree is so large or if there is some other issue on their end.  I travel a great deal and thought it would be neat to find others who might be related to me.  Definitely don’t use this if you don’t want your gps coordinates known!

Genealogy Catch Up – Using the Extra Hour of Day Light Savings to Keep Organized

My goodness I accomplished a bunch last weekend with that hour of extra time!  I’m taking the advice I preach and cleaned out my emails, making sure that I saved everything that was important to my desk top and if it was super important, to the Cloud.  I use the free Dropbox.  For information that may someday be important, I save the link to an Excel file I keep in Dropbox.  For example, if there is a particularly interesting blog about clues from old photographs from Ancestor Cloud or Genealogy in Time Magazine, I copy the link in the Excel spreadsheet.  One column is Topic, next is the link and the third is comments, if any.  That way, if I ever have a brick wall or a client comes to me with a difficult quest with an area where I’m not an expert, I can quickly find useful information.

One email I had received from last month was for a special on Roots Magic.  For my faithful readers, you know I dearly miss the simplicity of the old PAF that Family Search once provided for free. I switched to Family Tree Maker when PAF was dying and was happy until it stopped synching with my Ancestry.com tree.  The many calls and emails I made between both organizations were pointless so I gave up and went to the Standard free version of Legacy.  I liked it so much several months later I bought the Deluxe version.  IMHO, Legacy has the BEST charts of any genealogy software product out there and is a bargain for the price.  But back to the Roots Magic email, there was a special offer for $29.95.  I thought I could do better so I hunted around and found I could get it for $20.00, along with an instructional ebook.  I decided to make the purchase, download my GEDcom from Ancestry and upload to Roots Magic in preparation for when Ancestry.com and Roots Magic are able to synch like Family Tree Maker failed to do.  I got my $20.00 price from the Association of Professional Genealogists but I also found it by looking for special offers.  Here’s the link if you’d like to purchase it – ROOTS MAGIC SPECIAL.

Another special for the upcoming weekend – November 12-13 – is Arkivdigital will be free for everyone.  If you have Swedish family it’s a must use.  Yes, the records are in Swedish but there are helpful hints on their site or you could use Google Translate.  Happy Hunting!  Now back to Roots Magic…

I was pleased with how quick the upload was; Legacy takes a whole lot longer.  After updating both Legacy and installing Roots Magic, I saved to the Cloud and to a stand alone hard drive as I am paranoid to lose the information.

While I was doing that, Hubby was working at his desk beside me.  I looked over and what did I see but visions of holiday shopping appearing on his screen!  So I gave him my gift list for this year – a new sewing box and three genealogy books.  I did have to have him log onto my National Genealogical Society account to get a discount on the books but that was a good savings, too.

All that took up my extra hour but I felt so good about cleaning up my data I decided to move on to finishing the Canvas project I started in the summer.  I’m just about done with our family poster. I think it’s a bargain for $34.95.  Granted, I’m going to have to get it framed.

Haven’t checked out how to make one?  If you click on EXTRAS on the Ancestry ribbon and then click on the drop down menu for Photo Books and Posters you leave Ancestry and go to MY CANVAS.  To make a poster, click on their ribbon FAMILY HISTORY.  You can import your Ancestry.com tree to their template and get creative from there.  It’s an awesome holiday gift.

If only I could have an extra hour every weekend!

Records Breadcrumb Trail May Lead to Wrong Conclusions

I’ve been researching my Duer line lately with the idea that I’ll write a Kinship Determination from where my line begins, with Maria Duer, my great great grandmother, to my gateway ancestor, Thomas Stone Duer.

I’ve blogged previously about the serendipitous events and detailed how history repeats itself (see Circular Migration Patterns-How History RepeatsItself, 30 May 2015). After discovering the connection, I’ve become more determined to learn about the Duer Family.

Maria left some wonderful records, however, they initially led me to a wrong conclusion.  Years ago, I had found her obituary through the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center Obituary Index[1] but I couldn’t decipher it as it was in German and used Gothic script.  Her daughter Emma’s death certificate stated Maria was born in Germany.[2]  The obit and the daughter’s death certificate led me to believe that Maria was of German descent.  By just looking at the surface, those two records reinforced what I already knew about my father’s long line of German ancestry; I had Leininger, Bollenbacher, Kuhn, Kable, and Kettering surnames sprinkled everywhere in my tree and all of them were German immigrants.  No surprise that Maria Duer would have also been German.  How wrong I was!

Maria was born in Mahoning, Ohio on 2 September 1833.[3]  Adam Kuhn, Maria’s son with whom she resided at the time of her death and who was the neighbor of his sister, Emma, had served as Emma’s death certificate informant.  It is understandable that Adam most likely identified himself with his father Henry Kuhn’s German heritage.  German born Henry Kuhn was a prosperous citizen in Mercer County, Ohio and maintained a close connection with others who had immigrated from Germany.  Henry and Maria had been married for 55 years so she, too, would have been known in the German community so her obituary in a German newspaper makes sense.  After having the obituary translated, I learned that it never stated she was German but it did mention her German born husband.  Daughter Emma died at age 50 after suffering long term physical abuse from her ex-husband of 25 years.  Adam likely recalled his father’s birth place instead of his mother’s when he provided Emma’s death certificate information.  In grief, he probably just made an error.

Census records, a second obituary in English, and a mug sheet entry all confirm Maria was born in Ohio and connect her to her parents, John and Mary Jane (Morrison) Duer.  Maria Duer was once a brickwall ancestor but no longer!  What a great lesson in making sure a reasonably exhaustive search was performed AND analysis of all the found records was done.

[1] “Maria Duer Kuhn,” obituary, Die Minter [Ohio] Post, 1 August 1913, page 1, col. 3.

[2] Ohio, Bureau of Vital Statistics, death certificate, “Emma Landfair,” number 12296 (stamped, 21 February 1914.

[3] 1850 U.S. census, Killbuck, Holmes County, Ohio, population schedule, page 245 (handwritten) dwelling 557, family 572, Maria Duer; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com:  accessed 16 October 2016); citing NARA microfilm publications M432_696.

1860 U.S. census, Liberty, Mercer County, Ohio, population schedule, page 141 (handwritten), dwelling 1008, family 1013, Henry and Maria Coon Jr.; Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com:  accessed 16 October 2016); citing NARA microfilm publications M653_1009.

1870 U.S. census, Liberty, Mercer County, Ohio, population schedule, page 15 (handwritten) dwelling 55, family 58, Maria Kuhn; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com:  accessed 16 October 2016); citing NARA microfilm publications M593.

1880 U.S. census, Liberty, Mercer County, Ohio, population schedule, page 7 (handwritten) dwelling 55, family 58, Maria Kuhn; Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com:  accessed 16 October 2016); citing FHL microfilm 1255048; citing NARA microfilm publications T9_1048.

1900 U.S. census, Liberty, Mercer, Ohio, population schedule, sheet 9 (handwritten) dwelling141, family176, Meriah Kuhn; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com:  accessed 16 October 2016); citing NARA with no further information provided.

1910 U.S. census, Liberty, Mercer County, Ohio, population schedule, sheet 9 (handwritten) dwelling 320, family 278, Miria Kuhn; digital image Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com:  accessed 16 October 2016); citing NARA microfilm publication T624_1214.

Ohio, Department of Health Division of Vital Statistics, death certificate, “Maria Kuhn,” state file number 41826, 22 July 1913.

“Marie Kuhn,” The Grim Reaper, The Celina [Ohio] Democrat, 25 July 1913, page 1, col. 4.

Compilers, A Portrait and Biographical Record of Mercer and Van Wert Counties, Ohio (Chicago,IL:  A. W. Bowen & Co., 1896) 400-401; digital image, Google Books (https://books.google.com:  accessed 16 October 2016).

Helpful Old Technology

I recently received a cassette tape of an interview done by a distant family member with one of my husband’s aunts in 2001.  Both of those ladies have passed away and the tape became the possession of the interviewer’s daughter.  She doesn’t have a tape recorder any longer and has a transcription so she was not interested in keeping the tape.

My husband’s Aunt Ruby was a sweetheart and with his Aunt Marge, always made me feel as I was part of their family.  We had made a quick visit with her about 8 months after the tape was made but it wasn’t a happy time as I was in the area to bury my mother’s cremains so it never occurred to me to tape what became our last visit with Aunt Ruby.

When the tape was offered to me I was happy to get it – I’d love to hear her voice again.  Problem was, who has a tape recorder anymore?

Evidently, I do.  When the tape arrived hubby emailed several friends and colleagues to see if anyone had one we could borrow.  No one did.  Then it hit me!  Several years ago, pre bluetooth, we used to use a boom box in the backyard on our deck.  Had to think hard what we did with it and then remembered it was outside in a pool storage bench.  Thank goodness it still worked!

Hubby transferred the tape to MP3 using the instructions from this site – How to Transfer Old Cassette Tapes to MP3 Files

The quality is not great – it was made in a nursing home greeting area and a restaurant so there is a lot of background noise.  I’m still glad we have it and updated it to the latest technology.

If you have tapes and would like to update it is not difficult to do.  I recommend putting that on your winter to do list and with the holidays around the corner, you might want to ask to borrow from family and friends if you don’t have a tape player.

It’s going to be a constant upgrade from one technology to another but I think the time expended is well worth it.  Your descendants will think it’s awesome when they will see a picture of their 5th great grandparents and hear their voices!

Save Those Emails!

At the recent genealogical seminar I attended I met up with a colleague I had not seen since the National Genealogical Society conference in May. We were catching up and he mentioned he was still trying to recover about 13,000 emails that had been lost.  That’s a lot of emails!  Here’s how it happened:

In our area Verizon used to be one of our internet service providers.  In April, Frontier purchased Verizon’s customers.  The transition was not seamless; there was much service disruption but it appeared that most of the problems had been corrected.  Then, with no warning, my colleague woke up one morning a few weeks ago and discovered that he couldn’t access his Verizon email account.  He contacted Frontier who told him they had nothing to do with it and he needed to call Verizon.  Verizon told him he was no longer a customer so he no longer had access to his emails.

It’s always difficult changing addresses, whether it’s in the real world or virtually, but it is even more difficult when one is caught unexpectedly.  He had received no warning that the account would be terminated.  His contract with Verizon was for 2 years and everyone in our area had been informed that Frontier would honor and continue the Verizon contracts through their expiration.  I don’t even know how breaching the contract can be legal since he’s still under contract but that’s a whole different issue!

The colleague quickly made a gmail account and then began the arduous task of updating his email address all over the internet.  Been there, done that, not fun!

Although hubby and I had a Verizon email account we rarely used it and I don’t think I’ve checked it in the last few years.  In fact, I had forwarded the account to our gmail account at least five years ago. I completely missed that the account disappeared.

The wasted time in having to update to the new account, though, wasn’t the most upsetting situation. The loss of all the saved emails was the most devastating.  I can only imagine!

Back in the day, like most Americans, we had an AOL account.  We continued to use the account well into the 2000’s even though our children loved to poke fun at us old fogies still sticking with AOL.  I pointed out I was being a loyal customer.  So much for loyalty!  About 2010 our account got hacked.  We changed passwords.  It was hacked again.  AOL sent us a rather IMHO nasty email that warned us that our account would be cancelled if we continued to share our passwords with others. Huh?!  We hadn’t done that.  I was over them so I created a gmail account. Hubby wanted to continue with AOL so he once again changed the password.  I spent a weekend updating the new account info to our many online accounts.  Over the next few weeks I went through the saved emails and purged.  Many, though, were of genealogical significance – notification of a cousin’s marriage, the death of an aunt, graduation dates and connections with long lost relatives who had found postings I had placed on bulletin boards.  I forwarded those emails to gmail and placed them in a folder titled Genealogy.  A few weeks after I completed the transfers, the account was again hacked. We received the same letter and this time, hubby was through with them.  That account is still open and maybe once a year I go on it to see if any long lost relative has rediscovered my original tree on Rootsweb’s World Connect or one of those old bulletin board posts that I can no longer update to provide a newer email address.  It hasn’t happened yet but who knows?  Mostly I find a thousand junk emails that I delete en mass.

I now save emails that are of value to my computer and to a cloud.  This way, if I have to abandon gmail for another email account I haven’t lost anything important.  For emails that were of special importance, such as a photo or record attachment, I also attach to my tree, copy and paste the email contents into the citation.  I feel very fortunate that my transition was on my own terms.  Heed the warning!