Top 10 Genealogy At Heart Posts from 2017


Happy New Year! Out with the old and in with the new but before we do that, let’s take a look back at the most read Genealogy At Heart posts from last year in descending order and a tie in 4th place:

10 VivaVolunteers! A Unique Opportunity for You

9 More on Accessing Records

8 Saturday Serendipity

7 Access to Preserved Records is Being Threatened!

6 My Grandfather’s C-File Has Finally Arrived!

5 Improving Your Genealogy Skills Semester II

4 Perseverance Amidst Adversity – The Ancestry of Three George Harbaughs

4 Genealogy Resolutions

2 Privacy and the Genealogist Part 2

1 Privacy and the Genealogist Part 1

If you’re on the east coast of the U.S., get a cup of cocoa, stay warm and enjoy re-reading these blogs.

Next week, I’ll rank articles that I did for other publications in 2017.

Saturday Serendipity in Cycadia Cemetery

On a crisp sunny October morning, Hubby and I took a cemetery tour of Cycadia Cemetery in Tarpon Springs, Florida.  As one of the oldest cemeteries in the county, many figures of historical prominence in the area are buried there.  Eight historical re-enactors portrayed former residence who were important to the town’s development.

The first tour stop was for John C. “Greek” Maillis who had been born in Gary, Indiana in 1918. Hubby and I were, too and our grandparents lived there at the time.  I plan on researching Greek’s father as I’m guessing he worked for U.S. Steel as that was the big industry in town.  My grandfather, great grandfather and hubby’s grandfather were all employed there in 1918.  What a small world!

Although that was an interesting connection it was T the tour’s end that had the biggest chance encounter happened.

Our last stop was to learn about Irish born Captain Thomas Carey who came to Tarpon Springs with his family in the 1870’s and worked in the sponge industry.  His reenactor became misty eyed, lost character and said he had to step out of being Capt Carey for a moment to tell us what had happened in the previous tour group.  As the program entry by the Tarpon Springs Area Historical Society stated, Capt. Carey “…left a legacy of exceptional off-spring.”  Not only exceptional, they were numerous.  A woman in the group stated she was a descendant.  Then another group member stated she, too, was a descendant.   A few generations removed from Capt. Carey they shared which of his children they had descended from.  Most remarkable was that these cousins had never met before.  Nearly 75 years after the Captain’s death his descendants are reunited at his grave site.  There was a large turnout for the program and groups were formed by your arrival time.  What a coincidence that these individuals just happened to be placed in the same group.  Serendipity at its finest!

Photo courtesy of thefifthofnov on Find-a-Grave

Less Than 6 Degrees of Separation

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 2 Oct 2016.

Yesterday I attended the Florida Genealogical Society’s sponsored seminar given by Judy Russell, CG.  Judy is always such a dynamic presenter!

Typically, when I attend a seminar, I somehow find a relation to another attendee and yesterday was no exception.  Judy had mentioned HIPPA  and there was a question from an audience member regarding the number of years that records are held privately.  I added that I had done some client work and discovered that I could obtain medically related records from a state facility and the court records regarding the medical issue were housed in the Florida State Library.  This was for an individual that had died in 1973, just 43 years ago.  The records I had received, though, were from a period over 50 years ago but the individual had continued to reside in the facility more recently than 50 years ago.

Shortly after there was a break and a woman sitting directly behind me introduced herself.  Her father had been the psychologist at the facility from which I had obtained the records during the time the individual I was researching was living there.  The attendee had just visited her father two weeks ago and had taken a trip to that area two weeks ago; she remarked that it looked the same.

It then hit me that I had once had a professor who also had been employed at the facility  I asked her if her father had ever become a professor at a local college in the 1970’s as my instructor had been the psychologist at the same facility in the 1940’s and 1950’s.  It appears that the seminar attendee’s father replaced the professor as her father had joined the facility in 1959 after an interim staff member was let go. So, I had connected with two of three psychologists that could have treated the client’s relative.

I live over 200 miles from the medical facility.  The professor had lived in my county but the individual I was researching, the woman I met yesterday and her father never lived here.  The father of the attendee lives over 300 miles away from me.  Yet our paths all crossed.  Definitely is a small world!

A Transcription Treat

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 22 Dec 2015.

Tis the season of Sugar Plum Fairies and although I can’t prove it, I believe they are somehow related to Genealogical Fairies.  Here’s why –

For some reason, I didn’t receive the document from the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG)  that I am supposed to transcribe.  After waiting 3 weeks I emailed and was told the day it had been sent.  BCG staff was going to resend if I didn’t receive it by the end of that week.

Nearly a month after it had been mailed it finally arrived with no postal markings and it looked like it had gotten stuck in a machine as a side was torn.  The contents, though, were fine.  Since it arrived the day before I was to fly out to the west coast for business I put it aside until this week.

Last Friday, I decided I would drive to the county mentioned in the document on Monday and locate the original so I called to check the time the office would open.  With holiday closures one never knows!  This led to several phone calls and messages left.

I received a call mid day Saturday informing me that the office would be closed Monday but they would be open on Saturday until 5:00.  I was running errands but dropped everything to drive the 2+ hours to get there before they closed.  I am so glad I did!

When I arrived there were only 2 people staffing the archives, a paid employee and a volunteer.  After seeing the document and photographing it, the volunteer asked me why I had wanted to see that particular record.  I told her about the certification process.  We continued talking and she mentioned her home state which happened to also be mine.  Turns out we’re related in 3 lines (Lamphere, Kuhn and Duer) through our great grandfathers!  If you’re a faithful reader you know I wasn’t close to my dad’s side growing up and have never met any of his relatives so this meeting was especially sweet.

What makes it even better is the lesson that persistence pays!  My first call was to the courthouse but I was told by the operator that they didn’t have old records and I needed to call a different office.  The next office staffer told me that all of their records were online and the originals had been destroyed.  When I pointed out that the record I was looking for wasn’t online the clerk didn’t know what to say.  She suggested I called the historical society. The first person I spoke with there said she had no idea where the record I needed was and she would have someone call me back.  I waited a few hours and called again.  That’s when I learned she had left for the day. The person I was then speaking with told me that the historical society only had microfilm and that the originals were at the courthouse.  I asked who I should speak with at the courthouse as that was now bringing me full circle because that’s where I first called.  She suggested I check with the records department.  Unfortunately, the records clerk had to check with an older employee as she had no idea what I was talking about.  The older employee wanted to know why a fortune teller wanted the record.  Huh?! Evidently the girl I spoke with didn’t know what a genealogist was and thought it was some kind of fortune teller.  Clearly I’m not a fortune teller or I would have knowledge of where I’d find this record!  We both laughed about the misunderstanding.  We left it that I would come on Monday at 8 AM but I should be prepared that the record wouldn’t be found.

I packed what I needed in my purse in preparation but wasn’t particularly hopeful.  When I got the call on Saturday that the record was available I couldn’t believe it.  That alone would have made my day but to meet a relative who just happened to switch her volunteer hours due to the holidays, well, I think this was meant to be.

I’m on my way to the post office to mail my new found relative copies of my records and then on to the airport to pick up family so I’m posting my Thursday blog early.  Wishing you and your family love, hope and good cheer this holiday season!

A Serendipitous Burial Location

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 5 Nov 2015.

In my last blog I wrote about how I felt after getting “a sign” regarding my decision as to where to inter my mom’s cremains.   Today, I want to let you know about a serendipitous burial location for my mom’s best friend:

My mom met Helen when we relocated to Florida in 1973.  The two worked together at Montgomery Wards and shared many common interests.

After my mom died, I continued to send Helen, who had left the area, Christmas cards with an update on my family.

In early July of this year, I received the email below:

“Hi,

Just wanted to let you know that my Mother passed away on the 21st.  She was 89 years old and was as ready as anyone could be to go home to Jesus.  

 My wife and I are going through her things at our house and I’ve noticed cards from you for many years.  I’m not sure exactly who you are or what church you went to but it seems you and my mother were close at one time or the other… 

Sincerely,

Bill” 

(Note to self:  Remember to keep your old email addresses forwarded to whatever you’re currently using so people can still connect!)

I emailed Bill and explained my relationship with his mom.  We corresponded back and forth via email discussing ways he could preserve his mom’s many pictures and mementos.  Unfortunately, by the time we connected, he had tossed out the many letters my mom had sent Helen.  As he continued to go through his mother’s belongings he discovered a clipping his mom had kept of my marriage announcement in the newspaper and he sent it to me.

In genealogy we don’t often think about family friends as retaining our family information but seeing that clipping reminded me of the importance of checking outside the immediate family for records, too!

About a month after his first email, Bill sent me the following:

“We finished up cleaning out my Mother’s apartment yesterday and that is a relief.  We’ve been going through her things when we can and it is so difficult as she had re-organized to a method we are not familiar with.  Things from the 20’s next to a package from some charity asking for money from recent years.  Just trying to organize the photos is tough enough.

The funeral went very well.. I’m sure there haven’t been many like it.  The kids were all very supportive during her time in the hospital and hospice.     I’m attaching the story [that was] read and my mothers Testimony.  Also pictures of her miracle cups.  She was convinced her cups could make a difference to someone so I am attempting to follow through with her wishes. Please forward parts that are interesting to you to anyone you would like….  

We were going to record the service but after we saw the samples we realized that some memories should remain just that. …

My mother was engaged to one of the neighbors in 1981 (John)  after my Dad died in 1978 .  They were going to get married on the day after he actually died of a cerebral hemorrhage.    It was a sad time for her but it was life changing, again.  She ended up housekeeping and baby sitting for his Son and Daughter in Law in Miami. She did that for a while and they moved to Orlando.  She decided to stay and get her own apartment. Several years passed and money was an issue and the neighborhood was changing.  At that point I asked her to come back and stay with us while I was working.     She moved back in with the couple again and raised their kids through the teen years in Orlando.   [Then  we] found her an Apartment in a 55+ complex.   She said she had never been happier! 

Anyway, the point of the background:  During the service her deceased fiance’s son told me that his father’s Crypt was right over there and pointed to the first section of the Mausoleum that was very close.  Talk about shivers going down your spine!   We had absolutely no idea it was within view although I have a vague memory that my mother said that he was buried somewhere in the place.  I know she had no idea!  She had no sense of direction at all!  We picked out the place and only had her over to approve of it.  It is such a beautiful place.  Our “ashes” bench is right next to her.  We put my fathers urn and his dogs urn in with my mother.    When we asked her in the hospital if it was OK she just showed indifference.  Perhaps his religious beliefs were a factor?  If she would have known that John was laid out in sight I don’t know what the answer would have been……………. “

So dear readers, what is the probability of a family member purchasing a cemetery plot for their loved one and only discovering at the funeral that “We had no idea that John was buried in direct sight of our area……………   It was so nice that we actually went there and had lunch a couple of times on our bench with my mother.  I think she really enjoyed it there.  If she would have known her beloved John was right in view” All I can say is, WOW!

And the last email I received from Bill ties in his mom and my mom’s messages from beyond using butterflies:

“Speaking of Butterflies:  The following is an excerpt from my mother’s “Book of Miracles”.  

“I flew from Miami to St. Petersburg to visit my son and family for Mothers Day.  I told Bill that I would like to go to church as a family on Sunday.  I enjoyed church, and afterwards, we went out to eat.  It was a lovely day.  When we got back to the house we sat on the back porch for a while.

A butterfly landed on my hand and stayed there for a long time.  I could move my hand back and forth, up and down, and it still stayed there.  Finally, it flew to Bill’s hand , then to the children’s hands, one by one.  Then back to me it flew.  After it had visited each of us, it flew back to the shed and stayed there a long time.   It came out about the same time every day that I was there.  When I left, they never saw the butterfly again.”  

Butterflies seem to be a metaphor for life in some way.  So beautiful but so short a time..”
My mom had died shortly before this visit.  Was the butterfly visitor a message from my mom to Helen?  Doubters will say it is all a meaningless coincidence and psychologists will explain humans need to seek meaning in life, especially during a stressful time.  Those are two explanations but I prefer to believe that there is a lot of knowledge yet undiscovered and that we may one day better understand events beyond current explanation.

A Phenomenal Photo Find – A Picnic in a Chicago Cemetery

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 25 Oct 2015.

Hope you enjoyed the genealogical synchronicity links in my last blog.  For some reason, many of my strange experiences tend to revolve around photos and I’m going to share 2 odd occurrences that happened in the same week which completed a prediction made 18 years earlier.

The Christmas before my first child was born, my in-laws gave me a book to record family history. My mother-in-law asked me 3 months after my child was born if I had the book completed as she knew I was extremely interested in genealogy.  Overwhelmed with motherhood, I told her no. She said she expected that I would have it completed back to the American Revolution by the time my child graduated from high school.  Little did I know how right she would be and the odd timing of an important discovery in that line that made her prediction accurate.

I was always intrigued with my husband’s 2nd great grandmother, Drusilla Williams DeWolf Thompson.  No one else in the family was named Drusilla so where the name came from we don’t know.  I liked to call her Grandma Dru because Drusilla makes me think of one of Cinderella’s mean stepsisters.

Hubby’s parents didn’t know much about Grandma Dru; their knowledge was that she was a seamstress in Chicago and that she had arrived there via Conestoga wagon from upstate New York with her husband.  She was supposedly the youngest of 21 and her father, John Hicks Williams, a sea captain, died from a bad shave in the Orient.   Turns out much of that story isn’t fact.  Some of the wrong information came from an undated letter written by a family member who though Drusilla’s sister was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and the Mayflower Society. No one in the family questioned the accuracy of the information until the early 2000’s when a second cousin decided to join the DAR and found their was no link in the line.

I came into contact with the cousin’s daughter via an internet posting on Rootsweb Gen Forum seeking info on Dru and I agreed that I would help research the family.  Separately, the cousin, her daughter and I made several trips to Long Island and Troy, New York seeking records as back in those days, internet searching was difficult.  We were able to prove descent from Dru’s paternal grandfather, Wilson Williams, and that Wilson was a member of the Hempstead Harbor, Long Island Militia during the American Revolution.  Along the way we discovered another cousin via the internet who filled us in on her line.

We had documentation from the family, census, military, church and civil authorities but what we longed for was a picture of Drusilla.  Dru died in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois in 1898 so it was probable that she had been photographed in her lifetime.  I have all of the pictures of my husband’s family and none were of Dru.  The cousins had no picture, either.  We decided to search collateral lines.  Dru had one son, John Calvin, with her first husband, Calvin DeWolf, who had died in 1852.  John Calvin had 4 children, Sadie, who died in 1953 had no children. Caroline died as an infant in 1883. Nellie died in 1908 during childbirth and Henry, who died in 1924, was unmarried.  The cousins and I would joke that the best chance of finding a picture would be for me to search antique shops locally as Sadie had died not far from where I live.  Instead, we decided to search other collateral lines.

Dru had 3 birth children and 1 adopted child with her second husband, Thomas Coke Thompson.  The adopted child, Nellie, seems to have vanished after age 11 so we assumed she had died.  Dru’s oldest child, Lewis Warren, died in 1883.  He married twice and had one child, Louisa, with his second wife.  Louisa also married twice but her only child died at age 3 in 1910 so this was another dead end.

Dru and Thomas’ second child, James, had 2 children.  Daughter Rose died as an infant in 1883.  Jeannette, their other child, died in 1944.  She married but had no children.  No picture would be found here, either!

If a picture existed it would be in the possession of a descendant of Dru’s youngest child, Mary, who both my husband and his internet found cousins’ descend.  Mary and Andrew Cook had 7 children but we could quickly eliminate 6 of the children’s descendants from having a photo.   Lulu May, who is my husband’s grandmother, can be eliminated since I have all of the family pictures.  To be sure, I double checked with all of his living relatives and no one could recall ever seeing a picture of Dru.

Oldest son, John Thompson, who one of the cousins is descended from, and second oldest son, William DeWolf Cook, who the other 2 cousins descend from, can be eliminated as none of those families had a photo.  Three of Mary’s children died without marrying – Drucilla in 1897, James Andrew in 1906 and Whitney Calvin in 1924.

This left one of Mary and Thomas’ children to find – Grace Gertrude Cook, the author of the undated family letter.  This was our last hope!  We knew that Grace had married John Honaker and they had 2 children.  I had met one of their children, John Sheridan Honaker, who had retired not far from where my husband and I lived when we first married and my in-laws would visit John when they came to see us.  He had 2 children we had never met.  Grace’s second child, Anne Virginia, married and also had 2 children we had never met.  My sister-in-law thought the family lived somewhere in the midwest.

Finding an obituary for John Sheridan Honaker, the cousins were able to get a phone number for one of his children.  This newly found cousin hadn’t ever seen a photo of Dru, either.  She doubted anything was left as a tornado in 1974 had blown the roof off her family’s home and there were only a few pages of the Family Bible that had survived.  She promised to check with her uncle who had been the one to clean up after the tornado.

It took several months for the cousin to be able to convince her uncle’s son to look in the attic.  The son insisted that everything had been lost and he really didn’t want to climb around his dad’s attic as the uncle was too old to look himself.  She volunteered to look but was politely told no.

I had moved on to other lines and really wasn’t thinking about Dru when I dropped off at Walgreens a baggie filled with undeveloped film and disposable cameras I had found while spring cleaning in a spare closet.  It was a Sunday afternoon and I knew I had too much for the harried clerk to develop in an hour so I told her to call me whenever she got the film developed.  As I turned from the counter I ran smack into another customer who I hadn’t known was standing close behind me.  I apologized and asked if she was okay since she clearly looked rattled.  She said she was fine but she certainly didn’t look it; she was scowling and tense.  I told her that I hoped the rest of her day would be calm and beautiful.  As I walked past her she asked if she could have a word with me.  I turned and she sputtered that she was psychic and did I know that I had a lot of dead people surrounding me.  The store clerk was taken aback but I just laughed and told the customer that I was a genealogist and that they were most likely all my relatives.  The woman told me she had never seen anyone surrounded by so many dead people.  I laughed again and told her I had a big family and that I hoped they were all listening because I really needed their help in finding their records, especially their pictures.  I shared what happened when I got home with my husband who shook his head and remarked that the strangest things happen to me. Every time I see this cartoon I think of that experience:

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I got a call several days later from Walgreens to pick up my photos.  While I was gone my husband was checking email.  When I returned from the store hubby was excited and told me there was an email I just had to read right away – it was from the Midwest cousin.  Here’s a transcription of the email dated 5 April 2001 but  I have used initials only as I don’t have permission to use their names:

“Found it!!!!! Actually J. found it.  It is very faint and has some water damage.  I will send you all copies (I’ll take it in tomorrow).  I have never been to Graceland [Cemetery] but there is a tall white stone with what looks like an urn on top.  On the left side of the picture is a young girl with a fancy dress.  Seated next to her is a bearded man with a top hat.  To the right of him is a girl with her head resting on her hand.  Two boys are seated on either side of the monument.  On the back in a flowery script it says:  Graceland  Cemetery 1870 Thomas Thompson Drusilla Thompson Lewis Thompson James Thompson Mary Thompson.

I will have the back photocopied so that I can send that along with the prints.  Hope this does it for you.  I actually jumped up and down when Uncle B. handed it to me.  He did not want me to take it from the house, but I insisted… Congratulations! S.”

I shouted and jumped up and down, too and thanked all the dead people who supposedly were following me.  Later that evening I received the following email from the Midwest cousin:

“I had a long talk on the phone with Uncle B tonight about Aunt V. and we were rejoicing over the good news from the doctor.  Then he says, “S., did you pray about this picture?” (He is a religious man.  I don’t pray about pictures.)  I said, “No, but it means a lot to I. and her daughter, and to Lori.  Why?”  And he says, “J. didn’t go up to find the picture.  He was just going through some old things cleaning up.  Then he came upon a box that he had never seen that had been up there before the tornado because it had water damage.  He went through it and found old clothes and things, and there in the bottom of the box was this picture.  The only picture in the box.  Somebody’s prayers must have been answered.”

“Well, I’ll leave that last part for you to decide.  But this is very weird because J. has been through those attics time and time again and he said this box was just sort of sitting there.  This makes the tape thing* of mine even spookier.  Anyway, J. brought the picture down not eve (sic) knowing what it was because it was so faint, and wouldn’t you know.  It’s the picture.

Just thought I would share that part of the story with you.  You can make of it what you will. S.”

And you, dear readers, can make what you will of this odd story that happened to me.  Here’s the picture:

dru

From a later email, here’s further information about the photo:

“…I asked what they [the photography shop] could do to make it clearer and they said that I would be pleasantly surprised because it was made before there was film so there is no grain and should enlarge perfectly.  I had them make a 5 x 7 with some cropping of tree tops from the top; a  5 x 7 that focuses on the family and the monument and an 8 x 10 that includes as much of the picture as possible in the original, which is about 7×6…”

The miracle of this picture is that it survived not only the 1974 tornado but also 131 years of no heating or air conditioning, the Chicago fire (1871), and several moves across three states.

But the story doesn’t end there….

Six months after the photo was discovered my eldest child was inducted into the DAR; it was her senior year in high school as my mother-in-law, long dead, had predicted would happen.

As I was writing this blog I decided to take a break and look at some of the hints that had popped up on ancestry. I have disabled most of the hint feature so when I get some, I tend to take a look.  I can’t explain how there was a hint for Find-a-Grave for Uncle B, the man who had the picture in his attic.  I didn’t even know he had died 3 years ago.  Someone had posted his and his wife’s gravestone photos just 2 months ago.  I have no idea who made the memorial or the relationship of the person who posted the photos.  Why that hint showed up a few hours after I had written most of this blog I can’t explain, either.

So just maybe all those dead people behind me in Walgreens are still around helping me keep my tree updated.  I don’t understand how it all works but I certainly appreciate the help!

*I’ll save that strange story of the tape for another day!

Creepy Creepy October

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 22 Oct 2015.

As we approach Halloween, I’m thinking about the weird and unexplained that happens in the world of genealogy.  I’ve had several strange situations occur which I’ll be sharing over the next few posts.

Since I know I’m not alone I wanted to share with you some coincidences I’ve discovered in the past few weeks written by other genealogists.

The first was from Crestleaf.com – if you don’t subscribe to their free email newsletter you really need to as it’s filled with useful posts.  In their September recap there’s a link to their interesting finds for the month and one written by Vicki Noels-Cornish, The Ginger Genie, who shares a serendipitous find.  Click on Crestleaf to read about it.

Don’t know if you saw the History Channel show last year about the violin that was discovered to belong to one of those who perished on the Titanic.  I’m not a big Titanic fan but I loved how the show followed the trail to discover that the violin was in fact one used on the ship.  I was astounded to read the rest of the story – recently posted by the Daily Mail in the UK.  This you’ve got to read if you’re not aware of the update.  Warning – there’s a spoiler in the headline so scroll down before you begin reading!  View it here.

My Mother was quite superstitious and one of her favorite saying was “It always comes in 3’s.”  So here’s the 3rd coincidental story – I’ve discovered recently that Genealogy Today has short stories submitted by users about Serendipity.  I really enjoyed “Marriage Arranged By Ancestors” as my husband and I met accidentally through friends.  Over the years we’ve discovered that we are “cousins” several times, the most recent in the 1500’s.  Before researching my ancestors I would have said I was Croatian and German and he would have said he was Swedish.  Little did we know we are also Irish, English, Welsh, Scottish, and French. Enjoy!

The Kinship Determination Project and Its Emotional Impact

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com 24 Jan 2016

The Kinship Determination Project, aka KDP, has been looming as the last requirement I need to complete before submitting my portfolio for analysis to become a Certified Genealogist.  I had started writing before I submitted my application but in November, a few weeks into being “on the clock,” I rewrote most of it.  I changed from end notes to footnotes so the judges would have an easier time tracking citations,  I wrote for many needed documents to give a more thorough look at the individuals’ lives.   I  added additional background data, too much, in fact, which I removed yesterday. Not to worry, it’s full of very interesting stories of the ancestors I’ll be focusing on later so I’m keeping it safe for another project.  I think that it was good to start 3 generations prior to the 3 generations I’m focusing on as it gave me a better perspective of my main characters’ lives.  We often become who we are because of the influence of our parents, grandparents and perhaps, our great grandparents.

Back in the day, meaning when submitting more than 3 families was permitted, my paper would have been fine but I’m trying to stick to the application guide.  I had viewed Judy Russell’s webinar, “Kinship Determination:  From Generation to Generation” which is free to view on the BCG site (click Skillbuilding, then click Webinars, then scroll down.)  I loved Judy’s passion about her project!  I share that passion when I start analyzing the evidence I’ve accumulated;  the humanness behind the paper record is revealed and I begin to understand what occurred in their lives.  Sometimes it’s something personal from my own life that I can relate to and sometimes, not.  Makes me wonder how I would have reacted if the event had happened to me.

I just reread what I wrote about the first generation and I’ve very excited.  I didn’t quite finish that first generation individual’s life but plan on doing so today after my company leaves.  I want to get back into the story as there were two twists of compassion that I hadn’t known existed prior to analyzing the records.  Although I can’t share much due to the requirement of submission, I will say that those tick marks on early census returns come alive when you attach a name to them.  Pondering why you have extra marks is important – was their a child or two that died prior to being revealed in later censuses or other documents?  Did other family members, an apprentice, an indentured servant, or a neighbor reside with the family the day the census was being enumerated?  Did the family provide the enumerator misinformation, meaning the missing son was marked as a daughter or did the enumerator err?  That’s a lot to think about and oftentimes, later records will help explain what was happening in the household.

The impact on a child when there’s a change in a household unit is important to consider.  When community influences and national events occur there are additional effects.  Such was the case with my generation 1. Now I think I better understand why the individual exemplified compassion, an interest in politics and education, and safety for future generations.

What really struck me was discovering that three of the siblings of the individual I’m focusing on relocated in the mid 19th century across the continent.  I can’t imagine the anguish that must have been felt when communication was cut off.  Strangely, I happened to visit 2 of the 3 places that the siblings had moved to this past year.  I even blogged about one of the buildings in the town that I visited.  Most likely, that building played an important role in the lives of the sibling’s children!  It was such a strange feeling when the realization hit.  I began to wonder how many times I’ve walked in the footsteps of my ancestors and never known it. It’s one thing to purposely go to a location you’ve discovered to visit.  I’ve dragged my family on many vacations to visit homes where prior family members resided, ports they disembarked and battlefields where they were injured but I’ve never had the experience of visiting a place, feeling quite at home there, writing about it and then discovering months later that there was more of a connection then I was aware of at the time.

Today, I hope to make more headway on the KDP as next week, I’ll be traveling for business and won’t be able to work on it.  My new goal is to try to get the draft complete by the end of February as I may be making a trip to obtain a few documents during my spring break.

I hope your week is filled with wonderful discoveries!