The Best of the Golden Age of Genealogy: Top Posts of April

 In case you missed it, here are the top three viewed posts of my blog in April.

Wait! What?!! What To Do When An Unexpected DNA Match Happens

Have you submitted DNA and found a close match of a relative you know nothing about?  It happens!  Take a look at this blog entry and share your story in the comments.


When You're Adopted, Which Ancestors Do You Choose?

I often hear from friends that they are uncertain as to which family line they should research.  When you are adopted, this is a question you might ask yourself.  I have shared my story here and would love to hear how you have dealt with adoption in your research.


BillionGraves Takes The Anxiety Out Of Searching For Loved Ones

A recent trip to Quantico National Cemetery gave me the opportunity to share the magic of BillionGraves.  When we visit our loved ones who have passed on, we want to spend time at their burial site and not wandering around aimlessly.  Has BillionGraves helped you locate ancestors?


If you are enjoying The Golden Age of Genealogy, please like and share with your friends on Facebook, Twitter and GooglePlus.  To avoid missing future blog posts, remember to follow me by entering your email on this blogsite! 

Gettysburg Retreat

This past weekend was the first chance I've had this year to get away.  I say "get away," but to be honest it was an excuse to get out and do what I enjoy most -- immerse myself in history and graveyards.   It was a gorgeous weekend with low humidity and a lot of sunshine, and so I headed off to Gettysburg where I could escape into the past and reconnect with my ancestors.

My roots are planted deep in Civil War history. I personally live just off a well known battlefield in Virginia, but it goes much deeper than that.  My ancestors fought for both the North and the South in what my mother called the "War of Northern Aggression," and my dad referred to as the "Great Rebellion."  Dinner conversation during my childhood was interesting to say the least.

There was a time when I was deep into the research of my ancestors' experiences in the Civil War.  My dad's Grandfather (yes, we have very long generations on his side of the family), fought with Company M, Massachusetts, 4th Calvary Regiment.  My mother's 2nd Great Grandfather fought with Company G, North Carolina 38th Infantry Regiment.  Obviously they both survived, because I am here to write about it, but in doing their research I came to learn of the hardships they personally endured.  One grandfather, in particular, never recovered from his wounds of war and was unable to work.  The affects of the war on his body extended to the hardship on his family who struggled to break free from government assistance for another generation.

It can be overwhelming touring a place with such a great history.  Absorbing the information can be compared to drinking from a firehose -- definitely information overload.  I chose to do a self guided tour of the battlefield. Gettysburg has been greatly preserved and I have to say, the audio tour was of great benefit to me.  Since I knew the Regiments of a few of my ancestors, I was able to follow the detailed map to the areas in which their troops would have set up camp, as well where they marched directly into battle.

Walking where they marched and trying to envision what they experienced was quite a sacred experience for me.  Here we were as visitors, enjoying a gorgeous weekend, embracing the beauty of the landscape, escaping our crazy busy lives at the very location our ancestors came to lay down theirs for our freedom.  It was humbling to say the least.

The battlefield today is peaceful and beautiful, and people come from around the world to study and remember the events that took place there.  But just off the battlefield is another location that I took the time visit: the cemetery.  Like the battlefield, it too has been maintained and tourists walked the pathways and talked in hush voices. 

 I spend a good deal of my free time photographing cemeteries for record preservation. While there are thousands of headstones in the Gettysburg National Cemetery, none of them, to my knowledge, are my forefathers (and not all are of Civil War era). They are somebody's ancestors though, so I took some time to digitize as many headstones as I could before having to leave for the day.  Later, as I began transcribing the information from these graves, it touched me to see that matches were being made with entries in FamilySearch.  It is my hope that the images I took this weekend make it to those individuals who have been searching and searching for their ancestor's information.

It was a wonderful retreat.  I could easily have spent a week in Gettysburg and still not done all the things I would have like to have done.  If you get a chance to visit any location of your ancestors, I suggest you take with you notes about their lives and time spent there.  It really makes the visit meaningful and brings it to a very personal level.

I appreciate the time you spent reading my blog.  I hope that you will "like" and "share" it with your followers on Social Media.  You can find the share links just below this posting.  I love to hear from my readers, so if you would like to leave a comment, I would love to hear from you!

The 21 Day Genealogy Challenge - Day 21: Recommitting to Your Genealogy Goals

Welcome to day 21 of the 21 Day Genealogy Challenge!  You made it!  The purpose of this challenge was to give you an opportunity to review and recommit to your genealogy goals.  Let’s take a peek at what we covered in those challenge days.

Day One:  Prepare!  This was our preparation day.  We chose an ancestor we wanted to be the primary focus of our research.  We discussed the importance of choosing a program that best suited our needs.  And, we also talked about keeping a Genealogy Journal.  I have had readers reach out to me since this posting to tell me that keeping a Genealogy Journal has allowed them the freedom of not having to remember where they left off in their note taking and research. I know it has been a lifesaver for me to have one on hand when I am traveling to various libraries and interviews.

Day Two: It Begins With YOU!  As we enter our personal information, we cannot overlook our parents and grandparents.  While we may not know everything there is to learn about them, we should enter all that we do know.  Do not forget to add aunts and uncles, as well!  They are also an important part of our family.

Day Three: Gather. Identify. Sort.   The focus of day three was the gathering of photos.  So many times we receive old pictures that have no identifying marks on them.  It is best to sort these pictures from the ones we can identify and then ask family members if they recognize the people and places depicted in the photos.  Remember to sort out the photos you no longer want or need, and share them with other family members.  Scan the photos you decide to keep and upload them in your family tree.  Keep a copy of the scanned pictures on a removable hard drive or thumb drive for safe keeping.

Day Four: Interviewing Family Members.   When we are lucky enough to be able to interview a family member, we should always arrive on time and prepared.  Provide your relative with a list of questions prior to the interview.  Bring along old photos as prompts, should the conversation lag.  Always test your recording devices before going to the interview, and test again prior to beginning the interview.  You don’t want to find out when you get home that your system was not working properly. It is wise to bring a backup recording system with you.

Day Five: Consistency and Standards  If we have more than one family tree we are working with, it is important that any changes we make to one program, we make the same changes to the others.  Our research standards should be high.  If we want other family researchers to take us seriously, we should always source our research and include those source links in our family history.  Think of the trees that you have seen that list information but doesn’t show where that information came from.  It’s frustrating isn’t it?  Always cite your sources!

Day Six: A Week in Review.  It is always good to stop and take a look at what we are working on and see if there are any areas that need particular attention.

Day Seven: Giving Back  Giving back to the Genealogy world is good Karma.  There are several ways we can help other genealogists in their quest for answers while we wait for sources to appear to help us tear down our own brick walls.  FamilySearch and BillionGraves are two wonderful volunteer sites.

Day Eight: Federal Census Records, City Directories and WWI/WWII Draft Cards. Records such as these provide a lot of personal information on our ancestors.  We can learn addresses, names of close family members, occupation, as well as height, weight and colour of eyes and hair.  Don’t assume the document facing you on the screen is the entire record.  Very often there is a second page. Always scroll to the opposing pages to see if there is more information on your ancestor.

Day Nine: Google Maps.    Take those addresses you found on the Census records, City Directories and military draft cards and enter them in Google Maps.  If you are lucky, you just might be able to get a glimpse of the house your ancestors lived in.  At the very least, you will get an opportunity to take a look around their neighbourhood or town.  It is a wonderful way of using modern technology to see what our ancestors saw – only just a slight more modern version!

Day Ten: Newspapers and our Ancestors.  Articles such as these provide a plethora of information that may be useful in our research.  Names and places are given which may help break through a genealogical brick wall you are struggling with.  Not to mention, you get a glimpse into the everyday life of your ancestor.  How cool is that?  Check out  the newspaper section on Ancestry or sites dedicated to newspapers such as Newspapers.com or GenealogyBank.

Day Eleven: Photographs.  Sorting, scanning and sharing photographs.  Be sure to safe those scanned photos on a removable hard drive or thumb drive for safe keeping!

Day Twelve: What to do with old family letters.  There is so much to be gleaned from not only the old letters we have inherited, but on the envelopes, as well!  Read each item carefully and take notes.  Don't forget to digitize those letters and share with your relatives.

Day Thirteen: A Week In Review.  A review of the top entries of the week.

 

Day Fourteen: Giving back to the Genealogy Community.  Spotlight on BillionGraves and Family Search.

Day Fifteen: Interviewing Family Members:Skill development. Attention to detail in conducting and transcribing a family interview.

Day Sixteen:  Passport Applications.  It is amazing the amount of information we can obtain from our ancestor’s passport applications.  Like the Census records and Military Draft cards, we can learn the names of close family members, as well as location of birth and current residence.

Day Seventeen: Ship Manifests.  Like the passport application, a ship’s manifest will often give clues to the names of family members.  Even if your ancestor is traveling alone, it is likely he/she listed the name of a relative they just left, as well as the name of relatives they are traveling to see. 

  

Day Eighteen:  Conflicting Evidence  No doubt in your research you have come across documents that conflict with each other.  It is important to review these documents carefully and find the common pieces of evidence between them.

Day Nineteen: Wills and Probate  Evidence found in a will or probate record can lead you to further information not only regarding family members, but land owned by your ancestors, as well.

DayTwenty: Family History Narratives  You don't have to be a professional writer to share your ancestor's story.  Consider writing a blog or journal.  These outlets are wonderful formats to share your knowledge of your ancestors with your relatives.  

Congratulations!  You have completed the 21 Day Genealogy Challenge!  I hope that there were some things you learned along the way.  The purpose of the challenge was to give us a moment to review and evaluate work we may have begun but set aside for awhile.  It is often hard to get back in the groove of things, but I hope this challenge motivated you to do so!

I hope you will follow my blog in the future as I continue my search for abandoned Civil War era cemeteries.  I am attempting to tear down my own genealogical brick walls, and will posting about those efforts as well.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them in the Blog Comment section below.  Please take a moment to share this blog on Google+, Twitter and Facebook.  The share icons are just below this blog entry. 

Thank you for joining this challenge and remember…..

History not shared is History forgotten!