Genea-Musings

At the CVGS "Genealogy Online" seminar two weekends ago, I was asked the question "What is the future of genealogy on the Internet?" I wish I could remember the things that I rattled off in response - it was at the end of my four hour stand-up stint and I was a bit fried. Having had almost two weeks to think about it, I'm almost ready to respond.

I figured that somebody much more knowledgeable than I has already answered this question and posted it on the Internet, so I went looking for the deathless predictions of genealogy experts.

The first article I found was by Mark Howells (you know, he's married to Cyndislist) who has written many genealogy articles over the years. In 1998, he wrote "The Future of Internet Genealogy - Twelve Predictions." The twelve on his list were:

1) Putting your genealogy research results on the Internet will continue to become simpler and easier.

2) The resulting formats of web publishing will continue to improve.

3) The veracity of the information published on the Internet will continue to be variable but Internet genealogists will recognize and deal effectively with this variability.

4) More genealogically relevant information will be published on the Internet by public institutions.

5) More of our cousins will get "wired" into the Internet.

6) Interacting with institutions will become easier and a more common part of Internet genealogy.

7) Traditional genealogical societies will conduct more organized interaction on the Internet.

8) Genealogy interest groups and associations focusing on the technology of computers or the Internet will decline in prevalence as computers and the Internet increasingly assume their role as standard tools of the genealogist.

9) More collaborative efforts will emerge as a result of Internet-connected genealogists sharing their work towards common goals.

10) Civil registration authorities, archives, and the major genealogy libraries will enter the Internet genealogy marketplace with pay-for-use services.

11) Traditional genealogy societies will increase the number of their goods and services available for purchase over the Internet.

12) Major genealogy companies will continue to develop and sell Internet-provided products and services.

Please read all of Mark's article for more context and information.

For 1998, that was a really good list, wasn't it? Think back nine years - we had decent genealogy software, most people accessed the Internet through a dial-up modem, there were forum sites like Prodigy, CompuServe and AOL with genealogy communities, etc. But there were no large databases online yet, there were few images online, and Web 2.0/wikis had not been invented yet. I think Mark did a great job with his answer.

I'll look for more articles on this subject before I write my own response to the question. Please trhink about it and formulate your own predictions - and either post them on your own blog or as a comment on my last post.

Labels: genealogy education, genealogy resources, genealogy societies, improving genealogy, musings, Online resources

In honor of Family History Month, Juliana Smith on the 24/7 Family History Circle blog has been challenging readers to answer five questions from each Weekly Planner topic–or make up five of your own.

This week’s topic is favorites. Here are some questions to get you started:

1) What is your favorite book and why?

Historical fiction - the stories of real people acting in the historical settings.

My favorite author is probably James Michener - and all of his books follow the same format - a multi-generational family history that sweeps through historical events. I'm thinking about Texas, Mexico, Poland, Hawaii, Centennial, etc.

I also like Edward Rutherfurd's books - Sarum, The Forest, London, Russka, etc. These are similar to Michener and just as good.

2) What is your favorite movie and why?

We don't watch many movies. I saw Titanic again recently - it's still a great story wrapped around a fictional romance. Why? The nude scene with Kate Win - no, wait. The love scene in the car? I meant - the evacuation and sinking of the ship was dramatic.

3) Where is your favorite place in the world and why?

I absolutely love and will never live anywhere but San Diego -- even in its toasted splendor. My family, my town, my teams, my history.

I also really enjoy the New England summertime green and fall color, the Hawaii volcanoes and climate, the English countryside and castles, the Norwegian mountains and lakes, the Mexican beauty and squalor, etc. I love cruise ships too.

4) What is your favorite time of day? Are you a morning person, an afternoon person, or a night owl?

I do well in all three periods, except I usually wind down around 4 PM and take a nap then. I find inspiration in the morning, do the genealogy data entry work in the afternoon, and the reading and browsing in the evening.

5) What is your favorite holiday?

Christmas. The Christmas lights on the houses, and the Christmas tree decorations. I love to watch the shopping experience - everybody hurrying and buying, and I try to remain calm and observant. Then get something nice for my Angel at the last minute - usually jewelry or clothes. I love to watch the kids excited around the Christmas tree on Christmas morning - the sense of wonder, the frenzy to open gifts, etc. I love the reason for the season - it brings me peace.

Well, Family History Month is over, so I guess we'll do this again maybe next year. Or maybe not!

Labels: Memories, musings

Labels: Holidays, Memories, strange or funny

Labels: strange or funny

I have struggled over the years to find a reliable telephone number lookup web site to find friends and family addresses and phone numbers. I've tried Switchboard.com, ZabaSearch.com, Yahoo.com, Google.com and several others. Quite often, some of these sites go right to a fee web site that teases me but doesn't provide useful information, and therefore wastes my time.

At our CVGS meeting yesterday, Joan recommended http://www.411.com/ and showed examples form her own family members. I decided to try it out, using myself as a test subject.

I input my name "Randall Seaver" in the search box, and it came up with 6 results in the USA, in CA, FL, MI and TN (3). The name, address, phone number and age range (mine's wrong) are given for most of these. If it is a work number, the company and occupation might be provided. There are also "Reverse Number" and "Reverse Address" tabs to search with.

In the results listing, clicking on my name or the "Listing detail" link brings up another page with links to "Map," "Print," "Send/Save," View Web Results and Profiles for this person" and "Find neighbors and home values for this person." The "Map" link gets you a neighborhood map of the address.

The "Find Neighbors ... " link gets up to 30 entries for people living nearby the target person. For some reason, the link for me produced only 7 hits, but they are my neighbors. On this page, there are tabs for "Home values" and "Web results." Clicking on "Home Values" got a list of 10 homes in the area with some real estate value (these may be recently sold homes on the assessors records - I don't know for sure), and a map with stickpins for each house listed. I don't know how they came up with the home vale - it's not an average of the 10 homes.

All in all, this site does a better job finding addresses and phone numbers than most of the others that I've tried recently. If you click on the "More results" button you go off to a web page with a link to a fee web site.

How complete is this site? I'm guessing that it includes everybody in the US with a telephone number published in a telephone directory. I checked it out looking for my family and some friends:

* It found one married daughter (they have a land line), but not the other (they have a cell phone only)
* It found one brother in El Cajon CA, but not the one up in Vancouver WA.
* It did not have a listing for my mother, who died 5 years ago. The Ancestry.com listings still have her.
* It had 5 of the 6 cousins that I tried. I used the state to narrow the searches.
* It had several of my favorite bloggers. I know that some of you will try this out just to make sure that you are listed!

The neighbor feature is pretty useful. If you have an old address and you want to see if the person still lives there, you could put the address into the "Reverse Address" search and see who lives at the address. Then if you view the neighbors, you have a number of possible informants to tell you if old Uncle John died, moved, went to the rest home, or whatever.

I tested a few more free People Search web sites, and noticed that http://www.whitepages.com/ produces exactly the same results as http://www.411.com/ - just the web page has a different color scheme!

If you're looking for a web site to find living people, this is definitely one to put on your list. It's free, you get quite a bit of information usually, and it's easy to use.

Labels: Online resources, Research techniques, Research tips

William Hutchi(n)son (born ca 1745 NJ, died 1826 Ontario) has been one of my stoutest brick wall ancestors for many years. I found several references to him in the various books about Loyalists who settled in New Brunswick and Ontario, but had not found real "human interest" stories for the family history book.

Thanks to Bev Franks in her WorldConnect database, there are quite a few stories for me to pass on to the family. Here is one of the stories:

From "The Loyalists of America and their Times: From 1620 to 1816," Volume 2, by William Briggs, published 1880. This is a history of the relations, disputes, and challenges between Great Britain, the American Colonies and the United States of America. This work is an attempt to present the story from the Loyalists' point of view, with the aid of documents and records. It also gives the early history and settlement in the British Provinces of America by the Loyalist forefathers. This is the second volume in the two volume series. Chapter XLI, Part I, page 218/9, is titled: Adventures and Sufferings of Captain William Hutchison, and his Settlement in Walsingham, County of Norfolk; communicated by his grandson, J. B. Hutchison, Esquire.

"In the beginning of the wars of 1776, William Hutchison (my grandfather) was urged to join the rebel army (he living at that time in New Jersey); but he boldly declared, death before dishonour. After being harassed about for some time, and leaving a wife and eight children to the mercy of their enemies, he with a number of others tried to make their way to the British army, and were followed by a large force of the enemy; but when they found themselves so greatly outnumbered (being about ten to one), they tried to make their escape to an old barn; but every one of the unfortunate men was caught and hanged but himself. They did not succeed in finding him, he hiding among the bushes. While he lay hidden among some elder bushes, one of the enemy pulled up the bush where he lay, saying 'this would be a d-----d good place for a ---- to hide,' but the shadow falling on him completely hid him from sight. His captain, James J. Lett, was among the unhappy victims, grandfather being lieutenant under him at the time.

"His comrades being all killed, he tried to escape from his covert, but they had stationed sentries all around; he could hear them swearing vengeance on him if they could find him. It being bright moonlight, he could see quite a long distance. He crawled along on his hands and knees across a field, and got into the middle of the road; when the sentries, one on either side of him, got into a quarrel and came close to him before they settled their dispute; having done so, they turned to go away; he then made his escape and got to the British army.

"After suffering all the horrors of a war lasting seven years, losing his property--everything but his loyalty--and that, having extended faithfully through the whole family, is not likely to be lost. His wife and six of his children died from the sufferings consequent upon such a war. Previous to this he had received a captain's commission. After the war closed, he went to New Brunswick, and remained there fourteen years, coming to Canada in 1801, and settled in the township of Walsingham. My father, Alexander Hutchison, was the only surviving son by his first wife. In the war of 1812, my grandfather went out against the enemy with his sons, Alexander, David, and James, in which war my father lost his life.

"Hoping you may be able to find something in these fragments which will be interesting to you, I remain, with the greatest respect, Yours most faithfully, J. B. HUTCHISON."

Grandson Joseph Hutchison must have heard these stories from his grandfather - and passed them on in this book for posterity. I am part of that posterity - William Hutchi(n)son is my 5th great-grandfather. I have at least two other Loyalist ancestors from the US Revolutionary War times.

This provides a different outlook on the Revolutionary War, doesn't it?

There is a good web site for The Online Institute of American Loyalist Studies at http://www.royalprovincial.com/index.htm. This page provides a history of the First Battalion of New Jersey Volunteers. One of William Hutchi(n)son's exploits is noted here:

"A party under Lieutenant William HUTCHISON and Ensign James MOODY in early June of that year successfully captured several officers and men of the Monmouth County Militia and then drove off their pursuers at the point of the bayonet after expending all their ammunition. MOODY himself shot dead a militia officer who was in the act of cursing him across the battlefield, so personal was this war between Rebel and Loyalist. This was soon after followed by 40 men of the battalion with a like number of British regulars capturing a number of militia light horse in a tavern after killing their officer, Captain Skinner. "

There are other books that provide more information about William Hutchi(n)son. I'll post some of them later.

I don't know (and nobody else does either, apparently) the parents or siblings of William Hutchi(n)son. He supposedly was born in about 1745 and resided in Knowlton, Sussex County (now in Warren County) NJ in the 1773-4 time frame.

Do you have Loyalist ancestors? What have you found out about them? Are there any readers who are descendants of William Hutchi(n)son? If so, please contact me!

Labels: Biographies, Elusive ancestors, Military records, My genealogy research

Have you taken a genealogy road trip recently? The ones where you visit aunts, uncles, cousins, cemeteries, ancestral homes, town libraries, county courthouses, local historical and genealogy societies, etc.? Trips like these are an integral part of doing effective genealogy research because they provide opportunities to find unique resources hidden away from the Internet and large repositories.

I have read with fascination the current road trip posts by Arlene Eakle and Steve Danko. Arlene has taken a road trip from Utah to the East Coast and points in-between, stopping along the way to do research for her clients in Denver CO, Republic County, KS, St. Louis MO, Fort Wayne IN, Cleveland OH, Lutherville MD, Richmond VA, Wise County VA, and Pike County KY. Arlene and Kathryn are heading back now with their van chock full of books and papers obtained on the trip. I listed each stop because Arlene's blog format shows only one post at a time.

If you read all of Arlene's posts in order, then you can see the excellent planning involved, the fantastic resources found and the genealogy discoveries made by an expert genealogy researcher. There are many research lessons to be learned by studying these posts.

Steve Danko has just returned from a week-long research trip to Lithuania where he met several cousins and visited several repositories. His planned itinerary was posted here. He has been posting summaries of each of his days on his blog, and he's not finished yet. Read his blog and use the Search box on his home page to find all "Lithuania" related posts.

I am always fascinated by the exploits of other researchers in foreign countries.

My own road trip experiences were extremely challenging, interesting and fun, although they were combined with sightseeing and visiting family and friends. I've posted before about our trips to England in 1993, to Norway in 1999 and to the MD-NJ-PA-NY area in 2004 (Part 1 - preparation, Part 2 - Sussex County NJ, Part 3 - Watertown NY, and Part 4 - Mercer County PA and Prince Georges County MD). I also have been to Salt Lake City twice - in 1995 and again in 1997.

Frankly, I haven't taken many research trips in recent years because I haven't found many "new" ancestors since about 1997. The exception was my wife's Norwegian ancestry which I pursued through most of 1999. We have gone several times to New England in recent years to visit my elderly aunts and uncles and my cousins.

If you have "brick wall ancestors" and have not visited the localities they lived in to explore non-Internet resources, I encourage you to plan well, book the trip and go. You will likely enjoy the experience and obtain more new research data that may help you crash through those brick walls.

Labels: Elusive ancestors, Research techniques, Research tips

There are a number of families in the Rootsweb WorldConnect database at http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi that have surnames connected to Hallowe'en. For instance:

1) The GHOST family - there are 479 entries, including the descendants of Philip Ghost of Westmoreland County PA - see 6 generations here. It looks like at least one GHOST from this family is still living.

2) The GOBLIN family - There are 31 entries for this surname. It looks like there are no real GOBLIN family trees - only isolated GOBLIN women who married men with other surnames.

3) The SKELETON family - there are 380 entries but few trees with many generations. Methinks these are mostly misspelled SKELTON people.

4) The FRANKENSTEIN family - There are 797 entries, and most of them are of German origin. One family that settled in Rochester NY is here.

5) The WITCH family - there are 114 entries, but no long family lines in the database.

6) The PUMPKIN family - there are 67 entries, but no long family lines.

7) The HAUNT family - there are only 4 entries, none with a family line.

8) The SPOOK family - there are 11 entries, and only one with a three generation family.

9) The GHOUL family - there are 11 entries.

10) The JACKO family has 65 entries.

11) The LANTERN family has 214 entries. But there are no people named Jack O. Lantern.

12) There are 190 CAT entries. There are no Black Cat names.

13) There are 13 SCARY entries - many of them still living.

14) There are 35 DRACULA entries, many of them are related to The Count.

15) There are 538 CEMETERY entries.

16) There are 2,769 MONSTER entries. No Monster Mash, though.

17) There are 592 SKULL entries.

18) There are 81 SPIRIT entries. There is a Holy Spirit with a lady named Mary, with a child.

19) There are 4 entries for "Spider Webb"

20) There are 163 entries for SCREECH.

21) There are 5 entries for HALLOWEEN - even a Mary Halloween.

22) There are no VAMPIRE family entries.

Enough!! What other Hallowe'en oriented surnames can you think of? Are they in WorldConnect?

Happy Hallowe'en!! Trick or Treat?

Yep - TRICK has 3,250 entries and TREAT has 45,879 entries!

Labels: Holidays, strange or funny

Our Chula Vista Genealogical Society program today was presented by Joan Lowrey of La Jolla, whose topic was "Digging Up the Un-Dead (Finding Living People)." Joan's biography and talk summary was provided here. We had 44 attendees (more than 50% of our membership), of which 3 were guests (two of whom also attended our 10/20 seminar).

This was an excellent program given by an excellent speaker with excellent credentials - one of the very best programs we have had. The subject is of interest to everyone who is looking for living people - distant relatives, old flames, classmates, etc.

Joan went through the different web sites with:

* Free Telephone Directories (she highlighted www.411.com, the US Phone and Address Directories, 1993-2002 on www.ancestry.com (need subscription to Ancestry) plus others)

* Other Free Sites (she highlighted Steve Morse's site www.stevemorse.org, www.pipl.com plus others)

* Free Sites with Fee Options (she highlighted www.brbpub.com and www.melissadata.com, among others)

* Fee Sites (she highlighted www.netdetective.com, www.courtrecords.org, and www.reverse-records.org among others).

In all of her work, she didn't pay a dime to find out what she showed us about her own family and several other families of interest. From bits and pieces gleaned from these web sites - all for free - she was able to find out many useful things about a person - name, spouse, children, age, address, phone number, approximate home value, neighbors, etc. You can choose to subscribe to a fee service that looks for many more items - criminal records, drivers license, court records, email address, utilities bills, etc. Of course, there are many people who don't own a home or just don't want to be found, so it isn't foolproof.

Joan also showed and summarized two articles that compared People Search fee sites - the articles are at:

* http://consumer-guide.to/People.Searches

* http://www.2006topscams.com/people--search

Joan warned us to be careful about the recommendations at these sites, since we don't know if any of the People Search sites paid to be listed. She also warned us to be careful when using any People Search service - either free or for fee. Use of some sites may generate spam if you give them an email address or a credit card number.

Joan did a really nice job on this presentation, and it generated a lot of comments and questions.

Labels: Online resources, Research techniques, Research tips

This is Installment 44 of the Journal of Della (Smith) Carringer (1862-1944), my great-grandmother, who resided at 2115 30th Street in San Diego in 1929.

The "players" and "setting" are described here. Pictures of some of the players are here. Last week's Journal entry is here.

Here is Week 44:

====================================

Tuesday, October 29 (cooler): I set out border plants & trimmed catonia aster tree in front [of] waterworth tree. Ma worked on weeds. Miss Maynard came up, wants us to sign a paper so she can get pension for Blind. I will tend to it have to sign before a Notary. Girls up stairs gave a party.

Wednesday, October 30 (cool): I took my bath then did washing. Ma reused & hung out. Miss Thoren came home today, stayed with her sister last night, had a nice time. A[ustin] went down to Dr. Bill's pd him $3.50 & is to pay 50 cts a treatment.

Thursday, October 31, Halloween: I went with Lyle's up to Park to see the kiddies parade. We went after Lyle then ate supper Picnic style. Walked around several blocks then down to stand to watch the show. Was very good, the King & Queen & attendants. We stayed until 9 P.M. Ma & I wrote to Rose Kimball. A[ustin] got pay.

Friday, November 1 (warm): I went to city. Pd last Instalment on 2116 Fern St. and $3.50 for to finish up the business. A[ustin] to dentice 50 cts. Ma took her bath & washed her clothes.

Saturday, November 2 (warm): Lyle's birthday, was 38 yrs old. We went over there for supper. Betty made place cards. Emily gave him a Bridge lamp, Betty handkerchiefs, Mrs Auble box home made candy, Ma hanger for closet. We [paid] money $3.00 for Geographic Magazine & $2.50 to go to see the new Theater of Fox Co. Ed did not come over. We goto ur new telephone book & new number R[andolph] 8453.

Sunday, November 3 (warm): Emily took our pictures of our four generations over at their house. Lyle's got them a wood & coal stove for fire place, very nice. I went out to see Mr. & Mrs. Garlock, she is real lame. His grandson from Minn. has been visiting them had another boy with him, Hattie's boy.

Monday, November 4 (warm): We worked some in Ma's closet & she sewed a little. Got letter from Aunt Libbie. Beulah had gone back to her husband, will give him another trial. I sent Cardiff lots water tax Irrigation $6. Pd Milk bill yo Allen's $4.03. Only one of the pictures good. Emily had her mothers, hers & Bettys taken, one is very nice. Betty cold & had nose bleed, did not go to school.

=======================

I know I've seen the four generation picture and several others, but I can't find them on my hard drive. They're not on the wall, either. They must be in the box of unscanned photos that I haven't gotten around tuit yet.

There is no mention of the stock market crash on 29 October in this week's journal. I wonder how it affected Della's family?

I wonder who Miss Maynard is? I need to check the census again, I guess. Della must have known her well in order to be able to sign an affidavit. She may be a neighbor or former neighbor.

My grandfather's birthday was celebrated - at age 38, he had worked for Marston's Department Store for about 23 years.

Labels: Della's Journal, My genealogy research, San Diego area

I must have missed the announcement of this web site - http://www.masteringfamilyhistory.com/. Or maybe it's been kept a secret for some reason.

The web site has a series of videos (saved as executable files for some reason) that have audio with a Powerpoint presentation on the following subjects:

* FamilySearch Indexing (13 minutes)
* New FamilySearch (15 milutes)
* Introduction to Family History (19 minutes)
* Personal Ancestral File 5.2.18 (30 minutes)
* Compiled Genealogies (5 minutes)
* Pedigree Resource File (9 minutes)
* Ancestral File (15 minutes)
* One World Tree (10 minutes)
* Internet Genealogies (6 minutes)
* Ancestry.com (18 minutes)
* Documenting Research Findings (15 minutes)
* PAF Insight (18 minutes)
* PRFMagnet (32 minutes in 5 segments)
* U.S. Cities Galore (12 minutes)
* Internet Searches (5 minutes)
* Downloading and Importing GEDCOM Files (10 minutes)

While these are oriented to LDS databases and resources, they may be very useful for beginning researchers to understand and learn how to use the LDS databases, and PAF, effectively.

You can view the videos online on a small screen, or download the executable file for viewing at a later time.

Thank you to Jennifer at the JacksBox4You blog http://jacksbox4you.blogspot.com/ for the link to her post here. If there was an award for the best background picture on a genealogy blog, I would vote for Jennifer's in a heartbeat. Go look at it - very cool, great imagery!

Labels: genealogy blogs, Genealogy Video

Here are my picks for great reads from the genealogy blogs for this past week. My criteria are pretty simple - I like posts that advance knowledge about genealogy, or are funny and/or poignant. I don't list posts destined for the Carnival of Genealogy, or my own posts (hopefully, others will do that!).

* "More Genealogy Law: Invasion of Privacy" and "Genealogy Law Quiz Answers" by Craig Manson on his Geneablogie blog. Craig provides very useful information for bloggers and researchers. I'm still trying to figure out if I can put Della's Journal online week by week.

* "Locating Alternate Sources, or HOW to find WHICH records should be searched in an ancestor’s DISTANT LOCALITY" by Pat Richley on the DearMYRTLE blog. This is an excellent discussion and advice about doing exhaustive searches for genealogy data.

* "10 DNA Myths Busted" by Blaine Bettinger on his Genetic Genealogist blog. This post discusses common misperceptions, and sets the reader straight, about DNA testing. This sets us up for the next Carnival of Genealogy to be hosted by Blaine.

* "What's Next for Ancestry.com?" by Kimberly Powell on the About.com:Genealogy blog. This is an interview with Tim Sullivan, the President and CEO of The Generations Network. The best real genealogy interview of the week.

* "A Genealogue Interview" by Chris Dunham on his The Genealogue blog. This is the best unreal genealogy interview of the week. Read the comments too.

* "Was Grandma Stepping Out, Or What?" by Lee Anders on her The I Seek Dead People blog. Welcome back, Lee, I hope you write more about your ancestors. Hmm, maybe I violated my rule about Carnival posts. It's OK.

* "Why Review Old Genealogy Research" by Lorine McGinnis Schulze on the Olive Tree Genealogy blog. Lorine discusses reviewing the research that you did long ago - wise words, indeed!

* "Using DabbleDB to Keep Track of Sources" by Taneya on her Taneya's Genealogy Blog. She describes an online system to keep track of resources - what a great system! And a wonderful post, and an idea that I need to implement!

* "Genealogy is for the Living" by whoever writes The G Files blog. This is touching with good advice, and very true.

* "Are You Prepared? I'm Not" by Becky Wiseman on her Kinexxions blog. Becky was wise observations about preparing for disasters before they strike. I'm not ready either, it turned out after our fire disaster here this week.

* "Using Deeds in Genealogy Research" by Brenda Joyce Jerome on the Western Kentucky Genealogy blog. This is wonderful advice from a voice with experience.

That's it for this week. If I missed some really good posts, please tell me about them!

Labels: BestofGeneaBlogs, genealogy blogs, Online resources

The Ancestry.com blog has the results of a survey of 10,000 subscribers about new content on Ancestry.com. The results are shown in a bar chart here.

I am glad that Ancestry has been taking surveys to sense customers desires. That is always the first step to improve customer relations.

If they had asked me, I would have said my desires for new content would be, in priority order (with my own perceptions as comments):

* Vital Records information - Ancestry has births, marriages and deaths from some states available in online databases, but not all states. Many of these records have been microfilmed but not digitized. They are, by far, the best authoritative resource for direct evidence if they exist.

* Military Records -- complete Rev War pension records, complete Civil War pension records, other pension records from War of 1812 to whenever.

* City Directories -- Ancestry has 1 or 2 directories from many cities, but the real need is for every year available in every city. A big job.

* Court, Land, Probate and Financial Records -- there are very few of these available anywhere online. Ancestry has some indexes but few wills, inventories, deeds, guardianships, court records, etc. A really big job, since the records themselves are mostly handwritten records.

* Newspapers and Periodicals -- Ancestry has a fine collection so far. But there are many newspapers from cities large and small that are not available yet. San Diego, for instance. Los Angeles is another. I'll bet there are others!

* Census Records -- Ancestry has done a great job for US Federal census and the UK census records. State census data, US mortality, agricultural and manufacturing census data, and records from other countries are needed.

* Families and Local Histories -- Ancestry has been adding these quickly, and now has the premier collection with the best search engine. They need to keep adding them!

* Directories and Member Lists -- Ancestry has a pretty good selection here, but the last year for the phone book material is 2002.

* Maps, Atlases and Gazetteers -- Ancestry has added quite a few of these recently. Keep adding them, please!

* Immigration, Emigration and Citizenship Records -- US Naturalization records and Passport applications would be wonderful helps.

* School Yearbooks -- there aren't many on Ancestry, and they are hard to come by. But they give us pictures of young people.

* Family Trees -- There are too many of these out there - somehow they need to be blended into one giant family tree with correct information. Probably impossible. I do like the Public/Private Member Tree concept.

* Dictionaries, Encyclopedias and Reference -- images of the actual pages for Who's Who and the others would be nice ... but there may be copyright problems.

Not on Ancestry's list but very high on my list is data in Periodicals and Journals. PERSI is great, as far as it goes. Again, there are copyright problems. Perhaps some deal with publishers to at least index names and places, a definition of the source, and a place to order an article could be made. These are probably the most underutilized source of information because they are not available online.

Likewise, Family Bibles and Family Papers are an area that are not even on the Ancestry list. The DAR has a lot of these (and the FHL has them on microfilm), as does NGS and other sites.

How about a collection of web site data (personal pages, blogs, etc.) that have genealogy data posted? Oops, been there, done that I guess. It was a good idea badly implemented and should be considered with more sensitivity to the web site owners. Not everybody Googles.

The key to Ancestry's popularity and future growth is the sheer volume of records, the indexing and the searching capabilities. They are outstanding now and may improve even more.

What else would YOU like to see Ancestry digitize and index? What is most important to you? Tell them.

Labels: Ancestry.com, Online resources

Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200. Just go to the San Diego Family History Center and use the computers to access FamilyLink, Godfrey Memorial Library, Footnote, HeritageQuestOnline and WorldVitalRecords for free.

Yep - these links to the subscription web sites are installed and running well. I was there today to copy more Rhode Island Probate records, and checked the computer as I was about to leave. I stayed for another 30 minutes checking things on WorldVitalRecords.

To access these services, you have to start Internet Explorer, then go to Favorites and click on the "Premium Databases" folder, and then on the "Family History Center Services Online Portal" and that will take you to the FHC-only web site. That site looks like this:


This site indicates that still not available are Genline.com, Genline.se and Kindred Konnections.

I did not ask about the status of this at the FHC today because I figured it was still months down the road here. Wrong! I like being wrong sometimes. I'm guessing that there has been no publicity at the FHC about it because they don't want a deluge of users and they want the staff to get familiar with using it. So I'm using my little bloghorn (hey, a new word! Mine!) here to shout out to my San Diego area colleagues. Anybody reading?

Labels: Commercial genealogy, LDS Resources, Online resources, Research tips, San Diego area

I still have not had my DNA tests done to determine my Y-DNA and mtDNA markers. Nor have I asked my wife, my brother-in-law, my female Seaver cousins, or more distant cousins to be tested. I should ...

I wrote a post about what I might determine from my own mitochondrial DNA in the post My mtDNA matrilineal lines. I also wrote a post about my Y-DNA patrilineal line in My Lonely Y-DNA strand.

I discussed my moral dilemma about a possible step-sibling in my post A Challenging Moral Dilemma. If the step-sibling was male, then a Y-DNA test would prove our common paternity.

Here is what I think could be done if all those other people were tested:

1) If my wife, daughters, or brother-in-law was tested, their mitochondrial DNA might be matched with other tested persons in the line of:

* Edna May (Schaffner) Leland (1913 CA - 1979 CA, married Leo Leland)
* Edna Catherine (McKnew) Schaffner (1884 CA - 1974 CA, married Paul Schaffner)
* Jane (Whittle) McKnew (1847 Australia - 1921 CA, married Elijah McKnew)
* Rachel (Moore) Whittle (wife of Joseph Whittle, probably born in England, resided in Australia in the 1840's, emigrated to San Francisco in late 1840's(?))

2) If my brother-in-law was tested, his Y-DNA might be matched to other Leland descendants from Norway. The line from his father is:

* Leo Severt Leland (1911 MT -2002 CA, married Edna Schaffner)
* Severt Oliver Leland (1878 WI - 1940 CA, married Amelia Brocke)
* Torger Sjursen Leland (1850 Norway - 1933 CA, married Anna Ellingsdtr Natvig)
* Sjur Torgersen (1804 Norway - 1889 WI, married Brita Olsdtr)
* Torgeir Olsen (1753 Norway - 1827 Norway, married Anna Sjursdtr)
* Ole Torgeirsen (1700 Norway - 1772 Norway, married Barbra Magnesdtr)
* Torgeir Pedersen (1648 Norway - 1730 Norway, married Agate Olsdtr)

As an aside, look at the years between births in that line in Norway. These guys married relatively late in life!

3) If one of my wife's female cousins was tested, her mtDNA results might lead to further identification down this line:

* Amelia Anna (Brocke) Leland (1884 ID - 1975 CA, wife of Severt Oliver Leland)
* Anna (Grieser) Brocke (1859 MO - 1936 ID, wife of Nicholas Brocke)
* Katherine (Guddy) Grieser (1840 Bavaria - 1920 ID, wife of Ignatius Grieser).

4) There may be living male and female cousins of the Brocke family living in Idaho who could be tested for the Brocke line, which leads back to Germany.

5) On my mother's Kemp line, I have male third cousins living in the Los Angeles area who might provide some clues for my Kemp line. My cousin's Kemp line goes like this:

* Leroy James Kemp
* Leroy Gordon Kemp (1896 - 1933 CA, married Laura Ehlers)
* James Alexander Kemp (1872 Ontario - 1934 CA, married Bertha Fuller)
* James Abram Kemp (1831 Ontario - 1902 Ontario, married Mary Jane Sovereen)
* Abraham James Kemp (1795 Ontario - 1881 Ontario, married Sarah Sephrona Fletcher)
* John Kemp (1768 NY - 1861 Ontario, married Mary Dafoe)
* John Kemp (1723 ?? - 1793 Ontario, married Anna Van Vorst).

This last John Kemp is a brick wall ancestor. He may have been an English soldier in the French and Indian War in NY. A Y-DNA test might connect him to another Kemp family line in North America or England.

6) On my mother's Carringer line, I would need to find a living male Carringer descended from Henry Carringer (1800 PA - 1881 IA, married Sarah Feather). The male line from his son David Jackson Carringer has petered out (literally).

7) My mother's Smith line has also petered out, I fear. Devier J. Smith (1839 NY - 1894 NE) had a son, David, but he had two daughters. Devier's father, Ranslow Smith had only one son.

8) My mother's Vaux line may have some potential, but I would need to find some living female third cousins.

9) On my father's side, there are living male third cousins with the Richmond surname. They could provide some link to other Richman/Richmond males in England and the USA. The Richman/Richmond line is:

* Thomas Richmond (1848 Wiltshire - 1917 MA, married Julia White)
* James Richman (1821 Wiltshire - 1912 CT, married Hannah Rich)
* John Richman (ca 1788 Wiltshire - 1867 Wiltshire, married Ann Marshman).

Both John Richman and Ann Marshman are brick wall ancestors for me.

10) There may be female living distant cousins in England who were descended from John Richman and Ann Marshman and might lead to mtDNA connections to a Marshman line.

11) Likewise, there may be distant female living cousins for the Rich surname line in England.

12) There are probably some male Hildreth distant cousins that could be tested to get the Y-DNA markers for that line on my father's side.

13) I'm sure there are a lot more possibilities!!

Unfortunately, many of the above possible DNA connections would require extensive 20th century genealogy research, contacts with the cousins, their agreement to be tested, and somebody to pay for it.

My purpose in writing all of the above down was to try to figure out if DNA test could help define more than my own patrilineal and matrilineal markers. Once you start thinking about the possibilities, and actually identifying potential cousins that could be tested, there are many more than just two lines.

It seems to me that there is the probability that most people could define a line for all four grandparents and perhaps most of the 8 great-grandparents, but you need to know the family structure, identifying all-male lines and all-female lines. The reduction in size of 20th century families due to birth control and family planning makes the probability of big families, and therefore more candidates, lower.

It makes a great case for identifying cousins from common ancestors, doesn't it? The easiest way to identify possible DNA matches would be on a descendants chart for each potential family line. I'm going to work on that! The challenge is to populate it with all family members that lead to living 21st century persons.

The application of the Y-DNA tests to genealogy is pretty straightforward and understandable. The application of the mtDNA tests to genealogy is not as straightforward - I really don't understand just how exact the results are and how they can be effectively used.

That was fun! I wonder what Blaine Bettinger will do with it? We'll see!

Labels: genetics, My genealogy research

I've spent several hours tonight putting "brick wall ancestors" names into the "Stories and Publications" search box on Ancestry.com. I've had quite a bit of luck finding books with my possible Lewis ancestral families, to the extent that I need to order some microfilms to gather vital records data in Long Island and Staten Island records from the 1670-1770 time period.

The biggest surprise were several "nuggets" found in the Newspaper clippings from the Sussex (NJ) Register, 1897-1899 concerning my David Auble. These items were in a column titled "Ancient Local History, compiled from The Register," which was published in Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey.

1) From the Register for 4 April 1838:

"David J. Foster and David Auble form partnership and begin business as shoemakers in building recently occupied by George Dennis, and next to W.T. Anderson's law office."

David Auble (1817-1894) is my 2nd great-grandfather who married Sarah Knapp in 1844. David Foster was a brother-in-law, married to Sarah's sister Hannah Knapp in 1839. The two David's were partners, and David foster probably introduced David Auble to his future wife.

2) From the Register, 10 September 1844:

"William Auble, a native of Sussex, and a brother to David Auble, stabbed to death during a quarrel in Philadelphia, by two brothers , who sang obscene songs as Auble was returning from a party with ladies. Auble had a loaded pistol, but did not use it. The deceased and the men who sent him to an untimely grave were intimate acquaintances, and but for improper use of strong drink the trouble never would have occurred."

I do not have this William Auble in the family of John and Anna (Rau) Auble. In the 1830 census, there are 5 boys enumerated, and I only had the names of three of them (David, Robert and Hampton). What a sad story.

The Register newspaper in the late 1890's was picking one story from each day in the old newspapers - it's just luck that they picked these two stories on this particular day. Now I wonder if there are archives of this newspaper back in the 1830-s and 1840's that would have the full stories, and probably more about my Auble and Knapp families that resided in Newton. I visited there one day back in 2004 - they have a nice county library on the north side of town. Another item for my "to-do" list.

Labels: My genealogy research, Oldtime newspapers

As I noted on Wednesday, the weather turned cooler with winds from the west that stifled the westward progress of the fires in San Diego County. However, now the fires are burning on their eastern edges, mainly in National Forests. We had haze yesterday (from the smoke blown offshore coming back onshore) and this morning we had a thick fog. The fires are not all out, but they are being contained.

The number of people in the evacuation centers is dwindling, and people are returning to many areas, including Ramona (the first ones to evacuate on Sunday) but they can't use the water in Ramona yet. Now the stories about "what happened to me" are in the newspapers and on the radio and TV.

The TV news had constant video of homes burning and people walking in the rubble. They rarely showed maps or discussed where fires were burning. Usually, it was announcements of evacuations, discussion of resources, interviews with politicians, or news conferences. The radio news stations (KOGO-600 AM, KFMB-760 AM) had call-in programs 24 hours a day with reports from residents in fire areas, and was more useful but not comprehensive. The newspapers had excellent maps and summaries, but they were a day later. The web had some blogs with pictures and reports, KOGO had a chat room with many comments, and the news outlets had web sites with reports, maps and pictures.

The Reverse 911 phone system worked extremely well, and the evacuation centers worked well. Getting air and ground resources to San Diego was delayed by the distances involved, the other fires that started earlier, and by some bureaucratic red tape. In one case, the US Navy helicopters in San Diego weren't permitted to fight the fires because there weren't enough CalFire observers to ride along on them. They finally got airborne on Wednesday with Navy fire spotters and one CalFire observer for every 3 or 4 helicopters. They've gotta fix that.

You can see up-to-date posts from the San Diego Union-Tribune blog at http://sosdfireblog.blogspot.com/ . There was one today about how good things sometimes happen to good people - read this particular post. The highlight for me was:

"Kate Leidiger's first week on the job certainly as been more eventful than expected. The 20-year-old Del Cerro resident was a brand new EMT with Rural Metro when the fires broke out.

"Monday, her first day on the job, she worked the frontline for more than 30 hours.

"But the grueling job isn't without a few perks. Within the first 18 hours of her shift, she had the chance to shake hands with Gov. Schwarzenegger. The next day, she met Pres. Bush, who tucked her under his arm in an embrace."

Talk about a serious change in someone's life, and a fantastic experience for a young lady just trying to work her job and do good. She really made "family history" this week, didn't she? She will always remember it, and will probably have the pictures to prove it.

Labels: musings, San Diego area

One of my favorite sayings has been "I'd rather be lucky than good" but now I much prefer the saying "I want to be both lucky and good." There is also the saying that "luck is the residue of design" (which apparently comes from author John Milton, but is often attributed to Branch Rickey). I prefer the saying "good luck happens when you plan well."

In any case, I had a stroke of good luck last night as a result of methodically going through my genealogy database for my "brick wall ancestors." I don't do this as often as I should, but I will probably do it more often now!

I haven't used the "Web Search Resources" in FamilyTreeMaker at all, but I decided to try it out last night. Two of my "brick wall ancestors" are William Hutchinson (1745 NJ - 1826 ON) and his wife, Catherine Lewis. I found very little on the web search for Mr. Hutchinson but the search for Catherine Lewis netted a number of possible ancestral families. The site gave me the option to integrate those results into my database. I don't usually do that, but prefer to investigate the data posted for the suggested families in as many sources as possible. However, I wanted to see how the process worked, so I set up a "dummy" Catherine Lewis and downloaded some family data over several generations.

The source for the Catherine Lewis connection was the One World Tree database at www.Ancestry.com, so I was able to bring it up and print out some information - pedigree charts, note pages, and family group information. I checked for the families on the Rootsweb WorldConnect database, and found some interesting notes and the same data for many of the families. Now I need to check online and traditional resources to prove that the Catherine Lewis in the databases is the same one who married William Hutchinson. But now I have some leads.

This morning, while waiting for the cable man to come to diagnose my cable modem problems, I Googled the search string ["william hutchinson" "catherine lewis" loyalist]. I got my own ROOTS-L mailing list post from 1996 (!) and another mailing list post that provided a link to a WorldConnect database that listed William Hutchison (not Hutchinson!). The page for Mr. Hutchison is here for those curious about what I found. William Hutchinson's life has been well documented in this database, and most of it is data that I did not have previously (probably because I've always searched for Hutchinson rather than Hutchison). Not only that, the families of his children have been researched, with the exception of his daughter, Mary Jane Hutchinson. Guess which child is my ancestor? Yep - Mary Jane! However, there was great information about Mary Jane on her father's page. It reads:

"Mary Jane Hutchinson, eldest daughter of William, married Frederick Sovereign, the founder of Fredericksburg. Her children are enumerated in the Sovereign genealogy. This old pioneer mother was known far and wide as 'Aunt Jane Sovereign,' and was noted for her generous hospitality and her quaint, off-hand manner of speech. She was an indefatigable worker, and found rest in busy activity; and to sit still for any length of time was misery to her. She was a regular attendant at church, and to sit in a pew for a solid hour and keep awake until the old-fashioned "fourthly" had dragged out its weary length, was a cross that she was not always able to bear. On one occasion during a "protracted meetin'" the sermon had been unusually long, and when the "conference" exercises began "Aunt Jane" stood up, but said nothing. The kind-hearted pastor, divining that some great trouble was weighing upon her mind, called her by name and offered words of encouragement. "Oh!" exclaimed Aunt Jane, as she looked up with arms akimbo, "I've just stood up to rest my hips abit."

"As these lines are being written an old familiar scene presents itself. In my mind's eye I see the old fire-place aglow once more with its flickering flame. In it I see the old crane, and once again I hear the sputtering of the old iron teakettle. In front stands the bent form of a dear old familiar figure. With arms akimbo, she looks into the glowing coals for a moment while the ashes from the inverted bowl of her clay pipe drops upon the old hearth. For a brief moment I turn aside to catch a glimpse of some other passing scene, and when I look again, behold, all is changed! Was it only a phantom? Verily so. The old chimney is dark, damp and musty; the old hearth has caved in and the old crane lies buried in the dust. The old tea-kettle has yielded up its form and the elements of which it was composed have been incorporated into other and newer forms, and in the village cemetery I see a granite column whereon is engraved these lines: "Mary Jane, wife of Frederick Sovereign, died April 16th, 1868, aged 76 years, 2 months and 25 days."

Isn't that amazing? A personal recollection of my 4th great-grandmother, Mary Jane (Hutchinson) Sovereign. Priceless! To me, anyways.

The information about William Hutchinson was a fantastic find, and the recollection of Mary Jane is just one of the cherries on top of the whipped cream on top of the ice cream on top of the "cake" of my genealogy research about my ancestors.

Design? Intentional? Planning? Lucky? Good? Yep. It's been a lucky and good genealogy day so far!

Labels: Ancestry.com, musings, My genealogy research, Online resources

The Chula Vista Genealogical Society meeting is Monday, 29 October at the Chula Vista Civic Center Branch Library auditorium (365 "F" Street in Chula Vista). Doors open at 10:00 a.m., and the program will start at about 10:20 a.m. Please enter through the conference room off the east entrance to sing in, pick up handouts, and have a snack. There will be a short business meeting before the speaker.

The program speaker will be Joan Lowrey of La Jolla, whose talk is titled "Digging Up the Undead - Finding Living People." In this presentation, you will learn the best websites and techniques for finding living people. Most people can be found, even those with unlisted phone numbers, using the tools that will be demonstrated in this presentation.

Joan Lowrey is a professional genealogist, specializing in the U.S. and Germany. She has extensive experience in San Diego County and also does missing heir research. A good part of her work is finding living descendants. Joan is the founder and past President of the Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego (CGSSD), and the editor of its fine newsletter, Compu.Gen.

CVGS welcomes guests and visitors to our meetings. Please come and enoy the program and our hospitality.

Labels: CVGS, genealogy education, genealogy societies, San Diego area

Kimberly Powell at her About:Genealogy blog has scored an excellent interview with Tim Sullivan, The Geneations Network President and CEO. He addresses the buyout, future plans for Ancestry, Genealogy.com, Rootsweb, the Internet Biographical Collection and FamilyTreeMaker 2008 release, and more.

It's an excellent and revealing interview. The things I found most interesting were:

* The buyout by Spectrum Equity Investments replaced current owners, and resulted in a majority owner named Dick Parker who is tuned in to genealogy.

* They weren't out to "steal" content with the IBC, and were hurt by the level of anger by many commenters.

* On FTM 2008, the research and testing somehow missed how important the genealogy report and publishing options were.

* There is a new search engine coming out as a beta, and they will user-test it before they implement it.

Read all of Kimberly's interview.

My opinion is that TGN is not well in tune with their customer base for Ancestry and FamilyTreeMaker. They really need to survey their customers, listen to their needs and opinions, and provide products that respond to those needs. You don't get this feedback from the professionals and magazine writers - you get them from the grass-roots users - folks who are not wealthy, who don't spend all day, every day doing genealogy, and who just want what they buy to work well.

I understand that the programmers want to implement the latest and greatest software bells and whistles, and make it work better, and there will be so many great things, and ..., and ... (take a breath). TGN needs to understand that many people are averse to change - it takes a while to accept change and then a while to understand and use what has changed. I think that changes should not be abrupt - they need to be add-ons rather than replacement at least for some interim period.

UPDATE 9:30 PM: The Genealogue also interviewed someone named Tim Sullivan here - leave it to Chris to make the oh-so-serious issue a laugh-out-loud funny! I needed it.

Labels: Ancestry.com, Commercial genealogy

I posted on 7 October about what appeared to be the "Deal of the Year?". I received the box of software and documents a week later, and it appeared that it had everything promised. I waited until today to install the software due to my other time commitments.

I quickly installed FamilyTreeMaker 16 (in a separate directory from FTM 2005), GenSmarts (and updated it online) off the CD, and downloaded the Ancestry Reference Library (quite a few reference books, in a separate program called AncestryView), the 1-2-3 Family Tree in PDF format, The Official Guide to FamilyTreeMaker 16 in PDF format, and the Ancestry's Concise Genealogical Dictionary in PDF format. In addition, there are two DVDs with the FTM 16 Official Training DVD and the Ancestry Historical Maps & Photos Collection on DVD. There were also The Official Guide to FamilyTreeMaker 16 in book form, plus the small QuickStart Guide for FTM 16 in booklet form which provided directions for installing and signing up for everything.

I have not been able to fulfill the come-on of a one-year Ancestry subscription as part of this deal. The QuickStart booklet calls it a FREE TRIAL subscription, accessible through the FTM 16 Internet menu and the "Start an Ancestry.com Trial Subscription" link. I did that and got put into the Ancestry Store web page default screen with no visible link to proceed. I finally chose to "buy" a book for $6.95 just to get into the shopping cart area and there a Trial Subscription for $29.95 was listed. I eventually X-ed out of the web page. So I don't have the Ancestry.com subscription yet.

One of the commenters on my previous post said that they had to call Ancestry.com to get the subscription, so I will call them and see what can be done. I will update this post when I find out what happened.

All of that was obtained for $16.95 plus $6.00 shipping at http://www.nothingbutsoftware.com/. Note that this specific deal item (using the link on Lee Drew's FamHist2 blog) is now $49.95 at that web site. There is another deal with a 9-month subscription and fewer add-ons for $29.95, and another with a 6-month Ancestry subscription and fewer add-ons for $14.95.

If someone didn't have genealogy software, these would be excellent deals even without the Ancestry subscription. Even if someone had an earlier version of FamilyTreeMaker, this is a pretty good deal for an upgrade plus GenSmarts and the books. If the Ancestry.com subscription comes through, then it was an outstanding deal.

I would be interested in how other folks did with this deal, especially with the Ancestry subscription part of it.

UPDATED 12:30 PM: I called Ancestry and talked to a very nice woman (Sherry) who told me that since I already had an account, that I couldn't have two accounts at the same time. She said I needed to cancel my present subscription when it is up, and call them to activate my new subscription on that date.

It was difficult to find the Ancestry phone number - in the US, it is 1-800-ANCESTRY (262-3787). I did note that you can cancel your subscription online, but you need to know the date it ends or else you'll get billed for another year.

Labels: FamilyTreeMaker, genealogy software

I read the "Popular Pages" and "Entry Pages" blog post statistics for Genea-Musings almost every night on www.Sitemeter.com and www.Statcounter.com. Unfortunately, I only get information about the last 100 visits, which is usually the last 8 to 12 hours.

Certain Genea-Musings posts are always on the list. They include (in approximate order of popularity):

* Family tree tattoos? I really don't know where I'd put one - on my head? At least it would be visible. I worry that my dermatologist would wipe out an ancestor or two if she found a cancer spot.

* World Records for number of children. Every time I read this I worry about how they dealt with the confusion and mayhem around the house, and the cost of college educations for all of them.

* Spooky names in the census. Others have done this, including myself.

* John Tyler's Grandson is still alive!. This was the most amazing research story.

* How rare is your personality type? I'm ISTJ, what are you?

All of these posts are picked by people Googling key words - they are not genealogists, just curious people.

My own favorites? I think that they are:

* Shopping for the Genealogist who has everything. I need to find new gifts for my wife's birthday and Christmas - I'd better start soon!

* Index for my Cornelia Bresee search. This links to all of the posts that detailed my efforts to tap online genealogy resources to find Cornelia's parents.

* The Ultimate "Dodging the Census" Puzzle. This lists my futile search for the Robert Leroy Thompson (1880-1963) family and his parents in the census records from 1850 to 1930. Not one positive census record, which leads me to think he had a name change.

* The Census Whacking Index. A list of my posts about strange and funny names in the census. Which reminds me, I haven't done one for a long time.

* Best of the Genea-Blogs (last one). My almost weekly series of posts highlighting genealogy blog posts that I judge "best of the week."

You can click on the categories at the bottom of each post on the actual blog page to see the "collection" in each category. I still haven't changed my blog to be able to list all of the categories - I worry that I will lose it all.

If you want to do a Google search of my blog, put the keywords in the little "Search Blog" box up at the top of the web page header.
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Of course, this post is just another obvious attempt to create additional page views so that I can have my most ever visits and page views in October, and to increase my Reach in the Quantcast ratings.

Labels: censuswhacking, Elusive ancestors, genealogy blogs

Juliana smith, at the 24/7 Family History Circle blog, has been providing five questions to post memories about in honor of Family History Month. This week’s topic is family. I'm assuming that these questions pertain to my childhood and young adult years:

1) How has a member of your family influenced you?

There are many ways for someone to influence another person - through words of advice, wisdom or warnings; or through actions and deeds - being a good (or bad) example.

My mother was a wonderful example of unconditional love and support, and of the value of an education. My father was a strong, silent type who rarely had a good word for us kids - I learned that I didn't want to be that kind of father. My grandfather was a model of a quiet, confident, hard working and smart man who encouraged me constantly. My grandmother was nurturing, I loved being with her.

2) How often did you see extended family (e.g., aunts, uncles, cousins), and what was it like when you all got together?

My father's mother, brothers and sisters and almost all of his cousins were in Massachusetts, and we were in San Diego 2,500 miles away. I met my grandmother Seaver once, in 1959 when she came with my dad's sister Evelyn (Seaver) Wood, Evelyn's husband, Walter Wood, and Evelyn's granddaughter, Diana. We had a fun time with Diana, who was our age. In the 1960's, my father's sister, Geraldine Seaver, came from Massachusetts with a friend to visit. I took business trips twice in the late 1960's to Boston, stayed with Aunt Gerry, and visited family in Leominster and got to know my aunts, uncles and cousins. My dad's brother and other sisters eventually came to visit us in San Diego. My father never went back to Massachusetts, and was jealous of us (myself, wife and children) for going in 1982 and having a wonderful time.

My dad's aunt Emily (Richmond) Taylor lived in San Diego with her daughter, Dorothy, and her husband and daughter. We always visited them on the 4th of July and at Christmas time.

My mother was an only child of only children, but there were several great aunts and uncles and second cousins in the Los Angeles area. When I was small, they would come visit, but I don't remember which ones they were or when they came. I do remember, as a young boy of 5 or 6, having to kiss these old people with white hair (and mustaches?) sitting on the couch in our living room.

3) What kind of traditions did/does your family observe? Were there special ways you celebrated birthdays? Holidays?

Birthdays were usually a barbecue in the back yard patio, with a ping pong game or two and finally cake and ice cream. We always played word games or board games after it got dark.

We usually went to my grandparents home on Point Loma for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We always had roast turkey, mashed potatoes, peas for dinner, and pumpkin pie and ice cream for dessert. One tradition we had, which started when we were boys, was to have a post-dinner game of "toss the pea in the glass" - each person playing would try to do this across the table and we would keep score. My dad and brothers and I always played, but my mom always hated it - it seemed uncouth to throw food. We eventually graduated to tossing wadded up napkins instead of peas. My brothers and daughters (and their hubbies) now play this at Christmas in honor of my folks, with much laughter and challenges.

4) Did your family have pets?

We always had cats. Our house was between two busy streets, so most of the cats didn't last too long. But there were always cats around - we would adopt one that would eat in the house and sleep with us for awhile, but they always wanted to go hunt outside. Squash! The longest lived was named Rootie-Toot-Toot, whose mother was Tootie. They were gray semi-Persian breed, and were happy to be petted, talked to and chased around.

5) What foods did your family enjoy? Was there a special dish that was always on the table at family get-togethers?

When we went to Aunt Emily's house, Dorothy would always fix gourmet meals. We always had to ask what things were, and were ordered to try them. We rarely liked it. Where was the good stuff - meat, potatoes and vegetables?

I grew up not eating salad, sauces, dressings, shellfish, and rare meat. There were always fruit, berries, vegetables in the house for growing boys. Breakfast was cereal or shredded wheat, and sometimes scrambled eggs and bacon. We sometimes had fried egg sandwiches for lunch on weekends. My mother made what she called "vermicelli" at dinner - a white sauce over toast with grated egg yolk over it. When we had steak, which was only rarely, it was cooked well done, as were hamburgers.

Labels: Memories, musings, San Diego area

We had only five attendees at our CVGS Research Group today - apparently many people are heeding the directions to stay home, don't drive and take it easy due to the fire disaster here.

We discussed the Genealogy Research News for October 2007, and then talked extensively about the research problems of two attendees.

Chuck, a new member, described his problem: He doesn't know the names of his great-grandparents surnamed Reynolds. His grandfather, Elisha Reynolds, was a twin (to Elijah) born in Indiana in about 1870. In the 1880 census, Elijah R. Dean and Elisha R. Dean (both age 10) lived in Perry County IN with W.H. and S.J. Dean, and William's children William Dean (age 13) and daughter Susan Dean (age 12). Eventually, Elijah Reynolds and Susan Dean married and had children. In other records, S.J. is listed as C.J., Susan is listed as Susannah (her tombstone) and Annie. Elisha's full name is Elisha Wilson Reynolds.

Chuck had found an 1875 marriage record for a William H. Deen and Cerilda J. Reynolds in Perry County, Indiana, and thinks that this is a second marriage for both of them. Cerilda, C.J. and S.J. are probably the same person. He doesn't have death certificates for Elisha Reynolds, Susan(nah) (Dean) Reynolds, William H. Dean or Cerilda J. (--?--) (Reynolds) Dean.

We discussed this at length, noting that it is a typical research problem that can probably be solved using a cluster genealogy technique. We counselled that he needs to obtain as many birth, marriage and vital records as possible for all known family members, including the twin brother Elijah Reynolds who ended up in Illinois. He should check surname books and county history books for these families. He should check probate (admins, wills, guardianships) and deed records for the 1870-1880 time frame - if Elisha's father died, he may have left these records. They may be in Perry County or surrounding counties. There are probably land plat maps for the county that show land ownership in certain years. He should check the USGenWeb county pages, the surname and county message boards and mailing lists, and check the 1870 census for Cerilda Reynolds (with all of the potential spellings for both names).

Dick knows that his father, who lived in Wisconsin, served in World War I, but can find no records of his service. We suggested that he write the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis to see what records they might have. We also suggested that he check the World War II draft registrations for his father. Dick also wondered how to get employment and other information from Social Security. We recommended that he check the SSA web site and a recent Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe blog post with information.

It was an interesting meeting. We have this meeting every 4th Wednesday of each month, and we usually have 10 to 15 attendees.

UPDATED: corrected the names a bit, I got Elisha and Elijah mixed up. I did find an Indiana marriage record on Ancestry for Cerilda J. Reynolds and William H. Deen on 1 Dec 1875 in Perry County IN. I also found a marriage record for Cerilda J. Flinn and Benjamin J. Reynolds on 22 Sept 1867 in Crawford County IN. I think that this is his family data, since her given name is so unusual and the surnames match well. I can't find Ben and Cerilda in the 1870 census, or Cerilda Flinn in the 1860 census. I passed the marriage data to Chuck to celebrate...now he has more mystery ancestors!

Labels: CVGS, Online resources, Research tips

The situation for my family has not changed - we are safe, slept well, we taking sustenance, minimizing our electric and water use, watching TV and listening to radio, trying to stay off the roads, and trying to entertain granddaughter Lolo. It is hazy with blue sky above, the sun is shining fairly brightly (the past few days have seen no blue sky and an orange ball in the sky obscured by the haze and ashfall) and there is no ashfall right here right now. The closest the fires got to us were about 8 miles east in the Eastlake area of Chula Vista.

The TV here has been "all fire, all the time" so we have had no national TV news or regular shows on the local stations. I watched Fox News Channel last night for a bit and the anchor confidently said "Chula Vista has been evacuated." Wrong-o! About 1% of Chula Vista residents were evacuated. I've heard that NBC and CBS have news anchors here - I hope they got it right. The local TV folks don't get it right sometimes either - I saw one report last night that said the winds were out of the northeast so the fires were burning in the northwest direction. Neither the anchors or the reporter could figure it out.

The fire situation in the county has changed. The Sign On San Diego Wildfires 2007 blog has the latest announcements, and is my best source for news. The major fires and their status as of 7 AM are now:

** Witch Fire: About 196,420 acres in northern San Diego County from Witch Creek east of Ramona to Rancho Santa Fe. It has burned up into Valley Center and down around El Capitan Reservoir. One percent contained; 500 homes, 100 businesses and 50 outbuildings destroyed; 375 other structures damaged, including 250 homes and 75 businesses. Two civilians and 12 firefighters injured.

** Harris Fire: About 72,000 acres - started 70 miles southeast of San Diego north of the border town of Tecate, and ranged west and northwest to Jamul, over Mount San Miguel to the southeastern edge of Sweetwater Lake and the northeastern edge of Chula Vista. 10 percent contained; 200 homes destroyed; 2,000 homes and 500 commercial properties threatened. One civilian killed, 21 civilians and five firefighters injured.

** Rice Fire: At least 7,500 acres in Fallbrook in northern San Diego County. 10 percent containment; 206 homes and 2 commercial properties destroyed. One firefighter injured.

** Poomacha Fire: 20,000 acres on the La Jolla Indian Reservation and in northeastern San Diego County. This fire is straddling State 76 east of I-15, and is climbing up Palomar Mountain, which has lush vegetation since it hasn't burned for many years. No containment; 50 homes destroyed and 2,000 homes threatened. Ten firefighters injured.

** Camp Pendleton Fire: 6,000 acres on the Marine base north of San Diego. 10 percent contained. This fire has closed I-5 through the base, and caused the shutdown of the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant.

** McCoy Fire started on the west side of Cuyamaca Mountain, and burned eastward yesterday, and the mountain town of Julian was evacuated, but the fire did not get into the town.

The Santa Ana winds have reduced strength and may be over by this afternoon. The problem with that is there will likely be light winds off the ocean from the west and the eastern fronts of each fire may burn eastward into areas not previously burned. This is especially true for Fairbanks Ranch east of Rancho Santa Fe, and for Jamul east of Mount San Miguel.

To put it all in some kind of perspective: About 500,000 people were evacuated out of danger. The evacuation zones are larger than the burn areas. That's about 1 person in every 6 in the County. About 50,000 of them are in shelters somewhere, the rest are with family, friends, a campground or a hotel. About 1,300 homes have been lost so far, that's less than 1% of the homes in the affected areas. Some neighborhoods, especially in Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Santa Fe, Del Dios, Poway and along State 94 were hard hit - in some case, whole streets and blocks were lost. Almost all of the homes burned are on streets facing canyons or forest.

Thank you for all of the emails inquiring about our health and safety. We still have Lolo who came down on Saturday for a two night visit with her friend - we'll probably take her home on Thursday if I-15 is open.

Labels: musings, San Diego area

I have so much genealogy work to do, but not a lot of time to do it this week. It would help if the computer would cooperate with me.

The only useful thing I did today was to compile my "Genealogy News of the Month" for the CVGS Research Group meeting on Wednesday. I will post it tomorrow on the Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe blog tomorrow after the meeting.

I write it in an email to myself so that I can forward it later to the email list. I had to do it twice. I had it pretty much done - and then my email program froze before I could save the draft or send it. Now the darn thing won't send for some reason - it says it is too large. Arrgggghh. Add that on to my ongoing download problem (the speed for downloads of files, photos, videos, etc. is less than 20 kb/sec - it should be 200 kb/sec or better) and I'm ready to scream.

I need to install the FTM 16 that I bought two weeks ago for $16.95 (with a year's Ancestry subscription and GenSmarts) from www.NothingButSoftware.com (they don't have that offer any more, but have some good ones) and make sure everything works.

I have two microfilms at the FHC to review and capture probate record images from. I have about 40 pages to transcribe from the last image capture caper.

It looks like we're going to drive Lolo back to Victorville on Thursday, so I may have light blogging until Saturday.

Labels: CVGS, musings

"Three score and four years ago, a maternal progenitor brought forth a bundle of joy, conceived in love, dedicated to the proposition that the venerable Seaver line shall go forward and populate the Earth.

"They inexplicably named him Randall. He would grow up in beautiful San Diego, graduate from college, have an engineering career, live and die with the Padres and Chargers fortunes, marry a wonderful angel, enjoy home, travel and life tremendously, continue lifelong learning, and sire two darling daughters, who would marry well and produce at least three beautiful grandchildren. Life is really good.

"And now he is engaged in a great challenge - to identify and learn about his ancestors and their families, to share that knowledge with his family, and to help others identify and learn about theirs also. He highly resolves that these ancestors shall not have lived in obscurity, that this family shall continue to grow and thrive, with appreciation of those who have gone before. He dedicates this hallowed blog post to the proposition that pedigree charts of the family, for the family and by the family shall not disappear from the earth. 'Tis a noble goal, and one that will be celebrated to the ends of time by his progeny and colleagues."

With apologies to Abe Lincoln. See here for a celebratory song and more comments [please forgive my self-indulgence here, I've wanted to do this for many years].

Labels: musings

The situation for my family has not changed - it's smoky outside, there is lots of ash on the ground, we are staying inside, and there is no threat to our safety right now.

It was a rough night for folks in Spring Valley and eastern Bonita - the fire came over Mount San Miguel as I figured it would, and is threatening homes on the northern and western slopes of the mountain.

There is now a voluntary evacuation for the Otay River valley and the Otay Mesa area - south of Main Street and east of I-805. I'm trying to figure out why - did the fire split and go south of Otay Lakes? Or is the fire that burned into Mexico out near Tecate burning around the south side of Otay Mountain and threatening the US side of the border? I've heard nothing about any fires in Mexico, although I fear that there are several there.

Watching the TV for endless hours of fire news, and the constant replays of houses going up in flames, is very depressing. The TV stations don't really know much - they broadcast many items with errors in them. The radio is a little better. I've found a blog at http://sosdfireblog.blogspot.com/ that provides official information. There is still no one spot that tells us where the fires are advancing and burning. Susan Kitchens has a post here that shows a satellite photo of the Southern California fires - from yesterday. She is in the San Gabriel Valley east of LA, and may have fire problems too.

I've spent the morning watching the Disney Channel with Lolo and working on puzzles, playing with blocks, sharing breakfast, tickling and cuddling, and chasing her around the house. It's been a fun morning, although I've gotten nothing else done besides this blog post while Lolo is entertaining her grandma.

UPDATED 11 AM: The mayor of Chula Vista was on the radio a while ago and said that the fire east of Otay Lakes had split and a finger was moving southwest around the the south end of Otay Lakes. That would explain why the area south of Main had an evacuation order.

Someone else out in Rancho San Diego (where my brother lives just off Hillsdale) said on the radio that the wind had shifted there and was starting to come out of the west. This should have the effect of stopping westward movement of the fingers of fire, but then it may force the fingers of fire north and south, or east.

The large National Guard airplanes - 6 of them - are on their way to California. They hope that there will be some working in San Diego County. Right now, Chula Vista police and fire are working the Harris firefighting - there are apparently no CalFire help on this end of the fire.

Up in the Rancho Santa Fe and Del Mar area, the fire is slowly progressing westward, and the report is that the winds have picked up again.

UPDATED 3:30 PM: Nothing much has changed here in Chula Vista. Some residents of Poway and Scripps Ranch are going back to their homes. The evacuation order for Rancho San Diego was cancelled. Apparently, the water drops by military helicopters has worked well there. There are evacuation orders for parts of Jamul, parts of Julian, parts of Valley Center, parts of Encinitas and parts of Carlsbad.

There are fingers of fire on the north and west sides of Lake Hodges. There is a new, big fire on Palomar Mountain called the Poomacha Fire. The wind has shifted to the east in the Cuyamaca mountains, the Eagle Fire, and is threatening Julian.

The latest statistics I've heard are about 1,200 homes lost, only 1 death, and over 250,000 acres burned. The Harris fire near Chula Vista has burned about 70,000 acres.

Labels: musings, San Diego area

This is Installment 43 of the Journal of Della (Smith) Carringer (1862-1944), my great-grandmother, who resided at 2115 30th Street in San Diego in 1929.

The "players" and "setting" are described here. Pictures of some of the players are here. Last week's Journal entry is here.

Here is Week 43:

====================================

Tuesday, October 22 (foggy last night in night): Ma took bath & we did the washing. Got my tax statements.

Wednesday, October 23: I went to town, paid Water, Gas & Elec. & A[ustin]'s lodge dues, and $12 and some c[en]ts on the little lots, the Cardiffs, two Pacific Beach.

Thursday, October 24: Ma & I worked in forenoon in yard.

Friday, October 25: Ironed. We worked in yard again today. Lyle went with me to the Stock holders meeting of the 1st 2nd & 3rd Securities. It was very interesting. Alpine had some of the forest fires burned the old Sanitarium & small buildings, has burned over thousands of ackers of water shed, fires all this week. Ma got Birthday card from Aunt Libbie.

Saturday, October 26: Austin stayed home. We went down to Dr. Bill's he pulled 2 teeth $3.00 for A[ustin]. Emily took us down. Ed came, he cut lawns & we transplanted two roses to front of house west of the Los Angeles. Lyle & Emily went to a party at Miss Crow's (?) given for Miss Shiller, she has worked there 30 years. Ma had Oleander stump taken out.

Sunday, October 27: We did not go any place. Lyle's took a ride.

Monday, October 28: Ma's birthday. Mary Dyar sent card. Lyle's gave her neck chain, writeing paper & nice cap and two bouquets. We gave a bouquet, some candy & card. Ma & I worked in yard. I put down some bricks.

==========================

As we saw last week also, there were forest fires in the back country in October 1929. 78 years later, we have fires not only in the back country, but in the coastal areas too.

It was Abigail (Vaux) Smith's 85th birthday this week. She was born 28 October 1844 in Aurora township, Erie County, New York, to Samuel and Mary Ann (Underhill) Vaux. She married Devier J. Smith on 4 April 1861 in Rolling Prairie township, Dodge County, Wisconsin. Abigail died 11 September 1931 in San Diego, San Diego County, California. Since she is my great-great-grandmother, I often think of her as an elderly woman from long ago. But she was my grandfather's grandmother, and the only grandparent of his that was living after 1902.

Della and Austin owned the "small lots" in Cardiff (on the coast above Del Mar) and two lots in Pacific Beach (part of San Diego city). I imagine that Austin's brother, Ed, lived in one of them, probably rent-free. I haven't searched for deeds for any of these properties. I should.

Labels: Della's Journal, My genealogy research, San Diego area

I got an email announcement from NEHGS (the New England Historic Genealogical Society, I am a member) that says:

"The New England Historic Genealogical Society is pleased to announce the launch of the NEHGS & Ancestry.com collaboration, making available for the first time special pricing and other member benefits.

"This collaboration is one we hope marks the beginning of future programs and specials that bring together some of the most important and vital research information to amateur and professional genealogists everywhere. We are excited to offer the following specials to our members and friends:

"To start, all current NEHGS members can purchase Ancestry.com’s U.S. Deluxe membership, normally priced at $155.40, for only $99.95! That’s a tremendous savings that allows you to begin accessing some of the most important online information anywhere.

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"Additionally, if your NEHGS membership has lapsed, or if you’ve been putting off joining the NEHGS family, this is a terrific time to rejoin. You can purchase both an NEHGS annual Research membership and a U.S. Deluxe Ancestry.com membership together for one low price of $155.40. This incredible opportunity is available for the first time ever, and brings together two of the most valued and important genealogical research tools available today. Please note that current NEHGS and Ancestry.com members are not eligible for this price.

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"NEHGS is also pleased to offer a special price of $60 for current Ancestry.com members who want to join the NEHGS family. Ancestry.com recognizes the incredible wealth of information available at NEHGS and we welcome their members to help share in our wonderful history.

"We encourage all our members and friends to take advantage of these special prices today! Visit our website at www.NewEnglandAncestors.org to learn more or to sign up for this incredible offer. Please note that this offer is only valid from www.NewEnglandAncestors.org, and only until December 31, 2007."

-----------------------------------

Well, that doesn't help me, since I subscribe to both. But it may help others who have pondered joining NEHGS or subscribing to Ancestry.

There is nothing in this announcement concerning sharing databases across the firewalls - you still have to be a member of the site with the databases.

NEHGS has some unique databases that are available only at repositories in New England, at the Family History Library and FHCs on microfilm, and on their web site, www.newenglandancestors.org. They include the Massachusetts Vital Records to 1849, the Massachusetts Vital Records from 1841 to 1910, the full text of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, etc.

I do wish that NEHGS would put more vital records, deed indexes, probate indexes and church records from CT, RI, VT, NH and Maine online - many of these are available on microfilm at the FHC, but are not, in general, in online databases (there are CT and RI vital records at www.NewEnglandAncestors.org). NEHGS online is pretty much Massachusetts oriented.

Labels: Ancestry.com, Commercial genealogy, genealogy resources, Online resources

Mother Nature is usually absolutely beautiful. Sometimes she is an absolute horror. It's not all nature's fault - homo sapiens sometimes helps things along.

Tornado. Hurricane. Flood. Earthquake. Storm. Fire. Those have happened since time immemorial - swaths of land are devastated. Homo sapiens have marvelled at, almost worshiped, them from afar. In the middle of them, homo sapiens are helpless.

In San Diego, our two biggest threats are fire and earthquake. In the coastal cities we are about 100 miles away from the San Andreas Fault. The effect of a major earthquake here would be power, water and food shortages due to a big quake somewhere else - like Los Angeles or the Imperial Valley. Fire poses the bigger local threat, especially when there is a high pressure system over the Great Basin - we get Santa Ana winds, usually from the northeast and east, that can gust up to 80 miles per hour. Once a fire starts, the winds carry it quickly, and it often leaps over highways and whole blocks.

San Diego County, and other areas of California, are under siege again from Santa Ana winds and fires (started by people, lightning or downed wires). In the San Diego area, there are several large fires burning westward and southwestward from their origin.

Ramona, with 35,000 people, was evacuated last night. Overnight, the Witch Creek Fire branch north of Ramona rode the winds westward about ten miles right into the heart of suburban San Diego. Whole areas (tens of square miles) are under evacuation orders. This fire is essentially in the San Dieguito River watershed area which stretches from the mountains to the ocean. This river passes south of Escondido skirting Rancho Bernardo and Rancho Penasquitos, then through posh Fairbanks Ranch and posh Rancho Santa Fe to posh Del Mar. It has crossed and shut down I-15 south of Escondido as it burned into the Rancho Bernardo area.

There is another branch of the Witch Creek Fire south of Ramona that is burning in the San Diego river watershed - much of which burned in the Cedar fire in 2003. That may threaten Barona Ranch, Lakeside, Santee and points west. In 2003, the Cedar fire burned across I-15 all the way to I-805 near UCSD in La Jolla.

In southern San Diego County - 30 miles south of the Ramona area fire, the Harris fire started in Potrero, just a mile north of the US-Mexico border near the BC city of Tecate. This fire will likely burn into Mexico along the Tijuana River watershed. It may go up or around Otay Mountain. If it burns around the north side of Otay Mountain, then it may threaten Chula Vista as it burns into the Otay River watershed area east of the city.

There are several more fires in the northern part of San Diego county that have flared up this morning. We thought 2003 was bad - this may end up worse.

Homo sapiens, in its infinite wisdom, has settled in river valleys, on plains and on mountain tops. They build houses all right in a row, sometimes right on top of each other. They love green belts in this quasi-desert area - whole corridors of river bottom and canyons have been made into parks and greenbelts. These parks have tremendous fuel for fires - trees, brush, etc. They become "fire daggers" right into and through the heart of settled areas.

The settled areas are not out of danger. Houses are made of wood and stucco here, with shrubs and trees for beauty. Once started, they burn well due to the construction materials and the contents. Fortunately, most people have replaced their wood shake roofs and treated their eaves. But once a house starts to burn, it burns unless water is on it very quickly. The reality is that a house that starts to burn will burn down, and may take neighbor houses with it.

The fire services are not able to stop the fires from advancing. There are not enough firefighters, not enough engines, not enough water to stop them. The helicopters and fire-fighting aircraft were all sent north over the weekend to fight the Malibu and other fires. Even if they were here, they likely couldn't fly because of the winds and the low visibility. They can only notify people to evacuate and try to control the traffic.

The weather will eventually stop it, with moist air and cooler winds from the west turning the fire back on itself. That may happen on Wednesday or Thursday. All that people can do is save themselves by evacuating away from where the fire is or will be. There are evacuation centers at high schools, and schools are closed.

Right now at 6:30 AM, we are in the middle of the city of Chula Vista, and are not under a fire threat or evacuation order. Who knows what the day will bring? In 2003, the fires were to the north of us and to the south of us, although they burned up to the eastern edge of Chula Vista before the weather turned.

Last month, we had our brush and low tree branches on our hillside cut down, which is the south side of a small canyon with a two-block long greenbelt on our side. There are no bushes or anything near our house, which is at the west end of a cul-de-sac. The winds are from the east - and any fire will burn to the west. The neighbors to the east have lush brush on the hillside. If houses just to our east burn, then we may be in danger.

What should I take in an evacuation? Family papers. Pictures in frames and albums. Laptop. Portable electronics. Batteries. Books to read. We can fill two cars with stuff.

There may be power outages today, so I don't know how long I'll be at the computer today. Our granddaughter is at friends in Chula Vista, and our daughter is 150 miles away. She was going to come down and take Lolo home, but the freeway is closed at Escondido. We may end up with Lolo for the week, which could be fun.

All of a sudden, genealogy is going to take a back seat to survival.

UPDATED 8 AM: Added some detail after reading it. I copied my critical genealogy data from my desktop computer to my flash drive so that I can update my laptop sometime. We've been watching the TV reports on all the local channels. I'll probably go to the library for awhile today. I'll probably stop and get a full tank of gas on the way.

UPDATED 1 PM: There is smoke smell everywhere, and some ashfall. The fires are not in "rich fuel" areas - forests with a lot of wood fuel to burn -- so there is not a lot of ashfall now, and probably won't be. They are evacuating areas about 10 miles east of me and an area south of me. There is little info on the radio or TV for my area - most of the news is about the North County where hundreds of homes have been lost already. In San Diego County, about 300,000 people have been evacuated.

UPDATED 9 PM: The Harris fire has continued to advance westward toward Chula Vista. It has not reached Otay Lakes yet (they form a natural barrier to much of eastern Chula Vista, called Eastlake) but it may during the night or tomorrow morning. There is a mandatory evacuation for the northeastern part of Eastlake - the area on the southern slope of Mount San Miguel. There is a voluntary evacuation call for some of the Eastlake area. The latter is about 6 miles east of us. The winds where I am (just west of I-805 off East Naples) were pretty low all day, but they have been higher out in the back country.

The news media tries so hard, but they don't do live TV well with place names and they don't have a lot of good information. The radio is better with phone callers saying where there is fire or evacuations.

Our 2-year old granddaughter came down with family friends from Victorville on Saturday night, and our daughter was supposed to come get her and take her home today. She couldn't come due to the closure of I-15. The friends evacuated from Eastlake to Lemon Grove, so we have our precious Lolo for probably two nights. She had a rough time going to sleep tonight. We hope there is enough good air to go have fun with her on Tuesday.

The weather report is that the winds will pick up again on Tuesday morning, and die down quite a bit by Tuesday night. I can see the Harris fire going up the southeast side of Mount San Miguel and over it into Spring Valley. It's already advancing on Jamul, which is to the east of the mountain.

If the wind shifts from westerly to southwesterly (which it might), the fire could advance into Eastlake and the city of Chula Vista (which is about 12 miles wide east-west and about 5 miles long (north-south) with 250,000 residents. There aren't too many evacuation centers left now - my thought is that we go rent a room in Coronado and have fun on the beach.

Historically the 1971 fire burned over Mount Miguel and advanced into what is now eastern Chula Vista (which wasn't there in 1971), and the 2003 fire burned right up to Otay Lakes but not up and over San Miguel. There is not the high acreage for this fire (in 2003, there were 245,000 acres burned - about 400 square miles - the total in the county is something like 170,000 acres. The reports say that 600 homes and 1 life have been lost so far in the county, which has 13 separate fires burning, nowhere near the 2003 fire numbers -- 2,000 homes, 15 lives -- at least yet. They may find some people in cars along Highway 94 near where the fire started, or some illegals that crossed the border, but nobody's looking yet - they're too busy fighting the winds and the fires. The evacuations have gone fairly well - many people find shelter with friends and family, but the community shelters are full and up to speed, I heard there were 10,000 at Qualcomm Stadium.

It may be a long night for some people near the fire lines. A blog with frequent posts is at http://sosdfireblog.blogspot.com/.

Labels: musings, San Diego area

Here are my picks for great reads from the genealogy blogs for this past week. My criteria are pretty simple - I like posts that advance knowledge about genealogy, or are funny and/or poignant.

* "Another Law Lesson: The Basics of Defamation" and "Avoid Defamation" by Craig Manson on the Geneablogie blog. Craig continues to write about legal issues that may face genealogy researchers and especially bloggers.

* "What Our Genealogy Customers Want" by Paul Allen on his Paul Allen: Internet Entrepreneur blog. This provides results from the WorldVitalRecords survey of customers taken last week.

* "WDYTYA- Margot Kidder" by John D. Reid on his Anglo-Celtic Connections blog. This post is about the Canadian TV show "Who Do You Think You Are" which traced some of Kidder's ancestry. I wish we had this show in the US! John also had some useful Canadian genealogy links in his post.

* "Why Post Your Genealogy / Family History Online?" by whoever writes the Family History Quick Start blog. This relatively new blog/web site has some useful how-to and advice posts.

* "Young Men at Yorktown" by Tim Abbott on the Walking the Berkshires blog. Tim describes the activities of his ancestors at the penultimate battle of the Revolutionary War. Fascinating.

* "The Dick Cheney - Barack Obama - Orrell Connection" by Reb Orrell on the Bob and Reb's Genealogy Blog. Here is the story about how Lynne Cheney made the connection. In addition, the Oliphant cartoon is priceless (is this a copyright infraction?)!

* "Country Words and Sayings, A to Z" by Terry Thornton on the Hill Country of Monroe County, Mississippi blog. I liked this the best of Terry's posts this past week, because it helps me understand certain people, and it was funny. Jiggered? Mully-grubs? Uggle-muggled? I swore that I wouldn't give Terry more hits this week, but I can't help it that he writes so well.

* "Inside Scoop on Ancestry Acquisition" on The Ancestry Insider blog. This is about the biggest news of the week, and the Insider gives us the scoop from the employee level. I don't know who is making the disparaging comments, though - it's not NewspaperGirl as far as I can tell from her blog.

That's it for this week - please visit these fine bloggers and either learn from them or enjoy their writing efforts. Thanks to all for a really interesting blogging week.

Labels: BestofGeneaBlogs, genealogy blogs, Online resources

Genea-man heard the questions at the CVGS seminar, and offers this response to one of them:

Dear Genea-man,

How do I find someone to do genealogy research for me? And what will it cost?

Signed -- Louise

Dear Louise,

Finding a genealogist to perform research to find the names, dates, places and stories of your ancestors can be expensive, and it can take a long time. It depends on what you want done - for instance, do you want:

* names, dates, places of your ancestors back so many generations?
* proofs to fill in a lineage application?
* find heirs or distant relatives?
* to do a family history book on all of your ancestors?

It depends on how many branches can be found on your family tree and how much "proof" you want to have. A researcher will start with the records you already have, and the research that you have already performed, and will verify it and then go further according to your wishes. There are researchers that will try to satisfy your requirements.

There are certified genealogists (with credentials from the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) and the International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists (ICAPGen)) who will do the job for you. You can find a list of professionals, many of whom are certified, at the Association of Professional Genealogists - the list, by geographical area, of genealogists is here. APG also has an excellent article about "Hiring a Professional."

Most of the people on the lists at these sites can be contacted by email, and many have a web site with information about them. Few, if any, publish their fee schedules - you have to contact them and request the fee schedules.

There are several "full service" companies, most of whom are based in Salt Lake City, that you can work with on a contract basis. Two of them that I have heard about are ProGenealogists and Heirlines - there are many others. Companies located in Salt Lake City usually do extensive research at the LDS Family History Library and can jobs faster than a local researcher who has to order microfilms at the local FHC or travel to Salt Lake City to do research. These companies do publish their fee schedules.

There are non-certified, but competent, genealogists who will do genealogy research for a fee, and you may be able to find them by asking at a public library, a historical society, or a genealogical society. Many will do a good job, but a little "caveat emptor" is recommended!

Whoever you find, it's recommended that you ask for references, a curriculum vitae, and see work product samples for the person before you work out a contract. Most professionals will provide an agreement or contract for the work to be done, and a written estimate of the cost. These contracts are usually for a fixed number of hours of work plus expenses (travel, parking, hotel if overnight, film rental, copy costs, etc.). At the end of the contracted time, you should get a report and recommendations for further research.

The cost for genealogy research can vary significantly - it may be as low as $15 per hour for a non-certified person in some places, and over $100 an hour for well-known and highly experienced professionals. The adage "you get what you pay for" certainly applies!

One alternative to hiring a professional, at least at the beginning of your search, is to do it yourself with the aid of other researchers. That is one reason the local genealogy societies exist - to help people with their research, to educate them in research techniques, and to mentor them as they conduct their search. Our local society has a monthly research group where we listen to the research problems of the attendees and recommend further search strategies and techniques.

Good luck! -- Genea-man.

Labels: professional genealogy

Our CVGS seminar "Genealogy Online - Discover Your Family History" went pretty well today. The minor start-up problems were quickly overcome, the speaker stayed pretty close to the time limits, and the attendees received a wealth of information.

The biggest problems were ones you like to have. We had 48 reservations, but 62 people attended, and there was still a line out the auditorium door at the scheduled start time of 10:20 AM. So we started at 10:30 when everyone was registered. The program ran about 15 minutes behind, but nobody seemed to care much. We made only 50 copies of the syllabus (on Monday we had only 18 reservations), and need to make 5 more to mail out to the folks who didn't get one today. We almost ran out of food, but had just enough. When we set up the computer and projector, we were missing the video cable - we found it in the Computer Lab where we left it last wednesday!

Of the 62 attendees, about 25 were non-CVGS members, and 5 joined the society. That's a big addition to an 80 member society.

The talks went pretty well - I had to talk fast and only highlight the screen shots because I had about 100 slides in each 50 minute presentation. All of the links and web pages shown were in the syllabus, so there was no need to spell things out or pronounce them slowly. We asked for written questions, which I answered at the beginning of the next session. The Q&A at the very end went well, with the most challenging question being "What do you see happening with the subscription sites in the future?" Crystal ball time - I'll probably write a separate blog post with my answer.

I was concerned that my coughing jags (caused by medications) would hamper the talks, but I sucked a lozenge during each talk and that really helped. My throat is sore, and my feet hurt, but I weathered the four hours of presentation well. The microphone helped with projection, although my hand cramped while holding it (the library has only a hand-held).

The attendees enjoyed taking their food out to the park adjacent to the library and sitting in small groups on the park benches - it was a 75 F degree day with some clouds here in Chula Vista - just about perfect weather. I wandered out there with my plate and talked to some of the folks, especially the non-members. Genealogists are really friendly! And supportive.

One of the major financial advantages that our society has is that we use the library venues - auditorium, conference room and computer lab - free of charge each month. We really appreciate the library's support, and they appreciate our support of them. However, when we use the library's venues, we can't charge money for the programs. We can charge for printed materials, and did charge $5 for a 24 page syllabus. This allowed us to recoup our printing, food and drawing prize costs.

All in all, it was a very good day for the Chula Vista Genealogical Society - we had a high quality genealogy program, an excellent lunch, gained some new members, and didn't lose money doing it. This was our third seminar effort, and we continue to learn things about programming, publicity and cooperation each time.

UPDATE 10/21 9 AM: I added a few details above. I have posted a summary of the day on the Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe blog here.

Labels: CVGS, Online resources

I've never been so glad to have a major project finished - all that's left to do is to present about 400 slides at the "Genealogy Online - Discover Your Family History" seminar tomorrow at the Chula Vista Genealogical Society meeting in the Chula Vista Civic Center Branch Library auditorium from 10 AM to 3 PM.

The four presentations are done - the word charts are written, the screen shots are annotated with circles, rectangles and arrows, and I'm tired of improving them...

I have the OpenOffice presentations installed on my flash drive and also on my laptop. I need to transfer them to the laptop that we use for the presentations with the LCD projector. I'll do that when I get to the library.

My briefcase is chock full of seminar syllabi - 24 pages of links and advice for doing online genealogy research. I also have the flyers for our October programs and the seminar agenda program for handouts. Tonight, I wrote up my pre-presentation bullet points - the goals and objectives of the seminar, and the caveats about the presentation.

I even made a list of things to take with me so that I wouldn't forget anything important. Lozenges - check. Water bottle - check. Raffle prizes - check. Syllabi - check. Programs - check. Signs - check. Laptop - check. Flash drive - it's on my desk. Everything is in my pack and laptop bag except for the flash drive, which I just put in my pants pocket.

The "doomsday scenario" is a morning heart attack, food poisoning at my men's Bible study in the morning, or a Saturday morning accident on the way to the library. I guess they would just move the venue to my hospital room...um, maybe not...maybe someone else could present it.

We go into the library about 30 minutes before it opens and set up the podium, projector and laptop in the auditorium, the refreshments in the conference room and the registration desk with handouts and sales items in the auditorium.

The CVGS board has worked really hard to put this together - we think we will have a fair number of non-members attending - hopefully, some will join CVGS when they see what a dynamic organization we have.

After this is over, I'll be ecstatic to get back to my normal blogging, research, testing, transcribing, reading and writing routine. I must have modified the presentations ten times each over the past four weeks. Fortunately, I couldn't modify them too much these last two days since if I did the charts wouldn't match the syllabus.

So wish me luck -- I'll probably post something about "how it went" on Saturday night. If there are good questions from the audience, I may use them as blog fodder in the coming weeks.

Labels: CVGS, genealogy education, Online resources

I think that the real unsung heroes of genealogy are those people that transcribe books, tombstones, wills, deeds, and other records and then post them for researchers to freely use.

One of my favorite "unsung heroes" is Janice Farnsworth who regularly posts book transcriptions on the GenMassachusetts mailing list on http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/GenMassachusetts/.

Recently, Janice has been working through the Tombstone Inscriptions of the Old Burying Ground in Lynn (MA), by John T. Moulton, Lynn, Massachusetts. The transcriptions are online in several mailing list threads:

** Part 3 -- http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GenMassachusetts/2007-09/1190933907
** Part 4 -- http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GenMassachusetts/2007-09/1191005634
** Part 6 -- http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GenMassachusetts/2007-09/1191097521
** Parts 7 to 28 (to date) -- http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GenMassachusetts/2007-10/1191297474

I couldn't find Parts 1, 2 and 5 on the mailing list archives.

Part 28 is up to page 80 in the book. The inscriptions from the 18th and 19th century are often poignant and hopeful, to wit:

** On page 27:

"My widowed mother,
My only earthly friend
Erected this monument
To tell each traveller,
Who looks this way,
That underneath this stone
Rests the ashes of her only son,
Josiah Burrage, who died Dec. 13th, 1797.
Aged 21 years.
Oft do we see the tender bud of hope,
Opening its beauties to the morning light,
When lo! A frost cuts down the tender plant,
And levels all our prospects with the dust."

** Page 28:

"Here lyes buried the body of the Honorable John Burrill,Esq.
who died December 10th Anno Christi, MDCCXXI AEtatisLXIV.
Alas! Our patron's dead! The Country - Court
The Church in tears, all echo the report;
Grieved that no piety, no mastering sense,
No counsel, gravity, no eloquence,
No generous temper, gravitating to
Those honors, which they did upon him throw,
Could stay his fate, or their dear Burrill save
From a contagious sickness and the grave.
The adjacent towns this loss reluctant share:
But widowed Lynn sustains the greatest share:
Yet joys in being guardian of his dust
Until the resurrection of the Just."

** Page 52 - the saddest are the ones for small children:

"In Memory of two children of Samuel J. & Lydia A. Gibby.
Ann, died June 27, 1843, AEt. 11 mos. & 14 days.
Martha Ann, died March 17, 1847, AEt. 11 mos. & five days.
Such was thy fate, dear little ones, Thy opening much,
Pre-eminence in early bloom was shown, And loved too much,
Heaven saw, and early marked them for its own."

Janice has transcribed many, many books and provided them online - they are now on USGenWeb county and town web pages. I can't find a complete list of them anywhere. Maybe Janice will tell us sometime.

Labels: Cemetery records, Online resources, Research tips

Newspaper articles and TV "news" reported that Vice President Dick Cheney and Barack Obama are distant cousins with Mareen Duvall of Maryland the Most Recent common ancestor - see the article here. The article said that Mareen Duvall's (a male) son Samuel Duvall married Ann, a daughter of Richard Cheney, a 17th century immigrant to Maryland. Of course, CNN news got it almost right - they called Mareen Duvall a female, initially.

When I read this article, it struck me as strange that they would latch onto the Veep's 9th great-grandfather Richard Cheney whose daughter supposedly married a Duvall. An unsuspecting reader would think that immigrant Richard Cheney was in the patrilineal line that brought the Cheney name down to the Vice President. He isn't - he's in the ancestry, but not in the patrilineal line that carried the Cheney surname.

A look at Dick Cheney's ancestry at http://www.wargs.com/political/cheney.html created by Richard Addams Reitweisner shows that VP Cheney's patrilineal line is (with ahnentafel numbers):

1024. William Cheney (1604-1667) of Roxbury MA, married Margaret
512. Thomas Cheney (????-1693) of Cambridge MA, married Jane Atkinson.
256. Benjamin Cheney (1675-1718) of Cambridge MA, married Mary Harbert
128. Joseph Cheney (1709-1776) of Cambridge MA, married Elizabeth Tucker.
64. William Cheney (1741-1803) of Newbury MA, married Elizabeth Swett
32. Ebenezer Cheney (1764-1832) of Campton NH, married Hannah Eaton.
16. Elias Eaton Cheney (1793-1859) of Thetford VT, married Lucy Fletcher.
8. Samuel Fletcher Cheney (1829->1900) of Buffalo NE, married Ella Phillips.
4. Thomas Herbert Cheney (1869->1900) of Dawson NE, married Margaret Ellen Tyler.
2. Richard Herbert Cheney (1915-1999) of Casper WY, married Marjorie Lorraine Dickey.
1. Richard Bruce Cheney (1941-living), the Vice President 2001-present.

The tie to Barack Obama comes into this line through Margaret Ellen Tyler, Dick Cheney's paternal grandmother.

The common ancestors that I share with my cousin Richard Bruce Cheney include (ahnentafel numbers from the Reitweisner data):

536. John Colby (1633-1674) of Amesbury MA, married Frances Hoyt.
544. Joshua Fletcher (1648-1713) of Chelmsford MA, married Sarah Willey.
1024. William Cheney (1604-1667) of Roxbury MA, married Margaret.
1074. John Hoyt (1613-1688) of Amesbury MA, married Frances Tuxberry
1090. John Willey (1610-1662) of Reading MA, married Elizabeth Clough.
1134. Crispus Brewer (????-1706) of Lynn MA, married Mary --?--
2184. Henry Adams (1583-1646) of Braintree MA, married Edith Squire.

There may be more - I see Parkhurst, Martin, Bacon, Merriam and several others in the Dick Cheney ahnentafel, but the line is not extended back to my ancestor of the surname. My own ahnentafel is in reports at http://www.genealogy.com/users/s/e/a/Randy-Seaver/

Barack Obama is also my cousin - I documented my cousinship to him in my post here.

In looking through the Dick Cheney ahnentafel, I see where the newspapers also got the connection to Mareen Duvall wrong. The article says that Samuel Duvall married Ann Cheney. The Reitweisner data shows that Samuel Duvall married Elizabeth Ijams, whose mother was Ann Cheney. Also, Mareen Duvall's daughter Elizabeth Duvall married Robert Tyler.

The Family Forest blog has a post "Another Barack Obama Cousins Story" that lists other cousins of Dick Cheney - including Harriet Miers, Wallis Warfield, Paris Hilton, Harry Truman and Robert Duvall.

My cousin, Richard Eastman, has some interesting thoughts about this issue on his Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter blog here. As Dick says, "Let's face it, everyone is related to everyone." True. I still find it interesting and challenging, and it is an entree to talking to potential genealogists.

The point of this post is that genealogists should treat newspaper articles and TV news reports concerning genealogy with a grain of salt - if they don't quote a recognized expert in the field, my observation is that they almost always get it factually wrong. Does it matter? Probably not!

Labels: current newspaper articles, My genealogy research

Hey, San Diego genealogy buffs - are you busy this Saturday, October 20? If not, you could come to a FREE all-day seminar in Chula Vista

The Chula Vista Genealogical Society and the Chula Vista Public Library are co-sponsoring the seminar - titled "Genealogy Online - Discover Your Family History" -- on Saturday, 20 October 2007, from 10 AM until 3 PM at the Chula Vista Civic Center Branch Library auditorium (365 "F" Street, Chula Vista CA).

Check-in will start at 10 AM and the program will start at 10:20 am. Four presentations will be made by Randy Seaver:

10:30 am: Internet Genealogy Survey
11:30 am: LDS FamilySearch Resources
1:00 pm: Rootsweb/USGenWeb Resources
2:00 pm: Ancestry.com Resources

The emphasis in these presentations will be on finding real genealogy data and information helpful to your search using online resources. A program syllabus summarizing the links in the program content will be available for $5.00.

There will be a 45 minute refreshment break with fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, cookies and desserts provided by CVGS.

Please contact Virginia (phone 619-425-7922 or email irishdoll@cox.net) to make your reservation or for more information.

Put this event on your genealogy calendar!

For more information about the Chula Vista Genealogical Society, please visit the CVGS web page at http://www.rootsweb.com/~cacvgs2/ and the Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe blog at http://cvgencafe.blogspot.com/.

Labels: CVGS, genealogy societies, San Diego area

There has been been more commentary in the genealogy blogosphere, both by The Generations Network executives, the former CEO, and genealogy bloggers.

Here is a list of commentary:

* Richard Eastman at the Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter has a post with notes from a phone interview with Tim Sullivan (TGN CEO), in addition to his earlier posts with many comments here and here.

* Leland Meitzler at the Everton's Publishers Genealogy Blog has Tim Sullivan's letter to TGN employees here.

* Paul Allen (former MyFamily/Ancestry CEO) posted his observations on his Paul Allen blog here. Thanks to Tim Agazio at Genealogy Reviews Online for the link - good catch!

* Diane Haddad at The Genealogy Insider blog has another telephone interview with Tim Sullivan here.

* The Ancestry Insider had some nice things to say about my comments and discussed some comments made by others in his Inside Scoop on Ancestry Acquisition post.

* My own analysis and comments posted yesterday are here.

What other bloggers have commented on or analyzed this acquisition? Please tell me and I'll add them to my list above.

UPDATED 10/20 9:15 AM: Added the Ancestry Insider link.

Labels: Ancestry.com, Commercial genealogy, genealogy blogs

The Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego meets on Saturday, October 20, 2007 from 9:00 am to noon.

CGSSD hosts a mini-fair this month. There will be two sessions at 9:00 and 10:30 with two presentations to choose from at each session. User groups will not meet this month.

9:00 - Session I

* "Managing Those Pesky Files" by Lance Dohe . Learn everything you wanted to know about moving your files and keeping back-ups, including the potential backup devices and strategies for their use.

* "Maximizing Your Search Success on Ancestry" by Dona Ritchie. Ancestry.com is continually adding databases and changing the face of their web site. Learn search strategies and ways to navigate the different databases and research resources on Ancestry.com to maximize your search success for finding your ancestors.

10:15 - A break and refreshments

10:30 - Session II

* "Archiving Your Genealogical Data" by Ed Hasselmann . Archiving your genealogy information means storing it for future generations. Current electronic media may not survive 10-15 years for even one generation. This presentation will discuss the storage life of the media and how to insure your grandchildren will be able to enjoy reading about their own history.

* "Using GenSmarts to Clean Your Databases" by Pam Journey. GenSmarts looks at your data and speculates on possible records available in many locations for you to research for your next family clue. GenSmarts is reasonably easy to use and can become a powerful research tool for the beginner or advanced genealogist in their family search. (A review of Family Atlas as previously announced will be discussed at a later time.)

CGSSD meetings are held at the Robinson Auditorium complex on the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) campus in La Jolla. From North Torrey Pine Road turn at Pangea Drive into UCSD. Free parking is available in the parking garage on the left; use any A, B, or S space. Signs will mark directions to our meeting room. Please refer to the website www.cgssd.org; or the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies website http://irps.ucsd.edu/about/how-to-find-us.htm for driving directions and a map.

Thanks to Linda Hervig for this information.

The presentations sound excellent, and I look forward to hearing them at some time (since I'm going to be pretty busy this Saturday morning at the CVGS Seminar).

Labels: CGSSD, genealogy education, genealogy software, San Diego area

The 34th Carnival of Genealogy featuring "Hallowe'en and Supernatural" posts is available at Jasia's Creative Gene blog - the post is here.

There are 17 writers on the list, several have more than one post submitted or discussed. As always, the topics and writing styles vary significantly, but all are exdfellent examples of blogging! Please go read the Carnival!

The next edition of the COG will be hosted by Blaine Bettinger. As you know, he's The Genetic Genealogist. Here's the question he's putting out to you... Do you have a family mystery that might be solved by DNA? Blaine will analyze your post for possible answers to questions or mysteries based on genetic genealogy and then he'll try to help us all understand if and how genetic genealogy might be used to solve our mysteries and questions. Please submit your blog article to the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy using our carnival submission form. The deadline for submissions will be November 1st. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Labels: Carnivals

We had our monthly Chula Vista Genealogical Society Computer Group today in the Computer Lab at the Library. Unfortunately, the library Online Databases were unavailable, so Shirley led us through a plethora of interesting genealogy resources, including:

* Black Sheep Ancestors -- www.blacksheepancestors.com/index.shtml
Don’t overlook your ancestors that were not the best. They can be fun to find and add some zing to your family tree.

* Cemetery Records -- These sites contain mostly unique data:
** Findagrave -- www.Findagrave.com
** Interment -- www.interment.net

* Irish Research -- These websites may help you to discover more about your Irish ancestry.
** Boston Pilot -- http://infowanted.bc.edu
** Griffiths Valuation 1848-1864 -- http://failteromhat.com/griffiths.php
** Fianna -- Http://rootsweb.com/~fianna/

* Free Public Records Online -- http://publicrecords.onlinesearches.com
A stop where you can learn what is available for wherever you are researching.

* Linkpendium USA -- http://www.linkpendium.com/genealogy/USA . A straight forward list of available resources, organized by topic, all linked to the original source data.

* WorldCat/OCLC -- www.worldcat.org. You can search for books, CDs and videos

* Native American Research -- These two resources contain many key records.
** Access Genealogy -- www.accessgenealogy.com/native/
** National Archives (NARA) Archival Resource Catalog -- www.archives.gov/research/arc/topics/native-americans.html

* Passenger Lists -- It is important to remember that not everyone came through Ellis Island. There are surviving records from other ports also.
** Castle Gardens -- www.castlegardens.org
** Ancestors on Board $ -- www.ancestorsonboard.com

* Canadian Genealogy Centre -- www.collectionscanada.ca/genealogy/index-e.html An excellent starting place for researching your Canadian ancestors.

* Irish Immigrants -- These two collections may prove useful if you think you have Irish famine emigrants.
** New York Irish Famine Passenger Records -- http://aad.archives.gov/aas/fieldedsearch.jsp?dt=180&cat=all&bc=sl
** New Brunswick Irish Famine Migration 1845-1852 -- http://archives.gnb.ca/APPS/PrivRecs/irishfamine/?L=EN

* Old Newspapers -- These are just a sample of the archives available.
** London Times & Newspaper Archive $ -- www.godfrey.org
** Paper of Record -- www.paperofrecord.com/Default.asp
** Brooklyn Daily Eagle -- www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/eagle/

* War Graves
** Commonwealth War Graves -- www.cwgc.org/debt_of_honour.asp? menuid=14
** U S Department of Veterans Affairs Gravesite Locator -- http://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/j2ee/servlet/NGL_v1
The first site lists the 1.7 million from the UK who died during the two world wars. The second site includes veterans and their families in Virginia National Cemeteries, state veteran cemeteries and those buried in other cemeteries.

* VitalRec.com -- www.vitalrec.com. This website explains how and where to find the record you searching for.

* Quakers -- These two resources will aid you in your search of a Quaker heritage.
** Quaker Corner -- www.rootsweb.com/~quakers
** Quaker Meetings -- www.quakermeetings.com

* African-American Ancestry -- These sites provide access to data unique to African-Americans.
** Afrigeneas -- www.afrigeneas.com
** Freedman’s Bureau -- www.freedmensbureau.com
** Research Guide -- www.familysearch.org/Eng/default.asp?page=home/welcome/site_resources.asp
** African-American Cemeteries -- http://africaamericancemeteries.com Has links all over the internet, regardless of where the source material is stored.

* Mexican Research -- These are resource sites for research in Mexico:
** http://members.tripod.com/~GaryFelix/index1.htm
** http://genealogy.about.com/od/mexico/

We had 12 attendees today to go through most of these sites, and several people found new information about their ancestors or relatives during the two hours.

Labels: CVGS, Online resources, Research tips

I signed up several weeks ago to contribute to the WorldVitalRecords Customer Input Panel. You can sign up for it here. This week's survey had 15 questions, and the most important ones (to me) were (paraphrased in my notes):

* What 5 US states would you like to see more Vital Records from? I put MA, MD, NY, CT and NH.

* What 2 Canadian provinces would you like to see more Vital Records from? I put Ontario and New Brunswick.

* What 5 countries other than the US and Canada would you like to see more records from? I put England, Germany, Norway, Netherlands and Mexico.

* How important are Historical and Genealogical societies to your research? I said Important.

* How many genealogical societies do you belong to? I said 5 or more.

* What societies are they? I named NGS, NEHGS, ESOG, SDGS, CVGS and CGSSD.

* Would it be beneficial if WVR offered a discount membership to a society? I said Yes.

* How satisfied are you with the current census image collection? I said Dissatisfied (as I posted last week).

This is a very useful sensing of genealogy resources and opinion, and I commend WorldVitalRecords for taking the time to take the surveys and to implement the responses.

Labels: Commercial genealogy, WorldVitalRecords

A majority interest in The Generations Network, Inc. has been obtained by Spectrum Equity Investors for $300 million. The full press release can be seen on their Press Room here.

From the announcement, it appears to me that this is a financial investment - the majority owners expect to make a significant profit from the continuing operations of the company. My observations of similar deals in the industrial world is that an investment group like this might eventually sell the holdings for a profit after the company significantly increases in value.

We don't know the financial history of The Generations Network, Inc. because it has been a privately held company. It likely will continue to be a privately held company, with different shareholders and a revamped board of directors.

The interesting paragraphs in the press release, for me, were the following:

"The Generations Network properties have more than 900,000 paying subscribers and receive 8.2 million worldwide unique visitors per month (© comScore Media Metrix, August 2007). In the last 18 months, the company has solidified its position as one of the largest and most profitable subscription businesses online with success in several areas:

"• Ancestry.com is the world’s leading online family history resource, with more than 5 billion names from historical records, unmatched and proprietary search technologies and an engaged and passionate community of more than 2.5 million active members."

This is followed by a long list of each of TGN's franchises and the progress made by each in the last year or so.

So there are 900,000 paying customers - at perhaps $200 per subscription on average - that's about $180 million annual income from subscriptions alone - add on the software, books, and other income; so the annual income is probably in the $150 to $250 million range. Since the investors had to pay $300 million for a majority interest, that means that the value of TGN is at least $600 million. We don't know the profit picture since the company is privately held - but an investment group like this would look for a company with at least a 10% profit margin, and perhaps a lot more.

In the current competitive environment that is the genealogy commercial business (with several startups in the last year - e.g., WVR, Footnote, GenealogyBank - and the ambitious plans of FamilySearch Inc.), I think that TGN needed a cash infusion to keep the growth going so that they can be a long-term competitor in the business. The investors wouldn't make the investment without a commitment to the long-term, so that bodes well for the customers of TGN. The cash infusion also provides an opportunity for additional acquisitions of smaller companies that might add value to the TGN stable.

After all of the public relations disasters for TGN this last year (e.g., the FHL/FHC decision, the IBC embarrassment, the FTM 2008 problems), it wouldn't surprise me if the new management team brings an improved PR and communications skill set on board.

You can always tell when an industry is growing and burgeoning - there are buyouts, investments, startups, partnerships, etc. For genealogy research consumers like most of us, this is a really good thing. Competition keeps subscription prices relatively low and the companies have to add more content in order to stay competitive. It's all good!

Please note that I have no financial interest in any of these enterprises - although I am a subscriber to Ancestry. I am also not a financial expert or analyst (it probably shows in the comments above, eh?) - just a really interested observer and customer.

UPDATE 2 PM: Leland Meitzler has an interesting link to a TechCrunch blog where this acquisition is discussed. One claim there is that yearly income for TGN is in the $150 million range, which seems reasonable to me - with US subs at $155, World subs at $299, and partial subs for certain countries, plus any discounts or special offers that reduce the initial subscription price.

It also compares TGN to Geni.com and MyHeritage.com as if they are comparable. To my mind, they are nowhere near comparable. The commenters do think that this is a good deal for the buyers.

I edited the original text above as shown in purple.

Labels: Ancestry.com, Commercial genealogy, musings

The initials NUCMC stand for the "National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections" at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. The Catalog is online with a search box at http://www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/oclcsearch.html.

The description of this Catalog is:

"The Library of Congress provides a gateway for searching OCLC WorldCat (Manuscript materials) -- close to 300,000 catalog records describing archival and manuscript collections in public, college and university, and special libraries located throughout North America and around the world. Access to this gateway is made available courtesy of OCLC, Inc. "

This sounded interesting to me, so I plugged in my ever-trusty surname Seaver into the "Simple Word Form - Title, Author Subject" search box (you can't post the URL) thinking I wouldn't get many hits - and there were 245 matches!

Well, that's interesting!

Here are the summaries of three of the more interesting matches:

1) Author: Seaver, William A.
Title: Letter, April 9, [1860].
Description: 2 p.
Notes: Buffalo, New York editor and publisher of that
city's Courier.
Letter to General George P. Morris, states he has
been "with the 'stubby Little Giant' of Illinois" and
comments on his campaign.
Schindler's Antique Shop; Charleston, SC;
Purchase; Sept. 1952; $4.00.
William A. Seaver Letter, Illinois State
Historical Library.
Subjects: Seaver, William A.
Douglas, Stephen Arnold, 1813-1861.
Control No.: ocm54682248

2) Author: Seaver, Rodney.
Title: Diary, 1863-1865, 1871.
Description: 0.07 linear ft. (1 v.)
Notes: Soldier in Company K, 2nd Regiment, Wisconsin
Cavalry, during the Civil War.
Pocket diary containing an account of Seaver's
activities and descriptions of several battles in which he
participated, primarily in 1864.
Subjects: United States. Army. Wisconsin Cavalry Regiment,
2nd (1861-1865). Company K.
Soldiers -- Wisconsin -- Diaries.
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865
-- Personal narratives.
Control No.: ocm22355369

3) Author: Seaver, Charles Morse, 1848-1924.
Title: Family papers, 1812-1947, bulk: 1893-1947.
Description: 1 narrow box.
Notes: Papers of the family of Charles M. Seaver
including three maps sketched by him (1861-62); biographical
reminiscences of him and his sons Philip and Walter H. by
another son Henry M. Seaver; genealogical notes on the
Hibbard, Seaver, and Morse families compiled by Henry M.
Seaver; and a few misc. Seaver family papers.
Hoffman, Elizabeth, 1972.
Subjects: Hibbard family.
Morse family.
Other authors: Seaver, Henry Morse, 1873-1947.
Seaver, Philip, 1881-1943.
Seaver, Walter Hibbard, 1870-1930.
Seaver family.
Control No.: ocm26868809

And I only went down through 60 matches! If these records related to my family, I would be ecstatic to find them. But how to find them?

This page (http://www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/locate.html) provides directions to locate a manuscript:

Locating collections found during an OCLC search


1. From the multiple display choose "more on this record"; next, choose "tagged display" and locate the 040 field toward the top of the record.
2. Make note of the letter code (e.g., DLC) located in subfield a ($a).
3. Go to the Participating Institutions Search page, enter the letter code , and submit the search.
4. If search is unsuccessful, go to the Library of Congress' MARC Code List for Organizations and select Go Directly to the MARC Organization Code Database, choose "Organization code" as your search type, type in your letter code, and submit the search.

So I didn't do the search exactly right - I have to locate the 040 field in the Tagged Display. The Tagged Display for the third entry above is:

* LDR 01044npc 2200253Ka 4500
001 ocm26868809
003 OCoLC
005 20071016225450.0
008 921027i18121947vp eng d
040 $aMAH$cMAH
035 $a(OCoLC)26868809
100 1 $aSeaver, Charles Morse,$d1848-1924.
245 00$aFamily papers,$f1812-1947,$gbulk: 1893-1947.
300 $a1 narrow box.
520 $aPapers of the family of Charles M. Seaver including three maps sketched
by him (1861-62); biographical reminiscences of him and his sons Philip and
Walter H. by another son Henry M. Seaver; genealogical notes on the Hibbard,
Seaver, and Morse families compiled by Henry M. Seaver; and a few misc.
Seaver family papers.
541 $aHoffman, Elizabeth,$d1972.
600 30$aHibbard family.
600 30$aMorse family.
700 1 $aSeaver, Henry Morse,$d1873-1947.
700 1 $aSeaver, Philip,$d1881-1943.
700 1 $aSeaver, Walter Hibbard,$d1870-1930.
700 3 $aSeaver family.
994 $aZ0$bLCC
948 $hNO HOLDINGS IN LCC - 1 OTHER HOLDINGS

The 040 line says 040 $aMAH$cMAH, so the letter code is MAH.

On the OCLC Particpating Institutions page at http://www.oclc.org/contacts/libraries/ I input the code MAH and found that the repository for that record is

MASSACHUSETTS HIST SOC
BOSTON, MA 02215-3695
United States

No surprise, I guess, since Charles M. Seaver was a Massachusetts resident. So now I know where to find the manuscript or collection. The challenge before me is how to obtian a copy of it. I'll see if I can figure out my options in a later post.

The point here is that there may be manuscripts and collections of papers that may really help you with your family history resting in a drawer or on a shelf in an institution just waiting for you to discover it. The NUCMC system is another tool in the family history researcher's kit - but only a few researchers even know of it and fewer still have used it. Of course, the records are not online! But at least the index and the search capability are online, which makes the search easier.

Of course, some students of New England Native American lore would say that the "Nucmuck" tribe resided in Massachusetts, but that would be wrong - the "Nipmuck" and "Tadmuck" tribes were there, but there was no "Nucmuck" tribe. I guess you could consider the NUCMC tribe to be the genealogists parading through the Library of Congress reading room looking for NUCMC manuscripts.

Labels: genealogy resources, Genealogy Video, Genealogy/History, Research techniques, Research tips

This is the last call for the FREE Chula Vista Genealogical Society seminar "Genealogy Online - Discover Your Family History" which will be held on Saturday 20 October 2007 at the Chula Vista Civic Center Branch Library (365 F Street in CV) between 10 AM and 3 PM in the library auditorium. The full announcement is here.

The program schedule is:

10:00 AM -- Library doors open, sign-in for seminar.

10:30 AM -- Internet Genealogy Survey

11:30 AM -- LDS FamilySearch Resources

12:15 PM -- Refreshments in the conference room, eat in the park.

1:00 PM -- Rootsweb and USGenWeb Resources

2:00 PM -- Ancestry.com Resources

I have spent about 60 hours over the last three weeks creating the four OpenOffice presentations and the syllabus for the program. There are a lot of screen shots and "how-to" sequences in each presentation. I couldn't show every web site referred to, but I do have shots of many of them. The syllabus handout is 24 pages of links and comments from the presentations.

Now I BEG Ancestry, Footnote, WVR, GenealogyBank, Rootsweb, USGenWeb and FamilySearch to NOT CHANGE ANYTHING for the rest of the week - no new web pages, don't change links, don't redesign your pages. PLEASE? Pretty please?

I will put the presentations on my flash drive and laptop tonight (for backup) and then onto the society laptop tomorrow so that we have multiple copies available for Saturday. I don't want to do this again...

If you are in the San Diego area and want to attend this FREE presentation (the syllabus costs $5), we welcome your attendance. We do need you to register by calling Virginia at 619-425-7922 or email her at irishdoll(at)cox.net, since we need a count for the syllabus and the refreshments.

If you are going to the CGSSD meeting on the Saturday morning, you can make a really full genealogy day by coming to the CVGS program for the afternoon sessions.

Labels: CVGS, Online resources, San Diego area

Juliana Smith at the 24/7 Family History Circle blog, as part of her Weekly Planner series, has been providing a list of 5 questions on a particular subject as part of honoring October as Family History Month. The topic this week is Home. The questions are:

1) What was your room like when you were growing up? Did you share it or did you have your own room? What did it look like?

I always shared a bedroom with my younger brother (I am 3 years older). Until 1955, we had bunk beds and shared the room next to our parents room in the southeast corner of the house. There was a central desk area for stuff and homework. When my youngest brother was born in 1955, the nursery was set up in that bedroom and we were moved to the sun room in the southwest corner of the building. My dad took the bunk beds apart and we each had a single bed against the outside wall with a long desk built into the other wall. The desk was great - there was wall space and counter space for homework and projects.

From the sun room, we had a commanding view to the south - we could see the B-36 airplanes coming into the airport, the neighborhood down to the church, the bay and Point Loma off to the southwest, and Mount Miguel to the southeast.

2) Did you have a backyard? A garden? Did you grow fruits and/or vegetables?

Before 1953 (when I was 10), we had a large lot to the south of the house - half of it was a field where we played ball and the other half was vegetable, fruit and berry plants. We picked the fruit and berries and sold them at sidewalk stands near the Piggly Wiggly two blocks away. It was a good early lesson in entrepreneurship.

In 1953, my grandparents sold the south lot and two-story apartments were built on them. That reduced our play area to a small patio and garden (walled on the south, against the two apartment houses on the north, and the street on the east and west. My dad put brick down in the patio, and set up a basketball standard. During the summer, the ping pong table was set up and a barbecue was in the corner. When the table wasn't there, we played kickball, dodgeball and whiffle ball in this small patio that measured maybe 20 by 30 feet. We had to be careful not to put the balls over the wall into the apartment complex or to break windows in our own apartments.

3) Did you have a secret hiding place?

In the house, there was a "cubby hole" over the front staircase, accessible from the living room. I would spend time there watching cars and buses on 30th Street - keeping track of the buses and trying to figure out how they scheduled them. In my room, I had a fairly private bookcase at the head of the bed, and would often hide stuff under my mattress. I also had hiding places outside - the house did not have a foundation, so there was a crawl space underneath.

4) What household chores were your responsibilities?

Making my bed and keeping my stuff on my side of the room. I don't remember having washing or cleaning chores, but I think I took out the trash and often went to the store with my mother to help her carry groceries home.

Outside, my brother and I had lawn mowing responsibilities every week or two using a push mower.

5) In what room did your family gather most? Was it in the living room or around the kitchen table? What did you do there? Sing? Talk about the day? Watch T.V.? Tell stories?

We always had meals in the dining room - never in another room or in the bedroom. My dad often read the newspaper during meals, but this sparked conversations about sports and world events. The dining room table was where we played board games, card games and mind games.

We got our first TV in about 1953, and it was set up in the living room with a big antenna on the roof. We watched the cowboy shows - Hopalong Cassidy was a favorite, but also Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and others. We watched game shows and family shows when they came along. Baseball and football games were big favorites on the weekends. We had two TV channels in the 1950's - CBS on Channel 8 and NBC on Channel 10. In about 1960, a third channel came on from Tijuana in English, and we got ABC programs on Channel 6.

During the early 1950's, the only radio in the house was in my parents room. On Saturday and Sunday mornings, my folks would lie in bed and listen to radio shows, often with music. My brother and I would crowd into bed (a double bed) with them and sing along with my folks.

The 1950's were a great time to be a kid growing up in in San Diego. The city was growing but uncrowded, schools were excellent, and kids had a lot of freedom to try and excel. We were all over the neighborhood on our bicycles and flexible flyers. We often went to the cultural places in Balboa Park, enjoyed baseball games downtown, and occasionally went to the beach. A highlight was going to my grandparents home on Point Loma - here there were new neighborhoods to explore and map out, a large garage to find treasures in, a garden to hide in, and a fireplace for Santa to come down at Christmas time.

Labels: Memories, musings

This is Installment 42 of the Journal of Della (Smith) Carringer, my great-grandmother, who resided at 2115 30th Street in San Diego in 1929.

The "players" and "setting" are described here. Pictures of some of the players are here. Last week's Journal entry is here.

Here is Week 42:

====================================

Tuesday, October 15: I worked around tree on north. Ed came over, he run the vacuum cleaner for me. We went over & done Miss Thoren's carpet. In afternoon I went to cooking school, drew a Ben Hur coffee drip. Mrs. Jennings & sister were there and we walked together. I injoyed the lesson. We washed in morning. Ed had sold all his grapes about 20.00 for the season, brought us some big apples.

Wednesday, October 16: Got statement from Bank of Italy. Watered in front on west. Ma worked on front parking. Emily & mother finished Emily's new shallip dress very pretty. Ma & I sewed a little. Fixed my black skirt to go with my sweater blouse.

Thursday, October 17: I went out to Ma's house, found the Gas and Electric had been turned off the day before. I painted around carpet in front room & dining room. Told Mrs. S to put up the sign Sun[day] A.M. Ma Ironed.

Friday, October 18: We worked outdoors this forenoon. I finish black skirt, cleaned gloves.

Saturday, October 19 (warm): We worked on West front. I trimmed Turks Caps. Ed over, cut lawns & helped on west side. About 10 A.M. Louie & Ruth drove up, they were on their way home from the East was gone 7 weeks went to Conn. Washington D.C. & home by the Southern rout.

Sunday, October 20 (warmest day in years): We went out to Ma's house took a few things quilt blanket & I stayed all day. An agent said she would bring someone but did not, and the ones that told me they would come did not. It was hot with fires in back country, some flume burned. Lyle's did not go any place.

Monday, October 21: Mrs. Wilson got hurt & her auto smashed, had two wimmen with her. We went over to Emily's to hear Pres. Hoover & Others speak at the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the 1st Electric light. Mr. Edison spoke also. In the evening I went with Lyle's to the Stadium, it was a beautiful sight, so many colored search lights, there were 20,000 there the paper said.

======================

This was an interesting week. Early on, it's all about clothes, yardwork and getting Ma's house squared away. I wonder why Della had a cooking lesson? Perhaps a new stove or new gadgets? Then it's about the hot weather and fires in the back country (very typical for October - Santa Ana winds create hot weather - highs in the 100 F range - and fires start by lightning in the mountains and burn toward the coast). The flume brought water from the mountains to the city - it burned, a big deal. Then it was about the electric light celebration. I guess Lyle and Emily had a radio so they could hear President Hoover.

Labels: Della's Journal, San Diego area

When AncestryPress came out in beta format, I eagerly tried it out - my report is here. It made 26 pages with 4 generations of data - a pedigree chart, a family group sheet for each family, and time lines for each person. Frankly, I was not impressed.

With all of the recent announcements about this product - see Juliana Smith's post and Richard Eastman's post just to name two, both of which essentially parrot the glowing Ancestry press release -- I thought that I would see how the final product has been improved.

Here are four screen shots from a book I created for Frank Walton Seaver (1852-1922) using the "stock" format:

The first screen is of the four generation pedigree chart. Compared to the previous version, they have filled up the screen and added some icons on the left margin, and have some editing options across the top. I can print each page individually.

Screen #2 is the Family Group Sheet page, which I really like. It is well organized and shows information for each person in the family.

Screen #3 is the Time Line page - there is one of these for each person in the "book." The events in the person's life are noted, and there are notes about important historical events at the bottom of the screen. However -- the historical events are:

* British East India company establishes Singapore (ca 1820)

* California Gold Rush (ca 1848)

* Doyle introduces Sherlock Holmes (ca 1886)

* Oil discovered in Persia (ca 1910)

* Persia renamed Iran (ca 1934)

Huh??? Who cares about most of those? If I were doing a timeline, I would add terms of Presidents, notable events like wars, discoveries, inventions, etc. Where is the Civil War? Where is Lincoln's election and assassination? Where is the Spanish-American War? Where is the depression of 1893? The flu epidemic of 1918? This is terrible, frankly.

The fourth screen is of the notes that were available in my database for Frank Seaver. To create this page, I clicked on the "New Page" icon on the top menu and created a blank page, then clicked on the "1880 Census" icon (I have no clue why it's there!) and dragged it onto the blank page. The notes came over in a thin column too long for the space available. I did not see any editing function to allow me to make longer lines or cut and paste some of the lines onto another page.

So I'm still very disappointed in this application. To top it off, they have limited it now to three generations for the "stock" book. I think, but don't know, that you can make a longer book with as many generations as you want by using the "Create a book from scratch" option. At least I hope so.

I don't have any pictures uploaded for my database so I couldn't test that capability out.

In my humble opinion, AncestryPress has a long way to go before this type of "coffee table book" would have any utility or interest for me. To be fair, the book is exactly as they advertise. There is even a $29.99 special offer for a published book in a cover.

Has anyone else had a better experience? Or more comments?

Labels: Ancestry.com, Commercial genealogy, My genealogy research

The topic for the current Carnival of Genealogy is Halloween and the Supernatural! Jasia provided lots of possible questions (see here), only one of which I can identify with.

I'm too old (or too senile) to remember favorite Hallowe'en costumes, parties, carnivals or pranks from my childhood. I don't recall spooky places in my neighborhood, although the house that Austin and Della Carringer built at 2115/2119 30th Street in about 1895 in San Diego, that I grew up in, might qualify. We always had cats, but they were usually gray and often flattened on 30th or Fern Streets. No bats. No scarecrows in the city. My grandmother served Squirt! as a drink, not a magic potion.

I have hoped for visions or dream(s) with ghosts or messages (even obscure hints would be nice!) from my brick wall ancestors (Thomas J. Newton, Elizabeth (Dill) Smith, Hannah (Smith) Sawtell, John Richman, William Knapp, Ranslow Smith, etc.) giving me leads to their parentage - but, alas, either my tweeter and snoozer aren't working or these elusive ancestors are happy staying hidden from me.

I have visited cemeteries where some of these people are buried, and have even lain on the ground near their resting place in the sun hoping to fall asleep and be visited by these folks in my daze, but, alas, no luck. The sprinklers went off once, though, which may have interrupted any message I was about to get. I scared the heck out of another cemetery searcher once by getting up off the ground behind a large stone once.

Ah, a witch! My entree to the Carnival this time! There is one person in my ancestry who was hanged as a convicted Salem witch -- my 9th great-grandmother Rebecca (Towne) Nurse was accused in 1692 and hanged after a trial in Salem. I visited the Francis and Rebecca Nurse house in Danvers MA back in 2004 and it was an interesting place to visit and see - especially the house itself with period furnishings and a docent who told stories about the house and the family.

But then, she wasn't really a witch - just accused of being one. She was found not guilty by the jury, but the magistrate sent them back to reconsider. Her statement to the court was:

"I am innocent as the child unborn, but surely, what sin hath God found out in me unrepented of that He should lay such an affliction on me in my old age."

The gravestone inscription on her plot at the Nurse Homestead reads:

"Rebecca Nurse, Yarmouth, England 1621. Salem, Mass., 1692.

"O Christian Martyr who for Truth could die
When all about thee owned the hideous lie!
The world redeemed from Superstition's sway
Is breathing freer for thy sake today."
(From the poem "Christian Martyr," by John Greenleaf Whittier)

Do you think that poor, ancient, hard-of-hearing, decrepit and sinful Rebecca would ever think that she would be famous over 300 years later? Poor Francis Nurse died three years later, probably of a broken heart, likely wondering about the family tragedy that had ruined the lives of himself and his family.

Since Rebecca wasn't really a witch, perhaps this post doesn't qualify me to enter it into the Carnival of Genealogy. Ah well, maybe no one will read down this far and notice my disqualification!

Reading the Wikipedia entry for Rebecca, I found out that Mitt Romney is also a descendant of Rebecca (Towne) Nurse - so now I have another Presidential candidate that I'm related to (besides Barack Obama). Maybe cousin Mitt will invite me to be part of his campaign?

Labels: Elusive ancestors, musings, My genealogy research

I'm back to work on my Best of the Genea-blogs series - here are my picks for great reads from this past week. My criteria is pretty simple - I like posts that advance knowledge about genealogy, or are funny and/or poignant.

* "My Interview with Ben Nettesheim, FTM Brand Manager" by Kathi at the AncestorSearch blog is a must read for FTM users. Ben really dodges the ball well. Too bad. Good job by Kathi!

* " 'Mother' by Ida Green" posted by John Newmark on the Transylvania Dutch blog. This is a beautiful piece of poetry, made special by John's relationship to the people in the poem.

* "World Vital Records Celebrates Its One-Year Anniversary" by Whitney Ransom on the WorldVitalRecords blog. Congratulations on a very successful year for WVR. They have challenged the "big boys" at Ancestry and have built a very fine genealogy site. I look forward to more good news from them.

* "My sculpture commission" by the writer on the how to survive suburban life blog. This is a real funny story about a school project, which I've come to expect from this blogger who really writes well.

* "Genealogy and History Thoughts - Column Four" by Jessica Oswalt on the Jessica's Genejournal blog. This is part of a series, which I've enjoyed over the past weeks. Jessica is a college student who is really into genealogy research - we need more people like her in our societies. Jessica is always finding new genealogy blogs too!

* "What is Your Genealogy Worth to You? (Reflections)" by Jasia at the Creative Gene blog. This is a five-part series written over the last two weeks or so in which she explores several aspects of genealogy worth. This post has links for the others - read them all. She also linked to other bloggers posting on the topic.

* "Employees: don't Get Hit by the Train - Part 4" by the writer on The Ancestry Insider blog. This is the last post in a series, all of which are interesting reads. This one could apply to any blogger writing from inside a large corporation - genealogy or not. This post also puts a name to the writer of this blog - can you find it?

* "Interesting Posts" by Lori Thornton on the Smoky Mountain Family Historian blog has her own list of useful and interesting posts. There were several there that I had not read - my bad, Lori's good!

Please go read these offerings if they grab your attention.

Labels: BestofGeneaBlogs, genealogy blogs

I went to the San Diego Genealogical Society meeting on Saturday and heard the presentation "Hidden Treasures in the Library" by Penny Feike. The synopsis of the talk is here.

Penny's talks are different - they are sort of a stream of consciousness of research stories and personal experiences from over 40 years of genealogy work - nearly all of it done the "old-fashioned way" with repository visits, books and microforms. She speaks from her wheelchair and doesn't use overheads or projectors and only occasionally writes on the white board. You have to listen to what she says, enjoy and marvel at the stories, and appreciate Penny's wisdom and experience.

Have you ever heard of the "Historical Records Survey" done by the WPA in the 1930's? A survey was done of the holdings of government agencies and buildings in every county, and the lists made were then copied to the nearest National Archives branch and to the State Library. In Washington DC, there are copies at the Department of Commerce and the Library of Congress. The Family History Library in Salt Lake City has microfilms. Here is a link listing what might be available, and where, for California records.

The unique thing about these lists is that they tell exactly where the record was - such as "in the 3-story building next to the library, on the second floor, room 212, 4th book shelf from the north wall, 6 feet from the east wall, next to the land deeds." Of course, the records may have been moved by now, but the list provides a survey of what was where at the time of the survey. Penny told a story about using the list to find a particular record: she went to the court house, asked to see the record and showed the list to the clerk. The clerk says "I've never heard of or been in that building, I'll have to find out about it. Come back after lunch." After lunch, Penny went back and the clerk had the records for her to review and an "I've learned something today" look on her face.

Penny also mentioned that sometimes repositories, like a local or state library, receives a collection from a person or group, and if the collection has records from more than one county, it is filed under the State rather than with a catalog entry for each county. The researcher needs to look in the State listing in the FHL Catalog and not just the County listings.

She provided a useful tip to finding records kept by a Justice of the Peace or a Notary Public. They are often cataloged under the name of the person, not under a subject name. So how do you get the names? You check County Histories and City Directories for the time period of interest for the name, then search the FHLC for the person's name to find the records.

The most telling advice that Penny shared was "don't trust the reference books that provide an address or person for records" (such as a court clerk, or vital records clerk) along with "don't trust the negative response from a clerk." She had written to Doniphan County KS vital records office for a marriage record, only to receive several snotty letters from the clerk (she obtained the address from a reference work) saying they didn't have the record at that location. On a trip back from Chicago, Penny stopped at the court house, and visited the vital records office - and there was the person who sent the negative responses. She asked if the office really didn't have the records, and then asked if the clerk knew where the records might be. The clerk responded "sure, right across the hall in the court records." Penny went across the hall, talked to the clerk there, and was rewarded with the record she sought. A judge overheard Penny say how frustrated she was by the other clerk's attitude, and the judge called the clerk to the office and fired her on the spot.

Needless to say, Penny is one of San Diego genealogy's hidden treasures, and we come away from her presentations with several nuggets of useful information and an appreciation for her life's work.

Labels: genealogy resources, Research techniques, Research tips, SDGS

I went to the San Diego Genealogical Society meeting on Saturday and heard the presentation "Everyone Has a Story" by Karon Jarrard. The synopsis of the talk is here.

Karon has been writing her life story since 1992 when she began attending adult school classes in Encinitas with about 25 other life story writers, taught by J. McClelland Hartley. Her talk covered her own experiences, some of her own stories, and recommended web sites and memory joggers to get started writing and keeping it going. She is in the process of writing her book.

She recommended the following life story writing websites:

* http://www.lifestorywriting.net

* http://www.writing-resources.com

One of the quotes she used in her talk was by Daniel Okrent:

"The fun of recalling something that you saw five days ago, or five years ago, or a lifetime ago -- knowing it's there to be plucked back into your life in an instant -- Oh God, that's rare."

Karon shared a poem she wrote (I hope she doesn't mind my typing it):

Garden of Memories
by Karon Jarrard,
May 28, 1995

"Gather memories of life
And store them in your mind.
Like flowers in a garden,
They're more fragrant over time.

"The beauty of the process
Is it's simple as can be
You merely visit your mind's garden
And pick a memory.

"Some are rambling like a rose,
Some are Violet blue,
Some are true forget-me-nots,
Some have a hazy hue.

"Some travel roads to olden times,
But if you don't want to go
Weed it from your fertile mind
Then visit another row!"

I really enjoyed Karon's talk, and reflected on how well her thoughts mesh with things like our Carnival of Genealogy and the story prompts at Miriam Midkiff's Ancestories2 blog and other sites.

Labels: genealogy societies, Memories, SDGS

Allkison Sibert posted this newspaper story to the Black Sheep mailing list today, and I thought it was a fine example of what you can find in newspaper archives about your potential ancestors or shirt-tail relatives. Allison's post is here.

Apparently, the husband is Allison's great-great-grandfather, and he froze his third wife in a rain barrel during winter time. The article:

-------------------------------------------

Ironwood Daily Globe,
Ironwood, Michigan
March 12, 1954
Page Six

Bridegroom, 78, Held in Death of Third Wife
Deckerville (AP) --

A gaunt, 78-year-old bridegroom was held for investigation of murder today in the bludgeon-slaying of his third wife.

Police planned to question him in the mysterious rain barrel drowning of hisfirst wife. Sgt. Murell Clark, of the Sandusky State Police Post, said John F. Brabant, a retired Deckerville marine engineer, admitted killing Mrs. Flora Brabant, his 76-year-old bride of six months, Thursday, but didn't "know why I killed her."

Brabant's first wife, Hattie Belle, 73, was found dead in a partly filled rain barrel Nov. 5, 1951 at the couple's home in this small "thumb" area community.

A search of the back yard Thursday disclosed the weapon, a crude steel tool, buried beneath a water pump. It had been partly burned. Clark said Brabant admitted burying the tool after trying to burn it.

Further investigation showed that the third Mrs. Brabant had made out a will last Feb 27 in which she left all her possessions to a son by a previous marriage, Vernon le Gear of Warren, Mich. The extent of her possessions was not disclosed.

Clark said that he was dissatisfied with Brabant's denial of a motive and had planned a further questioning today. He said he also planned to inquire into the death of the first wife.

Brabant, who had six sons and a daughter by his first marriage, was being held in the Sanilac County Jail at Sandusky. Brabant's second marriage in 1952 lasted only two weeks before it wound up in divorce courts.

---------------------------------------------

Needless to say, Allison qualified for membership in the International Black Sheep Society of Genealogists (IBSSG).

Labels: genealogy resources, Oldtime newspapers

Many families had persons employed by the Federal government in an agency, and the government has personnel records of that employment.

To see what records might be available, and the process needed to obtain them, you can visit the web site of the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis, Missouri at http://www.archives.gov/st-louis/civilian-personnel/public-services.html

To obtain an Official Personnel Folder (OPF), the directions are:

"The NPRC, CPR stores official personnel folders (OPFs) of former civilian employees from most Federal agencies world-wide. The records date from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. OPFs are retired to the center within 120 days after separation from Federal employment.

"PLEASE NOTE

"If the subject of the file is LIVING, the NPRC, CPR will provide copies of documents or information only to:

* the subject of the file.
* someone with written authorization from the subject of the file.


"If you are not the subject of the file and do not have authorization from the subject of the file, only certain data may be obtained: position titles and occupational series, grades, annual salary rates, duty stations, and position descriptions for the present and the past.

"If the subject of the file is DECEASED, copies of some documents and some information about the deceased may be releasable to someone who submits a request.


"If you are looking for your own records, and less than 120 days have elapsed since your separation from Federal employment, write to the last Federal office that employed you for your records.

"To request information from an OPF, follow the steps below.

"STEP 1 - Provide written authorization.


"* If you are the subject of the file, send a signed letter indicating that you are requesting information from your own file.
* If you are not the subject of the file and the subject is living, send a letter signed by the subject indicating that he/she authorizes the NPRC, CPR to release information to you.
* If the subject of the file is deceased send proof of the subject's death. Proof of death is not required if the subject of record was born more than 100 years ago.
"STEP 2 - Provide information needed so that the NPRC, CPR can identify the file. Lack of the following information may result in our inability to identify a record and you may receive NA Form 13022, Returned Request Form.

"* Full name used during Federal employment
* Date of birth
* Social Security number, if applicable
* Name of employing Federal agency
* Beginning date of Federal service
* Ending date of Federal service


"STEP 3 - Identify the documents or information needed and explain the purpose of your request.

"STEP 4 - Mail to:
National Personnel Records Center
Civilian Personnel Records
111 Winnebago Street
St. Louis, MO 63118-4126"

The problem here is that a descendant may not know about all of the agencies for which their ancestor worked, or their dates of employment.

I don't have any 20th century ancestors who worked for the government, so I haven't pursued this research opportunity.

Labels: genealogy resources, Research techniques

The September 2007 issue (Volume 95, No. 3) of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly (NGSQ) came during the week, and I've been reading it during the baseball playoff games on TV. It is a "Theme Issue" - the theme is Law and Genealogy, with four major articles.

The Table of Contents for the articles includes:

* "The Common Law of England: A Key Resource for American Genealogists" by Donn Devine, J.D., CG, CGL -- page 165

* "Civil Law Concepts and Genealogy: Learning from the French Model" by Claire Mire Bettag, CG, CGL -- page 179

* "Genealogical Applications of American Statute Law" by Ann Carter Fleming, CG, CGL -- page 197

* "Protestant Church Law and Records in America: Some Denominations and Archives" by David McDonald, M.Div., CG -- page 211.

There are also a number of book reviews, including one for Elizabeth Shown Mills' book "Evidence Explained ..." I use these reviews to add to my To-Do lists of "Books I Want to Buy" or "Books I Want to Review."

This issue was difficult to read because of the subject (and perhaps my attention was drawn away by the games and my granddaughter dancing on the floor) but the issue is excellent material for the serious genealogist.

Each article has plenty of examples of the application of the different types of laws to genealogy research, but the "Protestant Church Law and Records in America ..." article was the highlight for me. It provided a summary of the beliefs of many denominations, a survey of the available records, and the church archive locations. The article identified the genealogically valuable records as:

* Membership records
* Baptism records
* Marriage records
* Ordination records
* Burial records
* Miscellaneous Administrative Records

As an example of the information for each denomination, here is the description for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

"In 1830 Joseph Smith founded the LDS church. Adherents view The Book of Mormon as a companion volume to the New Testament. Throughout its first half-century, the church held polygamy, or plural marriage, as one of its tenets. The church formally renounced plural marriage in 1890. LDS belief in baptism of the dead by proxy has led to the church's support of genealogical research on a grand scale. Its extensive microfilm archive of vital records and genealogical data is accessible worldwide through a system of more than 3,500 branch libraries. Its main Family History Library is at 35 North West Temple; Salt Lake City, UT 84101. A useful Web site offers an extensive online index to genealogical records, a collection of compiled genealogies, and a catalog of library holdings [ http://www.familysearch.org ]."

The paragraphs for the other denominations follow the same pattern - some are quite long when there are offshoots from the original denomination (e.g., there are paragraphs for Freewill Baptists, Primitive Baptists, American Baptists, Seventh Day Baptists and Southern Baptists in the "Baptists" section).

This article is a great aid to understanding how the different denominations formed, what they stand for, the records that might be available and the location of the church archives.

Labels: Church records, genealogy resources, periodical indexes

At the risk of being a Maureen Taylor cheerleader today, I want to pass on her web site called Family History for Kids.

Sharp readers will recall that I had a question at one of our CVGS meetings about genealogy resources for children and all I could think of was to find applicable articles online and books on Amazon.

Maureen's site has a number of pages:

* Family History for Kids Resources - this has quite a few books addressing the subject.

* How to Get Kids Interested in Family History - three articles that describe organizing and preserving children art, getting children involved in scrapbooking, and five reasons to teach genealogy to children.

Following a link on the web site, I found a new genealogy-related blog (at least for me) called The Last Muster. One of Maureen's book projects is finding photographs of Revolutionary War veterans.

Labels: genealogy education, Online resources

As an avid reader of genealogy magazines and genealogy blogs, I feel like I "know" many of the authors and writers who frequently contribute to these outlets. And I often wish that I knew them better personally and professionally, since I really appreciate their talents.

Such is the case with Maureen Taylor, whose beautiful face peers at me every issue from Family Tree Magazine (and previously from the New England Ancestors magazine). Maureen has a web site at www.photodetective.com and a blog, aptly titled The Photo Detective at http://photodetective.blogspot.com/.

Maureen's work was summarized today in an article titled "The Photo Detective" by Alexandra Alter in the 12 October 2007 issue of The Wall Street Journal - online here (for how long, I don't know).

This is a wonderful article about Maureen and her work, and provides an insight into her accomplishments, her workstyle, and her life. This paragraph from the article describes her current worklife:

"Since she launched her business 10 years ago, Ms. Taylor says, she's tackled some 10,000 photo puzzles. Working out of a cluttered office in her Westwood, Mass., home, she receives about 30 requests each week, up from five a decade ago. She is sought out by collectors, historians and even TV producers to weigh in on controversies. Her current preoccupation: finding lost or unidentified photos of people who lived during the Revolutionary War."

The article provides stories and pictures for several examples of her detective work. Read it and appreciate her talents and her willingness to share them with us.

The one strange thing I noticed was that the video on the article web page was made about Colleen Fitzpatrick (who has the web site www.forensicgenealogy.info) and not a video of Maureen Taylor.

Labels: current newspaper articles, photographs

The San Diego Genealogical Society monthly meeting is on Saturday, 13 October at 12 noon at St. Andrews Lutheran Church (8350 Lake Murray Blvd. in San Diego (at Jackson Drive).

There will be two presentations:

1) "Everyone Has a Story" with Karon Jarred.

Have you ever wished that your ancestors had written down their life stories? What a treasure that would be to help fill in their lives. Through our research, we get all the names, dates and places, but miss out on the rich details of how they lived their lives. What were their joys and successes as well as their challenges? How did they deal with the history unfolding in front of them? Wouldn't you give just about anything to have these answers?

Well, have you written down your life's story? If not, why not? Come and learn how easy it can be to capture your life's memories for future generations. While your genealogy will always be there, your own life story may not be unless you do it - before it's too late.

Since retiring from SDG&E 21 years ago, Karon Jarred has pursued her interest in genealogical research. A member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (where she serves as National Chairman of the Public Relations and Media Committee and California State Recording Secretary), she is also active in the promotion of historic preservation, education of our youth, and patriotism. Her hobbies include needlework and life story writing.

2) "Hidden Items/Treasures You Can Find in Any Library" with Penny Feike.

Do you know how to use a library to its full potential? Every library has unique and valuable collections that may not be found where you think they should be and unless you know what to look for, you may be missing that breakthrough discovery. Penny will share with you what to look for and how to broaden your library searches to find these hidden gems and improve your research success.

Society member Penny Feike has been researching for more than 40 years. She has taught and worked at the Family History Center in San Diego where she has helped many researchers over the years improve their skills. As a professional genealogist, she does U.S. and international research, as she puts it, "anyplace that uses the Latin alphabet." Her extensive knowledge and recall is always amazing (including citation of the book call numbers). Always popular and not to be missed.

I will attend these talks, and will have flyers to hand out for the 20 October seminar "Genealogy Online - discover Your Family History." I look forward to seeing many of my San Diego readers at this meeting.

Labels: genealogy education, San Diego area, SDGS

Terry Thornton at the Hill Country of Monroe County blog has coined a term to denote a special brand of blogger - a H.O.G.S. blogger who writes about:

H = History
O = Observations
G = Genealogy
S = Stories

I think I qualify... I write about Observations (I call them "musings" but they are observations), Genealogy (endlessly, it seems) and Stories (more now than before). I don't write much about History (events, dates, places) but I do write a lot about Family History, so I guess that counts.

You know, you can turn H.O.G.S. into another word by adding a letter - how about G.H.O.S.T?

G = Genealogy
H = History
O = Observations
S = Stories
T = Tribe

The "Tribe" classification might include posts about a blogger's current life, especially the events and experiences of the immediate family (like my penchant for writing about my grandchildren ad infinitum). It might also refer to a group that the blogger writes about, like a genealogy society (ahem!).

I'm sure other genealogy bloggers can come up with other acronyms for what they do. How about it - put those fertile minds to work and create a great new acronym that fits your blogging style!

Thanks Terry for the neat idea. I am definitely a H.O.G.S. blogger, but I think I'm a G.H.O.S.T. blogger as well.

Labels: genealogy blogs, musings

Juliana Smith at the 24/7 Family History Circle blog has posted another set of five questions for people to reply to in honor of Family History Month. This week, the topic is Fun and Games. Here are my memories:

1) What was your favorite game when you were a child? Were you a board game enthusiast? A card shark? Or perhaps a kick-the-can kid?

I invented my own baseball game using three dice and a scorecard - my Padres always beat the other team for some reason. I didn't worry about balls and strikes - just roll the dice and a total of 3 was a home run, 18 was a triple, 4 and 17 were doubles, 5, 6 and 16 were singles, 7 was a walk, 15 was a strikeout, 8, 9, 13, and 14 were ground outs, 10, 11 and 12 were flyouts. I would announce the games just like Al Schuss the Padres radio guy (his home run call was "And There It Goes") and kept score.

Outside, we played bicycle tag all over the neighborhood and "cops and drivers" on the block using our flexible flyers (sleds with wheels and brakes). We used chalk on the sidewalks for stop signs, one guy was the cop and tried to stop the others and give them tickets for infractions or reckless driving. We made big stop signs and tried to control traffic on the street, but the cops came and talked sternly to us and our mom.

My brothers and I grew up being very competitive but fair-minded. We invented games and played them with abandon. We played baseball and football in the street and down at the park. I was almost always the quarterback and play-caller and couldn't tackle worth a lick. I couldn't hit in baseball, so I was usually a pitcher.

2) Did you play any particular games with your family as a child? Easter egg hunts? Thanksgiving Day football games? Scavenger hunts? Charades?

At the dinner table, the family played "Ghosts" (I have no clue why it was called that!). This was a spelling game - the words had to be more than 4 letters, and the player who spelled a word got a point - five points and you were out of the game. This got me into the dictionary, and when the first letter was "b," I always said "d" and the word had to be "bdellium." When the first letter was "m," I always said "n" and the word had to be "mnemonic." I could often control who got the point. We eventually modified the game so that you could add 2 letters if a word would be spelled with the next letter - and got words like "antidisestablishmentarianism" and "pneumonoultrasilicos... darn, can't remember it now! ) I found lots of great words that way, and still remember some of them. My folks loved this game since it was competitive and educational for us.

We usually played outdoor games as a family in the small patio - whiffle ball, kick ball, dodge ball, ping pong and basketball. My mother used a different ping pong grip than the rest of us, and we learned to slice, carve and spin. I finally was able to beat my mother and father in ping pong when I was 12 or 13.

There were Easter egg hunts all over the yard. The family occasionally played Canasta (a card game), and Monopoly and Parchesi board games.

We had a Lionel O-gauge train set and ran tracks all through the house with at least two engine controls. We spent our allowance on train engines and box cars and tried to create collisions at intersections. My dad loved playing with us on the trains.

3) What were some fun places you visited as a child? Did your family go camping? Did you take family vacations? Was there a local destination that was a family favorite?

The family vacations we took were mainly to state bowling tournaments in the 1950's - we went to Fresno, Sacramento, San Jose, Santa Barbara, and Stockton, as I recall. We stayed in motels with pools and visited tourist sites (I remember the Winchester House in San Jose!). One year we came down Highway 1 south of Monterey for some reason - and the road was washed out.

Our first family vacation was in 1954, and we went to Bass Lake, just south of Yosemite National Park (500 miles away). I learned to swim there, and it was my first camping experience. We hiked, boated, swam, and had a lot of fun.

Living in San Diego, we went to the San Diego Zoo in Balboa Park a lot. It was free for kids, and we spent many days at the Zoo - we played hide and seek there. When Disneyland opened in 1954 in Anaheim, we went every few years.

4) What activities did you do with family members? Did Grandma teach you to sew? Who taught you to cook? Did you go fishing with Grandpa? An uncle? Who coached your baseball team?

My grandparents lived in Point Loma just above San Diego Bay, and we would go to the fishing pier there with my grandfather.

My brother and I had stamp and coin collections, and my grandfather supported that interest with plate blocks every month or so.

My grandmother was a dear - she loved us, taught us and fed us. She raised me for several years during WW2 when my dad was in the Navy and my mom was working. Some of my most precious memories are singing Christmas carols at their house in bed with her leading.

My dad managed my brothers' baseball teams from 1956 to 1971 or so. I coached and kept score for him for many of those years.

My mother was an only child so there were no aunts or uncles or cousins around from that side. My father's family was back East - an uncle, 4 aunts and some cousins, so we didn't know them. My dad had one cousin in San Diego that we saw at Christmas time.

Cook? Sew? Wash? Who, me? I was way too busy playing games as a kid.

5) Did you enjoy watching professional sports? What was your favorite team? Do you have any special memories of sporting events?

The Padres were my favorite baseball team (AAA Pacific Coast League 1936-1967). I listened to the radio for almost every game (sometimes beneath the covers!) from 1949 to 1960 or so. We occasionally took the bus downtown to go to games at Lane Field at the harbor, and then to Westgate Park in Mission Valley. The Pads were the farm team for the Cleveland Indians in the 1950's, and we saw Herb Score, Rocky Colavito, Bob Lemon, Luke Easter, Bob Elliott, Earl Rapp, Max West, Jack Graham and other players on their way up or on their way down. The Pads won the PCL pennant in 1954 which was real exciting.

The Chargers came to town in 1961 and they became my favorite football team. They won the AFL championship in 1963 and were a playoff team in 1961, 1964, 1965 and 1966.

The 1950's were a really fun period to grown up as a kid in San Diego. This was a fun set of questions!

Labels: Memories, San Diego area

I'm busily putting together my presentations for the 20 October seminar, and thought that I would ask my faithful, experienced and really smart readers for their recommendations.

The first of my talks is an "Internet Genealogy Survey." My plan is to list the "best" web sites for each type of genealogy or family history record - e.g., locality books, surname books, census, military, cemetery, immigration, naturalization, vital, land, probate, Bible, etc. records. I also have lists for data portals, search engines, societies, online databases, and the like. I am limiting this to US research for now.

I am not the sharpest knife in the genealogy drawer, and I'm absolutely sure that I haven't visited every great genealogy web site available, so I would appreciate your suggestions. I am looking for that "great" site that not many researchers know about.

I am covering Ancestry, Footnote, WorldVitalRecords, GenealogyBank, Rootsweb, USGenWeb, FamilySearch, National Archives, CyndisList, HeritageQuestOnline and other sites in some detail, so please don't recommend those.

Please write a comment to me by clicking "Comments" below or email me at rjseaver(at)cox.net. Thanks!!!

Labels: Online resources

I'm still catching up on my lost long weekend without genealogy.

One of the most significant posts from early this week is by Benjamin Nettesheim on the Ancestry.com blog about Family Tree Maker 2008 issues and plans. This was a follow up to the first post here, which has 49 comments to date.

He discusses the major bug fixes, Timeline, items in the shipping product, items purposely not included of changed significantly in the new release, items fixed in a current patch or the October patch, items being developed, items being considered for the future, items identified as new problems, benefits and improvements in FTM 2008 (relative to FTM 2006?).

There are 25 comments from readers and users of FTM 2008 to this post, many with complaints. This is going to be a long hard slog to get FTM 2008 up to snuff - where it works well and makes the customers happy.

My wish list is fairly short - I posted at length about it here. I'm still looking for the "right" software - and am considering FTM 2008, RootsMagic, Legacy Family Tree and The Master Genealogist.

Labels: FamilyTreeMaker, genealogy software

This is Installment 41 of the Journal of Della (Smith) Carringer, my great-grandmother, who resided at 2115 30th Street in San Diego in 1929.

The "players" and "setting" are described here. Pictures of some of the players are here. Last week's Journal entry is here.

Here is Week 41:

====================================

Tuesday, October 8: I took my bath & did some work. A[ustin] got along very well. I went to town, met Lyle at Bank of Italy, had him sign to be on Safty box with me. Then I pd $30 for my Inshurance on this house at Shreves for 3 yrs at $5000 then went to see Montgomery Ward store and up to Elva's, had a nice visit, got home by dark.

Wednesday, October 9: I gave $1.00 for Red Cross in community. Went with Emily & mother up to Park. Betty went to her school & I to Bridges Galery then to lilly ponds, saw seven wimmen painting pictures. Picked figs gave them all away. Mrs A[uble] made a little jam.

Thursday, October 10: I trimmed shrubery & tied up Poinsettas. Ma worked too, then we rested in afternoon. Ma wrote Mary Dyar yesterday.

Friday, October 11: Ma worked around little fig tree & I ironed. This afternoon posted on my Bank books and sewed a little. A[ustin] got pay.

Saturday, October 12: Ed over, mowed lawn, brought some apples & grapes. Emily went to L.A. this 6 A.M. with Mr. Nolan's. Emily took some 3 hats to see if she can get some to make. Mrs. Auble Lyle & Betty go up at 2 P.M. come back tomorrow or Mon[day] morning.

Sunday, October 13: Miss Thoren (pd rent $25) went to Los Angeles to visit her sister. I worked on west Lawn. A[ustin] watered & put some furtilizer on. I did not do anything this P.M. At 8 P.M. Glen Loucks called up to say (Hellow) & tell us he was married the 23 of Sep[tember]. A[ustin] watered Lyle's lawn. Lyle's came home about 9 P.M. had a nice time.

Monday, October 14: I went to town, put deed on lots 10, 11, 12 Bk 61 Seaman & Choat in Safty box 1st Nat[ional] & Inshurance Papers on 2115-30th St in Bk of Italy box. Deposited $20 of Miss Thoren's rent & $90 of A[ustin]'s [pay], got $8 of drug suplies on sales at Monarch & Owl drug store. The Motorcade arrived from Florida today. I went to cooking school, home by 5 P.M.

===========================

Della continues to take her bath on Tuesday, and does her banking work throughout the week. I think that the Glen Loucks marriage date is new information for me, but I don't know his wife's name. I can probably find it in the 1930 census and perhaps in the CA Death Index. I wonder if they had any children?

Labels: Della's Journal, My genealogy research

The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War have a grave registration database at http://www.suvcwdb.org/home/. You can input a surname and given name into a search box (there are more boxes for birth date, death date, unit, cemetery, city, county, state, etc.) and determine if a soldier is in their database.

Since I am collecting "all" Seaver surname records, I input only "Seaver" in the surname box and got 43 hits. The results box shows only the soldier's name, When you click on one of the names, the state they served, the branch of the service, and the cemetery location. When you click on the soldier's name, then a separate window opens and there may be information for:

* Soldier's name
* Birth date
* Death date
* Union or confederate soldier
* Unit, state, branch, company or ship, and rank
* Enlisted and discharged
* Miscellaneous information
* Cemetery name and street location
* Cemetery lot, section, and grave number
* Cemetery city, county, state
* GAR post and department
* Grave marker indicators

Many of the entries in this database have only a few of these items included. There is an opportunity on the web site to register and add information if you know it.

This is an excellent resource for Civil War soldiers. If you are searching for the burial location of a Civil War soldier, this is a good place to start.

Labels: Cemetery records, Military records, Online resources

Jasia at the beautifully done (in fall colors) Creative Gene blog asks the question "What Is Your Genealogy Worth To You (DIY)?" She talks about doing it herself rather than hiring someone to do it, and that it might have been cheaper to hire someone. She notes that "money isn't everything when it comes to discovering your family history." Amen!!!

I started this post thinking, "well, I can take the number of years I've done research, times the hours per year of digging for records plus the microfilm costs, then add in the hours putting it in the software, then add in the cost of the copies and documents themselves, and don't forget the trips to distant repositories to find cousins and records, then there are books, magazine and database subscriptions...hmmm, that's a bunch of real money."

During the first 16 years of my research (1988-2003), I was going to the FHC nearly every Saturday for 3 to 6 hours, and often ordered 3 or 4 microfilm some weeks (but they were cheaper then). So that might be about 180 hours at the FHC, and say 100 microfilm a year. If the hourly cost of a professional was $15 an hour then (high for 1988-2003? not for a good one), and a microfilm was $3 each, then the cost would have been $3,000 per year. Adding in say another 360 hours per year to collect, review, organize, and input the data into a useful format and a software program gets us into real money! Plus about $500 per year for books, magazines and subscriptions. Add in an average of one research trip each year (let's see, New England 6 times, England, Norway, PA/NJ/NY/Ontario, Seattle, San Francisco, DC/MD/VA, I've probably missed a few trips) - say $1,000 per year for the genealogy part of the trips.

With all those assumptions, it comes to about $10,000 per year. Over 16 years, that is over $160,000 if I had hired a professional who worked the same number of hours and followed the same leads I did to find my family history.

Of course, it all depends on what level of research you want to find; just the family roots - names, dates, places, relationships? Or real family history - stories, deeds, wills, tombstones, obituaries, etc?

Say the professional was much more efficient and was able to pursue my genealogy and family history over those 16 years and spent only half of the hours I spent, but searched all of the microfilms I did? Well, that's still about $80,000, isn't it.

The above doesn't count the last 4 years which I've spent trying to add more family history data in original records - wills, deeds, etc. I haven't visited the FHC as often since about 2004, but I have spent significant hours at home transcribing, abstracting and inputting what I have. When Internet databases for the census records became available in 2003, I spent hours at the FHC doing my one-name studies (I had already found census records for my ancestral families, except for some of them who were elusive before the search engines became useful). Assuming the same level of activity, but not the microfilm expense, the last 4 years add up to another $8,000 or more a year (time and money). Of course, I have spent more time on blogging than on researching over the last 18 months, so my "costs" have gone down a bit.

I made the choice 19 years ago to pursue this hobby (now addiction) myself rather than hire professionals to do it for me. I am glad I did.

What has it really cost me in dollar terms? Really, just the cost of things I rented or purchased (microfilm rentals, magazines, periodicals, books, copies, airfare, hotel rooms, food on the road, databases, etc). Perhaps that came out to be $1,500 to $2,000 a year on average. My time and labor costs are not included in that estimate. It's still a chunk of money.

Was it worth it? YES!!!!!!! The last 19 years have provided me with:

* An opportunity to do real "research" - something that as an engineer I loved doing throughout my career, and when I got into management I no longer had the opportunity. Rather than researching at work, I started doing research at home.

* A chance to get to know my family members (siblings, cousins, in-laws, aunts, uncles, etc) and communicate with them on a regular basis.

* The ability to learn my family "history" - where my ancestors lived, what they did, how they lived, the events in their lives - a measure of personal history for each of them through the snapshots that the various documents provided to me.

* An outlet for my creative and deductive energies - to write, to help others, to learn techniques and processes. I love mysteries and histories.

* The opportunity to share with colleagues my enthusiasm and love for genealogy and family history through presentations, society leadership and blogging.

Genealogy research has been a major part of my life through the last 19 years, and I have enjoyed almost every minute of it. By my own accounting, I do spend about 500 to 600 hours a year (and perhaps more - every time I start a journal I lose track of it after a week or two). Does that seem like a lot? 600 hours averages out to less than 2 hours a day over a year. There are few days that I don't do something genealogy related, and there are many days when I "work" 8 to 12 hours on genealogy. To me, it's not really work - it is play - it's fun. It's stimulating. It's fascinating.

Is this a good subject for the Carnival of Genealogy? Probably! I look forward to Jasia's further comments on the subject. And those of others, either as comments to this post or as posts by other genea-bloggers.

Labels: musings, My genealogy research

I missed the Genetic Genealogy segment on CBS 60 Minutes show on Sunday (putting two little boys to bath and bed really limits one's genealogy activity!), but several genealogy bloggers didn't miss it and wrote comments about it.

Megan Smolenyak's post "60 Minutes on DNA: Deja Vu All Over Again" observed that she had made many of the points in her previous posts and articles over the past few years.

Blaine Bettinger's post "Genetic Genealogy on 60 Minutes" provides links to a number of blogs and lists that discussed the show. He also provided a link to the CBS summary of the show here.

John D. Reid's post "TV Genealogy" provides a nice summary of the show's main points and conclusions.

I read these three posts before I read the CBS article, and I can understand the concern that the show hyped the "controversy" that different DNA analysis companies don't tell the customer everything.

However, the underlying story of Vy Higgensen (an African-American woman in New York City) and Marion West (a European-American from Missouri) is a grabber - they turn out to be cousins through the Y-DNA analysis (they had a common male progenitor in their paternal lines). From there, CBS goes into what Vy was told by the different DNA analysis companies about her African ancestry (in her mother's line) - there were several locations in western Africa found by different companies. Interestingly, they didn't explore the paternal line to find the most recent common patrilineal ancestor (it was probably a slaveholder somewhere in the South, I'd guess, or perhaps colonial RI or NY) shared by Vy and Marion.

I'm sorry that I missed the show - read the CBS story "Reconstructing the Family Tree" for all the details.

Thanks to Megan, Blaine and John for the analysis and the links - it was a fun read tonight. Even though I don't understand the technical aspects of DNA testing and analysis, I do try to understand the results and the consequences.

To me, any TV show that does a fair job of explaining the methodologies used and the results obtained from genealogy and family history research is a plus - it will interest more people in our addiction, er, vocation or avocation, and that's all good.

Labels: genealogy education, genetics

I just got home from Santa Cruz, and have a massive list of email and a stack of snail mail and newspapers to sort through, so I'm going to take the smart way out this week.

Rather than take several hours to go find and list my favorite genea-blog posts of the last week (since I didn't make a list like I usually do), I'm going to give you the link to Terry Thornton's post "Don't Miss These ..." on his Hill Country of Monroe County blog.

He has neatly listed a number of outstanding posts from the last week. Please go visit Terry's blog and read the recommended articles. As always, there is at least one post on this list that I haven't read, and a blog I haven't put on my blog list. I will!

Thanks Terry!

Labels: BestofGeneaBlogs, genealogy blogs

I'm still in the Santa Cruz mountains at my daughter's house. It's a little cabin with a room addition in back - pretty small for a growing family, and surrounded by redwood trees. When the boys (ages 4 and 19 months) are around I call it Chaos Manor.

The older boy is really into airplanes - they went to a Blue Angels air show last week and got a great book with airplane pictures, maneuvers, stories, etc. I've been showing him the different maneuvers using a Blue Angels F-18 model airplane. I've also started explaining how an airplane works - lift, drag, thrust, weight, pitch, roll, yaw, etc. Another couple of lessons and he'll have it down. He has a box full of airplanes, and some airplane toys that are launched outside, plus some rocket ship models. It's really fun to work with him.

The little guy is really tough and adorable. When his brother grabs him, he fights back - they weigh almost the same. He loves being with men - we sit and he points at body parts and when I name them he points at his own body part. He knows them all. He's just starting to say words, but he has Yes and No (complete with head motion - Yes is hard!) and OK down pat. I'm sleeping in the same room with him, and my slumber has been fitful. He woke up at 12:30 AM last night, so I got him in bed with me and he went until 3 AM, then woke up and his mom nursed him a bit, and put him down. He woke up before 6 and she took him into bed with her. Both boys were up by 6:30 and I went out to monitor their feed and play activities while mom slept a bit more.

We took them both to pre-school (separate schools) this morning by 9 AM, then went for a walk in the state park in the redwoods with Annie (the dog), and had breakfast before we went shopping. My daughter is off at the preschool now for a meeting, and she'll bring the boys back after 3 PM. So I have 2 whole hours to do my thing - post this blog, take a nap, read my book, watch TV, etc. When they get home, I have to supervise dinner, bath and night time, so I'm sure it will be chaotic for awhile.

I go home tomorrow afternoon, so I won't post anything until the evening. I have lots of work to do - our CVGS seminar is in 11 days, and I have to finish my four presentations. I'm about 30% done right now, but I have it all planned out. Then I need to work on the syllabus.

I'm sorry I haven't posted more about genealogy things - but I know my fellow genea-bloggers have, so if you're bored by Genea-Musings please click on one of the links on my blogroll and see if they've written anything interesting.

Labels: musings

Prompt #25 at Miriam Midkiff's Ancestories 2 blog is for "Your First Job." She has a series of 10 questions to answer. I'm not going to follow the questions exactly, but I'll try to cover most of them.


My first "real" job was working for my favorite football team, the San Diego Chargers during the summer of 1963. I didn't apply for it, it just happened by luck. I was 19 and hanging out with another guy named Randy Lee, who had a car (I didn't) and we were having fun riding around, going to the beach, and playing music on his pirate station. His father was an independent TV producer, and was part of an investment group that owned a dude ranch in the San Diego backcountry called "Rough Acres Ranch." There were about 20 cabins with 4 bunk beds each, a kitchen and program building, and several football sized fields.


Early in training camp, Randy's dad took us out there on a Saturday to see the team practice. We got there just in time for lunch, and when we walked in, Sid Gillman (the coach) came over to meet us and asked Randy's dad "So are these my new camp boys? I need two." His dad said, "well, what do you think? Want to give it a try?" Of course, Randy and I said yes. We stayed that night and learned the ropes and looked agog at the players we knew only from the newspaper and TV.


The Chargers were started in 1960 and played in Los Angeles for a year. Then they moved to San Diego and were the AFL Western champs in 1961, losing the championship game to Houston. In 1962, the team faded when QB Jack Kemp (yep, that Jack Kemp) got hurt and they finished out of the playoffs. In 1963, Sid Gillman claimed that they had to get tougher - so it was out to Rough Acres Ranch, a curfew during the week, no women, just work hard and get strong.


Our jobs were to sweep and mop the floors and clean the toilets every day in our assigned set of rooms. I think we probably had 10 rooms each. We did this while the team was at morning practice. In the afternoon, we could watch the practice. After dinner, the players would sit outside in small groups and shoot the bull, play cards, or pull stunts. The favorite stunt was for some country boys to get a rattlesnake rattle, put it on a stick, find some city boys sitting around and try to scare them - it usually worked! The other stunt was to catch a scorpion in something - a bottle or bag), wait until the targets were in their room with the door open (no A/C then), and the toss the scorpion into the room - you should have seen the big guys scramble to get on their bunks and not get stung by this little guy with his stinger running around the room.


For a young San Diego sports fan, this was an ideal job! I got to see and know (well, sometimes it was a "hi kid"!) Sid Gillman (head coach), Al Davis (coach), John Madden (coach), John Hadl (QB), Yobin Rote (QB), Lance Alworth (WR), Dave Kocourek (TE), Paul Lowe (RB), Keith Lincoln (RB), Ernie Ladd (DT), Earl Faison (DE), Chuck Allen (LB), Frank Buncom (LB), Charlie McNeil (CB), and many others - now I can't remember the names off the top of my head.


The job for me was 6 weeks long. My friend Randy Lee lasted about 4 days - he hurt his back and went home to recover. I don't remember how much I made - perhaps $50 a week plus room and board. And free pre-season tickets for my brother and I. I brought a rattlesnake skin home as a trophy - my folks hung the smelly thing outside, and when the flies came around, my 8-year brother caught them for his turtle.


The most memorable experience was the night that Ernie Ladd (6'9" tall, 300 pounds, he was later a pro wrestler). The team had a special bed built for him, but hadn't ordered extra length sheets. Ernie was a holdout until the last week of camp, and when he signed, we had no warning. We were already in our room in bed, when there was a knock on the window and a gruff voice saying "Hey kid, make mah bed!" I scrambled, found some sheets and a blanket, and hurried over to his room and made the bed and quickly disappeared without hearing a "thanks, kid" from Big Ernie.


One of the players made friends with most of the camp boys, and he took us out hiking and hunting in the evening and early morning. We climbed the hills, looking for snakes and rabbits, and saw several beautiful morning sunrises. Frank Buncom was a prototype linebacker, 6-2, 230 lbs, a big, well-spoken, happy black guy from Mississippi (I think) who graduated from college in 1962. He was in his second year and had a heart of gold and a tremendous hunger to prove himself on the field. Unfortunately, Frank got traded to Cincinnati in 1964 and died on the field in 1967. What a tragedy.


One day, I asked my mother if we could invite Frank over for dinner. She said OK, and I called him up through the Chargers office. He accepted and came by on the appointed night. My little brother wanted to play catch with a real football player, so we went out on 30th street and threw the football around. He was so nervous that he couldn't run his routes well - he was really awestruck by Frank. My father was too - he had never known many black people, and was amazed that Frank had a college degree and was looking forward to being a teacher. My mother really appreciated Frank that he had befriended me and broadened my world a little. I don't know what we had for dinner, but my brother and I have always remembered that evening.


The Chargers went 11-3 and were AFL champions in 1963, beating the Boston Patriots 51-10 at Balboa Stadium in San Diego. I was there with my brother. That is the only championship team in major league sports for a San Diego team. The Chargers finally made it to a Super Bowl in 1995, but lost to the 49ers by 49-23.


While the job was fun for me, and not mentally challenging like my college work was, it provided some spending money and raised my stature in the eyes of my parents and brothers. I "knew" the players on the team.


This was not the biggest or most important moment in my life - that would come later with marriage and children. But it was my first step to independent living and I learned that I could stick with something and succeed on my own. I had a little help from a friend, but I did it my way (mixing my Beatles and Sinatra there, but you get the idea!).

Labels: musings

Lee Drew at the FamHist genealogy blog found a real "deal" on genealogy software and an Ancestry subscription. See his post "Genealogists - Deal of the Year." There is a link on his page to buy FamilyTreeMaker 16, GenSmarts, an Ancestry subscription and more stuff for $15.49 plus shipping from a website called www.NothingButSoftware.com.

Lee thinks that the year's subscription to Ancestry may be the World Deluxe subscription.

The regular price for this was $99.99 and they say it is a $450 value. We'll see. I ordered it because I want to try GenSmarts. If it is really a World Deluxe subscription to Ancestry, I'll keep it and use it for myself, cancelling my current US Deluxe subscription when it expires in a month. I'll probably donate the FTM 16 and other items to CVGS for the opportunity drawings we have each month.

I'll let you know what I get when I get it. Sometimes deals like this are too good to be true, and sometimes they are everything they claim it to be.

Thanks to Lee for his sharp eye for a good deal. Did he order it also?

Labels: Ancestry.com, genealogy software

Here is the press release sent out by the Chula Vista Public Library on 2 October for the 20 October seminar:

---------------------------------------

BEGIN YOUR FAMILY HISTORY SEARCH AT FREE SEMINAR ON OCT. 20

Ever wondered when your relatives came to California or wanted to trace your ancestors back to their countries of origin but don’t know how to begin a search for the answers? Then don’t miss a free seminar titled “Discover Your Family History Online” on October 20 at the Chula Vista Civic Center Branch Library, 365 F St. The seminar will be from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The seminar is intended for young-adults and adults who are interested in researching their family history. The focus will be on genealogy resources available on the Internet, including freely accessible and commercial genealogy web sites.

“Finding out about your ancestry is like a treasure hunt or a detective story---you never know what you will find,” said Randy Seaver, President of the Chula Vista Genealogical Society. “This seminar will give participants an opportunity to find out about web sites that are available to start their own family history search.”

In addition to this seminar, the Chula Vista Genealogical Society (CVGS) regularly meets on the last Monday of the month at 10 a.m. in the Civic Center Library auditorium. Additionally, a CVGS member is usually present in the library on Mondays from 10 a.m. to noon to assist people with their research. The meetings and assistance are free and open to the public.

Sponsored by the Chula Vista Public Library and the Chula Vista Genealogical Society, this workshop is one of a variety of free programs offered for children, teens and adults at the library’s three branches. For more information call (619) 691-5069 or click on www.chulavistalibrary.com, or the CVGS website: www.rootsweb.com/~cacvgs2/. To contact the CVGS president Randy Seaver directly, e-mail rjseaver@cox.net or call 619-422-3397.


----------------------------------------

We are hoping for a large turnout among San Diego area researchers. If you have that day free, please come attend our seminar.

Labels: CVGS, Online resources

I've been at my daughter's house in Santa Cruz for two days and I'm already too pooped to pop. Most of it has to do with sleeping arrangements and two little boys who don't sleep the night. The rest has to do with a family in the process of saying goodbye to the family patriarch.

I'm sleeping in the older boy's (age 4) , with the younger boy (age 19 months) in the bedroom. The older boy is sleeping with his mom. The first night, the little one woke up at 3:30 and I finally got him back to sleep at 4:30, but then when I tried to put him in his crib, he woke up. Mom came and took him and I went back for another fitful two hours before the older boy came and asked me to get him some breakfast at 7 AM.

We drove 150 miles north to the family home of my son-in-law's grandparents, sister and uncle. His grandfather has congestive heart failure, and has stopped eating. He received the last rites on Thursday, and thought that he would die immediately. Well... no. He's still lucid, but is not sleeping much, and really wants to pass away. His wife is tending to him 24 hours, which makes her a basket case also. Family friends are coming by, and all of the family in town comes every day to say goodbye again. I doubt if he will die for several more days. They won't move him to a care facility at this point.

I slept at the sister's house next door with the older boy in the room. He woke up at 1 AM and didn't go back to sleep until 2 AM. He wanted to go down to where his mom was in the dark. He woke up at 6:15 AM, and got his shoes on and was halfway down the hill by the time I got to the window. I went down and had breakfast, then came back to the sister's house and showered and then took a nap while she played with the boy.

We left at lunch time for home, and had lunch at a Quizno's place, then fought the traffic down US 101 to San Francisco (there was an air show on the Bay today). We stopped at the Ocean Beach and the boys and the dog (I didn't mention the dog did I - she pooped on the carpets in 3 places in 12 hours!) really enjoyed walking on the sand and running from the waves. They came home in their underwear. The little guy cried and cried most of the hour before the beach and the hour after the beach. We finally made it home by 4 PM.

I took them both for walks this afternoon with the dog, just along the path near the little house in the redwoods. It's so peaceful and quiet here. We checked out the blackberry bushes (pretty bare right now) and watched the dog follow her nose. At dinner tonight, the older boy said "I don't like broccoli" and I responded automatically "Come on, eat it, it will put hair on your chest." He immediately said "No, I have a diesel train on my chest" (on his shirt). That's the highlight of the weekend so far.

Needless to say, it's not been a fun weekend yet. But family history is being made. I know the older boy will remember his great-grandfather, and playing with his aunt, and the beach visit. We'll remember the maudlin scene and saying goodbye to a fine man, and the broccoli comment.

The above explains why I haven't posted much the last two days. The postings will be sparse until the time available increases.

Labels: musings

There is an intriguing article in the Irish Abroad online newspaper dated 13 September 2007 title "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"

The gist of the story is:

"Bridget Kelly from Moyross in Limerick saw an advertisement in the Irish Independent newspaper looking for Irish relatives of an American gentleman by the name of Richard Riordan-Schalk. Kelly recognized some of the names that were listed as ancestors of Riordan-Schalk’s and called attorney Paul Lanzillota of the Manning and Murray law firm in Arlington, Virginia.

"However, Lanzillota told the Irish Voice on Tuesday there are another 160 possible relatives of the dead man.“At this point we have 161 names of people who might have been related to Richard Riordan-Schalk,” he said."

---- <> ----

"“The only heirs we can’t find are the Irish heirs. One half of this estate is going to the German side of the family and one half to the Irish,” said Lanzillota.“We found the Germans very quickly, some of whom were in Chicago and one in Massachusetts. But for Ireland the research went back as far as 1842.

"The difficulty now is proving that they are heirs,” said Lanzillota, explaining that another $300,000 of the estate has been given an individual to settle a lawsuit."

----- <> -----

"Anyone who can prove to be related to the following may be eligible, if proven, to claim part of the estate that Richard Riordan Schalk left behind: David Riordan, who was born in 1808 and died in 1865. Mary Riordan (nee McCarthy) date of birth and death not known. Both resided in Limerick.

"Bartholomew Daly and Mary Daly (nee Walsh) who married on March 28, 1852 in Freemount, Co. Cork. They emigrated to Chicago and had three children, Elizabeth Daly Riordan, (September 9, 1858 to July 7, 1932), Michael Daly (October 10, 1856-death unknown) and Eileen Daly (July 2, 1864-death unknown)."

It's interesting to see how others have reported this story. For instance:

* Dick Eastman on his blog posted "Who Wants to be a Millionaire? - Irish Edition"

* An obituary for Richard Riordan-Schalk appeared in the National Press Club newsletter for 15 April 2004 here.

* The Limerick (Ireland) Leader newspaper published a similar article titled "Search for Heirs of $1.9 Million Fortune."

So far, they have identified 161 heirs. It's unclear if these are all equal shares -- they probably aren't if the siblings of Richard Riordan-Schalk's ancestors way back when did not have the same number of kids. But if the shares were equal, the $1.9 million would be split into shares of 11,801.24. And that's before the attorneys fees finding these relatives and processing mountains of paper. Not much, eh?

I did a search like this for my second cousin several years ago - our great-uncle died without children but he left a will leaving his estate to charity and friends. My cousin wanted to contest the will, and asked me to investigate since I have records for many of the descendants of Thomas and Julia (White) Richmond (8 siblings had issue).

Assuming that the estate would be split evenly among descendants of our great-uncle's siblings, I figured that my cousin's share would be about $125,000 out of a $1 million estate (her grandmother had 1 child who had 1 child), and mine would have been about 11,000 (since my grandmother had 7 children who had 11 children). But we would have had to contest the will - our shares would have disappeared into legal fees in a flash if not sooner. But it was fun to pursue and think about!

Labels: current newspaper articles, My genealogy research

The latest Carnival of Genealogy is posted at http://creativegene.blogspot.com/2007/10/carnival-of-genealogy-33rd-edition.html by Jasia. The topic for this issue is Weddings. There are many interesting stories here - please read them all.

The next Carnival of Genealogy will be about Halloween and the Supernatural! Lots of latitude with this edition... stories of haunted houses, ghosts, any superstitions, voodoo, stories of Halloween parties or traditions, trick or treating, good luck charms, curses, ... Was there a witch in the family? How about a black cat? Anyone have bats in the house? Is there a legend about a spooky place in your neighborhood? What was your favorite Halloween costume? Any funny scarecrow stories? Did grandma have a magic potion? Any stories of ancestors rising up from the dead to haunt people? What about bizarre happenings on the night of a full moon? Bring on your hauntings and horror stories, humorous and happy ones as well.

Submit your blog article to the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy using our carnival submission form. The deadline for submissions is October 15th, 2007. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

PS. I arrived safely in Santa Cruz ... almost got knocked down by a 35 pound 4-year old greeting me at the airport, though - the kid's going to be a running back, I think. We went to our fave Chinese food place for lunch - he had tofu and noodles, I had almond chicken. Then we came home for a nap. Now I gotta go outside and play. See you soon.

Labels: Carnivals

I'm off on Thursday to visit my daughter and grandsons in the Santa Cruz area of California. With her husband deployed, the boys need some male attention and she needs some rest. So -- here comes grandpa - ready to fly airplanes, play in the woods, find banana slugs and pick blackberries with the little guys. I also plan to chase them around the house, and watch Thomas and his Friends, the Little Einsteins and the Wiggles on TV. I hope they let me watch the baseball playoff games and the football game on Sunday. I'll probably get to tickle their sides, feed them, bathe them, hug them, tell them stories, whisper ahnentafel lists, and everything else fun to do with little boys.

This is what I call "making family history" - instilling fun and happy times with grandpa in their memories so that they will appreciate me when I can't do it any more.

I will not take my laptop this time, but will have access to the Internet most evenings, so I'll post occasionally. I may miss a day or two if we go up to Petaluma to see the boys' great-grandfather.

I hope to return to San Diego on Tuesday next week. I will have to delay my "regular" feature posts - "The Best of the Genea-Blogs" and "Della's Journal" until I get back.

If you absolutely have to have a genealogy blog fix, then please go visit my colleagues on the blog roll to the right of this page. They are chock full of ancestral stories and genealogy tips and will greatly appreciate you stopping by and reading their work.

Labels: musings

WorldVitalRecords.com has announced that they have added 800,000 images and 32 million names from the 1790 to 1930 census records -- see the announcement here. The announcement sounds so good - that this is a real boon to genealogy research -- "You can now see census records at WorldVitalRecords.com."

But wait. I observe that:

* There are images from selected counties for each year. Not even whole states. If you are real lucky, you might find one of your counties included.

* There are no indexes for most of these records (they say 1790 is indexed), so you will have to page through them one at a time looking for your people. Deja vu here - remember cranking microfilm looking for your targets page-by-page? Now you can mouse-scroll at home rather than crank at the FHC.

* 32 million names sounds like a lot. I counted up the numbers on Ancestry some time ago, and came up with almost 600 million names in their indexes for 1790 to 1930 census records. So 32 million is like 6%. In other words, you have 1 chance in 16 of finding a record for a given person.

* Will there be more census images and names as time goes on? The announcement doesn't say. My guess is that AllCensus is working on it, but slowly.

* Will WVR or AllCensus really provide an every-name index? Ever? They say they will - but only time will tell.

Of course, Ancestry.com has all of the census records available already for 1790-1930, with an every-name index, for a US subscription cost, or for FREE at a library that subscribes to Ancestry Library Edition.

HeritageQuestOnline has all of the census images, but only certain years with a head-of-household index, available for in-home use if you have a library card for a participating library.

New FamilySearch will eventually have all of the census images with an every-name index sometime in the future - for FREE.

I appreciate that WorldVitalRecords is adding census records to their collection, but what they have added so far won't entice me to subscribe to their collection, since I can get much more in census records for free from other providers (although I have to go to a library to obtain them).

Labels: censuswhacking, Commercial genealogy, genealogy resources, Online resources

I received an email from Family Tree Magazine describing AGES-Online (AGES Stands for Advanced Genealogical Exploration Services) as a service that is "Saving Your Family History for the Ages" and offers "Fully Loaded For Your Genealogical Needs," listing the capabilities as:


* Build Your Family Tree Online
* User Friendly
* Easy Navigation
* Load Nothing on Your PC
* Access Anywhere, Anytime!
* Collaborate with Family and Friends
* Import Your GEDCOM
* Security (It's YOUR Data!)
* Unlimited Numbers of Individuals
* Extensive Events & Details
* Source / Citation Templates
* Reports
* Free Enhancements

The site claims:

"It's Your Data! AGES believes your family data is your data and not public domain. All AGES accounts are password protected and are only visible to you and your guests.

"Data Center Backups. Enjoy genealogy without the worries. Your records are backed up in multiple data center locations.

"Standard Templates. Enjoy our extensive templates for entering Events, Details, Sources and Citations. Templates created using Industry Standards."

After a brief look around the web site, it appears that this is a commercial web site designed so that a user can enter and store their genealogy data online. It is not a true social network site, although you can share information with other researchers of your choice.

In short, it is a substitute for genealogy software residing on your computer and genealogy data stored in a database on your computer. It would be available to the user any place you could access the Internet.

This site offers an Economy subscription as a 30 day Free Trial. The Economy subscription ($39.95 for an Annual subscription) includes full Family Tree Edit capabilities, Unlimited number of individuals, and numerous reports and charts.

There will be Standard, Enhanced and Deluxe subscriptions available later with more capabilities (no prices given). You can see all of the Features for each subscription type at http://www.ages-online.com/features.cfm.

You can click on the plus (+) sign next to each Feature type to see what each subscription offers. A drop-down list will appear when you click the (+) sign and you can see check marks to describe what each subscription level offers.

For example, the Economy subscription will offer only Family Group Sheet, Outline Descendant and Descendant Genealogy Reports in the Reports category. If you want a Custom Report, Source Usage report, a Citation Usage report and several other reporting capabilities, they will only be available in the more expensive subscription.

You can upload a GEDCOM file for all subscription levels. There is no indication about what will happen to User Notes or Facts uploaded in a GEDCOM. There is no Ahnentafel List or Ancestor Report offered at any level - these are standard reports with almost all genealogy software.

They offer a personalized web site in the Standard, Enhanced and Deluxe levels with an upload of a single picture for each individual.

There are many more features - go visit the site and read all of the information. I recommend using the Free Trial to see what information is uploaded and what report capabilities are provided.

For $39.95, I can make a one-time purchase of new FamilyTreeMaker 2008 software that will do nearly everything (and probably more) that this web site will provide. The obvious exception is the database would be online and accessible to the user anywhere they had access to the Internet.

This is an initial review of this web site, and I may have missed some valuable features. I have not signed up for the free trial yet, but will in a week or so. If someone has more comments, please write your own blog post or comment on this post.

Labels: Commercial genealogy, genealogy software, Online resources

It's about time, isn't it? Shouldn't every commercial genealogy company have a blog capability affiliated with their web site in order to announce new databases, added capabilities, acquisitions and the like?

Of course, Ancestry has published a Weekly Ancestry News for years, and had a Daily Ancestry News for awhile, which was replaced by the 24/7 Family History Circle blog edited by Juliana Smith. A weekly email containing the blog posts comprises the current Ancestry Weekly News sent by email to subscribers for FREE.

It makes sense for The Generations Network to create a blog for each of its' major products. There are already blogs for:

* MyFamily.com 2.0

* Rootsweb NewsRoom

* Ancestry.com Blog

At the latter site, the introductory post on 25 September said:

"Welcome to the Ancestry Blog! We’ve created this Ancestry blog as the place to keep you connected with what’s going on at Ancestry.com. It’s a place to learn about new additions – our products, content, features and other services – as we develop them. Here you will read blog posts from the people who create and develop these products and features for Ancestry.com.

"You’ll find blog posts on all sorts of Ancestry.com topics: content and digitization, family trees and other site features. Learn the latest company news, see what the press has to say about the company, even offer your opinion in interactive polls. Read posts from the people who are continually working to improve Family Tree Maker, Ancestry Press, DNA Ancestry, Ancestry print publications and many other products. Chat with Tim Sullivan, president and CEO of The Generations Network, parent company of Ancestry.com.


"And, we want to hear from you. We hope you’ll leave comments and offer your thoughts, ideas and other opinions. Share your ideas on what works, what needs to improve and what you’d like to see on the site in the future."

That sounds like a well-intentioned effort to try to communicate with the subscribers of Ancestry services. However, "the proof is in the pudding" as they say. Is a blog really the most efficient and user-friendly way to communicate between customers and providers? It may be, but it might not be.

Are they saying that TGN CEO Tim Sullivan is writing the blog? Or that users can somehow "chat" with him, presumably electronically? Perhaps that is in the near future.

To date, the Ancestry.com blog has 8 posts (over 25 days) concerning Ancestry Press, FamilyTreeMaker and DNA Ancestry products. There are a few congratulatory comments, but there are few real constructive or critical comments yet - probably because these blogs are new to the genealogy world.

However, there are three sub-blogs on the list at the main Ancestry.com blog - one for Ancestry Press, one for FamilyTreeMaker and one for DNA Ancestry. However, the main Ancestry.com blog has posts for all of them.

For Ancestry databases and FamilyTreeMaker, there are message boards for review and comment and they are well used by subscribers trying to figure out how to use the products or services. There are also lists of Frequently Asked Questions on each web site in an effort to communicate with users and subscribers.

It seems to me that using one blog - the Ancestry.com blog - to try to communicate with users and subscribers of all of The Generations Network products will not work out well.

If asked, I would have recommended creating separate blogs for each product with a unique blog name - a blog family, if you will. A separate blog for each of the Ancestry.com family - US, Canada, UK, Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, etc. would probably work much better than one blog for all of Ancestry.com.

Likewise, a blog just for FamilyTreeMaker communication would probably be better than hiding the FTM light under the Ancestry.com blog bushel.

Of course, with blogs most of us know that CONTENT is everything. A blog requires constant care and feeding - often one or more posts a day - to maintain readership and to communicate with its readers. Will the developers of the different TGN products be able to regularly post development news and answer comments and questions from users?

Will The Generations Network really listen to the suggestions, comments and questions from their users and subscribers? After the public relations stumbles of the past 12 months, I wonder if they have the commitment to listen to the Voice of their Customers. If they have that commitment, then they need to demonstrate it. I sincerely hope that they will. If they don't, their competitors will gradually overtake them (I realize that it might be a very long chase!).

Labels: Ancestry.com, genealogy blogs, Online resources

The BBC News web page has an interesting article today titled "Scans Reveal Lost Gravestone Text" by Cristina Jimenez.

The lead paragraphs read:

"Illegible words on church headstones could be read once more thanks to a scan technology developed in the US.

"Scientists at Carnegie Mellon university are making high resolution 3D scans of tombstones to reveal the carved patterns in the stone.

"A computer matches the patterns to a database of signature carvings which reveals the words."

Later, the article says:

""This technology is expected to reduce guessing work in field inspection," said Dr Yang Cai, director of the Ambient Intelligence Lab at Carnegie Mellon Cylab.
"In recent weeks, Dr Cai's research team have been testing the new technique at a 200-year-old cemetery close to the university in Pittsburgh.

"The scientists have been scanning unreadable gravestones at Old St. Luke's Church to help its Episcopal pastor identify all the names on the cemetery's tombstones."

----------------------------------------

This will be especially useful in areas where gravestones have tremendous erosion and colorful blotches on them from coal and sulfur emissions. There are few graveyards in England that have readable stones from before 1900, in my limited experience in Wiltshire.

Now if they could only read the invisible gravestones that are lost to time - the ones that used to be on graves in cemeteries all over the world. We all know that the bare areas nearest the church used to have a field of gravestones that have been lost to weather, vandalism, etc.

Labels: current newspaper articles

My colleague Susi passed this information from Curt Witcher at the Allen County (IN) Public Library, which was published in the latest Genealogy Gems newsletter:

"This past Thursday, the 2007 edition of the "Periodical Source Index" (or PERSI as it is often called) was loaded on the www.HeritageQuestOnline.com web site. This latest edition of PERSI brings the total number of periodical titles indexed to 6,652 and the total number of article citations to 2,038,494! PERSI is the largest and most comprehensive subject index to genealogy and local history periodicals published in North America and the British Isles.

"It really should be a must-check source for every family line and geographic location one is researching. If you've never used PERSI or don't believe you're getting the full benefit from the index, sign up for the "Using PERSI" program on Tuesday, October 22nd from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. in the Main Library's Computer Classroom by calling (260)421-1225."

PERSI is described here. It is wonderful for what it does, and the Allen County (IN) Public Library (ACPL) offers a copying service for any article that a researcher wants to obtain - the order form is here.

It is very likely that key information that might solve many brick wall research problems is hiding in articles in genealogy periodicals and newsletters. Almost every state and many counties have regular genealogy publications, and local researchers have transcribed or abstracted millions of records and names.

There are also books and CDROMs that contain the PERSI index which can be found in libraries, but they are often dated. Online at HQO, you can search by surname, locality and keyword. However, the search is only on certain words in the title, author, locality or keyword list.

The problem with using PERSI effectively is that there is no "every-name" index such as there is on many genealogy web sites. The reason is obvious - the ACPL does not have digital archives for all of these periodicals, and if they did there would be substantial copyright issues with authors and publishers. I guess I've been spoiled in the last few years.

Here in the San Diego area, the Carlsbad Cole Library provides FREE home access to HeritageQuestOnline (HQO) to library members with a valid library card number. The card is free, but you have to visit the library.

Unfortunately, the last issue of Genealogy Gems at the newsletter archives page is March 2007. I'm sure that they will add the missing issues soon.

Labels: Genealogy Video, Online resources, periodical indexes

An article in the 2 October 2007 Washington Times newspaper is titled "Dixie tradition kept alive in Brazil enclave."

The article includes:

---------------------------------------

"AMERICANA, Brazil
Now well past 90, Judith MacKnight Jones is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, the illness that robbed her of all of her memory, her most precious asset. She has been lying here for the past 11 years, covered by a patchwork blanket, made from pieces her great-grandmother brought from the United States between 1865 and 1885, after the Confederacy lost the Civil War.

"Unable to speak or remember now, her book "Soldado Descanso" ("Rest Soldier") is written in Portuguese, but soon will be translated into English, as the publisher thinks Americans should know about the proud history of Confederate immigrants settling in Brazil, finding a new home here but maintaining many of the traditions they brought from Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, the Carolinas and Georgia.

----<> ----

""Over a century old and symbolizing our heritage, the flight from our homelands, it is extremely important to keep it that way. I teach my children and grandchildren the American values our ancestors have brought with them. And I expect them to teach their children and grandchildren the same," she said.

"Every spring, hundreds of the descendants of the soldiers who lost the war against the North go to the cemetery they call O Campo. They party and meet dressed in traditional costumes, staging shows, singing Southern songs like "When the Saints Come Marching In" or "Oh Susannah," playing banjos and blowing trumpets, the men eventually getting drunk on home-brewed beer."

---- <> ----

"Almost 150 years ago, Dr. James McFaddon from South Carolina went to Mobile, Ala., and New Orleans to open negotiations with Brazil to migrate, looking for a new home. He traveled to Brazil and, on his return, wrote a book, "Home Hunting in Brazil," planting seeds for emigration.

"Between 10,000 and 20,000 Americans made the journey, leaving the United States to look into building a new home and life. Today, they live not only in Americana and nearby Santa Barbara, but are scattered all over the hills of the state of Sao Paulo and over several other parts of Brazil, the fifth-largest country in the world. "

-----------------------------

Isn't that fascinating? Keeping traditions alive like that? Read the whole article. Has anybody ever researched these families?

Labels: current newspaper articles, Genealogy/History

One of the questions that arose at last week's CVGS Research Group meeting was "can Social Security Administration provide a death date for someone with a SS Number?" The situation was that this person was not in the Social Security Death Index (since he probably died before 1962 and may not have drawn benefits).

The Social Security web site at http://www.ssa.gov/foia/html/foia_guide.htm provides a list of services that SSA can provide. Included are the following:

** Search for Information about Death of an Individual, SSN Provided (SSA does not usually have place of death, burial, or cause of death) -- $16

** Search for Information about Death of an Individual, SSN Not Provided (SSA does not usually have place of death, burial, or cause of death) -- $18

Of course, I didn't find this web page until I had written them twice via email to ask the question. The first time I got an answer saying I could get the SS-5 application. The second time they emailed the info on this web page and did answer my question within one day.

I've passed this to my colleague who does know the SSN, so we'll see what she gets in response. She doesn't know John Robinson Hall's death date or place, but thinks it was probably in Philadelphia PA. If she can get a death date from SSA, then she can request an obituary lookup in the Philly newspapers from the Temple University library.


Did everybody know this? I sure didn't, but it is logical that SSA would have a death date recorded somewhere in an SSA file.

Now - what about the employment record? Will SSA have a list of Social Security taxes collected and the employment records by year for an individual?

Labels: genealogy resources, Research techniques, Research tips

Jean Wilcox Hibben is a Southern California genealogist and story teller par excellence (she has spoken at SDGS several times). She is a doctoral candidate now, and is looking for family stories to use in her research and dissertation.

She recently posted this to the APG mailing list (see the thread here). I asked for and was granted permission by Jean to post this on my blog.

=======================

Greetings, fellow APGers.

Some of you may have already heard about my dissertation project, and some have already submitted stories to it, but for those who have not, here is my plea for help.

I am a doctoral candidate in folklore and my dissertation is on family stories. Since my concentration is American folklore, the stories need to be American in origin, but immigration stories are acceptable. They need to be stories that have endured over at least 2 generations (things your grandparents told you or maybe what your parents shared that they learned from their parents, grandparents, etc.). Stories need to have had some sort of impact (however slight: even that the story inspired you to research your family lineage) ... in other words, why did the story manage to survive? Stories must also be from your own family (though if you have a client who has a great story, please encourage that person to submit it!). I am collecting stories from the genealogical community as that is the population I am eventually generalizing to, but stories need not be proven true ... in fact, some of the questionable stories that have endured and even impacted families are the most intriguing. I am following the general cataloging of folklorist Stephen Zeitlin at the folklore center in NY.

As an enticement, I am offering to donate $1 per story (that meets the criteria) to the genealogical society identified on the submission form (yes, this is ethical as I am not soliciting by offering to pay directly to submitters). I expect to be compiling the data by early spring 2008, so the sooner the stories are submitted, the more time I have to work with them (donations will be made once the analysis is complete ... hopefully by June 2008).

If you would be willing to submit your stories and/or present this opportunity (perhaps as a fundraiser) to your own genealogical society, please see the details and submission form at: <www.circlemending.org/familystory.html>. Sample stories can also be found at that website: <www.circlemending.org>, click on "Dissertation project."

I appreciate this list for the many bits of information I have received over the past years and now hope that some of you good folks will assist me in this area. Thank you so very much!!

Best,
Jean-- Jean Wilcox Hibben, MA,CGsm
Riverside County, California
Member, Association of Professional Genealogists
Member, Genealogical Speakers Guild
President, Corona (CA) Genealogical Society

==============================

Can you help Jean out with her project? There is an incentive for people to submit articles. It might be useful to visit her web site to see the type of stories that she wants.

Labels: genealogy education

As many of my faithful readers know, I am a San Diego sports fan - always have been, always will be. My town, my teams - Padres, Aztecs, Chargers. I root hard, and live and die with their fortunes.

Recent years have been good for the Chargers and Padres - they both made the playoffs in 2006, but lost early. In 2007, the Chargers were supposed to be the best team in the league on paper. Well, the Bolts are 1-3 after this weekend.

The Padres needed to win one game out of three this weekend, and didn't. No playoffs.

ARRRGGGGHHHHH. Sorry - I'm so disappointed. I posted a longer whine called The Worst Sports Weekend Ever? with all of the gory details.

Sorry for the non-genealogy post - my heart hasn't been in it yesterday and today.

I think I'll go on vacation and see the grandchildren and not worry about sports next weekend!

Labels: San Diego area

This is Installment 39 of the Journal of Della (Smith) Carringer, my great-grandmother, who resided at 2115 30th Street in San Diego in 1929.

The "players" and "setting" are described here. Pictures of some of the players are here. Last week's Journal entry is here.

Here is Week 40:

====================================

Tuesday, October 1: Washed. I took my bath. I ironed. Austin worked around home. Letter from Aunt L[ibbie].

Wednesday, October 2: Mr. Papke came to see me about the lots they will deed back to us to save foreclosure. We A[ustin] & I went down to Union Title to get a little information. Pd $65 on our Bldg & Loan have one more payment to make.

Thursday, October 3: We met Mr. Papke at 9:30 A.M. at the Union Title Co., they made out papers. Mr. Papke is to take the Quit ["Guarantee" overwritten] Title Deed up and have the signatures and stamps. I Pd safty box dues at Bank of Italy to 1930. Sent My Lodge dues for Oct Nov & Dec. Mr. & Mrs. Schmidt called while we were down town. Ate lunch with Ma & A[ustin]. I got home at 1.30 the Man Mr. Harris had left Ma's house in the night or evening said it was to warm for them. Had paid a months rent only there from the 25th to the Oct 2nd. Gave Mrs. Smythe $1.00 for water.

Friday, October 4: Emily took A[ustin] & I out to Ma's house. We found some things gone 1 cotton flannel Blanket, 1 white enamel foot tub, 1 rug, Eggbeater, Potato masher, 1 Pillow & some dishes, 1 slumber robe.

Saturday, October 5: Ed did not come over. A[ustin] & I went down to finish up deal, then we went out Ma's house & finished up fixing things. They left Thermos bottle, baby's blanket & her kid gloves, some whiskey bottles and a tester. We do not think they will be back, left dog with neighbor. I went out to Mr. Garlock's, stayed a while, they are about as usual. Emily making felt baby hats for store.

Sunday, October 6: Mrs. Hughes, Josephine & Ivas came home. Mrs. Lipp ($16.67) & Gilbert sisters ($20.) Pd on rent of 2119 30th St (owe $13.33). Lyle's went out at 10:30 A.M. on the boat with Mr. Griffiths & Nolans, had a nice time, home by seven P.M. We had to fight ants this morning, Mrs. Wilson had them too. Ma had bath.

Monday, October 7: A[ustin] took Mr. Fay his lodge dues for Oct, Nov & Dec. A[ustin] went back to work this morning will not get pay for a few days, they send it to San Pedro & back. We washed & picked figs sold 85c gave 5 lbs away.

==========================

The problem of Mr. Papke with paying his mortgage was a surprise - I wonder where the property is? I'll go check the 1930 census and see if I can find out. Hopefully, he will rent it rather than own it. As we approach the stock market crash later in October, Della and Austin have one more payment to make on their mortgage.

I'm still confused about Della paying lodge dues - she was an artist of some sort. Austin was a carpenter and was a member of a carpenters lodge or union, I guess.

Labels: Della's Journal, My genealogy research, San Diego area

Juliana Smith's 24/7 Family History Circle blog is providing regular prompts - 5 questions - for writing your personal history during Family History Month. This will be weekly during October.

In an effort to set down some personal history for my posterity, I'm going to give it a try. Five questions don't seem too hard - let's see what happens.

The first questions concern school memories:

1) What was your favorite subject in school?

MATHEMATICS. Fingers, adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, fractions, algebra, trigonometry, logarithms, calculus, differential equations. I entered San Diego State as a Mathematics major, but quickly changed to Aerospace Engineering when I realized that teaching was one of the only jobs available for Math majors - this was before computers, of course.

2) In what extra-curricular activities did you participate? Sports? Drama? Music? Academics?

SAFETY PATROL. I was a Private (4th grade), Sergeant (5th Grade) and Supply Sergeant (6th grade) at the corner of 30th and Ash Streets in San Diego from 1953 to 1957. Supply Sergeant was second-in-command to the Lieutenant and got to do all the jobs delegated to him. The red sweater, white pants and gold caps were cool. On Saturdays, the Police Department sponsored movies at the Fox Theater downtown - we saw lots of Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, etc. No Annette Funicello, though - too bad.

Sports? I couldn't hit a baseball, see over the butt of the center in football, came up to my friend's armpit in basketball, and soccer wasn't invented yet. My buddy Paul and I excelled in handball because we were closer to the floor than the other players. Drama - are you kidding? Meet Mr. Stage-Fright. Music - I sing in the key of J-Sharp, I'm told...'nuff said. Academics - we didn't have an Academic Bowl team then - and then there was the stage fright issue, which also hampered my dating prospects.

The school activity that I tried to avoid was after-school or evening dances. I was really into the music (1956-1961) and still am, but dancing was something I never physically mastered and was always leery of participating in. I was Mr. Wallflower all through Junior and Senior High School.

In high school, I ended up after school in the library in downtown San Diego. I could walk from school, and then safely take the bus home hours later. I would do homework research there, read current magazines and newspapers, and search for the "good" books in the fiction section. I learned a lot there! I never went in the genealogy room, though - unfortunately! (Heck, I could be all done with my family history if I'd only started 30 years earlier - right?)

3) Did you go on field trips, and if so, what was your most memorable field trip?
I don't remember field trips in elementary school. I was on the school baseball team (right field, end-of-the-bench, scorekeeper, cheerleader, first-base coach) in elementary school and we traveled to play other teams on Saturdays.

San Diego schools sponsored a 6th grade camp back in the 1950's - a week in the Cuyamaca mountains with counselors and your classmates. This was up near Julian at about 4,000 feet altitude in the spring - so it could be warm, cold, rainy or somewhere in between. There were hiking trails, streams and pools of water, and big rocks, and even some wildlife - squirrels, raccoons, lizards, birds, spiders, etc. We never saw the snakes, skunks, and cougars that were probably out there. For a "big city" kid, this was pretty exciting (which is why they did it). Sleeping in sleeping bags on bunks, sitting around the campfire at night, crafts and physical activities were all part of the curriculum. I remember - vividly! - the physical challenges - rope bridge across a small canyon, the tree-climbing, etc. I wasn't in the Scouts, so this was really my first time in the woods like this. In the summer time after 6th grade, there was a Safety Patrol Camp on Mount Palomar with much the same activity - except it was run by the police department, which was pretty cool.

4) What teacher influenced you the most?

The ones in elementary school were Miss Williams (4th grade), Mr. de la Torre (5th grade) and Mr. Wragg (6th grade). They each encouraged individual responsibility and reaching your potential. Because of them I advanced into mathematics, history, geography and writing far beyond the curriculum. I also learned that "all people are created equal" and saw it in the accomplishments of these teachers. Mr. Wragg was shot and killed by a student sniper back in the 1970's here in San Diego. He was a school principal then and was shepherding students to safety when he was shot.

I remember only two high school teachers clearly - my math teacher was Mrs. Johnsie Posey (what a southern accent - a novelty in San Diego) and she really pushed us in high school math courses - trigonometry, geometry and calculus. But we got it - she made math fun. It prepared me very well for college, and she was like a professor. My chemistry teacher was an older fellow named J.O. Peterson (I still don't know his given names!) and what I remember from this class was that half the students were trying to make explosions in the classroom and Mr. Peterson was oblivious to it. I always tried to take the lab area furthest away from the experimenters! One of my best friends, Steve Johnson, could mimic J.O's speech perfectly and we would always be laughing in class.

5) Did you buy a lunch at school, or bring one from home? What kind of lunchbox? What was your favorite lunch?

What an unexpected question! I always brought a lunch from h