Saturday, September 14, 2013

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Do Some Semi-Random Research

It's Saturday Night - 
time for more Genealogy Fun! 



Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to:

1)  We're going to do a little bit of Semi-Random Research tonight...what is your first name? [This is the easy part!]

2)  Go to your family tree database of choice (you know, like RootsMagic, Reunion, Ancestry Member Tree), and determine who the first person in your alphabetical name index is with a surname starting with the first two letters of your first name (e.g., my first name is RAndall, so I'm looking for the first person with a surname starting with RA).  [If there are no surnames with those first two letters, take the surname after that letter combination.]

3)  What do you know about this person based on your research?  It's OK to do more if you need to - in fact, it's encouraged!

4)  How are you related to this person, and why is s/he in your family tree?

5)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook Status post or Google+ Stream post.

Here's mine:

1)  My first name is RAndall.

2)  The first person in my database of over 42,000 persons with a surname starting with RA is William Raby.  

3)  I don't know his birth, marriage or death dates or places at this time.  He married Alice Seaver (born 1858 in Scipio, Hillsdale, Michigan).  That's all I know, and I don't know why I know it (perhaps from correspondence from a Seaver person).

I checked the 1880 U.S. Census on Ancestry.com, and found a William (age 28, born in England) and Alice (age 22, born in Michigan) Raby in Homer, Calhoun, Michigan.  

In the 1900 U.S. Census on Ancestry.com, William (born Mar 1856 in England) and Alice (born May 1858 in Michigan) resided in Homer, Calhoun, Michigan.  They had been married 25 years, and Alice had had no children.  William had immigrated in 1857 and was a naturalized citizen.  They had a niece, Edna Amy, born July 1896 born in Michigan, residing with them.

The 1910 and 1920 U.S. Census records on Ancestry.com supported the 1900 data, but the 1910 and 1920 Census data indicated that William Raby immigrated in 1847 and was a naturalized citizen (the date must be a mistake if he was born in 1856).

An entry in the Michigan Deaths and Burials Index, 1867-1995 on Ancestry.com has a listing for William Raby, born about 1857, died 16 May 1923 in Homer, Calhoun, Michigan, and lists his parents as William Mary (Sweeth) Raby.

An entry in the index for Michigan Death Certificates, 1921-1952 on FamilySearch provides a birth date of 11 March 1857 in England and the death date of 16 May 1923.

A Find A Grave entry for William Raby has a gravestone photograph that says 1856-1923, and he is buried in Fairview Cemetery, Homer, Calhoun, Michigan.  They also had an entry for Alice A. Raby (1862-1920) with a death certificate image attached, which said her husband was William Raby.  

So in about 20 minutes online at Ancestry, FamilySearch and Find A Grave, I was able to find a birth date and place for William Raby, an approximate marriage date, and information about his spouse also.  All of that enriches my database.  

4)  I am not related to William Raby.  I am related to his wife, Alice (Seaver) Raby who is my 4th cousin 4 times removed (our common Seaver ancestor is Joseph Seaver (1674-1754), my 7th great-grandfather).  They are in my database because I "collect" Seaver persons, and their spouses and children, in my Seaver one-name study.  The sources are not original sources, but they are derivative sources based on official records. That's "good enough for me" for the purposes of my one-name study.

5)  I just did!


Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

Surname Saturday - GIFFORD (England > colonial Massachusetts)

It's Surname Saturday, and I'm "counting down" my Ancestral Name List each week.  


I am in the 7th great-grandmothers and I'm up to Ancestor #717, who is Rebecca GIFFORD (1689-1747) 
[Note: the earlier great-grandmothers and 7th great-grandfathers have been covered in earlier posts].

My ancestral line back through three generations in this GIFFORD family line is:

1.  Randall J. Seaver (1943-living)

2. Frederick Walton Seaver (1911-1983)
3. Betty Virginia Carringer (1919-2002)

4. Frederick Walton Seaver (1876-1942)
5. Alma Bessie Richmond (1882-1962)


10.  Thomas Richmond (1848-1917)
11.  Julia White (1848-1913)

22.  Henry Arnold White (1824-1885)
23.  Amy Frances Oatley (1826-1864)

44.  Jonathan White (1806-1850)
45.  Miranda Wade (1804-1850)

88.  Humphrey White (1758-1814)
89.  Sybil Kirby (1764-1848)


178.  David Kirby (1740-1832)
179.  Martha Soule (1743-1828)


358.  Benjamin Soule (1719-1803)
359.  Meribah Waite (1720-1803)

716.  Jacob Soule, born about 1687 in Dartmouth, Bristol, Massachusetts, United States; died Abt. February 1747 in Dartmouth, Bristol, Massachusetts, United States.  He was the son of 1432. Nathaniel Soule and 1433. Rose Thorn.  He married 22 January 1710 in Dartmouth, Bristol, Massachusetts, United States.
717.  Rebecca Gifford, born 1689 in Dartmouth, Bristol, Massachusetts, United States; died Bef. 1747 in Dartmouth, Bristol, Massachusetts, United States.  

Children of Jacob Soule and Rebecca Gifford are:
*  Joseph Soule (1711-1793), married (1) 1736 Mary Davis (1710-????); (2) 1758 Dinah Tripp (1716-????).
*  Elizabeth Soule (1712-1781), married 1735 Caleb Tripp (1714-1781)
*  Oliver Soule (1714-1715).
*  Rebecca Soule (1715-1747), married 1735 Reuben Waite (1713-1754).
*  Nathaniel Soule (1718-1769), married 1741 Jane Potter (1717-1807).
*  Benjamin Soule (1719-1803), married 1742 Meribah Waite (1720-1803)
*  Rosamond soule (1723-1801), married 1744 Nathaniel Potter (1719-1801).
*  Stephen Soule (1727-1789), married 1746 Sarah Potter (1724-1789).

1434.  Robert Gifford, born 1660 in Sandwich, Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States; died before 04 April 1730 in Dartmouth, Bristol, Massachusetts, United States. He married July 1680 in Sandwich, Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States.
1435.  Sarah Wing, born 05 February 1659 in Sandwich, Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States; died 26 August 1720 in Dartmouth, Bristol, Massachusetts, United States.  She was the daughter of 2870. Stephen Wing and 2871. Sarah Briggs.

Children of Robert Gifford and Sarah Wing are:
*  Jeremiah Gifford (1681-1771), married 1703 Mary Wright (1683-????).
*  Marcy Gifford (1683-1772), married 1704 Nathan Soule (1677-1736).
*  Benjamin Gifford (1685-1754), married Sarah Tompkins (1689-????).
*  Stephen Gifford (1687-1748), married 1711 Mary --?-- (1690-????)
*  Rebecca Gifford (1689-1747), married 1710 Jacob Soule (1687-1747)
*  Timothy Gifford (1691-1780), married 1717 Hannah Tompkins (1695-1773)
*  Ann Gifford (1693-????0, married 1717 William Swan.
*  Lydia Gifford (1695-????0, married 1723 Nathaniel Soule.
*  Simeon Gifford (1697-1749), married 1725 Susannah Jenkins (1695-1749).

2868.  William Gifford, born about 1620 in England; died before 30 January 1688 in Sandwich, Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States.  He married before 1640 in England.
2869.  unknown, born about 1620 in England; died before 1683 in probably Sandwich, Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States.

Children of William Gifford and unknown are:
*  John Gifford (1642-1708), married 1665 Elishua Crowell (1643-1708).
*  Patience Gifford (1644-1674), married 1665 Richard Kirby (1633-1720).
*  Hananiah Gifford (1646-1709), married Elizabeth --?-- (1646-1729).
*  William Gifford (1655-1738), married (1) 1675 Hannah --?-- (????-1711), (2) 1711 Lydia Hatch (1685-????).
*  Christopher Gifford (1658-1748), married (1) Meribah --?-- (????-1684); (2) 1684 Deborah Perry (1665-1724).
*  Robert Gifford (1660-1730), married (1) 1680 Sarah Wing (1659-1720); (2) 1720 Elizabeth Cornell.

Published resources available for the researcher on this Gifford family include:

1)  Almon E. Daniels and MacLean W. MacLean, "William Gifford of Sandwich, Mass. (d. 1687)," The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Volume 128, Number 4 (October 1974).

2)  Raymond L. Olson, Ancestors of Elihu B. Gifford and Catherine Sandow Barrows (Baltimore, Md. : Gateway Press, Inc., 1989)

3)  Carl Boyer 3rd, Ancestral Lines, Third Edition (Santa Clarita, Calif. : the author, 1998).

The URL for this post is:

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver


Friday, September 13, 2013

First Look at my AncestryDNA Ethnicity Update - Post 2: More DNA Results

After I wrote First Look at my AncestryDNA Ethnicity Update yesterday, I listened to and watched a presentation by AncestryDNA for several genealogy communicators.  Jusy G. Russell has summarized that presentation and information in AncestryDNA Begins Rollout of Update on The Legal Genealogist blog.  I hope that the DNA specialists in the genealogy world will also comment extensively on the new AncestryDNA analysis and presentation.

I didn't have time or knowledge of more details yesterday on my post, but I learned a lot during the presentation.  There is a LOT more information available for each reference population as AncestryDNA attempts to explain the medieval populations that our genes came from.

For reference purposes, here is my own estimated ethnicity based on my genealogical research, assuming geographic locations in about 1600 AD:

*  68%  British Isles
*  24%  Germany
*  1%  Holland
*  1%  France
*  6%  Unknown (perhaps some are French, some are English)


Here is more detail about my own DNA origins:

1)  On the "New Ethnicity Estimate Preview" page (available at this time to a limited number, perhaps 6,000 testers) are these charts and text (with the Europe West sub-region selected):


For each Reference Population (i.e., Europe West, Ireland, Great Britain, Scandinavia, Italy/Greece, and Iberian Peninsula for the Europe region), AncestryDNA provides a percentage for my deep DNA ancestry, including a range determined by analysis of the 40 different marker selections.  As you can see, I have (according to AncestryDNA) about 66% Europe West, with a range from 37% to 94%.

Further down the page for Europe West are two bar graphs that show my DNA percentage compared to other populations.  The first bar graph (in gold) compare my Europe West DNA with that of a typical current Europe West resident:


The lower graph on the screen above, in blue, provides examples of DNA percentage for people native to Europe West (apparently, native means all great-grandparents resided there).  As you can see, my average DNA from Europe West (66%) exceeds that of the typical native (48%).

Further down the web page is another bar graph that indicates other regions that commonly have people "native" to Europe West:


Finally, the web page provides a short and concise history of migrations of the region (in this case Europe West) beginning in the BCE (Before the Common Era) time period, 2,000 to 3,000 years ago:


All of that is very helpful and interesting.

2)  Here is the map and gold bar chart for my DNA percentage for Ireland:


I have 18% DNA from Ireland, with a range from 3% to 32%.  Since I have no known ancestors from Ireland based on my genealogy research to date (there may be one or two 8th great-grandparents, but that's in the unknown category in my list), I'm guessing that a significant number of Ireland "natives" have British ancestry.

3)  Here is the map and the gold bar chart for Great Britain:


According to AncestryDNA, I have 9% of my DNA from Great Britain, with a range from 0% to 31%.

The migration maps that they show for Great Britain describes the invasions of the Jutes, Angles, Saxons and Normans in medieval times that may explain some of my differences between genealogical and AncestryDNA percentages (including the Scandinavian 3%)..



3)  So why does my "genealogical ancestry" and my "DNA ancestry according to AncestryDNA" differ so much?  AncestryDNA says that it may be due to:

*  the genetic influence of neighboring regions,
*  the estimates are on the edge of their predicted range,
*  the random nature of genetic inheritance,
*  ethnicity estimation is still an unknown problem.

They provide a chart showing the average admixture between European sub-region in each sub-region:


For instance, persons identified as "native" to Great Britain have (approximately):

*  60% from Great Britain
*  13% from Europe West
*  10% from Ireland
*  8% from Scandinavia
*  2% from Iberian Peninsula
*  1% Italy/Greece
*  3%  Unknown.

I'm still surprised by how high my Europe West (66%) percentage is relative to Great Britain and Ireland (27%).  There are three possibilities here:

*  The AncestryDNA estimates are correct, within the ranges shown.
*  My genealogical research is incomplete and perhaps a significant part is wrong (it would take only one grandparent to completely disrupt my percentages!)
*  The AncestryDNA estimates need further refinement.

I hope that other geneabloggers will post their AncestryDNA results when they receive them.

4)  There is a lot more information on the AncestryDNA web pages - be sure to go explore when you have access to this Enhanced Ethnicity Estimate.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/09/first-look-at-my-ancestrydna-ethnicity_13.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

First Look at Family Tree Maker 2014 - Post 3: Put Children and Spouses in Date Order

Family Tree Maker announced their impending release of Family Tree Maker 2014 genealogy software two weeks ago - I covered it in Family Tree Maker 2014 Software Announced - 30% Discount (or more) (posted 26 August 2013).  

I ordered it last week and downloaded it, and imported a recent GEDCOM file created in RootsMagic 6.  I will go through the advertised changes one by one in this series, and will highlight other features, and problems, that I find.


One of the "new features" listed in the announcement was:

"...stay organized with new tools that let you sort children automatically by birth order..."

1)  Let's work with the children's birth order first.  I think that earlier versions of FTM permitted you to change relative order of children in the family using up and down arrows in the list of children on the "Tee" tab in the "People" Workspace.  Here is one of my families, with the children not in birth date order:



On the line in the lower center panel headed by the word "Marriage" are several icons on the right side of the line.  These icons are for:

*  Marriage facts, notes and media (click this icon to add, edit or delete them)
*  Up arrow (move selected child up on the children list)
*  Down arrow (move selected child down on the children list)
*  ( ) icon to put the children in birth date order
*  Show blended family, all children of both parents

When I clicked on the ( ) icon to put the children in birth order, the "Sort all Children by Birth" dialog screen opened:


I had three boxes to click at my discretion:

*  Sort the children in this family by birth
*  Sort the children of all families by birth
*  Sort the current family without prompting in the future.

I chose the first and third options.  The "Sort the children of all families" option is tempting!  Is there any good reason not to do it?  Seems to me this should be the default option in genealogy software.

I clicked the "OK" button in the dialog screen and the children were placed in birth order:


2)  What about spouses in marriage date order?  My 2nd great-grandfather, Isaac Seaver, had three wives and five children by two of them.  The number "3" is shown to the right of his name in the father's position in the lower center panel, and if you click the "head" icon next to the number, a dialog box opens:


The three spouse are listed, along with two lines to "Add Spouse" or "Set Spouse Order."

In the screen above, the second wife is listed first because she is the "Preferred" spouse (in my case, them other of my ancestor).

I clicked on "Set Spouse Order" and a dialog box opened:


On the line with the word "Spouse" there are three symbols on the right side.  The three symbols are:

*  Up arrow (to move the highlighted spouse down in the order).
*  Down arrow (to move the highlighted spouse up in the order).
*  ( ) icon (Reset - Preferred spouse first, then remainder by marriage date)

That's strange - clicking that ( ) icon always puts the preferred souse first.  The only way to put the preferred spouse in the right order was to use the down arrow.  That works, but when I saw the ( ) icon I expected it to put them in marriage date order.  I moved Lucretia down in the marriage date order:



3)  I'm not sure if this is a new feature or not - FTM 2014 has the capability to show all of the children of both parties shown on the screen.  Here is the screen for Isaac Seaver and Lucretia smith, showing their four children:


If I click the icon on the "Marriage" line on the far right, all of the children of both parties are listed:


The first one listed is the child of Isaac's first wife, Juliet Glazier.  If you look closely, you can see that there is a column headed by "#" in the children list.  for Juliet, an icon for only the male parent is shown, while the other children have an icon showing both a male and female parent, denoting that the shown parents (Isaac and Lucretia in this case) are their parents.  That's a nice feature, but it can probably be confusing to persons who don't know what it means.  I can hear people saying "oh look, they had a child out of wedlock" or "look, they had a child after she died."

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/09/first-look-at-family-tree-maker-2014_13.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

Follow-Up Friday - Helpful and Interesting Reader Comments

It's Friday, so time to post the helpful and interesting reader comments on Genea-Musings posts from the past week.

1)  On Inquiring Minds Want to Know More About the FamilySearch and Ancestry Partnership (posted 8 September 2013):

a)  Geolover noted:  "My reading of the available material does not say anything about indexing through/by Ancestry.com (whether by paid contract or by volunteers).

"It is possible that the microfilm databases to be digitized have not been firmly decided upon yet."

b)  Anonymous said:  "One issue I have that keeps me from indexing more is that I am more interested in indexing things that are not and likely will not soon be indexed by ancestry. This might be selfish, but much of what ancestry has can be accessed either in libraries or during special weeks, so I don't feel it is too selfish. It would be nice if the indexing that the two groups do is nicely coordinated so that this is clear."

c)  Barbara commented:  "The 1915 and 1925 NY State Census is indexed on FamilySearch, however, you have to view the image on Ancestry and you have to have a subscription to view the images. At the very least you have to start a free trial. I am not sure if Ancestry created this index and made it available on FamiySearch or if this index was part of the FamilySearch Indexing Project but this may be a good example of the partnership if we could figure who created the index."

d)  Geolover answered Barbara:  "Barbara, some of the databases (including microfilm images) acquired by Ancestry.com and other sites were already indexed by the original owner of the database, and the new host acquired the index as well as the images. Then the new host of the images may share the index with other parties, if their agreement with the original owner allows it.

"So learning what entity prepared a particular index can be difficult if it is not referred to in the description of a database."

e)  Dave L offered:  "Actually, the FAQs clearly state that anything indexed by FamilySearch indexers will be accessible at no charge through FamilySearch, but they will also be accessible from Ancestry.

"That said, I hope we don't see any more indexes on FamilySearch that are available only with a paid subscription to Ancestry. My idea of what should be available when an index is posted is a little too complex to post here, but it does include links being under the terms of the site on which they're found."

f)  My responses:  Dave, I don't think that the FAQs explicitly say that any record image indexed by FamilySearch will be viewable - it just says the index will be available.  As I recall, FamilySearch indexed the 1880 U.S. census but the image is on Ancestry.

FYI I did post my questions on the FamilySearch blog for the FAQs.


a)  Geolover pondered:  "Interesting thoughts about how the land might have been paid for. It could have been paid by some amount of cash-in-hand and the rest by IOU. Possibly there was an unrecorded side agreement whereby some other family member(s) agreed to make good on the purchase price if the grantee defaulted for some reason. Since this was between relatives who lived amid other relatives, the grantor could be pretty confident that he would receive the full purchase price one way or another."

b)  My comment:  Good thinking, thanks for the insight.


a)  theshygenealogist asked:  "Randy, can you explain what 'unsealing and delivery' means in land records? Thanks!"

b)  My response:  The answer is that I transcribed "ensealing" as "unsealing" and changed the meaning of the phrase.  i'll go back and edit it.  I noted that it is in the crossed-out portion of the deed entry in the Deed Registry book.  


a)  Bill West said:  "I had some success there tonight getting a death year for my great grandmother:
http://westinnewengland.blogspot.com/2013/09/ancestrycoms-new-mass-vital-records.html

b)  SearchShack noted:  "This index did connect me to many SHACKFORDS in my name study but appears to be computer generated which creates many errors in the index. In many cases it added a middle name from someone three names above to a person (A Marshall Bessie Shackford vs Marshall F Shackford) or transcribes Mei instead of a middle name of J, Am making the updates in Ancestry's correction tools and left them a comment that the method of computer indexing needs some improvement. But the index does connect me to this typed index which then gives me a death year and the volume and page number of the actual source."

c)  My comment:  It is useful as a finding aid, and will be especially useful for folks doing one-name studies.  


a)  Russ Worthington warned:  "Caution: you do NOT want an one button to resolve all !!!!!

"Come comment about USA. You can TURN that OFF for DISPLAY purposes. When cleaning up your Place Names, turn it on, but when you are doing reports / charts you can turn them off.

"Tools, Options, Names/Dates/Places is where you can turn the USA off.  I normally keep in off so that I can SEE the USA. My own purposes.

"I am glad that I guessed right."

My comment:  My opinion is that the software programs should have some way to do a global "Find" and "Replace" for items like this.  I shouldn't have to spend 7 or 8 hours going through thousands of place names and clicking a box.  I'm glad you guessed right too, sure made it easier to fix!  Thanks for the hint on turning USA off.  I'll have to explore that.

b)  Geolover dreamed:  "Wouldn't it be nice to see year-dates next to each migration point?

"Can such maps be included whilst generating genealogical reports for export to word-processor / PDF?"

My comment:  That should go on the FTM 2015 wish list, I think.  The Migration Map could be generated by doing a screen capture or screen snip of the map and inserted into the report or book.  I know that Russ has done something along those lines in FTM 2012 to show the Civil War travels of a regiment.  Check his blog at http://ftmuser.blogspot.com.  

6)  On a really old blog post, this comment was made:

a)  Anonymous said:  "When I originally commented I clicked the 'Notify me when new comments are added' checkbox and now each time a comment is added I get four e-mails with the same comment. Is there any way you can remove me from that service? Thanks! my page: The Magic of Making Up Review."

My comment:  Heh heh, this is spam and you're getting back four-fold what you put on my blog.  Suffer!!!

7)  Thank you to all of my readers for the helpful and interesting comments.  My readers are so smart that they usually can defeat the Captcha spam filter.  And the Google Blogger spam filter catches almost all of the rest of them.  

The URL for this post is:

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

Thursday, September 12, 2013

First Look at my AncestryDNA Ethnicity Update

The Ancestry.com blog just posteA Sneak Peek Into The AncestryDNA Ethnicity Update – Coming Soon To Your DNA Results!  The blog post says they have rolled out a free update to the ethnicity estimate to a small random group of AncestryDNA members.  Read their blog post for more information.

I guess I'm one of the "lucky ones" who has had their ethnicity estimate updated.  Here is what I saw today:

1)  On my AncestryDNA page today was a new orange button for "Ethnicity Estimate Preview:"



As you can see, my previous ethnicity was identified on AncestryDNA as 94% British Isles and 6% Uncertain.  I've pointed out before how those differ from my ethnicity estimate on FamilyTreeDNA (89% British Isles, 11% Middle East) and 23andMe (99.3% West European, 0.7% Native American, with 18% identified as British and Irish).  I wrote about this in My Autosomal DNA Quandary in August 2013.

2)  When I clicked on the orange button for my "Ethnicity Estimate Preview," I was taken to some education screens.  First, was "What's new in Ethnicity Estimate 2.0:"



The chart above told me that AncestryDNA was now using 300,000 DNA markers now, compared to 30,000 markers previously.  They also are doing much more analysis - 40 passes through the data rather than one.

I clicked the green "Next: More regions" button and saw:


The screen above told me that they have added new sub-regions in Europe and Africa.

Clicking on the green "Next: Easier to understand" button showed me:


They have a new DNA Learning Center, and there are more details on each region.

3)  Clicking the green "See your results" button showed me my Ethnicity Estimate 2.0:



According to AncestryDNA, my Ethnicity Estimate is:

*  America = < 1%
***  Native American = < 1%

*  Europe = 98%
*** Europe West = 66%
***  Ireland = 18%
*** Great Britain = 9%
*** Scandinavia = 3%
***  Italy Greece = 1%
*** Iberian Peninsula = < 1%

*  Pacific Islander = < 1%
*** Polynesia = < 1%

Well!  That's interesting.  Actually, it matches the 23andMe estimate fairly well (18% British and Irish on 23andMe vs. 27% Britain and Ireland on AncestryDNA) and Native-American (0.7% on 23andMe vs. < 1% on AncestryDNA.  As for the Pacific-Islander portion, I have no clue.

4)  It would be helpful if all of these autosomal DNA services would indicate just how deep the estimates are - that is, are they from 500 years ago, 1000 years ago, 2000 years ago, etc.  My sense is that they are probably from 2000 years ago or more.  That would explain the ethnicity estimate above vs. my genealogy work which only goes back about 400 years.  Before then, Scandinavians poured into England and northern France, Saxons from western Europe did also.  The Italy/Greece may be from Roman soldiers in England or northern Europe, etc.

There is a lot more information available on the AncestryDNA pages, and I will show some more of it in the next week or so.

I'm interested to see how the DNA community interprets all of this.  Has AncestryDNA improved their analysis sufficiently that we can trust what they tell us, or will there be more to come?  I would also love to see ethnicity estimates for persons in my ancestral locations in England, France, Germany, etc.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/09/first-look-at-my-ancestrydna-ethnicity.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

First Look at Family Tree Maker 2014 - Mea Culpa! Looking Again at the Person Migration Map in the Places Workspace

In my post First Look at Family Tree Maker 2014 - Post 2: View People by Location yesterday, I made a big mistake!  In the second section of that post, I tried to use the "Person" list in the "Places" Workspace to make a migration map for Devier J. Smith.  The map was really messed up, and I thought that I had found a bug in the program.  

As my friend and colleague, Russ Worthington, pointed out in  FTM2014 - Place Name Importance on his Family Tree Maker User blog, I should have resolved the place names before I made the migration map.  Russ has much more experience with all versions of the Family Tree Maker program and knew immediately what the problem was.  

Taking his wise counsel to heart last night, I resolved all of the place names for Devier J. Smith's Facts and was able to create a correct migration map on the "Person" list in the "Places" Workspace.

1)  First, how to resolve a place name:  In the "Places" Workspace, and in the "Place" list, click on a place name.  I chose "San Diego, San Diego, California, United States:"


At the top of the right-hand panel, note that my current place name is shown in the "Name" field, but no GPS coordinates are shown in the "Location" field.

I want to resolve the place name so I clicked the "Place" menu item on the screen above and selected "Resolve This Place Name:"


From the dropdown list of potential place names (who knew that there were that many San Diego places!), I picked the correct one from the list.

The "standard" place name for the United States in Family Tree Maker is "USA."  When I clicked the "Replace" button, I saw:



After replacing the place name with the resolved place name, the top of the right-hand panel shows the resolved place name and added the geolocation to the "Location" field.  In addition, all of the Facts with the resolved location now indicate the resolved location information.

Note that I did this one location at a time.  There is a way to Resolve All Locations" which i'll address later in this post.

2)  I did the location resolution for all of Devier J. Smith's Fact locations, and in the "Person" list in the "Places" Workspace, I set about to create his Migration Map:


When I clicked on Devier J. Smith on the "Person" list in the left-hand panel, the first Birth entry (for New York)and the Death entry (for McCook, Red Willow, Nebraska) were shown on the map.

I unclicked the "New York" birth Fact and clicked on the "Henderson, Jefferson, New York" Birth Fact, and then on several of the other Facts (Marriage, Census, Property, etc.) and the final Migration Map looks like this:


That is, I believe, correct.  He may have resided in other places, but I don't have records that show them.  Of course, the map doesn't show the path he traveled between these places, only a straight line between places.

3)  What about resolving all of the place names?  With the "Place" list showing on the screen, I clicked on the "Place" menu and saw the "Resolve all Place Names" on the dropdown list:


Note:  There is a "Resolve All" icon on the "Places" line also.

I was asked if I wanted to make a backup of the file, so I did.  Just in case.  After that, the dialog box for the "Resolve All Place Names" appeared:


This dialog box permits the user to choose which places s/he wants to resolve - one at a time!  I could keep the Unrecognized Place Name, accept the Suggested Place Name, click :Desc." to add the unrecognized place name to the Description field, Ignore (stop marking the place name unrecognized), or Other (search for another spelling).

I did some of these, and it is an onerous task.  With over 5,400 more to do, I decided I wouldn't do this task right now.  At 2 seconds for each place (assuming I can make the decision that quickly, I could finish the task in 3 hours.  If it took me an average of 5 seconds, it would take 7.5 hours.  I have better things to do today (and probably for a long time!).  I also worry about the clicking disease, carpal tunnel syndrome.

Does FTM have one button to click on to resolve all of them at once?  I don't know, the Help function didn't say that it did.  If it does, i'm sure that Russ will know and can tell me.  The problem with doing it all at once is that many of the place names not in the gazetteer will be lost (I've identified many towns/counties in Canada, the counties are lost;  I've identified many farm names in Norway, they will be lost; etc.).

If I had to replace "United States" with "USA" for many places, I would take the GEDCOM into Legacy Family Tree and do it easily, and then bring it back into FTM 2014, but that would create other problems for me.

4)  My thanks to Russ Worthington for his patience, and for my readers who apparently skipped over the post yesterday and didn't tell me how dumb I was to not know that I had to resolve the place names before I made a migration map.  I like the Migration Map feature too.

Russ points out that importing a GEDCOM file into FTM 2014, and into any genealogy software program or online tree, may create problems that need to be fixed before the imported file works perfectly.

Also, some items included in a GEDCOM file may not import into another program at all, or do so imperfectly.  An example for this RootsMagic to FTM 2014 GEDCOM transfer is that the cemetery names don't import into the Description field of a place name.  It goes into the Notes for the Place name.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/09/first-look-at-family-tree-maker-2014_12.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver



Treasure Chest Thursday - Post 181: 1930 U.S. Census for Henry Carringer Household in San Diego, California

It's Treasure Chest Thursday - time to look in my digital image files to see what treasures I can find for my family history and genealogy musings.

The treasure today is the 1930 United States Census record for my Carringer great-grandparents and their family in San Diego, San Diego County, California: 


The entry for the Henry A,. Carringer household:


The extracted information for the household, residing at 2115 30th Street in San Diego, San Diego County, California, taken 2 April 1930, is:


*  Henry A. Carringer -- head, owns home, worth $5,000, owns radio set, male, white, age 76, married, first at age 34, able to read/write, born Pennsylvania, parents born Pennsylvania/Pennsylvania, able to speak English, an aviation mechanician, works at Army Air Services, employed, not a veteran
*  Della A. Carringer -- wife, female, white, age 67, married, first at age 25, able to read/write, born Wisconsin, parents born New York/New York, able to speak English,  no occupation
*  Abbie A. Smith -- mother-in-law, female, white, age 85, widowed, able to read/write, born New York, parents born England/New York, able to speak English, no occupation.

The source citation for this census image is:

1930 United States Federal Census, San Diego County, California, Population Schedule, San Diego city; ED 116, Sheet 1A, dwelling #3, family #5, Henry A. Carringer household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 17 December 2007); citing National Archives Microfilm Publication T626, Roll 192.

I don't see any errors in this enumeration.  The relationships are correct, ages are correct for the enumeration date, the birthplaces and parents birthplaces are correct, and the occupation information for Henry is consistent with what I know from other resources.


Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver