Saturday, July 28, 2012

Genealogy Fun with the SNGF Genea-lympics - Post 1

Something tells me I'm going to write several posts like this over the next two weeks.

The Saturday Night Genealogy Fun(SNGF) Genea-lympics ARE ON...a friendly competition (mainly against myself...) - see Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - the SNGF Genealympics I for details, how to compete, etc.  See Announcing the Summer 2008 Genea-Blogger Group Games! for the 2008 Genea-Blogger Group Games events and medals.  It is not necessary to post only on a Saturday or to complete everything in one evening or one week. This can be an effort over two weeks.

1)  Here is my competition flag:




My reasoning for this flag design is that England is very much my "mother country"for over 75% of my ancestry(indeed, my autosomal DNA test shows about 90% "British Isles"), so it forms the background.  I have some Canadian ancestors (not all of them English heritage), and I have over one thousand ancestors  born in the American colonies and states.  If I could figure out a design, I would add flags for Germany (but there was no Germany before 1871, right? All of mine came in before 1760), Netherlands (several families in the 17th century), and France (several families in the 17th century) to spice it up a bit.

2)  I will compete in the "Cite Your Sources" event, but need to establish the baseline in order to "count" the additions.  Tonight, I have exactly 29,178 source citations in my genealogy database in RootsMagic 5.  If I add 100 more in the next two weeks, I should be able to receive a Platinum medal!

3)  I will compete in the "Organize Your Research"event also - by putting digital files and photographs into my Ancestor Files filing system, and adding data entries to my database.

4) I will also compete in the three tasks listed in  Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - the SNGF Genealympics I today:

a)  Pick any one of your 16 great-great-grandparents, or one of your spouse's 16 great-great-grandparents.  How many descendants of that person do you have in your family tree records or database?  (Hint, a Descendants Report in your genealogy software should easily provide this number).

I went through several of my 16 great-great-grandparents, and the ones with the most identified descendants are  James Richman (1821-1912) and Hannah Rich(1826-1911). They have 189 descendants in 7 generations.   Unfortunately, several of their grandchildren died relatively young in life, but there were fewer in the other seven sets of great-greats! Of course, I may find more descendants if I concentrate on that task.

My medal for this event is: Gold

b) Pick one of your ancestral surnames, or one of your spouse's ancestral surnames. How many generations back from the last person with that surname in your ancestry have you researched, identified and accept as your ancestor?  [Note:  if you are doing your own surname, don't count yourself).

My Seaver surname goes back 11 generations from me to my 9th great-grandfather, Robert Seaver (1608-1683).  Here is the list back from me:

1)  Frederick W. Seaver (1911-1983) married Betty Virginia Carringer (1919-2002)
2)  Frederick W. Seaver (1876-1942) married Alma Bessie Richmond (1882-1962)
3.  Frank W. Seaver (1852-1922) married Hattie Louise Hildreth (1857-1920)
4.  Isaac Seaver (1823-1901) married Lucretia Townsend Smith (1828-1884)
5.  Benjamin Seaver (1791-1825) married Abigail Gates (1797-1867)
6.  Benjamin Seaver (1757-1816) married Martha Whitney (1764-1832)
7.  Norman Seaver (1734-1787) married Sarah Read (1736-1809)
8.  Robert Seaver  (1702-1752) married Eunice Raymond (1707-1773)
9.  Joseph Seaver (1672-1754) married Mary Read (1680-????)
10. Shubael Seaver (1640-1730) married Hannah Wilson (1647-1722
11.  Robert Seaver (1608-1683) married Elizabeth Ballard (1613?-1657)

I do have some lines that go back into England in the 16th century, but I don't have a run of more than 11 ancestors in those surnames.

My Medal for this event is:  Diamond

c)  Pick one or more of your end-of-line ancestors (you know, one that you don't know the parent(s) of).  Review your collected data, research log, and database and create a Research Plan to do a Reasonably Exhaustive search for the selected ancestor(s).  

I have not started to compete in this event yet. My plan is to do one every day, if at all possible!!! I will try to share them as I complete them in hopes that my knowledgeable and super-helpful readers may pitch in with some advice and consultation.

So, on the first day of the 2012 SNGF Genealympics, I have scored a Gold medal and a Diamond medal.  
The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/07/genealogy-fun-with-sngf-genea-lympics.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

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