Saturday, August 23, 2014

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Two Degrees of Separation

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 
 It's Saturday Night again - 
time for some more Genealogy Fun!!



Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music):

1)  Using your ancestral lines, how far back in time can you go with two degrees of separation?  That means "you knew an ancestor, who knew another ancestor."  When was that second ancestor born?

2)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, in a status line on Facebook or a stream post on Google Plus.

Here are several of mine:

1)  My Seaver/Richmond line:   Me (born 1943) - I met my paternal grandmother once in 1959.  My paternal grandmother Alma Bessie (Richmond) Seaver (1882-1962, daughter of Thomas Richmond (1848-1917))  knew her grandfather, James Richmond (1821-1912).

 2)  My Carringer line:  Me (born 1943) - my maternal great grandfather, Henry Austin Carringer held me when I was a baby.  Henry Austin Carringer (1853-1946), son of David Jackson Carringer (1828-1902) and Rebecca Spangler (1832-1901),  knew his paternal grandfather Henry Carringer (1800-1881) well.  He also knew his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth (King) Spangler (1796-1863). 

3)  My Carringer/Smith/Vaux/Underhill line:  Me (born 1943) - my great-grandmother, Della (Smith) Carringer (1862-1944) held me (I don't remember it, of course!).  Della Smith (born in Wisconsin), daughter of Abigial Vaux (1844-1931), granddaughter of Mary Ann (Underhill) Vaux (1815-1880) may have met her great-grandfather, Amos Underhill (1772-1865, died in New York), but I doubt it! 

So I can connect, with two degrees of separation, back to a man born in 1772 (but that man likely did not "meet" his great-grandchild).  For the requirement that they actually met, I can get back to a person born in 1796.  218 years ago.  


The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-two.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver



Surname Saturday -- FLAGG (England to Colonial Massachusetts)

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


I am in the 8th great-grandmothers and I'm up to Ancestor #1033 who is Mary FLAGG (1658-1720) 
[Note: the earlier great-grandmothers and 8th great-grandfathers have been covered in earlier posts].

My ancestral line back through two generations in this FLAGG family line is:


1. Randall J. Seaver

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

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

8. Frank Walton Seaver (1852-1922)
9. Hattie Louise Hildreth (1857-1920)

16. Isaac Seaver (1823-1901)
17. Lucretia Townsend Smith (1827-1884)

32. Benjamin Seaver (1791-1825)
33. Abigail Gates (1797-1869)

64. Benjamin Seaver (1757-1816)
65. Martha Whitney (1764-1832)

128.  Norman Seaver (1734-1787)
129.  Sarah Read (1736-1809)


258.  Isaac Read (1704-1780)
259.  Experience Willis (1709-1787)

516.  Thomas Read (1678-1755)
517.  Mary Bigelow (1677-1708)

1032.  Samuel Bigelow, born 28 October 1653 in Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; died 01 February 1732 in Waltham, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.  He was the son of 2064. John Bigelow and 2065. Mary Warren.  He married 03 June 1674 in Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.
1033.  Mary Flagg, born 14 January 1658 in Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; died 07 September 1720 in Waltham, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.  

Children of Samuel Bigelow and Mary Flagg are:
*  John Bigelow (1675-1769), married 1696 Jerusha Garfield (1677-1768)
*  Mary Bigelow (1677-1708), married (1) 1699 David Bruce (1675-1701), (2) Thomas Read (1678-1755)
*  Samuel Bigelow (1679-1734), married (1) 1705 Ruth Warren (1681-1716); (2) 1716 Mary Gleason (1682-1752).
*  Sarah Bigelow (1681-1713), married 1706 Josiah Howe (1678-1766).
*  Thomas Bigelow (1683-1756), married 1705 Mary Livermore (1684-1753).
*  Mercy Bigelow (1686-1745), married 1707 Thomas Garfield (1680-1752).
*  Abigail Bigelow (1687-????), married 1710 Jonathan Cutler (1688-1740).
*  Hannah Bigelow (1689-1717), married 1711 Daniel Warren (1686-1733).
*  Isaac Bigelow (1691-1751), married 1709 Mary Bond (1690-1775).
*  Deliverance Bigelow (1695-1762), married 1715 John Stearns (1692-????).

2066.  Thomas Flagg, born before 06 May 1621 in Hardingham, Norfolk, England; died 06 February 1698 in Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.  He was the son of 4132. Allan Flegg and 4133. Elizabeth Deveroys.  He married about 1640 in Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.
2067.  Mary, born 1619 in Hardingham, Norfolk, England; died 30 December 1702 in Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.

Children of Thomas Flagg and Mary are:
*  Gershom Flagg (1641-1690), married 1668 Hannah Leffingwell (1647-1700).
*  John Flagg (1643-1697), married 1670 Mary Gale (1645-????).
*  Bartholomew Flagg (1645-1675).
*  Thomas Flagg (1646-1719), married (1) 1668 Rebecca Dix (1641-1691); (2) 1691 Rebecca Dumblin (1655-????).
*  William Flagg (1648-1675).
*  Michael Flagg (1651-1711), married (1) 1674 Mary Bigelow (1649-1704); (2) 1704 Mary Lawrence (1671-????).
*  Eleazer Flagg (1653-1722), married 1676 Deborah Barnes (1646-????).
*  Elizabwth Flagg (1655-1729), married 1676 Joshua Bigelow (1655-1745).
*  Mary Flagg (1658-1720), married 1674 Samuel Bigelow (1653-1732).
*  Rebecca Flagg (1660-1721), married 1679 Stephen Coooke (1647-1738)
*  Benjamin Flagg (1662-1741), married 1690 Experience Child (1670-1757).
*  Allen Flagg (1665-1711), married 1685 Sarah Ball (1666-????).

Resources used to research these families include:

*  Norman Gershom Flagg and Lucius C.S. Flagg, Family Records of the Descendants of Gershom Flagg [born 1730] of Lancaster, Massachusetts with other Genealogical Records of The Flagg Family Descended from Thomas Flagg of Watertown, Massachusetts and Including the Flegg Lineage in England (Quincy, Ill. : Cadogn-Hatcher Publishers, 1907).

*  Nora E. Snow and Myrtle Mae Jillson, Snow-Estes Ancestry (Hillburn N.Y.: the authors, 1939), Flagg family, page 236.

*  Henry Bond, Genealogies of the Families and Descendants of the Early Settlers of Watertown, Massachusetts (Boston, Mass. : Brown & Little, 1860)

*  Patricia Bigelow, editor, The Bigelow Family Genealogy, Volume I (Flint, Mich. : The Bigelow Society, 1986). 

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/surname-saturday-flagg-england-to.html

copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver



Friday, August 22, 2014

Family Trees on FindMyPast.com - Post 4: Searching FindMyPast collections

Previous posts in this series include:

*  Family Trees on FindMyPast.com - Post 1: Creating the Tree, and Basic Navigation  on 198 August 2014 (in which I uploaded a GEDCOM file into a new tree on FindMyPast, and looked at the pedigree chart and the Profile for one person, with details on the "Overview" tab).

*  Family Trees on FindMyPast.com - Post 2: Navigation Aids and Profile Tabs on 20 August 2014 (in which I showed different navigation methods and the rest of the Profile tabs).

*  Family Trees on FindMyPast.com - Post 3: Source Citations on 21 August 2014 (in which I found that the source citations were incomplete).

In this post, I'm going to explore the Search function offered on the FindMyPast Family Tree Profile pages.

1)  From the Profile page, on the "Overview" tab, for my grandfather, Frederick Walton Seaver (1876-1942) in my FindMyPaAst Family Tree, I note the light blue area on the right that says:

"Search records for Frederick Walton Seaver."


My expectation was that the search function would take the information in my tree - the name, the birth date and place, the death date and place, perhaps the souse's name and marriage date and place, and search for records in all of the FindMyPast collections.  My hope was that I could attach a record on FindMyPast to persons in my FindMyPast Family Tree, and that a source citation would be provided.

2)  I clicked on the blue button on the screen above, and after several seconds, FindMyPast presented a screen of results:


There were 31 results.  None of them had a "Seaver" surname, but all had some variation of Frederick.  All of them were from English birth, marriage and death records.  None of them were for U.S. birth, marriage and death records, and none of the results were for any other record type (like census, immigration, military, etc.).

That's a major fail in my opinion.

I clicked on the blue "Edit your search" button to see what the search parameters were:


The search performed permitted name variants for both the first name and last name, did not include a year of marriage, included the year of birth and death, with a plus or minus 2 year variation, and in the World but no other place name.

I thought that I could probably select all record collections or record types by browsing the links to those fields, but they were limited to Births, Marriages and Deaths.  How do I see Census, Military, Cemetery, and other record types?

3)  The only way I found to access all record types in the world (not just England), was by clicking on the "Search records" button in the top menu bar on the screen above, and selected "Search all records."

That took me to the generic FindMyPast search form:



I had to type in the First Name, Last Name, Birth Year, and selected "United States & Canada" from the "Where" dropdown menu.  That opened the search results page before I had a chance to type Massachusetts in the field for "Enter a location:"


I had 66 matches, and there are several different records for the names and the birth year range.

I wanted to narrow the search to Massachusetts, so I added "Massachusetts" to the second location field on the screen above, and the results were narrowed to 20 matches:


I recognized several as pertaining to my grandfather.  For each match, there are blue icons to the right of the record line for "view record image" and "view record transcription."

I clicked on the "View record image" icon and saw the record image:


I could "Report image error," "Print" or "download" using the links in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, or go back to "Results" (link in top left of screen), "view full page transcription" (link at top center of screen), or "View transcription" (link in top right-hand corner of screen).

I clicked the "View transcription" link in the top right-hand corner of the screen above, and saw:


The Transcription screen provides a list of the Household Members, and then indexed information for each individual in the household.

There is no source citation for this record image or transcription.

There is no link to attach the record transcription or record image to a person in my FindMyPast Family Tree.

4)  My conclusions from this study are:

*  The Search from my Family Tree does not (yet?) search all FindMyPast record collections.  At present, it searches only English birth, marriage and death records.  That's a major fail.  I hope that this will be fixed fairly soon.

*  The Search from my Family Tree finds records that meet the search criteria, but there seems to be no ordering of the results according to closeness of the match.  For the Search, the matches were ordered alphabetically by surname and then by closeness to the birth or death year.  

*  To search all FindMyPast record collections for my grandfather, I had to go to the top of the screen and fill in the generic search form again.  That worked, and found results for my grandfather.  My expectation was those would be found when I clicked the "Search" button in my Family Tree.

*  There is no way at attach the record image or record transcription to the person in my Family tree.  I hope that FindMyPast will include this at some point in time.  

*  No source citation for a record image or record transcription is provided.  I hope that FindMyPast will include this at some point in time.

I will try to report further on the FindMyPast Family Tree feature if and/or when these issues are corrected and/or improved.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/family-trees-on-findmypastcom-post-4.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver



52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 34: #41 Ann (Marshman) Richman (1784-1856)

Amy Johnson Crow suggested a weekly blog theme of "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" in her blog post Challenge: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks on the No Story Too Small blog.  Here is my ancestor biography for week #34:

[NOTE:  This profile has been edited to include the parentage of Ann Marshman as John and Anne (Angel) Marshman of Hilperton, Wiltshire.]

Ann (Marshman) Richman (1788-1867) is #41 on my Ahnentafel list, my third great-grandmother.  She married in 1811 to #40 John Richman (1788-1867).  


I am descended through:

*  their son, #20 James Richman (1821-1912), who married #21 Hannah Rich (1824-1911).

*  their son, #10 Thomas Richmond (1848-1917), who married #11 Julia E. White (1848-1913)

*  their daughter, #5 Alma Bessie Richmond (1882-1962), who married #4 Frederick Walton Seaver (1876-1942), 
* their son, #2 Frederick Walton Seaver (1911-1983), who married #3 Betty Virginia Carringer (1919-2002), in 1942.
*  their son, #1 Randall J. Seaver (1943-....)

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

1)  PERSON (with source citations as indicated in brackets):


*  Name:                      Ann Marshman [1]
*  Alternate Name:        Ann Richman [2–4]

*  Sex:                         Female   
*  Father:                     John Marshman (1747-????)
*  Mother:                   Anne Angel (1748-1795)  

2)  INDIVIDUAL FACTS (with source citations as indicated in brackets):   

*  Birth:                       about 1784, Devizes, Wiltshire, England [2]
*  Census:                   31 March 1841 (about age 57), Hilperton Marsh, Wiltshire, England [3]
*  Census:                   31 March 1851 (about age 67), Hilperton, Wiltshire, England [2]
*  Death:                     before 31 July 1856 (before about age 72), Hilperton, Wiltshire, England [4]   
*  Burial:                     31 July 1856 (about age 72), Hilperton, Wiltshire, England [4]
       
3)  MARRIAGES AND CHILDREN (with source citations as indicated in brackets):

*  Spouse 1:               John Richman (1788-1867)    
*  Marriage 1:            8 February 1811 (about age 27), Hilperton, Wiltshire, England [1]
*  Child 1:                 Elizabeth Richman (1811-    )   
*  Child 2:                 Sarah Richman (1814-    )   
*  Child 3:                 John Richman (1816-1884)   
*  Child 4:                 Ann Richman (1818-    )   
*  Child 5:                 James Richman (1821-1912)   
*  Child 6:                 Thomas Richman (1823-1844)   
*  Child 7:                 Mary Richman (1823-1825)   
*  Child 8:                 Mary Richman (1825-1825)   
  
4)  NOTES (with source citations as indicated in brackets):

From English census records, Ann was born between 1781 (age 59 in 1841 census) and 1784 (age 67 in 1851 census), apparently in Devizes in Wiltshire.

An Ann Marshman, daughter of Richard and Rebecca (Phipps) Marshman, was baptized at Southbroom Church in Devizes on 20 June 1784.  Another Ann Marshman was baptized 30 October 1780 there, daughter of Thomas and Ann (____) Marshman.  Her parents may have been another Marshman couple who did not record the baptism.  

There were Marshman families in Hilperton at the time of her marriage there who may have been related to Ann.  Her parents may have been another Marshman couple who did not record the baptism in the Church of England records.  

John and Anne (Angel) Marshman had five children (Thomas, Elizabeth, Martha, James and John)  baptized in Hilperton between 1767 and 1783, and were likely the parents of Ann Marshman, perhaps born in Devizes.  The mother, Anne (Angel) Marshman was buried in Hilperton in 1795.  This John Marshman may have resided in Hilperton in the 1810 time period, and probably died in Hilperton.

One clue may be that a Thomas Marshman was a witness to Ann's marriage in 1811 to John Richman.  A Thomas Marshman was the eldest child of John and Ann (Angel) Marshman, baptized in 1767 in Hilperton.

The Hilperton Parish Register Bishop's Transcripts say they were married on 8 February 1811 by J. Ballies with the mark of X for John Richman and Ann Marshman, with witness Thomas Marshman, in the presence of Richard Hiscock.[1]

The baptisms of the eight children of John and Ann (Marshman) Richman are recorded in the Hilperton Parish Bishops Transcripts between 1811 and 1825.

In the 1841 Census for Wiltshire, the John Richman family resided on Marsh Lane in Hilperton Marsh.  The household included:[2]

*   John Richman Senior - age 52, male, a coal hauler, born Wiltshire
*   Ann Richman - age 59, female, a weaver, born Wiltshire
*  Elizabeth Richman - age 30, female, a weaver, born Wiltshire
*  James Richman - age 20, male, Ag Lab, born Wiltshire

In the 1851 Census for Wiltshire, the John Richman family resided in Hilperton Marsh, Wiltshire, England.  The household included:[3]

*   John Richman - husband, age 59, butcher, born Hilperton, Wiltshire
*  Ann Richman - wife, age 67, born Devizes
*  Elizabeth Richman - daughter, age 38, weaver, born Hilperton
*  Mary Richman - granddaughter age 8, born Hilperton
*  Rosa Richman - granddaughter, age 3, scholar, born Bath, Somerset

The burial of Ann Richman was recorded in the Hilperton Parish Registers on 31 July 1856.[4]

5)  SOURCES

1. Church of England, Parish Church of Hilperton (Wiltshire, England), Bishop's Transcripts, 1622-1880, "Baptisms, Marriages, Burials, 1748-1812",  FHL BRITISH microfilm 1,279,404, Item 13, Marriages:  John Richman and Ann Marshman entry.

2. 1851 England and Wales Census,  digital image. FindMyPast.com (http://www.findmypast.com), Wiltshire, Hilperton [parish], District 257, Folio 267 recto, household 196, John Richman household;  digital image, FindMyPast.com (http://www.findmypast.com : accessed July 2012), citing The Natonal Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey, Public Record Office HO 107/1840.

3. 1841 England, Wales and Scotland Census, Wiltshire, Hilperton [parish], Folio 24, Page 9 (printed), Lines 7-10, John Richman household; digital image, FindMyPast.com (www.findmypast.com : accessed 27 July 2012); citing The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey, Public Record Office HO 107/1182/2.

4. Church of England, Parish Church of Hilperton (Wiltshire, England), Bishop's Transcripts, 1622-1880, "Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1837-1880," FHL BRITISH Microfilm 1,279,404, Item 15, Burials, Ann Richman entry.


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

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/52-ancestors-in-52-weeks-week-34-41-ann.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver


Thursday, August 21, 2014

Best Way to Match Parents in FamilySearch Family Tree Using RootsMagic - Part 2

I posted Best Way to Match Parents in Familysearch Family Tree Using RootsMagic - Part I on 18 August, which described one way but probably not the best way, and promised to highlight the Best Way in a later post.  

If you recall the earlier post, when I tried to match Parents of my person, I ended up creating two additional families, each with one parent and my person (as a child).  To rectify that problem, I had to go into the FamilySearch Family Tree and delete the parent-child relationship for the two additional families.  That works, but is not optimum.  

The better way to match Parents of a person in RootsMagic with parents in the Family Tree is:

1)  On the "FamilySearch Person Tools" page for my Person (I chose Eunice Norman (1686-1743)), the Parents in RootsMagic (left-side of the screen below) are not matched to Parents in the Family Tree (right side of the screen below):



As you can see on the screen above, the background color for the Father and Mother of Eunice norman is yellow.  That means the names in the Family Tree are the same as the names in the RootsMagic database, but the Family Tree person is not matched (linked) to the RootsMagic person.

The goal here is to match them.  At this point in the earlier post, I clicked on the RootsMagic person to match them.  That led to the problems of creating two additional families.

2)  The Best Way to match Parents of a Person is to click on the Parent in the "My FamilySearch Person" side (the right side) of the screen above.  When I clicked on the tree icon next to the name of the father, John Norman, on the FamilySearch side of the screen, I saw:


The system gave me two choices - "Add to RootsMagic as a new Father," or "Match with RootsMagic to John Norman."  I chose the second option.  When I clicked on "OK" on the screen above, I was back in the RootsMagic "FamilySearch Person Tools" screen and the background for the Father is now green:


3)  I did the same thing for the mother.  I clicked the tree icon next to the mother's name on the FamilySearch side of the screen above and saw the same choices:


I selected the second option, to Match Sarah Maverick with the RootsMagic person Sarah Maverick, and clicked "OK."

That brought me back to the RootsMagic "FamilySearch Person Tools" to see:



Success!  Both Father and Mother in FamilySearch are matched with my RootsMagic persons.

4)  I could now go to the FamilySearch Person Tools" screen for the Father and the Mother and click the "Find Matches" tab for the FamilySearch person in the Family Tree and merge them with any duplicate profiles.

This process is much easier, and does not add extraneous or erroneous data or relationships to the FamilySearch Family Tree.  

To summarize, the Best Way to match Parents in FamilySearch Family Tree using RootsMagic is to click on the Parent name in the "My FamilySearch Person" side of the screen and match it to the Parent name on the "My RootsMagic Person" side of the screen.

The UIRL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/best-way-to-match-parents-in_21.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver


Family Trees on FindMyPast.com - Post 3: Source Citations

I posted  Family Trees on FindMyPast.com - Post 1: Creating the Tree, and Basic Navigation  on 198 August 2014 (in which I uploaded a GEDCOM file into a new tree on FindMyPast, and looked at the pedigree chart and the Profile for one person, with details on the "Overview" tab) and Family Trees on FindMyPast.com - Post 2: Navigation Aids and Profile Tabs on 20 August 2014 (in which I showed different navigation methods and the rest of the Profile tabs).

I want to highlight source citations in the FindMyPast Family Tree system because they are of significant interest to me and others.

And there is a significant problem with them.  

1)  The process to find source citations is easy:

*  On the person Profile page for my grandfather, Frederick Walton Seaver (1876-1942), on the "Fact and Events" tab, there is a list of Facts/Events.  Each Fact/Event has links to Sources, Media, Notes and Links, as shown below.  When you click on the "Sources" link, the screen expands to show all of the Sources for the Fact/Event:




I have five sources for the Birth Fact/Event for my grandfather.  For each of them, if you run your mouse over the area, there is an "Edit" icon and a "Trash" icon on the right side of the screen for each source.  I clicked on the "Edit" icon (in blue above) for the first source and a popup box with the Source information popped up:


There are three fields shown on the popup window above - titled "Source," "Reference" and "Notes."  The text inside the "Reference" field says "Reference (e.g., page number, web link, etc.).

The text inside the "Source" field above is:

"Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1915," indexed database and digital images, New England Historic Genealogical Society, American Ancestors (http://www.AmericanAncestors.org)

2)  That is only part of the source citation - it's what several software programs call the "Master Source" part.  The "Reference" field on the screen above should provide what some software programs call the "Source Detail" part of the source citation.  

For instance, here is the RootsMagic screen for this particular source citation (in Free-form format), showing the "Master Source" fields for "Footnote," "Short Footnote" and "Bibliography," and the "source Detail field showing page number, etc.  


So it appears that the FindMyPast sources provide only the "Master Source" component of the entire source citation provided in the GEDCOM file.

3)  I created a small GEDCOM file for my grandfather so I could figure out what is happening here.  

In the GEDCOM file created by RootsMagic (which is similar to that created by many other software programs and online trees), the source citations are in two separate tags:

*  The "Source Detail" is in a PAGE tag (associated with a SOUR tag for the "Master Source") as shown below in the BIRTh Fact section of the GEDCOM file:



On the screen above, there are five SOUR tags with PAGE tags for the BIRTh fact.

SOUR @S277@ is the source for the PAGE which is the "Source Detail" in the section above.

*  The "Master Source" part of the source citation is provided near the end of the GEDCOM file (because a Master Source can be used many times, so they are all clustered at the end of the file).  Here is the GEDCOM file text for Master Source S277:


4)  For the source citation being analyzed in this post, the "Reference" field on FindMyPast should contain this text:

Births: Volume 279, Page 311, Leominster, 1876: Fred Walton Seaver entry

The complete source citation ("Master Source" and "Source Detail") should be (Footnote style):

"Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1915," indexed database and digital images, New England Historic Genealogical Society, American Ancestors (http://www.AmericanAncestors.org), Births: Volume 279, Page 311, Leominster, 1876: Fred Walton Seaver entry.

5)  I hope that FindMyPast will correct this problem - if they perceive it to be a problem.

How did this happen?  I don't know.  Perhaps the programmers picked the wrong GEDCOM tag to assign to the "Reference" field and the problem can be easily corrected. (If that's the case, then everyone who has uploaded a GEDCOM will probably have to upload it again.)

Please note that I use "Free-form" source citations, not multi-field source templates based on Evidence Explained models, for almost all of my source citations.  When I created the GEDCOM file for the FindMyPast tree, I unchecked the box for "Extra Details (RM specific)" in order to avoid GEDCOM transfer problems with RootsMagic source templates.

6)  As an aside, the current GEDCOM file form, being a text file, is easy to analyze to determine how information gets transferred from one program/online tree to another.  As a non-programmer, I can usually figure out how things like this happen.

7)  In the next post in this series, I'll look at how the Search function interacts with the FindMyPast Family Tree.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/family-trees-on-findmypastcom-post-3.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver


Treasure Chest Thursday - Post 228: Quaker Church Birth Record for Martha Gach

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 Birth record of Martha Gach (1729-???) in the Quaker record book for woodbridge, New Jersey.


There are 29 entries on this one page in this Quaker record book from the Rahway/Plainfield, New Jersey Monthly Meeting in the 1720-1740 time period.  25 of the entries are for Woodbridge families, plus two entries from Philadelphia, and two from Piscataway. 

The item of interest to me is on the left-hand page of the image above.  The columns and their entries are:

*  Name of child:  Martha Gach
*  Parents:  Daughter of Thomas & Mary
*  Place of birth:  Woodbridge
*  Time of birth:  11 Mo 29 1729
*  Sex:    F  

I actually have about ten persons in the entries on this image in my database - Gach, Bloodgood, Fitz Randolph and Smith, but Martha is my only ancestor!  

The source citation for this record is (using the RootsMagic source template for "Church Records *(online image copies):

U.S. Quaker Meeting Records, 1681-1994, Rahway and Plainfield [N.J.] Monthly Meeting, Births 1705-1901, Deaths 1705-1908, Marriages 1712-1885, Births, page 8, Martha Gach entry; indexed dataase and digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 3 July 2014).

The record gives the birth date as 11 Mo[nth] 29 1729.  Ancestry.com indexed this as 29 January 1729.  Other books I've seen record the date as 29 November 1729.  For this Quaker record book, i'm not sure which date is correct.  The Gregorian to Julian calendar conversion didn't occur until 1752 for English records.  Are there any Quaker  record experts in Genea-Musings land?

There are two other Gach birth records on the image above - Sarah Gach (born 12 Mo 25 1727) and Annah Gach (born 12 Mo 18 1732).  The mother of Martha and Sarah is given as "Mary" but the mother of Annah is given as "Elizabeth."  Thomas Gach married Elizabeth Bloodgood on 17 August 1721 in Woodbridge, and they had 12 children from 1722 to 1744.  I think that the record for the mother of Sarah and Martha should be Elizabeth, not Mary.  

Martha Gach (1729-????) is my 5th great-grandmother, daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth (Bloodgood) Gach.  She married Samuel Fitz Randolph (1730-????) in 1750 in Woodbridge, and they had two daughters, including my 4th great-grandmother, Tabitha Randolph (1752-1841), who married Stephen Cutter (1745-1823) in 1768.

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Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver



Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Family Trees on FindMyPast.com - Post 2: Navigation Aids and Profile Tabs

I posted Family Trees on FindMyPast.com - Post 1: Creating the Tree, and Basic Navigation yesterday, in which I uploaded a GEDCOM file into a new tree on FindMyPast, and looked at the pedigree chart and the Profile for one person, with details on the "Overview" tab.

1)  There are more ways to navigate in the family tree.  Here they are:

*  The "Pedigree" View shows four generations, with arrows to the right of the 4th generation to extend that branch of the tree:



A user can click on any name and see their information, and click on their "Profile" to see more information about the person (covered in Post 1).

There is a "Print" icon and a "Settings" icon on the upper far right side of the screen above.

By clicking on the down arrow at the top of the chart, in the "bread crumb trail" for "Pedigree," a drop-down menu provides more navigation options.

*  Here is the "Family View" chart option, which shows three generations of families:


*  The "Family Group" view option shows a family group sheet format:


*  The "People" view option provides a list of all of the people in the family tree.


Clicking on the blue "View" button provides a dropdown menu to go to the Pedigree, Family view, Family Group or Profile.

2)  On the person "Profile" page, there are five tabs below the person's name:

*  The "Overview" tab (covered in detail in Post 1) - two screens shown:




*  The "Fact and Events" tab:



This is a complete list of all of the Facts and Events for the person.  If there are duplicate events, the user can set one as the Preferred Event.  Under each Fact detail, there are links for Sources, Media, Notes and Links.  If I click on the link for sources for the Birth Fact, I see:


The "Fact and Events" list is expanded to show the Sources, Media, notes and Links for that Event.

If you run your mouse over the Event area, there are "Edit" (a pencil) and Delete (a trash can) icons on the right side of the Event or Source.

I clicked on the "Edit" icon beside the "Birth" Event and saw:



I could Edit the Birth Fact, with fields for Date, Place and Address, plus check boxes to "Set as preferred Birth" and "Private."  If I change anything, I have to click on "Save Fact."

I will address the "Source" information in the next post in this series.

*  The "Relations" tab on the Profile page provides information about the person's parents, spouses and children.



*  The "Media" tab on the Profile page shows all of the media items for the person:


Except it doesn't show the media images.  It shows only the Media item captions.  Perhaps a later version of the program will enable the images themselves (But will I have to upload the GEDCOM file again?).

*  The "Notes" tab provides the person notes.  A user can add another Note by clicking on "Add note" and entering text into the field provided.


If you run your mouse over the Note field on the screen above, the "Edit" and "Delete" icons appear and you can edit the Note.  Or delete it!

3)  This is a full-featured family tree program, and I haven't investigated everything yet.  I want to show how to search the FindMyPast record collections in a future post.

In the next post in the series, i'll review the "sources" on the "Fact and Events" tab on the person Profile page.  

If you have questions about this family tree, please ask them and I'll try to answer them, or perhaps FindMyPast personnel will contribute in the Comments.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/family-trees-on-findmypastcom-post-2.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver


Cyndi Ingle Featured at San Diego Genealogical Society Seminar on 27 September

The San Diego Genealogical Society (SDGS) Fall Seminar will be on Saturday, 27 September, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Marina Village (1936 Quivira Way, San Diego, CA 92109) in the Captain's Room.

The featured speaker is the world-renowned Cyndi Ingle, the creator, owner and webmaster of the award-winning website Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet, www.CyndisList.com.


Cyndi's four presentations will cover:

*  A Guided Tour of Cyndi's List 2.0

*  The Internet: Lower Your Expectations to Raise Your Research Potential

*  The Hidden Web: Digging Deeper

*  Evernote for Every Genealogist

The morning coffee, tea and Danish are included in the price of the seminar. Our pricing of $40 for members and $50 for non-members includes the seminar, the welcoming coffee/tea/Danish, and a sandwich lunch box.  The lunch will be provided in a room just to the north of the Captain's Room.

Please register early as seating is limited to the first 200 registrants. We expect the seminar will fill up fast.

You can register online at https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?llr=bbm4ssnab&oeidk=a07e9bo38yoad5d4b4a.  There is a mail-in registration form at https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a6bc981b563c967736105c2ee/files/e6bb53c5-4761-40fc-ba24-599fa3c77eb2.pdf

I hope to see many of my San Diego area colleagues at this seminar.  It should be great!

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/cyndi-ingle-featured-at-san-diego.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver