Monday, May 21, 2018

Monday Genea-Pourri - 21 May 2018

Here are some of my family history and genealogy related activities over the past week:

1)    Found and downloaded the probate packets of William White (1683-1780) and William White (1708-1780) from AmericanAncestors.orgI had a partial transcription of the wills before but did not have the complete set of probate papers.  I also searched for and found land records for the two William Whites. 


2)   Invited to speak to the Presbyterian Women of the San Diego Presbytery group at our church, Chula Vista Presbyterian Church, on Saturday, 19 May.  I presented my 40-minute "Genealogy: Be An Ancestor Detective" talk to a group of about 30.  We had a technology problem in that my laptop on the stage couldn't "talk to" the projector - the cable at the stage didn't work.  We knew that the house computer could "talk to" the projector, so we unhooked the cable to the house computer and attached it to my laptop back at the house computer table.  I then advanced slides from the stage using my clicker as Plan B but had to give the presentation turning to see the screen.  We had a Plan C too.  That worked, the ladies seemed to enjoy the talk, and I got mentioned by the pastor in church on Sunday.

3)  Reviewed my FamilySearch Family Tree messages, and received one that really helped identify Sephrona (Goddard) Kemp as the second wife of my 3rd great-grandfather, Abraham Kemp.  I updated the profile for both Abraham and Sephrona.  She is not my ancestor but is part of my family history, since she was the step-mother of the children of Abraham.  I still don't know the parents of Abraham's first wife, who was named Sarah Fletcher, according to a family Bible.



4)  Made more progress on my genealogy project - I am researching the ancestry of a local personality, and will present what I find at the CVGS Family History Day in September.  I am still finding first and second cousins of my subject, but have not found any new ancestors for him.    The RootsMagic tree has grown - 267 persons with 548 citations.  I TreeShare this with an Ancestry Member Tree (which generates Hints!), access the WebHints for Ancestry, FamilySearch, MyHeritage and Findmypast, search for more data online, and share data with  FamilySearch Family Tree profiles.  I am listing the English parish register entries I need to find on FamilySearch digital microfilm at the FamilySearch Center.

5)  Mondays With Myrt webinar this morning was lively. We discussed the panelist's DNA tests, DNA reference groups, the British Institute, AmericanAncestors data, Virginia History of History and Culture, genealogy society insurance, and GDPR as it affects companies and bloggers.   


6) There were occasional sessions working in RootsMagic to update FamilySearch Family Tree profiles for Seaver families and other database families, with occasional additions to the RootsMagic profiles. I have matched 23,568 of my persons with FSFT.  I now have 49,961 persons in my RootsMagic file, and 93,895 source citations.   I TreeShared twice during the last week.  There was also one session in Ancestry Hints to add content and source citations for the new RootsMagic profile additions.   I've fallen behind on the Record Hints with 62,414 waiting to be resolved, but I'm working on them.

7)  Have 284 Shared Ancestors on my AncestryDNA list (I had 283 last week), 879 4th cousins or closer (up from 873 last week), and 799 pages (over 39,950 matches with at least 5 cM) (was 789 pages last week) of  matches.  I have 13 matches that are third cousins or closer, and 97 matches with 34 cM (0.5%) or more (was 97 last week).  My highest match has 779 cM (11.5%), and is one of my first cousins.  I have 19 DNA Circles (was 19 last week). Very few of the new matches have an Ancestry Member Tree.

8)  Have 3,784 DNA Matches on MyHeritage (up from 3,730 last week) with at least 8 cM (0.1%), with 22 matches with more than 34 cM (0.5%) or more (was 22 last week).  I have three close relatives, one a first cousin once removed, and two first cousins twice removed.  The highest match is 512 cM (7.1%).  Most of my  matches have very small trees with no common ancestors shown.

9)  Have 1,045 DNA Relatives on 23andMe (I had 1,044 last week) who share at least 0.10% with me.  The two closest relatives are third cousins.  Of these, only 2 shares 1.0% or more, and 45 share 0.50% or more (was 44 last week), with the highest match being 1.54%.  I struggle to find out anything about most of these testers.  I am losing matches every week.

10)  Have 2,615 autosomal DNA Matches on FamilyTreeDNA (up from 2,596 last week) who share 0.25% (18 cM) or more, with the highest match being 96 cM (1.42%).  I have 12 who share at least 1.0% (68 cM) with me, and 1,418 who share at least 0.50% (34 cM) or more (was 1,405 last  week) with me.  I have had better luck finding shared ancestors here with a few of these testers.

11) Wrote 18 Genea-Musings blog posts last week, of which only one was a press release.  The most popular post was Ancestry.com Says They Will Work on Technical Problems with over 676 views..


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

The URL for this post is:  https://www.geneamusings.com/2018/05/monday-genea-pourri-21-may-2018.html


Copyright (c) 2018, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.

No comments: