Rabbit Holes With Randy -- Finding "New" Ancestral Information on "Old" Websites

I really need to go down this rabbit hole more often!  I'm trying to be a smart bunny, but there is so much to do, and so many unfinished tasks in my RootsMagic family tree.

I learned two lessons a long time ago but in the last year I have pretty much ignored following them.  The lessons are:

• Search for records of profiles in my Ancestry Member Tree, my MyHeritage family trees and the FamilySearch Family Tree, directly from the ancestor profile.  Searching from the ancestor profile "stimulates" the Record Hints/Matches from all collections, and finds many more records pertaining to the ancestor than do the list of Record Hints/Matches (which are only from the largest record collections).  While I have done extensive research on my ancestors on Ancestry, FamilySearch and MyHeritage, I have not done so in the last year.  

• Search the Photo Hints and Stories Hints on my Ancestry Member Tree profiles.  Again, there are Hints added every week, and some of them may help me add content and information to your ancestor profiles.

Ancestry, FamilySearch, MyHeritage, Findmypast, AmericanAncestors, Find A Grave, GenealogyBank, and other record providers have added or updated their record collections since the last time I searched.  So I need to search this way more frequently. 

1)  Here's an example:  I searched for records for my 3rd great-grandfather, Samuel Vaux (1816-1880) directly from his profile on my Ancestry Member Tree:

The search criteria are all very broad, but this Search From the Profile groups the records that match the specific person at the top of the match list, and they include records, photos and stories.

From this search, and checking my image files, I found that I did not have an image of Samuel Vaux's baptism in South Petherton, Somerset, so I captured that image.  

While I had captured the baptism information several years ago on microfilm, I did not have an image for this baptism record.  I can now add it to my RootsMagic family tree program and to the Ancestry Member Tree gallery.

I also captured the 1850 Agricultural Census entry for Samuel Vaux in the 1850 census for Aurora, Erie County, New York:

I had not seen this 1850 agricultural census record before (and there is another page on the following image), but now I have it and can add it to my Research Notes for Samuel Vaux with a source citation.  A two-fer for Samuel's search.  

2)  Another example:  A search for my great-grandfather Charles Auble on MyHeritage using the "Research this person" link on his profile card on my MyHeritage Family Tree yielded (using only "Historical records"):

There were over a million matches on this search list, so I looked at the top 100 matches, and then searched for Newspapers, and was rewarded with:

This article about my great-grandfather Charles Auble (1849-1916) was on the relatively new OldNews.com site which is indexed on MyHeritage.  I had not seen it before.  

3)  In the past two weeks, I have spent five hours going through this search process for myself and each of my 30 ancestors back through the 2nd great-grandparents in my Ancestry Member Tree and in my MyHeritage Family Tree.  

In this process, I've found (in addition to the above examples):

• Randy Seaver: a 1960 yearbook group photograph
• Frederick Seaver (my father):  a 1940 Draft Registration card
• Austin Carringer and Della Smith (my great-grandparents):  an 1887 newspaper marriage announcement
• Geraldine Seaver Remley obituary (aunt):  a 2007 obituary newspaper article.
• Devier J. Smith (my 2nd great-grandfather):  1870 Agricultural census record in Iowa.
• Amey Oatley (my 3rd great-grandmother):  1865 death notice in Hale newspaper collection in Connecticut.
• James Richman (my 2nd great-grandfather):  1865 Rhode Island State census record.
• Thomas Richman (my great-grandfather):  1848 Non-conformist church baptism in Wiltshire.
• Austin Carringer (my great-grandfather):  San Diego City Directories 1894-1934.

While the "haul" of records is not stupendous (because I have searched all of these ancestors over 37 years), each found record adds content and detail to my ancestor sketches.  Now I need to modify the sketches to incorporate the "finds," and write occasional blog posts about them.

4)  Now I need to do the 3rd great-grandparents and then the 4th great-grandparents.  

A genealogy bunny's work is never done, and it's fun to do it, and it's great to get results!  More carrots needed!!

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