I received an email from Kristine Harrison at FamilyForest about their offer for a free eBook. The email said:
"For a limited time your readers can receive a free Family Forest® Ancestral eBook of their choice at http://familyforest.com/. Please see http://familyforest.com/products/4/e-books for details.
"Kristine Harrison
Millisecond Publishing Company, Inc.
Co-Founder of the Family Forest® Project
http://www.familyforest.com/
A People-Centered Approach To History®
http://familyforest.wordpress.com/"
I followed up to see how the process worked, and Kristine added this information:
"All someone needs to do is to e-mail a short thoughtful answer to any one of the ten questions (http://familyforest.com/resources), along with the title of whatever eBook they would like, to kristine@familyforest.com.
"Then I will send them a link to the free download via YouSendIt.com It's that simple, and no hidden fees."
This is, of course, a pretty nice way to introduce the FamilyForest products to a set of savvy genealogists that might be interested in it. I appreciate Kristine's offer. I ordered the eBook about descendants of Edward III since I have (I think) at least one descendant from him. There were several others that interested me - Richard Warren, William White, Henry Adams and John Prescott.
Please check out what FamilyForest.com offers.
Disclosure: I am not an employee, contractor, affiliate or agent for FamilyForest. I have received no remuneration for writing this post, but I am taking advantage of the free eBook offer.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Ancestry.com Quirk in 1930 US Census fixed!
I complained in June 2009, in Ancestry.com Quirk - 1930 Census Index, that the 1930 U.S. Census database on http://www.ancestry.com/ had some serious search problems, including:
* Birthplace indexed for only head of household or persons of a different surname in the household (i.e., birthplace of spouse and children not indexed)
* Father's birthplace was not indexed
* Mother's birthplace was not indexed
* A commenter noted that Race was indexed only for the Head of Household.
Those created serious search problems for me, and others, who had used those search fields in the 1920 and earlier census records.
The current 1930 U.S. Census Basic Search box (in New Search) looks like this:
It includes First Name, Last Name, Birth Year and Birth Place, Lived In, Any Event, Family Members, Keywords and Race. However, the search results using the Basic form are all using Default Search Settings.
I prefer the Advanced Search form, which looks like this (two screens below):
The search fields now include First Name, Last Name, Birth Year an d Birth Place, Lived In, Any Event, Family Member, Keyword, Relation to Head of Household, Race/Ethnicity, Father's Birthplace and Mother's Birthplace.
The key to narrowing the search is to judiciously use the different search settings. If you use the "Default Setting" for everything, you will get thousands of matches, although your target will usually be in the first few matches if the names were enumerated correctly. I usually change the "Default Settings" to "Restrict to Exact" for the names, the lived in, and several other fields.
I tried this out, using the Advanced Search form, putting the following in the Search firm:
* First Name = "betty" (restricted to exact)
* Birth Year - "1919 plus/minus 2 years"
* Lived in - "San Diego County, California, USA" (selected from the dropdown list)
* Father's Name = "Lyle" (restricted to exact)
* Mother's birthplace = "Illinois, USA" (selected from the dropdown list)
With those search fields only, I received this match:
The right one. I tried this in June 2009 and got no matches.
I'm glad that Ancestry.com has added more indexed fields to the 1930 census. It will relieve some frustration with the census searches, especially for those who don't understand the nuances of doing searches on Ancestry.
Disclosure: I am not an employee, contractor or affiliate of Ancestry.com. I have accepted travel, hotel, meals and incidental expense from Ancestry.com at certain times. I have a fully paid Ancestry.com U.S. Deluxe subscription. I was not remunerated for writing this article.
* Birthplace indexed for only head of household or persons of a different surname in the household (i.e., birthplace of spouse and children not indexed)
* Father's birthplace was not indexed
* Mother's birthplace was not indexed
* A commenter noted that Race was indexed only for the Head of Household.
Those created serious search problems for me, and others, who had used those search fields in the 1920 and earlier census records.
The current 1930 U.S. Census Basic Search box (in New Search) looks like this:
It includes First Name, Last Name, Birth Year and Birth Place, Lived In, Any Event, Family Members, Keywords and Race. However, the search results using the Basic form are all using Default Search Settings.
I prefer the Advanced Search form, which looks like this (two screens below):
The search fields now include First Name, Last Name, Birth Year an d Birth Place, Lived In, Any Event, Family Member, Keyword, Relation to Head of Household, Race/Ethnicity, Father's Birthplace and Mother's Birthplace.
The key to narrowing the search is to judiciously use the different search settings. If you use the "Default Setting" for everything, you will get thousands of matches, although your target will usually be in the first few matches if the names were enumerated correctly. I usually change the "Default Settings" to "Restrict to Exact" for the names, the lived in, and several other fields.
I tried this out, using the Advanced Search form, putting the following in the Search firm:
* First Name = "betty" (restricted to exact)
* Birth Year - "1919 plus/minus 2 years"
* Lived in - "San Diego County, California, USA" (selected from the dropdown list)
* Father's Name = "Lyle" (restricted to exact)
* Mother's birthplace = "Illinois, USA" (selected from the dropdown list)
With those search fields only, I received this match:
The right one. I tried this in June 2009 and got no matches.
I'm glad that Ancestry.com has added more indexed fields to the 1930 census. It will relieve some frustration with the census searches, especially for those who don't understand the nuances of doing searches on Ancestry.
Disclosure: I am not an employee, contractor or affiliate of Ancestry.com. I have accepted travel, hotel, meals and incidental expense from Ancestry.com at certain times. I have a fully paid Ancestry.com U.S. Deluxe subscription. I was not remunerated for writing this article.
Advent Calendar - December 10: Christmas Gifts
This is the 10th in a series of 24 posts for the 2010 Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories.
On the 15th day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
The greatest gift of all - her love.
1) What were your favorite gifts, both to give and to receive?
I'm guessing at the date, but on about this date in 1969 I realized just how much Linda loved me and that I really loved her also. We had known each other for almost two years, but had been seriously dating only four months. As we made plans for Christmas with our respective families (mine in San Diego, hers in San Francisco), we talked openly about how much we meant to each other. I don't remember the physical gift we gave to each other at Christmas 1969, but I do know we gave each other a gift of commitment and happiness. The proposal was yet to come on Valentine's Day in 1970 (see, I was Mr. Romantic before I started doing genealogy), but this was the happiest Christmas of my life even though we were apart on December 25.
As a child, the best Christmas of all was 1954, when my brother Stan and I got our Davy Crockett coonskin caps and our Daisy BB guns for Christmas. Next best was 1955, when we got our Flexible Flyers, and the next best was 1956 when we got new bicycles. With the Flexies and bikes, we could roam all over San Diego and deliver our paper route on wheels - they meant freedom. We had had older bikes before this, but these were new with balloon tires and better brakes (still braking with the pedals, though).
Nowadays, I can count on receiving something electronic (I'm hoping for a laser pointer) and photographs of the grandchildren from my daughters and their families, some Hawaiian shirts and HP ink cartridges from Linda, and I usually treat myself to some genealogy books after the holiday. I usually get Linda some clothing - usually colorful (aqua, green, blue, red, purple) tops, gift certificates and perhaps a promise of a cruise or vacation.
My daughters provide hints for gifts for the grandchildren which makes it pretty easy to shop online for them.
2) Are there specific gift-giving traditions among your family or ancestors?
I don't recall any gift-giving traditions for my family, nor do I know anything about traditions from the ancestors, and we don't have any for our daughters and their families.
On the 15th day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
The greatest gift of all - her love.
1) What were your favorite gifts, both to give and to receive?
I'm guessing at the date, but on about this date in 1969 I realized just how much Linda loved me and that I really loved her also. We had known each other for almost two years, but had been seriously dating only four months. As we made plans for Christmas with our respective families (mine in San Diego, hers in San Francisco), we talked openly about how much we meant to each other. I don't remember the physical gift we gave to each other at Christmas 1969, but I do know we gave each other a gift of commitment and happiness. The proposal was yet to come on Valentine's Day in 1970 (see, I was Mr. Romantic before I started doing genealogy), but this was the happiest Christmas of my life even though we were apart on December 25.
As a child, the best Christmas of all was 1954, when my brother Stan and I got our Davy Crockett coonskin caps and our Daisy BB guns for Christmas. Next best was 1955, when we got our Flexible Flyers, and the next best was 1956 when we got new bicycles. With the Flexies and bikes, we could roam all over San Diego and deliver our paper route on wheels - they meant freedom. We had had older bikes before this, but these were new with balloon tires and better brakes (still braking with the pedals, though).
Nowadays, I can count on receiving something electronic (I'm hoping for a laser pointer) and photographs of the grandchildren from my daughters and their families, some Hawaiian shirts and HP ink cartridges from Linda, and I usually treat myself to some genealogy books after the holiday. I usually get Linda some clothing - usually colorful (aqua, green, blue, red, purple) tops, gift certificates and perhaps a promise of a cruise or vacation.
My daughters provide hints for gifts for the grandchildren which makes it pretty easy to shop online for them.
2) Are there specific gift-giving traditions among your family or ancestors?
I don't recall any gift-giving traditions for my family, nor do I know anything about traditions from the ancestors, and we don't have any for our daughters and their families.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Standardizing Place Names - Using FTM 2011 to Fix Non-standard Place Names
In my post yesterday, Standardizing Place Names - Using FTM 2011 to Merge Place Names, I demonstrated how easy it was to pick standardized place names from the standard place list in Family tree Maker 2011. I noted that some of the place names in my database were still non-standard - i.e., not in the FTM 2011 list of standard place names, and that I needed to resolve them by hand.
In this post, I want to demonstrate the process of standardizing place names, and getting the geotag coordinates of the place, in Family Tree Maker 2011.
I'm going to use Delhi, in Norfolk county, Ontario, Canada as the example. Unfortunately, the standard place list in FTM 2011 for ALL Canadian towns or cities do not include the county that the town is in, and so all of them are going to have to be fixed in this process.
In the "Places" workspace, I highlighted "Delhi, Norfolk, Ontario, CANADA" on my list of places. I clicked on "Place" in the menu, and then "Resolve Place Name" to get the dropdown box. You can see that it lists "Delhi, , Ontario, Canada as the standard place name. Here is the Place list before I did any standardizing:
In the Place list on the left, I have three items for Delhi Cemetery in Delhi (when I clicked on the first one, the map of Delhi, India came up) and six items for the town of Delhi in various forms. I want to merge all of them into one for the cemetery and one for the town, and geotag them in the process.
I chose the one above because it showed the right place on the map, and edited the place name in the upper right-hand corner. It now reads "Delhi, Norfolk, Ontario, Canada." I clicked on the pushpin below the location name on the "Location" line, and saw:
The red band at the top of the page says to "Click the exact location on the map for Delhi, Norfolk, Ontario, Canada." I clicked on the name of the town, Delhi, on the map, and the geotag for the place appeared in the "Location" field in the upper right-hand corner of the screen:
Delhi is at 42.8521° N, 80.4903° W.
I did an Edit -- Copy on my standard name of "Delhi, Norfolk, Ontario, Canada" so that I could use the same place name consistently, and fixed the other five non-standard place names on my list. I edited the Delhi Cemetery name to read "Delhi Cemetery, Delhi, Norfolk, Ontario, Canada" and fixed those three entries also. Now my updated list of the nine Delhi entries is only two, and they have been geotagged, as shown below:
While they are still listed as non-standard places in the FTM 2011 place name list, they are geotagged and the map will come up when the place name is clicked on. That's the best I can do at the moment. hopefully, Family Tree Maker will add counties to their official list of standard place names in Canada. I hope that they will greatly expand their list of place names in England too - it is pretty sparse.
I'm still in the process of working through the Place names in my database standardizing them as shown in my last post. The next task will be to geotag as many of my non-standard place names as possible.
I tested this process in RootsMagic 4 and Legacy Family Tree 7 and thought that the FTM 2011 process was the easiest for me to use. I liked that the process for changing the place name to a standardized version and geotagging that place was easy to use, and was all on one screen.
What I don't know is if a geotag of a place name in FTM 2011 will transfer across through a GEDCOM file to another program like RootsMagic or Legacy. I would hate to have to do all of this again at some time. I guess I better find out sooner rather than later. I'll let you know...
Disclosure: I received a gratis copy of Family Tree Maker 2011 from Ancestry.com. I purchased previous versions of family Tree Maker myself, but also received gratis copies of some versions from Ancestry.com (which I donated to a local genealogical society). I try very hard to be objective in my comments about Family Tree Maker software.
In this post, I want to demonstrate the process of standardizing place names, and getting the geotag coordinates of the place, in Family Tree Maker 2011.
I'm going to use Delhi, in Norfolk county, Ontario, Canada as the example. Unfortunately, the standard place list in FTM 2011 for ALL Canadian towns or cities do not include the county that the town is in, and so all of them are going to have to be fixed in this process.
In the "Places" workspace, I highlighted "Delhi, Norfolk, Ontario, CANADA" on my list of places. I clicked on "Place" in the menu, and then "Resolve Place Name" to get the dropdown box. You can see that it lists "Delhi, , Ontario, Canada as the standard place name. Here is the Place list before I did any standardizing:
In the Place list on the left, I have three items for Delhi Cemetery in Delhi (when I clicked on the first one, the map of Delhi, India came up) and six items for the town of Delhi in various forms. I want to merge all of them into one for the cemetery and one for the town, and geotag them in the process.
I chose the one above because it showed the right place on the map, and edited the place name in the upper right-hand corner. It now reads "Delhi, Norfolk, Ontario, Canada." I clicked on the pushpin below the location name on the "Location" line, and saw:
The red band at the top of the page says to "Click the exact location on the map for Delhi, Norfolk, Ontario, Canada." I clicked on the name of the town, Delhi, on the map, and the geotag for the place appeared in the "Location" field in the upper right-hand corner of the screen:
Delhi is at 42.8521° N, 80.4903° W.
I did an Edit -- Copy on my standard name of "Delhi, Norfolk, Ontario, Canada" so that I could use the same place name consistently, and fixed the other five non-standard place names on my list. I edited the Delhi Cemetery name to read "Delhi Cemetery, Delhi, Norfolk, Ontario, Canada" and fixed those three entries also. Now my updated list of the nine Delhi entries is only two, and they have been geotagged, as shown below:
While they are still listed as non-standard places in the FTM 2011 place name list, they are geotagged and the map will come up when the place name is clicked on. That's the best I can do at the moment. hopefully, Family Tree Maker will add counties to their official list of standard place names in Canada. I hope that they will greatly expand their list of place names in England too - it is pretty sparse.
I'm still in the process of working through the Place names in my database standardizing them as shown in my last post. The next task will be to geotag as many of my non-standard place names as possible.
I tested this process in RootsMagic 4 and Legacy Family Tree 7 and thought that the FTM 2011 process was the easiest for me to use. I liked that the process for changing the place name to a standardized version and geotagging that place was easy to use, and was all on one screen.
What I don't know is if a geotag of a place name in FTM 2011 will transfer across through a GEDCOM file to another program like RootsMagic or Legacy. I would hate to have to do all of this again at some time. I guess I better find out sooner rather than later. I'll let you know...
Disclosure: I received a gratis copy of Family Tree Maker 2011 from Ancestry.com. I purchased previous versions of family Tree Maker myself, but also received gratis copies of some versions from Ancestry.com (which I donated to a local genealogical society). I try very hard to be objective in my comments about Family Tree Maker software.
Treasure Chest Thursday - Isaac Seaver's Civil War Pension File: General Affidavit #2
For Treasure Chest Thursday, I am presenting and transcribing papers from the Civil War Pension File of my Second Great-Grandfather, Isaac Seaver (1823-1901). I presented Treasure Chest Thursday - Isaac Seaver's Pension Declaration, Treasure Chest Thursday - Isaac Seaver's Civil War Pension File: Widow's First Declaration, and Treasure Chest Thursday - Isaac Seaver's Civil War Pension File: General Affidavit #1 in past weeks.
Another General Affidavit was filed on 29 April 1901 by two women who knew Isaac Seaver for 58 years and knew the name of Isaac's first wife.
The transcription is (handwritten words underlined and in italics):
State of Massachusetts, County of Worcester, SS:
In the matter of widow's original pension claim No. 738,086 Alvina M. Seaver
widow of Isaac Seaver 3d, Co. H 4th Regt Mass Vol H.A.
on this 29 day of April, A.D. 1901, personally
appeared before me a Notary Public in and for the afore-
said County, duly authorized to administer oaths Lucinda C. Tisdale,
aged 74 years, a resident of Leominster, in the County
of Worcester, and State of Massachusetts
whose Post-office address is #175 Union Street, Leominster, Mass.
Lucy A. Tisdale, aged 67 years, a resident of Leominster
_________________, in the County of Worcester
and State of Massachusetts, whose Post-office address is________
#15 Main Street, Leominster, Mass.
well known to be reputable and entitled to credit, and who, being duly sworn, declared in relation to aforesaid
case as follows: that we were well and personally
acquainted with the above named Isaac
Seaver, 3d, having known him more than
fifty-eight years. We have know that he was
never married but three times and the
first time was when he married with
Juliett Glazier. The above are facts de-
rived from our long personal acquain-
tance with said Isaac Seaver 3d.
[blank lines]
"Soldier married three times" [written diagonally and underlined, probably by a pension official]
We further declare that we have no interest in said case and are
not concerned in its prosecution.
Lucy A. Tisdale
Lucinda E. Tisdale
(Signatures of Affiants)
There is a U.S. Pension Office stamp dated May 3, 1901.
One interpretation of this affidavit is that the widow Alvina Seaver needed someone to vouch for the name of his first wife. Alvina gave Juliett's name, and her death date, in her General Affidavit filed on 20 April 1901.
This is the first notice I've taken of Lucinda C. Tisdale and Lucy A. Tisdale. These are two different women with essentially the same name. They claim to have known Isaac Seaver for 58 years - that would make their first acquaintance in 1843, when Isaac was age 20, Lucinda was age 16, and Lucy was age 9. Were they relatives, neighbors, or childhood friends? If so, are they single, married or widowed? Interesting puzzle. Maybe I'll check it out this next week.
Another General Affidavit was filed on 29 April 1901 by two women who knew Isaac Seaver for 58 years and knew the name of Isaac's first wife.
The transcription is (handwritten words underlined and in italics):
GENERAL AFFIDAVIT
State of Massachusetts, County of Worcester, SS:
In the matter of widow's original pension claim No. 738,086 Alvina M. Seaver
widow of Isaac Seaver 3d, Co. H 4th Regt Mass Vol H.A.
on this 29 day of April, A.D. 1901, personally
appeared before me a Notary Public in and for the afore-
said County, duly authorized to administer oaths Lucinda C. Tisdale,
aged 74 years, a resident of Leominster, in the County
of Worcester, and State of Massachusetts
whose Post-office address is #175 Union Street, Leominster, Mass.
Lucy A. Tisdale, aged 67 years, a resident of Leominster
and State of Massachusetts, whose Post-office address is
#15 Main Street, Leominster, Mass.
well known to be reputable and entitled to credit, and who, being duly sworn, declared in relation to aforesaid
case as follows: that we were well and personally
acquainted with the above named Isaac
Seaver, 3d, having known him more than
fifty-eight years. We have know that he was
never married but three times and the
first time was when he married with
Juliett Glazier. The above are facts de-
rived from our long personal acquain-
tance with said Isaac Seaver 3d.
[blank lines]
"Soldier married three times" [written diagonally and underlined, probably by a pension official]
We further declare that we have no interest in said case and are
not concerned in its prosecution.
Lucy A. Tisdale
Lucinda E. Tisdale
(Signatures of Affiants)
There is a U.S. Pension Office stamp dated May 3, 1901.
One interpretation of this affidavit is that the widow Alvina Seaver needed someone to vouch for the name of his first wife. Alvina gave Juliett's name, and her death date, in her General Affidavit filed on 20 April 1901.
This is the first notice I've taken of Lucinda C. Tisdale and Lucy A. Tisdale. These are two different women with essentially the same name. They claim to have known Isaac Seaver for 58 years - that would make their first acquaintance in 1843, when Isaac was age 20, Lucinda was age 16, and Lucy was age 9. Were they relatives, neighbors, or childhood friends? If so, are they single, married or widowed? Interesting puzzle. Maybe I'll check it out this next week.
Advent Calendar - December 9: Christmas Weather
This post is number 9 in a series of 24 for the 2010 Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories.
On the 16th day of Christmas,
I want everybody to know
That it doesn't snow (much) in San Diego.
This is the first "Christmas Grab Bag" edition of the Advent Calendar, which I really appreciate!
Jasia asked three years ago "Did you ever see snow on Christmas" in a comment to my December 1 post.
The short answer is "Yes -- on television - on the weather report, the national news and the football games. Not outside our window ever."
Our weather in San Diego at sea level on Christmas Day is typically partly cloudy, with a high in the low 60's and a low in the high 40's. We have had sunny and warm (highs in the 80s) Christmas Days before, and have had rain all day on occasion. We don't usually have real cold (for us - temps in the 30s) weather in December - it usually happens in January.
The record low temperature in San Diego is 25 F, which happened in 1923 - the water froze in the fountain at the downtown Plaza. The temperatures on the coast are always warmer than inland - if you go 10 miles inland, the low temps are always 5 to 10 degrees colder than the San Diego city temperature.
The Laguna, Cuyamaca and Palomar Mountains to our east and north (all are over 6,000 feet high) get snow occasionally, even at Christmas time. The TV stations always show folks parked on the sides of the roads, sliding down hills and throwing snowballs. Every 5 years or so, we get a snow fall down to 2,000 feet elevation but rarely at sea level.
'It has snowed several times in my lifetime in San Diego. At sea level. In January 1949 (I think), it snowed while I was walking to school (I was in kindergarten and it made a big impression on me). In December 1967, it snowed on my way to work. This time, the snow stuck for most of the day in the suburbs, and many San Diego kids (including the 25 year-old Randy) had a lot of fun. It snowed again in late December 1987 in San Diego, but we were on the way home from San Francisco and missed it. In every case, it snows at sea level early in the morning when a fast-moving cold front follows a clear and cold night.
In all the years that we went to San Francisco at Christmas time, it never snowed on us there, much to my disappointment. In 1987, it did snow on us at King City (south of Salinas) on Highway 101 and we stopped and had a wonderful snow ball fight. In 1985, we went to Yosemite after visiting San Francisco, and stayed several nights in that icy wonderland. We marveled at the frozen ponds, the waterfalls shedding ice, and had a glorious day sledding and snowballing at Glacier Point, a ski resort.
I have been in snow on occasion on trips to Portland in 1968, Boston in 1968, Cincinnati in the 1990's, and Topeka in 1987 and 1996. Each time, I am filled with wonder. Others (the natives) laugh at me - my lack of preparation (no hat, no gloves, no boots), my giddiness, my sliding on ice (unaware of the dangers).
For me, snow is really special - a treat.Our daughters live in areas that have snow occasionally, but we haven't been there when it has snowed. At least my grandchildren will have some memories of playing in the snow as children. We travel to their homes at Christmas time every other year - we might get lucky and really have a fun snow time with the little ones.
As a kid, I was very jealous that we did not have snow, at least on occasion, just so I could enjoy what other kids all over the country enjoyed. We didn't even have snow clothes, and still don't. We got Flexible Flyers (sleds with wheels) for Christmas, not snow sleds. When there was snow in the mountains, my folks never took us because of the crowds. I did go several times with the church youth group when I was 10 to 12 years old - it was cool! Wet. Cold. Fun.
We don't have snow tires, or own chains, or ice scrapers. We try to avoid driving where it is snowy and icy. We didn't take the kids to the snow when they were young because of our lack of proper equipment. The kids did go with their youth group several times, so they weren't totally deprived.
These days, I look forward to the absolutely clear days that follow a storm that dumps snow on the mountains. We can see Mount Cuyamaca (an Indian name, pronounced "kwee-ah-mack-ah") from all over San Diego County, and it occasionally has a snow mantle down to 4,000 feet. It is majestic and beautiful -
The San Diego Union-Tribune published an article on 6 December 2007 -- "The day it snowed in San Diego" describing December 13, 1967 - the day I remembered in my post above. There is also a list of other San Diego snow days - including January 11, 1949 and December 24, 1987. I saved it to my hard drive. The opening paragraphs:
“ 'This is something you tell to people who are from out of the area. They have a hard time believing it,' said Ken Ayers, a county native who was a dazzled 7-year-old on that wondrous day. 'It's the California Christmas dream.'
"The dream came true 40 years ago this morning, when gale-force winds blew a Canadian cold front far, far off course. Across San Diego County, residents woke up to see the air shimmering with something cold, white and unfamiliar."
On the 16th day of Christmas,
I want everybody to know
That it doesn't snow (much) in San Diego.
This is the first "Christmas Grab Bag" edition of the Advent Calendar, which I really appreciate!
Jasia asked three years ago "Did you ever see snow on Christmas" in a comment to my December 1 post.
The short answer is "Yes -- on television - on the weather report, the national news and the football games. Not outside our window ever."
Our weather in San Diego at sea level on Christmas Day is typically partly cloudy, with a high in the low 60's and a low in the high 40's. We have had sunny and warm (highs in the 80s) Christmas Days before, and have had rain all day on occasion. We don't usually have real cold (for us - temps in the 30s) weather in December - it usually happens in January.
The record low temperature in San Diego is 25 F, which happened in 1923 - the water froze in the fountain at the downtown Plaza. The temperatures on the coast are always warmer than inland - if you go 10 miles inland, the low temps are always 5 to 10 degrees colder than the San Diego city temperature.
The Laguna, Cuyamaca and Palomar Mountains to our east and north (all are over 6,000 feet high) get snow occasionally, even at Christmas time. The TV stations always show folks parked on the sides of the roads, sliding down hills and throwing snowballs. Every 5 years or so, we get a snow fall down to 2,000 feet elevation but rarely at sea level.
'It has snowed several times in my lifetime in San Diego. At sea level. In January 1949 (I think), it snowed while I was walking to school (I was in kindergarten and it made a big impression on me). In December 1967, it snowed on my way to work. This time, the snow stuck for most of the day in the suburbs, and many San Diego kids (including the 25 year-old Randy) had a lot of fun. It snowed again in late December 1987 in San Diego, but we were on the way home from San Francisco and missed it. In every case, it snows at sea level early in the morning when a fast-moving cold front follows a clear and cold night.
In all the years that we went to San Francisco at Christmas time, it never snowed on us there, much to my disappointment. In 1987, it did snow on us at King City (south of Salinas) on Highway 101 and we stopped and had a wonderful snow ball fight. In 1985, we went to Yosemite after visiting San Francisco, and stayed several nights in that icy wonderland. We marveled at the frozen ponds, the waterfalls shedding ice, and had a glorious day sledding and snowballing at Glacier Point, a ski resort.
I have been in snow on occasion on trips to Portland in 1968, Boston in 1968, Cincinnati in the 1990's, and Topeka in 1987 and 1996. Each time, I am filled with wonder. Others (the natives) laugh at me - my lack of preparation (no hat, no gloves, no boots), my giddiness, my sliding on ice (unaware of the dangers).
For me, snow is really special - a treat.Our daughters live in areas that have snow occasionally, but we haven't been there when it has snowed. At least my grandchildren will have some memories of playing in the snow as children. We travel to their homes at Christmas time every other year - we might get lucky and really have a fun snow time with the little ones.
As a kid, I was very jealous that we did not have snow, at least on occasion, just so I could enjoy what other kids all over the country enjoyed. We didn't even have snow clothes, and still don't. We got Flexible Flyers (sleds with wheels) for Christmas, not snow sleds. When there was snow in the mountains, my folks never took us because of the crowds. I did go several times with the church youth group when I was 10 to 12 years old - it was cool! Wet. Cold. Fun.
We don't have snow tires, or own chains, or ice scrapers. We try to avoid driving where it is snowy and icy. We didn't take the kids to the snow when they were young because of our lack of proper equipment. The kids did go with their youth group several times, so they weren't totally deprived.
These days, I look forward to the absolutely clear days that follow a storm that dumps snow on the mountains. We can see Mount Cuyamaca (an Indian name, pronounced "kwee-ah-mack-ah") from all over San Diego County, and it occasionally has a snow mantle down to 4,000 feet. It is majestic and beautiful -
The San Diego Union-Tribune published an article on 6 December 2007 -- "The day it snowed in San Diego" describing December 13, 1967 - the day I remembered in my post above. There is also a list of other San Diego snow days - including January 11, 1949 and December 24, 1987. I saved it to my hard drive. The opening paragraphs:
“ 'This is something you tell to people who are from out of the area. They have a hard time believing it,' said Ken Ayers, a county native who was a dazzled 7-year-old on that wondrous day. 'It's the California Christmas dream.'
"The dream came true 40 years ago this morning, when gale-force winds blew a Canadian cold front far, far off course. Across San Diego County, residents woke up to see the air shimmering with something cold, white and unfamiliar."
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Standardizing Place Names - Using FTM 2011 to Merge Place Names
In my post Standardizing Place Names in my Genealogy Database two weeks ago, I mused the pros and cons of doing it, and what the best process was. I've been through all place names in my database and removed most of the extraneous data (like "VR 424:123," or "will proved" or "young."). I missed some but those now stand out clearly!
Now I often have 5 to 10 (or more) different versions of names for the same place, like "Westminster, Worcester, MA," "Westminster, Worcester County, MA," "Westminster, Worcester, Massachusetts," etc. Of course, virtually none of my place names meet the standard of "Westminster, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA."
I checked into the process of doing this in Family Tree Maker 2011, Legacy Family Tree 7.4, and RootsMagic 4. Because I have so many place names to merge into standard place names, I thought that Family Tree Maker 2011 did the job well and fairly easily. Here is the process I've started:
in FTM 2011, I wanted to change all of my different Westminster MA place names to the standard "Westminster, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA." I chose the Benjamin Seaver (1791-1825) family to illustrate the process and the results.
Here is the "People" workspace screen of the Benjamin Seaver family. Note that the place names are "Westmnster, Worcester County, MA."
I clicked on the "Places" workspace in the top menu, and scrolled down the list of over 6,000 place names to Westminster:
The Place list is on the left, the map for the highlighted place is in the middle panel, and the 106 persons and their events associated with the highlighted place name are on the right. There are six different Westminster place names on the list. I clicked on the "Resolve All" link at the top of the Place list to get to the screen that enables me to do the merging:
There are four columns in this menu - "Unrecognized Place Name," "Suggested Place Name," "Desc. (move unrecognized name to description field)", "Ignore (stop marking this place as unrecognized)" and "Other (search for another spelling of the place name)."
In order to standardize the Westminster place names, I clicked on five of the place names on the list:
After clicking OK, the place names for those five different names were standardized. Here's the proof:
The entry for "Westminster, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA" has no unrecognized mark beside it in the Place name list above, and there are now 222 people associated with this place name.
Here is the "People" workspace page for the Benjamin Seaver family. All of the place names say "Westminster, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA."
Because I knew how to do that, it took me about 10 seconds to change those place names to the standard format.
Now, I have one Westminster place name that I didn't change because it reads "Westminister." I can check the "Other" column, see a list of suggested place names, and clicked on the right one. Again, about two seconds to fix it.
I'm still in the process of standardizing my place names, and it will be some time before all of my errors are fixed and all places standardized. I don't have to standardize every place name. I can leave them non-standard if I want to. I've found that there are many English parishes that are not in the FTM 2011 standard place names. I've found that Canadian counties are not included in the standard place names. I'm sure that I'll find many more problems, but my database is gradually being standardized and made more accurate.
What about the historical place names? Well, I generally did not use them anyway, so I haven't lost any accuracy by doing this process. I can add information to the description of place names to account for the historical name.
Disclosure: I received a gratis copy of Family Tree Maker 2011 from Ancestry.com. I purchased previous versions of Family Tree Maker myself, but also received gratis copies of some versions from Ancestry.com (which I donated to a local genealogical society). I try very hard to be objective in my comments about Family Tree Maker software.
Now I often have 5 to 10 (or more) different versions of names for the same place, like "Westminster, Worcester, MA," "Westminster, Worcester County, MA," "Westminster, Worcester, Massachusetts," etc. Of course, virtually none of my place names meet the standard of "Westminster, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA."
I checked into the process of doing this in Family Tree Maker 2011, Legacy Family Tree 7.4, and RootsMagic 4. Because I have so many place names to merge into standard place names, I thought that Family Tree Maker 2011 did the job well and fairly easily. Here is the process I've started:
in FTM 2011, I wanted to change all of my different Westminster MA place names to the standard "Westminster, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA." I chose the Benjamin Seaver (1791-1825) family to illustrate the process and the results.
Here is the "People" workspace screen of the Benjamin Seaver family. Note that the place names are "Westmnster, Worcester County, MA."
I clicked on the "Places" workspace in the top menu, and scrolled down the list of over 6,000 place names to Westminster:
The Place list is on the left, the map for the highlighted place is in the middle panel, and the 106 persons and their events associated with the highlighted place name are on the right. There are six different Westminster place names on the list. I clicked on the "Resolve All" link at the top of the Place list to get to the screen that enables me to do the merging:
There are four columns in this menu - "Unrecognized Place Name," "Suggested Place Name," "Desc. (move unrecognized name to description field)", "Ignore (stop marking this place as unrecognized)" and "Other (search for another spelling of the place name)."
In order to standardize the Westminster place names, I clicked on five of the place names on the list:
After clicking OK, the place names for those five different names were standardized. Here's the proof:
The entry for "Westminster, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA" has no unrecognized mark beside it in the Place name list above, and there are now 222 people associated with this place name.
Here is the "People" workspace page for the Benjamin Seaver family. All of the place names say "Westminster, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA."
Because I knew how to do that, it took me about 10 seconds to change those place names to the standard format.
Now, I have one Westminster place name that I didn't change because it reads "Westminister." I can check the "Other" column, see a list of suggested place names, and clicked on the right one. Again, about two seconds to fix it.
I'm still in the process of standardizing my place names, and it will be some time before all of my errors are fixed and all places standardized. I don't have to standardize every place name. I can leave them non-standard if I want to. I've found that there are many English parishes that are not in the FTM 2011 standard place names. I've found that Canadian counties are not included in the standard place names. I'm sure that I'll find many more problems, but my database is gradually being standardized and made more accurate.
What about the historical place names? Well, I generally did not use them anyway, so I haven't lost any accuracy by doing this process. I can add information to the description of place names to account for the historical name.
Disclosure: I received a gratis copy of Family Tree Maker 2011 from Ancestry.com. I purchased previous versions of Family Tree Maker myself, but also received gratis copies of some versions from Ancestry.com (which I donated to a local genealogical society). I try very hard to be objective in my comments about Family Tree Maker software.
(Not So) Wordless Wednesday - Post 132: Emily and Betty in the Woods
I'm posting family photographs from my collection on Wednesdays, but they won't be wordless Wednesday posts like others do - I simply am incapable of having a wordless post.
Here is a photograph from the Carringer family collection handed down by my mother in the 1988 to 2002 time period:
I really like this picture because Betty seems to be smiling broadly and Emily has a smile on her face. I have very few pictures with both of them smiling or laughing!
Advent Calendar - December 8: Christmas Cookies
This post is number 8 in a series of 24 for the 2010 Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories.
On the 17th day of Christmas,
my angel honey presented me
a whole plate of sugar cookies.
1) Did your family make Christmas Cookies?
My mother, my grandmother, my wife and my daughters all made or make Christmas cookies. They all had or have a set of the classic cookie cutters - a snowman, a Santa, a tree, a sleigh, etc. In olden times (pre-1990 or so), they would make the dough somehow (always a mystery to me), roll it out with a rolling pin (who has one these days?), and try to get as many cookies out of the flat dough as possible. Then they would take the scraps and mash them together, roll it out again and cut out more. Pop them in the oven and then sprinkle them with colored sugar crystals, or cover them with colored frosting and maybe M&Ms or red-hots, when they come out.
Now, the cookies seem to be packaged - you put a blob of dough on the cookie sheet and put it in the oven, bake it and mark it with R (hmmm, wrong song), and dress it up if necessary.
2) How did you help?
I was, and am, a champion cookie eater. I made every female in my life feel good about their culinary skills by devouring their baked goodies. It contributes mightily to my "look like Santa" thing. I did help my mother when I was a kid by being creative with the cookie cutters, and by lavishing extra frosting and sugar on the baked cookies.
3) Did you have a favorite cookie?
I think my favorite Christmas cookie is a Christmas Tree sugar cookie with green sugar crystals on them. Close behind is a Santa cookie with red sugar crystals. Third is a Snowman cookie with white sugar crystals. I don't count chocolate chip cookies with red and green M&Ms in them, or Oreos with red or green filling (why hasn't Oreo come up with a red and green cookie?). I like those too, of course, but they aren't my favorite at Christmas - just the rest of the year? Yummy.
I haven't had any Christmas cookies yet - my first taste will probably be next Wednesday at the CVGS holiday luncheon (see, there is some genealogy in this series!).
On the 17th day of Christmas,
my angel honey presented me
a whole plate of sugar cookies.
1) Did your family make Christmas Cookies?
My mother, my grandmother, my wife and my daughters all made or make Christmas cookies. They all had or have a set of the classic cookie cutters - a snowman, a Santa, a tree, a sleigh, etc. In olden times (pre-1990 or so), they would make the dough somehow (always a mystery to me), roll it out with a rolling pin (who has one these days?), and try to get as many cookies out of the flat dough as possible. Then they would take the scraps and mash them together, roll it out again and cut out more. Pop them in the oven and then sprinkle them with colored sugar crystals, or cover them with colored frosting and maybe M&Ms or red-hots, when they come out.
Now, the cookies seem to be packaged - you put a blob of dough on the cookie sheet and put it in the oven, bake it and mark it with R (hmmm, wrong song), and dress it up if necessary.
2) How did you help?
I was, and am, a champion cookie eater. I made every female in my life feel good about their culinary skills by devouring their baked goodies. It contributes mightily to my "look like Santa" thing. I did help my mother when I was a kid by being creative with the cookie cutters, and by lavishing extra frosting and sugar on the baked cookies.
3) Did you have a favorite cookie?
I think my favorite Christmas cookie is a Christmas Tree sugar cookie with green sugar crystals on them. Close behind is a Santa cookie with red sugar crystals. Third is a Snowman cookie with white sugar crystals. I don't count chocolate chip cookies with red and green M&Ms in them, or Oreos with red or green filling (why hasn't Oreo come up with a red and green cookie?). I like those too, of course, but they aren't my favorite at Christmas - just the rest of the year? Yummy.
I haven't had any Christmas cookies yet - my first taste will probably be next Wednesday at the CVGS holiday luncheon (see, there is some genealogy in this series!).
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
First Look at Google eBooks
Google has announced their eBooks service where persons can buy and/or read electronic books online. The Google eBookstore is at http://books.google.com/ebooks.
There is a search box in the upper right corner - I put "seaver genealogy" in the box:
The results for my search terms looks like this:
The "Any" screen shows books that match my search terms that can be purchased. For books that are still under copyright protection, the prices are shown below the thumbnail image of the book cover.
I was interested in the Free books so I clicked the "Free only" link (just below "Any" in the upper left corner), and saw:
The list of freely available and readable books shows a thumbnail picture of the book cover and a truncated title. If you run your mouse over the thumbnail image you get a more complete description of the book, as seen above for the first book listed.
I clicked on the thumbnail image and saw a fuller description of the book (note that I could have clicked on "Read now" and skipped this step):
The big blue "Read Now" button on the right takes me to this page:
There is a list of pages in the book that match my search terms. The book page image, in this case, is of the only page in the book with my search term "seaver genealogy." If there was more than one search result, I could click on the item in the list on the left to see the pages on the right. The search terms are highlighted in yellow on the page image. The user can advance the pages forward or backward by using the arrows on either side of the page image.
Note that I could have searched for another search term, perhaps "seaver" in this particular book, and might have seen more pages (in this case, there were three matches for "seaver").
There are some icons on the left margin above, for the Table of Contents, Zooming, Information, and Help.
Since my computer screen is in a landscape configuration, I can't see all of the page. The user can scroll up or down to see the other part of the page. Obviously, it is tailored to the Portrait display on some portable eReaders (which I don't have).
The text on these pages cannot be copied and the individual pages cannot be saved. The system saves the eBook in the user's Google "My eBook Library" without any action by the user. If you look at a free book, it's in your "My eBook Library."
My guess is that most of these free eBooks are also available for free in Google Books. However, the eBook reader seems to work faster than Google Books, but you have to advance the pages manually rather than in a continuous scroll on Google Books.
I'm going to do a bit more searching for some of my surnames and also for out-of-copyright genealogy books.
If you find some goodies, please let us know in your own blog post or in a comment on this blog post.
There is a search box in the upper right corner - I put "seaver genealogy" in the box:
The results for my search terms looks like this:
The "Any" screen shows books that match my search terms that can be purchased. For books that are still under copyright protection, the prices are shown below the thumbnail image of the book cover.
I was interested in the Free books so I clicked the "Free only" link (just below "Any" in the upper left corner), and saw:
The list of freely available and readable books shows a thumbnail picture of the book cover and a truncated title. If you run your mouse over the thumbnail image you get a more complete description of the book, as seen above for the first book listed.
I clicked on the thumbnail image and saw a fuller description of the book (note that I could have clicked on "Read now" and skipped this step):
The big blue "Read Now" button on the right takes me to this page:
There is a list of pages in the book that match my search terms. The book page image, in this case, is of the only page in the book with my search term "seaver genealogy." If there was more than one search result, I could click on the item in the list on the left to see the pages on the right. The search terms are highlighted in yellow on the page image. The user can advance the pages forward or backward by using the arrows on either side of the page image.
Note that I could have searched for another search term, perhaps "seaver" in this particular book, and might have seen more pages (in this case, there were three matches for "seaver").
There are some icons on the left margin above, for the Table of Contents, Zooming, Information, and Help.
Since my computer screen is in a landscape configuration, I can't see all of the page. The user can scroll up or down to see the other part of the page. Obviously, it is tailored to the Portrait display on some portable eReaders (which I don't have).
The text on these pages cannot be copied and the individual pages cannot be saved. The system saves the eBook in the user's Google "My eBook Library" without any action by the user. If you look at a free book, it's in your "My eBook Library."
My guess is that most of these free eBooks are also available for free in Google Books. However, the eBook reader seems to work faster than Google Books, but you have to advance the pages manually rather than in a continuous scroll on Google Books.
I'm going to do a bit more searching for some of my surnames and also for out-of-copyright genealogy books.
If you find some goodies, please let us know in your own blog post or in a comment on this blog post.
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