What is Your Research Why?

I belong to some genealogy groups on various platforms. Recently I read a post by a person that said they were just starting out and was asking if someone could take them under their wing to show them the ropes. I posted a couple of responses offering some small bits of advice. Then I got to thinking, maybe there are others out there who could use “someone who could take them under their wing.”

That is what I hope to do with blog post, to take those who are new to doing genealogy under my virtual wing and offer some guidance in where to start.

One of the first things is to clarify in your own mind the “why” of you want to are setting out on this journey. The “why” will help you figure out what your are searching for and what resources will help you answer the questions that you have about your ancestors.

Does your family have stories about a famous ancestor that you want to prove for the bragging rights?

Does your family have stories about an ancestor who fought in the Civil War? In the Revolutionary War? That were passengers on the Mayflower? Do you want to be able to prove those stories so you can join a lineage society?

Do you just want to build out all your ancestors lines as far as you can because you are just curious about where you came from?

There are a variety of reasons people have for starting this journey. Each reason is valid, but each reason will require different methods and different tools. That is why before even starting having a clear idea of your reasons for research is important.

What is your “Why” for researching your family tree and its unique history?

For those wondering, when I first started my "why" was a general I want to learn more about my family and where I came from.

Genealogy Do-Over 2018 Reboot

I joined Thomas MacEntee's Facebook Genealogy Do-Over Group at the end of Dec 2014, basically when we were preparing for the first go through of Thomas' Do-Over process.

Well, that first quarter I managed to pack up all my genealogy papers.

I also managed to come up with HUGE list of goals, both short term and long term.

I wrote up my "Warm Up Exercises"

And a research flow chart

I learned lots by reading all the posts and joining in conversations, but did very little towards actually DOING my Research over. I did post on this blog a few times about the Do-Over starting in December 2014 if you are interested in the little progress I made last time.

I plan on spending this next year filling in the holes in my genealogy knowledge and skills. I hope to start the process of becoming a Certified Genealogist in 2019. Figure this is a good time to get serious about actually DOING the Do-Over.

One, this will make sure my personal tree is in good shape. And two, this will help me put the new skills I am trying to learn into practice.

It helps that I have managed to let go of an outside responsibility that was taking a lot of my free time. I have also been working on whittling down the piles of things that have been accumulating around here while I was busy with outside things. I actually have my laptop sitting on the desk in my "Office" (also known as the spare room)! The space still has a lot of work to do to make it a really effective work area. But I have made some good progress on it.

I am putting this on my blog hoping that maybe it will help make me more accountable. Anyone want to join me in rebooting (or starting) a Do-Over with their Genealogy?

Here is to a productive 2018!

On Becoming a Certified Genealogist

Becoming a Certified Genealogist is an idea that I have been playing with off and on for several years. I have bought some of the books on the subject. Most of them I have flipped through quickly before placing them on my bookshelves to gather dust. But have I read them and studied them thoroughly? The answer is no.

I was talking to my younger daughter about how at least 3 of my 4 kids gave up on the dreams they had as teenagers. One wanted to be a singer and everyone agrees she has a good voice. One wanted to go into acting, and she is a good actress. One had dreams of Baseball, and I believe he has the talent (rather reminds me of a Ricky Henderson type of Ball Player). But for one reason or another they all chose different paths.

Then she asked me what my dream was/is.

When I was young and healthy it was to teach English and Drama in High School. In my 30's I even managed to enroll at the University of Rhode Island in the Secondary Education Program. Then I developed Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). I quickly realized if I couldn' physically handle taking 2 college classes a semester there was no way I would be able handle spending 5 full days a week teaching in a classroom. That ended that dream.

Then I discovered a passion for genealogy. Although I have to say it wasn't really a new passion, I had been interested in my family history since I was a child. I just didn't know much about the how to research until I started learning in 1995. But it took another 2 years and moving back to California when I was able to go with my mom to the Family History Center in Oakland, the National Archive in San Bruno and the California State Library in San Francisco that I really became hooked.

Fast forward through years of learning and researching, of helping others find their family's history, to last night and my daughter's question of "and what has been your dream mom?" My answer was to be a Certified Genealogist.

She said "you have wanted to do that for years mom, you should do it." I told her one of the things that has stopped me is the cost and that once you start you are supposed to finish it in a year, and with my health not always cooperating with my obligations and desires I wasn't sure I could meet the deadline. So then she asked how much would it cost and offered to pay for it for me.

I have to admit that brought tears to my eyes.

So today I went seaching for answers to her question. I looked at the Board of Certification for Genealogist (BCG) website. Preliminary application costs $75, then once it is accepted you have a year to turn everything in with a $300 fee. You can get extensions for an additional year for another $75 fee. That eased some of my fears of what if my health interferes and I couldn't finish it in a year, BUT if the requirements have changed or the fees have gone up you have to use the new requirements and/or pay the new fee amounts. All that is just to become Certified!

Once you are Certified then comes things like annual memberships to BCG ($75/yr), setting money aside every year so I can do the recertification in 5 years ($60/yr), membership to National Genealogical Society ($70/yr), Association of Professional Genealogists ($100/yr). Then there are the subscription site fees Ancestry All Access ($389/yr), Find My Past Premium ($239.50) and Genealogy Bank ($69.95). That is $1002.95 a year. And it doesn't include office supplies like ink, paper, postage, advertising, travel, etc.

I realize I would be able to deduct most if not all off my taxes as business expenses, but just looking at that number is scary. I don't currently get that much a month on disability. If I do this I have to be serious about actual getting clients or I will quickly go under.

But the truth is this really IS something I want to do. So I will get my books off the shelves and start studying so when I do send in the Preliminary Application I will be prepared to give it my best.

Looking forward to the day I can put out my shingle as Linda Newman, C.G.

Searching for Vernon Robinson Lee

I have been searching for Vernon R Lee off and on for awhile now. He is the maternal grandfather of some of my cousins on my Newman side. I have managed to develop a pretty good tree on our shared paternal side, the Newman side, but they know almost nothing about the maternal side of their tree.

My cousin, FN, has tested at 23andMe at my request. And his son, AN, tested on Ancestry at my request. This was to try and narrow down which side of my tree some of my matches fall. Basically I knew if they matched both myself and one of them that meant the match would be on the paternal Newman side of my tree.

Howevery, they both had a significant number of matches that don’t match me, and since I hadn’t done any research on the Lee side of their tree I had no idea how people who contacted me might connect with them. So I started searching.

I did manage to find the marriage record for FN’s maternal grandparents. I discovered that Helen Hartmann and Vernon R Lee were married 04 Jun 1930 in Clark County, Washington. But there was very little information on the certificate that would allow me to go further back in the records, especially on Vernon’s side.

The one hint I did find on the certificate was what town Helen had been living in. I decided to see if maybe I could find her as a child in the census which would allow me to discover who her parents were. Sure enough, I did find her as a child in that town with her parents. And that meant I was able to get a little more on her. Vernon however wasn’t showing up in the census records in Oregon or in Washington, so I was stuck.

Until this week when a DNA match that I had tried to contact previously finally answered. They said that yes, Vernon R Lee was on their tree! This person had a tree with good sources and documentation, so I think I can trust their research. They had Vernon’s family of origin, including his parents, both sets of grandparents and even a couple sets of his great grandparents! AND they including siblings at each level. I feel like I hit the mother lode because of this person’s hard and detailed work.

The problem is I can not find any record of what happened to Vernon coming forward. Like I said I have his marriage certificate, I know Vernon and Helen had 2 daughters, and there is a passenger list that has Vernon listed as single and heading to Hawaii a couple of weeks before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

When and where did Helen and Vernon divorce? Why was he going to Hawaii? What happened to him after he arrived? Did he join the military? If so, why can’t I find a record of that? Did he ever remarry and have more children? When and where did he die? So far ancestry isn’t showing any easy answers.

I am hoping that someone who is a descendant of one of his 8 siblings might know something that will give me a clue to where to look for him. To that end I am sharing the Family Group Sheet with his parents and siblings. If Vernon or his family are in your tree and you have any information on any of them please contact me. I would love to be able to hand my cousins a copy of their family story on the Lee side.

Since I first wrote this a few days ago I have found a death date for Vernon of 1 Nov 1958 in Oregon, and the fact that he was buried in the Greenwood Hills Cemetery in Portland, Oregon. Also in looking closer at the Passenger list I found that the USS Chaumont was a Navy Transport ship that made regular runs from San Francisco, California to Manila via Honolulu. This leads me to think that Vernon was at that time in the Military, and probably the US Navy. Haven't found anything more about his military service. A thank you to Paul for replying to my message on FindAGrave.

Bright Shiny Objects

Bright Shiny Objects (BSO) catch our eye, I think it is human nature. In the Genealogy Do-Over Facebook group I have also heard some people call them rabbit holes. They have the potential to totally distract us from what we are trying to do, IF we let them. The trick is to acknowledge them without letting them divert us from what we are trying to do.

Let's start with an example, then we can talk about some of the ways to acknowledge a BSO without allowing it to get us off track of our current research goal.

Let's say my goal is to research everything I can find on my grandfather Frederick John Newman's WWI military service. My grandfather had a brother, Eric Alexander Newman, who also served in WWI. Both of them were born in England and living in the USA at the time period I am searching. Let's say I am on ancestry.com and I am searching for Frederick Newman in the military records. Chances are Eric's name will also pop up in search results.

It might be tempting to look at both Frederick's and Eric's results. But that isn't the goal for this search, only Frederick's military service is. Chances are if I click on something for Eric I will then see the "you might also be interested it" type of links, then there I go chasing those bright shiny objects relating to my great uncle and totally lose focus. Two hours later I will find that not only have I not found anything about my grandfather but I might not even be looking at things that relate to my great uncle but some distant relative in England!

You might be saying "But what's a person to do when those BSO cross my path?" Let's discuss strategies....

First and foremost, I hope before you start you have a research plan so you know the "Who, What, Where, When, How/Why" of your search. This allows you to focus your search so that you can make real progress, instead of wandering aimlessly through the ancestry website (or the findmypast. familysearch, genealogybank, etc websites).

Second comes some sort of research log.

I have to admit in my past research I have been BAD about this step. I can't tell you how much wasted time this has caused as I repeat searches for things I already have, or repeating searches with parameters that did not produce results instead of trying new parameters. Part of my problem with research logs has always been that those printed versions always seem to have such small boxes there was no way to efficiently use them, at least for me.

Genealogy Do-Over has encouraged me to start experimenting using a spreadsheet for my research log.

A spreadsheet allows me to make the boxes whatever size I need them to be (plus typing tends to take up less space than my handwriting). It also allows me to move columns around until I find a format that works for me WITHOUT losing the data that is already in the database. Plus I can sort by the different columns. Meaning if I want to find all my research on an individual I can sort by name. If I want to see all the vital records I have I can sort by Record Type. If I want to see all the records I have found on Ancestry I can sort by that. All of this without having to rewrite (or retype) lists or losing any information.

One of the benefits of using a spreadsheet program, especially when it comes to those BSO's, is I can have different pages in my document. I can have a page for my research log, or I can have separate pages for the different surnames.

I can also have a page for my to do list. This is where I can list those bright shiny objects. I can put their name as the site lists them and any other identifying information about that potential document. You can even copy and paste the information, including the url, to help you find the information again. Then I can go right back to working on my goal for that day's research without worrying about whether or not I will be able to find the information about that other potential lead at a later time.

If you have other ideas and suggestions on how to deal with BSO please feel free to share them in the comments section.

New Facebook Group for Busch Researchers

Announcing a new Facebook Group for those who have a Busch Line on their Family Tree. Please join us in helping each other find our Busch ancestors and connecting with our Busch Cousins!

New Facebook Group for Antrim Researchers

Announcing a new Facebook Group for those who have an Antrim Line on their Family Tree. Please join us in helping each other find our Antrim ancestors and connecting with our Antrim Cousins!

New Facebook Group for Boyer Researchers

Announcing a new Facebook Group for those who have a Boyer Line on their Family Tree. Please join us in helping each other find our Boyer ancestors and connecting with our Boyer Cousins!

Introduction

Following the suggestion of Michael John Neill of "Genealogy Tip of the Day" I have started a blog detailing some of my family tree information and research in the hopes of connecting with others interested in genealogy and maybe even distant family members!

I have been interested in discovering my family tree since I was a child. But other than writing down my parents names, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins I really didn't start working on it until 1994 or so. I didn't have anyone telling me how to do research so I didn't get very far, although I did find some information.

My mother was also working on researching her side of the family tree, and when I moved back to California in 1995 I learned about using census records at the National Archives in San Francisco. When my mom died in 1997 I inherited all her research, and have been working on it off and on since then.

Course my early research contains many undocumented facts because like many I didn't understand the importance of using source information. Have been trying to go back and fill in those blank spots.

I love to talk to others about family history so feel free to comment and/or send me a message.

My children's sweet 16 are: Lucier, Delisle, Bowens, Adams, Riordan, Mooney, Janvrin, Miers, Newman, Simmons, Boyer, Antrim, Busch, Shields, Morgan, George. In future posts I will post a general Ahnentafel Chart as well as descendant charts for specific ancestors, as well as some blogs on my research.