I worked quite a bit yesterday on my maternal lines. The only drawback is it burned me out a little bit on researching. So I decided to switch to my paternal line, and just kind of observe it in pedigree format in FTM2012.

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Here are some things I’ve noticed:

1. Josephine Doremus is the only one of my 3rd great grandparents that wasn’t an immigrant.  All others that are listed were born in other countries
2. The missing spots in my 3rd great grandparents aren’t immigrants… at least I don’t think. I have possible parents for both Jennie Featherson and Sarah/Sadie Sutcliffe, just no paper trail yet.
3. My Moore line is completely Irish.
4. My Thorward line is a quarter German, a quarter ?, and half Scottish.
5. My Redford line  is half English and half ?.
6. My Parkin line is half English and half ?.
7. All the known immigrant ancestors on my paternal line were all here before 1875.
8. This entry has been sitting idle for 45 minutes because I’m watching Ugly Betty on Netflix Streaming.
9. I probably shouldn’t “work” in a room with a TV, much less one with Instant Streaming capabilities.
10. Featherson and Sutcliffe don’t sound like normal names. They’re not exactly Thorward, if you get my drift, but they aren’t Moore or Johnson either.

Okay it’s time for another lesson learned by me! Actually I think it’s two lessons learned in the grand scheme of learning.

I started off on The Evergreens Cemetery website. I wanted to see if their database was updated enough to include some of my Moores.

I’m using the information that was handwritten on the back of this cemetery deed. I actually have two deeds to this cemetery lot. One is the original from 1896 when William H Moore‘s wife passed away. The next is when ownership of the deed transferred to Mary J Moore, William’s daughter in 1928. The handwritten notes are on Mary’s copy of the deed.

It was when I finally found Mary’s record, that I came to my first lesson learned. I had assumed that whoever wrote the notes on the back of the deed, had written the dates down as death dates. That was where I went wrong. What I think is that whoever wrote the notes (my great grandparents most likely), went to the cemetery, and got the information from them. Now I know, that the cemetery lists Mary Jane Moore‘s (first mention of her middle name too!) burial date as May 21, 1940. This happens to be the same date written on the back of the deed.

Lesson 1: Don’t assume anything about dates written down by another person.

Lesson 2: Cemeteries are in the market of knowing BURIAL dates, not death dates.

Okay, so I learned three lessons. After realizing my mistake today, I had an epiphany. I was always blessed when other localities would look for my records in the whole month. Obviously, they knew subconsciously that I’m not good with dates.

Lesson 3: Repositories are not required (rightly so), to do your research for you. Therefore, if you give them an exact date. They’re only going to look for that exact date. If they are nice enough to search the whole month, then you’re very lucky. If you’re not sure about the date your are requesting for your record and you’re not doing the searching yourself; then I would say it’s okay to go ahead and be vague about the date of the record. Not every place requires an exact date. Most just require a month and year.

If I had learned these lessons when sending away to New Jersey for my vital records, I might have actually gotten records in return for my money. Instead, my William H Moore request came back to me, unfound, because unbeknownst to me, I sent away for the date of his burial, and not his death. Oops!

Okay, I’m so behind this week, but I’m rolling with the punches. In my previous Love family posts, I talked about Martha’s birth record leading me to James. Then I talked about James’s birth record adding weight to a document I was hoping was Andrew Love’s birth record.

Above, you see the three children that I found birth records for in parish records. If you have your eagle eyes on, you’ll also notice that in all three records, they show “Andrew Love of Hoodsyard”. I took that and added in an estimated birth date from various records.

I had to scale the image town but this is the record I found for Andrew Love. There were two records in this parish for my time frame. Both Andrew Love, but one in 1805 and one in 1806. The one you see above is the one I think is the one I’m looking for. I’ll tell you the reasons why.

1. Hoodsyard is mentioned as the birthplace.
2. Robert and Jean are the parents. Andrew used both those names with his children.
3. The other record used the names Hugh and Janet. I have none of those names throughout my Love family tree.
4. The other record didn’t mention Hoodsyard.

So while, neither of the last two reasons are concrete reasons to dismiss the 1805 record, the first two outweigh the last two in my mind.

In my previous post about Martha Love’s birth record, I was very surprised to find out that Martha was actually the third child of Andrew Love and Agnes Hamilton.

The problem was that we were going off the records in America and tracing back. I had known there was a first born Robert, through my long lost cousin Grace (is she still long lost if we e-mail regularly?). It was even Grace who clued me into Martha who married Duncan Walker, and through them I was able to identify one of my Mystery Monday posts. Which I was then able to smack myself upside the head because Duncan and Martha were living next door to Andrew and Agnes in the 1880 census.

Just remember folks there is a reason I named my blog the Misadventures of a Genealogist. I don’t do things the easy way, I do them the banging your head against a brick wall way!

Here we have the second child of Andrew Love and Agnes Hamilton.¹ Unfortunately James doesn’t appear with the family in censuses or any other records so far. Another great thing about this record is another mention of “Hoodsyard”. This place is mentioned on a few of the birth record for Andrew’s children.

In fact, it might just help me find Andrew’s birth record, but you’ll have to stay tuned for that! I have to head to the grocery store before the week begins again and then I have to update my website and e-mail my Love connections with all my progress!

1. Beith Parish (Ayrshire, Scotland). Old Parish Registers, OPR 581/3, James Love birth (1829); New Register House, Edinburgh. [↩]

Have you ever made tons of progress in the indexed database from Ancestry.com or FamilySearch? I have! It always makes me feel so accomplished.

One of the things you have to remember about these indexes is this. It’s not the original. I’m no expert but I have learned this. Nothing is like seeing the original document. The best of circumstances would be in person but because of logistics, this is not always possible.

With the advances in technology, we’re definitely making progress though! I decided to go ahead and purchase some credits from Scotlands People the other day. I bought enough to really have some fun. I ended up getting the images for almost all of the children of Andrew Love and Agnes Hamilton, some of the Menzies family. I even ordered a copy of John Menzies and Jane Ferris‘ marriage record before I realized I could just use a credit and print out the record. Oh well!

In the index on FamilySearch, I would have been lucky to have had the parents names indexed. Then I would have been even luckier if both the birth and baptismal dates were recorded. If only one was recorded I would have been left wondering which date it was, baptismal or birth.

Love > Martha, Eldest Daughter and Third Child of Andrew Love, Hoodsyard and of Agnes Hamilton, his spouse. Born 29 July. Baptized 28th August.¹

I learned a lot just from that simple little blurb written in an old parish book. First of all… I thought Martha was Andrew and Agnes‘ second child. Oops. Luckily, I fixed that lickity split while I was already on Scotlands People. Second, there was another Love birth recorded a few records up the page. However, it wasn’t Andrew and Agnes‘ child. So now I can try and see if that was a family connection to Andrew.

There’s only one problem after all this wonderful progress. I used all my viewing credits in one day. Oops! That’s alright, that gives me time to analyze what I’ve recently learned!

1. Beith Parish (Ayrshire, Scotland). Old Parish Registers, OPR 581/3, Martha Love birth (1831); New Register House, Edinburgh. [↩]