Happy Genealogy Friday!

Hello from Southern Maryland. I’ve been working a lot lately on a bunch of different things having to do with my Family File. Most of those things involve cleaning up my sources mess.

I realized last night however, that I somehow, in the midst of all this confusion finished entering in my family lines for the Family File Cleanup Project that I began many years ago. How that snuck in on me, I have no idea.

So now I think is a good time to do a little planning on what comes next… after I clean up the sources again.

Moore Pedigree
Moore Pedigree

For the Moores/Thorwards/Loves/Menzies and so on, my main goal is to make timelines and gather records for the individuals I need information for. I want to get my One Note research notebook setup so I can start analyzing these guys and finding my missing information more efficiently.

Redford Pedigree
Redford Pedigree

Same deal with the Redfords and Parkins. There is so little information on these families that I really need to start getting records for them so I can start filling in some blanks. That will probably mean a trip to the New Jersey Archives for me. No complaints here but I just want to make sure this time when I go to Jersey that I have a list of names and dates and where the records should be at.

Mays Pedigree
Mays Pedigree

The only problems I ever encounter with the Mays families are the sheer abundance of them. The hard part is that the part of the country they lived in didn’t formally start keeping records until 1911, which makes it really hard to track down a lot of the info. Not impossible, just hard. I also have a list of names that I haven’t put back into my working file because I don’t have the smoking record that links them to William Mays and Frances Adkins. Just family legend that they were a part of the family. So I have to start digging into Kentucky a lot of farther.

Taylor Pedigree
Taylor Pedigree

The Taylor family is probably my most emailed about family. There are just so many contradictory genealogies and researchers that just an afternoon spent researching the Taylors can leave you with a migraine. The great thing about it is that there is so much information on them. I wish I had as much information on some of my other lines! The best thing about the Taylors is that most of the researchers are friendly and collaborative so it’s a shared migraine. 😉

The Webbs, Crabbs, Applegates, and Wests are families I lose track of often. Despite finding a biography giving a ton of information on the Webbs, I’ve been stalled again while I figure out the geography and timelines of what my information is telling me.

As for my biggest mission. The case of Zeroah Black. I’m pretty sure she’ll end up being the focus of Mystery Monday once Belle Brodie is finished because folks, Belle Brodie is finishing up! How exciting. Hopefully I can tell you all about it on Monday! If I don’t make it, then it will definitely be next Monday. 🙂

Even More Source Cleanups

Well, I did it. I got through all my census citations. They’re all back to what they were before the computer switcheroo. Now I’m onto the other 80 sources that duplicated themselves in the merge.

My Clean Sources as of May 1st.
My Clean Sources as of May 1st.

Throughout all those census citations, I frequently took “breaks” to do something different. Different like parish records and newspaper records instead of turning 900+ census citations into 200… for each census.

Naturally when you’re looking at all these sources, it makes you want to research. Unfortunately, my sources were in such a state that it confused me more so I held off on that.

One thing I did do though was make myself a 1940 census lookup list.

I started by creating a custom report that filtered in anyone born before 1941 and after 1830 (you never know). Then I filtered out anyone who had a death date before 1940. Lastly, I filtered out anyone who had a census event containing 1940.

1940 Census Lookup List
1940 Census Lookup List

I then printed out the 48 pages (24 double sided) and saved it to PDF also for later. I like to have a paper list beside me but I’ll probably make a section in OneNote for each census to keep notes on why I couldn’t find someone or if I find something I want to look at again later. I sure can’t wait until I can get back to blogging about actual research again!

All these are the things that will occupy my Genealogy Friday, including answering more emails. I’m just about caught up. I hope everyone out there in cyberspace is able to do a little genealogy this weekend.

Source Cleanups and Using OneNote

Last Friday, my goal was to cleanup the 1880 US Census source citations in my family file. I accomplished that and more! I ended up cleaning up 1880 US, 1881 England and Scotland, 1892 New York and 1895 Kansas and New Jersey. Granted those other ones are smaller amounts in my file but progress to me is progress.

Unlike last week, I think this week’s goal will have to be done bits at a time throughout the week. This week’s goal is the 1900 census.

The 1900 US Census
The 1900 US Census

In my original file I only had 148 citations and in the new merged file there were over 600.

The other thing I’m exploring this week is using Microsoft OneNote as my main note-taking software. I’ve been wishy washy (technical term :p) on whether to use OneNote or Evernote. When my family decided to go in together on purchasing the subscription to Microsoft Office 365, my mind was finally made up. I have not only my Dropbox account now but also my Microsoft SkyDrive for backup purposes.

The biggest curve is just learning all that it can do. It’s really quite a powerful tool. I’ll try and get a more in depth entry up. My sister has completely mastered it and I’m trying to get her help in adapting her college notebooks for genealogy use. Basically I’m trying to pin her down for a tutorial!

My Moore Family OneNote Notebook
My Moore Family OneNote Notebook

So far, I have one notebook for my mother’s side and one for my father’s side. I’m still trying to work out exactly how I’m going to organize it but I’ve already learned about attaching links to files and creating checklists and things of that nature.

William H Moore's Page in OneNote
William H Moore’s Page in OneNote

This is the first thought pattern I had on how to organize my notebook. It drills down from the Moore Line main notebook to the Moore surname. Then from there I have pages setup for individuals. From there I’ve added sub-pages for each section that I might need.

I don’t know if this is going to be effective yet because I’ve just started. We’ll see what my sister thinks when I finally sit her down!

Do you use OneNote? How do you organize your research? I’d sure love to hear!

Genealogy Fridays

Fridays are my new Genealogy time. For some reason today I realized that when I watch the Ancient Aliens marathon on History 2, it makes me want to do genealogy. I might as well take advantage of the boost in inspiration!

Most of my week is starting to fill up with sewing projects, so by the time Friday rolls around I’m ready to be stationary for awhile. Anything that doesn’t involve wrestling quilts is ideal really.

So today, I’ve already started to answer some of those emails that have built up and I’m going to be working in Family Tree Maker also.

Cleaning Up my Sources
Cleaning Up my Sources

The main goal is to get my sources all cleaned up. When I downloaded my tree from Ancestry, they had created a separate source for each event on each person. I usually link all facts/people to the one source citation. It goes quicker than you might imagine but I can’t do it too much at once. Today my goal will be to just get the 1880 census fixed up.

When I get tired of this for the day I will start cleaning up my paper files. Even though I’m trying to go as paperless as possible, my paper has piled up. Mostly because I’ve needed to print something for someone or because I needed to see it not on a computer screen. My documents have gotten a bit messy. Not after today, today they all go back to where they belong!

Happy Almost November!

Wow guys! I sure didn’t expect to be down a whole month from the blog. I had told you about my ordering my new computer, and I was happily still working on my cleaned up files until about 2 weeks before the computer came. Then my old computer committed an unforgivable act. It corrupted my working file. Fortunately for me that was the day my computer was originally scheduled to be delivered. Unfortunately, the computer was delayed twice due to parts being out of stock. I was scared to use my old computer so I just put up my genealogy and worked on quilts. I was very lucky that I had just backed up, so I lost almost no progress. Phew!

Now I have the new computer and it’s wonderful! I didn’t realize how much my computer had slowed down and didn’t work until I had a working one again. The only problem is now I’m faced with the mess I left behind with the old computer. Good news being that I lost zero files.

The Tree Sync inssue
The Tree Sync issue

Being honest with myself tells me that no matter what happened, the second I bought my computer I was going to have to face this issue. No getting around it. After reading the FAQ on Ancestry and thinking out the situation I think I know how I’m going to proceed.

Bottom Line = New Computer means that my Online Tree and FTM file are no longer synced. There isn’t a way to connect the two again except for the options I’m about to outline.

Option 1: Upload FTM file to new Ancestry.com tree

Option 1: Re-upload Family File
Option 1: Re-upload Family File

I can upload my current file to Ancestry.com as a brand new tree. I have a few problems with this. #1 being that I’ve had a public tree and people have saved my pictures to their trees. I would like to keep these links between trees in tact. For the collaborators and myself. I like having the links, it’s partly why I went public. I like being able to easily share my images with my spread out extended family. A lot of times I can get the pictures to them faster by just putting them in the tree attached to who they belong to.

Option 2: Download from Ancestry.com to new FTM file.

Option 2: Download from Ancestry
Option 2: Download from Ancestry

Option 2 leaves all the links in tact and the only drawback being that all my pretty sources are in a bit of trouble. Still I don’t think it would take much to get these in order. I’m still unsure on how to get the media files back into my organization method without breaking the link. I’ll probably try that a few times with a test tree before fully committing to option 2. This one seems like the most likely way to get back to business for me.

No matter which option I choose, I’ve still been working on my family file cleanup. I’m actually almost done with it. This also throws a kink into Option 2, but I’m debating fixing the 50+ person difference with a merged file.

Oy, tons and tons of decisions to make. I don’t regret the new computer and I can’t wait to be fully operational again.

Moores in 1915, driving me crazy

One of the things I’m doing is trying to find my Moore families in the New York state censuses. It’s not easy because of their commonly used names, but it’s fun looking anyway. I had found William H Moore Jr in 1915 at his usual address in Queens. In 1920, he lives at the same address, but in Brooklyn not Queens. I checked the map at the time and when I did, I completely understood!

47 Crosby Avenue in Google Earth
47 Crosby Avenue in Google Earth

The green line you see is the county line. It separates Kings County (Brooklyn) from Queens County. No doubt that border moved itself a bit before finally settling where it is now. Fun fact: That big green area is  The Evergreens Cemetery where the Moore family is buried.

1915 census of New York State, Queens County, New York. Evergreen town, New York City AD 03, ED 36, p. 052 (penned), William H Moore; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com).
1915 census of New York State, Queens County, New York. Evergreen town, New York City AD 03, ED 36, p. 052 (penned), William H Moore; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com).

The above image shows where I had found William Jr‘s family in Queens in 1915. Just where I knew they would be, living at 47 Crosby Avenue.

This week I was working in Family Tree Maker. Making everything neat and tidy. Really just working on what I can without all my files, since I’m still waiting on the new computer. Imagine my surprise when a little green leaf showed me something a little surprising and informative!

1915 census of New York State, Kings County, New York. Brooklyn AD 22, ED 23, p. 053 (penned), Wm Henry Moore; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com).
1915 census of New York State, Kings County, New York. Brooklyn AD 22, ED 23, p. 053 (penned), Wm Henry Moore; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com).

William Jr‘s family was enumerated twice! This isn’t the first time this has happened to someone in my tree. It is the first time I’ve gotten extra information though, which is awesome. This one finally, finally, finally, suggests something I suspected, that the H in both William’s names stands for Henry. It also led me to William Jr‘s brother and business partner John. He is about 5 households up the street in this census.

Moving Along Nicely

Today is a great day for me. I’m moving on to the Webb family in my Family File Cleanup Project. This is a big deal because at this portion of the tree, all the research is my own. I will still have to properly source everything in a consistent way with the rest of the tree. I wasn’t so consistent with the sourcing. The great news is that I shouldn’t have any super crazy verifying to do at all. Everything from this point on is my own information, so hopefully I’m able to get this section knocked out quickly. That’s not to say that I won’t be doing a little research here and there, because I’m sure I will. For some reason, I’ve always loved researching the Webb family.

The original paragraph
The original paragraph

I think maybe it was the mystery of them when I started. It all goes back to the paragraph written at the beginning of the tree my Grandma gave me. While there was information in the beginning to guide, most of the research was corrected and filled in when I first started and beyond. For some reason, I didn’t cite census records well, but I made sure on everything else to make citations. At least there’s that!

The original Webb oldest generation
The original Webb oldest generation

It’s hard to see the sad pictures of Grandma’s original tree because the pages are fading. 🙁 You might not be able to see that the only second generation children were those of my 3rd Great Grandfather, George Washington Webb. In my research over the years I’ve added George’s siblings, up from the known two siblings to a total of at least nine. That means the original paragraph mentioned a possible five children but I found mention of at least five more. I only wish my Grandma was still alive to share in the find. She was so set on that paragraph, but she wouldn’t have minded knowing how many more members of the family there were. Besides, I still have some mysteries she mentioned that I can search out, so I haven’t dashed all the family myths yet, just one!

Family Tree Maker 2012 Places Glitch

Or at least, what I’m calling a glitch. I have no idea if this is something I’ve done or if it’s a bonafide glitch. I just know I add my stuff the same way every time and I don’t have 8,345 instances of Johnsville, Bracken County, Kentucky in my file.

click for full size
click for full size

For some reason, I had a LOT of Beith, Ayrshire, Scotland this morning. It’s probably been there awhile since I don’t usually check the places tab. I was curious today though and wanted to try something new. I got to do something new alright!

click for full size
click for full size

I went through the process of merging all the instances of Beith together. Since they are all identical I didn’t think Resolving would do anything, but I wish I had tried now because that might have been quicker. Next time I’ll try. I feel like I was working on it for 8 years, but it really turned out to be a half hour. Okay 45 minutes, but I did get distracted and walked away from it a few times. It was pretty monotonous.

click for full size
click for full size

Eventually I was down to enough that they fit the screen! An end was in sight!

click for full size
click for full size

I have no idea how I ended up with at least 76 different listings for Beith but I hope it never happens again. That doesn’t seem to be my luck though. I’ll just keep an eye on it and maybe Google it.

Can you guys tell I’m procrastinating yet? Thank god it’s Friday! I hope everyone has a good one!

My Smaller Goal Didn’t Work so Well Either

In a completely unrelated note, I’ve got to revisit the rules on capitalizing letters in a title. This fly by the seat of my pants approach doesn’t work well for me anymore. haha!

So today is the day my blog turns 3 years old, and I evaluate the goal I set for myself about six weeks ago. I knew it was a tough task but having goals to work towards really helps me. A lot of obstacles were thrown in my way. I spent a lot of weekend time helping out my neighbors who had a family emergency, and I spent a week sick as a dog. So all in all, my goal was really doomed from the beginning. Trust me, I’m laughing at myself as I wrote that. I have a weird sense of humor.

Anyway, I didn’t complete the goal. I wanted to finish my cleanup through Mollie Jane Webb’s parents. I want to fill in one more set of those 3rd Great Grandparents. It didn’t happen, I made a LOT of progress though.

So I didn’t make a ton of visible progress on my goal. I did however make progress and really that was the main goal. I think I might have even met my goal without having the plague for a week and a half. For a solid 4 days all I could do was stare into space. So I’m wimpy enough to take that excuse and run with it!

I might not have finished everything I wanted to but I did move past the Taylors. I had originally wanted to go ahead and add past Bartholomew Taylor in but when I started looking at my “documentation”, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it just yet when I had a goal in mind. The purpose of the new cleaner file is so that I once again have a strong base to work from. My old file was such a mess from trying to combine numerous things, and switching software numerous times. I hadn’t taken proper precautions when doing those things and it made a mess of my file. So I’m in a much better place now! I might not have everyone added back in, but it’s been so much better researching, since I know that I’ve got everyone sourced in the new file. If someone asks me about anyone in the new file, I can tell them exactly where my information came from. It’s a good feeling!

I’m not setting a new goal yet because I have a lot going on here for the next few weeks, even a vacation! So when all that has settled down, I’ll set a new goal. Maybe it will be to finish this once and for all, or maybe it will be a smaller, more specific goal. Who knows!

Struggling for Blog Topics

I’m sure we’ve all had that feeling. The feeling where you just can’t seem to focus on one topic enough to form coherent sentences about said topic. I’ve been jumping around a lot this week, so I haven’t been able to think of a specific blog topic this week. I’m trying to keep myself reasonably active here. I’m doing that not only because of course I’d love for people to read what I write, but because I also use this blog as a research log of sorts. I don’t go into the specifics, I do that elsewhere. However, I do use this blog to really think out topics sometimes, in addition to cousin bait of course.

So here’s what I’ve been jumping around with this week:

Bartholomew Taylor's family
Bartholomew Taylor’s family

1. I’ve finally finished the Joseph Taylor section of my cleanup and I’m moving on to Solomon Taylor.  Joseph and William were the major lines that I had researched already, so now I’m getting into the leaner lines. I should start moving a bit quicker on the adding in and sourcing now. Only, I’m just realizing now I didn’t “prefer” the birthdate of William’s with a state in it. Oops! I always forget to do that. It’s always when I’m looking at a screenshot as I write blogs that I realize my errors. Sheesh.

Kentucky Birth Index source citations
Kentucky Birth Index source citations

2. All 278 of my Kentucky Birth Index citations are uniform. Before this week, these citations were in 3 different forms. Now they all have the same format.

Yes, still working on the redesign
Yes, still working on the redesign

3. Very sporadically, I’ll get in the mood to work on this design. I get quite a bit of motivation that this May 39th will be 10 years since I started this domain! I only started blogging 3 years ago, but the website has been around for 10! I can’t even believe it! I’ve come a long way and I’ve learned so much. I can only hope I can get this redesign finished once and for all. I’m not going to stress about it though. It’ll get done when it gets done.

My Block of the Month quilt
My Block of the Month quilt

4. Quilting. Oh how I love quilting. My cousin in Ohio pointed me in the direction of Craftsy’s Block of the Month online classes. Every single block you see, I learned for the first time while making it! While I had already had experience with half square triangles, I hadn’t made those particular designs yet. Now I’m 5 blocks from finishing the 2012 quilt (behind I know!). Then I plan on doing the 2013 one too! Like genealogy, quilting allows me to challenge myself and keep learning at the same time.

I hope everyone else is enjoying their week so far. I know I sure am getting a bunch accomplished!