Category: Misadventures of a Genealogist

Mystery Monday: Bell Brodie Returns!

Posted on by Kathleen

bellbrodie-00

Before my unintentional hiatus from the blog and genealogy, I was working on a little mystery. It was actually quite fun and I’m eager to pick up where I left off.

This weekend, I received a discount in my e-mail to come back to Ancestry.com and I decided to go ahead and use the discount to upgrade to the World Membership for at least the 6 month term of that discount. With my World Membership I can see the Canadian census images now which really excites me.

If your memory is as fuzzy as mine, I posted previously that Ancestry hinted at some exciting news before my membership expired and my computer went nuts. Now is my first chance since August (WOW!) to look through those records except for trying to use indexes.

I’m going to show you a timeline of my Belle Brodie  info so we can all finally know who she was!

Abt. 1835 – Isabella Farris is born to John and Janet Farris in New Brunswick, Canada

1851 – Isabella Farris is enumerated with her parents and six siblings in Westminster, Ontario, Canada

Note: I should mention that Westminster is basically a neighborhood in the outlying part of London, Ontario. 

1861 – Isabella Brodie is still living in Westminster but now with her husband, a daughter and a son.

1866 – Bell Brodie writes a letter from London, Ontario to her dear cousin detailing a visit that her cousin’s mother is currently on.

1871 – Isabella’s family which includes her husband and daughter Jessie are enumerated as living in London, Ontario, Canada.

1881 – Hugh, Isabella and Jessie are still living in London, Ontario.

April 1882 – Jessie Brodie is married to Detroit resident Francis William John Peel.

Around 1886 – Hugh, Isabella and family including Jessie move across the border into Detroit.

1900 – Hugh, Isabella and their grand daughter Isobel Peel are now living in Detroit, Michigan.  Per this census, Isabella had 3 children with only one still living. I assume that is Jessie who is living in Springswells, Michigan with her husband and 3 other living children (Laura, Hugh, Margareth/Marjorie).  They live minutes away from each other.

1906 – Isabella’s husband Hugh dies in Detroit, Michigan.

1910 – A now widowed Isabella Brodie is living in Detroit with her two grand daughters, Isobel and Marjorie Peel. Also widowed, Jessie is living with her daughter Laura’s family.

1920 – Isabella is still living with grand daughter Isobel Peel. No sign so far of Jessie or Marjorie.

There are still tons of holes to fill in this timeline. I basically followed Isabella (Belle) down through her lifetime as I could find the records. Even knowing that she was born to John and Janet Farris, I haven’t quite linked her to my Ferris/Farris/Farish family. I just know that John Farris is about 4 years older than my Jane Ferris-Menzies and that they were both from Dumfries, Scotland. I’m going to try and track down some more records but I can’t even believe how far I’ve come so far when I started knowing so little!

My new goals with Belle Brodie are probably going to be low priority ones now that the information is getting harder to find. There is still plenty to find but it will take more effort. So I’m probably going to go ahead and make my research notes on this and pick it up less often until I can at least link John and Jane.

Even More Source Cleanups

Posted on by Kathleen

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.

Vacation

Posted on by Kathleen

You might have noticed that my new trend of posting on Fridays broke last week. That was because I had a tiny secret… I was on vacation! Well, not exactly yet but first thing last Saturday morning my mother, my sister and I all loaded up and headed to Ohio for some “family fun time”. Seriously that was our official term that my cousin Patty came up with.

It was technically a girls weekend and it was so much fun. We rented a cabin around Hocking Hills State Park. There was no internet, no cell phone service and it was heaven!

Old Mans Cave, Hocking Hills, Ohio
Old Mans Cave, Hocking Hills, Ohio

So there aren’t any blog posts this week again, but I have made progress and I’m still on target!

Source Cleanups and Using OneNote

Posted on by Kathleen

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

Posted on by Kathleen

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!

Hello Out There!

Posted on by Kathleen

First of all if you’re reading this, back up your files…

It seems I’m always apologizing to my blog for being neglectful. Here I am again. I can’t tell a lie to my blog or what blog readers stumble across me here. These computer issues really threw me for a loop.

So to sum up,  in September I made an expensive decision to finally replace my aging desktop computer. At the time my computer was still limping along and I thought it was the perfect time to actually prepare for a computer swap before it needed to happen. Then the computer got delayed in production… Yikes.

About the time of the delay, my old computer did the unforgivable, it crashed unexpectedly and uncharacteristically, and it corrupted my working family file. I still cringe thinking about it. Luckily my new computer got here and I was able to start slowly working my way through getting things moved in an organized way.. Then….

If you’ve made it this far, back up your files…

My second hard drive corrupted itself. Luckily I had been scared enough by all my issues that I had been backing them up in various places and I was able to get all my files back onto my main computer, just with no extra hard drive to share the burden of a digital file hoarder.

I limped along again, downloading my synced tree from Ancestry, merging it with my working family file and now making one universal file. I’m not going to pretend that I was spending a ton of time on that, because I wasn’t. It’s very monotonous what I’m doing and I’ll get more into that another day.

If you’re still reading back up your files…

That’s right there’s still more to this story. Apparently my new Alienware computer was too much for my old battery back up because one night in stinky, smoky fashion, that too decided to take a permanent break.

So at this point I realized enough was enough. I was done limping along on my shiny new cluttered computer.

My new battery backup
My new battery backup

I got myself a new battery backup that self tests and lets me know all kinds of useful electricity information that I don’t know how to use.  The important part though is that it works and it works well. In fact, when there was a power surge, the backup immediately switched to battery for 1 second until it was over. I have no idea why we had a power surge but it’s good to know my battery backup has my back.

My new external hard drive
My new external hard drive

I also purchased myself a new external hard drive. This one is pure backup. In fact I have it set to automatically back up. It’s also connected to my Dropbox account which is going to be super handy.

The third thing I did was take the hard drive out of my old desktop and I formatted it. This one is now in my new computer as my “Genealogy Drive” and it is also set to back up to the external drive.

External Hard drive
External Hard drive

I’m still not completely comfortable using my old main hard drive as my genealogy drive but at least it is backed up onto my external every time there is a change made. This buys me more time until I’m able to purchase another internal hard drive that is the size and price I like.

So now after all this technology breakdown, I am back up and running, but very behind in emails and having to cancel most of my genealogy memberships due to the price of all the new equipment. I’ll get back up there though! Just slowly. 😉

How do you deal with full equipment breakdowns? Replace, repair, or give up completely?

Disclaimer: I am not connected to any of the companies I listed in this post. Just a paying customer and I didn’t receive any compensation to write this post.

The Absentee Genealogist

Posted on by Kathleen
Happy Holidays!
Happy Holidays!

First and foremost, I want to wish everyone a happy holiday season! No matter what you celebrate I hope you’re able to spend lots of quality time with your families and friends.

I certainly never expected to be absent this long from my blog. However, looking back I usually am during this time of year. My new computer is running just fine, only a few hiccups related to my old hard drives.

Here are the things I’ll be working on as a priority:

  1. Cleaning out all my hard drives and condensing them down. Partially due to the issues I’m experiencing with one of my extra drives.  I’ll be backuping them up to CD, flash drive and Dropbox. Lots of work, but it’s long overdue!
  2. Re-syncing my Ancestry Member Tree and my FTM 2014 trees. I’ll be honest, I haven’t touched my family tree since getting the new computer. I even let my memberships lapse again, but this time I’m going to experiment with other methods of getting my data since I used my extra money to purchase a new computer. There are plenty of options out there and I need to focus on what information I already have anyway!
  3. The website. There’s been a lot going on with my website for a few years that I’ve been ignoring. Including an over abundance of domain names and duplicate TNG installations. So I’ve got to do a clean out of not only my personal computer but my internet files also.

I think that’s enough for now! I’m hoping that cleaning out the mess from before and after the computer switch will get my head back in the game. Right now I’m having a hard time making any sense of my files, so anything I can do has to be progress.

Do you have troubles getting back into the swing of things after a break? Any big plans for the holiday? My house is finally decorated so it’s time to relax for us!

Happy Almost November!

Posted on by Kathleen

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

Posted on by Kathleen

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.

I made an expensive decision!

Posted on by Kathleen

I bought a new computer. It’s been on my mind constantly for almost a year now. Lately my computer has been having more and more problems. I’ve fixed it again and again. Finally, I decided I just wanted to go ahead and get the new computer. It’s been over 7 years since I purchased a computer, so it’s going to be a huge upgrade for me!

I’m not going to go into the logistics of it but I made the right computer decision for me. It won’t be here for 2 weeks though. The wait just might kill me! In the meantime, I have a lot of work to do. For the first time ever, I’m going to have a new computer before the old one is beyond saving! This means I can get everything in order on my second hard drive before the new one gets here! Then I can just put my second hard drive into the new computer and have a seamless (hopefully) experience… After the programs I use are installed of course. Unfortunately and fortunately with my ongoing computer problems, I’m an old hat at that part. I’ve had to “re-install” Windows every 6 months for the last few years at least because of a reoccurring problem no tech expert could figure out.

Family Tree Maker 2014
Family Tree Maker 2014 – 

While I’m preparing for that I’m also working with the new Family Tree Maker 2014! One thing I noticed about it right away is that it’s FASTER. Very noticeably faster on my current computer. I used to have to add someone, wait 5 minutes, add a birth date, wait 3 minutes, and so on. I was constantly compacting the file, and I did all the suggestions from Ancestry to make the program move faster, it just didn’t want to cooperate. The new version is lightning fast for me now and I’m making so much progress on my family file cleanup. Which is drawing to a close hopefully by the end of this year! I did have to pause a few lines because it was just out of control, but I’ll make it back to them at the end of the cleanup. I just wanted to feel like I was making forward progress again and those huge families make you feel lost in the 1800s! I’ve made it up to the Applegate line which is already almost done. Which is good because I feel like I’ve been doing this project for years, oh wait, I have! 🙂

I did make a few boo-boos when I was getting everything set up. Nothing completely permanent if I wouldn’t mind taking back some progress made because of the new lightning fast speed. Though the biggest damage was my synced tree on Ancestry.com. That’s currently a mess and I’m working on getting it cleaned up. Had I not already been entrenched in computer issues at the time, I might not have made those mistakes but I can’t take back hitting the unlink button now and they did warn me! So onward without looking backwards. That’s my new motto!

That’s the latest that’s happening here in Maryland. Just thought I’d give you an update on what’s been happening in my progress.