Category: Organization

Okay, I missed some 52 Ancestors posts, but for a good reason! I was in Florida for a week visiting my niece and nephew for their first birthdays and just didn’t get the time managed to post. Now that I am home, I am facing a whole new challenge. With a new round of the Genealogy Do-Over starting in January, I wanted to re-assess my processes and where I am currently at with my research.

What I am doing right

• The great news is I’m still doing things in a very methodical way. I am using documents and entering data first into Evidentia, then into my genealogy management program, and then into my Research Log. Once that is done, I update my checklist in Excel.
• I haven’t entered any further ahead then what the documents show. Sometimes this is hard, especially as I’m trying to catch up on answering genealogy e-mails. I’m even thinking about a way of logging who I’ve talked to about what and how long it’s been since I communicated. That way I can start with the oldest response and work my way forward.

What I need to Improve

• At some point, it got way too overwhelming to try and keep so many trees synced. My Legacy file is my most up to date, but at some point because of Ancestry’s hinting system, I just deleted my fresh tree and started updating my oldest tree there as I went. Which obviously provides a huge problem. Working with the old tree is not working for me. It makes me want to leap ahead, it tempts me to make assumptions. So now I feel like I should go back to a fresh tree. I could upload a Gedcom later, but then it wouldn’t be linked to my sources. That defeats the purpose of what I was trying to do. I’m trying to put well sourced, documented trees up on every site I can. I thought the old one was better because it was attached to my DNA results, but now I’m just not sure. I stopped making changes to all online trees except for the Ancestry DNA tree.  Trying to keep everything up to date on Ancestry, Find My Past, My Heritage, Family Search, and various Family Tree DNA sites was just too much!
• When I started my Do-Over, I moved ALL digital files onto a separate drive and titled the folder “Hold Over”. I haven’t touched it since. That means there are pictures, documents, and various other things over there that need to be brought over and organized. I assumed I would do that as I went as well. My previous numbering system made it very hard to tell which documents I had for different people. One of the things I’m trying to do is to rename everything over in the old folder to my new system so I can at least see what I have. A lot of them are digital files that will be able to be deleted as I go along, but some of them are scans of purchased documents and I don’t want to miss those by accident.

It’s not all bad

Despite what my bullet points say, I am doing really well with this process. I feel like I am taking more time to analyze things and to organize them which was my point in starting over in the first place. With a quick adjustment, I think it’s going to start coming along nicely again. I’ve hesitated to work on it because I was still trying to decide what to do about those other trees.

What do you guys do about trees on various sites? Do you upload Gedcoms or do you manually enter in? Is my over-thinking nature coming out again, does it even matter?

It’s time to talk about my DNA matches again. I’ve been immersing myself in my matches. One of the Facebook groups I am a member of told me that the best way to learn about your DNA is to get familiar with your results. That’s what I’ve been focusing on since it’s way too cold to be outside…

Okay, I probably wouldn’t have been outside anyway. It’s never been my thing.

Where were we?

The last time I posted about my DNA, this chart was where I left things. I was going through trying to identify my public tree matches to see what I could tell about them. Everything is listed in my Excel spreadsheet. While I was going through, I also made a point of adding a star and note to each match that I identified. Boy am I glad I did that now. Wait until I show you this!

That was very clever of me!

To save screen space, I will just tell you I got a bunch of new matches over the holiday. That left me with a lot of stuff to add to my database. No problem, I have a process for that! Well, as you all know new matches don’t usually have trees. That’s okay, I’m sure some will put some up eventually. In the meantime, I can still work with that. For purposes of our example, Let’s say I have a new DNA match named New Cousin. He’s awesome because he chose to share his DNA matches with us and that’s alright in my book.

Woah there, that’s a lot, what am I looking at?

I’m glad you asked! Okay, above this text you should see a list of my shared matches with New Cousin. The special treat is that I’ve been adding stars and comments to each match I’ve identified. What you see above is what happened when I clicked that starred matches button at the top of my screen.

When I look at my notes for each person, I started to notice a pattern. Besides the two William and Anna matches at the bottom and my 2nd Cousin match at the top, the list is definitely favoring a Joseph Slusher and Nancy Wade descendant.

I am extremely lucky and cursed.

As well all know with DNA matches, this isn’t a given result for everyone. You have to be lucky enough to have the information given by your matches and then you have to know how to extract as much information from as little information as you can. On top of that luck, there was another little factor that worked to my advantage.

Mays and Slusher Families

It just so happens that three Mays children married three Slusher children. Given the size of the families, before that fact is taken into account, odds were always very good that I would have a lot of Mays and Slusher matches. The interesting part is that most of these matches aren’t coming from the Mays sections of the Slusher tree. My ancestor John Mays only had 3 children survive to adulthood and they only had a few children themselves. Some of these families were very prolific. One grandson of Joseph and Nancy had 20 children! Allegedly, of course, all this could be thrown in the cold, snowy night if my Do-Over takes a dramatic turn. Hopefully not though! HA!

Note: I am using my old file to keep up with DNA match correspondence, though I am upfront with everyone that I am re-entering everything from the beginning.

This series of posts are based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. 🙂 I just want to say there are parts of this workbook that I am not posting about, so if you would like the full set of tasks, then visit Thomas’ page or purchase the workbook.

If you haven’t been able to tell by my lack of posts, I’ve hit a plateau in my Do-Over. It doesn’t have to do with a brain block, a brick wall, or lack of information. I have plenty to do, and I know exactly what I’m supposed to do next. I’ve even ordered some new records. For some reason, I’m just struggling to get moving on any of it. I’m unsure if it’s just a little bit of burnout, the holidays, or just an overall tiredness.

Current Status

The screenshot above shows my public DNA tree at Ancestry.com. It’s the easiest way to show the progress I’ve made in my Genealogy Do-Over. As I move through my list, I delete or update people in the public tree. It’s quite obvious that I’m on the John Mays/Celia Slusher section of the tree. I have been uploading documents and pictures to all the trees that are public on any of the DNA websites.

This takes quite a bit of time. There are days that I only work with one record.

Are there any big changes that you’ve had to make?

Though it’s not a big change, I did change John Mays’ name from John Harmon Mays in my database to John Mays. This death certificate is the only official document I’ve found referring to this man as Harmon. The only other instance was the cemetery plot records. Notice that his son Harmon Mays is the informant on this record. That leaves the possibility of “operator error” when asked Full Name at the top of the document. For now, Harmon is just an alternate name in my database and no longer an accepted form of his name.

The second change was John’s birth date. Its unclear to me if it was my error at the time or if I just trusted the transcription. I believe I had this record in a paper copy before it was put online, so I think it was probably me. Most online trees even agree on the original date of 4 Sep 1872. However, upon reviewing this again, I do believe it is 24 Sep 1872. Which doesn’t seem like a huge deal, but it just goes to show I’m paying much closer attention to details now.

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday seasons. I hope to have another DNA entry up in the new year!

After my previous post, some of you may be wondering what goes into the Notes section of my Excel spreadsheet. This is actually the first time I’m writing down this process, so I’m hoping it makes sense to someone other than myself!

Step One

My first step is to take a visual look at my matches. The results you see above are my matches closer than 4th cousin. With my working knowledge of the family tree, I’m able to tell just by looking at these matches who 50% of them are. That’s including my father. I’ve obviously edited out the pictures and names of the matches to protect their privacy.

As you can see, most of my close matches aren’t sharing any kind of public tree. Except, of course, some of them are sharing unlinked trees. Right away, when I’m going through my fourth cousin matches, I will add a note if my third cousin shares that match. For example, if I share a match with my 2nd cousin then I put, Shared match with 2nd cousin. Using their member name in place of the relationship.

Step Two

My next step is to go through each match and see who we both share a match with. The screenshot above shows that this 3rd cousin match is a match shared with my father and two other 3rd cousins. One of those third cousins is already on my known list. From that match alone, it narrows down where this match comes in significantly. Not only for the match who I am looking at but for the other unknown third cousin match.

For this match in her Note section would read, Shared match with ‘3rd cousin’ and ‘3rd cousin’. I don’t add that my father is a match because I already have a box for that in my excel sheet.

Step Three

My next step shows how even an unlinked family tree can help determine which section of your family tree a match comes from. This third cousin match has a small family tree that’s not attached to their DNA results. That means I have no idea if the DNA results are for the home person on this family tree. I can’t know without asking. I’m not ready to ask yet because I’m still rebuilding my core family tree. The two surnames that are shown above (Theademan, Moyer) are very familiar to me though. My great-grandma was a Moyer. That means I’m comfortable making another change to my list.

Re-Visiting my List

Okay, so now I know where eight out of my ten matches are coming from. I used a different symbol to denote that while I think I know where the match comes from, I’m still not sure. This is still a clue to identifying someone in my 4th cousin match list. If any of these third cousins come up as a shared match, then it goes into my notes section.

The last two matches

My last two matches are the most difficult ones. The first one has a public tree, but nothing that looks familiar. The second match has a tree but it is private. The one thing going for me is that when I look at the shared matches for each one, the other is listed. That means all three of us match. That doesn’t mean we match at the same spot, but that we are all related to people in common somewhere.

When looking at the matches, I realized not only did we have each other all in common. We all had a fourth cousin in common. That fourth cousin also has a public tree up. I recognized the Slusher name from this match. The funny thing about the Slushers is that I usually match with them as double cousins. There were 3 Mays siblings that married 3 Slusher siblings. That means we could all descend from different Mays/Slusher couples or the same one. One of us might not even be connecting through the Mays/Slusher mess but somewhere else. Without knowing those other two people, it’s difficult to say. As if DNA matches weren’t hard enough!

So now if I match with these third cousins and that particular fourth cousin, I add in the fourth cousin to my notes section. This gives me a starting point for my next level of analyzation. I sure am good at analyzing things to the point of exhaustion!

The Final List

Okay, the above screenshot shows my final list of 2nd and 3rd DNA cousin matches. The ‘i’ symbol on those last two matches shows that I just don’t have enough information on them. Now that I have a general idea where a lot of my matches come from, it doesn’t seem so overwhelming. That’s not the end though. There is one last thing I have in my Notes section.

What happens when there are no second or third cousin matches?

Yup. I have quite a few of those as well. There are many types of notes that aren’t using a cousin match.

• Descendant of … : Usually, if they have a public tree that I see familiar names on.
• Descended through: This one is if they are descended through a known sibling of my ancestors.
• Only 1 shared match: There are 16 matches that only have one shared match.
• Possible Surname connection: If I see a pattern or surnames that I’m familiar with.
• DNA Circle: I only have a few DNA circles and they come and go depending on my cousin matches opening and closing their public trees. Though I feel like a lot of my sorting and organization is leading me to create my own DNA circles.
• Unknown Connection: 213 of my cousin matches are still a mystery to me. I have 493 charted. That means about 43% of my matches still need more work. In the grand scheme of things, I think that’s a good start. That means I will probably be able to figure out over 50% of my matches without too much hassle.