Genealogy Do-Over 2016: The Go-Over - Month Three

Month Three.

Giving myself permission to do this challenge as a Go-Over this time around has really helped ease the pressure I was imposing upon myself to "get it right" last year.

Obviously, my stuff was pretty messed up or I would not have attempted the Do-Over to begin with. I needed help, and all I had been doing was avoiding the icky bits, stepping around the sink hole of "oh my gosh, what have I done", and basically just shutting my eyes to the whole situation. In the race to win genealogy one does make quite the mess!

But there were whole areas of research I was eager to tackle, if not for the mountain of confusion I had created all on my own. (With a little help from some confusing ancestors, I will confess .... Tidewater Virginia Families anyone?)

Anywho, where was I?

Oh, right - Month Three.

Last night I pulled out all the old family group sheets I had and compared them with my tree. The tree, as I suspected, was in much better shape and had more detail than the group sheets. Phew.

BUT, I am missing quite a bit of 'basic' information that may still be available to me through speaking with family. I say may as my mother is the only family still living and she has a bit of a memory problem. The missing information is mostly on my dad's side of the family and, lucky me, he was an only child! No aunts, uncles or cousins there. In a cruel twist of irony, my dad's uncle was an avid family historian and sent my dad bits of family lore that were kept tucked away. He left a good summary on earlier generations that I was able to add to, and a brilliant write-up on himself, but nothing, nothing, on his sister, my grandmother. The one who is missing serious amounts of information! Guess he figured my dad already knew everything .......

My mom's mom, the Genealogy Queen, has left a good collection of family stories that I started to go through last year. I'll relook at those and ask my mom if she has anything to add. At Christmas I did get a little more information out of her than I knew before.

As they say, the genealogy bug tends to skip a generation and that is certainly the case with my mom. She likes to hear about what I discover, but she has no real interest in it herself.

I'm still working on organizing and labeling my digital media. I have a huge dump folder labeled "GENEALOGY" and then sub folders to sort to. The sub folders are a work in progress as I go and contain their own sub folders. It works for me. At least for now.

I am also still tweaking my paper folders, and truth be told, still have a bunch of scanning to do - just came across my grandmother's stenography diploma (I knew I had it .... somewhere) Now it is in the "to scan" pile.

But I have a plan and I am making progress!! Little by little, bit by bit.

This go-round I feel like I can breathe.

Genealogy Do-Over: Week Two - Interview The Living

This week we are asked to set research goals, interview ourselves and interview our family members.  I have talked about my research goals here.  So, it's on to interviews. I have begun to write about myself. I chose the first person, autobiographical style. Seeing as I am living I have chosen to keep that interview to myself. I am fortunate to have in my possession group sheets my grandmother had filled out when she was researching. I have letters from her cousins, aunts, etc too that she had contacted in working her genealogy. Since I am doing my do over solely on my maternal line I will focus on those relatives.

My Maternal Grandparents Robert and Elizabeth Thomas c.1927

There were four children in my mother's family. My mother and one brother are the only two still living, having lost her oldest brother almost 25 years ago, and her older sister several years ago.  There are 14 grandchildren, my cousins, 12 of us are still alive. Scattered across the country from Wisconsin to California, and points in between. What is very awesome is that my (still living) uncle has spent the last 10 years writing his autobiography. My mother has a draft copy that I plan to borrow as part of my interview process.  My cousin, the daughter of this uncle, and I have been collaborating for nearly 6 years on family research. We have been in contact with our cousins in the past, but I will make another attempt to see what I can learn. You never know!

This exercise has, if nothing else, focused my attention on learning the whereabouts of all my cousins, one set considerably older than I.  And perhaps, the siblings of my maternal grandparents and their children and grandchildren. Sometimes going that far sideways gleans some very good information. I plan to draft a set of questions to send to each cousin that I hope will spark some memories and will be enjoyable for them to answer. Not everyone loves genealogy like I do. (I know, right!? Hard to imagine!)

I did do a similar thorough search when I was working my father's side. He was an only child so I had no aunts, uncles or cousins. I reached out to the all the living children of our common great grandfather only to discover that I had more historical information than any of them. However, I did get some "new" relatives out of it and a bunch of great family stories I had never heard before. We still keep in touch. The bonus for me, I got a whole new family with my surname and DNA that I never had growing up as the daughter of an only.

Even if I don't get any good new information, I will be reestablishing ties with my living blood relatives, which is always a good thing.