Something New ... And Exciting!

After the breakthrough I had last week with my brick wall 2nd great grandmother, I decided the way to go about researching all my brick walls was to go wide and deep.

Now, I have never been one for a ginormous family tree anyway. Having just come off a successful culling of my own out of control tree. which, as it turns out, wasn't so out of control as some. But that's not the story here.

The story today is to share with you what I am currently attempting in the Cave.

I spent the weekend casting a very wide net, going in deep on the Whitford family that I discovered last week. Turns out the whole clan is nuts - and they liked to marry and divorce numerous times. I would not have seen this pattern if I was sticking to just my direct line. By starting a new research tree on Ancestry dot com I was able to include all the collateral family, half cousins, step grandparents, all the odd, but blood related at some level, characters that I would not have bogged down my own tree with. (No, I do NOT want my own WikiTree, thank you). And, guess what!? I did start to see patterns, and was able to put some 'orphans' in families based on information found on other relatives documents, death certs, wills, etc. I must admit it was quite exhilarating!

Genealogy high?

So I have started to create research trees for all my dead end ancestors, adding all the spouses, children, brothers & sisters, aunts & uncles, etc; and following the trails to see what I might unearth.

It is very satisfying, for my obsessively orderly brain not to have all these trails, these webs, dangling from my own tree like so much Spanish moss. And, when I want to research a particular family I can just open that tree and work.

Now, I have member tree hints turned off so I don't get a gazillion bad trees popping up in my new hints, but once I have found all the legit sources available, I will pop over to search and look at those trees.

This is where the magic can happen.

Like it did for me last week.

Most often not, mind you, but it can, so I always look.

And, here's another thing. Once I get the research tree built, and have become pretty familiar with the surnames, I can hook my AncestryDNA to the tree and wait a bit to see if I snag anything! If I had one of those 30,000+ behemoths I would certainly not recognize the name of my 6th cousin five times removed. But with a compact little research tree I would.

The information is out there - we just have to dig deep and go wide sometimes until we spot that glimmer of light at the end of the long, long, long rabbit hole.

Today I am working on my McBrides and my O'Connells - should be a piece of cake!
 

Genealogy Do-Over 2016: The Go-Over

Last year I jumped in with both feet and fully embraced the Do-Over. I signed up, and showed up on Day One, bright-eyed and eager to fix the big gaping mess I had created in my race to "win" genealogy. I started off strong and made some good headway.

I also did a great deal of weeping and a fair amount of gnashing of teeth.

I finally hoisted the white flag of surrender somewhere around Cycle 3 - Week 7. Each round of the Do-Over got me further along, but there was so much everyday life minutiae getting in my way that I just gave up. The pace was too frantic, my life too hectic.

I dabbled, secretly, in the Cave when time permitted. I lurked in the shadows of the Facebook Do-Over Group. I followed a few BSO's down their rabbit holes. I realized that I HATE spreadsheets .... and that's OK. The one I created will most assuredly go unused, collecting cyber-dust. I love my notebooks and more importantly I will USE my notebooks.

Along about mid December I made a bold decision to "rip the band-aid off" and just prune the living bejezus out of the wildly out of control tree I had been avoiding since around 2009. The decision probably was made post Wine O'Clock, like most good brash decisions, but I ran with it - fueled by the claret courage of Merlot.

Do not be alarmed!!

I made a full backup copy first. (I hadn't that much "courage")

Once I got started - man did it feel good! I felt like a ninja assassin, hunting down unattached names and family groups that had no business in my tree to begin with. I went "hunting" nightly for almost 5 weeks (yes, it was that out of control - and truth be told I felt a little like Katniss). I trimmed that tree down to a third of it's original size! I came out the other side with a thing of beauty. Much like pruning a rose bush to encourage growth, just like I did to my ancient lilac bush last year.

I bought the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook in preparation of jumping in again in 2016, and actually finishing this time! As I began to skim the contents I was delighted to read of the Go-Over. Yes! The Go-Over! Brilliant - exactly what I needed. Now that my tree is slim and my sources good my next course of action is a good going over.

Hooray!

Month One is nearly finished up. My files got organized last year and the documents I have been downloading as I pruned are almost all categorized and labeled. I still need to make a 'research areas and improvements' list, but I have a fairly good handle on things.

All in all I am feeling pretty darn confident that I will see this through to the conclusion this time around.

Relook Early and Often: You Just Might Solve A Mystery!

Last January 2015 I wrote my first 52 Ancestors bio about my 2nd great grandmother Jennie Whitford Faulkner. I felt I had exhausted my search for the time being and was resigned to be content with not knowing the answers I was seeking. I put Jennie aside and moved forward with other ancestors.

Last week, to my utter surprise, I was contacted by a second cousin's wife. She had come across a letter I had written to him several years earlier and was curious if he had ever made contact with me. Short answer was no. But I had moved on and made significant discoveries in the time since I had first penned the letter.  

Eager to share my new discoveries I began taking a relook at the family we have in common.

Fresh eyes (quite literally) and a year of intense genealogical immersion allowed me to see things in a new light.

I revisited Jennie and laid out all the facts I had amassed. I created a new working tree in Ancestry dot com and titled it "Jennie Whitford Mystery". I plugged in everything I knew, the things I suspected, and a few questions. Then I went to work.

I kept coming back to the 1860 census. As I wrote previously, I was really curious as to who the 10 year old boy named James Nichols was who was living in Jennie's household. A little brother perhaps? Did her mother remarry? (And who was her mother?) So I was a little surprised when the second hint that appeared when I hit the "search" bar was for a marriage between Jane Whitford and Daniel Nichols in 1849.  (I knew that in later life Jennie had gone by Jane, and I had included that in the search.)

Clicking on it got me this:

Drat! Ok. I jumped over to Family Search and plugged in the info from the record and ......... Bing, Bing, Bing!!! Found this!

Oh. Jane. You were only sixteen! And who were the witnesses? E. M. Whitford and Elizabeth Whitford. I would suspect that at least one parent had to witness to give consent for a minor. Elizabeth may well be her mother, E. M. could be male or female. Father? Brother? Sister? Add that to the "to solve" list for now.

If this is my Jennie/Jane, then the 10 year old James living with her in 1860 was most certainly her child! (Happy dance ensued)

But before I got ahead of myself I wanted to check this new theory, so I utilized the aid of PFTs (public family trees). Normally I have these "hints" turned off, but now I wanted to see if other researchers had these people in their trees too.

FamilySearch had one entry with the right "keyword" for me: Faulkner. But no detail.

Ancestry brought me zip. So I searched through James Nichols and found this:

Opening it and then clicking on James' mother Jennie gave me this!

On the right track indeed!! But the "sources" were merely notations of people's names and email addresses. Messaging the tree owner brought no better results. 

BUT, I have solved the James Nichols mystery and have some new leads to follow. 

And a new mystery afoot. 

Jane, now Jennie, married my 2nd great grandfather in 1856 and went on to have three more children. Her first husband Daniel also remarried in 1856 and had another seven children.

Ironically, Jennie divorced her second husband in 1878 and went back to being Jane shortly thereafter.

Oh, to have a time machine!!  

Coming Out Of The Cave

Hi there!!

I'm back. Did you miss me?

2015 was not a good year, and I fell behind on many things I had intended to do. My "simple" cataract surgery that commenced in March of 2015 dragged on until January of this year, my eyesight still not up to snuff.

But I soldier on. Prompted by the stalwart, courageous, and just plain nuts ancestors that reside in the Cave with me. Which is where I have been almost exclusively since the end of December.

I finally worked up the courage to dig deep and face the mess that was my family tree. I have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. I was a hopeless "clickophile" when I first discovered Ancestry dot com. I had clicked my way back to the middle ages and could have kept right on going. Not only did I manage to get back to around 1000 AD - I added ALL the collateral relations ..... ALL OF THEM! You can understand why the thought of cleaning this up frightened me so.

But the time had come.

I locked myself in the Cave and went on a ruthless killing spree.

Now, don't worry, I did save a complete copy of the tree before I started - just in case I got out of control and killed off someone I shouldn't have. Which I did. Several times. (quick tip: don't drink wine while culling your tree)

I'll spare you the gruesome details of the wrestling, hair pulling, weeping and gnashing of teeth that ensued. But I did it!

Six weeks later I am here to report that I am out of the Cave with a fresh, clean, gloriously slim new tree that is all sourced and ready to be worked on. Properly.

I am now ready to rejoin the Genealogy Do Over and pick up on my 52 Ancestors stories (I got as far as ancestor #23).

2016 is promising to be a good year. I emerged from my Cave and did not see my shadow!

Let's do this.

As It Turns Out, I DO Like Green Eggs and Ham

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" ~F.D.R.

I am not an early adopter. I would suspect that many in the genealogy community are not early adopters. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is generally my motto and rule to live by. If I had been my ancestor I would have missed the boat.

Repeatedly.

Yesterday, faced with the inevitable, that Ancestry was once-and-for-all retiring the Old Version of their legendary online family tree program in less than three days; I sat down to get as much done as super-humanly possible within the Old Version that I was so comfortable and at home with. I locked myself in the Cave and told my husband not to expect me any time soon.

He was on his own.

I laid out my imaginary rope to the real world and I set in for some serious spelunking.

Hours passed, my husband finally tugged on my guideline and wanted to know if there were any plans for dinner. I grunted something incoherent and went back to the splendor of the Cave.

Later a glass of wine showed up at my side.

I was being lured out.

I glanced at the clock at the bottom of my computer monitor and saw that it was well past 8pm (Wine O'Clock had begun without me!). Resigned, I scribbled some notes and vowed to pick up the insanity in the morning.

There was still so much to do - and scant days left in my 'comfort zone' to do it.

After a fitful night's sleep worrying about all the ancestors I still needed to clean-up and straighten out* I had an Epiphany. Why not TRY the New Version? Why not compare the ancestor profiles side by side - Old v. New. I knew what I needed to do in the Old Version and where & how to do it - so I pulled up an ancestor whose profile needed sorting and, noting what I needed to do, switched to the New Version to look at the same ancestor.

Well.

Well. Well. Well.

Now isn't that easy? Really? I was scared of this?

I LIKE the New Ancestry.

I like it quite well.

Hmm.

Feels like I might have a little (green) egg on my face.

*sidenote:  I confess I had a terrible, horrible case of clickitis early in my addiction and have been avoiding that embarassing area on my tree ever since I came to my senses. I knew I'd have to face it one day, but that day never came ..... until about a month ago when, not being an early adopter, that day did in fact come. Not being one for accepting change willingly and all .....