I Now Have a Research Disciplinarian

No whips. No threats of harm to me or my family.  It’s software that forces me (sort of) to do step-by-step research planning and gives me a place to put research notes. This is necessary because I have no self-discipline.

I mentioned Research Ties in my 4 Feb 2018 post Getting my Act Together…

I learned about it in Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy  4^th Edition by Val D. Greenwood. He implies that he uses it. It is a cloud based program specifically designed for family history.  I signed up for a 2-week trial.

It was a rocky start in spite of having a Beginner’s Guide and a series of tutorials. Even with that help, it was non-intuitive to me. Could have been crystal clear to other folks, but not to me. I stuck it out and now think I’ve mostly got the hang of it. Mostly.

Research Ties leads you through your research step-by-step.  You can upload a Gedcom file or enter individual names manually.

You first state an objective.

Then one or more searches to accomplish that objectives.

Then the results of each search.

The discipline comes in defining each step and then carrying it out. The sequence is very logical. Left to my own devices, I tend to jump all over the place and have vague plans, if any. I go down rabbit holes and lose track of what I was looking for. I write (often abbreviated) results in a notebook - some of the times.  I am poor at citations. When I go back later, I can barely read my own handwriting let alone figure out my abbreviations.

There are two great benefits: a) because it’s in the cloud, I can use it with my tablet when away from home; b) it has excellent report capability.  Reports can be downloaded in either MS Excel or PDF format.

I have now signed up for a $30 annual subscription.

DISCLAIMER: This works for me mostly because I use 2 displays. When doing online research, I have Research Ties on one screen and do my searches on the other.  I am not certain this I would be so enthusiastic using only one screen and having to switch back and forth between applications

.

Back to Basics I – Census Records

 Census Data – Facts or Clues?

Following up on my previous post Family History From Census Records, I am reviewing my ancestors in census records and city directories. Discrepancies in census records can be a stark reminder that these records are only clues; and that a given census records alone cannot be deemed as a fact.

What’s wrong with this picture?

The image above shows the 1910 US Federal Census information recorded for the residence of my great grandparents, Michael and Elizabeth Schipp. Some of it is correct. 

• ·         The surname is misspelled (not uncommon)
•  ·         It shows that 5 of their daughters were married (correct) and living at that address (incorrect)
•  ·         Daughter “Otela” is actually “Stella”.
•  ·         Daughter Helen and her family do live with Helen’s parents. But Helen is listed twice. The other 4 married daughters are living at other addresses with their husbands and children. 
•  ·         In spite of what the census shows, only Helen and Pauline were born in Minnesota; the older children were born in Poland.

What happened here? 

• ·         What did the census taker ask?
• o   If he asked the names of Michael and Elizabeth’s children, that’s exactly what he got. Did he specify that he only wanted those at this particular residence?
• ·         Who gave the information?
• o   That is not possible to know.
• ·         Was there a language issue?
• o   Very likely.

Verify! Verify! Verify!

Here’s the 1910 US Federal Census page that shows my grandmother Stella Schipp Ganas with her husband and family (highlighted).  Living next door is Stella’s sister Mary and her husband and family. 

Stella and Mary lived farther down the same street as their parents. But. Different Enumeration District; different census taker.

By the way, my grandfather was called “Nick” but his name was Ignatz in Polish, Ignatius in English.

Verify! Verify! Verify!

Family History From Census Records

 

Last evening, I started reading COMMON PEOPLE subtitled: In Pursuit of My Ancestors by Alison Light.  So far I’ve read the preface and prologue and gotten only to page 59 of the content, but these few pages have inspired me to review my family's census records for the wealth of historical information they may hold.

Ms. Light began with little knowledge of her ancestry. She studied census records and from there was able to identify and then visit ancestral towns. She’s done an amazing amount of research beyond census records, but I was struck by how much information can be gleaned from the census.  I’ve always looked for obvious family living nearby but I rarely dive into understanding the character of a neighborhood.

What was the neighborhood like?

• Single Family Homes?
• Apartment buildings?
• Boarding Houses?
• Multiple generations living together?
• Did surnames and/or birthplaces indicate a predominant nationality?
• Many children or few per family?
• What kinds of jobs did people have?

Did they move often? Or Never?

Did occupations change over time?

The “FAN club” (Friends, Associates, Neighbors)  is an important part of understanding our ancestors and our heritage.

I can’t wait to read the rest of Alison Light’s genealogy journey.

Chronicling America: Newspapers – Part two

Chronicling America is FREE and easy to use. I’m not an expert user, but if you haven’t visited this site, you may find this post helpful.

Chronicling America website is the result of the NationalDigital Newspaper Project sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and The Library of Congress. More information is available on the site.

The home screen has three tabs on the left of the screen and on the right is the button to see the entire 1690 to present directory of newspapers.

Search Pages

This tab allows you to search papers from a specific state or from all states. Select the range of years desired. Type in the name or word to search for. 

 The image below shows some of the results of my search in Minnesota papers for the surname Muccio from the years 1890 – 1922.

Red highlights the occurrences of the name. Clicking on a page enlarges it and provides tools for zooming in and out; and viewing other pages of the same issue.

Advanced Search

Gives many options for making your search more specific as shown below.

All Digitized Newspapers 1836-1922

Allows you to select papers from a specific state, those aimed at a specific ethnicity, and/or printed in a specific language.

NOTE:   The above searches look only at those papers that have been digitized.  There are more than 11 million searchable pages at this time.  More are being added as the digitizing process goes on.

Search U.S. Newspaper Directory, 1690 – Present

The directory lists all papers from 1690 including those that have not yet been digitized.  You can browse by newspaper title or select state, county and city and years of publication.

 The image below shows a partial list of papers published in Cincinnati, Ohio. Clicking on the title will give more information about it.

One note of caution: It is easy to get completely wrapped up in reading these old newspapers.  They’re a snapshot of our ancestors’ lives.

History of the Rest of Us: Newspapers – Part One

Volumes are written about individuals who had significant impact on our world. It is easy to learn about kings and conquerors and prominent scientists, inventors, politicians and business leaders.   But what about the rest of us?

What about the laborers, tradesmen, merchants, farmers, homemakers?  What were the local implications of historic events? How was everyday life affected by political realignments or troop movements, or inventions or even weather?

Newspapers.  That’s the best answer I’ve found so far.  Many of us scour newspapers for obituaries, birth and wedding announcement, etc. But don’t neglect to look at the entire paper.  You’ll find the entire spectrum of life.  More than just the hard news, there are cultural events, ads showing styles of clothing and home furnishings, opinion pages and even comics in some papers.

Our ancestors were more quickly affected by local events than by national events. The newspaper is where you’ll find the things that were shaping their everyday lives.  And don’t forget foreign language papers. I recently wrote about finding obituaries in Chicago’s Czech language paper.

Local historical societies generally retain newspaper archives.  If they’ve been microfilmed, you may be able to borrow them via inter-library loan to avoid travel expenses.

Chronicling America is a wonderful online resource for digitized newspapers from 1836 through 1922. (Copyright laws prohibit later issues.)  There is also a directory of US newspapers dating from 1690 to the present.

The best part is that these digitized papers are searchable!  Select the state and the range of years; then type in the surname that you’re looking for, and press the search button.  If that name appears, you’ll see it and the entire page on which it is mentioned.

My next post will be some detail about using Chronicling America.

Rookie Mistakes

My genealogy began in 1999 with reading some books and articles and then diving right in. I made all the rookie mistakes.  Some are easily corrected once found – they just take time and patience. My most serious rookie mistake was in not recording sources of the information I found. 

Years ago, I decided to postpone my search for my children’s Bohemian paternal ancestors because I was frustrated.  I concentrated on my own Polish ancestors because I know much more about them and I had a place to start. Now that I’ve picked all the low-hanging fruit for my family, it is time to get back to Bohemian research for my kids and grandkids.

The big issue is that I have not yet been able to identify where the Filek family lived in Bohemia.  Since they left their home country in the mid 1860’s, borders have changed as various rulers came and went.   It was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, part of Austria, part of the Third Reich to name a few. Names of towns and villages changed depending on which nation claimed the territory.

As I look back at my notes from my original research, I find a list of towns that apparently seemed likely at the time.  Why did they seem likely??? Nothing in my notes tells me where I came up with this list.

Even the most casual source note is important. Something as simple as “information from Grandma” is better than nothing. Source detail and validity will improve as data and facts are found. 

Even experienced amateurs can make mistakes. Is it time for a review?  Here’s an article from FamilySearch.org about Rookie Mistakes.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Short form Research Plan

I needed a plan to help me zero in on some specific gaps in my tree. My short form research plan is designed to help me isolate possible sources for each gap so that I can try to do a thorough search for each item and briefly record the results. This should help me organize these loose ends and keep me from redundant research.  (I hope.) There will probably be revisions to the form but this looks like a good place to start.

Research Plan (short)

Person	Seeking	Resources	Begun	Done	Result
Marianna Jaskowiak	Birth & Brother August 1849 Marriage 1867	LDS films Iwno 1199965 1199966
Nepomuceno Sip	Birth date Parents	LDS films Grabow 719471 719472
Magdalena Kaczmarek	Village Birth date Parents	Geneteka My Heritage??

Too Many BSOs!!!

Thomas MacEntee warns genealogists, especially those doing the Genealogy Do-Over to avoid being sidetracked by BSOs – Bright Shiny Objects.  We need to keep focused. 

I was doing ok for a couple of weeks.  I worked on my file naming strategy for documents and digitized photos. So far it seems to be working well. I have an Excel spreadsheet as an indexer of the photo files. As I prepare my scanned photos, I’ve been including metadata and a watermark of sorts - the three initials as shown in the lower left of the photo below.  I try to make the watermark fairly unobtrusive but definitely visible.

Then I was besieged with BSOs. On February 7 I attended an all day seminar put on by three Treasure Coast (Florida) genealogy societies.  This is an annual affair hosted by the Indian River Genealogical Society.  They’re always good but this one was GREAT.

Lisa Louise Cooke presented four classes from her book: The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox   I knew that Google had more features than I’ve been using, but I was blown away by her presentation and her demonstrations of the powerful Google tools that can take online research to another dimension.  If you’re not watching her website, podcasts and videos, go take a look at Genealogy Gems

How can you not go home with a treasure trove of BSOs – new tools – and not play with them all?

Then on February 10, at the monthly Indian RiverGenealogical Society meeting, Mark Fearer spoke on the topic of immigration.  He gave me some ideas that may help with my one remaining immigration brick wall.  A couple more BSOs to play with.

I love new toys.  Self discipline has never been my strong point.  There are just too darn many BSOs.

Focus! Focus! Focus.

Revised File Name Scheme

Thanks to the people on the Facebook Genealogy Do-over group, I have revised my scheme for naming my digitized photos.

On FB I posted a link to my 1/24/2015 blog that asked for feedback; and got very good response that made me reconsider both my document file name scheme and the one for photos.

Documents

After much thought, I am not revising my document naming plan. I believe it will work for me. Here it is as posted on Jan 24:

Document Files = Date_Who_What

Date	YYYY_MM_DD  A lower case x will substitute for unknown entries: 195x_xx_xx
Who	Surname-first name; or just family name
What	Type of record: Birth, Baptism, Marriage, Census, Deed, etc.

Here’s an example:  A copy of the church record of baptism from an LDS microfilm.

The file name is: 1841_11_14_Dachtera-Andreas_Baptism.jpg

The LDS film number is in the file metadata

Photos

Several people pointed out problems with my photo naming scheme. For one thing it was too complex. Even worse, it would be difficult to sort in a logical way. 

Old plan:

Date_Who_What-Description(description optional)_ Generation

Date	YYYY_MM_DD  A lower case x will substitute for unknown entries: 195x_xx_xx
Who	Surname-First name; or just Family name plus additional information where appropriate
What	Type of photo i.e. snapshot or portrait Optional description can include the event
Generation	Gx where x = the generation number.

Generation is one of the things I’ve wrestled with.  Here’s what I came up with.

Generation

Zero (Z) = me and my siblings, first cousins, etc.

1 = my parents and their siblings, etc,

2 = grandparents

3 = great grandparents

Z1 = my children

Z2 = my grandchildren

Z3 = my great grandchildren

M  = a photo with more than two generations.

A couple of examples:

File name:  191x_xx_xx_Dachtera-Stanley-kids_snap_g2-1.jpg

This tells me that it is a snapshot of my grandfather with kids, and that the primary person is generation 2 but it also includes generation 1 people.

Identifying the photo with Stanley’s name is my choice for my reasons. It could well have been “Dachtera-Johanna-sibs-dad”

File name: 1920_05_04_Dachtera-Supinski_port-wed_g1.jpg

New and Improved Photo naming scheme!!

Who_Type_Event_Generation

Who	Surname-First name; or just Family name plus additional information where appropriate
Type	Type of photo i.e. snapshot or portrait
Event	Wedding, birthday, reunion, etc. Lower case x if there’s no specific event to be noted
Generation	Gx where x = the generation number.

Generation

Zero (Z) = me and my siblings, first cousins, etc.

1 = my parents and their siblings, etc,

2 = grandparents

3 = great grandparents

Z1 = my children

Z2 = my grandchildren

Z3 = my great grandchildren

M  = a photo with more than two generations.

Again, using the photos above as examples the file names would be

Dachtera-Stanley-kids_snap_x_g2-1

Dachtera-Johanna-Supinski_port_wed_g1

Not only is this simpler, it will sort well by name. The generation designation is unchanged.  In a family with several common first names, I want the file name to tell me which Joseph, for example, is the main subject of the photo.

Women’s names

There was much discussion in the FB group about how best to identify women. Should one use the maiden name or the married name? Here’s what I’m thinking:

Use the surname that is appropriate for the photo. A photo of my mother as a teenager would identify her as Ganas-Emily; while a photo of her after marriage would identify her as Dachtera-Emily-Ganas.

It seems that no matter how you approach this issue, there will be plenty of room for confusion. I'm hopeful that the supporting information will keep confusion at a minimum

Supporting information

I will also have an Excel file – one for documents and one for photos - that will keep track of the files as I create them.   Before I get too far along, I’ll try sorting these in various ways to make sure I have the info I need.

I hope my schemes will work for me, but it is still a work in progress