How I added the LinkedIn widget to my blog:
- First I went here after a google search led me there
- Then I went here and copied the html for my widget, very cool
Quick LinkedIn widget sidebar
Gathering family history – sometimes you need to ask questions more than once
When I first started out as a new genealogist, I gathered what I could from Mom – mostly births, marriages, deaths, and some random stories. Here’s what I learned on my first trip to the family well of knowledge and what I learned later about my father’s side of the family.
Legend has it that my grandmother Gladys was an uncaring mother. She parked my father’s baby carriage outside bars and would go in for a drink. She and my grandfather were divorced and she became a single mother. Suddenly single and having to work, Gladys put my father in a private boarding school and went to work at a newspaper in New York (I am unable to find her during her years in New York). When my father became ill and the school couldn’t find his mother’s contact information, they called his paternal grandmother. She went to the boarding school and picked him up and brought him to her own home.
What I learned later is that sometimes there is more to family legend than the little we know on the face of things. Reality may have not been quite so grim…
Having seen and read enough fictional dramas that have fed my imagination, I wondered if perhaps he was separated from his mother by a resentful grandmother, who may have refused to allow Gladys to see him. Who knows what the truth really is? Only the dead know.
When I talked with my mother again, I told her that I couldn’t find any information about Gladys Bowman or her parents, other than their names. That is when the well opened and I was treated to a number of interesting stories that have created a picture for me of what life was like for the Bowman family. I didn’t know to ask, the revelations came as a reaction to my lack of ability to find information.
My mother said that Gladys as a very beautiful woman, but a heavy drinker. She and her ex-husband Ray were “drinking buddies” and went out together all the time even after their divorce and that they were actually each other’s best friend. I found that thought comforting to hear.
I also heard a fun story about Gladys’ father, Martin Bowman – he ran an illegal gambling operation from home and, as Mom says, “the police were always at the house running raids on the illegal gambling hall that he managed to run in his house.” Clearly, Martin was a more colorful character than I ever imagined. Before I found out about the gambling he ran, all I had was a name and few dates for Martin Bowman and his wife Bridget Kerrigan.
I learned a powerful lesson. As a genealogist, trips to the well need to continue and occur over and over to get to the root of all the fascinating stories that surround my family tree. I don’t want to just know dates, I want to know them.
Absence makes the readers go away
Well, my hiatus is coming to an end. I have finished my thesis and am now awaiting suggestions for revisions from two university professors who act as my first and second readers. Essentially the hard stuff is done. I’m prepared to appear in the public reading phase on May 4, 2011 – a bit of a nerve wracking appearance as I read a portion of the novel to the university community and friends and family in a public forum.
The pros of writing to this deadline:
One thing I learned through the blitz writing that I have had to do and re-do for this thesis is that you really can come up with a decent framework on deadline to work from in later drafts. In fact, pushing myself so hard resulted in hitting the 32% mark (out of 80,000 words).
The cons of writing to this deadline:
The deadline created tremendous anxiety for me with regard to finishing in time to receive my MA before the university community on whole goes off on their summer-long vacations. It also highly impacted my personal life – after working all day and going to school three nights per week, obliterated almost all of the my free time.
The impact on blogging:
Clearly, the impact on blogging is that I had to be absent from both this blog and my writing blog … more so from the genealogy blog since I did post a book review to this site while on hiatus (I never stop reading no matter what). My absence brought down views of this blog to zero many days, where it had previously see quite a bit of traffic. The blog most impacted, however, was this blog – where I had as many as 60 hits per day on that blog, traffic slowed to single digit numbers and I even had two days with no traffic at all.
The final analysis:
… there’s that analytical mind again … I see blogging as an expression of my writing and my genealogy research. Having to put those outlets on hold, will cause an uphill battle to gain momentum again and get my readers back. Last lesson, never stop blogging – just one weekly post gives your readers something to enjoy and increases the volume on your website.
~ ~ ~
In the future – I’ll talk about graves and will share what I learn through research regarding wandering graveyards – some are not so welcoming.
Going on a short hiatus
I am now in the big push to finish my thesis and graduate. Therefore, I’ll need to go on a short hiatus from posting. I’ll return on May 7th or 8th.
When I return from hiatus, I will be discussing documentation of graves and plan to begin documenting local, older headstones and burial grounds. I’ll create a graves page to document my findings and perhaps help someone find an elusive ancester that they have been searching for.
Share Your Genealogy Knowledge
Ever wonder what to do with all that genealogy knowledge you’ve learned along the way? How about writing it up and getting published? Here are a few publishing outlets to consider:
For articles:
- Patriots of the American Revolution (Previously: Common Patriot) – a great magazine that covers the Revolutionary War period so if you have an ancestor who was in the Revolutionary War or who lived during that time, consider submitting something to them – website: www.patriotsar.com
- Family Tree Magazine – a magazine that genealogists everywhere are familiar with. 75% of their articles are written by freelance writers. The writer’s guidelines weren’t easy to find, but here they are: http://www.familytreemagazine.com/article/writersguidelines
For books:
- Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc. – has a comprehensive website that shows some of their currently published books. 99% of their books were unagented and about 10% of those were new authors. It was nearly impossible to find any guidelines for writers on the website, but per Writer’s Market, you can submit an outline and a sample chapter to the submission email at: jgaronzi@genealogical.com, or if you want further information send an email to: info@genealogical.com. website is: http://www.genealogical.com/
- Picton Press – 100% of books published were unagented and 50% were by first time authors. They publish genealogy and history books. The writer’s guidelines appear under “Read Our Guides” on their website at http://www.pictonpress.com/
Another thing you could consider is publishing on your own blog or creating a family newsletter to share your findings with interested family and friends.
An interesting discovery in the 1900 census
Having practiced quite a bit of genealogy, I have found multiple relatives through oral family history, WWII draft cards, and census records. I was even lucky enough to find transcription of the marriage certificate for my great great grandparents on my Dad’s maternal side (still have to go to the family history library and order the microfilm). I also have quite a bit of experience with indexing records for FamilySearch.org and have been noticing occupations on census records more and more. So, I decided to look at the census records for the family members I found long ago, before I knew anything really about genealogy. I was just happy back then to trace back to a name.
I went back to the census records I verified earlier, but didn’t look at too closely. I found my great great grandmother had an occupation other than “keeping house” – seen on most census records.
My great great grandmother Mary Jane was a midwife! Pretty amazing!
Health and hospitalizations
Having spent the last eleven days in critical care with a seriously ill family member, I’ve had little to think about except beeping monitors, IV poles with various concoctions running, ventilators, and multiple hours in surgical waiting rooms praying that everything will be alright. Yes, it’s been a pretty bad time, but we’ve finally reached a point where discharge is in the not too distant future.
The illness and hospitalization brought to mind my elusive grandmother’s illness and eventual death. Previous posts have addressed the difficulty I’ve faced finding my father’s mother. I know her name and that she gave birth to my father in 1923; I know she was married to then divorced from my father’s father; I know she went to New York City when my father was a baby and worked for a newspaper; and I know that she was ill before she died and had health aids in her home taking care of her. I never knew my grandmother. I don’t know what diseases plagued her or what eventually led to her death.
So, how do I find more on my grandmother? In genealogy we work backwards from the present through the past. I know that death certificates can be obtained for a deceased relative. I could start with her death certificate – a document that tells the name of the person who died, what they died from, and what the parent’s names were. I already know the names of her parents. How much would I really learn from the death certificate? Do I need to know the cause of death? As a medical professional, I know that health history is generally restricted to the patient, parents, and siblings.
So, do I need to put out the money to order that death certificate or not? That’s a question I’ll ponder as I sit in the hospital and listen to the monitors beeping and setting off alarms.
What health problems plagued your ancestors?
Having a family member recently diagnosed with cancer and having to write out all those medical questionnaires about family health problems was earth shattering this past week. But it also set me to thinking…
Genealogists have three primary goals:
- Some only want to know names and places and aren’t all that interested in what life was like for their ancestors
- Some are focused on names and places, but also want to know the history of the time the ancestors lived in and what their lives were like (I fit this category)
- Finally, some genealogists have an interest in the health history of their family and what illnesses or genetic issues they may carry in their bloodline
Having cancer in the family has now caused me to increase my interests from mainly number 2, to include a new interest in number 3 as well.
Where are you in your genealogy search?
The giant time-suck
Now, using the term time-suck might imply that certain activities are a complete waste of time. Not so. In my world, a giant time-suck is something that you are enjoying so much that you forget time and may neglect other activities. For example, game playing. I currently have worked my way through the Heroes series and am now on Heroes V and eagerly await the publication of Heroes VI. When I play Heroes time flies.
Ancestry.com has now entered the realm of time-suck. Those little green leaves pop up everywhere and you feel compelled to see what’s there. Before you know it you find the page that shows all of the people in your tree who have hints (I have over 1,000). When you pull up a hint and deem it worthy to be attached to your tree, it begets more and more hints. Then when you see that some ancestors appear more than once in your tree (see my post about repetition), you feel compelled to correct things for hours. Thus begins the time-suck phenomenon. You end up hours later wondering how your pleasant evening bled into the next day at midnight or 1:00 am, all other responsibilities sizzling on the back burner.
Moral of the story: Set time limits for yourself, particularly in genealogy, or an activitiy can take over your life.
Like this:
What’s in a name?
When I got married … er, 27 years ago … I considered keeping my maiden name. I liked my name – it was part of me and part of my heritage.
Genealogy has opened my eyes to a whole world of names that are also part of me and my heritage. Here are a few names that have come up with my genealogy research: O’Brien, Jordan, Stearns, Brown, Diamond, Bowman, Bowerman, Kerrigan, Byrne, Colburn, Murdock, McMahon, Tydenman, Jaycox, Wing, Swift, Clifton, Dillingham, Smith, Dalrymple, McCarthy, Frazier, Stewart, Machias, LaGrave, Paine, Garwood, Minchinton, Cooke, Winterton, Therryn, Emighe … and on and on.
That puts a whole new spin on my inner turmoil about whether I should have kept my maiden name, doesn’t it? I don’t feel so conflicted anymore.
