Happy Ghost Busting
I found a new blog today. It is called The We Tree Genealogy Blog. She's been doing this for a few years and has quite a variety of posts - much like I am hoping to do here. Some are helpful posts, some personal genealogy posts, some are regarding societies and conferences, and more. But the post for August 24, Friday is on the humorous side. Even if you are not into genealogy or family history, you ought to check out her blog and have a good laugh! Leave a comment here and let me know what you think.
Happy Ghost Busting
0 Comments
The Queen of genealogy links list is Cyndi Howell. She began collecting links for her own personal use, organizing them for her research. Eventually as others heard about her collection, she was urged to put them on line. She did so and continued to add new ones as she found them. This has now grown into a very large site, well organzied and a very big job. She has even published books regarding her list of over 70,000 website. She has also authored, "Netting Your Ancestors" to guide you with doing research on the internet. If you ever get bitten by the genie bug bad enough that you attend some of the national genealogy conferences you might even get to hear her speak. (I have!) She's a down-to-earth gal and has ended up devoting her vocational life to doing this.
What started out to be a one page list of bookmarks shared at her local genealogy society, has turned into a very large website, that every seasoned researcher couldn't live without. She even posts new links and has them listed by the date she posted them. They eventually also get moved to the appropriate categories. If you haven't seen her website yet, I encourage you to do so. Altho' my goal here is to post new stuff I find and helpful how to's, I have only spare moments at work to do so. Thus these are not daily posts! But my post today is to point you to her posts and website. You'll be amazed if not overwhelmed with the wealth of information she has. If you have any experience with her website - or not - leave a comment below. I would love to know what you think. Happy Ghost Busting! Remember when you are researching to keep the word "change" in the back of your mind. Have you ever looked for a family, and you know absolutely they are in a particular area, but you cannot find them?
Names: There are two factors to keep in mind. One is their surname. They are often spelled different ways for a variety of reasons. Maybe the ancestor didn't know how to read and write and therefore, didn't know how to correctly spell his name. So the census taker, or the secretary or whoever, wrote the name however they thought it should be, however they thought they heard it, or however they were the most familiar with. It may or maynot be the same as the last person who wrote it down. Don't be too adament about spellings, even in official documents. Another key thought to keep in mind is translations! Sometimes when immigrants came from another country they wanted to shed their ethnicity, or they wanted to fit in with the area where they lived, or they wanted to anglicanize their name to identify with their new country. There can be many reasons for the change. A speaker I heard in the 1990's talked about not being able to find his Carpenters, until he realized that in each different community he lived in, he would translate his surname. So, when he lived in a Swedish area he used the Swedish word for carpenter; when he lived in a German community, he translated it to the German language (Zimmerman), and so forth. When the researcher thought of that, he began finding his ancestor "all over the place."! Boundaries: Another factor one must keep in mind is boundaries. William Dollarhide has a wonderful book that shows you the boundaries for states and counties for each census. A brief flipping of the pages show you how these boundaries change over time. This is also true of other countries. There's the old joke of "Grampa living in three different countries, and never moved once." He didn't move, the boundaries did. I can attest to that. While living in Kansas our address changed from a route and box number, to a house and street number. We didn't move, the house didn't move and the mailbox was still down on the corner behind our house. And the mailman had to memorize what street address went to what box - not easy when the mail box doesn't necessarily sit in front of the house it serves. But our address changed. Even in modern times we do things that don't make it easy for someone to find us. You may live say in Aliceville, have an address for Westphalia, a phone number from Burlington and the school district for Gridley. And near a county line, to boot! So when you find your ancestor with a listing under "such and such town" - take it with a grain of salt until you can pin point them with GPS! And then, you've gotta dole out some money to keep it current!!! Always something!!! Happy Ghost Busting! For Northwest Arkansas, we have a wonderful resource at our finger tips. Harvey and Bernice Jones who owned the Jones Trucking Lines have used their success to give to the community opportunities we might not have without their generosity:
The Jones Center - Center for Families which is on 922 East Emma , east of downtown Springdale, Arkansas. In this gorgeous and multiuse facility is a room nestled in, for the purpose of researching your family history. It is staffed by volunteers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, otherwise known as LDS, or the Mormons. They are open Tuesday through Friday mostly 10-6. They are closed Saturday, Sunday and Monday. They close early on Wednesdays. (3 pm). Theere is no charge to the visitor and they provide you access to all of the records the LDS church has gathered. And it amounts to thousands and thousands of records. To call the center for more information, please call (479) 756-8090. This will give you the information desk. They can help you reach the family history room. Check out their website for more information. Happy Ghost Busting! First a TV show by the name of "Who Do You Think You Are?" that is informative, entertaining and about the biggest hobby in America, all at the same time. Now a book of the same name has been written by one of the people involved in the program, Megan Smolenyak. It is full of information including websites on almost every page because she is! I'm reading it! Check it out! See if it's available at your local library, unless you want to own copy because of all the wealth of knowledge include between the covers of this book. It is available at the Rogers Public Library, (Rogers, Arkansas). She even tells you why there is a superscripted 2 at the end of her name. You'll have to read it to find out. I'm not telling! By the way - check out her website here.
|
Ghost Buster Blog Our family tree is part of the world's story of man. So the story of the world is our family tree. On this blog we help search for your ancestors, some of which are elusive. Hoepfully we can help you bust through where they are hiding. WELCOME AuthorSuzanne Guinn has been doing genealogy for over 35 years. She started out looking for 1 set of great, great grandparents and added about 4,000 relatives to her tree. Archives
May 2013
Categories
All
|