Search Results for: how they do it

Civil War recordkeeping

November 27, 2012 By Janine Adams 1 Comment

Today I had the good fortune to find the Civil War records for my great-great-grandfather (my paternal grandmother’s paternal grandfather), Laban Taylor Rasco. I initially found him listed in Alabama, Census of Confederate Soldiers, a document I found on Ancestry.com. That listed his company and regiment (he fought for the Confederate Army), which allowed me to easily find a lot of documents at Fold3.com.

He’s not the first Civil War ancestor for whom I’ve found documents, but he is the first on the Confederate side. Through the documents, I learned that he was injured in the Battle of Chickamauga, Georgie in September 1863 and that he was a held as a prisoner of war in a Union prison camp in Talladega, Alabama, and paroled on June 3, 1865, after the war had ended.

Of course, I’m dazzled and amazed that in a matter of a few minutes I can uncover and read these documents via the miracles of scanning and the internet.

But I’m also really amazed by the recordkeeping that took place in this war. When you consider that most forms were filled out by hand and that thousands upon thousands of soldiers fought, it’s remarkable. My great great grandfather was a mere private and today I saw 10 different documents.

I saw the movie Lincoln this weekend (and heartily recommend it) and it brought to life the absence of technology of that era. I am so impressed with the organizational skills that allowed these records to be kept and retained. And, of course, it’s very impressive that they continue to be well organized and accessible.

Making connections

November 1, 2012 By Janine Adams 2 Comments

Brown family, before trip to Nebraska, 1922

1922. My grandfather, Crawford Brown, is the boy on the left. The family drove that car to Nebraska from Missouri shortly after.

So far, for me, genealogy has been a fairly solitary pursuit. That’s kind of how I like things. I like to go at my own pace and I tend to stick to myself.

That’s not necessarily a good idea, as I discovered this week. On Sunday, I was contacted through this blog by my mother’s first cousin, Jerry Brown, who, along with his sister, Judy, has done extensive genealogical research. We corresponded a little, and then he introduced me via email to a whole bunch of Brown cousins, including some who live in the area I’m hoping to visit on a research trip, and they’ve been reaching out to me. (You can read a couple of the comments I received from them in the comments on this post.)

It’s been wonderful–what a friendly and loving family. They shared reminiscences of my grandparents (their aunt and uncle) and also shared some amazing family photos, including the wonderful photo above, which was sent to me by John Laflen.

The Browns have been so wonderful, it makes me want to reach out to other parts of my family, too.

If you’re reading this and you’re one of my Brown cousins, thank you! I look forward to meeting you in person. If you happen to be related to another part of my family, please feel free to leave a comment. I’m so glad that Jerry Brown did.

Mapping my family

October 11, 2012 By Janine Adams 6 Comments

I feel the need to have a better sense of the geography of my ancestors. In my research so far, which goes back as far as 10 generations, all ancestors but one were born in the U.S. The fact that I’m dealing with just one country makes me feel like I can get my arms around this.

I decided that I wanted to be able to see where my ancestors lived on a map. I’m sure I could probably map them online and create something to look at on my computer screen. But that’s not what I want. I want a big map, on my wall, with pins on it. I want to sit back in my chair and gaze at that map. And I want the satisfaction of putting in a new pin when I identify a new person.

So I bought a large map of the U.S. on Amazon. I need to mount it on some foam core and hang it on the wall and start sticking pins into it.

I’m still pondering what to pin. Birth places? Burial places? Both? I’m figuring I’ll color code by branch of the family using one color for each of the branches starting with each grandparent. It might be the kind of thing I have to try before making a final decision.

I find myself itching to get this project done. Just today I was looking at information on an Iowa Genealogy Crash Course webinar being offered by Family Tree University. I do have Iowa ancestors, but off the top of my head, I don’t know who they are (or which branch of the family they’re from), nor what part of Iowa. I want to just glance at the wall and get that information. That will be satisfying.

I’ll post again (with a photo) after I finish this project and let you know how I decided to use the pins!

Playing with Ages in Reunion 10

October 4, 2012 By Janine Adams 4 Comments

I haven’t had a lot of time to play around with the Reunion 10, the family-tree software I use on my Mac, but one thing I have enjoyed is the Ages feature. I don’t know if this was available on Reunion 9, but if it was, it wasn’t as accessible.

Here’s how it works: Click on a couple in the Family View and on Ages in the left sidebar and in the right sidebar you’ll see exactly how old they were at the various that are entered in their event database. (You can toggle between the two members of the couple.)

For me, this brings these people back to life. I see, for example, that my maternal grandmother, Susie Brown, was 22 years, 9 months and 4 days old when she married my grandfather. And that she was between 25 and 33 when she moved from Missouri to Washington state. (I know that trip occurred in 1936, so she was actually 28 or 29.) I’d always known that my mother was 3 years old when that migration occurred, but I’d never thought about it from my grandmother’s perspective.

Perhaps since I always remembered my grandmother as an old person, I never bothered to think about what it must have been like for her, as a young woman, to move to a strange (perhaps exotic) part of the country. I haven’t really thought about what the over-the-road trip (this was before airplanes were commonly used) with two small children must have been like.

Of course, this makes me wish I’d quizzed her and my mother more when I was growing up. It’s not too late to ask my mother, but she’ll have no memory of the actual move. But she can share family lore.

Simply playing around with the Ages feature on one relative has sparked a whole line of inquiry. I can’t wait to see what it sparks as I use it more.