Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Playing with Ages in Reunion 10

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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.

Fruits of my family visit

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When I visited my parents earlier this month I had high hopes of gleaning some facts and solving some mysteries. Alas, my parents didn’t have the information I sought.

I did, however, go through a box of old photos in my mother’s closet that she had taken after her mother died. They were mostly photos that her mother-in-law had collected. Unfortunately, most weren’t labeled, but there were some gems in there.

Wheeler Family 1903, Nebraska

My great-grandmother’s family, in 1903, in Nebraska

Here’s one of my favorites. It’s my great-grandmother, Rhoda Wheeler, before she became Rhoda Brown. The photo was taken in 1903 and the family lived in Carleton, Nebraska (Thayer County). Rhoda’s father owned a hotel. That’s her in the back row, second from the left. She’s only 16 in the photo. Those are her identical twin sisters in the middle. There were many photos in that box of the twins through the years.

(Click on the photo, then, if necessary, click on it again in the next screen and you can take a good look at this family.)

Photos like these always amaze me because they feel so real. The expressions are so dour, you wish you could read their minds. I look forward to learning about all the people in this photo!

Found my first immigrant ancestor!

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I’ve been systematically working my way back through my family tree and I recently made an exciting discovery: my first immigrant ancestor! He’s James Brown, who was born in Ireland around 1810. He’s listed in the 1870 census as having been born in Ireland. At the time of that census, he was living in Muscatine, Iowa, with his wife, Martha. She was also was born in Ireland around 1820.

What’s interesting to me is that my family has always seemed quite devoid of ethnicity (most of the ancestors, I believe, came to the US much earlier than the 19th century) and when, as a child, I asked my parents where we were from, England was always the answer. In fact, I surprised my mother when I told her about her great, great grandfather having been born in Ireland. That was news to her.

I feel like this is opening up a new chapter in my family history research!

Those darn nicknames

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My great great grandmother's death certificate

My GGGM’s death certificate

When you’re looking at names on a census record, or a family tree someone else has  compiled, it’s so easy to get fixated on the person’s formal name. But, in fact, even on formal documents, a nickname might be used. And if you’re using an index, that can make finding that person difficult.

Case in point: I was looking for the death certificate of my maternal grandfather’s mother. I understood her name to be Antoinette Brown. (I haven’t thoroughly researched her…I saw her name on her husband’s death certificate and thought I’d see if I can find hers, since Missouri makes it so easy.)

I figured it was a good guess that she died in the same county in which they lived and in which he died and I searched on “Antoinette Brown,” “Antonia Brown” and “A Brown.” I got nothing. So I searched county wide for all deaths of Browns between 1910 and 1961 (the date range for which images of the death certificates are instantly available as PDFs) and then searched within that page for 1922, the year that, according to an unverified public tree on Ancestry.com, she had died. There were two 1922 deaths of Browns in Vernon County and one of them was a “Nettie Brown.” Ah ha! Nettie could be a nickname for Antoinette. So I clicked the image, and sure enough, her husband was listed as N.P. Brown. My great great grandfather was Newton Perry Brown. Furthermore, her parents’ names matched with the unsourced but reliable information my grandfather had received from a cousin, so I’m confident this is her.

Family Tree Magazine has a great list of nicknames for common female names. So if you’re having trouble finding a female ancestor, that link might help you find some nicknames to search for.It’s a terrific resource!