Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Improving my ancestor map

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A map, cork board, foam core and frame make a great way for me to map my ancestors!I love the map I’ve put together to mark the birth and death places of my ancestors. Back in October, I blogged about the strategy I put into place on what to pin and how I make the pin flags. I pinned as far back as great grandparents before I hung the map, and that’s where I ran into a snag. I had been using a fabric-covered Homasote bulletin board that I had just pinned the map to. But when I rearranged my office and went to hang the map on the wall, I realized that the old bulletin board was so bowed it wasn’t going to hang well.

So I put a lot of energy (probably too much) into figuring out how to have an attractive, pinnable map hanging on my wall, and here’s what I came up with:

My husband, Barry, who in a prior life worked in a frame shop, helped me assemble the frame (well, he did it for me). I took all the pins out of the map and took it off the old board. Barry layered the map on top of the cork board on top of the foam core and slid them into the frame. Naturally, there’s no glass covering the frame. I then had the pleasure of repinning all the pins!

The result (pictured above) is attractive, I think. And very functional. I haven’t taken the time to add more pins (though I want to!), but even just with my parents, grandparents and great grandparents pinned, it’s such a treat to glance up and see where my roots lie. (That would be in Alabama, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, and Washington…and one outlier in California.)

I’m not a big DIYer, but this was one project that was not difficult for me. And I’m very pleased with the result!

Livescribe: A potentially great tool for genealogy researchers

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I recently purchased a Livescribe smartpen. (That’s a referral link; if you buy from it I get a small commission.) I bought the pen in anticipation of attending the national conference of the National Association of Professional Organizers, which I attended earlier this month in New Orleans. I’ve also used it in client appointments. Now that I have had it for a couple of weeks, I realize it could potentially be very helpful with my family history research.

What’s a smartpen? (Surely that’s a term coined by Livescribe.)  As you take notes on its special paper, it records the audio of what you’re listening to and links it with your notes. So, in replay mode, when you touch the paper with the pen, you hear what was being said when you made that note. You can also upload the recording and images of your notes to your computer (or the cloud, depending on which version of the pen you buy). When you click on your handwriting in the uploaded images, you hear what was being said as you were writing.

Think about that. It’s an audio recorder that’s linked to your written notes. So when you interview a family member, you can find what you want in the recording, based on your notes, instantly. If you attend a genealogy lecture (or conference), you don’t have to rely on your memory to understand your notes.

I feel like I have seen the future and it is the Livescribe smartpen.

There are a few versions of this pen. I bought the Livescribe Echo, which is the penultimate version. (The Pulse, which is no longer for sale, was the first and the Sky is the latest.) The Echo requires plugging in a cable to get the data off the pen and onto the computer. The newer version, the Sky, has wifi and uploads directly to Evernote. I chose the Echo because I wanted to make a smaller investment and don’t mind plugging in the cable.

On the advice of a Livescribe-loving friend, I also purchased the 3D recording headset, which produced really clear recordings, even in a noisy conference setting.

Here’s a video about how the Echo (the version I bought) works. My investment was only $100, including the headphones, thanks to a referral discount and special going on earlier this month. To me, it was well worth the investment!

 

Reminder to myself: Follow up!

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geowadamssoldiershomecroppedOn January 3, I wrote to the Vermilion, Illinois, County Clerk’s office, requesting a death certificate for George Washington Adams (my paternal grandfather’s grandfather), who I believe died at the National Home for Disabled Volunteers Soldier in Danville, Illinois. I had located a George Washington Adams of the right age at the home on the 1930 census and found a listing for a George Washington Adams in the Illinois Death Certificates Database . (“George Washington Adams” is an amazingly common name, by the way.)

Anyway, I wrote away for the death certificate, noted that the $12 check had been cashed, and never received acknowledgment. I figured it meant that no death certificate was available. Today,  four months later, I finally got around to calling the County Clerk’s office and inquiring. It turns out those efficient people had mailed the death certificate to me on January 8. I just never received it.

So I’m sending another check and they’re sending me another death certificate. I’m considerably cheered by the prospect that I’ll be able (I hope) to verify that this is indeed my George Washington Adams and that I’ll be able to glean some more information about him from it. Then I can go to Fold3 and start gathering information on his Civil War service.

The moral of the story: Next time I write for some information that I don’t receive, I’ll pick up the phone and inquire, rather than assuming the information wasn’t available!

Genealogy = connections

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From left: Me, Penny, Sue, Mary (seated)

From left: me, Penny, Sue, Mary (seated)

Thanks to my family history research (and this blog, really), I had an extraordinary day this past Friday, meeting my mother’s cousins and aunt. My mother was born in Missouri but her family moved to Spokane, Washington, in 1936 (looking for a better climate for my grandfather, who was recovering from tuberculosis). They left behind my grandfather’s parents and siblings, a close-knit family.

As a result, I didn’t grow up knowing this branch of the family and we sort of disappeared off the family radar. But that changed when my mother’s cousin, Jerry Brown, found this blog and introduced me to the Brown cousins, a wonderfully welcoming group. So when I saw there was a genealogy conference in western Missouri, I registered and arranged to come in a day early and meet my family.

It was an incredible day. These people are hilarious and fun and we laughed and laughed and laughed. It started with lunch in Nevada, Missouri, with cousin Penny. After that, we met cousin Sue at the old-folks’ home where Penny’s mother, Mary, lives. Mary is the sole surviving sibling of my grandfather, Crawford Brown. (Crawford died in 1996, two weeks shy of his 90th birthday.) She is 99 years old and has a twinkle in her eye and is quick to laugh. That’s us in the picture up top.

Then we went to Milo, Missouri, where my great grandparents (Crawford’s parents), who are Penny and Sue’s grandparents, had lived. I saw the site of their in-town house, where they moved from the farm in 1959, when they were in their 70s. And we went to Milo cemetery, where they are buried. We also saw the site of their farm (and I heard many hilarious stories about Sue’s antics at the farm when she was little).

The graves of my great grandparents, A.J. and Rhoda Brown

The graves of my great grandparents, A.J. and Rhoda Brown

Then these lovely women took me on a quest to find the cemetery where my great grandfather Jeffries (my grandmother Sue’s father and father-in-law to Crawford) was buried, along with his parents and grandparents. Mind you, these Jeffries are no relation to Penny and Sue, but they were up for helping me find the cemetery. It wasn’t easy. We had some directions from an old book, but they didn’t turn out to be entirely accurate. To make matters more complicated, there are two cemeteries within a few miles with homophonic names (Meyer’s and Myer’s), so asking directions wasn’t terribly fruitful. But then I got my husband, Barry, on the case from home and Google maps saved the day. Once there, Sue and Penny helped me find the actual graves. Here’s the grave marker for my great grandfather’s grandparents.

The grave marker for my 3rd great grandparents, R.A. and Harriett Jeffries

The grave marker for my 3rd great grandparents, R.A. and Harriett Jeffries

Luckily the day was beautiful, sunny and in the upper 70s or low 80s. It wouldn’t have seen like such a fun adventure the next day, when it was cold and windy.

After our grave-hopping (we went to both Meyer’s and Myer’s, as well as Milo cemeteries), we went by the site of the original homestead near Rockville, Missouri, that my great grandparents established when they moved to Missouri from Nebraska in about 1914. And after that we met more cousins at a Mexican restaurant in Nevada for dinner, as well as Sue’s 90-year-old father (widower of Crawford’s sister, Nancy). A family reunion date was selected for 2014. I am eager to attend!

By the time I headed up to my hotel in Blue Springs, Missouri, I was exhausted. But so tickled to have had such a wonderful day.

When I started doing family history research, it was all about a solitary detective hunt with feelings of triumph when vital records were obtained. What I didn’t realize it would be about was connecting with family, sharing stories and memories, and uncovering life-enhancing relationships.

I am so grateful for the time spent with this new-found family. And I am so grateful for my interest in genealogy!