Who Was Joshua Stevens and What Were He and Solomon Kemp Doing in My Files?

It all started as I was going through things in the attic, doing the "50 Year Purge", trying to get years of files, folders, and contents of forgotten boxes under control. While going through a folder with my father's name on it, I found several things I remembered my mother giving to me years ago, but then I find a surprise. There, in the folder, along with my dad's military papers and a few old newspaper clippings was an envelope marked in my handwriting "An old deed". Inside that envelope I found this brittle, stained sheet of paper, apparently a document to record the sale of land by Solomon Kemp to a Michael G..... in 1842.

Sale Receipt for Solomon Kemp, 1842

I also found a second, smaller envelope, this one labeled in my mother's writing, "Old deed with seal attached". When I carefully opened the envelope, this is what I found.

Deed to Georgia Land Lottery Draw for Joshua Stephens, 1832

With a quick glance, I realized that I was looking at pieces of an original deed or document relating to a draw from the 1832 Georgia Land Lottery. And I knew I needed to learn as much as I could about these documents and the people involved. And I needed to come up with a research plan for gathering information about these documents beyond the obvious reading of the words on those pieces of paper.

In years past, someone had tried to tape together the fragile pieces of the Stevens document. Today, the fragments are almost too brittle to touch, so I tried to handle them with as gently as possible. After photographing the two documents, I felt the next step was to transcribe them. Having the transcriptions gave me sheets of paper that were much easier to read, papers I didn't need to be concerned about getting stains, spills, or anything else to cause further damage to the original documents.

So, here I am about 24 hours later, actually starting to learn a little about Joshua Stevens. Here is what I have come across thus far.

• Step one, check in my Family Tree Maker software for a Joshua Stevens. I did not have that exact name among ancestors or relatives. I have one Stevens male, no given name, who married into my mother's side of the family in the late 1770s according to the Massachusetts Town and Vital Records found on Ancestry.com, but I doubted if he would have been part of the 1832 Georgia Land Lottery. Other Stevens family members were from a marriage into my father's side of the family in 1899, so I am ruling out an established Stevens connection for the present time.

• I've decided to start a separate tree in Family Tree Maker for Joshua Stevens. This way whenever I come across anything noteworthy, I have a place to record it. 

• My first entry, beyond his name, was to record the Property fact that he drew Lot 946 in the Fifteenth District of the Second Section of Cherokee County, Georgia. 
• Next I added that at the time of the draw, he was a resident of Madison County, Georgia.  

• Both my family and my husband's had members who had been involved in the Georgia Land Lottery of 1832. My first research was to look at James F Smith's fabulous book, The Cherokee Land Lottery, Containing a Numerical List of the Names of the Fortunate Drawers in Said Lottery, With an Engraved Map of Each District. This treasure is available to view through both HathiTrust and The Internet Archive or abstracted on Ancestry.com. 
• Imagine my surprise when I learned there was NO map for the Fifteenth District, Second Section of the drawing, NO list in number of draw order for the lottery winners! This was due to the fact that this district, along with some others, was considered to be a "Gold District". No gold was promised on the land, just the feeling that there "might" be gold there. Information for lottery winners for Gold Districts turned out to be in another book, one I haven't been able to find available online.
• Thanks to www.worldcat.org I've found that copies of Alphabetical Index to Georgia's 1832 Gold Lottery were available at several libraries around metro Atlanta, so heading to one of them and finding the book is on my To-Do List on a future trip to Georgia.

• I located a Joshua Stephens living in Madison County, Georgia, in the 1830 census and also in the 1820 Madison County census. No success, however, in locating a Joshua Stephens anywhere in Georgia in 1840 ... yet

• The Georgia Virtual Vault presents a number of digitized resources, the originals of which are housed at the Georgia Archives. One resource is their database of "Georgia Colonial and Headright Plan Index, 1735-1866". If Joshua Stephens was in Madison County Georgia in the early 1800s, there was a good chance that he had received land as a settler moving into the area.  Through this database, I learned that Joshua Stephens had received several grants totalling over 700 acres in Madison County so he was already an established land holder at the time of the Cherokee Land Lottery.

• Next stop was FamilySearch.org where I looked through their collection of "Georgia, Headright and Bounty Documents, 1783-1909". This time I had the actual digitized documents to read including:
• a survey request to lay off 30 acres for Joshua in Oglethorpe County, Georgia, in 1797 
• Land Warrant #21 that gave Joshua 300 acres in Madison County, Georgia, in 1813 and
• Land Warrant #174 that gave Joshua 450 acres in Madison County, Georgia, in 1826

• My next research steps will be to find out what happened to Joshua Stephens after 1832. This means checking resources such as
• FindAGrave, BillionGraves, WikiTree to find a possible death date
• Wills and Probate records on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org to perhaps learn what happened to his land after his death
• Fold3.com to see if Joshua had any military service that might have been the catalyst for acquiring his various land grants
• Look for website, etc. where I can locate lot 946 on a present day map. This might help me have a clue as to who may have lived there.

Now for my Georgia To-Do List

• Visit a metro Atlanta library, get a copy of Alphabetical Index to Georgia's 1832 Gold Lottery, and learn more about Joshua's fortunate draw.

• Check in Cherokee County Georgia to learn who later bought the land from Joshua Stephens and try to trace the land's ownership into the Perkinson family.

• After I finally figure out why I even have these things, I want to contact county or state archives to see if an Archive or local history center might be a more fitting home for this interesting old document, especially as I am not aware on any Cherokee Lottery Land still owned by our Perkinson family.

As for the 1842 document signed by Solomon Kemp, that will have to wait for another research spurt. Looks like I have enough to keep me busy, out of trouble (and the attic), and even writing a few more blog posts for quite a while.

My Genealogy Bullet Journal, Month 2

Public Domain Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Some say that doing something daily for 30 days is enough time and opportunity to establish a habit. After using my Genealogy Bullet Journal for the month of January, I can state that I have established a new habit. A habit that enhances the way I research. A habit I feel will stay with me into the future.

Last month I posted about starting my Genealogy Bullet Journal. Frankly I wasn't sure exactly how or even why I would use it, but I felt bullet journaling was a trend worth investigating. Here are some of the things I tried and learned through January's 31 days.

• I experimented with several different weekly spreads, trying to find one that suited me. After all starting with a blank journal gives you the opportunity to try different things, different looks, add your touch. I've ended up settling on the basic spread shown in my first post. I found that amount and organization of space has been enough for what I wanted to note and record for any given day.

• Yes, it is SO tempting to add color, stamps, stickers, you name it to a bullet journal. I confess, I picked up a set of planner stamps on sale at my local craft store. 
• I like putting an ! or * or thumbs up to indicate success. They are a good balance for the frowny faces :( I draw when I've spent an afternoon or two looking, or searching, or reading and found nothing that advances my research, all that negative research that is a real part of genealogy. I still enjoy looking at photos of all those beautifully designed bujos (bullet journals) on Instagram and Pinterest, but my ministampers will probably be the extent of my bujo creativity. 
• The list stamp has proven to be helpful. Just stamp it on a sticky note, list up to six places I plan to look for information about that person or event, and I'm ready to go. All research questions won't focus on using the same sources. My check list stamp encourages me to consider the wide variety of possible sources to use, some online, some at a library or in a book, something in my files that might warrant a closer look. 

• Every once in a while, we stumble upon something that is some simple, yet so great. That is the way I feel about my 3F idea - First File Fifteen minutes. Having those seven task boxes across a page of my weekly spread kept me going. Besides seeing my document pile shrink, there was also that simple little kid joy in seeing all seven boxes marked as tasks completed for the week. By the end of January, I had actually looked at, read over, and filed about 3 inches of documents in my file basket, all relating to my Perkinson family tree. This filing time was a daily warm up to more serious research. Now, for February, I'm starting to dig through the stuff relating to my husband's Nelson family tree. And later, once that pile is cleared, I'll spend time looking through my files to see what needs to be placed elsewhere, clear out duplicates, determine new questions for which to seek an answer. Filing, like laundry, will be an ongoing task!

• I am learning to use and rely on the Collections section of my bujo. First, as I filed, if I had a question or noticed something needing further research, I finally had a place to record it. On days when I wasn't sure exactly as to what I wanted or needed to research, I could turn to my Research Questions in the Collections section, choose a question I had previously recorded and I was good to go for several days.

• Here is just one example. I had printed out a family group sheet on the William Huey Family that I had found on FamilySearch.org. It listed names, dates, children, their spouses for my 4th Great Grandfather's family but NO sources. My first research question was to try to verify the information on this printout along with a note as to the folder and item number where the printout was filed. I'm still working on this project, but I'm also finding a few sources for some of the information on the printout.

• Learning more about the Hueys has lead me to add another collection section, one I'm calling my Treasure Chest. After spending parts of a week browsing through the Pennsylvania Archives on Ancestry.com, looking for anything about the Hueys, I added a note describing this resource in my Treasure Chest. I wrote "Pennsylvania" in large letters, then a paragraph to describe the types of information I found there - things like marriage records, rosters of militia, immigration information complete with a physical description of the immigrant and his/her family background. Even though I found only a few Huey facts, I know I want to remember this resources in the future when researching ancestors in 1650-1800 Pennsylvania, even if it is months from now that I jump back into some Pennsylvania area research.

• Having the big picture of my yearly spread is helping me better plan for blog posts and research times. Now that we have some family trips, looking after grandchildren, and a few get-togethers listed, I can see times in which to plan or add on some research trips. 

• My bujo isn't replacing my detailed research log. Instead it supplements my research. I add a few notes in my daily block noting the family, area, topic, or source I researched. Looking back over my diary entries for the month of January, I get a feel for what I did and can gain ideas as to other approaches or resources to use. I can also see that I've spent enough time, for now, on looking for the Hueys in early 1700s. It is about time to move on to another question. My actual research log will continue to be the private notes I add for an individual in Family Tree Maker.

Meanwhile, I've also started a personal bullet journal. It too has the 3F filing blocks which I'm using to get our household files in order and to look for any paperwork needed for filing our taxes for the year. I've also added daily check boxes for my walking / exercising. On the daily spread, there are notes about progress on some of those household projects we want need to address in 2017. There is also room for journaling my reflections on things I read or the Bible study in which I am involved. The yearly and monthly calendars contain lists of our family activities and various volunteer commitments. Another bujo as individual as its writer.

It looks like I'm hooked on bullet journaling. Where is my heart stamp when I need it?

#bulletjournal #genealogybulletjournal #genealogyresources #organizinginformation #researchgoals #researchtips

Leaving 2016 Behind, Moving on in 2017

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2016-17 by Philip Barrington, source: Open Clip Art

It's that time of year. Time to look back and see how many additional ancestors I have been able to identify sufficiently to feel confident in adding them to my family tree. That is something I had done each January for the past three years after reading Randy Seaver's blog post and watching Crista Cowan's YouTube video.

My method has stayed the same and has been the subject of a previous blog post.  As always, I continue to be grateful that I can simply generate an Ahnentafel Report of my direct ancestors by using my genealogy software, Family Tree Maker. Here is what my report for 2016 looked like.

Date	Generation	Relationship	# in generation	# identified	% identified	2016 increase
1/6/2017	1	Self	1	1	100%
	2	Parents	2	2	100%
	3	Grandparents	4	4	100%
	4	Great Grandparents	8	8	100%
	5	2 Great Grandparents	16	16	100%
	6	3 Great Grandparents	32	31	97%
	7	4 Great Grandparents	64	58	91%	2
	8	5 Great Grandparents	128	61	48%	4
	9	6 Great Grandparents	256	38	15%	?
	10	7 Great Grandparents	512	39	8%	10
	11	8 Great Grandparents	1024	36	4%	36
	12	9 Great Grandparents	2048	25	1%	25
	13	10 GreatGrandparents	4096	12		12
	14	11 GreatGrandparents	8192	8		8
	15	12 GreatGrandparents	16,384	8		8
	16	13 GreatGrandparents	32,768	2		2
	17	14 GreatGrandparents	65,536	2		2
		Totals		351	47% *	109

* Percentage of those identified in Generations 1-10

I realize that some of the totals in my table may seem strange. For starters I have no increase in known ancestors for Generation 9 because I obviously had a typo in my previous year's report. It is possible to remove or change a relationship or two based on new research, but I know that I certainly did not lose almost 30 ancestors in that one generation during the year! I would probably still be shaking my head in bewilderment if that had actually happened.

In the report for 2016, I also stopped trying to determine the percentage of ancestors identified after Generation 12. The percentages were just too small to have any significance. Instead, I will continue to just look at the increase in numbers over the previous year's report.

Similarly, I decided to use those ancestors in Generations 2-10 as my basis for determining the percentage of ancestors I have now identified. Identifying ancestors in Generations 11-17 or beyond is just a unexpected bonus in my research.

But it isn't just a numbers game. The report prompts me to try to analyze where I found information, strategies that worked, and questions that still linger.

By using the Will and Probate Records available through Ancestry.com as well as browsing similar records on FamilySearch.org, I was able to identify with some degree of confidence a number of ancestors in generations 11-17. By studying names of beneficiaries listed in a will and comparing them with known children, siblings, and/or spouses, I succeeded in pushing my family tree back additional generations through information found through these will and probate records.

Looking back, I knew that during this year a lot of my personal research had focused on ancestors who had lived in New England. Bless the clergy and town clerks of those areas who had maintained such detailed records of births, marriages, and deaths from the mid-1650s and forward. These records, combined with will and probate records, kept me dancing around. Sometimes going one step back, then a few steps sideways, backwards and forward a lot, but eventually these records helped me identify more of my Massachusetts ancestors.

For me there is real value in doing this report each year. It isn't just about the total number of ancestors I have identified, although it is nice to document. It is more about seeing where and how I was able to learn about these new people in my family tree. And yes, it continues to bother me that I still cannot find the name of the wife of my 3 Great Grandfather William Vaughan. But it also convinces me that there are additional resources I haven't used, strategies I haven't tried, more hints to prove - or disprove. All part of trying to learn more about my ancestors.

Lessons Learned in 2016

• I spent enough time studying wills and probate records that I actually got where I could understand the terminology and learned more about how our the legal system functioned in earlier times. These records also spoke volumes as to the nature of slavery as well the legal status of  women in the past. This prompted me to write several posts about the slave records I found in wills, posts that are now linked with the Slave Name Roll Project developed by Schalene Dagutis.

• Ancestry's indexed Will and Probate Records were easy to use, but I frequently found additional information by browsing the unindexed will and probate records on FamilySearch.org. Browsing page by page, section by section continues to provide fruitful information.

• There have to be some new strategies for learning about women in the 1800s. I plan to use some techniques suggested by Jennifer Dondero of The Occasional Genealogist. Finding the elusive Mrs. William Vaughan is a research goal for 2017.

#analyzeinformation #genealogyresources #lessonslearned #researchgoals #slavenamerollproject #vaughangenealogy

New Year, New Numbers, New Goals

GOALS source: http://www.thebluediamondgallery.com/

The new year is a time for doing more than making resolutions. It's also a good time to look back over the past year, evaluate efforts, and set some personal goals.

A year ago, I posted about finding my ancestor score, as I looked at how many of my direct ancestors I had actually been able to name. Both Randy Seaver in a blog post and Christa Cowan of Ancestry.com's YouTube videos had suggested reasons to do this, and the new year is a logical time to repeat the report. I described my methodology and my results in a previous post

Here is my latest report based on my research in 2015. In running the report I added a new column at the right, how many new direct ancestors I had identified in the past year. It was exciting to see that I now know the surname and given name of 25% of my direct ancestors, compared with only 18% last year.

Generation	Relationship	# in generation	# identified	% identified	2015 increase
1	Self	1	1	100%
2	Parents	2	2	100%
3	Grandparents	4	4	100%
4	GreatGrandparents	8	8	100%
5	2 GreatGrandparents	16	16	100%
6	3 GreatGrandparents	32	31	97%	1
7	4 GreatGrandparents	64	56	88%	14
8	5 GreatGrandparents	128	56	44%	20
9	6 GreatGrandparents	256	57	22%	37
10	7 GreatGrandparents	512	29	6%	3
	Totals	1023	260	25%	75

It was relatively easy to explain that increase. I was a participant in Round One of Thomas McEntee's Genealogy Do-Over. What a difference my research took when I because more focused and more methodical in maintaining my research log. I chose to focus on learning more about my Norwegian ancestors, relatives constituting a fourth of my family tree. The majority of new ancestors I discovered in generations 7, 8, and 9 were among these Norwegian ancestors.

Besides learning names, birth dates, baptismal dates, marriage information, and death dates of these ancestors, I also learned about a variety of resources that spurred on my Norwegian research. With the help of Google Translate, I even got where I could "read" a number of the records I had located. I felt a real growth in my research skills and tools.

The best part, thought, was coming to see these ancestors as people. People who moved from farm to farm. People who lived with waves of illness that decimated the families. People who chose to immigrate to America. People who chose to stay in Norway. Because of this, most of my posts in January through March of 2015 concerned these Norwegian ancestors.

Participating in the Genealogy Do-Over was well worth the time. Whether you are a beginning researcher or have been at it for a long time, I would encourage you to look at the G D-O web site and consider participating in the program activities. 

Now for 2016. Over the past few months, I've been plowing through the wills and probate records available through both Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org. Each will, each record of probate returns seems to provide a new tidbit of information. I've taken a break from my regular posts as I've been reading virtually every line of each record I find. Tedious at times, but definitely worth it.

Goal 1 is to continue to explore these will and probate records for my family tree and then for my husband's also.

Goal 2 is to help a family member learn more about her family history. Because the majority of her ancestors and relatives seem to be clustered for several generations in a few neighboring Georgia counties, I'm already seeming how helpful it will be to use the Cluster Research approach, looking at Family, Associates, and Neighbors, as suggested by Elizabeth Shown Mills.

Goal 3 relates to Family Tree Maker. Like so many other users of FTM, I was surprised to learn of Ancestry's decision to no longer update or sell this product. Over 2016 I expect to decide my final reaction to this news. Will I stick with FTM even after moving to Windows 10 on my research laptop or just stay using Windows 7? Will I switch to another brand of genealogy software? Will I hope that some other company opts to add FTM to their line of products? Whatever my decision, my research will continue.

So there are my goals - records to continue researching, a research approach with which to become more proficient, and a software decision to may. And maybe, along the way, I'll find some new stories to celebrate.

Happy 2016 to all of you.

Genealogy Do-Over : Who Lived Where, The 1838 Norwegian Matrikul or Land Register

After spending a number of weeks plowing and plodding through the digitized parish registers for Lesja, Oppland, Norway found on the Digital Archives of Norway, I finally got brave enough to peruse some other records found in the Archives.  I decided to look at the digitized records for the 1838 Land Register.  This register ended up providing me with new information about some of my ancestors and relatives.

1838 Land Register for Lesja Parish, Oppland, Norway; source: Digital Archives of Norway

As soon as I started to look at the pages, it was clear that my first order of business was to translate the various column headings so it was easier to see what information was actually available here.  Using both Google Translate and my Germanic Alphabet Chart, I was able to come up with a loose translation for the column headings.  Basically the columns are

1. Farm Number
2. Name of Farm
3. Name of Farm Section or Division
4. Occupant of Section
5. Amount of land registered
6. Tax or Debt Information

My previous look at parish records and the 1801, 1865, and 1875 Norway census records provided clues as to whom might be residing on a specific farm in 1838.  It was helpful to read John Follesdal's article on background information about Norwegian farms for a better understanding of how important the Land Register of 1838 was to the country as a whole and to the individual farmers.  Another aid in understanding the register was the Norway Glossary on FamilySearch.org which defined a number of terms related to property ownership and farming.

Pulling things together, I was able to find the following information from 1838 concerning some of my ancestors and relatives.

My 2GreatGrandfather Petter Andersen resided on farm 36 on the section recorded as Myren North.  At the time of the 1838 registry, the amount of his farm land had apparently not yet been recorded but the tax on it was listed as 2 ort and 13 skillings.  Below Petter's name is another Andersen, Isak Andersen, registered as living on the Myren South section.  Interestingly, although it might seem logical that two brothers would divide a section of a large farm, I have not yet come across any relative named Isak / Isaac Andersen in my research, so Isak Andersen is a question mark for me at this time.

Further down the list on farm 49, the Mosenden Farm, was information about my 3GreatGrandfather Joen Olsen.  Joen and his family lived on the Mosenden North section.  His property had already been registered as being 7 units in area and having a tax of 3 ort and 13 skillings,  So far I haven't been able to determine the value of skylddalers, orts, and skillings in today's US currency, but I was able to find the picture below.

Norwegian Skilling, source: Wikipedia Commons

I also found another 2GGrandfather, Syver Hansen, recorded as the farmer for the south portion of the Bellen / Belden / Belle farm.  According to a family history, this farm had passed to Syver from his father Hans Syversen at the time of Syver's marriage in 1830. Quite a wedding present, and one I would like to be able to document.

A 4th Great Uncle, Hans Jorgensen, was recorded as the primary tenant of the Little Bjøkne section of Bjøkne farm.  Also living on Bjøkne farm on the Upper Bjøkne section was another 4th Great Uncle, Hans Bjørnersen.  Again, descendants of these two continued to live on these farm sections through the 1875 census.

The Overlien South section of the Overlien farm was home for yet another 4th Great Uncle, Syver Syversen.  His farm was taxed at a rate of 1 skylddaler, 2 ort, and 14 skilling.

I felt like doing the Genealogist's Happy Dance as I "read" over the property register.  Without the focused research of the past two months, I would not have recognized names of ancestors, relatives, farm names and sections.  And I would not have stayed so focused without the encouragement of Thomas MacEntee's Genealogy Do-Over.

Now if I plot the various farm locations on Google Map, I can see where people lived and perhaps better understand some of the relationships between the two Norwegian branches of my family tree.  Maybe I should take a look at the Real Estate Registers available on the Archives site to learn more about those living on the farms into the early 20th century.  And someday, I need to get my hands on a copy (or photocopy) of the Bydgebok for Lesja, a book tracing the history and land ownership in the Lesja Parish which was home to virtually all of my Norwegian relatives.  I might then do more of the Cluster Research that is a part of Genealogy Do-Over Week 9.  There is always something new just around the bend.

Working On a Family Puzzle

"Puzzle Pieces 2" by By Patafisik, via Wikimedia Commons

It was one of those events common in families.  A gathering following the death of a dear family member.  The shared remembrances of that special individual.  And questions about where certain people who were not present might be.

Recently the death of a cousin provided me a chance to use some of my genealogy research skills to help the family locate some of the missing relatives.  It turned out to be an interesting experience.  It was an opportunity to show that we can search for the living as well as the dead using similar techniques and even similar resources.

Step 1:  Begin with what you know.  Just as with researching an ancestor, I started with the available information. Fortunately, some years ago a descendant chart for this branch of the family had been found at a relative's home.  Our copy of the chart provided the full names, birth dates, names of spouses, as well as names of children.  From the ancestor's family of six children, there were also 14 grandchildren and a number of GreatGrandchildren listed on the chart.  It was a lot of specific information which helped us begin the search for the other relatives.

Family members quickly determined there were four of the grandchildren who needed to be located and notified about the death in the family.  In the interest of family privacy, I'll call the four Relative A, Relative B, Relative C, and Relative D.  There were also so vague tidbits passed along concerning the four.  Things like, "I heard he died several years ago", "I think she and her family moved out west a while back", and the expected "I haven't seen her at any family gatherings in a long time".  Before long, another family member was successful in finding a current phone number for Relative C, and our list of missing people dropped to three.

Step 2:  Formulate a specific research question or focus.  For starters, we needed to obtain a current address and/or phone number for these three family members.  It was important to determine if any of them had passed away and whether or not they had any children who needed to be notified.

Step 3:  Document all of your research.  For the sake of the estate, this could mean keeping a record of all telephone calls and correspondence, keeping printouts of information found online.  It also means maintaining a record of where I searched and was unable to find any viable information about Relatives A, B, and D.  All like citing your sources in researching distant ancestors.

My research concerning Relative A started with looking for him on both Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org; nothing there.  Next I examined the online index of the city newspaper in the area where A had lived; again no information in the newspaper's archives.  It took googling A's name to stumble upon information.  I found a link to a website for a now closed high school.  In the "In Memoriam" section of the website, I found A's name listed among the deceased of the class of 195x.  A's name was not a common name and his birth date indicated that he probably would have graduated in the class of  '5x.  Included in the Memoriam section was a touching remembrance written by a classmate relating how he and A had kept in touch until going into the Army and ending with condolences to A's sisters (Relatives B and C).  This pointed to solid information that A had passed away.

A visit to the Veterans Administration website confirmed A's death.  Using the VA's gravesite locator , I found the entry for A which included his birth date, death of death, and grave location.  Additional information on the VA site confirmed that we had located the correct individual.  A look on findagrave.com provided the address of the cemetery, telephone number for the cemetery office, and even the GPS coordinates for A's grave marker.  All of this provided a good start on the information which was needed concerning A.  That left a search for A's widow to determine if there were any living children as none had been recorded on the family tree chart in our possession nor was there any mention of children on the findagrave memorial page.

In looking for Relatives B and D, in additional to checking on Ancestry and FamilySearch, I checked to see if either were active users of social media, specifically Facebook and LinkedIn.  Neither seemed to be on Facebook but there was someone with B's name on LinkedIn who lived in California.  I definitely needed more specific information.  We opted for a trial subscription to one of those many people locator websites.  Through PeopleFinders.com, we located information about B by searching for her name and that of her husband.  After finding the same partial address for B and for her husband, it was worth spending a dollar to get B's complete address and telephone number.  Another partial check off the list as there was now to way to hopefully contact Relative B.

A took a little longer to find information concerning D.  Again nothing on Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, Facebook, or LinkedIn.  Once again googling helped me out.  When I googled D's name + maiden name + married name, I was surprised to find an interesting link to a newspaper article.  From the newspaper article I learned that D had remarried and now had a new married name.  Again, we knew this was about our Relative D because of the town where the wedding was held and a wonderful tidbit concerning how "coffee and cake were served at the home of the bride's mother, Mrs. xxxxx".  Now there was a different name for which to search.  And now the search continues for D with her new name.

A special thanks goes to the National Genealogy Society for featuring an informative infographic Finding People on their blog UpFront With UGS.  The blog post also references other articles worth reading, all on the subject of locating living people.

As with any type of family research, it is never completed in one session.  Each bit of solid information forms another part of our reasonably exhaustive search.  Like the answer to the old riddle, you just eat that elephant one bite at a time.

Lessons Learned

• Start with what you know, in this case names from a branch of the family tree written down some 30+ years ago.
• Use a variety of points to establish that the information located is actually about the individual for whom you are searching - name, location, spouse, children, age.
• Draw from a variety of resources in your research - genealogy sites such as Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org, social media sites, newspapers, online people locators, and just plain googling a name when all else fails.  If you draw a blank with one resource, look using another.
• It is important to document all the places you search for information.  It is worth noting when you find nothing as well as when you find an answer to that question.
• Take a break.  As interesting or important as a research quest may be, a rest, a break can help you approach the matter with a new perspective or new strategies to follow.

Wk#4GenealogyDoOver : Getting From Here to There With My Research

Red River Gorge Rock Wall by By Jarek Tuszynski via Wikimedia Commons

Participating in the Genealogy Do-Over had made me so much more aware of my research strategies.  I've written previously about I've started being more methodical in tracking my research.  Now, as I continue to plow through digitized church records from Norway, I'm seeing that I'm following a path as I look for information about my ancestors.

My 2GreatGrandmother Marit Oldsdatter, according to the family history booklet I have, was born 26 Jan 1810 and died 23 Dec 1890.  Here are the steps I've followed to learn the names of her parents, siblings, and grandparents, steps I'm now using as I research other ancestors.  

1. Using records on the Digital Archives of Norway, l found the parish record of Marit's birth.  The great thing about these records is that they (usually) provide the birth date, baptism date, names of parents, farm residence of father and mother, and names of witnesses to the baptism, usually other family members.
2. After finding Marit's birth / baptism record, I knew her parents were Ole Jacobsen and Ronnoug Bjornersdatter.  Next I searched in FamilySearch.org's Norwegian records for any children born to these two parents.  This provided me with the names and birth dates of Marit's siblings, Jacob, Bjorner, Mary, Hans, Anna, and another Marit/Mari.
3. Time to go back to the Digital Archives of Norway to find the digitized record for the birth / baptism of each of the siblings.  There is no substitute for being able to study the original record.  Having been a volunteer transcriber, I know that any transcription stands the chance of having an error recorded.  Seeing the actual record myself provides a second set of eyes on the document.
4. Once I knew the birth order of the children, I started looking for the marriage record for Marit's parents.  Again, the original marriage record provides a lot of additional information.  Depending upon the year, the Norwegian marriage records can contain the marriage date, names and ages of the bride and groom, their farm residences, names of their fathers, names of bondsmen (who just might be other relatives), and possibly information about a previous marriage of either party.  Stuff that is definitely worth looking for.  Admittedly, finding the marriage record requires some speculation on my part.  My standard search plan is to look in the parish marriage records for 0-5 years prior to the birth of the couples' eldest child.  In the case of Marit, the oldest child, born in 1810, I found the record for her parents' marriage in the 1809 parish marriage records.
5. After the marriage information of Marit's parents was located and recorded, I then started to look for the family in a census record.   Records for the 1801, 1865, and 1875 censuses are searchable through the Digital Archives of Norway.  If I've fortunate enough to find the family listed in one of these census records, I also can see, just as with US census records, who is living in the household, their ages, marital status, and occupation as well as basic information concerning their residence or farm.  In my search of the 1801 census I found Marit's father Ole Jacobsen, age 19, living with his parents and siblings on the family farm.  Marit's mother, Ronnoug Bjornersdatter, age 16, was living on a nearby farm working as a servant girl.
6. Finding the family in a census record also provides an approximate birth date for any family members listed.  I loop back to Step 3 and search in a three year period for previously missing Birth / Baptism records.  This means searching the parish records for 1786-1788 for a Birth / Baptism record of a child listed as being age 14 in the 1801 census.  And this works just about every time.
7. Death / Burial records are the last part of my current search strategy.  Finding them turns out to be much more of a "needle in a haystack" approach.  I start by searching the death records following the latest information I have for an individual, i.e. date of marriage, birth of last child, census record.  This "new" information becomes my starting point.  The first few times I tried this, I kept wondering WHY am I looking at so many records and how will I know it is the right record.  Bless those Lutheran clerics who recorded the farm residence so often along with the first name and surname of an ancestor.  If I can decipher the cleric's handwriting, I can then use Google Translate to determine the cause of death.  Once I found the death / burial record, I was also provided with the age at the time of death, enabling me to loop back to look for their birth / baptism record.    And so my plan continues.

As I watched pictures of the recent scaling of Yosemite National Park's Dawn Wall, I marveled at how much planning went into each inch of elevation gained by the two climbers.  I saw times when they had to drop back and try another route.  

The steps above are my planned route for researching my Norwegian ancestors.  Sometimes I get to where I want to be in a short time.  Other times I have to drop back and try something else, expand the years I search, head over to FamilySearch.org or check out any shaky leaves on Ancestry to see if there are hints I can follow up on or try to verify.  It is all part of getting from here to there.  It is also worth the effort.

Now, time to apply these steps to learning more about my three other 2GreatGrandparents from Norway.

Wk#3GenealogyDoOver: Tracking My Research

"Deer Mouse Tracks in the Snow"
by Jomegat.Jomegat, from Wikimedia Commons

Thomas MacEntee's Genealogy Do-Over is proving to be just the encouragement I needed to tweak some of my research habits.  Take "Tracking Research", one of the topics for this week.  Previously I had been fairly meticulous about recording where I found reliable information about a family member.  Not so, however, about where I had looked and not found anything of note.  Participating in the GD-O has changed that.

Some time back I had come up with a simple version of my Research Log as a Google Sheet to use during the GD-O time.  I showed a screen shot of it in a previous post.  Soon after I started using it, I added another column, Completed.  There is just something so satisfying about noting that a series of research tries finally has lead to success.  

Today, this is what my Research Log looks like as I am using it to learn more about my 4GreatGrandparents, Syver Syverson and Kari Gudbrandsdatter.  I'm finding that this Research Log is helping me stay more focused in my research.  

Prior to starting the Do-Over, I only knew that my 4GreatGrandparents were both alive at the time of the 1801 Norway Census.  Now I've started to use the Topic column as a To-Do List, indicating that I wanted to find Birth/Baptism, Marriage, and Death/Burial records for Syver and Kari.  Some of the information I have recently found through the record images available through the Digital Archives of Norway.  The items indicated in red show the things I still need to be seeking.  And that green box "DAofN Parish Register 4", that's where I will be starting to look for Kari's Death/Burial record once I finish writing this post.

Besides providing a focus for my research, tracking my research on this Research Log has proved helpful in other ways.  The Resource Used column lets me see where all I have looked for similar information about other family members.  I've also used the Date column several times to look for the name of a resource I remembered using at a specific time.  Now all my efforts to learn more about how my 2GreatUncle Siver Syverson came from Norway to Wisconsin has provided me with a list of places to look for records for other immigrant ancestors and relatives.

Sources of Emigration Records

Finally, I've discovered a great, unexpected benefit from using my Research Log so judiciously.  For the information I still have not been able to locate for a specific relative, I can do a quick copy of the topics and all six columns concerning that from the Research Log Google Sheet.  I then can paste it as a research note in Family Tree Maker so I can see sometime in the future where I have looked should I want to take another stab at locating an elusive record.

As Elizabeth McCracken said "if someone caught me when I was in the throes of tracking something elusive I would have told them: but it's out there.  I can feel it".(1)  And now I have the record to show my search for it.

(1)  "Elizabeth McCracken: Quotes".  www.Goodreads.com