Amazing What You Find When You Do a Little Spring Cleaning!

Spring Cleaning in the Vondelpark; source Wikimedia Commons.

Like so many, I have been anxiously awaiting the upcoming release of Family Tree Maker 2017. Having been a Beta tester for several library software products and revisions, I know that it can take time for all aspects of new or revised software to work consistently and in the intended manner so I don't mind waiting until FTM 2017 is 100% (or at least 99%) ready to go before my copy is ready to download.

I agree with Russ Worthington that the waiting period is a great time to do some neglected database clean-up. His post on 14 April 2017 presented a number of areas we can look into and steps we could each do to improve the quality of our database before we tried to sync it with an Ancestry tree. If you use Family Tree Maker, his post is definitely worth reading. A clean-up like Russ suggests is what I've been doing the last two weeks, and each day I am amazed at what I find in my personal clean-up.

My first round of clean-up involved looked at FTM sources that were not attached to anyone in my FTM tree. Probably 95% were for a source which, upon closer reading, turned out to not have information related to any one in my tree. These had come about because I have gotten into the habit of creating a new source when I find a record or other information that seemed, at first glance, to belong to someone in my family tree. Then, as I read the entire record or document, it was clear that the record involved someone who was not connected to my tree. Some of these sources remained like dead leaves on my tree as I tried to see if the information applied to someone else in the family; some remained because I just forgot to delete the source at the time. Now, after reading a lot of source records and following the web link in the citation, I was able to delete all that didn't belong in my tree. The great part was finding those few sources that did belong but somehow I had not actually connected them to the specific person. Who knows why, the phone rang, time to cook dinner, my phone buzzed that it was time to leave for an appointment. But now, all those previously unattached sources are either attached to someone or else have been deleted. I also have a new resolve to study a document more thoroughly before I consider it as a source for my tree, saving creating a source citation for when I know the source actually provides information about someone in my family tree.

Next I turned to looking at people in my database who had no source attached to them. Again, I was chagrined to realize that I had about 40 names attached to my family tree with no supporting documentation. Just a name, and that was all.

For example, in trying to find documentation (beyond personal knowledge) for the husband of a second cousin, Alice Northcutt Dean Felton. I stumbled upon a treasure trove of family information in Alice's obituary.(1) I had documentation of her death through an e-mail I had received, but this obituary found online from a small, local newspaper provided information about her husband, children, and something I had never heard before, that Alice had polio as a child. This one fact added another dimension to her rich, full, active life.

Another just-a-name-cousin became more real to me just be googling his name. I found information about his college years at Davidson College, an address for him from the 1960s through an alumni directory, and a record of his marriage to the previously named Joan xxx (my method for recording an unknown part of a name). The college information supported what I already knew about this first cousin once removed and where he had lived for many years, but now I had something besides a family directory from the 1970s that I had never bothered to cite as a source for him.

Other names without a source turned out to be very removed from my family tree. That included people people like George Glasscock, the brother-in-law of an 8th Great Uncle, and living in the 1600s. Looking at the information about my 8th Great Uncle, I could not find any connection to George (beyond that of being the brother of his wife), so George was among the names I decided to just delete from my family tree.

Then there are people like William Good, the husband of Sarah Solart (about whom I will be posting later). All I can find are the numerous statements in books that refer to William as the husband of Sarah, nothing more. I had early on added him as her spouse but never sourced it, hoping to easily find a record of their marriage. After several months, I still have found nothing more than William Good's name, but at least I realized that I needed to document that it was recorded in several books. After all his life was a large part of Sarah Solart's story.

The real thrill came as I tried to find a source for Weldon Perkinson, a 4 Great Uncle, the son of my 4 Great Grandfather David Perkinson. I had found sources to verify that David had a son William and a daughter Phoebe/Phebe, just no source to connect Weldon beyond having seen his name written somewhere, some time. There were a number of online trees that listed Weldon as the son of David, few with birth or death dates only Union County, South Carolina as his place of death, I knew I had to approach this from a different angle. David Perkinson's death was listed in many online trees as occurring about 1807 in Union County, South Carolina, so I spent an hour looking at unindexed probate records for Union County on FamilySearch.(2) Finally I find a link between David and Weldon. David had died intestate, so his son William was appointed by the Union County court as administrator of his father's estate on 17 Aug 1807. Pages later in the packet, the final payments from the estate were made to the Martha Perkinson (presumably a daughter), Weldon (presumably a son), Phoebe Perkinson Bevis, Polly Perkinson Dickens (presumably a daughter) and Elizabeth Perkinson (presumably a daughter), the amounts to each person being essentially the same amount as is frequently the case with children in an estate. This certainly started chipping away at a brick wall.

Lessons learned: All in all, my Spring cleaning has kept me busy while I wait for the actual release of Family Tree Maker 2017. During this time, I was able to find sources for several relatives, possibly poke a few holes in a Perkinson brick wall, and locate helpful information using online obituary and college sites. Plus I removed a few people about whom I found nothing. It also became clear that I need to tweek exactly when I create a source and attack it to an individual. Maybe I need to do Spring cleaning a little more frequently than every four or five years.

#deangenealogy #familytreemaker #genealogyresources #lessonslearned #perkinsongenealogy

(1) "FELTON, Alice Dean", Tribune Ledger News, Canton, GA, 24 Jan, 2017; http://www.tribuneledgernews.com.
(2) South Carolina, Probate Records and Loose Papers, 1732-1964, Union, Probate Court, Probate records 1777-1961, Box 5, package 24, estate of David Parkinson/Perkinson; accessed www.familysearch.org.

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.

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

Finding My Ancestoral Score

Family Tree, source: Commons.WikiMedia.org

Randy Seaver's topic for the recent Saturday Night Genealogy Fun was interesting.  He suggested we calculate our "Ancestoral Score".  In other words, how many direct ancestors have we identified by name?  It sounded like a different way to look at our research and a way I wanted to try.

After reading Christa Cowan's article (which started interest in this whole process), I got busy.  After trying to count the names on my family tree in Family Tree Maker, I soon decided that had to be a better way.  There was - generate an Ahnentafel Report in FTM, a report which listed my direct ancestors by generation.

Using a template similar to the one Seaver had in his post about Ancestoral Scores, I counted the names from my Ahnentafel Report and added them into my scoring template.  I was a real stickler in this and only counted an ancestor as being identified if I had both a first name and surname for an individual.  

Here is the data that determined my Ancestoral Score of having identified 18% of my ancestors.

Date	Generation	Relationship	# in generation	# identified	% identified
1/2015	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	30	94%
	7	4 GreatGrandparents	64	42	66%
	8	5 GreatGrandparents	128	36	28%
	9	6 GreatGrandparents	256	20	8%
	10	7 GreatGrandparents	512	26	5%
		Totals	1023	185	18%

I can see this as a worthwhile activity to do annually.  It lets me know how I've progressed in identifying individuals in the past seven or eight years and also to see areas on which to focus some of my research in the future.  Printing out the Ahnentafel Report and highlighting names where I need to identify a spouse will give me a good starting place when I'm wanting to change my research focus for a while.  This way I really hope to find the names of those two 3GreatGrandparents for whom I currently have no hint of a name.  Meanwhile I'll still be plugging away with the Norwegian lines in my family for a while longer.  Perhaps next year's Ancestoral Score will be greater due to identifying more of my Norwegian ancestors, actually finding both a first name and a surname (or farm name) for some of them.

So what is your Ancestoral Score?

Wk#1GenealogyDoOver : Getting Ready to Get Started

Do-Over Button from Geneabloggers.com

Nothing like a new year to spur me on to clearing up some messes.  Now I'm going to be looking a little differently at my genealogical research, especially the two Norwegian branches of my family tree.  Parts of it are a mess.

Thomas MacEntree's Genealogy Do-Over looks like it will provide the motivation and support for me to tackle some of my Norwegian "issues".  I especially like the four points he suggests we focus on in our Genealogy Do-Overs.

• Capture everything and save for later.  For me this includes the reminder to actually take that close look at my saved material, then either save or delete it, based upon what I actually find there.
• Build a good research toolbox and keep adding to it.  My list of support materials, web sites, and articles is growing because I continue to stumble onto new resources.  I need to add them to my blog's toolbox so I can share with others, just as others have shared with me.
• Create to-do lists.  It is amazing how two days of a stomach bug or those wonderful holiday visits can cause me to forget exactly which trail I had been in the midst of following.  I need to do a better job with my computer "sticky notes" and with recording things in my research log.
• Pay no attention to that bright and shiny object.  Focus, girl!  Focus!

Several days ago, I got a head start (sorry, Thomas) by trying to get some consistency in the way I have names recorded for these Norwegian ancestors in my Family Tree Maker software.  Because of the patronymic naming system, so many of these ancestors did not have consistent surnames until after they immigrated to America.  Some of what I've done in FTM is arbitrary, but it has already helped me locate names in my database by keeping siblings' names together in my A-Z list of names.  

• Son of a man named Syver/Siver/Sivert is now recorded as Syverson (not Sivertson, Siverson, Syversen, etc.)
• Daughter of a named named Syver/Siver/Sivert is now recorded as Syversdatter (not Syvertdtr, Siverdaughter, or any of the other combinations I have found.)
• Because I am examining records from the Digital Archives of Norway from as far back as the mid 1700s, there is a wide variety in the spelling of names in birth, confirmation, marriage, and death records.  As I find another version of the name I am adding it to the FTM database, but keeping only the Syverson / Syversdatter name as the "preferred" or primary name.
• Because some records and databases automatically add the name of the farm residence to a person's name, this gives yet another name for a number of my ancestors.  Another personal arbitrary decision has been to add these farm names as a "Residence" in FTM.  That way it will be easier to select the appropriate parish register to browse through.
• For those ancestors changing their name after coming to America, I'm adding their Americanized name as yet another name in FTM.

Today's project as been to look back at one of my saved resources, a self published family history of the Syverson / Hanson / Belle, Siem family.  This 100 page booklet is a treasure, essentially a number of family group sheets, hand drawn family trees, and brief narratives about some family members.  I am so thankful that my mother finally met the cousin who wrote it back in 1980 and who gifted her with the copy I now have.  Although the information it contains is not sourced, it is filled with dates, names of spouses and children, and names of family farms.

Already I have found that I had previously incorrectly recorded several dates into FTM.  Other information I had entered into FTM but had not cited the family history booklet as its source.  And taking the time to read the narrative passages provided so many small bits of information - someone died of whopping cough, a father gave the family farm to a son at his marriage, and who immigrated to America with whom.  All things I had previously missed.

Now I feel I'm ready to get started.  I'm excited about being more focused in my work and hopefully that I'll learn more of our family story.  What caused so many to leave Norway and come to America in a 15 year time span?  How could they afford to bring those large families of 7-10 individuals?  How did they decide where to live?  Maybe I've already starting on my To-Do List.

Tuesday's Tips : A New Way to Search For Records

My usual way to research a branch of my family tree is to follow one individual at a time as long as I can.  The "Until I Reach a Brick Wall" approach.  Reading some of Randy Seaver's recent posts had led me to consider using a different approach.  In his Genea-Musings blog Randy wrote of "mining" a specific database for family members.

I had been writing about the Camp family for some months, and I was now ready to revisit the Myren branch of my family.  Time to leave the South, Tidewater Virginia, and the Civil War and head to North Dakota and the life of Norwegian immigrants.  Trouble was, I wasn't sure just where or with whom I wanted to start.  I decided to follow Randy's advice and to try focusing on one specific database for Myren family information.

Previously I had used FindAGrave to record burial information for some of the Myren family members buried at Hillsboro Cemetery #1 in Hillsboro, North Dakota.  My search for Myrens listed 11 people buried at that cemetery.

Myrens buried in Hillsboro Cemetery #1, Hillsboro, ND
source:  FindAGrave.com

I recognized the listings for my GreatGrandparents Carrie (Kari) S Myren and Peter Peterson Myren and my  2Great Uncle Anders Myren.   Also listed were my Great Uncles Adolph, Carl P, and Paul S Myren as well as my Great Aunts Anna and Julia Myren.  

Seeing this listing, I made sure that I had recorded the birth and death dates from grave markers as well as cemetery information for each of these family members.  Citing each fact that I recorded in Family Tree Maker went quickly because I could make a copy of the citation for the first family member, then just edit in the correct data for the next family member.  I could copy the FindAGrave information for Adolph Myren then edit the name and dates in my citation for his sister Julia Myren's FindAGrave record.

Source Citations screen shot, Family Tree Maker 2014

Missing, however, were several family members who I thought would have be buried at this cemetery, my Great Aunts Pauline and Olga.  Also, I knew very little about Annie Myren and nothing about William Myren. 

Right away, I had a new To-Do List: (1) locate information related to the burials of Pauline and Olga and (2) learn more about Annie and William.  By focusing on these four names (Pauline, Olga, Annie, and William Myren), I was able to learn more about each of them in a relatively short time.  This time I used some of my usual search strategies - Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.com, Mocavo, and Genealogy Search Engine - as well as looking at census records and local histories available online.

In a little over an hour, I had found the following information about these relatives:

• Pauline Myren, as an adult, preferred to spell her surname as Myron, a fact that had slipped my mind when initially searching for her burial location.  She too is buried in the same cemetery, Hillsboro Cemetery #1, as her parents and brothers.  Searching for information on Pauline was what lead me to find her request for a pen pal, the letter written by Pauline in 1911.
• Olga Myren had married Adolph Rognlie.  Her FindAGrave memorial page lists her just as Olga Rognlie with no mention of Myren.  Olga Myren Rognlie is buried in Hillsboro Cemetery #1 but her husband Adolph Rognlie's burial place was listed as "unknown" while his place of death was noted as being Washington state.  Looking further into this is will probably be added to my To-Do List.
• Annie Myren, identified through various census records, was the second wife of Anders Peterson Myren.  Anders' first wife, Oline Jorgensdatter Ateigen, was listed as buried in the Elmwood Cemetery of Hillsboro, ND.  By using both United States and North Dakota state census records found on Ancestry.com, I was able to follow Annie Myren as she continued to live in Hillsboro, ND until her death in 1949. 
• William C Myren was one of the four children born to Anders Myren and his second wife Annie.

I also decided to pass on some information to others researching the Myren family by requesting that the FindAGrave memorial pages for my GreatGrandparents, Peter Myren and Kari Siem Myren, include the links to the FindAGrave information of their children.  Some of my editing requests were done within a few days.  Others of my requests are still waiting to be posted.

Lessons learned:  Thanks to Randy Seavers' suggestion, I plan to search within one database or type or record as part of my research strategies with a family.  This experience with FindAGrave showed me how it provided a family overview and then showed some areas where I needed to look for new or additional information.