Keeping your Leaves in Order... File Naming 2

So I am been using this new file naming scheme, well new to me, for all my genealogy records. I use Family Tree Maker so that I have a offline version of my Ancestry.com Tree. I love how I can make changes at either location and my trees are synced and updated. I am only about a quarter of the way through my files but I'm making progress.

The reason I am writing about this again is its just so cool. Now that my files are all properly named, you almost don't even need the software, its so nicely organized from birth certificate to death certificate and every document in between. It's so easy to look at now to find each person, the only pitfall and why you need the software, is to be able to link files to multiple people unless you wanted to attach a file to each individual, in a census that could really take up some space. I know some of my census images are 2MBs and if you got sometimes 10 people living together on the same census that's a lot of images.

I will admit when I started I wasn't the best genealogist, shoot I wouldn't even say I was good but, I have learned from my mistakes and trying to make up for it. Now that I'm getting organized I have been able to find some new records and relatives with ease.

Hopefully I can get all my files renamed in the next few weeks and then I am really going to sit down and start tackling these genetic cousin hints I have got from my DNA kits. Then maybe I can find and discover some cool family mysteries and stories to share with everyone.

If you are wondering what I am talking about in reguards to file naming you can check out my previous blog post called, Keeping your leaves in order... File Naming

Keeping Your Leaves in Order... File Naming

I guess you can say I am like everyone else, where I create New Year Resolution. My Resolution for Genealogy this year is organizing my files.  I like to think of myself as a Digital Genealogist. I do almost all my research from home and even if I do run to a courthouse or the library, I always convert my findings into a digital format.  However I never figured out a good file naming scheme, which makes looking at my files difficult, especially trying to sort out duplicates.  I asked and searched but couldn't find something that made sense to me. Finally I found a system that Natalie Cottrill from ProGenealogist shared in her blog Computer Tricks 3 – Naming Electronic Files, and so far it has been great.

This is Natalie's system:

 "[surname (or) maiden surname][first name][middle name][birthyear]

[date of event or date document created][event or document name]"  

It's really nice, after you put the name in, the birth year takes care of multiple generations using the same, so you shouldn't have a problem with all those John Smith's in your tree.  I use the Head of the Household to name the census which has really cleared up my census pages.

After that the computer takes care of the organizing for you.

"...they will end up automatically sorted by the operating system alphabetically by name 

and then chronologically by date of birth and then chronologically again by date of event."

It doesn't get better then that, now I just have to go and rename all my files, which is going to take some time. When its all said and done its going to be so easy to find all my files. Even now you can see the story of someones life just from the thumbnails.

DNA in My Family Genealogy... The Ethnicity Update

Ancestry has finally done it, they have updated the Ethnicity Estimate within the DNA results. If you are just now tuning into this post and haven't read my other two segments called DNA in My Family Genealogy you can check them both out here... MY DNA  and  THE GRANDPARENTS

If you remember I wasn't really impressed with the ethnicity results from my first test, especally after I got results back from my maternal grandparents. My results showed me with 78% Central European and 18% Scandinavian. Between my two grandparents they had well over 100% British Isle, so where did mine go.

That's where ancestry changed things up. The first added more regions this broke some places up like Great Britain and Ireland up so for some people it may have increased the accuracy of their region results. The other thing they did was the calculated range. The randomly selected 40 positions of the DNA. From there they average the results out and with some comparisons figure out your probability to each region.

All in all I think its more accurate but below are pictures of my results, my grandfathers, and grandmothers. I will let you check it out for yourself.  I think its pretty interesting that I went from no British Isle to 53% Great Britain and 4% Irish.

Let me know what you think.

My Ethnicity Estimate

Grandpa's Ethnicity Estimate

Grandma's Ethnicity Estimate

Preserving Family Memories... Making Stones Last Forever

Well if you have read my blog for any period of time you may have realized I have a passion for cemeteries. I don't know what it is, maybe it's knowing that they are right there, or that their descendants where standing at that very same spot when their loved one was laid to rest. Earlier this spring I got to attend a class about Preserving Cemeteries taught by Mandi Brown of Northwest Missouri. She introduced me to this chemical called D/2 Biological Solution I eventually bought one before making my rounds to the family cemeteries on Memorial Day. One stop in particular was to a cemetery called Sugar Creek in Rushville, Mo. there is the final resting place of many branches of the Moore family, and the oldest Robert Moore my 3rd Great Grandfather.

I am not going to go into great detail on his back story but after crossing the pond to America, he joined in the Civil War. He eventually married and moved west to Rushville where he settled down and lived a long life.

His tombstone is over 100 yrs old and has been covered with black mold/lichen for as long as I can remember. After getting my gallon bottle of D/2 I ventured out with my Great Aunts on the Friday before Memorial Day. I poured the solution into a pump bottle so that I could spray it on the stones. Without any scrubbing or touching of the stone, other then pulling dead grass of the base, I proceeded to spray the stone with the D/2 solution. I was a little sceptical at first, as I soaked the stone and the solution ran down the face of the stone, it started turning brown. I left it at that hoping it would do its magic and clean the stone without damaging it.

The summer passed, and I would say it was a pretty normal summer, hot and windy with the occasional rain shower. We have a family reunion at this cemetery the first Saturday of October every odd year. I visited the cemetery every month this summer but hadn't shared the results with anyone before the reunion. I was looking to see if any one noticed. Hopes went to high since I don't think anyone else is as crazy about the cemetery as I am. The reunion was great its fun to see how the family is growing. Like I had guessed no one really noticed the difference in the stone, potentially because they couldn't see it side by side, but when I pulled up pictures on my computer they where amazed.

I have been very pleased with the results of this D/2. I haven't been back to most of the cemeteries I visited Memorial day. I cant wait to see how the other stones turned out. I plan to purchase more this next spring and start cleaning more stones, and hopefully help preserve these memorials for future generations to come.

Connecting the Dots... Deerfield MA

Second in this series, Connecting the Dots, this time of Sutlief's in Deerfield Massachisetts, it was an interesting hunt. The history of Deerfield is very interesting to read about. This piece of land must have been something else, so many issues with the Indians, and yet they still came back worked thier land and persevered. Especally if you look at it from Hannah "Plympton" Sutlief's point of view, she lost her dad, brother, and husband in three different insidents around the Deerfield area, all told to have been burnt at the stake by Indians.

Making connections from past to present in Deerfield wasn't without its obsticals. The lots where not laid out uniformally, but by cow commons of the Dedham proprietors, however George Sheldon did his do dilligance in tracking down each deed, in his book A History of Deerfield, Massachisetts. It took a little time while switching back and forth from my google earth, the 1877 map, and his book, and going all the way around the homesteads of the old street, but I believe I figured them out. The lots where numbered from the NW side of the street, south, and then back up to the NE side again.

While not going into detail, although it is a nicely documented history, after Nathaniel Sutlcliffe died in the Falls Fight with Capt Turner, Hannah remarried and moved away. Eventually sometime down the road Nathaniel's son, Nathaniel Sutcliffe JR came back to Deerfield to collect what was left of his fathers estate before moving on himself.

Below is the the KMZ (Google Earth File) of my interpretation of Sutlief Land in Deerfield. For those who don't like or use google earth there is also a PDF. While you can save this PDF for your own tree I would prefer you to link it from my tree on ancestry.com so people can find the original source if they have questions.

Google Earth KMZ Link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4_K-fH7HJzDZE5seUs1YTJaeGM/edit?usp=sharing

PDF Link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4_K-fH7HJzDQnlmVTZLQ2F2VW8/edit?usp=sharing
To read the note in the PDF download it from google drive.

Ancestry.com Link
http://sharing.ancestry.com/3130310?h=7fe1bf

Hope you enjoyed, look out for more Connecting the Dots in the future.

Thanks

DNA in My Family Genealogy... The Grandparents

So here is a update from my previous post DNA in My Family Genealogy I love the fact that I get the opportunity to talk with other members of the NWMGS about discoveries, concerns, and questions about genealogy. While talking about DNA a member commented about thier results just confirmed many, many years of research, and so I thought I would share my maternal grandparents results as it completely changed mine. So the Story begins...

Few months back, without going into details, in fear of losing my only set of living grandparents, I was able to talk to them and get thier test submitted. Excited it only took three weeks to get the results back and then things really started to get interesting.

If you remember back with my Genetic Ethnicity results came back with 78% Centeral Europe, 18% Scandinavian, and 4% uncertian. This all seemed wierd to me as I have been able to document, with traditional research, a large amount of branches tracing back to the British Isles. Then the grandparents enter the picture. My Grandfather showed up with 70% Central European, 27% British Isles, and 3% uncertain. OK well I would stay thats pretty close to what I have researched without crunching the numbers. Grandma's was a shocker when compaired to mine. She had 74% British Isles, 16% Eastern European, 7% Central European, and 3% uncertain. Well especally with results like that, where did my British Isles go??? I can only guess, not being a genetisist, that my father must have some strong Scandinavian blood that dominated my British roots while still being born a red head.

Well let me mention a few things that I havn't liked about AncestryDNA or hope to see explained in furture updates. First off I have my grandparents linked to the same tree I am using, and while I can somewhat understand why I dont have some of the same genetic hintsto cousins my grandparents have. Why do they not show up as a hint when we are 99% confinent you're related, but can't identify how, within thier hint feature? Yes I know how we are related but seem it likes a hickup in thier system. The second is I am sure they are trying to keep it broken down to the lowest common dinominator but there is no advanced features to AncestryDNA like a Chromosome Browser. Especally in my grandfathers results there are quite a few hints that come from the same branch within a few generations of each other. This all being said they are supposed to come out with a new Ethnicity breakdown any day now. While there seems to be a few bugs in thier system, looking at all three results niether my mom or I where adopted.

It has been a great experience even though I don't understand it all. I have meet many more, lets call them genetic cousins, and many more I have yet to contact. Some are beating me to the chase and contacting me way before I have compiled my thoughts to contact them. Especally through my grandfathers side I am even starting to get connection hint, where the common ancestor is Revolutionary War time period, which is very exciting. And while the hints make it easy to make a connection. Having both maternal grandparents tested helps out too because if I can't see another user on thier results then that kinda narrows it down that you must come from my fathers side of the family.

I am going to sign off now, as just a few hours ago they released the new ethnicity results. It may take a few to get an updated blog post. I have already checked and the rest of the AncestryDNA community must be equally excited because the site is bogged down.

Learning New Tricks

First before I get to the title, let me apologize for not posting the last two weeks.  Sorry!  Now to the title "Learning New Tricks" I have spent the last two weekends going to genealogy conferences.

The first was one put on by the Midwest Genealogy Library and Ancestry.com called Ancestry Day.  While the conference was a few days long I was only able to attend Saturday.   I was very glad I attended this conference.  The main focus of the gathering as I saw it was two things; one how to use Ancestry.com, and two how to use the Midwest Genealogy Center.  This was great, while I consider myself a Digital Genealogist, genealogy didn't evolve as fast a technology has and I often have to go "old school" and visit the library.  Truthfully this is usually very intimidating as there is huge amount of information at the MGC.  That's is where the conference really started making my light go off.  Their wonderful staff and volunteers gave presentations that helped create new idea's and guidance of where to look and find new discoveries that I hope to share with you all down the road.

The second conference was a wonderful idea by the new LDS church where they simulcast the Roots Tech Conference in Salt Lake City, UT with their own spin on things call Genealogy KC.  It was amazing, first and foremost I got to share my time at this conference with my Mom.  The second thing I loved was this conference was simulcast they also had classes going on at the same time with a wide variety of subjects.  The classes I attended where; Reading Cemetery Stones, the BSA Genealogy Merit Badge, Burial Customs, Analyzing Land Records, Revolutionary War Research, Cemetery Art, Blogging Family History, and the Future of Genealogy.  Each class was very intimate as most classes only had a dozen attendees.  This gave each of the speakers time to brief but also to get Q&A from the audience.

After the Genealogy KC conference I was able to talk with a Program Director and hopefully next year I will be able to participate as a Instructor at this conference.  I think with what I do with Google Earth and Genealogy,  I can help those with brick wall look from a different angle and help to inspire younger genealogist get involved in family history with this visual tool.

I can't wait to put everything I learned into action.  Thank you to all the staff and volunteers that helped put these conferences together and thanks for the opportunity to meet new friends and learn new tricks.  I look forward to see what you guys are able to put on next year.

Quaker's and I'm not talking Oats

I wanted to talk about what I learned this week. This is a starter blog on the topic of Quaker's and Religion in my Family Tree.  After getting a new Hint in my Ancestry DNA I got to looking at an older branch of the Stitt line.  The line was the Mills which joined the Stitt line back in the late 1800's. Something I had not really looked at in my family research before was their religious beliefs.  

The interesting thing wasn't the two families coming together it was how they eventually ran into each other.   From what I have researched so far was that the Stitt's came from PA to KY to OH and eventually to IA.  The Mills side came from PA to NC to TN to IA over the same approximate time frame.  Both of the families often traveled in groups when they made their big moves.  The Mills were Quakers and had a prominent impact in TN Quaker history.  Before I continue on and in case you are new to what Quakers are here was a useful piece for me.

Quakers are often confused with the Amish or with Shakers, two independent groups with whom there is no direct historical or theological connection. Despite a shared concern for peace and a historic emphasis on simplicity, Quakers are a unique body of Christians, formally called the Society of Friends.
Friends do not withdraw from the world into private celibate communities, as did the Shakers to the point of extinction. Nor do Quakers isolate themselves from the modern world, indicating their uniqueness by the wearing of unusual clothing and by rejecting technology as do the Amish. Instead, Quakers are a diverse group of Christian believers who seek to maintain a personal relationship with God while remaining active participants in the world around them.

Like I said earlier it looks like most of the family moves where with religiously like minded friends "no pun intended."  And after about a century of moving around they all showed up in IA.

I am going to leave you with that for now, however another thing I learned about the Quakers is they took good notes at their meetings keeping things like vital statistics (births, deaths, marriages, changes in membership.)  There are multiple volumes of meeting minutes from all the states involved  that I plan on checking out.  So look for future blogs with Quakers in the title and I will share new discoveries as I find them.

Serendipity

Ok, let me get a few things out before I get you my main post.   Sorry for not writing last week, I was out of town and before I knew it I had forgot.  Last thing is this blog is Genealogy by Eric.  It's just my opinion of what I have seen, heard, and found.  If you see something I have misinterpreted please feel free to comment below or you can email me personally at stitt.eric@gmail.com

Now that I've got that out of the way lets get to my post.  My blog today is about accidentally finding something good or useful while not specifically searching for it, Serendipity.  My most recent serendipity moment was with my wife Kathy.  I don't do much research on Kathy's side, not that I don't want to, I just want her involved with it.  I asked her a few weeks ago to help me with some of my tree organization.  Its always easiest to talk to someone about people they know so we were in the Thompson tree.  For those who don't know, Kathy's mother, Mary is a Thompson.

So now that you know which branch I am going down let me throw this one at you.  The Thompson's weren't always Thompson's, they use to be Lennox and that's where I am going to take you.   The Thompson name in this family is only about 5 generations old and starts with John David Thompson/Lennox, Kathy's Great Great Grandfather.

Here is the story as I know it.  Sometime between 1862-1870 John's parents William and Martha Lennox died. It is thought that a Dr Thompson was the last care giver of William and Martha and by the 1870 census a Bridget Thompson was the head of house for both John and Eliza Lennox.  Ten years later John had taken the last name of Thompson as his own.  Then sometime after 1900 John dies and from what I know was lost.  From what was left of family memory he died some where north of St Joseph, MO.

Serendipity you might ask.  Well while I was talking with Kathy about my tree organization I was checking one of my favorite sites. www.findagrave.com it's one of the thing I'm trying to get a hold of is collecting and linking each family member with their find a grave memorial.  Well on that day I got a hit for John David Thompson my serendipity moment.  Thanks to a Russ C who had built a memorial for John not only did I get a death date but a location of where John's last resting pace is.  However John David Thompson are all pretty common names so I wanted to did a little deeper to verify that I found the right guy.

So after one day of Serendipity on find a grave I was able to continue my luck with "The Holt County Sentinel" on the Library of Congress website.  I knew the approximate death date and location from the headstone and with help that the Library of Congress had each of the pages of the sentinel in PDF format.  This allowed me to name search each page, an hour later I found what I was looking for "A Sad Accident"  I'm not going to transcribe the accident, I want you to discover it like I did.  I will say its in the bottom right side of the paper.

Hope you enjoy my serendipity moment and I will talk to you all next week.

A Picture is worth 1000 words.

They say a Picture is worth a thousand words so I thought I would wrap up this introduction of how I got into researching my family history with photos of the tombstones have found.  I have tried to add photos of oldest tombstones found out of the main lines I have researched.  There are a few others that I've included just because I like how they look.  



Robert Moore

oldest tombstone
 of the Moore Family

Frank Short
Woodmen of the World
tombstone



 

Thomas Stitt
oldest tombstone

of the Stitt Family 

 

John Bailey
oldest tombstone
of the Bailey Family





David Hott
oldest tombstone
of the Hott Family

 

John Thompson
oldest tombstone of the
Thompson/Lennox Family





Sarg Nathaniel Sutlief
Oldest tombstone I have found period.
I haven't seen this one personally get but its on my list.

You can click on any of the photos to see a bigger copy of the images.

In The Beginning, Why I'm Even Doing This? Part II

So last time I was telling you how I got started into genealogy because of a forgotten cemetery in my neighborhood.  Over the last 4 years I am made an attempt to find and document where the last resting place is for all my family.

Below is just a small shot of what I have mapped out so far.  Each place marker is a GPS marker of where the tombstone is, with some margin of error.  I couldn't get my Google Earth Embeder to work but I will keep working on it and maybe in a future post you can see an interactive map to explore.  If anyone would like a copy of my Google Earth file, post here or email me and I will send it to you.  I have links to each FindAGrave memorial in the placemarkers.  The cool thing about that is while you might not be up for a road trip to a cemetery, you can still visit the memorial via the web.

These are just the people and cemeteries I have personally visited.  There are about 40 other cemeteries that I haven't visited that are outside of a day's drive.  Its neat seeing all of the cemeteries that I need to visit as most of them start on the east coast and end in MO.  When you look at the whole thing you can see the migration path that the family took to get here. 

I will put something out closer to Memorial Day but if there are any family members who would like a map or if you see someone who I have missed, let me know.  Please feel free to send me your pictures, it lets me see how the stones are aging.

Cousin Bait (In The Beginning, Why I'm Even Doing This?)

Guess if I am going to start blogging and especially about Genealogy I should start of with explaining my beginnings into the genealogy world.  Its all started about 4 years ago while out for a walk in the neighborhood, my wife Kathy got stopped and asked about a cemetery in the area from some random stranger.  Neither of us knew about it but just a couple of doors down there was a cemetery, the Roberts Cemetery.  We immediately went to find it.  On our way back we stopped by our neighbor who had been in the neighborhood since the houses were build back in the 1960's.  After talking with her and a few other neighbors we found out that what we had found was only about half of the original cemetery.  The builder of our neighborhood tried to buy the property but was unsuccessful because of the cemetery.  However just a few short years later a new builder came into the area who was going to build apartments for section 8 housing, the North Brighton Townhomes.  For what ever reason they where either able to skip past the red tape of buying the cemetery or just completely neglect that there was one there all together.  This lead to the cemetery being bull dowsed over, before the cemetery was completely wiped from the face of the earth the neighbors stopped the construction.  To mend their mistakes the construction company picked up and laid all the tombstones in concrete, face up.  Now after already surviving some 100 years the cemetery faced its next big struggle.  Normal tombstones are standing upright which protects a lot of the stones from the weather.  After 50 years of being in concrete the elements are greatly taking their toll.  Snow, ice, dirt and wind are slowly erasing the names, dates and last loving words.  Even if you look at the photos of the Roberts Cemetery which where taken in 2008 and then look at the stones now you can see a big difference.

This all lead me to my big question.  Where is my family?  Where are they buried?  Is anyone taking care of them or have they been bull dowsed over and forgotten?  My father's parents have already passed, but both of my mother's parents are still alive.  What do they know and what may be lost if something where to happen to them?  

Our home owners association just got reactivated and is starting to have regular meeting.  I have plans to bring up the Roberts Cemetery and hopefully get the neighborhood or a local boy scout troop to adopt the cemetery to help clean and preserve this little piece of history.  

I am going to leave you with this for now.  Next time I will try to share with you how I solved these questions and where I am going from here.  If you are ever in Kansas City ask me about the cemetery and I can take you to see it. 

Roberts Cemetery  http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cr&GScid=2251323&GRid=27524449&CRid=2251323&