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

Learning New Tricks 2014

Hi all well it's almost conference time again in Kansas City. I wanted to share this with you all before it happened so that if you're in the area and want to attend yourself you can get signed up.

 So here is the breakdown, the Midwest Genealogy Center in Independence is hosting "Genie Tech 2014".  Their two speakers are Lisa Lousie Cooke and Kathleen Brandt.  Both speakers are going to be sharing with us the latest technology tools to do your family research.  I am excited about both speakers as Lisa will be bringing one of her google earth classes and Kathleen will be presenting on the DNA side of genealogy research.  Genie Tech 2014 will be on March 8th, if you plan on going let me know so we can share highlights from our notes.

The other conference I am excited about is the GenealogyKC.  It was hosted last year during RootsTech but this year they moved it back so that some speakers from RootsTech could attend. There is 132 classes being put on on both Friday and Saturday March 21 & 22, 2014.  This year they are really focused on Technology and Youth.  I am already signed up for my classes and can't wait for it all to start.  I plan to be at this one all day both days so if you're attending this one look me up.

The thing I am most excited about with the GenealogyKC conference is I am going to be presenting my Google Earth research, it's called "Follow Your Family's Trail With Google Earth".  I will be demonstrating how to use Google Earth for your family research on both Friday and Saturday. Click on "Follow Your Family's Trail With Google Earth" and you can see the times I am presenting.  If you can't wait for my class or don't have time to attend you can check out my other blog, Genealogy Through Google Earth to get started on spinning your own globe of family history.

Before I go, I wanted to give a shout out to the Iowa Genealogical Society, about their Genealogical Name Tag.  Originally I found out about this on Beth Foulk's blog Genealogy Decoded - A Family Tree Name Tag, and I immediately wanted one.  You can order them from the Iowa Genealogical Society here at Genealogical Name Tag, I ended up ordering two.  I got a call the very next day confirming the order and within a week received my new name tags, and I was really impressed.  They look really sharp and are a pretty high quality name tag.

So if you are going to attend either of these conferences, or any others in your area, you should get yourself a professional name tag.  Don't forget to look me up and hope to see you soon.

Happy Researching.

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.

What's Your Number

I am feeding this off another blog Genea-Musings who posted this post called What's Your Number.  The premise behind this is to look at the numbers and gauge where you are at discovering your ancestors.

Here is the formula, first there is you, then two parents and they each had two parents, so as you go up to the next generation your number doubles.  Going off Genea-Musings post, I went back 10 generations which when you add it all together means you are searching for 1,023 people including yourself.  Then figuring who you have discovered over the ten generations you divide them from the number of possible people and that lets your know the percentage of family members you have discovered.

So below are my numbers, I was kind of shocked, not that I thought I was reaching the end but how little I have actually discovered.  I usually stop researching a branch once I've figure out who the immigrant to the United States is, mainly because there its tons to discover on this side of the pond and I haven't started paying for an international subscription to Ancestry.com.  I will have to post later if I ever do the math of the number of discovering the American families and don't count it against me if I stopped researching.

This sure seems like a lot of people and to think that ten generations is only about 300 years.  I guess I have plenty more searching to work on, it's at least good knowing where you stand, right!!!   Will have to keep this post going each year and see how the numbers grow.

New Year, New Beginnings in Google Earth

This past year 2013 has been a great year for genealogy research, which has lead me to starting a new blog called Genealogy Through Google Earth.  I am creating this new blog to help my Google Earth audiance have a clear place to go for ideas and support, while this blog can stay more show & tell, story based.  I am still working on posting at both blogs biweekly.

Genealogy Through Google Earth, starting out I am explaining how I use Google Earth to find and share my family research.  Then I will go more indepth with how you can create these interactive projects with your family.

I really hope you have enjoyed my blog this year and will continue reading it as well as Genealogy Through Google Earth.  My first post will be Jan 1, 2014.

Thanks for a great year

Eric Stitt

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

Roberts Cemetery Restoration Project... Chapter 2

I posted a question to a group of genealogist I am apart of on Facebook, and desided it is a good time to post an update to this topic, the Roberts Cemetery Restoration Project. It seems to short of a time from when I started this project this last spring to have spring be the next season around the corner. While it was a short summer it was still a active and busy one.

After talking with other people in my neighborhood and genealogy community about cemetery restoring, we put off cleaning during the summer in order to get more of our ducks in a row. I talked to multiple scout troops to find someone who would like to take the on as an Eagle Project, all met with no luck. I still have plans to talk to someone at the councle level and hopefully they will find someone before we finish it all.

After many emails to different title companys I finaly talked to the right person at KC Title. They were more then willing to help out with this community project. A week went by before I heard anything back, when I did it was brought to my attention that its was a taller order then they originally thought. I dont know what technology they use but it wasnt going to be as simple as putting in an address. They told me it would be a couple of weeks as they would have to go dig into the old deed books to find something that old. I kinda figured as much since its coming up on 150 yrs since the original deed. Shortly after that I got a messege that I should check with the Clay County Historical Society as they should know everything about that cemetery. I let them know that I have been talking with the society for a few years now and that was not going to get me what I am looking for. A couple of weeks when by and I recieved my final email and I got this "Sorry to tell you we couldn’t find anything on the ownership of the cemetery. It’s going to be more of a Genealogy search. We couldn’t find anything where the cemetery ever got deeded to anyone else so it looks like all the heirs of the original owners (from that deed dated in the 1800’s) would be the owners now. So as far as we can tell, it is still owned by the Roberts family."

So now I am back to square one, trying to find ownership and bounderies. I have found some Missouri Laws that state if the cemetery is inactive after 75 year that it could be considered an Abandoned Cemetery. There is some other legal hoops to jump through to make that all offical and I have letters out to the three Clay County Commissioners to hopefilly identify a way forward without costing an arm and a leg.

I also spend some time writing a Project Proposal which you can see here... Restoration Proposal

With all that going on over the summer while the cemetery was green and almost impenitrable we didnt let it discourage us. The Saturday after our November meeting 8 neighbors showed up to the cemetery. We recieved a free rental of a industrial sized wood chipper from Home Depot, that with our helpers and 3 chain saws we started cutting away the honeysickle and whatever else that was growing there that wasnt a tree. We worked on the SE coner of the lot for 5 hours. I think there was just as much dead fall if not more from the decades of neglect. After we finally called it quits we cleared about a 1/6th of the cemetery, but I think everone will agree it wasn't going to happen overnight.

My plan forward is to continue to clean the cemetery. I am going to try to start a tradition in the neighborhood that we work the cemetery the Saturday after our meetings ie cleaning until its cleared, then mowing and upkeep after that. I have found numbers to call the BSA and get headquarters involved with finding someone. The County Commissioners I am sure will be a waiting game but I will still keep my fingers crossed that something will come of it soon.

I appreicate all those who have helped with this project, I am sorry there is just to many of you to name. I will post again next big move forward. Check out below some pictues from the clean up we did.

Thanks