Decade Notes

I’ve been researching my Stephens family line for years. And I LOVE my notes for each generation! My notes are in timeline format and I enter every single thing I can find including “probable” events such as births that I don’t have an exact date for. My source citations in these notes are as complete as anything that I have and are MUCH easier for me to keep up to date than within my genealogy software. I include maps and cropped images of the records that I’ve found within the notes so I don’t have to dig through files unless I need to see the full page. I make colorized notes to myself along the edge with text boxes around them to make them stand out. In these notes to myself, I include ideas of books to look at when I go to the library, questions as to why something might be happening or why I think my records might have a mistake.  For example, I may have a clue to a birth location from someone else researching my family, but when I put it in the notes, the location does not match the proven location of the parent. I also include small images of simplified group sheets with the ages of each person at that time period to help me keep the people straight in my mind. By including the ages at that time, it helps me see if a son is old enough to be found in the tax records or if he is too young to be married. If a mother and father have passed away, but still have young children, where are the children living? These are all questions that I would put along the edges of my notes.

But I still get confused when I have to compare the notes from one generation to another generation.  For example, I can’t find Andrew Stephens in the 1870 census. So I wanted to look at Andrew’s father’s notes as well as Andrew’s children’s notes to see where THEY were in 1870 to see if Andrew was nearby. When that didn’t work, I looked at Andrew’s siblings and their children. Now I’ve got people named the same thing in various locations and my brain just has a hard time keeping it all straight. (I blame this on the medication that I’m taking – and I’m sticking with that story!)

So, during the ride home from Spring Break, I decided to combine all of the notes from my Stephens research into one file. I took each individual’s records and made the text for each a different color. Then, I copied and pasted them all into one file while still keeping everything in chronological order. I’ll still keep my original notes, but by combining them all, I’m hoping to see better patterns in locations and records available. But this new document became QUITE long – beginning with 1715 and continuing through 1928, so I decided to put it in my binder with dividers for every decade. I REALLY like it! In 10 year time periods, I can make some nice maps of the changing county boundaries to get a better idea of where to look for records – and what counties are nearby at that time. It’s much easier to keep track of where each person is that I’m tracking by having a US map with a pin for each person’s locations. And gaps in records become much more evident. By having entire lifetimes in one document, it wasn’t giving me a realistic idea of how much time had gone by from one record to the next. Two pages could be 5 years or 30 years depending on how much information I’ve found.

I’ve decided on a 2 binder approach. One binder has my notes and the appropriate source records all in chronological order. The other binder will be my “clues”. Printed emails, web sites, church histories and such go in the “clue binder” that I can have open side-by-side with my notes binder. This keeps all of my records in order while still having easy access to whatever I’ve found online that I want to follow up on. Group sheets for every family member – even siblings – will go in the Clue Binder. Each decade will have it’s own Research Plan. Before this, I’ve been creating Research Plans for each person, so the new Research Plans will deal with all of the people I’m tracking within that decade.

I’m looking forward to putting these binders together and adding records and hints. I think it will help me stay focused because the time period I’ll be researching will be shorter rather than looking for anything that matches an individual within his entire lifetime.

A New Generation!

Floating on cloud nine as I announce that my first grand-child was born last Monday, April 15! Introducing Clara Mae!

Marion County, Alabama Surprises!

I was able to spend significant time on genealogy research this weekend, so I picked up my Stephens file, but couldn’t think of a new path of attack for my line. So I thought I’d spend some time trying to figure out why William Stephens spent many years in Alabama. As I’ve researched William’s father, Welcome, I could see no reason why William would be in Alabama. I thought it must have something to do with William’s wife, Dorothy Wigginton, who I have done zero research on.

I went to Ancestry to see if I could find Wiggintons near William’s family in the Alabama census records. How could I have never noticed that there was a Wigginton family living next door? And another Wigginton further down the page? I think I’ve been so focused on the Stephens surname and trying to find where they were in 1870 that I never took the time to look around. Rookie mistake! As I began to research these Wiggintons, I found that Ancestry has some very nice plat maps for the area. And that was the beginning of HOURS of researching land records! On Ancestry, I was able to get plat maps and land grant certificates. That reminded me to look at the BLM-GLO web site which helped me decipher that writing on the plat maps and helped me find some additional parcels of land that I hadn’t noticed before.

I was trying to find a map of the entire county with plat lines on it when I came across a GREAT site by the Alabama Secretary of State. The Government Records Inquiry System gives access to great scans of the Tract Books showing everyone who received a land grant within a specific township and range. It was a much easier way to see who the neighbors were than trying to read the tiny writing on the plat map! The site also has books of Field Notes, Land Patents, Deeds and Leases and lots of other books that I have not had time to look at.

This week-end (and today because we had a snow storm that cancelled school) was all about information gathering, and the days ahead will be spent analyzing! I’ve had issues in the past with finding records for 2 different men named William Stephens in the area, so I’m hoping that these records will help me to sort these men out!

RootsTech from home happy dance!

I rushed home from school today to jump onto the Live Steaming from RootsTech.org and was thrilled to see that not only is it streaming live, but you can “rewind” to watch anything that’s been streaming for the day!

Guess how I’m spending the evening???

Citation headaches

Ahhhhh…..snow day! Actually, “icy streets” day, but no matter – an unexpected day to work on genealogy! So I thought to myself, I will open my group sheets that are stored on my computer and change all of the citations that only say “Find-a-grave” to be actual, genealogically happy citations. And thus began my citation headache…

I decided to start with a specific group sheet that had all kinds of information for every name on the sheet – births, deaths, spouses, marriage dates, etc, but my citations tended to be things like: 1) ACPL 976.901 R91sh v. 1. or 2) Accd to William’s birth record or 3) Marriage Bonds book 6. CERTAINLY not complete citations! And what about the marriage dates that had no citations at all? Oy vey!

I decided that I would not work on any other group sheet until I entered proper citations for everything on this group sheet.

I began with burial citations since that was my original intention anyway. Because I took a trip to my county of research a few summers ago, I had many of my own images from cemeteries and such, so I cited those first and then moved on to Find-a-grave listings that I had not created myself. I did a Google search to see how others were citing Find-a-grave sites and could not find anything that didn’t refer to getting information from the image of the tombstone. I have quite a few ancestors who are listed in Find-a-grave, but do not have an image of the stone included. I decided on a citation format that was close to what I was seeing online and that would work well for me including linking the person’s name to the Find-a-grave listing so I could continue to check back for images at a later date with just a single click. There are some wonderful volunteers in Russell County who are posting images of obituaries and wedding announcements that have been delightful surprises and I am very grateful for that! I only wish that the name of the newspaper and date of publication were included, but someday, I’ll be able to make a trip to the area and find those myself and I’m thrilled with the information that they do contain.

Next came hours of re-researching. Quite a bit of information that I had came from a web site that no longer exists, so I was looking for print outs or other sites that the information may have been copied to. (Thank you RootsWeb!) If I didn’t already have a print-out, I made one today with the surnames that I research along with any information given on the source that the information had originally come from.

I then went to my Ancestry account to see if I had entered sources in the notes on there. Sadly, there were not many. When information came from microfilms, I searched the FamilySearch catalog to find the films that I had rented in the past to get the information needed for those records. When information came from books, I found the book on the WorldCat site, copied the Chicago style citation and added page numbers if I knew them and red notes to look them up if I didn’t.

Bottom line – I’ve spent 8 hours adding fresh information and working to update citations for ONE group sheet and my backside is pretty sore because I’ve spent every minute of that kicking myself in the rear for not doing this correctly from the beginning! BUT, I now have a group sheet (yes, only one) that is fully cited and I have LEARNED MY LESSON!

A Free Afternoon = A New Database

I made sure to get all of my work for Monday’s classes done yesterday so that I could have a genealogy afternoon today! But I’ve been in the process of creating a photo album scrapbook for my daughter’s graduation this May, so my genealogy files weren’t in any condition to do traditional research. Instead,  I decided to work on creating a database in Excel of all of the Stephens gravestones in Russell County cemeteries. It’s pretty mindless work, so I can also “watch” marathons of my favorite HGTV shows while entering information. To keep from getting TOO overwhelmed with it, I decided to only enter information for people who were born before 1900.

I had a column for name, birth date, death date, parents, spouse and cemetery.

I LOVE creating databases like this in Excel because of the information that I see (REALLY see) for the first time based on sorting the database by columns. For example, when I sort by name, I can see all of the men named Andrew J. Stephens and fill in some of the blanks on the various groups sheets that I have. When I consider the location of the cemetery for each man, it helps me see which locations within the county are most likely to go with each man.

I can sort based on date of death and then see a list of people who died in the time frame in which death certificates are available on Ancestry to see if there are certificates that I haven’t discovered yet.

I can sort based on Parents and an incredibly complete group sheet appears before my eyes because of the links added to family stones and images of obituaries that volunteers have added. Often, I’ll find a spouse or child that I didn’t know about by doing this.

Or I can sort based on the Cemetery and begin to see possibilities for family connections that I didn’t think of before.

This sheet of the database is now part of a Stephens workbook that I’ve been working on over the years. Any time I’m at a standstill in research for one reason or another, I try to take one source – a specific book or website – and add all of the entries that I can whether I know they are related to my line or not. I have solved many puzzles with databases like this one! Now, if I have a date of death on the Cemetery sheet, but no parents, I can check to see if I have information on the Death Records worksheet to see if parents are listed there. I have worksheets for Birth Records, Marriage Records, Deeds, Taxes, Census Records, Military Info, Death Records and now – Cemeteries. And of course, every entry has the source included so I don’t have to go back to the actual book or website to add a record to my software database.

While it isn’t an earth shattering revelation for doing research, I’m always surprised by what I discover even though it was looking me directly in the face before!

Wishful thinking…

I was taking a look at my blog statistics today and I noticed that quite often, people find my blog by doing an internet search for people who happen to be my ancestors.  For example, a search for “John Smith Russell County Kentucky”.

Oh, how I wish those people would let me know that we may be researching the same line! I’ve always heard that a blog would be a great way to meet “cousins”, but I can only think of a couple of times that I’ve been contacted by a related researcher who found my family information through this blog.

Now, I really don’t want to sound “snooty”, but if I put my information out on this blog and find researchers who are reading it, but not at least letting me know that we may be related, then there can be no sharing of information, but only taking. Even if a person feels they have nothing to share, at the very least, we could become research “buddies” who could each look at questions from different angles and look at research opportunities that one of us has that the other doesn’t.

Doesn’t that sound lovely??