A Personal Library Assistant?

Have you ever dreamed of having your own personal library assistant?  Someone who would go to the library, make your copies and deliver them to you?  I want to be your personal library assistant!

My husband has been doing free-lance work for the last 2 years after being let go from his full time job.  He creates e-learning programs for a variety of corporations, but we are in a slow period right now and I’d like to supplement our income using the skills that I’ve learned while researching my family.

Let me start by saying – I’m not a certified genealogist and I can’t research for you.  But I have years of experience in my own personal research at the library and if you have a list of things you’d like copied or scanned, I can do that!

I live very close to the Allen County Public Library – home of the 2^nd largest genealogy collection in the U.S.  They have an excellent website, so if you can find the names of books or microfilm you’d like information from, I’d be willing to get that for you. My plan is this:

1)   You visit the library web site at http://www.acpl.lib.in.us/

2)   From the home page, you can use the search box to see what books are available for your area of research.

3)   Make a list of the books and call numbers you’d like information out of and let me know specifically what you’d like me to look for.  I can copy the table of contents or portions of the index if you’d like.  Then you can let me know if there are specific pages you’d like to have copied.

4)   Or go to http://genealogycenter.info/search_microtext.php to get to the Microtext Catalog to see the microfilms and fiche available.  Looking for Tom Jones in the tax records for Madison County, Indiana between 1825 – 1835?  I can find and scan those for you!

My fee is $10 per hour with a 1 hour minimum. I use PayPal as a convenient payment method and will send your information by email once I have received your payment confirmation. If you prefer a hardcopy of your materials, I offer that as well. Each page is an additional .25 plus shipping.

Think of how much money you could save compared to the costs of traveling to Fort Wayne and staying in a hotel!  I could do hours of searching and copying for you for a fraction of those costs.  If you’d like more information about my services or if you’d like to get a project going, please email me at theshygenealogist [at] gmail [dot] com. I’d love to work with you!

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From Deed to Map

To begin to draw a map of your ancestor’s land similar to the sketches made by the surveyors, you first need to understand the “code”.

Let’s use an example:  S 30 E 74 poles.  There are 3 pieces of information here.

1. The 2 letters indicate the direction.  In this example, we will be measuring a line SE from a location.  If only 1 letter is given, then the direction is directly North, South, East or West.  For example:  E 17 poles will be a line drawn directly east.
2. The number between the 2 letters indicates a number of degrees.  So we will be drawing a line that is 30^o in the SE direction.
3. The final number gives the length.  74 poles.

1 pole represents 16.5 feet, but for easy measuring, I made 1 pole equal to 1 mm on my ruler. (Millimeters are the tiniest marks on the metric ruler.  The numbers are for centimeters.)

When measuring the direction of your line, it is important to know that there are 2 locations for zero degrees – directly North and directly South. As you move toward the East or the West, the numbers get larger until you reach 90^o.

You can measure your degrees with a regular protractor from the school supply section of your local store.  Measuring is much easier if you have a round protractor, which you can pick up at most office supply stores, but even those can be confusing because they are made to measure a full 360^o going clockwise OR counterclockwise, so there are 2 different scales and you must be sure to use the correct one.

Because textbooks don’t lie flat, I’ve always made copies of the circular protractors on flexible, overhead transparency material that my students cut out and use to measure bearings in Geometry class. Because they are transparent, it’s easier to make sure you are lining things up correctly. So I used PhotoShop to create my own “surveying compass” that had only the necessary compass readings for the metes and bounds and I plan to copy it onto transparency material.  You can use the paper version as long as you hole punch the center of the  to make sure that the point you are measuring from lines up correctly. Since most people won’t have access to overhead projector film, I’ll make my illustrations with the paper version.

To draw  your map:

1. It would be nice if every surveyor measured the property in a clockwise direction starting in the NE corner, or something like that, but they didn’t.  Until you get the hang of reading these codes, it can be difficult to know where to begin on your sheet of paper.  All I can say is that eventually, you’ll be able to read through the measurements and make a super quick sketch to at least see which direction they moved while measuring.
2. Choose a point to begin your map.  You map will be similar to a dot-to-dot diagram, but you will not know where the next dot belongs until you draw a line.
   
3. Lay the protractor center on the dot that will be your beginning.  Make sure that “N” is pointed straight up.  (Using graph paper makes this much easier.)
4. Use the letters in “the code” to know which quarter of the protractor you’ll be using.  Make a small mark that lines up with the number of degrees which appears between the 2 letters.
   
5. Using the metric side of your ruler, line up the 2 dots that you have made.  Measure from the original dot the number of millimeters that appears at the end of “the code”. (You can barely see my little pencil mark across from the #4 on the ruler in the next photo.) I write the code along this line so I can make sure I don’t skip any.
   
6. The end of your line becomes the dot that goes in the middle of your compass for the next section of your boundary description.
   
7. Continue around until you get back to the beginning.
   

MOST of the maps that I’ve completed with this method have come right back to the original dot that I had made.  But on a couple of them, they do not.  I have to believe that dragging chains up and down hills and around trees had to make these surveys less than perfect and after double checking my measurements, I chose to fudge my drawings just a bit when this happens to make them align – but I make a note that I’ve done that.

As I go through the deed, I also add information like owners of neighboring properties or landmarks that could still be around today – like river banks or creeks.  Those creeks are what have allowed me to pinpoint my ancestor’s location on maps.  I can also convert those poles into feet or miles to help me have a better idea of the size of my ancestor’s property.

After I complete the graph paper version, I cut it out and transfer it to cardstock and write all of the information that I know about the piece of property.

As I’m working my way through various deeds, I’m discovering neighbors and even can see a pattern of how my ancestor expanded his property. For example, after completing my maps from two different deeds, I found that the pieces of land were connected to each other.  Something I never would have figured out without paying attention to the details found in that frustrating metes and bounds code!

If you are researching in Kentucky and are looking for some highly detailed county maps, this web site has great maps from 1950 and 1999.

http://ukcc.uky.edu/maps/

My husband says you have to be a real math geek to spend a Saturday afternoon with a protractor drawing maps like this, but I’ll let you be the judge of that!

BONUS!  If you’ve stuck with me through this entire post, I have a gift for you! If you send me a SASE, I’ll mail you my compass printed on overhead material and I’ll even cut it out with my circle cutter!  Email me at lvonlanken [at] msn [dot] com and I’ll send you my snail mail addy! When I print my own compass tomorrow, I’ll print several overheads with 6 to a sheet so I’ll have plenty to share!

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Those Ridiculous Deed Measurements

…are really pretty darn cool!  In the past, when I would start to read through a deed, my brain would go something like this:

“This indenture made this 4 April 1927 between Lewis Faust of Wayne County, KY. of the one part & John M. Smith of Russell Co., Ky of the other part. Witnesseth blah, blah…Lewis Faust…blah, blah…$800.00…blah, blah…John M. Smith, his heirs & assigns forever…giant list of blahs as the description continued with a list of trees and bushes with confusing directions here and there…Lewis Faust together with Rebecca, his wife…blah, blah.”

And for me, that was plenty.  I had 2 names, I knew the county and I knew the number of acres and amount of money and at least 1 wife’s name. SCORE!

BUT….as I started working on “the book” the other day, I thought about how I might be able to describe the land they lived on, so I went to take another look at those pesky deeds.  I wondered if my guy had inherited his land from his father or not, but how could I tell that?  I wondered if the land was on the side of a mountain or near a river or what, but how could I tell that?  I decided that maybe, that crazy secret code to describe the land just might be helpful.

So I’ll save my findings for another blog post, but what I really want to write about is how I figured out an easy way to draw an outline of my ancestor’s land. And luckily, because Russell County is COVERED with creeks and river forks, I was able to find EXACTLY where the land was!

Now I’ll admit, being a Geometry teacher for many years helped a great deal, but I think anyone can do this.  And I even created a special, simplified tool to help me interpret “the code” and I’ll share that as well!  But to write out the steps in a logical order is not something I want to rush through, so for this post, I’m going to give you a link to the web site that helped me to figure this out.

http://www.directlinesoftware.com/metes.htm

My next post will be a step-by-step guide to using my tool to draw your own map.  All you’ll need is the tool (I need a name for this thing!) and a ruler with mm markings and paper.  Oh yeah, and a deed! (If your deed has numbers over 100, you’ll want a large sheet of paper or a few sheets of paper you can tape together.)

Hoping to post this evening.  Maybe this has piqued your interest?  Go find a good metes and bounds deed and a ruler and meet me back here tonight! (Update – teenager plans have over-ridden mine!  I’ll be posting tomorrow instead. – See you then!)

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How to Start “The Book”

So I’ve been daydreaming about this “book” since I wrote my post yesterday. What would I like for it to look like?  What will be the hardest part? What types of details would I like to add?  It shouldn’t be about making it “book length” but rather about making it interesting and giving a picture of what life would have been like.  How do I feel about making up details to illustrate typical events of the time? How am I going to find those things out?

For me, the hardest part of writing is ALWAYS getting it started.  That whole “I’m looking at a blank page – now what?” panic.  So I thought I would start just by thinking what type of information I’d like to add to “Elias was born in 1845 in Russell County, Kentucky.”  I’d like to use this section to talk about his parents.  How long had they been married?  How many children did they already have?  What was George’s (Elias’ father) occupation?  Was that the most common profession of the area?  What was the area like?  How many people in the county?  Can I narrow the county down to a certain town?  How many people in that town or township?  Can I use tax records to compare this family with other families? Who was the closest neighbor?  Is it possible that the woman of that household helped Elias’ mother through childbirth?  Were there other family members in the area to help?

OK, so I’m still brainstorming.  Tomorrow is going to be my “nothing but genealogy” day – assuming I finish all my school lessons today (really only have 1 subject left to figure out, so should be doable).  I’m hoping that by football time this afternoon, I’ll be ready to start doing some “simple stuff” like analyzing census records – which I already have – to answer some of the questions I’ve listed above.  Then I can start thinking of other sources that might help me answer the remaining questions.  When I go to the library, I never leave the genealogy section.  Maybe it’s time to start looking outside of the genealogy department to see what other sources will help me find some historical info for the area.

I absolutely MUST have a first draft of this section finished by tomorrow afternoon.  Once it’s started, I’ll be more motivated to keep expanding it.  And by writing that goal on this blog, I’m holding myself accountable to get this done.

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Could I Write a Book?

Wonderful!  That’s how I feel this morning as I’m contemplating the 3 day week-end ahead of me.  Although I can’t spend all 3 days doing genealogy research, I do intend to spend 1 of the days doing nothing BUT genealogy work.  So how will I spend that day?  Trying to pick up research threads that I was working on last summer before school started?  That’s pretty tempting.  But it’s also frustrating because I know it could take me a significant amount of time to reacquaint myself with what I had found and what I was going to look for next – even though I try to do a good job of writing my notes in such a way as to be able to do that.  Do I want to spend a day getting back into the files only to put it away again before Tuesday morning?  Maybe.

But what if I decided that the best way to get “reacquainted” was to begin the outline for a book about my ancestor?  I’m not thinking of a published book or anything like that.  More like a book for my family where I take the information that I’ve found and put it into narrative form along with any pictures I have.  I have to say, I like the idea!

Now, I am not a writer by nature.  I am an Algebra teacher after all.  But my logical brain likes the idea of coming up with an outline and then filling in the pieces a little at a time.  After all, that outline could turn into a Table of Contents – right?  Creating an index of names mentioned in the book could help me to see new connections to follow up on.  And if I’m going to call it a “book”, then I’ll need details and background information too, right?  So instead of having a note that says “Elias J. Smith, served in the 8th Kentucky Cav, Co. C”, I could make that a “chapter” in my book with background information like a list of battles that company fought in.  That could expand into any information I can find on specific battles along with maps showing where the battle took place. How far is that from Elias’ home?  What might the conditions have been like at the camp?  I could make a timeline of the battles the company engaged in. Taking a look at the pension file, was Elias actually in the battle or in the infirmary with an illness?  Can I find pictures of camp life that might give a better feel of what it was like for Elias?  That’s the kind of information I’ve always wondered about, but never taken the time to find.  If I’m working on a “book” and not a “pamphlet”, then I’ll need plenty of information so I’ll need more than just what I’ve gathered specifically for Elias.

What about his children?  If each child gets a section of the book, that might give me new ideas of places to look for information.  Who were their spouses? Were they near each other in the census records?  Can I find land records that might show me how close?  Did they all stay in the area?  If not, why did they move?  Why did they go to that location?

Why not add a chapter on “the OTHER Elias Smith”?  One of my research challenges has been keeping these two men separated.  Why not include the information for the 2nd Elias.  Perhaps I’ve missed something along the way as I’ve cast aside information of the Other Elias that I need to reevaluate.  They share the same grandfather, so I really should focus a little more attention on this man as well.

And it won’t seem quite as overwhelming to be thinking of expanding a “chapter” as it would to write an entire book.  Plus, looking for background information is something I can be doing without pulling out my research files.  If I’m not focused specifically on one person, the number of resources to look at will be much greater.  And while I’m looking at these resources, new questions might come to mind about Elias’ life or I might find resources that I didn’t know existed before.

Maybe I could add side boxes with information telling my reasoning or areas I’ve searched with no results.  Maybe it could be part biography, part genealogy journal.

Me?  Write a book?  Just because it’s the beginning of a 3 day week-end? Interesting…….

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52 Weeks – Childhood Winter Time

I have to say that though I’ve never met her, I absolutely love Amy Coffin!  I enjoy reading her blog and her tweets more than any other!  She is funny and insightful and I enjoy reading everything that she puts online.  Call me a HUGE fan!  (Although now I kinda sound like a stalker or something, don’t I?)

Amy has developed 52 weekly challenges for bloggers to help recall and write down personal memories.  And I’m accepting that challenge!  But I know that I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist when writing, which tends to cause me to put it off until I have “enough time to do it right” – which never seems to come.  So I’ve determined that I will answer these questions and I will not worry about form or length, but I will just write what comes to mind and use these posts as triggers this summer when I have more time to flesh them out.

This weeks question – What was winter like where and when you grew up? Describe not only the climate, but how the season influenced your activities, food choices, etc.

When I think of my childhood winters, my mind immediately goes to the time we spent in Minnesota.  I know I went to kindergarten in Minnesota, so I was probably 5 years old and my brother was 3, but I don’t recall how long we lived there.  At one time, my mom made a chart of all the places we’ve lived along with addresses and work histories, but since I’ve never considered that to be “genealogy”, I’ve filed it away somewhere.

My memories are actually probably more like flashes of photographs that I have. We lived in a mobile home and I know that we had snow that was taller than our car, which I think was a Volkswagon Beatle.  As my dad would dig out the car, he’d throw the snow into a pile in our yard which my brother and I would use to sled down.  We had round, plastic sleds.

The process for getting ready to go outside was long.  Obviously, we had snow pants, but first we had to put on several layers of socks.  My mom would put bread sacks on our feet between the layers of socks and I think she held up the bread sacks with rubber bands.  The purpose of the sacks was to keep our feet dry when snow got into the top of our boots.  We did the same thing with gloves.  I think we put on a glove, then a bread sack, then a mitten, then a bread sack and I believe we put one of Dad’s socks on over all that.  A rubber band would keep the sock and sacks from coming off.

Snows pants, jackets and hats would follow.  Then we’d go outside to sled down our hill and according to Mom, sometimes we’d fall through the crust on top of the snow and it would be over our heads.  I know we wouldn’t stay outside long – much to the chagrin of my mother who’d just spent significant time layering us up!  Today, I have a deep aversion to cold and snow and I’m certain it stems from my time in Minnesota!

Last summer, I tried to scan the family photos that my mom had of us growing up.  I believe a lot of our family photos were destroyed because they were stored in an old, metal shed and at one time, it rained into the shed.  I’m not happy with the scans that I have, so I want to try again by taking photos of the pictures instead of scanning them.  (Or buy a better scanner and try again.) The photo at the top of the post was labeled “1968 First Snow  Blaine, Minnesota” and it’s hard to tell from the scan, but I’m pretty sure that I’m crying as mom gets ready to push me down the snow pile.

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52 Weeks – New Year’s Tradition

All last year, I watched the topics of the 52 Weeks to Better Genealogy come and go and felt guilty for not taking the time to give them a try.  Let’s see if I can do a little better this year.  I’m sure they’ll be short and boring to everyone but me, but maybe something will click for me and I’ll FINALLY start writing down some of my own memories.  (We’ll see!)

The only tradition that I remember following faithfully on New Year’s Eve was that my brother and I would always drink a glass of red Creme Soda at midnight.  It was the only time that we would drink it that I can recall – probably because of the danger of red stain on the carpet!  My husband and I changed the tradition slightly to drinking Sparkling White Grape Juice with our kids and I can say with certainty that the reason for the switch was the danger of red stains on the carpet!

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Genealogy Trading Cards

Happy New Year everyone!

My Christmas Break is almost over and I decided to take some time to work on a project I’ve always thought would be fun.  Being a teacher, I’m always on the lookout for fun ideas to use with my students.  A web site I came across awhile back is called Big Huge Labs and they have free tools to make lots of fun things with photos you upload including calendars, photo cubes, magazine covers, etc. Today, I thought I’d play with the Trading Card option.  Being an algebra teacher, I’m not sure if I’ll ever come up with a good use for trading cards in class, but I’m really interested in the potential for Genealogy Trading Cards!

Here are the cards I created for my grandparents.

Imagine my surprise to see that when download,  this “trading card” is 7″ x10″! When I tried to scale the size down in Paint, it became very pixelated.  So I opened the file in Photoshop and changed the dimensions and also changed the dpi to 300 instead of 72.  That made quite a difference!

So I’m thinking of the possibilities and I’m picturing a set of cards, similar to these.  The background color could be different for each of my 4 grandparents’ lines.  Since I rarely research my Dad’s side of the family (my grandmother was the one who got me started in genealogy and has done a thorough job) I could decide to make my colors different for each of my maternal great-grandparents’ lines.

Would it be helpful to have a set of cards like this when I’m researching?  I like the idea of knowing at a glance which line an ancestor belongs to.  And I love the idea of laying the cards out in a tree patterns to help keep me on track.  But is it worth the time?

The cards would be a quick look at names and relationships, but not many details – unless I could add information on the back.  Would these be easier to carry than group sheets?  I guess that depends on where I am.  To have in my purse to pull out on a whim – yes.  But to have when I’m doing research – I’d probably prefer my group sheets.

I love the idea of pulling out the cards when I’m at a family gathering.  I think that could generate some interest in helping with my research among my family members. They could be great conversation starters to get the stories flowing. But would they be as effective if I didn’t have a picture for an individual?  I could have pictures of tombstones, or icons to show occupations if I didn’t have a picture.  Or a map of the location they are from.

Which made me think that I could have cards for different locations where the photo is a map and the information is all about that county or town. These cards could be helpful in spotting incorrect information.  For example, I often see group sheets which have a location for birth in a year before that county was formed.  Or if I see a town listed in a pension file, I can tell if it was in a certain county. Here’s an example I made for Russell County.

How about cemetery cards?  The card could remind me how to get to the cemetery or could have a list of ancestors buried in that cemetery.

Military Cards?  I have trouble remembering which military unit different ancestors were with during the Civil War.  Perhaps a card for each unit listing which ancestor served and what battles the unit participated in?

Well, now I’m really excited to imagine this pack of genealogy cards.  Would it be worth the time?  Time that could be spent actually researching? It could be a nice little ongoing project for when I just have a little bit of time.  One drawback to the web site is that you cannot save the cards – although it does save the photos that you upload, as long as you become a member (which is free). I also wish that I could change the font or make some parts bold or center all of the text.

So maybe I’ll start working on a Word template that could do the same thing. I can picture in my mind how it could work, and if I actually get it done, you can bet that I’ll post it here!

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