So, I’ve been working on genealogy since around 2005. That qualifies me as still being a newbie in this hobby since most other people I know who like this task are older and have been doing it forever. This has caused some tension with people I’ve been in contact with (the generation gap) because very few of them are comfortable putting their information online. And some of them must be trying to write books or make money or something because they get really snotty about references and such. I try to make sure to reference who I received data from, but sometimes I get it secondhand and don’t know the original source. In my opinion, I want all the info I have to be shared and public so that anyone else who is related and interested might have access to it (and I don’t really care if they reference me).
Between all the other things I do, like work and raise two kids, I think I have finally gotten my tree into a state where I have entered all of the information I’m likely to get from my immediate family members.
– I recently was able to finally go through some albums from my grandparents on my dad’s side and found some good photos from that side of the line that I didn’t have.
I use ancestry.com and its been fun to see the new features they have put out over the last 6 years since I started. Its also nice because they continue to add records all the time so every now and then I’ll get new data on someone I already have. One of the more recent features is the option to set up a feed of other members who have attached a record that you also have attached in your tree. That usually indicates that they have the same person you do in their tree and if their tree is shared (public), then I can go browse their tree to see if they have any extra data on that specific person and anyone else they have that is related to them. Unfortunately, in the course of 6 years, I had gone down some trails trying to find info and now I need to clean up people not directly related to me so I can make the best use of this “feed” feature (not get hits on people I’m not interested in researching).
I am still at a loss on how to present all my information in some coherent form. I think I have at least settled on a way to organize it on my computer. I attempted to make ancestry books for Nate’s side of the family but I’m not sure if the format is really what I’m after. There is only so much data you can put on one 8 1/2 by 11 page. I might see about doing something nicer for his parent’s 50th anniversary.
Anyway, the point of this post is supposed to be a celebration of some form of completion of a task – successfully sharing everything I currently know or have access to. I think I still have a lot of information to discover, and relatives to meet, and photos to find. . . but that will be a new post someday!
I started my genealogy in the late 90’s, all via computer. I’ve been very blessed to have met several distant cousins that I still keep in touch with. Strangely, I found a large box of handwritten notes from my great uncle and great grandfather that I didn’t know existed several years ago and they had done all their research via mail and handwritten letters. Everything matched mine!
I never made a pretty or fancy tree but do have a notebook separated into each line starting the farthest back that I can go. It varies so much.
For example, my Moyer line can only be traced back to the late 1700’s and my eskimo line (no last name there) can only go back to my great grandmother yet my Alley line goes back to the 1100’s. When I get pics, death, birth and marriage certs, census info, I keep copies in a hanging file for each line. It’s pretty much a big box.
Every year or so a cousin will ask me for a copy and they really only want the one main (Moyer, etc.) line, not all the other stuff. I find this odd because the people I’ve researched and become the most emotionally attached to aren’t in the main lines, they are mostly the women…remaining unknown to most.
I recommend taking photos of headstones or having them taken by local people who enjoy doing that stuff. I have a ton of that stuff from Pennsylvania from several lines, somewhere I’m not likely to go but nice “proof” these folks existed.
It’s a fun journey…until you hit brick roads at every line, then it’s a drag and I, at least, lost interest except for updating when babies are born and people I know die.