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Blog Entries: 1 to 10 of 17
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What Next?
I have 2 questions today:
- After hearing our last speaker, how many of you went back to start reorganizing your research? Or vowed to organize it the way Suz Bates did from here on out? Or thought about it and ……?
- My plan was to use Suz Bates’ suggestions, look for location first and see if I could locate the birth place (verify it) for my 3x great grandmother. I have all sorts of information that says her daughter was born in New York. If they have a city, it is Champaign. I thought this would be easy and then I could verify the parents’ birth places. Is anything in genealogy easy? I think not. What next steps do you take when the city you are looking for doesn’t seem to exist?
Let’s tackle the 1st question 1st. Did I think about reorganizing? Yes! Did I move forward with it? No. I may in the future, and we will leave it at that.
Question 2 is the challenge I am focusing on now. The reason I was focused on this, my 2x great grandmother, is that all the census reports that I have for her and her husband say her father was from England and spoke English and her mother was from Canada and on some it says she spoke Scottish and on others she spoke French. My thinking was, “go back to what your last known information, Heidi.” That would be their daughter’s birth, in Champaign, New York in 1847. It turns out I don’t know what I thought I knew. So, what next?
Genealogy is a puzzle. We hear that all the time. What do we do when we can’t find the piece we are looking for? We look for the patterns, colors, shapes that surround the missing piece and go hunting, often on the floor, in the dog dish or with the baby. My point being that you look all around to see what might match up. Could there have been a Champaign in a nearby bordering state? Could it be Champlain even though numerous different items say Champaign?
I do have names for her parents but that hasn’t helped me up to this point, so I am going to step away for a bit, stay with Suz’s suggestion, and continue to search for the mysterious location.
So I stepped away, did you miss me? I decided to look for land information, a step ahead of the next speaker. I didn’t find anything but, one hint took me to FamilySearch where there was a birthday notice. You know, “one of your ancestors has a birthday coming up.” The first name on the list was the ancestor I was looking for. Wait! It says she was born 1 May 1847 in Champaign, OHIO! Sure enough, that place exists and has lots in it with her name….Now what? Like in Hearst Castle, “KEEP SEARCHING!” (maybe you won’t get that one)
Until next time, sign up for more classes and lets “KEEP SEARCHING” for our family history mysteries.
Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com
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Googling for Gems
My plan from last week was to review previously seen documents looking for new information and then to find 2 new sites to find additional information. Here is my question to you, what are some sites you commonly use besides the big databases such as ancestry.com, family search and my heritage?
Do you go to local library sites in the area you are researching? Do you look for genealogical or historical societies in the area? How do you find these sites? Which sites do you look for? Are there specific items in specific sites or do you look for general sites that hold the potential for several facts to be uncovered.
One idea is to talk to your family history colleagues, friends, HQ librarians and find out what they use. Many resources, such as Family Tree Magazine or YouTube videos such as Genealogy TV identify the best sites to use. They often do this each year to highlight the new sites that may be available. When you find facts that others have connected to your ancestors, look at the sources they used and at the original documents. Often their sources will be identified, and you can look in those locations.
Another idea is to Google information which is what our latest class topic explained and boy if you missed this one it was a great class. It was as much about organization as it was about finding things using Google and Google Scholar. She talked about and showed us how to use Google Translate, how to find entire books on sites that can be downloaded and translated if needed, and how to develop a system on your own computer for filing and linking all of your findings so that they can be saved and found again when you want them. Suz Bates was outstanding, and we got her just 3 presentations before she retires from speaking!
One of my biggest take-aways was the use of the triangle – Location, Era, Group. I don’t know why I just realized this, slow I guess, but your research workflow should be location, era, group and then the individual you are researching. She talked about looking for databases and then how to use them, asking where they were from and where they are now, who created them and why they were needed. It gets back to putting our information and people into historical context. It is going from the general to the more specific.
If you are interested, contact HQRL at 253-863-1806, pay for the class and they will let me know so that I can send you a link to the recording and give you the handout. While there sign up for the next classes on Using Real-Estate Deeds and how to use My Heritage.
In the meantime, I am going to apply what I learned today to see what I can find on my 3x great grandparents from McDonough Co, Illinois – 1800 – 1870 - Arnold Family. See how I did that? Wish me luck!
Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com
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Isn't Learning Fun
(A little side note – I apologize for last week's entry. My system has decided not to let me into our website, so I entered it from my phone which didn’t allow me to edit. Oh well!)
I have to ask, did you get unstuck or at least find something new? As you read in my information, I didn’t get unstuck on the person I was looking for only because I didn’t know I had it wrong, but I did correct my thinking and apologize to all those census takers that I thought had it wrong. I do think that I will continue reviewing previous data for a while. I have, over the years, found items that I had overlooked when I went back.
When I was teaching high school, we talked about the “reticular activating center.” It is the part of the brain that filters information through it to bring relevant information to our attention. You know, when you buy a new car and suddenly notice everyone is driving the same car. I mention this because I received this months issue of “Family Tree Magazine” and here are a few of the topics: WWII ancestors (sources for my father’s story), Kentucky resources (which our April speaker mentioned), How to use Full-Text Search on Family Search (which our other April speaker mentioned), MyHeritage resources (our June speaker), and Planning a Family Reunion (which will get at involving family in family history – November class). I also got a newsletter from the “Occasional Genealogist” and “Genealogical Gems.” These issues cover looking at religious records and developing educational plans and using Google. All of these we have discussed or will be discussing. Look at all the places for new and continued learning on topics you may be interested in.
I mention these things because as we learn and do more family history research, we can pick up ideas and learn more from so many places. It is called “generative learning,” learning that generates more questions and more curiosity and more learning. We used to refer to this as lifelong learning, but I like generative. It goes beyond just learning new things. It actively engages us in applying what we learned to learn more. I like that concept.
Our next 2 topics are about using Google for family history research and about using Real Estate Deeds. I wonder how far back these things can take us. I wonder what new stories we can find. Did my ancestor really sell his tavern in Kentucky to create Brandenburg, Kentucky? Remember, Debbie last week encouraged us to look at executors and witnesses, what names can we find, do they show up as neighbors (FAN) in the census reports? So many questions Heidi!!!!!!!
Isn’t learning FUN?
Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com
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Stuck or Are You?
Happy World Heritage Day on April 18!
What do you do when you are stuck and have been for a while? Reading my own blog entries, I would apply the new learning I am doing and see what I find. Sometimes that just doesn’t get me unstuck right away. What about you?
This morning, I was thinking, go look again, you need to “walk the talk” as they say. Then I thought, maybe I need a little recharge or “reboot” in tech terms. Maybe what I need is to look at someone I haven’t looked at for a long time and see if I find anything new. So that is my plan today. I will start with my 2x great grandfather on my dad’s paternal side and review the information I have, look for new hints to questions I have yet to answer in the information I have, and then look for at least 2 new resources in which I haven’t tried to find life stories for him yet.
Remember the phrase, “current level of awareness’? I hope that after 3 months of classes in 2025 alone that my current level of awareness is not the same as it was earlier in the year. When I look at previously seen information with new eyes, there is a chance that something new will appear. Perhaps a note on a census that I had glanced over or a sibling that I had ignored that may have a story to tell. It is the stories that I look for. Yes, I need the birth, marriage, death information but it is the living in between that I want to know and that is sometimes harder to find the further we go back. It may be in the history of the area or country and then knowing your ancestor’s role in that history so some of it may be educated guesses. Or the new information can lead us to the family that came before.
I think that is “indirect evidence!” What can I apply from this latest class? Oh, come on! You knew I was going to go there!
This class was great! I really appreciated the logical steps to the “Genealogical Proof” needed in support finding and verifying new information. Check out Debbie Wilson Smyth at Oak Trails Genealogy Services. She puts the steps in an easy to understand, logical form. It really is like putting together a “jigsaw puzzle.” Look at the FAN Club (Family, Associates, and Neighbors) Don’t forget to look at witnesses, executors, etc. If you put it together with the new set of eyes that I referred to earlier, we find more than we might think. It isn’t easy and it isn’t fast, so be patient.
Going back to my issue, my 2x great grandfather was John R Hartzell. I thought the R was for Rufus and always researched it that way. Looking at everything I had; I suddenly realized the R was for Roland. His son was John Rufus. Now things make sense. I just needed a new set of lenses!
Next month Google and R/E Deeds. Sign up yourself, your family and friends and join HQRL on your family history search.
Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com
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Apply What You Learn
I typically try to start these entries with a question to ponder. Here it is for today: How are you applying the learning that you are doing? That learning could be from these blog entries (I hope you are learning from them!). That learning could be from the classes that you take from HQRL or other places. That learning could be from the librarians that you find at HQRL or elsewhere. It could be from your genealogy friends, books, articles, or it could be from your own experiences as you research. All of those are places where you can learn. The question is, when you experience those learning situations, do you apply what you learned in them?
From my own learning in the last class on Kentucky I tried MyHeritage again as it was one of the resources that Debra Dudek discussed. Now I have used it before but this time I followed her suggestion for looking at newspapers and the boundary differences as Kentucky separated from the Virginia Territory. I found an article from 1897 that was under the heading “Genealogical and Historical.” It was about a gentleman who died when thrown from a horse. (As a side note, this was not the only article on the page about someone being thrown from a horse. No wonder cars soon took off.) But I am bird walking ,,,,, the man was my 5x Great grandfather. It mentions his name and his sons including one who I have always seen with the nickname “Choctaw” and it mentions that in the article. I still have some research to do but it is the first time I have seen them linked in the same article from an old newspaper. I am not sure why it came up in this edition because he died long before this, but it did.
I have also learned over the years the advantage of contacting some of the resources I have found. I contacted a member of the Ostrander Society that I found when looking for on my paternal side. They just sent me the death certificate of my great grandfather listing his parents and both his and his parents marriage records. Cool, huh?! I contacted a historical museum and I was sent my great-great grandfather’s civil war records. Sometimes you just have to take the step and ask the questions. Maybe they will turn up nothing…..but maybe they will be a cool find.
April 17th we will learn about finding indirect evidence, which might be my story about “Choctaw.” In May we will learn about how Google can be effectively used in our research and how to find and use Real Estate Deeds. We will continue to have some great speakers so go to the website and get signed up or call HQRL or go into HQRL and sign-up to continue your learning.
Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com
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Kentucky Ancestors and more
Here is today’s question. You are researching your family and come across information maybe in a census report giving you the name of a state from which your family was in previously. Maybe that state was Kentucky? What do you do next?
Remember in an earlier blog entry we talked about why you are doing this work. If you are just looking for lineage, perhaps you look at the big cites and try to find death, marriage, birth records that could give you the basic information. But what if you want more or what if you can’t find the basics?
That is where our April classes might come in handy. The class yesterday is a key to unlocking the information you might be looking for in Kentucky. I will say this again, even if you aren’t looking for information about Kentucky, knowing what one state provides can help lead you in the right direction in any state in which you might be searching. Maybe not always, but generally.
What did we take away from Debra Dudek’s class? Wow! My head is full of places to look. Debra filled us with information and unique places to research, some familiar but interesting places within them. Check out Fold 3 at HQRL for newspapers not just military records. I can’t begin to cover everything she shared with us. Check out her website at http://www.debradudek.com.
All these individual state and country classes also tell us that history is an important part of the search. Knowing who tended to settle in the areas, why and when can give us a hint into what our family might have been doing there. Were there conflicts in the area that your people might have been a part of or did they leave to avoid the conflicts, and what side were they on. That information can connect you to the correct sites to find more information.
History is not just about battles, but it could be the land boundaries. For example: before 1776 Kentucky records might be found in Virginia state government records as it was part of the Virginia Territory. And do you know the migration routes your family might have taken to get into and out of Kentucky? By land or by water? History could be about the weather. My grandmother had to leave Colorado because of her asthma and the arid conditions in her location. Be open to thinking about all sorts of reasons people might have moved into an area or out of an area. What did they do for a living? Did they move for jobs.
The 2nd class in April is about Indirect Evidence. If you are challenged in your search, perhaps looking at brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, neighbors, cultural groups in the last know vicinity or hint of a location might be the ticket. Check out the class on April 17th.
Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com
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King's Daughters and More
Last week’s entry was a long one so lets get right to it today. Have you found any of those French-Canadian men and women in your tree yet? I didn’t find any of Les Filles Du Roi but thank you, Lisa (our speaker) for connecting me to France and for giving me a bit of a kick start into researching these challenging branches. Any of you have relatives from Valence, Dauphin, France in late 1600s? I have a lot of research to do!
I also checked out her YouTube channel, @HaveRootsWillTravel where there are lots of videos to watch and fascinating information. Lisa really gives us the history of the locations that the men and women came from and moved to. She explains their personal stories as she has found them through her research. She also helps to explain the role that each of the groups and/or individuals played in the history of the area. She is a great storyteller and historian as well as genealogist. Check out these videos.
One of my take-aways is to listen to how she tells the stories. What can I learn from them that I could apply to my own family history stories? This is an important question I believe. One of the ways we can connect with younger family members or get other members interested is through the stories that we tell. Don’t underestimate the power of your own stories as they unfold through your research. Remember, this Blog started with the message from another speaker, DearMyrtle, who said that one of the keys to being an effective Genealogist / Family Historian was to share what you have learned!
With that said, April takes us to 2 new topics: Finding our Bluegrass Roots and Indirect Evidence. Whether you have Kentucky connections or not, learning from these speakers is always eye-opening as we pick up tips from how they research regardless of the location. Indirect evidence, I’ll bet we can all learn from that one. Any brick walls in your tree that you want to break through?
Go to hqrl.com and get signed up for classes or go into the library and see what you can find and then sign up for classes or call the library. Whatever method you choose, let’s see you at the next class.
Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com
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Beginning Tips & King's Daughters Class
So, a full agenda on today’s entry. Let’s start with the beginner tips and I am throwing 2 at you today. The first one is that after you have started to look at those big sites, your favorites and some new ones, you need to do a little gap analysis. We need to do this continuously whether beginners or not. What do I know? What do I need to or want to know? Where have I looked? Where else could I look? The answers to these questions are not only in your own research and stories but are where the classes, like those offered at HQRL, come into play.
Here is an example. I have a 3 times great grandmother that on a census report for her daughter says that she came from Canada (French side). This would have been the early 1800’s. So that is what I know? I have no other information except the name of her spouse and that he was English. Where have I looked? Where else could I look? What I know is that March 20, 2025, HQRL offered a class, King’s Daughters that focused on finding French-Canadian ancestors. Will I get some ideas?
The 2nd tip goes with the previous one in my head. The tip is to have a PLAN. I know this one is a challenge because everyone wants to just jump in and start looking for stuff. How many times have we gone to the computer or to the library and started looking with this plan: “Today I will add every hint I can find on my entire family.” How well did that work? Did you stay focused and find what you needed or get sidetracked looking for “shiny items?”
Keep your gap analysis in mind and set a more focused plan. “I am going to follow the trail backwards to look for my 2 times great grandmother in census records. I will also look at her siblings for information about their mother. I will look at information on my 3 times great grandmother near the birth of her daughter that might indicate her movements forward and backwards.” Now, this may not be perfect but at least it is more focused and gives me more chances to find what I am looking for. Instead of going all over the place, if I find hints I can keep a log nearby with places that I might look at later so that I don’t lose that information. Whew! Remember we said, “Genealogy is not easy!”
Now what about those French-Canadian women (and men)? Wow, what a great class we had. I will add more about it in next week’s entry but let me say that now I have ideas as to what to look for and what the history was of the brave women and men that helped build Quebec and the surrounding areas and migrated into the US. Check out the resources at HQRL itself: French-Canadian Sources, The French-Canadian Heritage in New England, French-Canadian Roots, French Dictionary, and French-Canadian At a Glance. Also, check out http://www.youtube.com/c/HaveRootsWillTravel, one of the resources from our speaker, Lisa Elvin-Staltari. She also has the following sites: www.haverootswilltravel,com and Have Roots Will Travel Podcast.
What solutions can you find in Kentucky? Check out the class on April 3rd. And what happens if you can’t find the vital records? Check out the class on April 17th about finding indirect evidence. Sorry, this got long….so much information. GO TO HQRL for more.
Happy Hunting!
Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com
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Beginning Tip #4
Here we are again. Just to re-cap, we have discovered why we are doing the family history work, general starting organization, and where we should start. Now we need to research, but where?
If you have done any research, you probably have a couple of go-to sites. Places that you are familiar with like genealogy.com or familysearch.com. Remember that if you actually go into the HQRL library, you can use ancestry.com library edition for free and that if you are a member, myheritage.com library education is available from your own home for free.
The most important thing, as we said before, is based on your “current level of awareness” what sites are you comfortable enough with to go to every time you sit down to research. Go to those sites and play around with what you are familiar with but also find some new areas to play around in. Have you used the catalog in either site? Have you used Family Search Wiki. All great places to find new information and perhaps break through a brick wall. Ancestry also has a new feature, Ancestry Network that will help you connect your FAN Club.
Oh wait! Do you know what that is? FAN Club is Family – Associates – Neighbors. Sometimes when we can’t find the vitals on say a great-grandparent, we might notice in the census sheets that we keep seeing the same names. That is because people sometimes moved in groups (family, friends from the same homeland, church members, etc.) – FAN Club. This is really just to point out that even our big sites change and going to new places in them helps us learn more and connect with more people.
Besides going to new areas of our familiar sites, try 1 new site a month. Maybe it is a big site like Findmypast or linkpendium (google them for details) or maybe it is a library or history society or genealogy society in an area your are reaching. Maybe it is NARA, the National Archive. Take an hour to just look around in the site to see what they have to offer before you plug in a name and try to find a long-lost ancestor. Embrace to joy of research.
You know, family history research is not easy and it is not fast. Our family history didn’t happen overnight, and it won’t unfold overnight. It is a big puzzle with something always waiting to be found. Enjoy the journey.
Another place to start is to take classes, hopefully at HQRL but online, some even free. Find what works for you. Our next ones are about French-Canadians, Kentucky and another about using indirect evidence (what happens when you can’t find a specific vital record). To me it is the learning and the stories that we discover like finding that a great-grandparent worked for the WT Tubing Company and what that company did. How did I find it? Playing around on a site and finding an old city directory.
Be a learner and Enjoy!
Heidi Geise, Education Coordinator (education@hqrl.com)
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Beginning #3: Where Do I Start?
As I have done more family history and taken our HQRL classes and those offered other places, one of my take aways is to find sites that you like with speakers that you appreciate. YouTube has all sorts of short videos by great presenters. Google genealogy and see what you find and mess around on the big sites like Ancestory.com, MyHeritage.com, and FamilySearch.com. There is an amazing amount of information on these sites and others that suggest how to go about finding the information you need and the stuff you didn’t know you needed until you found it! They can help you get started. Don't forget RootsTech happening right now!
So where do you start? I found a list of steps on several of the above sites and one thing I noticed that they had in common……Don’t look at other people’s trees until you have some facts under your belt. What does that mean? Have you talked to your family members to see what they know? Do you know the names, dates, and locations of parents and grandparents? Are there stories that you have heard passed through the family? Have you checked any of them out? Have you checked out the box in the attic or basement (or in my case the garage)?
YOU START WITH WHAT YOU KNOW! Who do you know the most about? YOURSELF! Find your favorite Family Group Sheet and/or a 5 or 6 generation pedigree chart, you can check into HQRL and they have some available. Fill in the facts that you know starting with yourself. Next go back to your parents and do the same and then your grandparents.
Genealogy is always done backwards. Start with the most recent and go back into time. This makes perfect sense if you think about it. We know more about, for example, our grandparent’s lives at the end of them than we did at the beginning. By working this way, you can begin to see trends and verify information. Do names of siblings match from one generation to the next where appropriate and the same with children. Are spouses, parents, dates and locations making sense?
Before you start digging around in those enormous databases, have you interviewed the family? I know I said that before, right? What do you want to know? Remember that earlier post about why and what? Do you want to know where that family recipe came from that gets served every holiday? I heard a story once; Dad went to his wife and asked why she cut the ends off the ham before cooking. Mom said “because my mom did.” He asked grandma, “why do you cut the ends off the ham?” Her answer. “Because my mom did.” So, you guessed it, “Great grandma, why do you cut the ends off the ham before cooking?” Great grandma looked at him like he was silly, “Because my oven is too short!” Ask the people that were there what life was like, where did you live, why did you move, etc. Do realize that there may be some ham stories in the mix. People will remember what they can or in some cases want to remember or want to tell you, but you will have a start and you can check things out from there.
Another starting point is to look around the house, grandma’s attic, etc for photos and documents. You may have all sorts of information right under your nose in the family Bible, shoebox of photos and newspaper clippings, yearbooks, etc. Again, check out HQRL. They have a list of places to search for those “in your home treasures.” Ask for the Beginners Packet.
This is enough for now. You need time to do the work and sign up for classes:
• March 20 – French Canadians
• April 3 – Kentucky
• April 17 – Indirect Evidence
• May 1 – Google Your Way to Genealogical Gems
Happy Hunting!
Heidi Geise – education@hqrl.com
HQRL Education Coordinator
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