Well, I'm back. Finally I have something to write about! Okay, so seriously, I have tons of things to write about, I'd just hit a kind of doldrums.
Anyway, I broke down and bought Ancestry's "Family Tree Maker" family history software a couple of weeks ago, and it got here this past week. I've been having fun playing with it (although at first it was a little frustrating, and I still have some questions). It's so much more "elegant" than the old version of Personal Ancestral File that I'd had for several years. Plus it interacts automatically online with Ancestry.com, and that's a huge bonus since I have an Ancestry membership.
The software promised that you could transfer files from a number of other family history programs, including PAF (Personal Ancestral File), which was one of the selling points for me. I definitely didn't want to have to go back and manually enter almost 1500 individual records, including notes and sources. But when I tried to do the file transfer straight across, which the FTM (Family Tree Maker) program was prompting me to do, FTM would crash and tell me I had to restart. I tried oh, so many times to make it work, and even searched online for answers, but couldn't find what I needed. In desperation I finally decided I would have to make a GEDCOM file out of the PAF file, which I knew would at least contain all the basic name-birth-death sort of data, and load it into FTM that way. I could manually transfer the notes and sources by cut-and-paste later.
Blessedly, when I used the GEDCOM file, it worked, and not only was the fact information intact, but the notes and sources showed up, as well! Hallelujah! Now, FTM is different enough from PAF that I still haven't really figured out where the sources are attached to the individual files (the notes are obvious on the person's page). And the photo links I'd attached to the PAF files didn't make it over, so I'm having to manually insert those, but in all actuality, this has been a blessing. In PAF, you had to attach the photo to each individual person who was in it -- i.e., if you had four people in one photo, you had to go into each person's file and add the photo, so that was one photo, four times. But in FTM, you load the photo, and then attach the people to it (like tagging in Facebook), so you only have to do the photo once and just pick the people from the list. Super easy.
Another cool thing about FTM is the way it links directly to my Ancestry.com tree. When I select the "family" (i.e. pedigree) view in FTM, if I have an internet connection, it will show me any "hints" it has for my tree members. A "hint" in Ancestry is a link to a possible source or other tree containing information about that individual, i.e. census records, birth records, entries in One World Tree, etc. I can look at each hint to see if it does, indeed, go with that person, and if it does, then I can choose to merge it into my FTM tree. And that's cool because it will attach the actual image, if there is one (like a census image) to the FTM file for that person! Which means I don't have to go through all my hundreds of census images and manually attach them to the people they go to. Yay!
The only negative thing about this is that the "hints" feature doesn't always find every record for that person, even if I have the records attached to their information on my Ancestry tree. So I might have the 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900 and 1910 census files, plus a death record attached to a person on my Ancestry tree, but the "hints" feature has only pulled the 1860 and 1870 census records for my FTM tree. Which means having to do another time-wasting lookup on that person through FTM to attach it to the FTM tree. It may be that there is a way to transfer all that information directly and I just don't know about it yet. Of course, I probably could have transferred my tree file from Ancestry instead of PAF, but I had more notes in the PAF version, so I wanted to go with it.
So, I've been having fun merging census records and such, and adding photos. Oh! FTM has another awesome feature that will show you where on a map (through Bing maps) your ancestors lived, and if you have their census records or other migration-revealing info, it will show you their paths of migration! I think that's pretty awesome. I plugged in all the places I've lived in my life, and it looked like a little kid's messed-up yarn ladder, with one very long spike off to London and back! lol
I really think this software is going to be much more useful than the PAF program I had been using, mainly because I won't have to do so much manual adding of records when I find something new. Plus, being plugged into Ancestry I could make a book or poster or something like that if I ever get things together enough to do that.
Well, this turned out sounding like a review of Family Tree Maker, which wasn't really what I intended it to be, but I do like the software so far, even with the minor inconveniences, which may be just because I haven't taken the time to explore the tutorials.
Next time I promise to be more interesting! ;-)
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
Where was I?
I have been sick now for a week. Darned throat thing morphed into the sinus infection from the lowest depths of Hell. My brain has been seriously fogged, and I have done little but cruise the web and watch movies via Netflix "Watch It Now".
I can't for the life of me remember where I was in my genealogical research.
This is mainly because I had maxed out all the "simple" research bits anyway -- the family tree "following" on Ancestry, along with the "Ancestry Hints" that go a long way toward the basics; the easy-to-find graves on Find-a-grave-dot-com; tracking things in an orderly fashion on my Personal Ancestral File software that's on my hard drive. Most of the "easy," somewhat orderly work has already been done.
My biggest problem is that I am NOT prone to be linear in my research. At the beginning it was easy to be linear ... you just plug in what you know of your family history, and then the Great Genealogical Websites (Ancestry, RootsWeb, FamilySearch, etc.) help you go backward from there. At first you don't know you have to be a little careful because you're basically copying other people's trees, but after awhile you get that and you're more discerning of the info you put into your own tree. From there you get into finding copies of original documents. Ancestry.com is amazing at helping you do this. Of course, Ancestry is not a free website -- it's fairly expensive, but well worth the money (and if you save up Christmas and/or birthday money, it's not so bad). They have sooooooo much in the way of original documents or indexes of documents that you can download to your own computer! I have enough original Census images on my family to choke a mule, were I to suddenly decide to roll them all up and try to stuff them down said poor creature's throat (which I really don't see happening).
From there things for me got crazy. I would get interested in one particular ancestor and decide to google him/her. Sometimes this would lead to more info, sometimes not. If they were in the military I would try to find out more about their unit, or see if I could find their military records at NARA (the National Archives database). I discovered Find-a-grave and realized I could get photos of many of my ancestors' headstones. I tried tracking down obituaries (which often have tons of personal information in them), land records, etc. And when I'd done all I could for the moment on that person, I'd find someone else and do the same all over again on them.
But it wasn't always linear. I might be interested in J. B. Smith, and from there get interested in his father, E. W. Smith. Then a relative would e-mail me about someone on the other side of the family and I'd get interested in them and abandon E. W. for awhile. Or I'd start scanning old family photos and find myself wanting to search out more about someone there. Bouncing around like a lemur on speed. I suppose at this point I should mention I have ADHD.
SO, that's what's making it difficult for me to go back and pick up whatever thread I was on when I got sick and my brain refused to do any more work. I haven't kept a log of what I was doing and when. Other than knowing that I was working on labeling photos in my computer and attaching them to people in my Personal Ancestral File (PAF).
Well ... guess I'll just have to "go fishing" for awhile and see what might jog my brain. Or, just start someplace new and see where it leads ...
I can't for the life of me remember where I was in my genealogical research.
This is mainly because I had maxed out all the "simple" research bits anyway -- the family tree "following" on Ancestry, along with the "Ancestry Hints" that go a long way toward the basics; the easy-to-find graves on Find-a-grave-dot-com; tracking things in an orderly fashion on my Personal Ancestral File software that's on my hard drive. Most of the "easy," somewhat orderly work has already been done.
My biggest problem is that I am NOT prone to be linear in my research. At the beginning it was easy to be linear ... you just plug in what you know of your family history, and then the Great Genealogical Websites (Ancestry, RootsWeb, FamilySearch, etc.) help you go backward from there. At first you don't know you have to be a little careful because you're basically copying other people's trees, but after awhile you get that and you're more discerning of the info you put into your own tree. From there you get into finding copies of original documents. Ancestry.com is amazing at helping you do this. Of course, Ancestry is not a free website -- it's fairly expensive, but well worth the money (and if you save up Christmas and/or birthday money, it's not so bad). They have sooooooo much in the way of original documents or indexes of documents that you can download to your own computer! I have enough original Census images on my family to choke a mule, were I to suddenly decide to roll them all up and try to stuff them down said poor creature's throat (which I really don't see happening).
From there things for me got crazy. I would get interested in one particular ancestor and decide to google him/her. Sometimes this would lead to more info, sometimes not. If they were in the military I would try to find out more about their unit, or see if I could find their military records at NARA (the National Archives database). I discovered Find-a-grave and realized I could get photos of many of my ancestors' headstones. I tried tracking down obituaries (which often have tons of personal information in them), land records, etc. And when I'd done all I could for the moment on that person, I'd find someone else and do the same all over again on them.
But it wasn't always linear. I might be interested in J. B. Smith, and from there get interested in his father, E. W. Smith. Then a relative would e-mail me about someone on the other side of the family and I'd get interested in them and abandon E. W. for awhile. Or I'd start scanning old family photos and find myself wanting to search out more about someone there. Bouncing around like a lemur on speed. I suppose at this point I should mention I have ADHD.
SO, that's what's making it difficult for me to go back and pick up whatever thread I was on when I got sick and my brain refused to do any more work. I haven't kept a log of what I was doing and when. Other than knowing that I was working on labeling photos in my computer and attaching them to people in my Personal Ancestral File (PAF).
Well ... guess I'll just have to "go fishing" for awhile and see what might jog my brain. Or, just start someplace new and see where it leads ...
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Sickness in the "olden days"
I'm sitting here tonight with a sore throat, feeling yucky, and it got me wondering how people reacted a hundred years ago or so when they felt unwell. Did they worry the minute their throat or stomach hurt that they had something deadly? (I wasn't worrying about that, I promise!) When their children complained of a sore throat or headache did they automatically fear tetanus or diphtheria or some other potentially fatal disease? I mean, I know I get a little "motherly" whenever Aidan comes down with something (is it meningitis? swine flu? ebola? Okay, maybe I don't really worry about ebola -- yet). So how must it have been "back then" when we didn't have the amazing medical technologies we have today and the good medicines? Did they just freak out? I imagine those who were Christians had to rely on their faith in God to help them not do that, but even then ... I think I would've been a "freaker".
As the Irish say, "C'mere til I tell ye" a story of sickness related to this photo. These three boys were my maternal grandmother's brothers. The oldest one is Boyd, the middle one Noel and the youngest one Hoyt. When Noel was about four and Hoyt two, they caught diphtheria, one from the other (I don't know who had it first). Tragically, both boys died. Naturally, their deaths were very hard on their mother and daddy, and on their big brother Boyd, too. But it was their daddy who took it the hardest. Their mother had to be the brave one as the daddy had a nervous breakdown over it. The little boys were buried -- we don't know exactly where, somewhere in Erath County, TX. Their daddy never could go visit their graves, it was just too hard on him. In fact, they moved from Erath County to Lamar County soon thereafter.
My grandmother was born the year after they died, and then another sister three years later. When my grandmother was still very small, she (Granny) contracted diphtheria. According to the story she used to tell, her daddy nearly fell apart, horrified at the prospect of losing yet another child to this same evil killer. They had a most wonderful doctor, Dr. Grant, who came out to the house and sat with Granny and took care of her until the crisis was over. With all credit given to God, she survived and lived to be 95 years old, passing away just last year (2008).
The story, although I've told it badly, is really a very emotional one. When Granny used to tell it, it was obvious it was something that had colored all her family's lives, even hers and her sister's, though they were born after the little boys' deaths. Her daddy (DeDaddy, as the grandkids all called him) lived to be very old, and was a sweet, loving Christian man, but could never, ever discuss what had happened to the little boys or even mention them. Her oldest brother Boyd struggled with depression all his life, no doubt some of which was triggered by that traumatic childhood loss. When it comes up now (primarily within the context of my family history research) my mother can hardly stand to speak of it, and even I get teary eyed thinking about poor little Hoyt and Noel and their devastated mother and daddy (and brother!).
It would be lovely to know where their graves were so we could pay our respects to them in this, the 100th anniversary year of their deaths. But the location is lost to us now. My grandmother never knew, so obviously Mom doesn't know. Mother's cousin Glenda (Boyd's daughter) doesn't know, either. Glenda's son Paul and I have been trying to find out, but have run up against brick walls in locating anything via the Internet. I managed to find Hoyt's death certificate online (and discovered his name was John Hoyt), but found nothing at all for little Noel. It's almost as though he never existed. And there is no mention at all of any burial site.
Of course, there's always the option of checking with the Erath County clerk's office vital records information, but that has to be done either in person or via special request, and there are fees involved. I hate to spend money for something that may not even exist. Someday, though, I plan to make a trip up there and just see what I can find.
So, anyway, I guess today we still have our equivalents of those "terror diseases" that used to haunt our forebears -- there's still meningitis, encephalitis, those kinds of things. And now we have MRSV, E-coli, potentially swine flu (excuse me, "H1N1" or "N1H1" or whatever), there was SARS ... and any number of things we haven't heard of yet. For many of these we have successful medicines. For others we don't. As a mother, it sometimes scares me to death. But, just like those mothers a hundred years ago, that's when I remember that God is the same, He never changes, and I can still put my trust in Him.
Think I'll go get another throat lozenge.
As the Irish say, "C'mere til I tell ye" a story of sickness related to this photo. These three boys were my maternal grandmother's brothers. The oldest one is Boyd, the middle one Noel and the youngest one Hoyt. When Noel was about four and Hoyt two, they caught diphtheria, one from the other (I don't know who had it first). Tragically, both boys died. Naturally, their deaths were very hard on their mother and daddy, and on their big brother Boyd, too. But it was their daddy who took it the hardest. Their mother had to be the brave one as the daddy had a nervous breakdown over it. The little boys were buried -- we don't know exactly where, somewhere in Erath County, TX. Their daddy never could go visit their graves, it was just too hard on him. In fact, they moved from Erath County to Lamar County soon thereafter.
My grandmother was born the year after they died, and then another sister three years later. When my grandmother was still very small, she (Granny) contracted diphtheria. According to the story she used to tell, her daddy nearly fell apart, horrified at the prospect of losing yet another child to this same evil killer. They had a most wonderful doctor, Dr. Grant, who came out to the house and sat with Granny and took care of her until the crisis was over. With all credit given to God, she survived and lived to be 95 years old, passing away just last year (2008).
The story, although I've told it badly, is really a very emotional one. When Granny used to tell it, it was obvious it was something that had colored all her family's lives, even hers and her sister's, though they were born after the little boys' deaths. Her daddy (DeDaddy, as the grandkids all called him) lived to be very old, and was a sweet, loving Christian man, but could never, ever discuss what had happened to the little boys or even mention them. Her oldest brother Boyd struggled with depression all his life, no doubt some of which was triggered by that traumatic childhood loss. When it comes up now (primarily within the context of my family history research) my mother can hardly stand to speak of it, and even I get teary eyed thinking about poor little Hoyt and Noel and their devastated mother and daddy (and brother!).
It would be lovely to know where their graves were so we could pay our respects to them in this, the 100th anniversary year of their deaths. But the location is lost to us now. My grandmother never knew, so obviously Mom doesn't know. Mother's cousin Glenda (Boyd's daughter) doesn't know, either. Glenda's son Paul and I have been trying to find out, but have run up against brick walls in locating anything via the Internet. I managed to find Hoyt's death certificate online (and discovered his name was John Hoyt), but found nothing at all for little Noel. It's almost as though he never existed. And there is no mention at all of any burial site.
Of course, there's always the option of checking with the Erath County clerk's office vital records information, but that has to be done either in person or via special request, and there are fees involved. I hate to spend money for something that may not even exist. Someday, though, I plan to make a trip up there and just see what I can find.
So, anyway, I guess today we still have our equivalents of those "terror diseases" that used to haunt our forebears -- there's still meningitis, encephalitis, those kinds of things. And now we have MRSV, E-coli, potentially swine flu (excuse me, "H1N1" or "N1H1" or whatever), there was SARS ... and any number of things we haven't heard of yet. For many of these we have successful medicines. For others we don't. As a mother, it sometimes scares me to death. But, just like those mothers a hundred years ago, that's when I remember that God is the same, He never changes, and I can still put my trust in Him.
Think I'll go get another throat lozenge.
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