Author: Kathleen

Re-Organizing my Old Blog Posts

Posted on by Kathleen

I’m here to show you how I’ve become a complete organization addict. I’ve been doing really great at setting my organization up for my Genealogy Do-Over. I am still working on that and still working through Mastering Genealogical Proof by Thomas W. Jones. It’s going against everything in me not to follow some leads that I see in my head as I look at some of my old blog posts.

Speaking of old blog posts. I am re-organizing them. I never really used a consistent organization method with them and that’s what I’m going back and changing now. I have a lot more time on my hands while I work through my other tasks. The most important reason is I want to be able to find what I’m looking for easier. I use the blog as a way of talking things over with myself or others. I think this will help me to remember what I’ve already said on a subject before and to easily find past entries.

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SNGF: Genealogy Database Statistics

Posted on by Kathleen

It’s Saturday night and time for another round of Saturday Genealogy Night Fun from Randy Seaver! This week Randy tells us to go into our genealogy management program and share some statistics! This means how many people, places, sources, and more!

Since I’m starting a Genealogy Do-Over, I will show both my old file and my new one. There should be a drastic difference here!

Old Family File

In my old family file here are the basic statistics:

  • Number of Individuals: 3957
  • Number of Families: 1170
  • Unique Surnames: 788
  • Master Locations: 821
  • Master Sources: 404
  • Citations: 23,955
  • Events: 7619

Time for the new one!

New, Clean Family File
  • Number of Individuals: 66
  • Number of Families: 25
  • Unique Surnames: 25
  • Master Locations: 38
  • Master Sources: 19
  • Citations: 189
  • Events: 11

Definitely a difference there! I haven’t even finished adding in my first cousins and their children into the new file yet!

If you’d like to participate, head over to Randy’s blog and get the instructions. 🙂

Coincidences

Posted on by Kathleen

I’ve talked about coincidences before on my blog. It seems there is always a little taste of it in genealogy research. Two of the first coincidences that I remember coming across, I’ve already blogged about. The time I found someone from my mother’s side of the family, in a book halfway across the country that my father’s side of the family owned. The other time was when I got some Redford family photos from my Great-Aunt Barb and it had William H. Moore written on the back. This would be a generation before my Moore grandfather married my Redford grandmother.

I’m back today with another Redford coincidence, but this time when it comes to the address they lived at. Between 1910 and 1920, Herbert Redford and his wife Sadie Sutcliffe-Redford lived at 16 Gist Place in Orange, New Jersey.

herbertredford1910

Well, now that I know who Sadie’s parents are, I was able to do some census searching for her siblings and parents. It just so happens I found another coincidence around the corner and a couple blocks away from Herbert and Sadie’s residence.

gistplace

The location of this other household is not the coincidence. It’s their surname.

johngist1910

The household at 197 Day Street is the home of John Gist and his wife Alice. Alice’s maiden name just happens to be Sutcliffe and her sister Elizabeth Sutcliffe even lives with her. Alice and Elizabeth are the sisters of my 2nd great-grandmother, Sarah (Sadie) Ann Sutcliffe.

It’s definitely a small genealogy world. It’s crazy to think Sadie’s family has been there all this time. I’ve had Herbert and Sadie entered into my database for over 10 years and now, I find Sadie’s sister just a few census pages from her in 1910.

Note: This research was done before I started my Genealogy Do-Over.

Genealogy Go-Over: Actually Do-Over

Posted on by Kathleen
genealogydoover

The series of posts I will be writing is based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. 🙂

It doesn’t matter much what I call it. However, I was fired up about something this week and I went on a walk to think about things. I try to do that if I really want to think about something. 20 minutes later, I decided I’m opening up a new, blank Legacy Family Tree file and starting fresh. I could spend a lot of time “fixing” my current working file or I could open a new one and start fresh! I am already going through all this trouble of re-examining my documents and re-writing my sources, so why not just start fresh. I wanted to make this decision before I got into any new researching. I’m hopefully setting myself up for never having to do this kind of thing again! I am certainly much more organized already.

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Find a Grave – Sutcliffe

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While I am starting the Genealogy Do-Over/Go-Over, I am not researching anything new. However, I had a couple of post ideas before I started that I thought I’d still share.

I recently got in the marriage record for Paul Sutcliffe and Mary Senior from the State Archives. The New Jersey State Archives is a wonderful source of New Jersey information for me and I am planning a trip there someday, hopefully soon!

3824-PaulSutcliffe-MR
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Adobe Spark

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I watched a great tutorial video from Amy Johnson Crow about Adobe Spark. I was inspired to make a video about my grandmother’s ancestors to share with my family. I also attended a Google Hangout with DearMYRTLE’s distant cousin, Sweet Sadie, which was another great walk-through of creating a video. It was a fun, quick process… well besides hearing myself talk. That’s always strange!

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Genealogy Go-Over: Setting Guidelines

Posted on by Kathleen
genealogygoover

The series of posts I will be writing is based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. 🙂

This post is about the procedures and guidelines I am setting up for myself. I even made pretty Word documents, because if I make a list, that means I mean business! I hope at least!

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Decoration Day, 1923

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In 2011, I posted one picture from my great-grandmother’s collection. It was of a Decoration Day parade in Caldwell, New Jersey. Here is another few pictures from that same day. I happen to also know thanks to Llewellyn’s diary, that her and her mother used to volunteer with her church to decorate the graves of veterans also. She sure was one great lady. I am thinking of all our fallen soldiers today.

Decoration Day, 1923
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