When I was lost in Kentucky many moons ago, I found this gravesite. At first I was excited because I was just going to Johnsville Cemetery for my Taylor relatives. Little did I know I had really opened up a waterfall of relatives. I know better now. Any cemetery in Bracken County, Kentucky is littered with my kin.
Continue reading “Tombstone Tuesday: Unknown West grave”
Sometimes, you just need to back away from your family file. Well I do at least. I found myself this week re-thinking EVERYTHING that involved my research and my blog. I’ve already done the irreversible step of clearing out my Mom’s side of the tree on my website. Which I’ll never regret, because keeping it around was just wrong when I wasn’t sure of the validity of it all.
I’ve read enough on blogs in the last month or so to make me sweat about all things I think I know. It’s been a crazy, educational couple of months. In the end, I deleted everything but my Original Family File and then I made a copy of my Random Number RootsMagic file and plopped it into Family Tree Maker. No more files for me. These three are it. The Original file is now relegated to back up status, even though I back up the other two regularly.
Continue reading “Madness Monday: Back Away…”In this post, I showed you a quick peek at the start of my photo retouching project. It’s one of the only photos we have of my mother’s father. He died when my mother was pregnant with my older brother. So not many of his grandchildren ever really “met” him. A few were babies, I think. They might have all been in the womb still. I’d have to check my records, and I don’t have time for that right now. :p
Continue reading “Update on Photo Rehab”I’ve posted twice already (01, 02) about trying to figure out about William and Anna Mays’ children. I’d link you to the main site, but I cleared it out so I could sync the ID numbers with my “Random Relative Project”. The last I researched this family, I was trying to figure out where some of the children came from and where the others went. I’m pretty sure the last I looked Anna Z Mays was up in the air because I couldn’t figure out who she married, and then I found someone matching her age, but with her younger sister’s name (Ellen). So I was thoroughly confused.
Today, I was trying to log in one of my Random Relatives in the 1880 census and low and behold, I was back to Anna Mays’ household in 1880. They were living almost next door to my Random Relative. So I decided to let myself get distracted and I was finally going to track down those grandchildren living with Anna.
I’ll be the first person in line to admit I don’t ever want to give up my Ancestry.com membership. It’s so convenient for searching. I know the downfalls and dangers but I just don’t care. It’s like my fluffy pajamas, they’re my security blankets.
I think sometimes it’s easy to forget all those other great resources out there in the shadow of Ancestry though. Just waiting to be found and utilized sometimes. I’m definitely making a trip to the National Archives this summer, I’m pretty sure the local historical and genealogy societies do day trip shuttles. Why shouldn’t I take advantage! I’m also thinking about volunteering at the local historical society. I used to know some people there and I think I could be some help. Especially if there are forms to fill out, I love forms.
Continue reading “Free Resources pay off!”I started to get a tech geek itch. It was bad, it’s always pretty bad, but it was really bad today. It’s been awhile since I had something new to play with. So I barely restrained myself from installing a Wiki onto the site and playing around with the code. Just barely did I escape the future headache that would have become.
I escaped it by telling myself I’d break out the handy dandy library card and do some searching online at newspaperarchive.com. I got pretty excited too. There’s this entry I want to write, but I want to find the newspaper article first to back me up. It’s one of those things I haven’t been able to find in all these years. I really need a Jersey genealogy trip.
Last month we entertained family from Ohio. For the first time in many years we finally went into D.C. and enjoyed the sites/sights, both words work. 🙂
L. Lincoln Memorial being built in 1916. R. Lincoln Memorial as it stands today, 2010.
The image on the left is from the National Archives. There are no known restrictions on the photo, so I went ahead and posted it. If I’m violating something, just let me know. The image on the right is my own. As are the ones I’m posting down below.
Continue reading “Then and Now: Lincoln Memorial”Yesterday I shared with you my forays into researching Hulda Adkins, #0034 from my Random Relative Project ™ (Category coming soon, I’m addicted to categories). Late last night, I was just kind of playing around on my laptop before bed. I had already turned off my desktop and wasn’t really paying attention to what I was doing. For the purposes of recreation though, I’m taking a more direct route to my discovery.
I had an idea! Why not share my progress on my “random people” with you! First up is Hulda Adkins. In my Original file I don’t have much on her yet. I have her 1870 listing, which was when she was just 9 years old.
Hulda Adkins
born: about 1861, Kentucky
Parents: Harrison Adkins, Rebecca Click
Hulda’s family in 1870 (Blue Lick Springs, Nicholas Co, KY)
Continue reading “Random People: Hulda Adkins #0034”One thing I’ve learned about myself is I work much better when I have a plan… except not much of one. Too much planning can make me doubt myself. So after a very weird, unproductive few days I had to make a plan. Don’t ask me about all those files from yesterday, some are still there, some aren’t.
