This is a special treat for those that followed along all those years ago when I posted The Diary of Llewellyn for 3 years. Many will recall midway through the Diary, my Great-Grandpa Bill started showing up with his future wife. One of their favorite activities to do was dance.
I miss the Diary entries but I love filling in the gaps like this…
In fact, if you search this blog for “we danced” it comes up more than once!
William and Llewellyn Moore, 1972
This is one of my favorite photos because 50 years later and you can tell she still loved dancing with him!
It’s time to talk about my DNA matches again. I’ve been immersing myself in my matches. One of the Facebook groups I am a member of told me that the best way to learn about your DNA is to get familiar with your results. That’s what I’ve been focusing on since it’s way too cold to be outside…
Okay, I probably wouldn’t have been outside anyway. It’s never been my thing.
Where were we?
My Final List of 2nd and 3rd cousins
The last time I posted about my DNA, this chart was where I left things. I was going through trying to identify my public tree matches to see what I could tell about them. Everything is listed in my Excel spreadsheet. While I was going through, I also made a point of adding a star and note to each match that I identified. Boy am I glad I did that now. Wait until I show you this!
This new year, I’m hoping to be way more organized than last year. I didn’t do too bad in 2017, but I would really like to stay a little more focused when it comes to writing up my findings or even just sharing information with my family on social media. It feels like I’m sharing the same things all the time with no context.
One cool thing I’m trying to do this year is participating more in writing prompts. 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks sounds like a fun way to start. I’m sure I won’t be posting all 52 weeks, but as many as I can sounds perfect!
Week 01 Prompt: Start
The first week’s prompt has the vague meaning of Start. When I read this prompt, I immediately thought of my start in genealogy. I was doing an eighth-grade project. I don’t remember the specific project but my mother just happened to mention it to my Grandma Emogene. She was visiting us at the time. What I didn’t realize until that moment was that my Grandmother traveled with a copy of the family tree.
This series of posts are based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. 🙂 I just want to say there are parts of this workbook that I am not posting about, so if you would like the full set of tasks, then visit Thomas’ page or purchase the workbook.
If you haven’t been able to tell by my lack of posts, I’ve hit a plateau in my Do-Over. It doesn’t have to do with a brain block, a brick wall, or lack of information. I have plenty to do, and I know exactly what I’m supposed to do next. I’ve even ordered some new records. For some reason, I’m just struggling to get moving on any of it. I’m unsure if it’s just a little bit of burnout, the holidays, or just an overall tiredness.
Current Status
Current Status
The screenshot above shows my public DNA tree at Ancestry.com. It’s the easiest way to show the progress I’ve made in my Genealogy Do-Over. As I move through my list, I delete or update people in the public tree. It’s quite obvious that I’m on the John Mays/Celia Slusher section of the tree. I have been uploading documents and pictures to all the trees that are public on any of the DNA websites.
This takes quite a bit of time. There are days that I only work with one record.
After my previous post, some of you may be wondering what goes into the Notes section of my Excel spreadsheet. This is actually the first time I’m writing down this process, so I’m hoping it makes sense to someone other than myself!
Step One
My DNA Matches – Step One
My first step is to take a visual look at my matches. The results you see above are my matches closer than 4th cousin. With my working knowledge of the family tree, I’m able to tell just by looking at these matches who 50% of them are. That’s including my father. I’ve obviously edited out the pictures and names of the matches to protect their privacy.
As you can see, most of my close matches aren’t sharing any kind of public tree. Except, of course, some of them are sharing unlinked trees. Right away, when I’m going through my fourth cousin matches, I will add a note if my third cousin shares that match. For example, if I share a match with my 2nd cousin then I put, Shared match with 2nd cousin. Using their member name in place of the relationship.
Here I am again, after another absence. This one was partially on purpose. Sometimes you just need a mental break from genealogy. It’s not a bad thing. Over the years, I’ve learned it helps me to focus better if I just walk away from it for a week or two. The rest of my break, I have been working on learning about DNA. Oh, man has that been a journey! I’m obviously still learning and probably will never fully understand.
During Amazon Prime Day this year, I purchased three 23andMe DNA tests. I had previously tested myself and my Dad on Ancestry. I thought since I had never used 23andMe before, I might want to go ahead and re-test my Dad to see the differences between the companies. In addition to testing my Dad, I also tested my mother and her brother.
Last time that I wrote here, I was wondering why Mary was so contrary. In that post I decided that I would need to search out more records for Mary’s children. I just didn’t have nearly enough evidence to decide if the family that lived on Long Island was the right family. The first step in that journey was to order the birth records of the other two known children in the family.
It’s not fair of me to call Mary contrary. I don’t even know Mary. However, her blood is running through my veins. Maybe that gives me a little wiggle room to be a little cross with her for being so hard to track sometimes. The funny thing about Mary is that before my Genealogy Do-Over, I didn’t even think Mary was that contrary. It’s all these new rules I put in place for myself. They keep me second and third guessing everything!
Records of Mary’s life
Mary E. Johnson is the first time that my Genealogy Do-Over has made me sweat. It would be easy to just add in the family I believe to be hers and continue working off that assumption. The problem with that being, can I prove that is actually her family? The answer to that is nope, not even a little bit. It’s going to be so bad of me to admit what I thought before, but I have to do it. That’s the whole point of starting fresh.
The following record is the first record I am able to use to see into Mary’s life before she married. My great-grandfather’s birth certificate just gives her maiden name, which helped, but doesn’t say anything about her parents.
Today I am going to be writing about my recent experience with the New Jersey State Archives. I previously told you about what they did find for me. This time I’d like to tell you about what they didn’t find. As always, if you’d like to learn more about the Genealogy Do-Over, head over to Thomas MacEntee’s page, now called Abundant Genealogy.
My order from the New Jersey State Archives
Back on May 24th, I made an online order to the New Jersey State Archives. I am trying to fill in where I’m missing documents for my ancestors. That means my first step is heading to the Order List of my Genealogy Log, where I’ve been tracking the records I need to find. Note: These are also entered as “To Do” items in my genealogy management program.
I’m currently working on a post about how I deal with negative searches from repositories. Today, I’d like to shine a spotlight on the New Jersey State Archives. Recently I ordered 3 records from them. Two were birth certificates and one was a death record.
A Little Background
The death record is connected to the William Wallace Love and Jane Menzies thing from 1890. No one that I’ve talked to has been able to find her death record yet. One of the reasons seems to be confusion surrounding her actual day of death. The family record that was passed down to me gives the date as September 17th, 1890.
Typed Family Record, Llewellyn’s Boxes, 1986; privately held by Kathleen Moore, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Lexington Park, Maryland. 2005. This collection was taken from Llewellyn Thorward-Moore’s house after her death. They resided with her son until 2005, when they passed to Kathleen Moore.
