Oops I got distracted

Posted on by Kathleen

I may or may not have spent my last two evenings lost in Google Earth and Panoramio. I don’t mean to be distracted by these things but I can seem to help it. I’ve realized over the last couple of weeks that I haven’t done much traveling at all. Back and forth to family reunions doesn’t count as traveling. Especially since they are usually quick weekend trips. I long to travel. I don’t know how well I’d hold up, because I’m kind of a homebody, but I’d like a chance to try.

In these contemplations, I also realized I have a great obsession with medieval castles. I have certain obsessions with certain time periods and the medieval time period seems to be another one. I can’t help it. I don’t romanticize it, I promise! I know it was a brutal and bloody time. It’s the architecture and families and that fascinate me. Family dynamics are so complex and unpredictable. Maybe that’s why I love genealogy so much too.

I’m big on full disclosure, as you all know, so I have to be upfront about my recent distraction. It wasn’t just castles I was caught up in. I was caught up in Scottish Clan histories and matching up castles with clans. I brought up a list on Wikipedia of all the castles in Scotland and I started trying to plot them in Google Earth so I could come back to them anytime I wanted. It was wonderful.

The photography on Panoramio is just gorgeous. I’ve got to read the Terms of Service and stuff before I post any pictures from there. I might have to contact the original photographers. It might be months before I build up an awesome Castle post, but boy do I want to. I get so inspired when I see the great things other people do. I even played with my camera yesterday. Found settings I never knew existed. Someday I’ll have a new camera, until then mine will work to get the logistics down.

I better go get the laundry in before I get distracted again! Sorry for no pretty pictures this time, I’ll just have to leave you with one of Castle Menzies from one of my Google Earth Adventures!

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Forward Progress

Posted on by Kathleen

I’ve put this off for a long time but now I’m breaking it out and working on it. I am restoring a damaged photo of my Grandfather, Stanley Mays. It’s one of the few pictures we have of him, and it’s certainly the best one. So here’s my progress so far.

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Not bad so far if I do say so myself! This is only after a few minutes of doing it so I had some progress to show. 😉

What does this mean? Anyone know.

Posted on by Kathleen

I’ve been going through person by person, census by census. I’m trying to do this all correctly which means if something comes up, then I have to ask questions. I’m currently trying to cite all the census information for William Harmon Mays and his family. He and his young daughter moved to Ohio after his first wife died. In Ohio, he then met and married my Grandfather’s mother, Iva Belle Moyer, when she was hired to look after his daughter. This is all per my Grandma.

So now I’m left with getting all the factual evidence. I may never get “evidence” for the nanny part, but I can at least document the marriages and death of the first wife, right? Maybe not. We’ll see.

There are some trees out there that give the marriage date of William and Sarah Elizabeth McDaniels. Until I find the documentation, I’m going to leave that off, but the date sounds right. So at least I have a place to look. The not promising part of the picture is that Kentucky didn’t regulate recording marriages until 1958. So I may be out of luck, but hopefully there will be something on a local level.

Continue reading “What does this mean? Anyone know.” →

My Tools: Windows Live Writer

Posted on by Kathleen

The other day, I posted about the World War II Memorial in Washington D.C. What you didn’t know was that I was playing with a blogging program while I was typing up that post. It was tons of fun, and I decided that I will use it more! I’ve had it on my computer ever since I tried it for Great Grandma’s Journal transcription. I forgot all about it until this weekend. Then I got curious about how it could work for what I blog about now. Well color me surprised! There’s a lot packed into this program! It’s called Windows Live Writer.

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I liked being able to see what it would look like with my layout. Depending on your blog layout, you will see more or less here. I just like seeing how it would look on my background.

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World War II Memorial

Posted on by Kathleen

It’s kind of ironic that last Thursday I posted pictures of my family at The National Mall before I was born. On Saturday, my mother returned to the scene of the crime, so to speak. We live close to D.C. but we never go. We’re way to used to non-City traffic. Ours isn’t exactly Montana, but it sure isn’t D.C. either! My mom was navigating for a co-worker, who was driving a group of kids to The Mall for the Cherry Blossom Festival Parade.

She borrowed my camera to take pictures while she was there, and let me tell you, I want to go there myself RIGHT NOW!  I haven’t been since an Elementary School field trip (much like the kids who got to visit this weekend). Since it’s been so long, I haven’t been able to see the World War II Memorial in person. Boy do I want to! I am so fascinated by World War II. I collect books, movies, pictures, anything that has to do with World War II. Yes I am watching The Pacific and yes, it’s amazing!

I decided to share the pictures she got. So enjoy!

Cherry Blossom Festival Parade
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Finally Moved In

Posted on by Kathleen

I finally feel like I have moved back into my domain. Over the past week, I’ve been working on a new website for my Uncle. This gave me the motivation to dig around in the coding for both this blog, and the main site. Well, I’ve finally got a fairly uniform looking website! I could have added the side menu from the website here too, but felt that wasn’t necessary. The buttons at the top of the page will take you where you most likely want to go on the main site. The buttons are the same on both sites. Though I may change the order of the buttons a bit later today. Just to satisfy my need to change my mind. 😉

moore-mays.org main site

moore-mays.org blog site

I won’t lie to you, there are a few things I might still tweak. They are only cosmetic things in the big picture though and you likely wouldn’t notice them. I hope everyone who visits this site enjoys it as much as I do!

New Beginnings

Posted on by Kathleen

I had some trouble sleeping last night, so I was thinking about some things I could do to improve my website. I’m still trying to work on blog stuff. Just need to learn the code first!

One of the things I decided about my site is that I can add new “trees” manually. I usually just import GEDCOM files into the site. That works great, if my GEDCOM file was in shape to be imported.

The second thing I realized was there is no reason I need to have “living” people information on the site. So what I’m doing, is I’m starting from my 4 Grandparents. Those lines are going to have their own “tree.” I’ll add one person at a time, sourcing every speck of information I put in, uploading a photo or two for people I have photos for, etc. This allows me complete control. There may be some double and triple people at points in time, because I’ll only be deleting people from the “old tree” once I have them completely sourced in the “new tree.”

For those who don’t visit that part of my site, this won’t mean anything to you, but I’m excited just thinking about it. I sometimes really hate that I don’t spend enough time concentrating on a single person. Not anymore! This will also give me a chance to send for records of those I need. My file is such a mess right now, I don’t know who I have records for and who I don’t. So that’ll be great.

The last benefit of this method for the site is that I can do the same thing in RootsMagic and Family Tree Maker. I’m still determined to have both programs do the same things. I just have to figure them out. I might even be able to purchase the full version of RootsMagic in a few months. I just want to make sure I have enough for my Ancestry.com renewal in September. I should have it by then though!

I might even consider putting up a public Ancestry.com tree, once I have things under control on all my other programs and sites. I don’t know, I’m still flip flopping on that 😉

 

My Tools: TNG Sitebuilding Software

Posted on by Kathleen

Most times when I get questions or comments about my main site moore-mays.org, people want to know what I use to handle the large amount of information that is on my site. First thing I have to say, this method is not for people who don’t have a basic knowledge of how to work with MySQL databases. By that I mean, you must at least know how to create one, or have someone who can. Once that is done, I don’t think you need any advanced knowledge. That’s the beauty of this software.

The software is called The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding. It is written by a guy named Darrin Lythgoe. I have been using this software with little to no problems for at least a few years. Once you set up your database, there is a readme file that guides you through all the other installation steps. It’s very painless!

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Treasure Chest Thursday: Our Grandfather Clock

Posted on by Kathleen

The next “treasure” I will show you is our Grandfather clock. This clock has only been in our house for about 6 years now. Technically we’ve owned it since it was made in 1983. The story goes that my Grandmother and Wayne were visiting us. Wayne was huge into the Civil War. Which is only fitting since he strongly resembled Abe Lincoln… Anyway, they were visiting and going around to all the historical sites. Obviously we are in the perfect spot for that. We are about 2 hours south of Washington D.C. and about 5 minutes from Point Lookout and St. Mary’s City.

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GEA: Kentucky Cemeteries

Posted on by Kathleen

The first Google Earth Adventure was so much fun, I’m back to do it again! This time it will be taking you on one of my first Genealogy trips. It took place around 2003 or 2004? I’m not exactly sure. It was this trip when I got the majority of my Tombstone pictures. We were in Ohio for a reunion and I convinced Grandma to take us to Kentucky to visit the cemetery. Actually, it might have been her idea. Like I said, who can remember. This was when I was just getting into putting all my gathered information together. It was right before Grandma insisted on putting herself in the nursing home and the dementia set in. I even recorded her telling me a story from her childhood. I might have to attach that to the end of this post!

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