Not a Genealogy Cage Match: MyHeritage First Impressions

Posted on by Kathleen 
ALERT: Long Post!
This is a long blog entry on some of my first impressions on using MyHeritage's website. These opinions are my own. No one asked for them and I decided to give them anyway. I pay the bills around here, so it's all good! No one sponsored this post and I don't expect anything in return for posting this. Just my honest opinion follows.

I just can’t let the cage match idea go! Once something is in my brain, it’s there fermenting for awhile. So I apologize for the terminology. This is definitely not a cage match. This is just me, giving things a chance for once. 

To get a good first impression, I didn’t want to base it solely on working my way up the tree. That means I am using my old file of reasonably documented people to do these tests. I feel like to truly get to know a website, you have to use it a lot and with a variety of different challenges. Otherwise you’ll never really know until way down the line when you actually start finding those things.

First Impression: MyHeritage

To be fair I will say when I first started using MyHeritage a few weeks back, I hated the family tree section. The Family View was really hard to navigate. Note: This was before Pedigree View was added. My screenshots were taken this week and not when I first tried using MyHeritage.

As you can see from my screenshot, the wideness of the tree made it really hard to navigate. Especially if I was working on someone not in my direct tree. Since a lot of my families have 5 or more children, I go on genealogy tangents often and this view was just too hard to use. This was a big disadvantage over Ancestry’s easy to navigate Family Tree.

Continue reading “Not a Genealogy Cage Match: MyHeritage First Impressions” →

Site May be Inaccessible

Posted on by Kathleen
www_slon_pics / Pixabay

Alright folks here’s the deal. Over the last year, I’ve been getting automatically generated emails from my web host company that I’m exceeding my memory. I’ve optimized all my databases regularly, I’ve set up caching on the blog. I’ve done all the things they say to do except move from a shared hosting plan to a virtual private server.
This is most likely why I’ve been getting the random 404 error messages. It’s why I keep breaking the website when I try to update and it errors out. I think it’s just time. I’m ready to go and move servers. I’m just not sure if the site will go down or for how long. My hosting was due to renew next week anyway, so this is a good time to try something new! In a perfect world this would be a great time for spring cleaning amongst my domains. Now isn’t the time for that though since my old hosting plan is due to run out. I’m hoping it all can be finished before renewal.
I hope to see everyone on the other side of this switch. Hopefully it’s quick and painless!

Breaking the Habit

Posted on by Kathleen

Wait a minute, what kind of habit are we talking about here?

Hold your horses, nothing crazy is going on here. I’m talking about my Ancestry.com habit. Don’t worry this is not an Ancestry bashing post. This isn’t even a post about how disappointed I am in Ancestry. While there are some problems with the website, as a website owner, I’m sympathetic to issues that pop up.

So why are you breaking your Ancestry habit then?

To be upfront, I fully intend to imbibe in my favorite genealogy website later. That’s right I said favorite. It’s my first genealogy love, it’s the one that I learned on. It however… expired on me. I didn’t have the subscription saved up to pay up front for it, so I decided to break my habit. I was not going to go into credit card debt just to keep Ancestry. Aren’t you proud? I’m trying being all grown up and stuff. Ha!

ancestry screenshot
Continue reading “Breaking the Habit” →

GDPR and this Website

Posted on by Kathleen
mohamed_hassan / Pixabay

What is the GDPR?

This is a complicated question to just sum up in a little paragraph. Basically the General Data Protection Regulation is a new set of regulations for European Union countries.

You aren’t in the European Union though.

That is right, I am not. However, the internet knows no boundaries and I do have visitors from those countries. Plus, I don’t find it out of line to make sure that everything having to do with your data and my data is on the up and up.

Why are you just talking about this now?

Well, there are a few reasons for that. One, I was trying to figure out what I needed to do to make things in compliance with the laws. As an American blogger who has no links to companies I didn’t think it would be too much.

The other reason was I was waiting until it was all done, so I could say this is what I did and now none of us have to worry!

There must have been an oops in the road, there is always an oops in the road with you.

Of course there was an oops in the road. That is the Moore family motto, “Oops, let’s try that again.” Most times that was immediately following us throwing instruction booklets to the side. “Who needs instructions?”

That was not the case this time. I was trying really hard to do everything right and on time. It just didn’t happen. First of all, I have a paying website gig. Even though it is my uncle, his website had to come first. Once I thought his was ready, I started on mine.

It wasn’t until I started mine that I realized that something is happening with my website. Whether it be my host was overloaded the past week and a half, or the internet itself was, I can’t say. I just know every time I tried to do something, it would error out.

Well, what is going on.

I still don’t know. This site still seems sluggish to me. It still errors out every so often when I try to click a page. The great news is, updating my software and plugins today did not trigger any more *your site has been deleted apocalypses*

Excuse me, what?

Sorry, that was my dramatic emotions coming out. There were times this week that both my websites broke and said that there was nothing there. All while trying to update plugins, post pages, anything really. That

Enough! You’ve rambled, where are we now?

Okay, I’ve made a spiffy new Privacy Policy page. A warning, the page does use most of the suggested language of WordPress right now because I wanted to have something on the site to protect us.

I also added a Cookie notice plugin. So coming to my website the first time should trigger one, hopefully? I don’t know because I clicked accept and now I don’t see it anymore. That’s how cookies work.

The only thing is my plugins. I know that they are an important part of this whole process. They are what is actually collecting data if any. So they need to be dealt with. I’m also thinking that once I deal with them, the sluggish website might take care of itself. So that’s what I will be doing this weekend. Hopefully getting the website back to how I love it.

Oy vey.

Yeah, I hear you. So… Long time no talk! How are you guys? Aren’t we all ready for genealogy ramblings again. I know I am and I have plenty to talk about!

The Number Eight

Posted on by Kathleen

The Number Eight

I’ve always had a favorite number. That number is the number eight. I don’t know why that is but it just is. Most of my favorite athletes have worn the number eight jersey. Important dates in my life and that of my family usually happen with an eight in them. Or all this could just be that I only notice eights and not the other numbers.

It doesn’t really matter though because this eight is an important one!

Blogging

I have been blogging for eight years today. For some reason eight years ago, I started rambling about my family history and I’ve barely stopped since. I haven’t really put my blog out there anywhere the last few years. I just wanted to stay in my own little bubble.  I’m not a good socializer I guess. I’m really proud of what I’ve done here. I’m proud that all my ramblings are still here. I have no idea if they make sense most times, but they are here.

The Future

I don’t know what the future holds, I don’t even know what next week holds but I do want to say a huge thank you to all the wonderful people who read my blog. You guys have stayed with me through all my breaks, and all my weird ramblings. You never let me down and I’m so appreciative of the support.

Genealogy Do-Over: Roadblock

Posted on by Kathleen

Okay, I missed some 52 Ancestors posts, but for a good reason! I was in Florida for a week visiting my niece and nephew for their first birthdays and just didn’t get the time managed to post. Now that I am home, I am facing a whole new challenge. With a new round of the Genealogy Do-Over starting in January, I wanted to re-assess my processes and where I am currently at with my research.

What I am doing right

  • The great news is I’m still doing things in a very methodical way. I am using documents and entering data first into Evidentia, then into my genealogy management program, and then into my Research Log. Once that is done, I update my checklist in Excel.
  • I haven’t entered any further ahead then what the documents show. Sometimes this is hard, especially as I’m trying to catch up on answering genealogy e-mails. I’m even thinking about a way of logging who I’ve talked to about what and how long it’s been since I communicated. That way I can start with the oldest response and work my way forward.

What I need to Improve

  • At some point, it got way too overwhelming to try and keep so many trees synced. My Legacy file is my most up to date, but at some point because of Ancestry’s hinting system, I just deleted my fresh tree and started updating my oldest tree there as I went. Which obviously provides a huge problem. Working with the old tree is not working for me. It makes me want to leap ahead, it tempts me to make assumptions. So now I feel like I should go back to a fresh tree. I could upload a Gedcom later, but then it wouldn’t be linked to my sources. That defeats the purpose of what I was trying to do. I’m trying to put well sourced, documented trees up on every site I can. I thought the old one was better because it was attached to my DNA results, but now I’m just not sure. I stopped making changes to all online trees except for the Ancestry DNA tree.  Trying to keep everything up to date on Ancestry, Find My Past, My Heritage, Family Search, and various Family Tree DNA sites was just too much!
  • When I started my Do-Over, I moved ALL digital files onto a separate drive and titled the folder “Hold Over”. I haven’t touched it since. That means there are pictures, documents, and various other things over there that need to be brought over and organized. I assumed I would do that as I went as well. My previous numbering system made it very hard to tell which documents I had for different people. One of the things I’m trying to do is to rename everything over in the old folder to my new system so I can at least see what I have. A lot of them are digital files that will be able to be deleted as I go along, but some of them are scans of purchased documents and I don’t want to miss those by accident.

It’s not all bad

Despite what my bullet points say, I am doing really well with this process. I feel like I am taking more time to analyze things and to organize them which was my point in starting over in the first place. With a quick adjustment, I think it’s going to start coming along nicely again. I’ve hesitated to work on it because I was still trying to decide what to do about those other trees.

What do you guys do about trees on various sites? Do you upload Gedcoms or do you manually enter in? Is my over-thinking nature coming out again, does it even matter?

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: In the Census (Week 05)

Posted on by Kathleen

In the Census

Oh boy, sometimes those census records can really throw you for a loop. Sometimes they might even change the entire way you think about a family you are researching. There is never a family that confused me more than the Mays family. Any Mays researcher out there will agree with me. They are hard to pin down! This week I’m going to spotlight Rebecca Mays, for sheer stubbornness!

1850 United States Census
1850 U.S. census, Morgan County, Kentucky, population schedule, Township not stated, p. 133-B, dwelling 634, family 634, William Mays Jr household; digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 6 Jan 2018); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M432, roll 214.

In the 1850 Census, everything seems fine. Nothing out of the ordinary here. We won’t even go into the fact that I don’t believe I have ever found a document that states William Mays Jr was the son of William Mays Sr. Especially since I know from watching many webinars that sometimes the Sr and Jr were added by enumerators if there was an older and younger man of the same name living near each other. I’ll get to that in my Do-Over when it’s time to stress over that! This census is important because it’s the earliest one that is going to give me ages of the children closest to the birth. This is especially important for Rebecca, who is aged 9 in this census.

Continue reading “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: In the Census (Week 05)” →

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Invite to Dinner (Week 04)

Posted on by Kathleen

Which relative would I invite to dinner?

Oh boy! This was a tough one. There are plenty of people in my family tree I’d love to have over from dinner and conversation. Narrowing down my prospects wasn’t easy. I decided to pick someone from my Dad’s side of the tree since I picked Mom’s side last week.

George Thorward obituary. Taken from Llewellyn Moore’s box of records.
Continue reading “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Invite to Dinner (Week 04)” →

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Longevity (Week 03)

Posted on by Kathleen
Janie Jegley (1906-2000)

Longevity

I thought long and hard about how I would interpret the prompt this week. I was going to do the longest living male and female. Then I was going to do the longest married couple. Thinking about all those tempted me to look in my old file, so I decided right then and there I was going to poke around my current Do-Over file and see what jumped out at me.

Continue reading “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Longevity (Week 03)” →

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Favorite Photo (Week 02)

Posted on by Kathleen

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!