Not Three Years

Posted on by Kathleen
Photo by Wallace Chuck on Pexels.com

Hello again. It hasn’t been 3 years since my last post. Just one. What a year though. It’s been a rough one. Here I am again, checking in with whoever is out there. I hope everyone is doing well.

Have you done genealogy research lately?

Yes, yes I have. I’m currently in the process of sorting through quite a few things. Mostly I’m trying to re-acquaint myself with my family tree. I want to go through and update on some past entries so I thought it would be good to have a little idea what I’m typing about when I do. I had done the Genealogy Do-Over before, which I chronicled quite a lot on the blog. Just looking back now, it seems my last do-over post was in 2017. Wowzers.

To say there have been some break-throughs since then would be an understatement. Nobody get too excited, nothing for the Mays or Taylor family yet. 😂 I think I will need many more years of preparation and learning before I’m able to break through there.

Continue reading “Not Three Years” →

Hi There!

Posted on by Kathleen
Photo by Thought Catalog on Pexels.com

Well, that was another three years gone. As anyone still reading here can tell. I have stopped updating my genealogy blog. For awhile it was because I just could not find the time to write about all my adventures. Then life hit. You know how it is. You are going along, working, living. Then a bunch of things happen all at once. Before you know it, you haven’t opened your genealogy for 2 years and you haven’t posted on your blog in even longer.

Continue reading “Hi There!” →

Apologies

Posted on by Kathleen

First, sorry for my long absence. I never meant to just disappear for the 863874th time. That’s not why I’m writing now though, I’m writing to apologize if anyone who is subscribed to this blog is sent 1,293 blog posts in their feed reader or email. I don’t know how that whole subscribe thing works. Which I’m going to fix by subscribing myself, which I should have done in the first place.

To explain, I have been cleaning out my old domain names on my webhost. I’ve done a lot of behind the scenes changes over the years and zero cleaning out. Since I’ve been doing this website thing for over 15 years, that means I’ve built up some clutter. This afternoon when I hit delete on an old test blog, I actually hit delete on this blog. Luckily I had a backup of my posts that I had done just last night. Go me for the forward thinking? Anyway, I was able to import my posts right back into this spot, but I’m unsure if it sent notice to anyone. Also, all my plugins are gone, so who knows if anyone is even still subscribed? Oy vey, what did I do?

To make up for my blunder, here is a picture of some parrots sitting on Great-Grandpa William L. Moore. I mean it cheered me right up!

Not a Genealogy Cage Match: Find My Past First Impressions

Posted on by Kathleen 
Alert: This is a Long Post!
For the record, this is not my actual "first impression" of Find My Past. I have used it for British research a few times over the last few years. I have not used it on a regular basis. I have received no compensation for this post and expect no compensation. This is my honest opinion.

Being Realistic

In order to give Find My Past an honest look, I will be using mostly English ancestors to test it out. I’m going to give the American records a shot, but then I will move on to what I know they excel at… British Records!

Exhibit A: Grandma Gene (Emogene Taylor-Mays-Utter)

Continue reading “Not a Genealogy Cage Match: Find My Past First Impressions” →

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.

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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
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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?