Two of my previous blog posts have comments from people who are wondering about my Bartholomew Taylor. They want to know if my Bartholomew is connected to the one they are researching. Their Bartholomew Taylor married a Nancy Dismukes in Georgia in 1819.
04 Nov 2024 Edit: Apparently this post was garbled when backing up and importing to the new URL. I’ve used the Wayback Machine to restore the post the best I can.
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!
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.
It is a snowy Saturday here in Southern Maryland. What better way to spend it then going on a Google Earth Adventure! Since I’ve been in a nostalgic mood, I thought I would take a trip to my Grandma’s house. I haven’t made the full journey there since September 2005. I’ve made the partial journey to different destinations, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen her house.
Today’s Wedding Wednesday comes with a reminder for myself! It is ALWAYS better to search out the original document that an index is referencing. Today’s wedding is my Grandma and Grandpa Wayne. My mother’s father died when she was just 17 years old, so I never got to meet him. From the time I was born to 2005, I had my Grandpa Wayne though. He was my Grandma’s second husband. They were married in 1982.
There is a bit of a story behind this marriage record. This record has always been a bit of a dirty secret to me. Not because of the contents, or the events surrounding it. It was because it was a record so close to the current generations and I didn’t have it! It was this big blank spot in my documentation. I’ve always known the marriage date of my maternal grandparents. Not only do I have Grandma’s copy of the family tree from the 1980s, but it’s always been a known day since Grandma’s birthday was May 6th and her first wedding anniversary was May 3rd. We’d call up Grandma and say, “Happy Birthday and Anniversary!” Mostly because my Mom said she could never remember which was the day for either event! Oops! haha.
p. 7-B, Taylor-Webb Family Tree, Nov 1980; privately held by Kathleen Moore, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Lexington Park, Maryland. 2001. This tree passed to me from Grandma Emogene Taylor.
I’ve come to the point in my Family File Cleanup where I have to make a decision. Whether or not to enter the descendant report for John Taylor into my family file. I have two Taylor descendant reports, the other being the one for Bartholomew Taylor (pictured above). It was easy to use the Bartholomew report because it was easily backed up with record proof. Not entirely but for the most part. Now that I’ve come to adding John and the earlier Taylors in, it gets more difficult.
The reason there is a decision at all is it gets harder to verify the families are correct because I’m venturing past the 1850 census now and into the 1700’s. So I’ll only have a number count for the children in the census and birth records are less frequent and less accessible. I have to decide whether to add these next few generations in or to leave them off. The pros to leaving them off would mean a complete fresh start with the early Taylor generations. The downside is that I’ve seen enough of the parish records over in Salisbury, Maryland to know that having a guideline would be a tremendous asset. You see, there are a lot of John, William and James Taylors in those records. I’m also finding in this cleanup that my original trees were a bit more accurate then I originally thought. Which is a good thing. There are inaccuracies but they are quickly rooted out.
Jane Menzies-Love
What I think I’ll end up doing is adding them into the tree but not adding them to the website until I’ve got more than just my descendant report as a source. I definitely don’t want my website information to get out of hand or inaccurate. I’ve noticed while getting my tree synced on Ancestry.com that a lot of my pictures are being added to people’s family trees. I guess I hit the genealogy jackpot with that picture of Jane Menzies-Love because it is a popular one in member trees. The only problem is that no one is contacting me to compare information or trees. Since I know that my tree is being used as a resource, I don’t want to lead anyone in the wrong direction. There’s no reason that adding them to the website can’t wait until I’ve got more information in hand. I don’t like to take family lore completely out of the loop, but I’m definitely learning more about what can happen with internet genealogy.
So for now, I add the descendant reports as unsourced family records and then try and find the proof in the actual records next time I’m over on the Eastern Shore. I know I say I’m going to these places a lot and then never go, but it’s just the way it goes. I’ll get there someday and I just want to be ready for it when I do. My biggest flaw is getting flustered and overwhelmed when I walk into the libraries. Not anymore, I’ll have a clear, concise list and plan in hand the next time!
On Monday morning April 16th, I walked two envelopes out to my mailbox. One was addressed to Kentucky, the other to New Jersey. My mail delivery doesn’t come until close to 4pm, so the envelopes sat in the mailbox for hours before they even left my street.
I’ve been indexing and searching the 1940 index since Monday. I’m sure plenty of you have too. For me, I wasn’t in a huge rush to see the images because obviously it’s another 10 years before another census is released. However, I was still excited to see the images! So I tried first thing and of course, there was an overload. As a website designer I’m very familiar with website overloads and slowed servers. So I was a bit disappointed in that, but decided to just try again on Tuesday.
The images are going up in many different places, the official 1940 US Census site, Ancestry.com, FamilySearch, and My Heritage. There are probably more, but those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. For me, I’ve been mostly using the My Heritage site. It works best for my needs and it’s been super fast. Even in full screen view. So because of that I’ve been able to find all my grandparents and Great Grandparents in the 1940 Census already. Which is what I was hoping to find most. I’ve got some more generations in certain (more rural) parts of the country, but for now I’m just going to share my Grandparents and Great-Grandparents.
William L Moore, Llewellyn T Moore, William T Moore ((1940 U.S. census, population schedule, NARA microfilm publication T627, roll 2340. Essex County, New Jersey. West Caldwell township, ED 373, sheet 02-A, family 38, William L Moore; digital image, My Heritage (http://www.myheritage.com).))
List your matrilineal line – your mother, her mother, etc. back to the first identifiable mother. Note: this line is how your mitochondrial DNA was passed to you!
Tell us if you have had your mitochondrial DNA tested, and if so, which Haplogroup you are in.
Post your responses on your own blog post, in Comments to this blog post, or in a Status line on Facebook or in your Stream at Google Plus.
If you have done this before, please do your father’s matrilineal line, or your grandfather’s matrilineal line, or your spouse’s matriliuneal line.
Does this list spur you to find distant cousins that might share one of your matrilineal lines?
MY MATRILINEAL LINE
Me
Mom
Emogene Taylor (1929-2005) married to (1) Stanley Lee Mays (2) Harley Wayne Utter
Lula Applegate (1901-1978) married to Marshall Howard Taylor
Elizabeth West (1868-1938) married to (1) Unknown (2) James William Applegate
Zeroah Black (1837-?) married to Isaiah West
There is actually a bit of a controversy for Elizabeth West’s mother. There are a lot of online trees that show Isaiah West marrying Zerelda Jane McClanahan. There is even a Kentucky marriage record for this fact. However, all of Isaiah’s children list Zeroah Black as their mother on the death certificates. Also, the marriage record shows the marriage as happening 10 years before I estimated it from different sources. So for now I’m on hold with the West family until I can sit down and timeline the family so I can find out where I can attack it from next.
I haven’t had my DNA tested but I plan to once I finish the family file cleanup. I’m fascinated by the process and would love to see what kind of results I would get.
I’m always on the lookout for distant cousins! No extra spurring needed!
