James Henry Pattee

Two days ago, I was contacted by a gentleman living near the Sheridan Masonic Cemetery in Sheridan, Oregon.  He seen my photo of my 2nd Great Grandfather James Henry Pattee, on findagrave.  And looked me up on ancestry.com.  He noticed that I had attached a story that someone else had added to ancestry regarding his military service during the Civil War.  I added it with the intention of going back and working on it more.  This was my mistake and one I should have known better.  The story stated he fought with the 22nd Ohio Infantry on the Union side.  When you look at his military records, which I have copies of and are also found on ancestry, they state he fought with the 26th Ohio Infantry Company D. 

This is a mistake made quite often.  One person says one thing and everyone else adds it without doing the work.  I am so sad to admit in this instance I am one of them.  I was so grateful to this man for pointing out my error.  I deleted the story from my ancestry tree.  But the damage had already been done.  This is one lesson I had learned early on in my research, with this particular line, no less.  When I first joined ancestry, I seen there were a lot of people that had already done a lot of work on the Pattee family.  And I thought, Yes!! And preceded to add all these trees to my tree.  After a little while of doing this, I started taking a closer look at the work and started to see some things that just didn't add up right.  So a hard lesson learned because I am still working on this line, trying to fix all that I did.  I am even at the point, in the last couple of days, where I want to just delete everything that is there and do what I have done with the rest of my lines, and verify as I go.  I am not sure what I was thinking when I attached that story, although I am thinking I might have done it quite a while ago when I was still learning.  That is an excuse of course and not a very good one. 

I didn't stop with just that one little story.  I have been working for the last two days on also looking at all my sources in regarding this family.  I will keep working on them for the next week.  I have always been a little embarrassed by this line and the "work" I had put into it from the beginning.  I will be working on cleaning it up and finding all my sources. 

That's the good thing about being human, I am not alone in my tendency of making mistakes. ;)  And I am always open to people pointing out my mistakes.  I would rather the work be right and me be wrong than the other way around. 

James Henry Pattee 1838-1907

James Henry Pattee

This gentleman from Oregon, is working on all the Civil War veterans in Yamhill County.  He also noticed that it is hard to see the inscription on the photo of James's headstone and has graciously agreed to try to get a closer photo.  He has been very kind and helpful.  Love this community of helpers.  Thank you to my new friend. :D

Finish what you start

Well, with all these great new photo's to get scanned, I am bursting at the seams to get them started.  I can't wait to get in there and really get into these photo and learn more about Theron's Grandparents.  BUT, I really need to finish some of what I have started before I start anymore projects.  I am working on fixing Grandma Bev's pictures.  And I want to finish the rest of the indexes for my side of the family too.  I have a goal to have my binders made for all our siblings by Christmas.  We will see.... ;)

Here is a little sample of what I do with a photo once I have scanned it. 

Before

After

The two girls on top of the rock are Grandma Bev (right) and her sister Margie (left) with neighbor friends out at Laurel Lake in New Hampshire.  What a great photo.  There are many more like this.  Love this work that I do. 

Finally Home!!! Yay!!!

WELL, it has been an exciting three weeks.  But let me tell you I am happy to be home to stay for a while. ;)

When we first left we went to the Adamson Family reunion, and had a great time.  The kids really enjoyed playing in the pool at my Uncle Lyle's house.  We visited with cousins and aunts and uncles.  Fun day...if you would like to see pictures please go to our adamson ancestry where I have blogged about it.

Next, we headed back to my parents house where we spent the next week.  The kids participated in the G.R.E.A.T. program and had a blast.  And I got to spend time with my parents, sister and aunts.  We played cards, worked on a quilt and just hung out.  My sister and I went and played on the four-wheelers in the mud.  I took a 2 hour ride with my Dad and brother in law, that lasted 5 hours.  It was wonderful.

When we came home we had a very busy five days before we left for Montana.

Montana, was so fun.  We got to spend time with Theron's parents, go through old photos (which I got to bring home with me, hehe), meet an uncle that I had never met, visit with old family friends.  And spent a great day with Theron's Mom, traveling the countryside and "mining" sapphires at a gem mine.  After four days of fun, we had to come home.  It was bittersweet.

I also took the end of last week and the weekend to recoup and rest.  Funny, how we have to rest from our vacations.

So why you are probably asking is a genealogy blogger writing about her vacation trips?? Two reasons:

1. It's important to remember that we need to find time to make memories with our "living" family.  Repeatedly, I have heard "my husband started doing family history and I made him stop because he stopped spending time with us" or some form of that.  I personally, have found it easy to balance my family history research with spending time with my family.  But, that is partly because my family don't mind tramping across the country to visit old, crazy relatives or spending endless hours in a cemetery.  Not all families are willing to do those weird things or they are unable to.  Whatever the reason, sometimes it's good to set all the work aside for a while and go out and make new memories.

2. This is a short example of what I have written in my journal about our time away from home.  Take a few minutes and write these memories down.  After a few weeks or months or years (depending on how bad your memory is lol) you will forget all that you did and the little details that went with them.  My kids are not going to remember everything. Someday when your old and gray you can go back to these journals and go "oh yeah I remember that".  This is also how your decendents will be able to get close to you.  Write it down!! Put your personality into!! Let them know who you are/were.

So what's next for me and my journey through the genealogy world??  Well, I have plans, let me tell you.  I have the pictures from Theron's parents that are from the Wahl side of the family to scan and index. I have lots of work left to do on my other picture projects.  I want to catch up my personal database with my ancestry.com one, with all sources included.  Would love to work some more on the Adamson side but am pretty sure I am supposed to still be working on the Timbrel. ;)  Busy, busy, busy...  I am not even going to notice my little buddy has gone off to school....right?!?! :-)

My beautiful babies!!! Having fun!!