What a SCARE!!!!

I am not talking about Halloween scary or thinking you forgot your child at the bus stop scary...but I think I just lost almost 4 years of work scary.  Whew, bout gave myself a heart attack this morning. 

I have watched for nearly 4 years people discuss the pro's and con's of owning any version of Family Tree Maker.  As with every program it has it's fair share of bugs.  But last year when they announced the release of FTM 2012 with tree sync, my interest was piqued.  Tree sync is a very cool feature that allows you to sync your online tree with ancestry.com to Family Tree Maker on your desktop.  I thought this would be nice for when I go home to my parents to work offline and to share stuff with my parents.  And also a good thing in case anyone asked questions at the family reunion.

I downloaded the program last spring and until today had no problems with updates or sync's.  Last night, I received an email from ancestry.com stating that they have decided to not release a new FTM 2013.  Instead, they are doing one big update to FTM 2012.  So I did what most people probably did, opened up FTM so that it would do the update.  I wanted to see all these "new" updates.  I turned it on and went to bed.  When I woke up this morning, the update was complete but it was stalled on "downloading media" (media being any photo's or documents I had attached to the tree).  I hit the sync tree button to get it going in the right direction, when an error message popped up telling me that my "online tree has been deleted".  WHAT!?!?

I have heard of this happening to others that had sync'd their tree to FTM.  But really like most I thought surely this will not happen to me.  My chest tighten up, my eyes swelled with tears and I was about to have a nervous breakdown.  I jump on ancesty.com to see the destruction for myself....but what I am thinking to find and what I find do not match.  All three of my trees are safe and sound.  I have three trees on ancestry, only two that I would sync with FTM.  The first one is just a tree I use when I am helping friends with their research.  In my lowly opinion, it is easier to find what I am looking for if the information is in a tree.  Then I don't have to keep track of everyone's siblings and making sure this information gets put in this search or that information.  So I just add them to "My H Family Tree" and build up each family member.  The other two are my main trees "Adamson-Timbrel Family" and "Wahl-Thornton Family".  These are the two trees that I was most concerned about.  The tree however that I thought was deleted was my "Adamson-Timbrel Family" tree.  I have spent the most time and work on this tree.  To see it deleted would break my heart.  I have backed it up but not in the last few months....something I think it's time to remedy.  So I most likely would not have lost the whole thing.  But that initial fear of lose, shot through me before I could think clearly.

Moral of the story.....BACKUP!!!!  You should back up your work at least once a month.  More if you are working everyday.  I try to backup my work on the 1st day of the month.  But I have been lazy in this the last few months.  NOT after today.  I will promptly back up all databases and set my mind at ease...at least till next month.

So what is in store for my FTM 2012....I am thinking I might delete the whole program.  But I don't want to make any hasty decisions.  It is still currently on my computer but will remain un-opened until I can figure out if I want to try it again.  The chances are slim though.  I have the ancestry.com app on both my cell phone and my Nook, and so far they have been the most useful.  I may just stick with that. 

I use RootsMagic 4 as my "main" database (even though I have not caught up with all my research....that's a winter project).  And I always recommend PAF (Personal Ancestral File) which is free from familysearch.  This is a great program also.

ancestryDNA "The Video"

AncestryDNA.....so Excited!!!

What's this?? DNA??? Yep! I did it...I took the plunge...and mailed off my DNA sample to ancestry.com's new AncestryDNA.  This new (and I mean like NEW, you have to be invited to take this test, it's still in Beta testing NEW) service from ancestry is going to be amazing! 

Two years ago, I asked my Dad if he would be willing to take a DNA test for me, and because he is awesome! he agreed.  Love that man!  Anyways, I paid a bazillion dollars...ok not really a bazillion...but a lot of money to have him spit on a q-tip.  We got the test results back, but honestly I still don't understand them.  I did gather from his results that following his male line, we "hail" from Norway.  Well....yay!...that's interesting but really doesn't help me figure out how we came to be in this Great Country.  I joined the "Adamson Project" but so far no hits with could be cousins.  I still kinda feel like I didn't get the most out of his tests.  Ok, I will admit it I am not a Geneticist, but I like to think I know how to research something...yeah all this left me baffled. Sigh...

Well, so when I first heard that ancestry.com was going to be adding a DNA service I thought ok...cool. But will I be able to understand it?? And I was not to keen on the fact that I thought you could only trace your maternal line.  Which would be really cool, following just my maternal line, I brick wall at my 4th Great Grandmother Caroline Harris, whom I know little about.  I really just kept thinking this is not the path for me.  It's a lot of money, without much in return.  The combination of DNA and the genealogy world is still a fairly new idea.  Only within the last 10 years or so has it really taken hold.  Us genealogists tend to stick with what we know...paper trails. LOL. 

Too make a short story long, I looked into this "new" service from ancestry.com and found out two things: 1. It looks at your autosomal DNA! Ummm....ok what does that mean? LOL, for us plain folk without 20 years of schooling, it means it looks at all 23 chromosomes.  Good news for me...right? Yes, it means it will be able to tell me all my ethnicities.  Whoo hoo! And 2. it connects right to my family tree I have on ancestry.com.  Well, at least I hope this part will be as cool as it sounds.  Ancestry really seems to have a good site up for the ancestryDNA.  With ways to help me connect with my "cousins" and help me understand my results.  I hope this one explains better than the last one I took.  Maybe someday they can make it to where I input my Dad's results and it will connect the same way....maybe?

Here I am holding my tube of spit and my DNA kit :D

The new RAOGK...

I am part of this wonderful yahoo group, dedicated to genealogy.  I have seen over the last year, since the end of the raogk.org (Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness) site,  many people talk about starting a new site.  However, a lot of people have been leery on starting a new start due to copyright issues and the fact that it was talked of the site going up again in the near future.  I was also a little worried as I loved the original raogk.org.  I was a volunteer and also used it a lot to get help with my own research.  Well, a few weeks ago it was suggested again that someone start a new site.  Mark Rabideau took up the torch and contacted the co-owner of raogk.org.  Worked out all the logistics and got to work.  The fruits of his labors has come to fruition. 

GenerousGenealogists  I am so excited to see this site up and running.  And excited to be a part of it.  I hope to get back to helping people with their research here in Elko. :D  So check it out!  

I am missing some "me" time...

Yes, I know it's been a month since I last blogged...but until the day before yesterday, it has been a month since I have done any researching.....I know right?!?! CRAZY! It has been a long, long month. ;) With no research the time goes so sllllooowww.  I have been so busy though.  Today is the start of the 4th week of school.  So with my kids off everyday to school what have I been doing??? Great question! Cleaning, and organizing and cleaning and organizing.  Most people do their cleaning in the spring...yeah not me.  I always wait for the fall for some reason.  Maybe it's the return to a normal schedule, I don't know. But I have been working.  And I am almost done and it is beautiful.  Of course, it will only last until my next big project...

So on to what I did on Saturday...my best friend texted me on Friday and (while she had been doing her own cleaning) had found two books that had been given to her by her husband's uncle.  Still with me? lol.  One is a Lutheran Hymnal and the other a Bible.  Inside is written three names: Frank Roloson, Julia V. Mahlman and Overmyer Roloson.  Her question was who were these people and how are they related to us??  Oh I took this mystery on with gladness....nothing I love more!

Well, I wrote down the names of her husband's parents & grandparents, and took photo's of the books pages.  Armed with little else to go on, I set out to find these people.  Finding Grandpa Michael D. Roloson was not hard at all.  He passed in Tombstone, AZ in 1988.  A little searching on ancestry.com was all it took to find Michael living with a Frank and Julia Roloson in 1910.  Although, it had his name as being Mickel.  Mickel had two brothers, Alvin and Orloff, who were also living with them.  Found them all again in 1920, still living together, but this time it has Michael as actually being Michael.  Wonderful. I found a marriage index for a George W. F. Roloson marrying a Julia V. Mahlman.  Interesting... I move on to Frank and Julia to prove that George W. F. Roloson is the same person as Frank Roloson from the books. One thing, that really leads me to believe that these are the same person is that birthday's are the same year.  But the thing that cinched it, is when I found Julia Roloson's death certificate on familysearch.org.  It lists husband as Geo. Frank Roloson.  I continue for a few more hours working on Michael's brothers.  Such rich history there in Columbus, Ohio. 

It has been fun, working on this family.  Found a lot of them on findagrave.com also.  Worked with a really nice lady on linking family members and adding full dates on their memorials.  But the best part was getting to share what I had found last night with my best friend.  While it isn't her direct line, it is her children's.  In the end, I found that Frank Roloson and Julia Mahlman are her husband's 2nd Great Grandparents.  I never did find Overmyer but I will continue to work on this for awhile to see if I can place him.  We will see...

My best friend was so happy to see all I found that her happiness dripped out her eyes.  Love being able to bring happiness to other's through this crazy work of finding dead people. :D