Wednesday, September 19, 2012
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?
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?
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| Here I am holding my tube of spit and my DNA kit :D |
Monday, September 17, 2012
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!
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
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
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
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.
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
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.
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| James Henry Pattee 1838-1907 |
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| 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.
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.
Here is a little sample of what I do with a photo once I have scanned it.
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| Before |
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| 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.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
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?!?! :-)
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?!?! :-)
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| My beautiful babies!!! Having fun!! |
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