Genealogy with a Texas accent – focused on Roberts, Ingram, Byrd and Burns
Here’s another great Legacy Family Tree seminar. It’s FREE for a limited time. Genealogist Warren Bittner shares his years of experience by sharing some of his mistakes as a researcher and how you can avoid them. Humorous and Helpful.
Click on the link and press the “Watch Video” button. Enjoy!
http://www.familytreewebinars.com/download.php?webinar_id=284
Online family trees can be a blessing or a curse in your family research.
They are a curse if you…
They are a blessing if you…
When I began researching my Byrd family, I met a 1st cousin I didn’t know. Harold invited me to view his family tree on Ancestry and it has served as an invaluable guide in my Byrd family research. Thanks Harold Byrd! Some of the most exhaustive work done on our Byrd family has been done by Randall Byrd. Much of his work was done in the difficult old fashion ways of the past. Thanks Randall!
How you use family trees built by others is entirely up to you. Keep this in mind. Your decision will be a blessing or a curse to your family research.
Legacy Family Tree offers free weibnars for non-subscribers on an almost weekly basis. There are presently two FREE seminars for your viewing. Check these out. Simply click the view button.
The War of Independence changed history; our history; our families’ history. It’s a story about which we want to know more. Did my ancestor help? …even a little? There’s much to be learned about our ancestors’ roles in this moment in history. In this class, we’ll discover where to start, what the best resources are, and how to tackle the research. So, let’s go in search of answers using the soldiers’ service and pension records and unit narratives.
http://www.familytreewebinars.com/download.php?webinar_id=260
Each of us wants to ignore that scalawag, that counterfeiter, or that madam in our family, but the black sheep may prove the most interesting of all. Learn to examine clues in unusual and also common sources. Learn how they lead to locating more records.
http://www.familytreewebinars.com/download.php?webinar_id=262
The internet enables incredible research and collaboration with others on your family’s history. It’s also fraught with potential traps and misdirection. A research mistake by you or others is multiplied. In the past, a person took a blank family tree chart or family group sheet and filled in the blanks on paper as they researched their family. It was a simple way to keep track of the “facts” they uncovered in their research. If they were wrong, if they made a mistake in their research, very few people knew or were affected. That’s not true today.
Family history is not a competition. We may use games to teach our family history but the research we do is not a game. When we fail in our due diligence and rush to fill in as many blanks as possible on an online family tree, we confuse and potentially misdirect others. We may leave behind lies rather than facts for our families to follow.
This is NOT a call to abandon or stop posting online family trees. I would never do that. The collaborative aspect is much too valuable. I’m appealing for accuracy in our research before we post and when we’re not sure about our conclusion to be very clear about our uncertainty. And there lies the problem with family trees. They are made up of names, dates and lines connecting those names and dates. They create blanks for us to fill in and discourage uncertainty. Family trees are not theses or dissertations. They’re a simplified expression of that kind of research and thought.
It’s OK to leave blanks on family trees when we’re not reasonably certain what should go in those blanks. It’s OK for others to question what we have put in our blanks. We should welcome this. It’s OK to change the information in our blanks. It’s OK to use “abt” or “ca” or “unknown”. Doing so may be better for you and others.
Here’s the bottom line. You have to decide. As the genealogist/family historian are you going to focus on finding the facts or filling in the blanks as fast as you can? Will it be a competition or competent research? If it’s competent research, you’ll be able to fill in the blanks with confidence.
I wrote in an earlier post about the importance of skepticism when doing genealogy/family history research. Here’s a good example. This is a death certificate I found yesterday while doing some research for a new cousin. What do you see recorded as the full name for the subject of this official death certificate? How would you transcribe this name?
The indexer for this collection saw this name as “Edith Van Connie Drury”. What did you see? Here’s what the indexer should have seen and recorded: Edith Victoria Drury.
Be cautious and tenacious when doing your research. A future fellow researcher will rise up and call you “blessed!”
Willem Roberts becomes our 5th grandson this spring to begin his baseball season! Go Astros! I am told we will soon have our 4th granddaughter playing softball in 2015. We are so blessed! (and multiplying)
The sun is shining again. The birds are singing. Hope springs eternal. Baseball is back!
Grown men are playing a child’s game and loving ever minute on the field. Baseball is the greatest game and sport ever contrived. It’s a “thinking man’s game” and you have to be mentored into the intricacies of it, but when you are, when you know, it’s magical.
Our family enjoys baseball. No, let’s be honest. Our family loves baseball! Some of the 
girls love it more than the boys. (And know it better too) The opening of Major League baseball is bigger than New Years and the Fourth of July rolled together. It’s cause for celebration and we celebrate!
In the interest of family’s history, I thought I would take a few minutes to trace the origins of this fanaticism. It’s time I take responsibility for the “mess” I’ve made and explain the origin of the disease.
I honestly can’t remember which came first. Was it watching Saturday baseball with my big brother on Television? Or, was it looking at the baseball cards he got out of bubble gum packages? Or, was it watching him play little league baseball while I chased foul balls to be traded for free snow cones at the concession stand? Hey, come to think of it, I’ve found a new scapegoat for my addiction. David did it!
By the time I was 7 I was fully hooked. I listened to the St. Louis Cardinals on clear channel KMOX radio. Only they were not always so clear in North Texas. In 1965 the Houston Colt 45s changed their name to the Astros and moved into the Astrodome. They also signed a new radio contract that brought them to KDNT in Denton, Texas. I was in business!
Now I could hear the entire game without interruptions. Except for my mom, who was telling me to go to bed. That’s when my first transistor radio became my favorite all-time gift. The little beauty had an ear piece. I could plug it in, turn on the Astros’ game and appear to be sleeping. I really was in business! (Don’t tell my mom.)
And so the disease was well established at an early age. The more I learned the game, the more I loved it. I even played the game for a few years and had wonderful coaches and teammates. But I must have been born to love the game because I was certainly not born to play it! And so I talked it, taught it, watched it, took my kids to it and exposed them all to this wonderful game of baseball. All of them caught the bug. Some are in remission but most are still as ill as their father and infecting their kids.
The Astros played their way into the World Series in 2005. It was their first and only time in their now 52 years they made it to the biggest of baseball stages. I had tickets to game 4 of the Series! But they were high up and a great distance from the field. I managed to trade them in for box seats for game 5! Only the game never happened. The Chicago White Sox swept the Astros in 4 games.
Hope springs eternal. The Astros are going to the World Series this year! (Ok, that’s a little too hopeful and I know the game a little too well to be that hopeful, but they will be more competitive and they will return to the baseball biggest stage soon.) They opened the season last night by beating last year’s Cy Young Award winner and the Cleveland Indians 2 – 0. Hey, this could be their year!
Good Monday morning! Here’s your Backtracking the Common tip for today. Enjoy!
All good genealogists are skeptics. They have to be. Grandpa Jones “improved” the family’s history. Aunt Sally miss-remembered. Aunt Polly covered up the date of a child’s birth to better match a wedding date. Paw Paw embellished his military record. And the beat goes on. The wrong information was recorded on records at the local, state and/or federal levels. Names are misspelled. Handwritten copies are inaccurate copies. Census takers wrote it down wrong. Informants on census records told it wrong. Informants on death records didn’t know the correct answer. How could they possibly provide it? And the beat goes on…
“I read it on the internet. It must be true.” That’s supposed to be a joke and everyone’s supposed to already know it. But I see many new (and some not so new) would be genealogists/family historians who don’t seem to get it. It’s as if we want to control the narrative of our family’s history instead of uncovering, recording, and reporting it.
To be a good genealogist we have to be truth seekers. We know we’re not bound by the past, so we’re not afraid to reveal it. We may not want to repeat it, but we look for tactful, compassionate ways to tell the true family story. We have to decide. Do we want to be myth tellers or historians?
Good genealogists are skeptics.
• Collect all of the family stories you can. Be respectful of family members but be skeptical. The facts have to support the stories or they’re only stories.
• In your skepticism, remember, some stories will prove to be completely accurate and almost all stories have clues in them you need to follow.
• Don’t be afraid of conflicting information. Determine to know the truth.
• Use multiple sources and work toward a preponderance of evidence.
• Once you have settled the issue in your own mind, be prepared to change it. Be open to reconsidering old and new facts.
• Don’t “break up” with others over a difference of opinion.
Happy hunting!
If you’re interested in family history, building a family tree or want to be a genealogist, check out this article by Michelle Crouch in the Reader’s Digest. It’s well worth the read.
Happy Hunting!
Thinking about getting started on your family history? Here’s a free online seminar series to get you going! It’s only available FREE through April 8. Hurry! Peggy Clemens Lauritzen delivers the information you need to get started.
BACKTRACKING THE COMMON 