No Mental Energy

I love genealogy, I really do! But some days, after a long day at work, I just don't have the mental energy. Let's face it, mining all the data from hints is work. Gratifying, but still work. I have a fairly rigid system for mining every bit of data from each and every hint. And I'm obsessive about syncing to my desktop software after every record addition so my online and offline trees are always in perfect sync. None of the process is difficult per se, but it can be time consuming and mentally draining. One hint can take from 2 minutes to 2 hours (for a lengthy census record or long obituary). Some nights I just don't have it in me.

I start with the best of intentions and then the mindless scrolling thru pages of never-ending hints begins. Click...click...click...nothing strikes my fancy. I look for new photos and, if I'm lucky, find one or two I can attach without much real effort. Click...click...click...I poke at a few user trees or review a DNA match just to see what I find. Click...click....click...I surf over to check for any new updates where I've uploaded my DNA to other sites. At some point I realize, tonight is just a night I'm not going to accomplish much.

Sometimes, I decide to shut everything down and take a total mental break. Or I might go kick one of my many brick walls again, just for the heck of it. On several occasions, this spur of the moment searching without any real goal has helped me solidify (or disprove) a hypothesis I've been mulling over. It's ok if I don't find anything useful, but if I do, I save the link for another day when I can give it the proper attention it deserves. These random searches are often extremely productive even if I haven't saved any records or added any new people in my tree (and I find them much less mentally taxing).

If I just can't put the effort into my own tree, I work on an adoptee search tree for a friend. It's a tree where I don't mine all the data, just attach or reject records. I can get thru a reasonable amount of hints in a short time, and it provides a little gratification I've actually "done" something. 

Researching almost every day is a labor of love. Sometimes you just need to take a break and let your mind clear. I find the days following a quick break are more productive than the days I force myself to work through just a few hints. A mental break is a good thing from time to time.

Image by Pitsch from Pixabay

Link Pictures to Everyone Shown

I always try to link photos to every person shown (assuming they're related by blood or marriage, the criteria I use for adding people in my tree). I do this when saving the image the first time. This helps avoid duplicate photos in my media gallery, and keeps the size of my offline database manageable.

I've noticed a trend in user photos where it's often linked to just one person. Sometimes the description includes other names. Often I'm able to reasonably discern someone in a photo based on other images I've saved. I look carefully at eyes, ears, nose, mouth and face shape to help me figure out who each person is likely to be. Even accessories such as glasses can help me make a determination.

Sometimes, I simply don't know who the others shown are and I typically annotate "others unknown" in the photo description to indicate this. If I think they may be family members I haven't added to my tree yet, I wait to attach the photo until I've found who the subjects are. Only when I feel I'm out of possibilities do I list someone as unknown. I make it a point to attempt to identify as many of the subjects in a photo as possible. Many times, the only photo I have of a person is because they were in an image with someone else. 

Photos really help bring people to life (especially with the many photo editing tools available today.) While Ancestry.com lets you colorize and crop, which serve most of my basic needs, for those who want to do more advanced or interesting techniques MyHeritage.com is the way to go. They offer colorizing, enhancing, animating (sorry, it's more than a little creepy to me), DeepStory and AI Time Machine™.  If you're a photo aficionado, a subscription to MyHeritage.com may be well be worth the cost. I'd be surprised if they don't continue to roll out more new photo features in the coming years as they seem to be at the forefront in this respect.

Recently, I found a photo of a tiny child in a casket in a family photo album. It was labelled as being the son of my great-uncle. Until I found the photo, I had no idea he had any children. The child passed at just a year old, and was never enumerated in any census or shown in any other records I've found. As soon as I entered his name the FindAGrave.com memorial hint popped right up. I doubt I'd ever known he existed were it not for the one single heartbreaking photo after his death.

I'll be putting my identification skills to the test in coming months. While cleaning out my childhood home, I recently acquired quite a few totes and boxes full of albums and loose photos. Some have names or descriptive information, some don't. Sometimes I can look at one and go "Oh! That's my cousin so-and-so". Other faces I'm seeing for the first time. I'm very excited to start making my way through the veritable treasure trove I've inherited!

Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

More Resources at Ancestry.com

 

Ancestry.com is far more than just a site to build a tree, research records, and do a DNA test to find matches. I happened to click on the Ancestry Site Map (scroll to the footer at the bottom of any page on the site) and discovered a wealth of information I had no idea existed. From links to pages on family history resources including the Ancestry Academy™, to all kinds of information about DNA in the AncestryDNA® Learning Hub or AncestryDNA® Traits Learning Hub, and links to social media accounts and other Ancestry.com family owned sites, there's so much information here it's incredible! If you want to expand your genealogy knowledge, this is a fantastic place to start!

Here is a small sampling of the additional resources on the site:
Ancestry Search - Main search page, some records are free, others require subscriptions

Ancestry Card Catalog - Search additional records, including unindexed

Vital Records- Birth, Marriage, Death - Several free record collections, other require subscriptions

Recently Added and Updated Collections on Ancestry - check regularly to stay up to date on record collection changes

Ancestry Wiki - Check out the "Explore the Wiki" links

Ancestry Live Chat  - Results interacting with agents seems to be hit or miss, but if you have a need, feel free to try it

Provide Feedback to Ancestry - Provide your feedback and comments about the site. No responses are provided, but your voice can be heard

Ancestry Site Map - Links to an amazing number of pages on the site you may not know exist (see below)

Ancestry Genealogy Toolkit - Links to Ancestry and other resources

No matter how long you've been researching, there's am amazing wealth of information and resources available to you with both free or paid subscriptions to Ancestry.com. It's important to get well rounded information, and no one site will be a full one stop shop, but the amazing resources on this site further my belief if you could only subscribe to one site, this is the one you want!

iDailyDiary Keeping Notes Organized

 

Maybe you have a research plan, tons of links to sites/records you've saved as you research, or notes about conversations with relatives. It's important to organize and save notes so you can refer to them or research them later. There are tons of tools to help do this...online, old school notebooks and scraps of paper, desktop or portable software....what works for one person may not work for another. Most of us probably use some combination of the various methods. The key is finding what works for you and using it consistently.

I use iDailyDiary by Splinterware. It's a simple to use downloadable software program I use as my notebook. Since I do most of my research from home, I don't have a need for portability (although you can install and run it from USB). There's a free version of iDailyDiary and a Professional Version ($30). The Professional version is a perpetual license, so there are no additional fees. I've had iDailyDiary for years and have never had to pay for any upgrades. The program is updated every so often, and they even have an app now (but it does not currently sync with the software). If you use a tablet for your research, the app would be a great option! 

I don't use the dated diary pages (although if you want to chronicle your research journey it would be a wonderful use of the program), I choose to use the software as a notebook. You can enter data, insert images, save links and files within the pages, easily format data and much more! You can even create separate notebooks for different topics. Take a tour of the many features to see what it may be able to offer you. 

The most important pages I have are links I've found to records I need to research, organized by person. They may be for people in my tree, people I know will end up in my tree, or occasionally a person I haven't quite been able to pinpoint the importance of - but I want to remember in case I run across them again. I also keep a separate page for notes family members provide, or recollections shared with me during conversations (so I can create stories from the information later - always with the permission of the person who shared with me.) The beauty of iDailyDiary is the ability to search the entire diary. Can't remember where you saved something? No problem! Just search the whole diary. It's also easy to add, delete and rearrange pages. iDailyDiary is full featured, simple and straightforward solution to organizing notes and thoughts.

I've learned the hard way, you think you'll remember where you saw something online, but many times, no matter how hard you search, you just can't find it again. Saving all my notes and links means I'll always have them when I'm ready to work on them. I like having them in a separate program so I'm not flipping between tabs in a browser or going back and forth from a to-do list in my desktop genealogy software. To me, keeping notes separate makes sense. If you prefer keeping everything in a single location like shoebox on Ancestry, in the person notes of your tree, or in your desktop software to-do list, that's great! The important part is making sure your notes are organized and accessible in a way you find conducive to your research. 

Since there's a free version of iDailyDiary, why not download it and give it a try? I upgraded to the Professional version because I like to support the software developers who make what I consider to be a truly useful product. Software development is time consuming and for small companies or individual programmers, they aren't making a living by giving away free software. So if you try the software and find it useful, and your financial circumstances allow, please consider purchasing the full featured Professional version of iDailyDiary  to show your support. Even if you don't choose to use it for your genealogy research, you may find it valuable as a journaling tool, or for some other application where organization is key,

Image by Dariusz Sankowski from Pixabay

A Cautionary Tale the Life and Death of Becky Lynn Shearer

 

Becky Lynn Shearer was born August 2, 1955 in Wooster, Ohio to Harold Duane Shearer and Jessie Virginia James. She was the youngest of four children. She was my cousin, By all accounts, she was a vivacious youngster. 

Born during the height of the polio epidemic in the United States, Becky was fortunate to have access to the polio vaccine, first approved in the US April 12, 1955. Polio was (and is) a highly infectious disease. affecting primarily children. It was once the most feared disease in the world. It attacks the nervous system and can lead to paralysis or even death. The vaccine consists of 4 shots given at various intervals between the ages of 2-4 months and 4-6 years old. It was highly effective even back then. Cases dropped significantly between 1955 and 1958. There was absolute scientific proof the vaccine worked.

Becky had her first 2 shots in 1957. My understanding from family stories is she had a slight reaction to the shots. Her family was planning a vacation and rather than have her feeling under the weather, they decided to postpone getting her next shot. While on vacation, she went swimming in a pond contaminated with the polio virus. The cause of her illness wasn't immediately identified as polio, and by the time it was suspected, she died just one day after being admitted to the hospital, on August 8, 1959 - just 6 days after her 4th birthday, as reported in the Akron Beacon Journal on August15, 1959*. Her autopsy confirmed she died of polio as published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on August 14, 1959*. 

As a result of hearing this story many times as I was growing up, I've always been deathly afraid of "swimming in water where I can't see what's swimming with me." While most people enjoy a day at the beach, frolicking in the water, it's the stuff my nightmares are made of. While I never knew my cousin, her memory has remained very much alive in our family through the telling of her story.

For those who don't believe in vaccinating their children, let Becky's life - and death - be a cautionary tale. Her death was quite likely preventable. Yes, she might have had another reaction to the next shot in the series, but wouldn't a little discomfort have been worth her young life? I realize Becky's story is unlikely to sway any hardcore anti-vaxxer. But if just one person hears her story and has a change of heart, then it was a story worth sharing.

Image by Goran Horvat from Pixabay
* Links to articles may require a subscription to Newspapers.com or Genealogybank.com

Working with Forenames

As you research, you're likely to find many ancestors who seem to have no consistency in their first name. It may vary from given name. middle name, a common shortening of the name, to a nickname or pet name. They may all used at different times in a person's life as as a first name. Sometimes, people just didn't like their name and started using something else (a lot easier to do a hundred or more years ago than it is today). It can be challenging to piece it all together. For example, consider the name Ella. Is it legitimately the given name? Or does it stand for Isabella, Eleanor, Ellen, Elvira, Helen, Louella? You get the idea. 

Enter What's In A Name forenames website. This free website was privately maintained for a number of years (2004-2013). While it originated to assist in names used in Scotland, often not well known by non-Scots, it's still a very useful tool and has been expanded to include names from other English speaking countries. Simply enter the name in the search box and you'll see potential results such as: Diminutive for, Pet name for, Derivative(s), Source and Notes (including the history of the name). There's also an option to include wildcards or use a Soundex in your search.

Although it does not appear to have had any updates since 2013, What's In A Name is still a very good reference tool for the amateur genealogist (like me). I've used it often, and found it very helpful in my personal research. While not an all-encompassing database, especially for more modern names, it is very useful for researching historical English forenames (many of which are still relevant today).

Image by Maicon Fonseca Zanco from Pixabay

Slow and Steady Builds a Valuable Tree

 

Have I mentioned how many trees I started.....and deleted? This futility could have easily been avoided. The only reason this happened, multiple times, was my own impatience in growing my tree. I won't say the time was wasted. I certainly came away with a ton of relevant reference notes for my current tree. But there's no way to sugar coat it - I lost years rushing to build inaccurate trees. I promised myself I'd never let it happen again. I will take my time, no matter how frustrating it can feel at times.

I try to spend some time every day researching (whether it's my tree, or trees I'm doing for others). Despite a steady pace, progress sometimes feels....well....slow. If you've been researching for any amount of time on Ancestry.com, you'll know what I mean. Save 3 hints, get 15 more. It's the beauty of the algorithms, but trying to reach the elusive 0 hints is a pipedream even the most serious family historians will likely never attain. Since no website is all encompassing, there will always be more record sets out there to review (online or in person). As families grow there are always more children to add. And as more people test their DNA, there will always be new matches and potential new ancestors found....which means even more descendants to add.

I constantly remind myself slow and steady wins the race just like the tortoise and the hare. I'll spend weeks cherry-picking hints to help decrease my overall hint count. During this time, I try not to add additional people to my tree unless there's a compelling reason. I do this to ensure I'm not falling into old patterns. Every so often, I'll work on a hint adding several new people all at once. This inevitably jumps my hint count by leaps and bounds (always more than I've actually been able to work thru in previous weeks). I'm sometimes overwhelmed by the sheer volume of hints. Right now my main tree of 1540 people has 9143 hints to review. At 10-20 hints a day, that's more than 2 years of research - not factoring in for the continued addition of new people and hints. Translation, I'll never "finish" my tree, it will always be a work in process.

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of research to be done, take a breath and remind yourself why you do this. Genealogy is a labor of love and a desire to share (publicly or privately with your family).. Each of us has our own reason for embarking on the journey. Mine started trying to prove a family myth, but now it's to ensure others I'm related to know more about their history than I did when I started. Whatever your personal reasons, they have a deep meaning for you. Never lose sight of them and take the time to ensure you make the most of every moment spent researching.

Image by TweSwe from Pixabay