Date Watching

I was reminded once again recently to watch the dates of birth of both parents and child. I was finding names of some of my ancestors on familysearch at first all looked well, Then I notice that according to this Tree Alexander Huton born  1546, but his mother Janet Beveraige was born in 1563. So this information has to be rejected, but used to clarify to see if the dates or names or both are wrong.

          I usually look for the parents by looking twenty years before the oldest child and the mother. This is also why ancestors should be added one at a time to avoid errors.   

Write a story of the Life of Ancestor

I think it is a good practice to write stories of your ancestors starting with the people you know best remembering that you too will someday be an ancestor. I started with my parents first my mother’s story then my father’s story all the while updating my own story. I tried to get my brother to write his own story he says when the spirit moves him. If writing about the living you have to respect their rights and ask them if you can and what to include and what to leave out. It easier to stick to the dead I think everyone has a story to tell and Genealogist yet to be born might be interested.

          Those that were born in the last hundred years or so might have photos that can add greatly to their story after all a picture is worth a thousand words. I have been lucky in that both my parents and my wife’s parents took or had taken enough photo to chronicle their lives.

          I use the sources such as Birth, Baptism and Marriage Certificates,  Census in the US from 1790 to 1940 (except 1890), UK Census from 1841 to 1911, some States also have Censuses such has New York State, The Valuations in both UK and Ireland and Death Certificates. I found these to be of great help in writing the story of those I know and the only thing you can go by for those distance ancestors. When I was writing my mother’s story I remembered her saying that she was born in Wishaw Scotland, but raised in Alva Scotland. My mother’s birth certificate confirmed that she was born in Wishaw in 1909, but the 1911 UK Census says she was living with parents on the Isle of Arran in Brodick her father working on a farm. Now that makes sense of her story of bring her father a Potato for his lunch and dropping it into a cow paddy pushing it off and giving it to her father. Naturally the more information the better the story and might put their lives in some prospective.

My Genealogical Philosophy

When I started researching my family tree I first looked at how others research their families and the web sites available. The first group that hit me right in the face was those looking for legendary ancestors. I knew from talking with my parents there was little chance of any aristocrats in either side of my family, they were for generations poor struggling people from Ireland, Scotland, England and on my wife's side Germany, which meant that information about them would be harder to find, but their life stories should still be told. Some others just played the numbers game just a long list of names with not too many facts about how they lived. So I decided to try to find out as much as I can about each generation to best reconstruct their story with as little guessing thrown in as possible.

    My wife and I did a DNA test through ancestry.com to see what that would tell us and it confirmed what I already thought that our family came out of Africa some forty thousand years ago around the Black Sea and down the Danube River valley. Some becoming the Celtic peoples others the Germanic peoples of Europe. Even if you think you know the answer it is good to confirm it as much as possible. I have a outline of where we came from, what I and hopefully future generations have to do is fill in the blanks.

          One thing I learn along the way was get as many fact about a person before you add them to your tree. Just name is not enough, when I put the name of my 2^nd great-grandfather on a site for Ireland there were a enough Hugh Boyle to fill a good size book. When I page through indexes I notice that people in Scotland name their children the same names John, Hugh, Peter Steven and Patrick for boys and Margaret, Sarah, Anne (or Ann) and Mary for girls so it is easy to go down the wrong path. So if you can get Location, Age, Occupation, and relatives to be sure you have the right person. 

Eiermann-Boyle Family Genealogy how I got started

I wish I started researching my family tree before my father died in 1982 so I could have gotten some serious answers out of him. My son Michael did ask him for a family tree, after his Grandfather he made up the rest. Lucky I do remember some stories he told me while I was growing up as did my mother about her side of the family. My parents both came to New York in 1929 from Scotland, so I have no relations nearby to as ask, but later starting in 1997 my wife and I began making trips to Scotland to see my cousins on my mother’s side and my mother’s brother Uncle Peter did tell me a lot of family stories if I could only remember them. It is important to get as much information from the older members of the family as possible, they may not think their stories are important, but everyone has a story to tell and future generations would like to read about where they came from.

          One thing that put me off at first was that the early web site advertisements said you could trace your family to the Kings and Queens of Europe being fairly sure my family and probably my wife’s were poor serfs then working people and research  showed that to be fairly close some becoming merchants, but most servants and tenant farmers. I soon realized the every person’s life no matter how poor should be remembered. It has been a slow going research trying hard not to go down the wrong path, but it has been worth it.

          I will go into the software, Photos and wed sites  that I used in later post on this blog.