My Genealogical work in 2012

January seem like a good time to write about how my genealogical research went in 2012, well I did make some progress on my wife’s side on the tree, Eiermann, Stark and not much on my side. I did get my parents Marriage certificate from the New York City Archives, getting the information necessary from the New York City Library on 5^th Avenue, along with a list of information that would be necessary for more certificates from the New York City Archives about my wife’s Aunt and Uncles.  

I used information that people such as Eileen Stark put on Facebook to get both photos and information about Eileen’s family, the Stark family is connection to the Eiermann line through one of my wife’s Great-Aunts who married a Duffy, who married a Karasz, who married then divorced Eileen Stark, so the relationship is through Eileen’s four children who are cousins to my wife. Well with all that as clear as mud I used the photos and companying information to research the Stark family back to Hungary, they ended up to be a very interesting addition to the tree with her Grandfather owning a restaurant in downtown Manhattan with a lot of newspaper articles about it during prohibition. I did get the permission of Eileen to use her data.

Family Search the Web Site of the Church of Latter Day Saints helped a great deal on my breaking through on the Eiermann front, where I am now all the way back to the 15^th century. My son Michael helped by getting a microfilm from the LDS in Salt Lake City to the Patchogue Library, We viewed the microfilm at the Patchogue Library, even with the fact it was hand written in German on the pages an old book we could make out the names and dates. Now we could the same information from the transcription of the microfilm on the LDS web site, but by put to images of the original church record on a flash drive then onto my computer the information became first hand, direct instead of second hand indirect information, confirming the information you already have is very important in that it make your family tree more accurate. I am still working on the Eiermann branch of the tree, now putting it on my Roots software.

I have three different genealogical programs on my computer, the one I am now working on is RootsMagic 6, I like it for it has good templates for source information, but I am afraid it is too completed for people not familiar with genealogy. I also have Family Tree Maker 2012 which is easier to understand and can be synced up with Ancestry.com, but I have trouble syncing it up and then I have MyHeritage Family Tree Builder Which is cheaper, good for connecting with other peoples trees, but poor on sources templates.  

Making corrections

I have been going along thinking that I vetted all the 2079 People I put on my family tree, but then when I tried to upload a Gedcom file onto the Wiki web site werelate.org and they came back with four pages of what they saw as errors or warnings. So I guess I didn't do as good a job as I thought . Now a lot of the error were children being born before marriage, which were not  errors just  some of my ancestors having a bit of fun. The error list also had made the calibration that women have their children between the ages of 18 and 45 years old,  any born too early or too late maybe an error. Others were events happening after death, but the event listed were where parents names were put on marriages of their children after their deaths.

          The lesson learned is that no matter how careful you think you have been its a good idea to run correction test once in a while. A lot of the trouble has been automatic records from ancestry.com had some errors that I didn't catch and adding information from other peoples research that had errors. So the fix is going slow analyzing the incoming data.

Who do you think you are? Rich

Who do you think you are? The television series on NBC  by Ancestry.com is interesting showing what you could do with your genealogy if you only had lots of money to spend on experts to do all the work for you. even if you do manage to go to some of these places like old churches the chance that you will find someone to point out where to find the  records are kind of small. Then would they  let you  handle old fragile records with your bare hands,  I don't think so! they only tell the most interesting stories, I get that they need to keep their audience watching, but  give could give a little explanations of  the process of finding the information and making sure it is correct.

          I personally have just a small limited income to spend on the  genealogy  of my family so the internet is my best friend and I do like ancestry.com were I spend over  three hundred dollar a year even if it is really a little out of my range, I find it does gives the best information on both the USA and the UK plus they have the best on line family tree, even if it does need improvements like on their PDF stories that have to be downloaded to read. They  also tend to group information together  like all of a certain years census are all lumped in one big list, where I would rather range them by family, 1880 US Census for John Doe and family rather than 1880 United States Federal Census which makes it hard to find a census for a certain family. I still think ancestry.com is worth it, but I am contently looking at other  genealogy web sites.

                                                                                      

A Good Month and a half on improvement of my Family Tree

First as of April 1^st the 1911 UK Census came out in Scotland on which I found my mother just 1 year old Plus cousins, Aunts and uncle with good information to move foreward Then I joined the Heritage Family Tree Web site and quickly found my cousin Wallace Hamilton, whose family my parents and I visited when they lived in Buffalo NY. I know I was a young teenager at the time (by a photo it might have been 1955) I don't remember such about the visit accept that Wallace's older sisters took me unwilly to a Public Pool at their mother's command and Talking with them as we wash the dishes one night and that we talked so much that their mother didn't think we did a very good job. Wallace and I E-mailed each other back and forth making corrections on each other's Family trees (I gave him access to my Family Tree on ancestry.com) Wallace ask me about my Aunt Vera, who I didn't know much about other than a few photos and what I remember from what my father had said through the years ( I always wish I asked more questions) I wrote to him that I would call our cousin Anne Reilly who also lives on Long Island.
    It turned out to be a very fortunate phone call I made to Anne who is the daughter of my Aunt Mary on my Father's side, for it seems that Aunt Vera's family lived down stairs from her sister Mary's family so Anne grew up with my Aunt Vera. One thing I learned is that Vera is the name everyone calls her, but her legal name is Sarah Veronica Boyle (Gallacher) which explains why I could not find her on scotlandspeople.gov.uk web site. Once I knew her name I found her marriage and Death Registries. My Aunts and my Father were all born in the United States and returned to Scotland, this I knew, Anne told me that her mother told her that she was about ten years old when the family returned to Scotland, Anne mother I knew was born in 1904 so I looked on ancestry.com at the passage list for ships returning to Scotland and found them on the Ship Numidian that traveled from Boston to Glasgow on 21 November 1913. Anne also said she had photos and newspaper clippings that she would send, I ask Anne if it was alright if Wallace Hamilton call her and she said it would be fine with her.
    So since April 1^st I added and subtracted people on my Family Tree a net gain of about 20 people and learned a little more about my family

Who Do You Think You Are- are Actor Steve Buscemi

This installment once again shows what you may find in your Family Tree might not be the Glory fruit, but a few rotten apples. Whatever you find will bring historical events that may have seemed not to concern you personally to have shaped the lives of your ancestors thereby shaping your life and the way your look at the world around you.

                   There is perhaps a lot of behind the scenes work not shown in the one hour (with AD’s) for it seem that they go ahead on very little information for I know in my own research going by name and age alone can lead you up the wrong tree, you cannot over verify your sources. Now I know they have to make it interesting to get people to do their own Genealogy (selling ancestry.com), but I wonder if maybe on the internet (like ancestry.com) they could show the techniques used to find and verify the Sources which maybe too long and boring for the TV show, but interesting and helpful to amateur Genealogists.         

Who Do You Think You Are? With Lionel Richie

Lionel start with little information and with a Grandmother who didn’t know or want to know anything about her father.  Lionel found out that his Great-Grandmother was married to his Great-Grandfather when she was just 15 years old and that maybe the secret they were trying to keep. Lionel thought at first his Great-Grandfather Louis Brown was a Scoundrel, but found the his Great-Father start a group that insured colored people that white insurance companies wouldn’t insure and was a fore runner of the Civil Rights movement. Lionel also found that his Great-Grandfather’s mother (his Great-Great-Grandmother) was a Slave and his Louis Brown’s father was her owner Magan Brown (Loinel said he thought that a white slave owner would turn up on his tree)

You have to wonder if Lionel did anything about the cemetery where his Great-Grandfather was buried which was unkempt. Weather Lionel went any farther exploring his white ancestors, I realize they may not have enough time on the TV show, but they could put it on their Web site (I couldn’t find it if they did). All in all it was very interesting      

On the Sources

A Very important part of Genealogy are the Sources for once you get beyond your Grandparents most people go into unknown territory to go any farther you need to find a Source where you can find the next generation.  The first Source you should find is the oldest living relative and see if they can tell you their life story plus they remember about their parents. You can find Family Work sheets on most Family Tree Software and Genealogy Web Sites to help you ask the right questions. The person of your tree should be verified at least with Name, Age, and Location, but even with all three correct you can still go up the wrong tree because year ago many families named the children using the same names in certain locations. The more sources you can collect about each individual the more they are verified. Good Source are Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates from the civil records found in City or state archives. In the U.S. these records except for the US Census give limited information were as the in the UK civil registries also give ages, Occupations, Maiden Names and Addresses.

Sources on the internet

www.ancestry.com  This has different price levels depending on how deeply you want to go up to about $350.00 a year. You can build your Family Tree on line building it hopefully with the help of your family members.

www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk This is a very good source if your family is from Scotland, Civil records from 2006 to 1856 and Church Records to 1553. You have to buy credits at 6 pounds for 30 credits.

www.familysearch.org This is the web Site of the Church of Latter Day Saints is free, but has been under fire for the lack of verification.

www.cyndilist.com This is the best site find other Genealogical Web sites around the world.