Genealogy
The art of research into family history through records and artifacts. Includes Carnival of Genealogy, too.
Greetings from Jamboree
I’m at the Genealogy Jamboree in Burbank. You can follow twitter chatter about the conference at the hashtag #scgs10. This also serves as a demonstration to Jennifer, with whom I am talking here in the lounge where the genealogy bloggers hang out… Jennifer is not a geneablogger; in fact she is unfamiliar with what this whole blogging thing is, exactly. So, when words don’t suffice (or they obfuscate), then a show and tell helps. I hope. Her friend Vikki is also watching; in fact, she’s offering better wording suggestions than I first came up with. So this paragraph is a group effort.
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Genealogy
• Personal
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Digital Family History as understood by Digital Natives with 500 IRL Facebook friends
It’s not the same thing as what Ye Olde Maiden Aunt used to collect and curate. An intriguing article by fellow Association of Personal Historians member Jane Lehman-Shafron, she notes the current trends (look! TV shows! Newspaper articles!), but also points out how family history in digital form is being used by the next generation, the Digital Natives who grow up immersed in computing technology.
The form that family history is taking changes with the times.
Today’s younger generations are more interested in family history than ever before. The whole country is. But they are demanding that those maiden aunts (and all the rest of us who fulfill the function of “family historian”) get with the times. They want their family history accessible and they want it compelling.
Speaking as the maiden single Aunt whose spent a lot of time in the technology industry—I’m even called AuntiAlias—it’s a computer graphic pun (know what anti-aliasing is?), I’m one of those Aunts who is pushing everyone forward in digital pursuits when it comes to family history.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta use digital tools to preserve your family’s history. I’ve said it so many times before. I’ll say it again, too. But this post isn’t about that.
What I like is the way that Lehman-Shafron draws the picture... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Digitality
• Genealogy
• Personal History
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Interviewing Family: Why not Why?
What’s wrong with “Why?” In the previous post, I wrote about asking open-ended questions, that is, questions that would elicit a lengthy story or explanation. Something more than a yes or no answer. “Why?” is a question designed to get a lengthy reply. So why don’t I say to use “why?”
The answer is not “Because I said so.” But there’s something about that famous familial exchange (“Why?” “Because I said so!”) that gets at the heart of Why Not Why.
Remember the two parts of attitude I mentioned yesterday?
- Be Curious.
- Be Non-Judgmental.
Asking a question using the word “Why?” might sound judgemental.
Especially if you’re family.
When a family member asks another family member a question that begins with Why?, it might put the second person on the defensive in the same way as “Why didn’t you take out the trash?”
You want to elicit information and stories, not put the person on the spot.
(I’m indebted to Kim Leatherdale’s comments on the Lifetime Memories and Stories podcast for making this point explicit.)
I’ve gotten lots of insight on communication inside families from socio-linguist Deborah Tannen’s book I Only Say This Because I Love You
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Genealogy
• Interviewing
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Three Weeks to Jamboree: Interviewing Family
Countdown to Jamboree in Burbank, California — Family Interview edition. Rise and shine early Sunday morning, June 13 at Jamboree and learn some good info about interviewing family. I’ll be leading two sessions — one on the skills of an interviewer, the second on the skills of an audio engineer. This week at Family Oral History Using Digital Tools I’ll be discussing different ways to come up with good questions to ask your family member when you sit down to interview him or her.
“I’m going to interview my Uncle Al. What do I ask?”
I get asked this question—a lot. What do you ask someone that you’re going to visit?
I’ll get more into the specifics of strategies of how to come up with questions to ask, but for now, I’ll give you a few tips on attitude.
Your job as an interviewer is to elicit information and stories from the other person. Period. The rest is just details.
All the pointers I’ll be offering are consistent with your job as story eliciter. (not to be confused with Story Elixer, though perhaps you want your questions to act as a kind of story elixer) The job is to elicit stories. I’ll tell you more about different ways to do that.
Your attitude should be one of curiosity and non-judgement. (Being non-judgemental is especially important if you’re interviewing a family member).
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Do it: Learn How
• Genealogy
• Interviewing
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Dollarhide free eBook—I take what he says further
You can download a free eBook— Getting Started in Genealogy Online, by William Dollarhide. (Hat tip to Ancestories and Renee’s Genealogy Blog)
So I clicked, downloaded and read. I’ll take what he says a little bit further. Don’t go for just the facts, get the stories that go along with things, too.
Dollarhide’s Step 1 is titled Family Interviews. Excellent. I agree.
He leads the reader through some strategies to capture facts about your family’s past: Look through address books, holiday cards from relatives. Contact any and all by whatever means possible “in person, by telephone, or e-mail.” (p. 9).
He continues:
Compare your memories with the memories of your brothers, sisters, parents, grandparentss or any other living relatives. You may discover that others in your immediate family have different stories to tell.
Yes.
Memories memories memories. Of the living, of those who surround you.
He further goes on to talk of interview questions, which taken as a whole, are designed to suss out documents. family photo albums, letters, papers, insurance papers. things that will have people’s names. Family recipes. Private papers, journals, records of the family business. The family Bible. Expanding to a wider sphere, find out if there are publications about... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Genealogy
• Interviewing
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The MyHeritage Top 100 Site List
Because more people should be linking to all the sites on this list. Happy to see some friends and writers I know. Looking forward to getting to know some new (to me) people.
A
- Above the Trees
- AnceStories
- Ancestors Live Here
- Anglo-Celtic Connections
- Apple’s Tree
- Arlene Eakle’s Genealogy Blog
B
- Bayside Blog
- Before my Time
- Betty’s Boneyard Genealogy Blog
- Brenda Dougall Merriman
- British Genealogy
C
D
- Destination: Austin Family
- Documenting the Details
- Donna’s Genealogy Blog
- Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories
E
F
- FamHist
- Family, Friends and Neighbors
- Family Oral History Using Digital Tools
- Family Research
- Find My Ancestors
- Find Your Folks
- Free Genealogy Tools
- From Wilno to Worcester
G
- Gena’s Genealogy
- GenDisasters
- GeneaBlogie
- Geneageek
- Genealogy Blog
- Genealogy Canada
- Genealogy Gems
- Genealogy Guide
- Genealogy Lines
- Genealogy in New South Wales
- Genealogy is Ruthless Without Me
- Genealogy Reviews Online
- Genealogy Star
- Genealogy Tip of the Day
- GeniAus
- GeniTales
- Genwriters
- Greta’s Genealogy Blog
- Gus’s Genealogy Blog
H
J
K
L
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Cool Website
• Genealogy
• Links
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Tartan Thoughts: So, there was, like, this big Genealogy shindig in Salt Lake City recently, and…
So I hear there was this great gathering of genealogists in Salt Lake City recently, at an event that goes by the acronym NGS. Many people attended, and blogged about it. I read a few of the roundups, but one in particular caught my eye — the Ancestry Insider post that included a link to a movie. About family with a clan. And a tartan. I’ll embed it here, with color commentary.
About the Clan McCloud. So you know, McCloud is an anglicization (americanization) of the spelling of the name McLeod or MacLeod.
Oh, that photo at the top of this post? Those are my parents and Dad is wearing what we call the Loud MacLeod tartan—also known as the bumblebee tartan. I can’t say as that tartan goes well against my particular skin tones. I’ve written about my family’s erstwhile and dubious MacLeod connections in my story Not from the Isle of the Lewes. The blood is fake and mythical, but our experience meeting Chief John MacLeod of MacLeod was very real. Alas, most of my good photos of that trip are all slide transparencies. There is much to scan, and I’ve not even begun.
So, with that as the background, I was amused to see a movie with a story about someone with real blood ties to the Isle of Skye... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Genealogy
• Personal History
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I’m one in a hundred! (MyHeritage.com Top 100 Genealogy Site recognition)
WooHoo! I’m proud to say that Family Oral History Using Digital Tools has been recognized in the MyHeritage.com Top 100 Genealogy Sites.
From the blog post/announcement of this distinction:
We wanted to identify and give recognition to websites which offered high-quality content, were innovative in topic or design, and which were frequently updated with new content. We also put some emphasis on finding hidden gems in the community, and bringing sites to attention which currently have relatively small audiences. As such, there are a number of lesser-known sites included, and a few more prominent sites unmentioned for the same reason.
Here’s the entire list of the 100 sites. To stay sane, I think I’ll be clicking a few a day over the next several (or several-several) days.
Congratulations to all the others, and join me in a happy dance!
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Cool Website
• Genealogy
• Personal
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Census 2010: A family history perspective
Pia Lopez of the SacBee opines that the census is much more than How Many People, What Ages are they? She describes all her family history that’s contained in census past. She recounts everything she knows of her family history that’d be lost if a proposed law that asks Just Four Questions Only (name, age, date of response, number of people living in one household) had been in force at the time her ancestors filled out the census. enacted.
From my family’s oral history, I knew that my mother’s grandfather had left Ireland for New York in 1893 and that he worked for James Butler’s Irish neighborhood grocery store chain.
But the June 6, 1900, census snapshot fills in a whole lot more fascinating detail. Martin E. Roache lived at 551 W. 152nd St., near Broadway (one block from the Hudson River) in Washington Heights, Manhattan. He was boarding with the Schmidt family.
The husband, age 42, had arrived from Germany in 1875 and was a baker. The wife, age 39, was born in New York, the daughter of a German immigrant and a native-born New Yorker. They had two children, ages 10 and 5. The older child was attending school. A 21-year-old German, non-English-speaking, non-literate immigrant man, who had arrived only two years before, was a servant. My great-grandfather, age 27, was a “tea buyer” by occupation.
The block... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Genealogy
• History
• Personal History
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Genealogy Jamboree in Burbank (June 2009)
Memories of Jamboree, Burbank, California, from June of this year. Image: Footnotes at Jamboree. What fun it was to meet fellow Geneabloggers and hang out. I think I spent more time hanging and talking than I did going to the conference sessions at Jamboree.
The above footnote image, and this grassy... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Genealogy
• Photographs
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Genealogy Carnival: Carousel (+ one Techish highlight)
The 36th edition of Genealogy Carnival is a carousel, or free-for-all. (I missed submitting an entry. Have I mentioned I’ve been busy?). Go read them all. One in particular I found striking, Technology and Early Adopters in Your Family Tree, by Thomas Macentee. Electricity, telephone, plumbing. How they did without, how they did. My grandpa wrote a 15-page double spaced paper for his family during the final years of his life, called “Twentieth Century Developments.” I wrote about it at great length in the comments, and am posting the same thing here, too—with some additional quotes.
My grandpa offered up his observations about various and sundry inventions and changes he’d observed in this lifetime in his “Twentieth Century Developments” paper.
There’s lots to do with transportation, beginning with railroad (his grandfather—from the 1880s and uncles worked for the Denver and Rio Grande RR in Colorado). Then, in 1912, my grandpa’s father bought a Model T—and his description goes into the art of car-care before there was much in the way of documentation.
For the first 12 years of my life we had nice old black Jim, our horse, and his buggy for transportation. Then Dad bought the Ford. I never knew where he bought it or how he got it to Walsen, but it was probably sent from Denver by freight. For a few years thereafter we had both Jim and the Ford, and that was a good thing, because we sure learned to operate that auto... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Genealogy
• Personal History
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Is it witchcraft?
When I re-read a letter I got from my Dad’s cousin Lainey in 1987, I encountered a family ghost. Well, not exactly, but a couple of family witches. So for the current Hallowe’en themed Carnival of Genealogy, I’ll post the excerpt of her letter.
Now (and here comes a genealogical “goodie”!) take a look at Chart #27. Fine person #1 ... Rebecca Carrington. Boy, oh boy—what a discovery! Her parents were John Carrington, a carpenter by trade, and Joan [__?__]. John was charged with witchcraft 9and so was wife Joan) in 1650. His (and soon after, hers, too) trial was held in Hartford, Connecticut on Feb 20, 1650. the jury came in with a guilty verdict on March 6, 1650 and they were both hanged as witches shortly after in Wethersfield, Conn. where they resided. How their daughter Rebecca survived that awful tragedy, growing up to marry a well-to-do merchant, Abraham Andruss, and settling in Waterbury, Connecticut—would probably reveal a fascinating slice of life (the stuff of which “soaps” are made!)
OMG OMG OMG. I’m just getting hit by the twilight zone.
Twilight Zone #1: After obsessing with Ken Burns and The War, I see... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Genealogy
• Personal History
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Carnival of Genealogy: Family Wartime Stories
Welcome to the 32nd Carnival of Genealogy. The theme: Family Stories of Wartime. The entries span the Revolutionary War to the Korean Conflict.
On the same day I was reading through the submitted entries, I asked my SO to set the TiVo to record all seven episodes of Ken Burns’s The War (begins Sunday, 23 September on PBS), a 14+ hour documentary that tells the story of World War 2 through the eyes of ordinary people from four American communities. “In extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives.” We also watched a documentary that the TiVo recorded earlier this year: The Perilous Fight: WW2 in color. Color motion picture was accompanied by excerpts from diaries and letters written by those who lived it. It was a (mostly) sober couple of hours of non-Glenn Miller getting In The Mood (er, not that mood) for the Carnival, and for the upcoming Ken Burns documentary.
Ken Burns and PBS are promoting the The Veteran’s History Project (VHP), a nationwide oral history project to record and preserve the stories of Americans in wartime at the Library of Congress.
Pearl Harbor
The common theme of the documentaries, the VHP, and this carnival: Great historical events do not belong to the Kings and Queens, Presidents and Prime Ministers, War Secretaries and Generals, decision makers and strategists. When one nation fights another, the war is experienced from family to family, household to household. Whether victim, refugee, prisoner, laborer, soldier, the events of that war seep into every corner of a nation.
So here are some stories of war from the households of family (and neighbors) of the carnival partipants.
Revolutionary War
Revolutionary War-era maps and charts
Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings tells us the story of Patriot Soldier, Isaac Buck, one of his favorite ancestors and his service and war pension. Good for Isaac Buck that he received a pension, and good for Randy that the records are there to tell him of his ancestor.
Randy’s story mentions Ticonderoga; Here’s a map of Ticonderoga with authentick informations, 1777, from Library of Congress Memory Project. (My grandfather’s 100th birthday party was in the Village of Ticonderoga, or “Ti” as we call it)
The Revolutionary War is also known as “the First Civil War,” according to Tim Abbot of Walking the Berkshires. His account about the Curries at the time of the American Revolution, A House Divided: The Tory in the Family. It’s the story of another relative in the Currie family, a story that he received thanks to his blog. “There was... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Genealogy
• History
• Oral History Projects
• Veterans History Project
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Father’s oral history about, well, a digital tool
This past spring, I interviewed my dad, with the Veteran’s History Project in mind. Dad was in the Navy, going to school on a ROTC scholarship, and serving in and around the Korean War. We paged through a scrapbook that his Mom kept for him, and he told me stories about the pictures and items therein. The stories from that interview session mostly concern his beginnings in the Navy. I asked him a question to clarify a term he used about his training, and he told me two related stories about his work in the Navy. (oh, and digital, in this case, refers to fingers, not bits)
I wanted to clarify something he mentioned earlier. I asked, “When you said ‘the physical aspect of naval training’ and that was when you were talking about navigation… when you say ‘physical aspect’ what [did that mean]?”
Well where you learn how to use a sextant, how you use a bearing circle, how to determine the direction—the ship’s compass, and the various aids to navigation that you would have. You could use your sextant to determine the altitude of stars, but first you had to learn how to identify the stars. I still have a sextant; people don’t tend to use those anymore because of the advent of the global positioning system. But I still have the sextant, and can operate it.
(I can remember teaching my son how to do a day’s work in navigation when we went on this cruise in 1983 [from Tahiti to Hawaii]. A sailor friend... Read More
Posted by Susan A. Kitchens in
• Genealogy
• Personal History
• Veterans History Project
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The Carnival of Genealogy goes wine tasting
Just went to the local wine and cheese bar in town. While discussing the merits of one particular Zinfandel with the proprietor, we began to speak about the art and task of writing. He let slip the word “genealogy” and I buttonholed him later to ask him if he had a family war story for the Carnival of Genealogy. I hope he sends it to me in email tomorrow. This will be an honorary blog entry inspired by “a quality floozy of a Zinfandel wine” and a tale of an ancestor in Civil War times. If so, this post shall be updated with great details. Civil War stories. Peppery California Zinfandels. Who knew?
Here is a brief synopsis about Tom Dugan’s ancestor, Peter Whelan. He wrote this email—from memory; he wasn’t where he could access his notes— telling me about Peter Whelan’s involvement in the Civil War.
Peter Whelan was born about 1842 in Co Leitrim, Ireland. He arrived in the US with his parents in about 1852. He grew up in Warwick, RI. In 1862 (around 20 years old), he enlisted in the Army at Providence, RI. He fought in multiple battles in Maryland and Virginia during the next two years. In one of those battles, he was shot in the head. He survived and was eventually transported to a hospital in West Philadelphia, PA. He lost the use of one eye from the bullet would and full functionality on his left side. One of his nurses, Marcella (last name unknown) was assigned to him and he considered her most responsible for nursing... Read More
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• Genealogy
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