Lesson 9 - Clean Up & Collaboration

Doing family history research works best when it becomes a collaborative effort.  It is very common for people doing genealogy to discover other people working on the same lines so they can help each other by sharing information rather than duplicating efforts.  However, that kind of collaboration can get sticky when we discover our information to be slightly different from what someone else may have.  Which is accurate?  How can we be sure?

Sometimes those differences may be minor, such as a date of birth for some long dead ancestor being a week off one way or the other.  Sometimes it is a big difference, like having a particular person listed in an entirely different family.  When addressing the differences we find in our data, whether large or small, it is important to use tact and to give one another the benefit of the doubt.

Using digital tools like FamilySearch or Ancestry.com provides a great way for people to contact each other to discuss issues about contradicting information so that the records posted there can be made as reliable as possible.  Writing letters to others, making phone calls, or going to visit and share info can all be richly rewarding.

Particularly when working in FamilySearch which allows other people to make changes to the information posted, it becomes especially key to take care in how we communicate and to appreciate one another's intentions even when some of the information showing may need some clean up.

MOST online genealogy tools are closed, meaning that each person enters their data how they think it should be and no one else can touch it.  If they have set their research to be made public, others can see their information which is great for collaboration.  But if I am working in FindMyPast or Ancestry.com I cannot do anything to someone else's data base.
 
FamilySearch is a very different sort of program.  The goal of FamilySearch is to create ONE big database for the human family that we each tie into.  That means when I post a listing for my grandmother, that SAME post is what will appear for my cousins (for whom she is also their grandmother),  for my aunts and uncles (for whom she is their mother) or for my grandfather (for whom she is his wife.).   Any of us can go in and tinker with the spelling of the name, the date and place of key events, or post other notes, photos, documents, sources, etc.

It is all too easy to get our feathers ruffled if someone tells us our information is wrong or criticizes some change we made.  Or, the flip side of that, some may initially get down right indignant if they see someone else has been making changes in the records that they originally posted.   Particularly when someone has spent a lot of time and energy putting information into the system, or has a close personal bond to the family, it is only natural to feel somewhat territorial about how things appear.

People approach doing family history work with all different skill levels.  Sometimes mistakes will be made, even by the most skilled researchers. How we respond to those mistakes can make or break our future relationships with potential collaborators and can make the difference between having a great experience in doing family history work or one big knot of frustration.

I really do believe that the potential for building stronger bonds between the living family members is as important a feature of  FamilySearch as is the ability to record information about the dead.  

We all can learn from each other.  Whether you are on the side of having the best, most accurate and complete information or on the side of having some records that could be improved - EVERYONE has something to contribute.  The more we are open to sharing what we know and genuinely being willing to listen to and learn from others, the greater experience we will have.

Lesson 8 - The Ten Minute Genealogist

One of the reasons some people are hesitant to begin working on family history is because they do not have the TIME to get serious about genealogy. Beyond that, they are afraid they will never see their dining room table again. For some people, working on family history projects has a way of taking over their life and space. But it doesn't have to be that way. Meaningful family history work can be done in manageable, bite size increments that can be kept neatly organized.

The lesson in my family history class today was about doing family history in just 10 minutes a day. That's right. TEN MINUTES.

The exact amount of time set aside may vary from person to person, depending on their own circumstances. For some it may be 10 minutes. For others it may be 30 minutes or an hour. However the principle is a good one. Instead of getting overwhelmed by the enormity of the task and not starting at all, or getting lost in one or two marathon sessions that we never return to, we can each set aside whatever amount of time fits for us and then incorporate regular periods of family history work into our daily life.

It really is amazing what a person can get accomplished in just a few minutes a day if they are willing to set aside a plan of action. How that plan will look will of course be customized to fit the individual. But here is one suggested process we talked about:

1. Set the timer

2. Begin with a short prayer
3. Open the log you have created, and note what you will be working on that day. (This may be a simple notebook or a document in a word processing program. Use whatever works best for you. )
4. Open whatever family history program you are using.  This may be
FamilySearch,  Ancestry.com, My Heritage or some other system. 
5. Spend the time you have pre-determined on whatever task that you had planned.  It might be checking census records for particular family members.  It might be writing query letters (either by hand or online) to relatives.  It might be viewing a tutorial video to learn something new.  Each of those things are worthwhile and can be done in as little as 10 minutes.
6. STOP when your timer goes off.  Don't say " Oh, I just need to do one more thing".  There will ALWAYS be one more thing.  Plan your time and then respect those limits.  That makes it far more likely you will come back to it consistently and THAT is what will make all the difference.
7. Save and close your software
8. Close with prayer

A KEY PRINCIPLE of the lesson today was that as Latter-day Saints, we are involved in a spiritual endeavor. MANY people outside the church do family history out of curiosity or from pride in their family history. That's great. But for us, it is something different. We believe we are undertaking a work that has the power to bind families together through the sealing power of sacred temple covenants. With that in mind, we should begin and end each session of family history work with prayer. Because we are doing work the Lord wants us to do we have the opportunity to ask for inspiration and personal revelation to guide us where we should go.

The other principle we talked about was the importance of keeping a log. Especially because this method means committing to working in small, manageable bites it is critical that we stay on track. It is very easy to get distracted on different tangents. Also, if we don't leave a bread crumb trail of notes in a log sheet of what we checked already and what we plan to check on next we may forget where we've already been, leading to wasted effort as we follow the same trail again and again. Besides that, keeping a log allows us to see the progress we make, accumulating our accomplishments bit by bit, like marking a child's growth on the inside of a closet door.

TIME IS UP. This entry took me about 10 minutes. What can YOU do in that time?

Remember, it doesn't take a lot of time. It just takes a little time used well. As it says in Alma 37:6 "Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances does confound the wise."

Lesson 7 - ON Target : Setting Genealogy Goals

In today's family history class we returned to the idea of goal setting.

We talked about some of the suggestions for genealogy goal setting that professional genealogist Jennifer Holik-Urban has posted online which can be found HERE.

In some ways it seems logical to have specific outlines for what we hope to accomplish. After all, most worthwhile activities require some forethought and planning, perhaps the creation of something like the ...M-O-A-L (Mother of All Lists) check list that Quintin Phillips uses when planning a white water rafting trip.

However, one of the points we discussed was the difference between establishing specific goals and living in patterns that lead us toward what we want to achieve.

I might have a GOAL to completely document all the principle players of my pedigree sheet for 10 generations. However, it is the pattern of continually seeking, learning, organizing, sharing that is what really matters. Whether I wind up with the information on every single person I planned to or not, that pattern will enrich my life and will help me accomplish a great deal.

This is more than just a matter of semantics. Goals are destination focused. Patterns are all about the process, the journey along the way. It is my hope to establish patterns that will guide me toward developing increased research skills and help me build relationships with others (extended family, fellow researchers, etc). Whether or not I get full documentation for all those generations....who knows? Sure, I aim to try. But I will consider myself to have SUCCEEDED when I have so completely ingrained the pattern of regularly engaging in research, networking and organizing records that it becomes as natural to me as brushing my teeth before I go to bed at night. If I can manage that, I have no doubt that tremendous breakthroughs will come my way despite having a few lines that today seem pretty much stuck.

Nevertheless - Ms. Holik-Urban has some great ideas and resources for genealogy goal setting that I find very valuable to help me in my process of building patterns into my life:

1) EDUCATION Goals- There are a variety of resources for workshops, classes, webinars and other learning opportunities to pick up new skills or sharpen expertise in doing family history research.

Whether someone is interested in formal certificate programs such as those offered by BYU or the National Genealogical Society or a more casual approach such as setting aside a certain time to read books and journals, follow genealogy blogs, etc it just makes sense to commit one's self to learning all they can to be a more effective researcher.

2) RESEARCH Goals - Clearly there is a difference between "working on my family history" in a general way and trying to identify which ship John Burlington emigrated to America on and then to obtain a passenger list to seek the names of the three children I know died along the way. There is a time for casual meandering through records to get a feel for a family and a time for making specific lists of what information I am looking for so I can build a strategy for finding it. This is where specific research goals can really help. Ancestry.com has some good guidelines for how to go about that.

3. ORGANIZATION Goals - This is where I really need to focus over the next six months. Because I recently moved, all my family history records got stuffed into boxes and I have yet to set up an adequate filing system that meets my needs within the space and resources I have to work with. There are a lot of different ways to approach this. One that is important to me is to digitize all my records. Because I work full time and do some adjunct teaching at a community college on the side, I do not have a lot of discretionary time. Still, like eating an elephant, I can take on this mammoth job "one bite at a time" by committing to spend 20 minutes or an hour every weekend scanning the next stack of documents and photographs. I just need to DO IT.

4. WRITING Goals - One of the reasons I feel so close to some of my ancestors is because some of them took the time to write about their lives. For a few others, there have been fascinating histories written by down downstream relations who researched their lives. The Armchair Genealogist Blog is a terrific resource for tips on writing personal or family histories.

I've very much enjoyed working on writing OTHER people's histories. My own I've been more reluctant to take on, for a number of reasons. However, even if I never get around to writing an "official" history of my life, I console myself with the knowledge that my grandkids can always take a peek at my views and values, as well as some of the key events of my days by reading my various blogs:

Mind Muffins(2006-2012)

Life by Design (2007-2009)

Apprentice Human (2006)

5. NETWORKING Goals - In this modern age of Facebook and Twitter some people forget about the good old fashioned form of networking - writing letters or going to visit. I have met many WONDERFUL people over the years who I found through seeking family records. Some were "shirt tail relatives" and others were not related at all. However, the things I learned from people like Bess Britton in Van Buren County, MI or Cindy Allen in Salem OR are treasures I will never forget. I believe that as we share the spirit of Elijah with others who have an interest in family research, all our lives will be richly blessed.

So there you have it - that's a summary of the goal categories that Jennifer Holick-Urban shared in her work. Some may fit you well for your life while others you may choose to skip over for now. That's fine. The thing is, for too many people, the task of taking on a family history project can seem so big and complicated that they just get overwhelmed and do nothing.

When it comes to genealogy, like many other areas of my life, I try to remember the words of Edward Everett Hale who said: " I am only one. But still, I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something I can do."

Remember, the best, and only way to eat an elephant has always been one bite at a time.

.

Lesson 6 - Documenting Sources

An important part of gathering family information is to document your sources. It really matters to record how you know what you know. One reason this important is to demonstrate that your information in reliable. Another is to help tease out where the problem is if your records don't exactly match up with someone else s.

My Grandma Kurtz celebrated her birthday on July 18 every year. Her certified copy of birth record lists her birthday as June 29, 1881. I was told by my grandmother that the reason for the disparity is that babies were delivered in the county by a traveling doctor who came out to the various farms in the area and then later supplied a report to the folks at Vital Records at the end of each quarter. Grandmother suggested that the doctor may have gotten two babies mixed up, not remembering which night he delivered which baby. She said Gertrude's mother clearly knew when her daughter was born and the family information on the birth date should trump whatever the state record might claim.

What's a person to do? I have a copy of the certified record in my family history book with a note telling why I believe it is not accurate.

Because my great grandmother was considered a "local pioneer" and one of the oldest people in her community, there were write ups about her in local papers on her birthday each year. Because those are based on self report, they all list her birthday as being in July.

Is it POSSIBLE she was born in June? I suppose. Does it matter? It did to my grandmother.

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints there are a series of statements that capsulize our core beliefs called "the Articles of Faith". One of those states: "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God." This acknowledges that while the Bible is a sacred record from inspired prophets, in all the many thousands of years of those records being handed down and then translated from one language to another, some errors have crept in along the way.

Just think - there is a BIG difference between celebrate and celibate. It doesn't take a very big mistake to change a lot of meaning.

Likewise, in family records it is easy to transpose numbers or to hit a wrong key on a keyboard. If we rely entirely on Great Aunt Tilly's family history that has been handed down for generations without ever checking sources ourselves, it is possible to perpetuate mistakes.

So check your data as much as it is reasonable to do so and leave a clear trail that proves where your information comes from.

Recording information based on personal memory is fine – you simply ought to say that is where the information came from.  Then, if or when other records come to light which give a different date or place for some relative’s key life events, future generations will have a better chance of knowing which information to trust.

A worthwhile family history activity for those who live in places where official documents or other written records are common is to periodically so searches for “official proof” of the family information we already have.  A great many records are now available online which have made this process far easier than in the past.

For those who live in areas of the world where oral tradition is the only record available it is especially important to get that information written down, recording who gave the information and the date and place the record was made.  Your future descendants will thank you for it.

Lesson 5 - Planning Family Reunions

In June of 1990 Ensign magazine published a short essay I wrote about the power of family reunions titled "The Tapestry Called Family". In that little story I talk abut family reunions that were held each year to celebrate the birthday of my great grandmother - Gertrude Anna Young Kurtz, who lived to be 102 years old.

This picture is from her 100th birthday party showing five generations of our family. (Left to right: me , then my mother (Nancy Krebs Pendley Powell), Grandma Kurtz (Gertrude Anna Young Kurtz), my grandmother (Florence Kurtz Krebs) and down in front my two sons, Aaron and Forest Baldwin. )

All of my life my Grandma Kurtz was the oldest person I had ever met. As a young girl, I could not imagine her ever having been like me or that I might ever be as old as she. However, as I say in my essay, through family reunions I began to see her as a whole person rather than an "ancient curiosity". Those family reunions helped me develop a strong sense of identity as a member of our clan.


On my father's side of the family we got together far less often. However, the few times we did left a lasting impression. My father was one of nine children and each of those nine had several children of their own, so I had lots of cousins. We were a large and boisterous clan given to lots of drama. Whereas my mother's people were generally more reserved, my dad's relatives were very intense. 

Uncle Tom always wanted to argue politics. My Aunt Marge had once lived in Bermuda and had somewhat of a mysterious past. Somewhere between the nine there was usually some feud going on. The backbone of that family, however was the heritage to my pioneer grandparents and the sense of attachment we all had to the ranch they homesteaded in Oak creek, AZ. Even though many of us traveled far and wide and ended up living in other parts of the country, that ranch and the many stories of that place were a part of us all.

Just as all families are different, each family gathering will be unique, depending on what you want it to be.

There are a number of online resources with tips for how to organize a family reunion. Here are just a few:

About.Com
Hub.com
Scrapjazz
Temple University

Some reunions will involve just a small group, such as when I gathered my siblings and their spouses together last summer.



Others will be multi-generational affairs including larger groups. Some families only get together every few years, especially when family members live at far distances from each other.  Others find it works best to have a regular time for gathering, acknowledging not everyone will make it every time.   My husband’s family gather together every year on the Saturday before Memorial Day.  We all know that is when it will be so we can plan our work and travel schedules accordingly.



Whether you want to have something simple in an informal setting or a more structured reunion with time for creating a formal family organization is up to you.

At the annual Bennett gatherings each family group taking turns for who has the responsibility for organizing and providing the main dish for the meal. Everyone else brings pot luck salads and desserts.

Some families choose to make it easy by having their reunions catered. This can be especially helpful when there are a lot of people traveling long distances. It's a bit hard to bring a casserole if you are driving cross country or coming by plane.

There is room for many different styles in family reunions. Some have talent shows or games with a family theme. One year we had a family auction and raised money for a family member with major medical expenses. The important thing is that you plan well and be open to suggestions from others.

This summer I hope to gather the cousins from my father's family in a Pendley Cousin Reunion. I know that not everyone will be able to come. But I am starting now to get the ball rolling so that I can organize a reunion that will hopefully be meaningful to as many as can make it. I will also create a "Cousin Directory" with photos and contact information of the entire tribe which will be distributed to everyone in the family, so whether they are actually at our gathering this year or not, hopefully they will begin to feel a bit more connected to the family.

When was the last time you had a family reunion? Maybe it's time to start planning the next one!

Lesson 4 - Identifying Family Photos

We all have them. Somewhere in a box or drawer there are old family photos of people we have absolutely no idea who are.

What could be more frustrating?

One of the saddest and most frustrating parts of family research is coming across wonderful old family photos that no one alive remembers who they are of.

Sometimes we don't have any clues to go on at all. Other times there are cryptic inscriptions such as "mother's cousins". WHOSE mother? What cousins?

On more than one occasion I have pounded my head against a wall trying to identify people in old photographs that had been passed down with no notes.

Other times we may know EXACTLY who is in the photo, but have no context in which to place them. For instance, mixed in a drawer with other family photos belonging to my great-grandmother was an image of a handsome young man in a bow tie with the inscription "Leslie Bostwick" written on the back. For YEARS my mother and grandmother both poured over old correspondences, bible lists and family charts trying to figure out where this man fit in to our clan. It was all in vain.

 Finally, when my great-grandmother was about 102 years old she finally admitted with a sheepish grin her secret of all those years. "He was my old beau." So he wasn't related at all.

On other occasions we will come across pictures that we know who is in and even where they belong in our family, but no one will be able to remember the when or the where or what the occasion was of the picture. That can be truly maddening!

I am deeply indebted to my grandchildren's OTHER grandmother. She was totally faithful in ALWAYS writing the name, date and place on the back of every family snapshot...something that I, alas, was not. I have been able to figure out several of my own family photographs only by comparing them to hers.

If you have old family photos you cannot quite pin down, there are a number of ways to find clues to guide you. Try THIS LINK for tips on how to sleuth your way to answers.

In order to properly tag family photos you have now for future reference, there are a number of methods. On of my favorites is taken from an old photo of a family reunion held at the George Cook home in Summit County, Ohio which was taken around 1910 (judging from the estimated age of the child who would grow up to be my grandmother, Florence Kurtz Krebs, and the fact that her mother was wearing black which would be appropriate considering her oldest child died in 1910.) This is the picture:

And THIS was my grandmother's method for keeping track who was at that long ago reunion:

She took a long sheet of heavy paper and made a hole with a pencil that fit precisely over each face in the photo. She numbered those holes and then made a list of the names. I can still hold that aging old card stock over the photograph and see the faces line up by their corresponding numbers. BLESS YOU forever, dear grandma. Finding this in her papers was like finding the Rosetta Stone.

These days I am converting most of my old pictures to digital format by scanning and labeling each one.  Now that we can load photos onto FamilySearch.org those photos will be preserved indefinitely, regardless of what happens to the originals.  They are also publicly available so all the cousins for generations to come will get the blessing of sharing them.

For those who are somewhat techie inclined there are various on line programs for sorting and storing photos such as Fotobounce. This is a great tool if you have LOTS of pictures to label with the same people being in a number of different views. You start identifying faces. The software then sorts through all the images in your collection and looks for possible matches. Of course, it still requires you to confirm or deny the match the machine thinks is the right one. And there COULD be confusion over family members with very similar features. But it has a simple facial recognition system that can save a lot of time, depending on the collection you have to work with.

Some folks, however, want nothing to do with computers. That's fine. Do what fits YOU best.

For writing directly on the backs of photographs your best bet it to use an acid free archival quality pen which can be purchased HERE for $5.99 You can also find these at any store that carries a good selection of scrap booking supplies.

Whatever method works best for you, just remember the old Chinese proverb: "The palest ink is better than the best memory." There are many ways of doing it - but find a method that works for you so that pictures of you and your immediate family do not one day wind up in an old shoe box marked "No one knows who".

Lesson 3: Creating an Individual or Family Timeline

One way to make an interesting family record is to create a visual timeline. This can be done to represent one specific individual's life or to tell the story of generations.

This can be done as simply or as elaborately as you choose. For a simple timeline all you need is a straight line and something to write with on a long sheet of paper. (See example above).

Another approach would be to use one of the many online tools for creating timelines, such as Graphic Map. The idea here is to use whatever tools and material are available to you to create a visual representation of a life (your own or one of your ancestors) or to create a represention of the events of multiple generations within your family.

This can also be a great way to get young children or teens involved in learning that family history can be fun. If you have an artistic flair and a sense of adventure, involve the whole family in the following:

Begin with large piece of poster board , construction paper or a piece of blank butcher paper. Make a horizontal line at the mid point of the paper and then mark off units of time (single years or by decades - you decide what best meets your needs.) If your timeline is for a single lifepath you will begin with year of birth. If you are making a chart for several generations it could begin with date of a marriage, date of emigration, whatever event you choose. Get creative!

Next you will glue on photos, words and symbols in the area of the paper above the line to represent significant happenings. (Make color photo copies of family photographs or print them off on a computer so you can add your special images without harming the originals, of course.) Add bits of fabric, glitter, and paint if you want to make it really fancy.

You can explore online clip art to find symbols you may want to use to represent the basics such as births, marriages and deaths or for homes, schools, jobs, and any special accomplishments you want to portray (this could be anything from an Eagle Scout award to running your first marathon!)

You may want to splurge with alphabet macaroni, glitter, beads, buttons and other objects that can be used to adorn your personal or family timeline. When it is complete, hang the timeline where all the family can admire it and be reminded of both the events portrayed in your masterpiece AND the special time you had together as a family being creative. Perhaps telling about the time you all got together and made the family timeline will be one of the special memory stories that will be passed down for generations to come.