Keeping The Balance

I once asked my good friend who is an amazing genealogist, "How do you do it all?  How do you keep up with your family that is living and still have time for the research and all the work that is involved for those who have gone before?"   The reply was simple.  "I get my daily work done as quickly and efficiently as possible. Then I do all I can for my family here at home, they come first.  Then I spend my free time doing my genealogy.  Sometimes that free time comes in the wee small hours of the night."  I like that answer because it is about balance. 

If you are passionate about anything you know how it can consume you and take you away from your priorities.  First the living and then the dead comes to mind for us as genealogists.  That is not a reason to say that I cannot do my family history work because I have a family.  It is more like saying I know what is most important and that is not an option.  Now how do I create ways to use my discretionary time to get the other important things done that I both need and want to do?  And how will I work smarter to be able to do what I want to do because it is fun and I enjoy it?  This is not about working 24-7.  It is about planning your time one week at a time so that you have a workable plan for your goals. You still need plenty of rest and relaxation and to be efficient.  You need time for learning and serving.

 For me it means working my plan....the balancing act.  It's a Good, Better, Best kind of a thing.  I think an overall plan for the month is ideal and a daily plan is great but I find that working with a week is best.  It is a nice chunk of time, easily delineated and it allows for flexibility.  If I don't get all the laundry folded before work so I can do this, I know that I have some flex time built into tomorrow.  So I am not going to sweat it.  Perfectionism is not a good thing at all.  There is no guilt in leaving our clean laundry in the dryer until we get home.   If we cram every minute of our calendar to "have tos" when can we do the "want tos?"

I think it is worth thinking about.  I study people that accomplish so much a lot.  I want to know how to work smarter.  I want this so I can have more time for writing and genealogy, not because I am a workaholic.

So all that being said, I did a lot of family history this week but not a lot of genealogy.
Some of our family was visiting and I turned my attention to recording current family history in lieu of digging up roots this past week.  To me life is family history in the making. So when something unusual is brewing in that department I turn my full attention there.  What is your plan for doing it all?  I love the old saying...Fail to Plan...Plan to Fail.  Being productive means being proactive.

Here is the current  family history I am talking about from this past week.

http://tinyurl.com/kes8dzb

 

Post Script:

It is funny but I wrote this yesterday and this landed in my mailbox this morning.  Perfect timing.  It helped me gain a perspective I hadn't thought of when feeling under the pressure of the ticking clock and the immensity of the work in front of us in genealogy.
 

"He gives us a Sabbath and we work through the weekend.

He gives us three meals a day to let us slow down and we pick fast food.

He gives us eight hours of sleep a night and we try to squeak by on far less.

We hurry when we’re afraid that we’ll be late, miss out on something, or disappoint someone. God doesn’t need to hurry because he has all the time in eternity. This is good news for us, friends. It means…"

You can find the rest of the article here.  http://tinyurl.com/l9fw6uv 

How To Do Research Online

This is a Dick Eastman article from July 4th.  This has some interesting things to ponder.  This  has some tricks for getting fewer hits online that are in contrast to some of the things you always hear about starting broad on your search and refining.  I think I want to give this a try.  Taking a look at what the old pros do is always a good idea in helping us to work smarter. 

"Employees at all the major online genealogy database providers spend a lot of time and effort watching how users perform searches on the site and analyzing the results. The purpose is to learn and to make future adjustments to the site to improve search capabilities. Those who monitor and analyze users say they have noticed that genealogy newcomers typically perform searches in a very different manner than do the "old pros." I suspect the experienced users typically end up with more productive results, although no statistics are available to prove that assumption.

Genealogy newcomers typically search everything at once. For instance, when looking for records on a particular ancestor, newbies typically enter the person's name into the search field and then search through everything at once. If the person has a rather unusual name, that might work. However, most of the time, the newcomer receives hundreds or even thousands of "hits," can't filter out the ones of interest, loses interest, and then goes elsewhere.

In contrast, the experienced genealogists usually FIRST search for the smallest piece of the many databases as possible.

For instance, the more experienced user will generally enter the name of interest, then perhaps specify only one database (such as the census records for one year), specify only one county, and any other parameters available to narrow the search as much as possible. If the search is unsuccessful and doesn't produce the information needed, the experienced user then expands the search just a little bit and tries again. For instance, he or she might add in the previous census or the following census, then search a second time. If unsuccessful this time, the experienced genealogist might start a third search by adding in the adjacent counties. And so on and so on.

Bit by bit, the experienced genealogist typically expands the search by a small amount each time. All of the search parameters are based upon what the genealogist already knows about the person of interest. Did he likely live in Monroe County? If so, there is no need to search the entire USA at once. Did he serve in the Civil War? If so, there is no need to search for records prior to 1820 and probably not prior to 1830 (on the first search) as he probably wasn't born yet. (Most Civil War soldiers were under the age of 30 although there were numerous exceptions. Very few were 40 years old or older.)

By focusing the first searches on as narrow a geographic area as possible and as narrow a time range as possible, you greatly increase the odds of finding the one person you seek. If unsuccessful in your search, broaden the search area a bit and the years of interest and try again.

I suspect the experienced genealogists have far better results with their online searches than do the newcomers who jump in and search everything, everywhere, at once. Which would you prefer: finding one or two people with your ancestor's name, located in the area where he or she lived, in the years he or she lived there? Or will you find 100 men or women across the country with the same name?"

Don't put all your eggs in one basket!

Ancestry.com New Search

 

                Hope you had a great 4th of July!

 

Just when we think we've reached capacity on the new stuff, more drama!  Switch channels and look at Ancestry this week.  Not surprisingly they are also doing some shifting and changing and updating.  It does look remarkably like the Family Search search page.  Hmmm.  I think there is a good healthy competition between all the sites. It moves us faster on the path to make things better for us all.

Not surprisingly, if you go to this site below (The Ancestry Insider) you see that at the time of this writing there is only one comment...complaining! My thought is...how ordinary.  We are all so resistant to change.  On the other hand,  they like the feedback and who knows maybe your comment can make a difference.  This is healthy if it is done respectfully. 

It is good that they are updating and changing their search functionality.  I think most search engines leave something to be desired in searching for records or I just don't know what I am doing that well yet.  I do know how to filter, etc.  But sometimes they throw me some real curve balls.  One thing I did learn at first reading was skip the basic search and go to the advanced search and click on exact if you know the exact information and save yourself the heartache of many, many, many seemingly unrelated hits. 

My point is, the more they are all talking about it the more we can learn.  So I am all ears or eyes as the case may be. 

By the way, this is a really fun blogger.  He is incognito, not giving too much information about himself and he is always wearing a hat and avoiding the camera at conferences.  He may have been employed by one or both of the big guys at some time or other but his shtick is anonymity to spice things up.  Also he treats each of the entities equally and in an unbiased way which is refreshing. Here is what he had to teach today.

Friday, July 5, 2013

Old Search Experience in New Search Clothing

"On 27 July 2013, Ancestry.com announced the retirement of its “Old Search” search engine. “We expect to discontinue the old search function as a separate experience within the next 6 months,” wrote Ancestry.com. This has been “S.O.S. Week” at the Ancestry Insider Offices where Wednesday we examined the Real Old Search pages. Contrast them with today’s.
Before logging in, the home page today does not provide a search form. After logging in, it looks like this:

Contrasting it with Real Old Search, note that it allows specification of a full place name, specification of an estimated birth year, and a checkbox to limit results to US collections. These are the best fields for a new search, ranked result mindset. Matches are not limited to exact, so the number of results is huge and some do not match the search terms entered.
If you are an Old Search fan, do yourself a favor and go directly to exact searching: click Search, Show Advanced, and Match all terms exactly:

To change last name from exact to Soundex, click underneath the Last Name on “Restrict to exact.”
To enter a birth and death country and year, click on Add life events. It is not really possible to enter the span used by Real Old Search. Instead, set the Any Event year to something in the middle and change the +/- box to 1, 2, 5, or 10.
Enter relatives under Family Member, clicking on Add Family Members as necessary.
To force the search results to show categories and top databases, select Categories above the results on the right:

Clicking on a single database shows a sorted list of matches. Unfortunately, sort orders are not always intelligent. For the 1930 census, results are sorted by age, not location. This splits and shuffles families with other families across. Also, the full width of the window is underutilized. Many census columns could have been displayed. The results are no worse than current Old Search, but screen size has increased over the last 10 years. On my 15 inch monitor, just 5 inches are used to display results.
Bottom line:

• Skip the home page
• Use exact match
• Use Add Life Events to enter birth and death search terms
• Change the result list from Records mode to Categories mode

Finally, try New Search with these settings and complain to Ancestry.com about things that don’t operate the way you want. Ancestry.com is not trying to get rid of the Old Search way of doing things. They just need to retire an old goo of code, the Old Search engine, that is too expensive to continue using. They may be able to Save the Old Search functionality that is most important to you."

"I Am My Own Grandpa!"

Meet my Birthday Twin, Ross.
Gramma and Ross a few years ago on our birthdays.

Please excuse the terrible color and graininess of this photo!

This is our Ross.  He is 11 years old today.  I was that plus the old speed limit 55 yesterday.  He has been a special boy to me since the minute I witnessed his birth. Well actually probably longer than that.  I have always told him we are birthday twins and he is the best birthday present I have ever gotten. In four more years he'll be 15 and getting his driver's permit and I can claim the number in the middle as my own.

Not wanting to speed that up any...

but I would like to take my time

 and land up there in one piece,

with as little work in the body shop

 as possible between now and then.

My own birthday was very full with wonderful things and people yesterday and working, so Ross and I were having trouble connecting so he could wish me a happy birthday.  He wanted to call me at 6:00 am but Laura didn't think that was a good idea.   3:00 am our time! So we finally got to talk at length today.   So fast forward to this afternoon when I was sending out some thanks to friends that sent good wishes yesterday.

 One of them was Ross' Aunt Debbie, his Dad's sister.  I was saying to Debbie that we recently learned that our family and theirs are descendants for the same ancestor, Stephen Hopkins.  So I was saying isn't that funny..Laura and Robert are cousins, 14 generations removed.  Hee hee.   And then I had the funniest thought come into my head.

 Oh my gosh, not only that but I am the cousin of our grandsons, Spencer and Ross!  So I just had to call Ross back and tell him that not only are we birthday twins and grandson and grandmother but we are also cousins! 

 Loooooong pause...
 

"So what you are saying then Gramma is that, I'm your grandson and your birthday twin, AND your cousin?"

"Yep and your Dad is my son-in law and my cousin, your Grandpa Bryant is your grandpa and your cousin and he is your mother's father-in-law and her cousin and your brother's cousin and grandfather.  And your Grandpa Bryant is my cousin. 

Dead air as he ponders and I can see that brain of his in motion......... 

"That is really cool Gramma but you forgot one?

"Really, what?"

I can hear him smiling through the phone....

"We are all brothers and sisters!  We have the same Heavenly Father!"

Hmm, I hate it when they are smarter than me, that was supposed to be my line! 

Then he said, " I only have one thing to say about all this.....this marriage between my parents was definitely meant to be!"

******************************

It has been a delightful couple of days.  I don't regret getting older even a little bit!  It is a blessing!

 http://youtu.be/4_K9H9mdNeg

 

And if you are still here, the best song of all below if you didn't see it on Facebook yesterday!

http://youtu.be/IpINczqQWOU

Genealogy and Family History~Unplugged!

Pinterest photo

Jim and I spent the entire month of May on the east coast.  We had the opportunity to revisit our American Heritage and to gain a new appreciation for the price paid by thousands for the independence and liberties we all enjoy.

 Diorama of the Mayflower found 

in the Provincetown Museum

There is nothing like having your consciousness raised about your patriotism quite like discovering  that you have ancestors that were pilgrims. That would have never happened had we not been working and learning all the time we have been serving in the Oakland Family History Library.  If we hadn't been working hard to learn Family Tree and it hadn't come out when it did we would have missed this opportunity of a life time.  The trip was planned to the places we visited long before we knew any of this.  There is also nothing quite like having Bob Trapp sit beside you and guide you through verifying it all in "The Mayflower Families Through Five Generations" that we have right there on our shelves in the Library.  The Silver Books are the authoritative source for verification of those five generations and is a compilation of thousands of researchers' findings.

The Mayflower Society Building 

is directly behind this gorgeous house.

 The thing about this discovery is not in being related to an historical figure or in being able to join a society.  The pearl is found in actually knowing who our ancestors are and knowing the information for them is well-documented and that they are a part of our lineage.  We were the first in both of our families to do family history so being able to discover this has been so wonderful. When I put the first pencil to a paper pedigree and had only a handful of names, I could not have imagined that 35 years later this could happen.  It is nothing short of a miracle.

We went on our first family history trip and learned the best vacations are those with a purpose beyond just touring and sightseeing.  I don't see any regular vacations in our future ever!  We understand now we need to go to several places and walk where they walked and stand by their graves.  We saw many beautiful places and learned so much along the way but the very best days were spent doing family history. 

Parishioner Cemetery, Truro, MA

Some ancestors are buried here

As much as we love the websites like Find A Grave and Billion Graves it is just not the same as being there. Through our experience in the Library we have learned many things pertinent to our family history and were prepared to search when we arrived.  We are so grateful to all the wonderful and brilliant people we work with that have taught us so much.  Our prior learning helped us know just what to do, where to go and how to find what we needed.

We learned all about Jim's immigrant Grandfather's real life experience in his first town in America after coming from Italy at 18. In New Jersey he would  join his brothers in the grocery business they established in Montclair just across the river from Manhattan.

We could browse through countless articles and city directories and old postcards and feel what his life was like in the early years in 3D...not just online!  We saw their first home and toured it because the current owner just happened to be home and invited us in.

Gramma and Grampa's first house.  

Their last house was our first house!

This home was featured in Scientific American in 1890! 

We found it in the local library!

We sat in their church, because it just happened to be open right when we passed by for a special event.   We saw his mother's elementary school because the one lady walking down a little side street just happened to know and we were prompted to stop and ask.

The place they worshiped God,

Our Lady of the The Immaculate Conception

Catholic Church in Montclair.

We found  the store, Ferrera and Co, at 425 Bloomfield Avenue because the city directory gave us the name and location of the business in about five minutes. We found them at the Historical Society because Jim was prompted to see if they even had one that very morning as we were driving in.   Montclair's Historical Society just happened to be open on Wednesdays only.  It felt like divine help and inspiration at every turn. (Because it was!)

Jim standing in front of the old grocery store

Now a self-described High End Thrift Shop!

We could just picture Grampa 

in his green bib apron 

taking care of the produce.

 It was the perfect day and one of the most wonderful genealogy experiences we could have ever hoped to have.  All  this was possible because we live in America!   We had the liberty to move about freely within our country and this is the place where people could immigrate to find opportunities they didn't have in the old country.  Right there in that little town our American branch in Jim's family was begun.

Jim visited Patriot's Cove in Charleston, South Carolina and toured the ships, the USS Yorktown and a sub and a battleship that gave him a glimpse at the courage and bravery of the young men,  including my father who served in WW2.  That just deepened our appreciation for our freedoms and liberties so much.  He saw the tiny spaces they lived in for months and months and with the danger all around them and how extremely young they were.  It was all very sobering and poignant for both of us.

From there we went to Plymouth, Massachusetts where we learned much more than we had ever  known about the pilgrims and gained a true appreciation for their immense sacrifices to come here and establish a place where we could have religious freedoms like in no other place on earth.  We gained a deep appreciation for the Native Americans that helped them learn how to raise corn and mentored them in the ways of their new country.

Pilgrim Hall Museum

My favorite museum of all time

In The Pilgrim Hall Museum we saw the artifacts the passengers owned and the treasures they carried with them on the Mayflower.  They had the original bible brought over on the voyage and used by William Bradford for his entire life.  They had lots of pilgrim clothing and so many wonderful books and things for sale.  We bought  a video entitle One Small Candle and it is positively fabulous.  We have watched it many times since we have been home.  We also bought the book, Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford, and it is amazing.

My favorite treasure in the Museum

The White Cradle brought by Susannah White

 on the Mayflower voyage.

Only one baby was born on the voyage,  the son of our ancestor, Stephen Hopkins.  I had a strong feeling that I was gazing upon the borrowed bed of that little relative.  There were three pregnant woman on the voyage.  They had to have bonded deeply on the perilous voyage.  It just makes sense that Susannah would have lent this to her friend, Elizabeth for her infant son, Oceanus.  That's just how most women are, right?  I could just picture that little baby boy sleeping there. The White baby was consider the first child born in the colonies.  He was actually born in Plymouth Harbor as they waited to get a secure place to begin the colonization, build their homes and for winter to pass.

Monticello, Charlottesville, VA

We saw the place where the Mayflower Compact was signed in Provincetown Harbor.  The concepts and principles it included became the basis for the Declaration of Independence. We also visited Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, who was as you know, the primary author of it.  It was an entire trip of learning to love our family, our American forefathers, our military personnel and their sacrifices, and this great country even more than we had before.

We had this life altering experience because of this country we call America, our love for Family History and our dedication to making learning more a life long pursuit.

 

The First Congregational Meetinghouse 
Thomas Newcomb 'of Eastham'~ Minister 

One of my favorite parts was being able to stand in Truro, Massachusetts in front of the oldest church on Cape Cod.  It was built in 1707 and to know that one of my great-grandfathers was the minister there and had baptized six of his children in that very place in 1717.  It was a joy to discover that The Savior has been an important part of our heritage for many generations.

 Suddenly we felt a lot bigger than our one little family and it was wonderful and will always make for a more special Independence Day for us.  And a more meaningful Thanksgiving too for that matter!  We are already talking about going the Dakotas next and then on to Wales and Sweden.  Thank you co-workers and great teachers and Family Search/Family Tree.  We are believers in your new program and will be patient as you sort things out!!  Take all the time you need Family Search.....it is worth the wait!