Sunday, January 3, 2010
Relatively Speaking
I'm taking the weekend off from posting, but wanted to give you all a heads up on a new blog theme with my friends & cousins, Carol and Karen called Relatively Speaking. We hope this will be a once weekly blog inspired by the many discussions we generate! The first one will be Monday, January 4th and you will find it here.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Genealogy Nightmare!
My husband and Older Daughter are having a little chuckle at mom's expense. It seems they just showed that credit card commercial where father and son travel to Norway to experience their roots only to discover upon their visit to the hall of records that they were Swedish.
Older Daughter always thinks of me when she sees that commercial. Why? HELLO! I WOULD NEVER MAKE THAT KIND OF MISTAKE! What idiot ad writer wrote that? Why would they think it is funny to spend thousands of dollars and travel to the wrong country?
I've spent the last twenty-three years checking facts, double-checking facts, and I will admit there was one person who led me down the wrong path. You see, I went looking for some church records and when I called the church in this small Ohio town, they said someone else had their records and was busy indexing them. I called this person, and was asked a few questions and this person said they would get back to me.
A couple weeks later I received a nice packet in the mail, outlining my family with the statement that your "Anton Meyer" was the son of so and so. They were from this town in Germany. And so on. Fine. I ordered the church records via a Family History Center. Great, I was able to get a couple more generations back. I was happy with this and shared the information with the cousin who shared the original information with me. We were both happy campers.
About four or five months after the initial contact, I received a note from her and a pile of copies, and oh, incidentally, I gave you the wrong parents on Anton. She then proceeded to give me the correct information and all the siblings I had known about. I wasted all those months of research, and cash for films and copies, and time for entering the wrong information in my database. I think I finally decided it was about six months wasted. And now I had to reorder those films and make more copies. This was at a time in my life when research dollars were limited.
The up side of this is that I was able to get the correct information and take the family back about two more generations. Since this was my first foray into German records, I felt really pleased with the results of my search.
Since then, unless I personally know the researcher, the thought of asking someone else or paying someone else for information is abhorrent to me. I'd rather find it myself. And I found that I really enjoy the hunt!
So for someone - even in a commercial - to go to the wrong country looking for their ancestry is just a nightmare!
Older Daughter always thinks of me when she sees that commercial. Why? HELLO! I WOULD NEVER MAKE THAT KIND OF MISTAKE! What idiot ad writer wrote that? Why would they think it is funny to spend thousands of dollars and travel to the wrong country?
I've spent the last twenty-three years checking facts, double-checking facts, and I will admit there was one person who led me down the wrong path. You see, I went looking for some church records and when I called the church in this small Ohio town, they said someone else had their records and was busy indexing them. I called this person, and was asked a few questions and this person said they would get back to me.
A couple weeks later I received a nice packet in the mail, outlining my family with the statement that your "Anton Meyer" was the son of so and so. They were from this town in Germany. And so on. Fine. I ordered the church records via a Family History Center. Great, I was able to get a couple more generations back. I was happy with this and shared the information with the cousin who shared the original information with me. We were both happy campers.
About four or five months after the initial contact, I received a note from her and a pile of copies, and oh, incidentally, I gave you the wrong parents on Anton. She then proceeded to give me the correct information and all the siblings I had known about. I wasted all those months of research, and cash for films and copies, and time for entering the wrong information in my database. I think I finally decided it was about six months wasted. And now I had to reorder those films and make more copies. This was at a time in my life when research dollars were limited.
The up side of this is that I was able to get the correct information and take the family back about two more generations. Since this was my first foray into German records, I felt really pleased with the results of my search.
Since then, unless I personally know the researcher, the thought of asking someone else or paying someone else for information is abhorrent to me. I'd rather find it myself. And I found that I really enjoy the hunt!
So for someone - even in a commercial - to go to the wrong country looking for their ancestry is just a nightmare!
Friday, January 1, 2010
Family History Resolutions
Are you having a hard time figuring out what you want to accomplish in 2010? I have so many ongoing projects, many of which are hugely time-consuming, that I sometimes have trouble setting goals. The ideas are there, it is the follow-through. I won't even attempt to blame husband for distracting me.
1. Photos. We moved bins full of photographs with us from Michigan. I've managed to have both daughters paw through them and pull out what they want. If there was anything they had that I wanted a copy of I scanned it. Wow, the blessing of scanners, eh? So my goal is for husband and I to go through all the photos we have and pull out what we want to keep. And put them in albums. The rest will be discarded. I've decided that while the concept of double prints was a good thing at the time, allowing us to share with family those precious moments of our lives, it has just added to the problem of what to do with all those photos. This doesn't even include father-in-law's photos we brought with us. We can hardly discard them, and most of them are in some type of album.
2. To-Do files. I want to continue to work on those items I set aside to work on at a future date. I'd really like to be more organized and more consistent with this.
3. I'd like to get back into a genealogical society. Sadly, the local society here in mid-Tennessee is not all that I would like it to be. Maybe I should resolve to start attending meetings again.
4. I think I'd also like to get back into Genealogical speaker mode again. I haven't spoken to a group in years because of my work schedule when I worked at the library. Since my schedule involved some nights and weekends, it virtually put an end to my speaking career.
5. Convince hubby to make another trip to Lexington, Kentucky Cemetery so I may photograph more of my families graves. Start working up other cemeteries to photograph.
6. Keep up this blog. I'm not sure I'll keep up the weekend, but hope to have plenty of material for Monday-Friday.
Since resolution #1 is a biggie, I think I'll quit with six. What are your resolutions?
1. Photos. We moved bins full of photographs with us from Michigan. I've managed to have both daughters paw through them and pull out what they want. If there was anything they had that I wanted a copy of I scanned it. Wow, the blessing of scanners, eh? So my goal is for husband and I to go through all the photos we have and pull out what we want to keep. And put them in albums. The rest will be discarded. I've decided that while the concept of double prints was a good thing at the time, allowing us to share with family those precious moments of our lives, it has just added to the problem of what to do with all those photos. This doesn't even include father-in-law's photos we brought with us. We can hardly discard them, and most of them are in some type of album.
2. To-Do files. I want to continue to work on those items I set aside to work on at a future date. I'd really like to be more organized and more consistent with this.
3. I'd like to get back into a genealogical society. Sadly, the local society here in mid-Tennessee is not all that I would like it to be. Maybe I should resolve to start attending meetings again.
4. I think I'd also like to get back into Genealogical speaker mode again. I haven't spoken to a group in years because of my work schedule when I worked at the library. Since my schedule involved some nights and weekends, it virtually put an end to my speaking career.
5. Convince hubby to make another trip to Lexington, Kentucky Cemetery so I may photograph more of my families graves. Start working up other cemeteries to photograph.
6. Keep up this blog. I'm not sure I'll keep up the weekend, but hope to have plenty of material for Monday-Friday.
Since resolution #1 is a biggie, I think I'll quit with six. What are your resolutions?
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