52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy : Family Heirlooms

Week 6 - Family Heirlooms. For which family heirloom are you most thankful? How did you acquire this treasure and what does it mean to you and your family?


Most of the heirlooms of my family still remain with my parents for a number of reason, not the least of which is the fact that I have a small house.  But there is one family heirloom that I recently acquired that I am thankful for - the Bible carried by my paternal great-grandfather, Eli Weldon Haley (1866-1957).


It isn't the kind of Bible that most genealogists would hope for - there aren't names and dates of births, marriages, etc. within its pages.  It is valuable to me because it was one that he carried and used at church, as its well-worn cover and pages can attest.  It is a connection to the past and evidence of the role of faith in my ancestors life.  


I acquired this treasure within the past year from my father, who has been providing me with all sorts of family treasures and epherma.  The Haleys were members of the Evangelical Association, which merged after my ancestor's death into the United Methodist Church.  The church they worshiped in, Mt. Zion, is still an active church.


Just holding an everyday item that held value to him helps me feel a bit more connected.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy : Life Experiences

Week 5 - Life Experiences : Sometimes the challenges in life provide the best learning experiences.  Can you find an example of this in your own family tree?  Which brick wall ancestor are you most thankful for, and how did that person shape your family history experience?

The brickwall ancestor that has intrigued me the most would be Ida Davis (1874-1900), my maternal 2x great-grandmother.  Though she died at a very young age, she left behind a lot of mysteries.  The biggest ones are the parentage of her two children, Pansy and June.  June was my great-grandmother.

Photo of Ida Davis (1874-1900) and daughter June

Though I've attempted to document her life through records I've been able to find, unfortunately there is no one left around who knows the true stories surrounding the parentage of her children.  Perhaps there is still a court record  to be found - an in-depth research trip to Owen and Monroe County, Indiana courthouses is on my "bucket list".

Probably the most intriguing recent find was locating her in the 1900 census of Marion County, Indiana staying at the "Door of Hope" rescue mission.  I'm 99% sure that this record is her.   Great-grandmother June's birth certificate in Indianapolis provides more mysteries when it spells out her parents as Atkinson and Ida Davis.   Was Atkinson a surname or a first name?

A few different men have been speculated as June's father through family legend.  Photographs of the mysterious gentlemen identified as either Frank Fletcher or Carrie Morris looks strikingly like my great-uncles.  The photograph's Mediterranean appearance, should he be my ancestor, may be the cause for the predominance of dark hair, eyes and skin tone shared by members of my grandmothers family on this side.  One day, I will have DNA testing done to see what interesting mysteries lie within.

When, by age 26, you have at least two husbands, two children and a mysterious past you leave plenty of clues for your descendants.  Ida has kept me intrigued for years, and someday I'm positive I will find the answers.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy : Free Online Genealogy Tools

Week 3 – Free Online Genealogy Tools: Free online genealogy tools are like gifts from above. Which one are you most thankful for? How has it helped your family history experience?


Probably the free online genealogy tool that has helped me the most has been Google books.  While not a genealogy tool per se, Google books online archive has allowed me to research older county histories and published genealogies that I might not have been able to access without an enormous expenditure of time and money. 


Even those books that only provide a snippet view have been valuable as they can point to previously unknown resources that I might later decide to seek out in a library or purchase.


Particularly with ancestors and relatives with unusual names, the "hit" ratio on mentioned names being my people has turned out to be pretty high.  I particularly enter names of the more difficult ancestors to see what might turn up.  


For your older lines, particularly New England, searches of Google books will lead to many published genealogies that can provide fodder for future research.


For modern research, including locale research, many publishers have allowed preview pages that can give you the information you need while allowing you to decide whether you want to purchase or locate the book in a library.  With today's limited budgets, this has proved invaluable.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy : Paid Genealogy Tools

Week 2 - Paid Genealogy Tools : Which paid genealogy tool do you appreciate the most?  What special features put it at the top of your list?  How can it help others with their genealogy research?


Without a doubt, the paid genealogy tool that I appreciate the most is my subscription to Ancestry.com.  For the money, there just isn't any research tool that has been as beneficial as my subscription.


For years, I avoided subscribing because of the cost - and now I don't know what I would do without it.  My subscription began after I had completed a research project for my MBA program, with Ancestry.com as the subject matter.  After exploring the subject, I was convinced to ask for a subscription for my birthday.  Though the subscription only renews annually, nearly every day I open a new "genealogical present" when I find records of ancestors and relatives online.


Not everything is online, and there are some databases at Ancestry that can be found for free in other locales.  But you cannot beat the aggregation of the information at your fingertips.  You have the ability to access the information anytime you have your computer running, and you can easily lose track of time exploring the databases.


Probably the features that put it at the top of the list right now for me are the census databases and the newspaper archives.  I have been digging into newspaper research on my blacksheep relatives, and use the census databases to track the movements of families across the country.


A subscription to Ancesty.com will not solve all of your research problems, but it will aid you by providing access to more records than you could conceivably access manually by traveling all across the country.  It is a wonderful tool to supplement on-site research at courthouses and libraries.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2012) that invite genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more. 

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy : Blogs

Week 1 - Blogs : Blogging is a great way for genealogists to share information with family members, potential cousins and each other.  For which blog are you most thankful?  Is it one of the earliest blogs you read, or a current one?  What is special about the blog and why should others read it?

Right now, one of the blogs that I'm most thankful for is James Tanner's Genealogy Star.  His blog wasn't one of the first that I followed, but I picked it up quite awhile ago, and have enjoyed reading his posts ever since.

The reason I chose James' blog is that his posts extolling genealogists to digitize their information and get out from under the paper mountain has really struck a chord with me.  In particular, I recommend these posts: Observations on Technology and Genealogy and The Paper vs. Computer Dispute.

Though I'm not good at making or keeping New Year's resolutions, if I do have one goal for the upcoming year it will be to digitize and share the documents I have - and eliminate the unnecessary retention of photocopies I've obtained from libraries.  In my lifetime, I've gone from one extreme to the other; from file cabinets full of files, to binders with sheet protectors protecting photocopies!  In the future, I want to eliminate clutter and only save paper documents only when they are truly originals.

I highly recommend you add Genealogy Star to your blog reading.

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52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2012) that invite genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more.