I found a picture of my mom and I when I was eight years old that was humorous. We both had swollen faces from having the mumps at the same time. I found a three generation photo of me, my mom, and her mom when I was a toddler. In the spirit of Mother’s Day, I put both photos on Facebook to share with family and friends. None of my children live close, so I looked forward to their phone calls which came as expected. It was a wonderful weekend until a downpour started Sunday evening. We got over an inch of rain in about twenty minutes and soon found it seeping into our basement! While I count my blessings that I have a home and we didn’t lose power during the storm, hauling things out of the water in the basement was not the way I wanted to spend Mother’s Day. Toward the end of the evening I remembered the Thanksgiving Day morning that I opened my cabinets to begin cooking to find cockroaches that had to be dealt with before I could continue meal preparations. I remarked that I wasn’t sure which day was worse. Remembering another tough time made it a little easier to cope with this recent one.

The past and how we or others have coped with it can help us deal with the present. My mother’s favorite saying was “If you can laugh or cry over a situation, laughing is a lot less messy.” I often remember that in tough situations. While I wasn’t laughing about our seeping basement, I wasn’t crying either. The key piece of advice from my dad was about relationships, which he shared with me just before I got married. He said that when my future husband’s behavior annoyed me, decide whether I thought it would still bother me in fifty years. If I thought it would, I should say something about it. However, if I didn’t think it would still be an issue in fifty years, just try to ignore it. It has taken me more years than I would like to admit to really put his advice into to practice, but things go better when I do. We all can benefit from the experience of parents, grandparents, and others who have gone before us.

I marvel at the courage of my paternal grandparents, who came here from Ireland as teenagers to start a new life. I really wish I had asked them about that time in their lives, what it had been like and how they had coped with the challenges. With our present economic insecurity, I wish I could ask my grandparents how they coped with the Great Depression. My parents and grandparents are now all deceased, so I can’t ask about their experiences. If you have parents and grandparents still living, start asking questions. Did they face similar challenges to your present ones and if so, how did they address them. Don’t wait to start asking, you never know when it might be too late. In a previous post: Interviewing Your Family Members: A Great Way to Discover Your Family History, I included some tips for doing successful interviews.

What about those who are too far in the past to interview them? Searching for records concerning their lives and then carefully considering what is included in those records can help us know more about the lives our ancestors lived. My father, like many of his generation served in World War II but was rarely willing to talk about his war experiences. It seemed the memories were just too painful. From his military discharge papers, I learned that he had served with an Army Air Corps unit that maintained the war planes. I wondered how many times he felt the pain of fellow soldiers not returning because their plane was shot down. Perhaps he struggled with survivor guilt because his military assignment kept him on the ground while others were dying.

Another one of my ancestors, Harmon Henry Miller served in the American Civil War. Searching the Civil War records on Alexander Street Press, which is available at any Family Search Family History Center, I learned in which military unit Harmon had served. I also found a history of his unit and the battles in which they had fought. One of the battles was the Battle of the Wilderness which was the first battle in which Union Lt. General Ulysses S Grant fought against Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The battle ultimately was a draw with neither side able to claim victory. A temporary truce was called in the midst of the battle to extinguish the fire, started by cannon fire and musket balls, which was so intense that soldiers were falling from smoke inhalation! They put out the flames and went back to fighting.

Another challenging time in my ancestral history is the Great Irish Famine of 1845 to 1850. Due to a potato blight, one million poor Irish peasants starved to death while two million others emigrated. My direct ancestors survived while remaining in Ireland throughout the Great Famine. I am currently reading a book about the Famine to learn more about what my ancestors went through.

We are fortunate in this age of information to have so much we can learn about the past. We can find the encouragement that we need to face our own challenges as we learn about the ones that our ancestors faced.

This post was originally published in May 2014. Minor changes have been made.

Christine Bell

Christine Bell has been seeking her ancestor for almost forty years and continues to find joy in each one she finds. She volunteers in a Family Search Family History Center where she helps others find their ancestors. As a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Saints, she is grateful to be a member of the Church. She is a wife, mother of six grown children, grandmother of five going on six, and currently living in the western United States. Christine enjoys spending time with family and creating quilts for family, friends and Humanitarian Services of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Since you were born, you have been creating a history which is part of your family’s history. What do you have in your home that tells your story? The following is a good method for collecting what you have:

Get a cardboard box. Any kind of a box will do. Put it someplace where it is in the way, perhaps on the couch or on the counter in the kitchen—anywhere where it cannot go unnoticed. Then, over a period of a few weeks, collect and put into the box every record of your life, such as your birth certificate, your certificate of blessing, your certificate of baptism, your certificate of ordination, and your certificate of graduation. Collect diplomas, all of the photographs, honors, or awards, a diary if you have kept one, everything that you can find pertaining to your life; anything that is written, or registered, or recorded that testifies that you are alive and what you have done.

 

Don’t try to do this in a day. Take some time on it. Most of us have these things scattered around here and there. Some of them are in a box in the garage under that stack of newspapers; others are stored away in drawers, or in the attic, or one place or another. Perhaps some have been tucked in the leaves of the Bible or elsewhere. (“Your Family History: Getting Started” by Boyd K. Packer, Ensign, August 2003)

Depending on your stage of life, you may have the certificates, photos, and letters of previous generations in addition to the documents that relate to your life. The “get a box” idea can work even if you have just gotten your own first place and your history documents are still at your parents’ house, you will just need their help in collecting the items.

To read more of Christine’s articles, click here.

Once you have had time to collect things, it is time to organize them. That’s where the filing system you have chosen comes in. (See Genealogy 101.) You will probably want to create a file for yourself in addition to the surname files. Within files, place items in historical order which will make it easier to record the stories these items tell. Be sure to record your own story along with the stories of your ancestors. Your descendants will be grateful you did.

Are you keeping a journal? A personal journal will not only benefit those who might read it after you are gone but can help you also. We all have rough times in life. If we record those times and how we got through them, it can be a powerful aid for getting through future challenges. I will expand on writing your own history and journal keeping in future articles.

There are many things that you might find to put “in the box.” I would like to share some of the things that I found that helped me know my family better.

Old Letters and Cards

This is Cornelius and Mollie O’Neill on their wedding day.

So far, I have not found a journal kept by any of my ancestors. The closest thing to a journal that I have found are twenty-four letters that passed between my paternal grandparents while they were courting. I shared how they met in a previous post. Their letters are dated between 1910 and 1914. The early letters were exchanged while they were both living in Manhattan, New York. Picture dating without cell phones! They continued to correspond after Grandpa moved to California.

The letters are valuable to me because they show a side of my grandparents that I never knew. The year I was born, my paternal grandparents were both 65 years old. As a result, I only knew them as older people. Their letters show a glimpse into their lives when they were young.

Their letters reveal that the wedding almost didn’t happen! When Cornelius learned that he wasn’t her only suitor, he sent an angry letter telling Mollie of his discovery and that he was headed for California to find work in the oil fields. Not only is the tone of that letter radically different from all the others he wrote, his handwriting is different too. Even without reading his words, his handwriting speaks of his anger. In a short time, Cornelius calmed down, apologized for his angry letter, and continued his courtship with Mollie by long distance mail. The following letter speaks to just how close their marriage came to not happening!

Dated March 5, 1914 the letter reads as follows:

My Dear + loving Friend Mollie

Thanks very much for your kind and loving letter to hand a few days ago, unnecessary to express my delight at its receipt—First of all Mollie I am more than delighted to hear you are inclined to be mine again. And that you have gave up Jack Doran. And Mollie it was somewhat of a surprise to me to hear but I always said you would never marry him. Although I was a kind of believing it when you rote [sic] me that yous [sic] were engaged. But I am delighted to hear that it is broken off again. Hoping it’s true.

Cornelius and Mollie were married in Coalinga, California in December of 1914 and spent most of the rest of their lives in that little California desert town.

Among the cards that my O’Neill grandparents saved was a Christmas card they had received in 1950 from cousins in Ireland. There wasn’t anything remarkable about the card but on the envelope flap was a return address. I consulted a map and found the address was near where my grandpa had grown up. Since the card was over a half a century old, I thought the family might have been at the same address at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Consulting the Irish census of 1901 proved my hunch was right. Here was Grandpa’s cousin as a child enumerated with his parents and siblings! That census provided information about a whole family group that I didn’t know anything about up to that time.

Photographs

I love photographs! They give faces to the names you find in the records. The following is one of my favorites because it provides a window to the personalities of the subjects!

This photo taken about 1925 is Cornelius and Mollie O’Neill with their first car. It was a surprise for me to see a woman who I had only known as stately and reserved, posed on the hood of a car!

My uncle told me the following story regarding the car. When Cornelius was one of a few workers that did not become ill during the flu epidemic, he was promoted to a job that came with a company car. When Cornelius protested that he did not know how to drive, his boss replied that he had better learn fast or he was going to be doing a lot of walking! Therefore, Cornelius learned to drive. With a driver’s license, their own car was a natural next step.

My greatest frustration while looking through old photographs is how many of them are unlabeled. I know well how it happens since I have many photos that my husband and I have taken that are waiting to be labeled. If you have unlabeled photos, get a soft leaded pencil and write on the back of the photo who is in it and when it was taken. While it may seem silly because you know the people in the photos so well, that’s exactly why you should be the one to label them. And as you go through your photographs, you will probably remember stories you want to write down.

A trick I have learned in working with unidentified photos is to use the few that are identified as a clue to identity the ones that aren’t. I will use the following photos as examples.

While I don’t usually make a habit of talking to photos, when I found these, I said out loud, “Well, “Me,” I really wish you had identified yourself a little bit more.” A few photos later, I found this next one.

The caption, written in the same handwriting, reads, “Wilbur + Me.” Wilbur is my mother’s older brother which told me that “Me” is my mom! Once I recognized “Me” as my mom, I recognized, from other photos, that the building behind her in the first two photos is her grandparents’ house.

Next week, I will share what I have found to be successful for talking to other family members about they know about your family. So, start making a list of people you could talk to about your family. Start with your oldest relatives while they are still living and mentally alert. Be sure to put siblings and cousins on the list. It is valuable to talk with those that are close to your age because they may have photos, records and memories that you don’t.

This post was originally published in 2014. Changes have been made to make formatting consistent with site.

Christine Bell

Christine Bell has been seeking her ancestor for almost forty years and continues to find joy in each one she finds. She volunteers in a Family Search Family History Center where she helps others find their ancestors. As a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Saints, she is grateful to be a member of the Church. She is a wife, mother of six grown children, grandmother of five going on six, and currently living in the western United States. Christine enjoys spending time with family and creating quilts for family, friends and Humanitarian Services of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

For most of us, our only permanent memorial will be in a cemetery. As we go back in time as written records become scarce or non-existent, a cemetery marker may be the only record of an ancestor existence, and this is especially true of children who died.   While some markers contain little information, others contain a rich amount of information.

Typical grave markers today are flat slabs of stone but historically grave markers stood upright and could be quite ornate. In the Chicago area, Graceland Cemetery has grave memorials so large and impressive that tours of the cemetery are available during the nice weather months!

The symbols on the grave stone are sometimes as informative as the words that are inscribed on it. There are a number of websites which supply interpretations of grave stone art. Some symbols might tell you about the character of the deceased and others might indicate organizations to which she or he belonged which might lead you to additional information.

Fortunately, many of the cemeteries in the United States are cared for well either by the cemetery owners or a supporting organization. At the same time, there are a number which are not, particularly small or private ones. If you are going to venture into a cemetery that is overgrown with vegetation or otherwise uncared for, dress as you would for any other wilderness area, wearing long sleeves, long pants and insect repellent.

Years ago, my husband and me with four young children in tow, went with a cousin to visit an ill-kept cemetery where a distant relative was buried. While this may sound strange but because we had traveled a distance to reach the cemetery and our children were quite young, it seemed reasonable to have a picnic right there in the cemetery. While we weren’t dressed well for the situation, the experience was relatively pleasant. The coming days revealed our lack of preparedness as the only one of our four children who didn’t develop poison ivy was found to have an engorged tick embedded in her scalp!

Age, weather and the environment all take a toll on grave markers and many become quite hard to read. A number of You Tube videos can be found on ways to make it easier to read difficult gravestones.

Be very careful in the methods you choose as they can be harmful to the stone and that includes shaving cream (harsh chemicals that can further harm stone) and flour (which can become food for the organisms that live on stone). Even making a rubbing of an older stone could damage the stone.

The following suggestion comes from the New Hanover County North Carolina Genweb:

Not all stones that appear hard to read are weathered to the point that they actually are unreadable. Sometimes the only thing lacking is good lighting. This point was made clear to me by something that I experienced first-hand when I visited a nearby cemetery for the first time during the winter months. In winter, not only are the days shorter, but the sun is lower in the sky than it is during the spring and summer.

 

The light is not as bright and full as it is during other times of the year. During my winter visit to the cemetery, I observed many very old stones that appeared to be so worn that I fully believed no one would ever again read their inscriptions. I thought that the weather of 200 years had deteriorated the carvings in the stone to the point that the carvings were little more than slight bumps and ridges on a rough stone.  I could not have been more surprised when I returned to the cemetery during the early days of spring.

 

Suddenly it was as if the old worn stones had been replaced with newly carved, but old fashioned, tombstones. They were of course the same stones, but were given a new life under the bright spring sun. The sun shone against the stones casting shadows into the carvings, making them distinct and readable. Once again, the memorials of centuries ago were telling their tales.

 

In a similar fashion, the time of day and type of day you visit a cemetery can make a difference. If you visit on a cloudy and overcast day, or if you visit late in the afternoon or evening, don’t be surprised when you find older stones unreadable. If you want to be able to read old engravings well, plan your visit according to the best lighting conditions.

 

Visit in spring or summer, on a bright clear day, and watch the clock. Often visiting around 11 AM or noon is the best time, since the sun is high in the sky and casts important shadows from a steep angle. Just the slight difference in the angle of the sun can help or hinder reading old, faded stones.

 

If you are unable to wait for the spring or summer to roll around, or are unable to get to a particular cemetery during noon on a bright clear day, all is not lost. Just remember to come prepared: bring a mirror. You don’t have to pack a large sized mirror; even a small compact mirror can be useful.

 

The trick here is to cast the light from the sun onto the surface of the stone at such an angle that the engraving casts a shadow to make it more readable. Take a mirror and experiment. The exact method you will need to use will depend on where the sun is in the sky, which way the stone is facing, and so on. http://www.ncgenweb.us/newhanover/cem1.html

Visiting an ancestor’s grave may lead you to discover family members that you don’t know about now. This is especially true of children who died. My friend, Diane, discovered a family member recently when she visited a cemetery. Diane, while on vacation, sought out the cemetery where she knew some of her great-grandparents were buried.

She found their graves with great-grandma to the right of great-grandpa. The grave stone to the left of great-grandpa was inscribed Aunt Minnie who had the same surname as great-grandpa. Diane had no idea who Aunt Minnie was and found it a bit odd that “aunt” would be included on a grave stone. Diane’s search for Aunt Minnie’s identity and whose aunt she was, revealed a woman with a colorful life.

Turns out Aunt Minnie was great-grandfather’s second wife who he married after the death of his first wife left him a single father with a number of young children. We might suppose that Aunt Minnie was a spinster prior to marrying great-grandpa but no, the records show that he was her third husband. This was quite an interesting discovery that started with finding a grave marker for a previously unknown ancestor.

Finding a grave while at the cemetery can sometimes be a challenge. The following article from the Deseret News may prove some encouragement and strategies for locating a hard to find grave.

Recently, my sister and brother and I made a pilgrimage to a large cemetery in Southern California where several of our ancestors were buried. We approached the sexton with 12 names of ancestors we thought had been buried there. Eventually, we were given maps for seven of the 12 ancestors and we set out to find them (we were pleased they found seven of the 12).

 

The maps made it relatively easy to find six of the seven graves, but the seventh proved both difficult and, eventually, amazing.

 

Our grandmother, born Virginia David O’Cull, must have had a unique childhood. As discovered on census records and her first marriage certificate, she regularly went by her middle name, David. Both my father and I were given that same middle name. Because she, through divorce and husbands’ deaths, had five husbands, we were not sure under which name she had been buried. The sexton told us she was buried as Virginia Lanier, the surname of her last husband.

 

Sure enough, our grandmother’s grave proved difficult to find, partially because of her series of last names and because she was in an older section of the cemetery, where grave locations were not as precise. The sexton dispatched a cemetery worker to help us find her grave.

 

The map was specific but the grave was not there. After half an hour’s search the worker called for an additional, more experienced, man to help us. By this time my brother and sister had to return to our hotel.

 

The two workers and I continued for nearly an hour, searching the location from the map and proximate areas. Virginia Lanier was the only name the workers had. They would never have found her with that name. Finally, as the workers continued to search near the location on the map, I progressed evermore distant from that site.

 

Approximately 200 feet from the designated site I felt inspired to pray. As I raised my eyes I found — not six feet from me — her grave with a headstone engraved, Virginia Harrison, the name of her first husband, our father’s father.

 

Chills of gratitude swelled in my soul as I thought: “Thank you, Heavenly Father, for this special blessing!”

 

The headstone included her birth and death dates, both correct for this wonderful ancestor, whom I never had the privilege of knowing personally. But, suddenly I felt a closeness to her never before realized.

— R David Harrison, Brigham City

I don’t live close to any cemetery where family members are buried and haven’t been able to visit many of them. If you are in a similar circumstance, there are two great websites that can help. They are Find-a-Grave and Billion Graves. Both of these sites provide the opportunity to post pictures of grave stones online.

Genealogy
To read more of Christine’s articles, click the picture.

For Billion Graves, the pictures have to be taken with a smart phone and the Billion Graves app. So if you are able to visit a cemetery to take pictures, consider sharing them with one of these sites. If you would like a picture of a grave stone from a distance cemetery, both sites have a request service so that you can get the help of someone who lives in the area and can go to the cemetery to take a picture and post it online.

If participating in one of these websites appeals to you, you might want to consider making yourself available to be a person who can answer requests from other people by taking photos in your local area.

The summer is a great time to be out and gathering information from cemeteries. I wish you good fortune in “visiting” your ancestors at their grave site.

Christine Bell

Christine Bell has been seeking her ancestor for almost forty years and continues to find joy in each one she finds. She volunteers in a Family Search Family History Center where she helps others find their ancestors. As a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Saints, she is grateful to be a member of the Church. She is a wife, mother of six grown children, grandmother of five going on six, and currently living in the western United States. Christine enjoys spending time with family and creating quilts for family, friends and Humanitarian Services of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Single records contain an incomplete description of a person much like a single picture of a person does. Any record can contain errors that would likely be identified by comparing that record to others that pertain to the same individual.  I would like to share three examples of this that I have found.

This is a picture of my great-uncle Moroni Traxler and his wife, Nellie on their 50th wedding anniversary. Moroni is the twin brother of one of my great-grandmothers and clearly a male.

Moroni and Nelli Traxler on their 50th wedding anniversary.

However, I have found Moroni Traxler, in an online family tree, identified as a female because of one inaccurate record.  That record is an entry in the 1871 Canadian Census which identifies him as a she!  Considering that Moroni is an unusual name to anyone not familiar with the Book of Mormon, I assumed the census taker assumed that with a child with name like that must be a girl.  More recently I have learned that it was the custom in the mid-1800’s to dress little boys in dresses until they were five or six years old.  Moroni was four years old in 1871, hence the confusion.

I found another example while helping a friend research her family history.  My friend’s great-grandmother was Annie Hankins born in Alabama in 1880.  Through a number of records, I identified her parents, her husband, Warren Madden and her children.  I didn’t have death information for her, so I was excited when a death certificate for Annie Madden showed up in a record search on FamilySearch.org.  

I was quickly disappointed however when the parents listed in the transcription of the record for this Annie Madden didn’t match the information I already had and so I assumed this was a different Annie Madden.  Of course this record continued to come up when I did a record search for Annie Madden and so eventually, I decided to look at the record image itself.  That’s when I realized that the information had been given by one of Annie’s daughters and the names of the couple, Wes and Sarah McMilon Short, listed as Annie’s parents looked familiar.  

I looked through the records I had collected about Annie and her extended family and realized that Wes and Sarah Short had been Annie’s neighbors while she was growing up and while she was raising her children.  While the Short’s weren’t her biological parents, Annie must have had a very close relationship with them which led Annie’s daughter to list them as her mother’s parents.

The third example is a recent find.  For anyone researching family history in Ireland, the recent additions of Catholic parish records and civil registration records to online free websites has been an exciting gift.  I was recently searching these sites to find better documentation for information that I have added to Family Search Family Tree and made an interesting discovery.  I have a cousin who according to available records was baptized before she was born!

The following image comes from the Catholic parish record of Drumlish parish which is in County Longford, Ireland. The page itself doesn’t identify the parish but the URL for the image http://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000632410#page/121/mode/1up  does identify it as being part of the Drumlish parish record.

Rose O’Neill Baptism in 1877 highlighted.

Toward the bottom of this image is the record of my cousin, Rose  Ann O’Neill’s baptism. Typical of Catholic parish records of Ireland in the 19th century, given names in the entries are given their Latin form.  Accordingly, Rose Ann is recorded as Rosam Annam with her father’s name, John recorded as Joanis and her mother, Mary recorded as Maria.  Fortunately, last names were not altered; the parents’ names were John O’Neill and Mary Clarke.  The date of Rose Ann O’Neill’s baptism is January 29, 1877.

The transcription of Rose Ann’s civil birth record appeared as a record hint on Family Search.  I was able to find this image of the record on another website. ( https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/)

Rose O’Neill’s Civil Birth Record highlighted.

In the civil registration record is a birth of a daughter, Rose, born to John O’Neill and Mary O’Neill formerly Clarke on March 5, 1877 which is several weeks later than the baptism record! When viewing these two records the logical assumption is that these are two different children despite the same names being in both records.  However, I believe the child in both records is the same child for the following three reasons.

First, while the boundaries of the Catholic parish of Drumlish and the registration district of Drumlish are not identical, they do intersect and the birth location, Creelaughta, given in the civil birth record lies within the intersection.  Creelaughta is also the homeland of my O’Neill clan and I have found O’Neill family baptisms, including my grandfather’s in the Drumlish parish records.   Second, the middle name of Ann in the baptismal records provides further evidence even though it doesn’t appear in the civil record of birth.  

The civil birth records rarely included a middle name even if there was one.  Following a common naming custom of this period in Ireland, a daughter would be first named for her paternal grandmother and then her maternal grandmother.   John O’Neill’s mother’s name was Rose and Mary Clark’s mother’s name was Ann. And third, the dates being so close together rule out the possibility that the baptism record is for a child who died as an infant and the civil birth record is for a child born later and given the same name.  It was surprisingly common if an infant died who had been given a grandparent’s name, for another child born later to be given the same name.  

To read more of Christine’s articles, click the picture.

So why would John misrepresent his daughter’s birth date?  Because there was a fine for not reporting births promptly and John must have missed the deadline!  Since the records show the next baby who was born two years later was born and then baptized, John being tardy in reporting Rose’s birth was probably just a first time new parent error.    

It is important for family history researchers to remember that records are created by people and sometimes people enter false information into records either accidentally or on purpose.  Because of this, it is important to gather as many records as possible so as to have the clearest record of your family that records can provide.  

Christine Bell

Christine Bell has been seeking her ancestor for almost forty years and continues to find joy in each one she finds. She volunteers in a Family Search Family History Center where she helps others find their ancestors. As a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Saints, she is grateful to be a member of the Church. She is a wife, mother of six grown children, grandmother of five going on six, and currently living in the western United States. Christine enjoys spending time with family and creating quilts for family, friends and Humanitarian Services of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I recently found this article by Christopher Burton that told the story of finding his birth family with DNA testing. Christopher discovered his birth family included people with whom he already had a treasured relationship.  I found the story heart-warming and a testimony that Heavenly Father knows and loves each one of us.

Since I wasn’t adopted and through forty years of genealogical research I had discovered that I was of Irish, English, German and possibly Swiss descent, I couldn’t see the point of spending the money for DNA testing.  Having your DNA tested is expensive and I decided that the money would be better spent purchasing records that would supply more definite information about my ancestors than just where they likely lived.  My attitude came from not understanding how DNA results can be used.

I had my DNA tested last year but not for genealogy purposes.  I have a chronic health condition that one doctor said might be the result of one or more gene mutations.  I chose to be tested through 23 and Me which allows you to download your raw DNA data so that it can be tested for specific gene mutations that cause health issues.  23 and Me also analyzes your DNA for its genealogical information.

Ancestry.com and FamilytreeDNA.com and others also offer DNA tests for genealogists.  Having taken the test for health reasons, I thought I might as well see if my DNA analysis might help with my family history research.  That’s when I discovered that DNA testing wasn’t for finding your deceased ancestors, it’s for finding your living cousins and working with them to find your deceased ancestors.

All the DNA testing services designed for family history have similar tools for helping you connect people to whom you are related.  Since I am familiar with 23 and Me and its tools, those are the ones I will describe.  My 23 and Me account provides a page on which I can see information regarding those people who match my DNA who have also tested through 23 and Me.  One of the limitations of DNA testing is that you can only be matched to people who have used the same testing service.  In order to protect other people’s privacy, I can’t post a screen shot of my DNA matches page, so I will do my best to describe it instead.

The results in the list view are arranged like a spreadsheet with columns and rows.   The first column may contain the person’s name but sometimes just identifies their gender.  I am always the person on the top row.  The next column contains my predicted relationship to the person.  It might say close relative or 2nd to 4th cousin or 3rd to 6th cousin.  What a 2nd, 3rd or 4th cousin is can be a little confusing.

You share a grandparent as a common ancestor with a 1st cousin. You share a great-grandparent with a 2nd cousin.  You and a 3rd cousin have a great-great-grandparent as a common ancestor. For 4th through 6th cousins, repeat the pattern of adding another “great” to grandparent.  By the time you get to a 6^th cousin, your common ancestor is a great-great-great-great-great-grandparent.  The third column always contains some information about their DNA.  It can also contain other various information depending what the person chooses to share.  It might include ancestral surnames and ancestral places.   The last column contains information about the person can be contacted.

So what can you do with all this information?  Remember the goal is to find someone who knows something about the ancestors that you are researching.  A 2nd to 4th cousin would likely be more able to help you than a 5th or 6th cousin.  Look next at the ancestral surnames and ancestral places the person has listed.  If you have a 2nd to 4th cousin with whom you share an ancestral name and ancestral place, that’s someone you will want to contact.

So far, I have been fortunate to find one such match.  Melinda is my 3rd cousin and has introduced me to several other cousins by way of email and Facebook. From them I have received pictures and stories of ancestors that I didn’t have.

I have not included details of the science of DNA and the various DNA tests available because I am still learning that information myself.  The recently concluded genealogical conference, Roots Tech included a great presentation on genetic genealogy.

If my article increased your interest in the subject of genetic genealogy, I think you will enjoy this recorded presentation on the subject.

Christine Bell

Christine Bell has been seeking her ancestor for almost forty years and continues to find joy in each one she finds. She volunteers in a Family Search Family History Center where she helps others find their ancestors. As a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Saints, she is grateful to be a member of the Church. She is a wife, mother of six grown children, grandmother of five going on six, and currently living in the western United States. Christine enjoys spending time with family and creating quilts for family, friends and Humanitarian Services of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

(To see the images full size, click on the image.)

Prior to seeing this record, I had in my records that Grandpa had born in Calistoga, California. This record cites his birth place as Oat Hill Mine. Turns out Oat Hill Mine was very close to Calistoga. I was curious to know what was mined in Oat Hill Mine since my great-grandfather, Morton Black, must have been a miner there. A Google search brought the information that it was a mercury mine. Inhaling mercury vapors, as miners likely would, can cause brain damage which results in cognitive skills impairment and emotional instability. That information may explain some of the things I have heard about Morton. All that my grandma, who didn’t think it was right to speak ill of the dead, would say regarding her father-in-law was that he wasn’t much of a family man. My father, on the other hand, was not the least bit reluctant to call Morton a jerk regarding how he treated family members. I wonder what growing up was like for my Grandpa. After Grandpa’s death, my grandmother told me that he had been raised by his grandparents for part of his childhood and went back and forth between the two sets of grandparents.

This record also demonstrates the importance of finding as many records about a person as possible. On this registration card Samuel give his birth date as April of 1916! I am sure it was a slip’ like many of us have made when asked to write our birth date. We record the right month and day but use the current year. In this case the year is clearly wrong but what if it had not been so obvious? Having several sources to compare would help determine the most likely correct date for any event.

A man can be drafted into the Army, but he has to enlist to join the Navy, so I wasn’t sure how to go from the draft registration card to finding Grandpa’s military record. I took a class given by a local genealogy society to gain the tools to find out more about Grandpa’s military service. I learned that since military service discharge papers cannot be replaced if lost, some veterans chose to file a copy of their discharge papers with their local county clerk. I was advised to contact the local historical or genealogy society from the county that my Grandpa returned to after his military service. I contacted the Tulare County (California) Historical Society by means of their website and they were very helpful. They couldn’t help me find Grandpa’s discharge paper, but they did help me find information about Grandpa on Ancestry.com. The following information came from the U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File record collection on Ancestry.com

With the information concerning my Grandpa Sam’s enlistment and release dates and his social security number, I was able to order a copy of his military record from the National Archives. I received an envelope with a stack of paper about one-quarter of an inch thick regarding his military service. I share this one page because it is a good summary of his record.

From this record I learned that Samuel had progressed from Fireman third class to Fireman first class in less than a year. I don’t know enough about the Navy to know how difficult that was but it does to speak to Grandpa’s desire to improve himself.

The last place I found a military record regarding Grandpa was one I didn’t expect, which was the
United States World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942 record collection on FamilySearch.org. Turns out there was a draft registration for World War II that is sometimes referred to as the Old Man’s Draft because it included men between the ages of 45 and 64. This is Grandpa’s record from this record collection.

Unlike the World War I draft registration records collection that had the front and back of the card in the same image, the World War II draft registration cards were filmed as separate images for front and back. I almost missed seeing the back side of the card, but fortunately, I used the tool that allowed me to see the next image and found the back side of Grandpa’s registration card.

I learned from this record that my Grandpa must have felt a high degree of job security, in that he listed his work supervisor as a person who would always know Grandpa’s address. I do know that Grandpa retired from the California Division of Highways as the top man of the Coalinga yard.
The second page confirmed the hazy memory I had that Grandpa had a tattoo on each forearm. I remember that one was a woman from her shoulders up and the other was an anchor. The physical description of Grandpa reminded me that I am taller than he was.

If what I found about my Grandpa in his military records makes you wonder what you might find out about your ancestors, there are many more records available than I citied in this article. Military records are available from the American Revolutionary and as recent as the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. The oldest records are mostly pension records while the most recent are primarily causality records. Along with FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com, the website, Fold3.com also has many military records. Ancestry.com and Fold3.com are both subscription websites that can be used for free at your local Family Search Family History Center. At FamilySearch.org there are also free classes that you can take online to learn more about using military records. There is likely to be classes given by a local genealogical or historical society or local public library on researching military records. Attending a local class gave me the opportunity to ask questions and receive advice specific to my search. If you find or have found interesting military records, please leave a comment. I would enjoy hearing what you found.

Genealogy
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Christine Bell

Christine Bell has been seeking her ancestor for almost forty years and continues to find joy in each one she finds. She volunteers in a Family Search Family History Center where she helps others find their ancestors. As a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Saints, she is grateful to be a member of the Church. She is a wife, mother of six grown children, grandmother of five going on six, and currently living in the western United States. Christine enjoys spending time with family and creating quilts for family, friends and Humanitarian Services of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

As Emily took her place at the table, she looked for the food that she was certain would be part of any holiday meal that great-grandma Eleanor prepared. And there it was! The bread pudding with raisins whose recipe had been handed down from generation to generation. She waited patiently for bread pudding to be passed to her. Just as it was handed to her, a jarring buzzer sounded and brought Emily and her thoughts back to her own kitchen. Being with Hugh and Eleanor had been only a lovely daydream. The buzzer was her oven timer that reminded Emily to remove the bread pudding with raisins from the oven. Emily removed the bread pudding from the hot oven and looked forward to the time later that evening that she would share it with her young family. Her daydream made her realize that she should share some family stories along with the bread pudding.

Many people would like to step back into the time of their ancestors for a visit but unless someone really creates Mr. Peabody’s Way Back Machine, we will have to be content with the family memories and stories. Holidays bring families together and provide a wonderful time for sharing and expressing love for those present and those who have gone before us. There are many holidays to celebrate and each family has favorite holidays with associated traditions. You can feel closer to your ancestors and possibly gain a greater understanding of them as you explore the holiday traditions in which they likely participated. There are far too many holidays and associated traditions to list them all in this article and I invite you to research those holidays that mean the most to your family.

Christmas is a special holiday for my family as we celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. It is a holiday with rich traditions created by many countries and peoples. The ancestors on my maternal grandmother’s side of our family include German immigrants that arrived in Pennsylvania prior to the American Revolution. Southeast Pennsylvania is rich in German culture and traditions as many of the early settlers came from Germany. In researching German Christmas customs, I was surprised to find that many of our American Christmas traditions were brought here by German immigrants. The tradition of bringing an evergreen tree indoors and decorating is thought to have started with German Lutherans who brought the custom with them as they immigrated.

The many of the traditional Christmas tree ornaments have religious meanings. For example, the candy canes are designed to remind us of the shepherd’s crook and the presence of shepherds on that first Christmas night. The candy canes can also remind us that Jesus Christ is the good shepherd come that night long ago to show us the way back home to our Father in Heaven. The evergreen tree itself is a symbol of the gift of everlasting life that Jesus Christ makes available to us.

A Christmas tree ornament which some attribute to the Germans is the Christmas Pickle! The glass ornament created to look like a pickle is hung on the tree last after all the other ornaments. The person who adds the pickle to the tree does it when others aren’t watching and hides among the branches so that it isn’t easy to spot. If the first person to spot the pickle is a child, there is an extra gift for him or her. If the spotter is an adult, he or she is supposed to enjoy a year of good luck.

Representations of the Christmas nativity can be found in many cultures. The Moravians, early Protestants immigrants from what is now the Czech Republic, create each year a Christmas Putz in many southeastern Pennsylvania communities. While the Moravians have preserved the tradition of the Christmas Putz, it is likely of German origin. Preparations for the creation of a Christmas Putz typically begin in early November with a trip to the Pocono Mountains to gather fresh moss and other natural items that will be included in the Christmas Putz. A Putz isn’t just a manger scene but can fill a room with miniature scenes that tell the story of Christ’s birth beginning with the angel’s annunciation to Mary that she would be the mother of the Son of God. Each scene is lighted separately so that as the story of Christ’s birth is told one scene is illuminated while the previous one goes dark. Music often accompanies the story telling. If you find you have the opportunity to view a Christmas Putz, you should definitely go.

Genealogy
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The gingerbread houses that many of us enjoy creating around Christmas time is a centuries old tradition with contributions from many cultures. Colorfully decorated with candy gingerbread houses came to Germany to America after the Grimm brother’s story of Hansel and Gretel was published.

I invite you to do some research and thoughtfully decide which of the holiday customs that your ancestors probably participated in that you would like to incorporate into your own holiday celebrations. As you do so, please share with family and friends why you are adding these customs to your celebration as this will make more meaningful for those who participate.

Many cultures celebrate a holiday in this last month of the year. I am going to end my last article for the year with this video which should resonate with all people who value love and goodwill.

Christine Bell

Christine Bell has been seeking her ancestor for almost forty years and continues to find joy in each one she finds. She volunteers in a Family Search Family History Center where she helps others find their ancestors. As a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Saints, she is grateful to be a member of the Church. She is a wife, mother of six grown children, grandmother of five going on six, and currently living in the western United States. Christine enjoys spending time with family and creating quilts for family, friends and Humanitarian Services of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

First, there are two words that were helpful for me to learn. Emigration is leaving a country of origin and immigration is traveling to a new country. As you look for records, you will want to look for both emigration and immigration records. Germany is one of the countries for which there are a number of record bases available for people leaving Germany, with one of the best known being the Hamburg passenger lists. These lists include where in Germany the person originated and where they went. Ancestry.com has these records in searchable form and with the original record images.

The Learning Center at FamilySearch.org has a number of free online classes that will help you find the tools to trace the immigration of your ancestors. The Family Search Learning Center has filters in the right sidebar to help you find the classes that will be most helpful to you. From one of these classes I learned that knowing the religion of my immigrant Irish ancestors was important because the Catholics and the Protestants immigrated differently. Irish Protestants, especially in the mid-1800’s, usually migrated as a congregation with their minister as part of the group. Once in America, they tended to settle in the same town or village as a group. This can be helpful to know if you have trouble discovering exactly where your Protestant ancestor was born in Ireland because the neighbors were probably for the same place. If you can find records identifying where the neighbors came from, you likely have the place your ancestor came from as well. Irish Catholic immigrants were most likely to come by way of serial migration. The family would get together the money to send one family member to America. That person would come to America, get a job and send money back to Ireland so that another family member had the money to book passage to America.

You are probably familiar with Ellis Island and the many people who entered America through its doors. Their records are great and searchable online. But what if you can’t find your ancestor listed in the Ellis Island records? You will need to look for records from other American ports which are found the length of the Atlantic coast of the United States. Also, emigrants from the British Isles would often come to a Canadian port because for them it was less expensive. They would then enter the United States through the Canada-United States border. The port of New Orleans, Louisiana was also a gateway to those headed for the mid-western states. From New Orleans, immigrants would take riverboat north. Traveling on a riverboat was not for the faint-hearted. Riverboats were made of wood and powered by a coal-fired steam engine. Riverboats catching fire were a frequent occurrence which made the trip up the Mississippi River more dangerous than the trip across the Atlantic Ocean!

My father’s parents entered the United States through Ellis Island separately and as teenagers. Ellis Island records give you access to the passenger list that was part of the ship’s manifest which will give you additional information about your ancestor. Also available will be a picture of the ship which they traveled. I found it interesting that my grandparents happened to travel on the same ship, the Teutonic, two years apart.This is the ship’s manifest that records my grandfather,

Cornelius O’Neill entering the United States through Ellis Island in 1906

Cornelius O’Neill is on line 24 and his occupation is listed as clerk. He paid for his own passage and had twenty-three dollars with him, which was a lot of money in 1906. Finding this record was a surprise for me since my grandfather, Cornelius, told his children that he had sneaked into this country by working his way across the Atlantic on a steamship and when the ship docked he walked away and never returned to the ship.

Your ancestors immigrated for a variety of reasons but for all of them there was likely a feeling of regret for loved ones they were leaving behind. This Irish ballad written by Paul Kealy expresses it well.

I invite you to explore your ancestor’s immigrant journey and consider their circumstances and the emotions they might have felt. I hope that you, like me, will gain a greater understanding of the ancestor whose immigration journey you trace. If you will share Thanksgiving dinner with older members of your family, I hope you will take the opportunity to gather more stories about your family. If you know the immigration story of one of your ancestors, I would love to hear it.

Genealogy
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Christine Bell

Christine Bell has been seeking her ancestor for almost forty years and continues to find joy in each one she finds. She volunteers in a Family Search Family History Center where she helps others find their ancestors. As a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Saints, she is grateful to be a member of the Church. She is a wife, mother of six grown children, grandmother of five going on six, and currently living in the western United States. Christine enjoys spending time with family and creating quilts for family, friends and Humanitarian Services of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I am currently in the process of selling, giving away or throwing away some of the stuff in my home in preparation for a move to a smaller place. Recently I was going through one of the many boxes that I need to sort through and found a small, white, unlabeled envelope with a number of pictures in it including this one:

The picture is not in the best shape but not bad considering its age. The back of the photo includes much wonderful information about the people in the photo.

As I read what was written on the back of the photo, I remembered receiving this from a cousin about 30 years ago. At that time I knew these people were part of my extended ancestral family but not much more than that and didn’t have the tools to find out more. Today, I looked at the picture and thought I could surely find them on Family Search Family Tree and add this picture. Well, I found the parents there but not the children and so I added the children and then added the picture. I also found the family on a Canadian census and added that source to Family Search Family Tree as well. FamilySearch.org is one of several internet sites that provide the opportunity to share your genealogy including pictures, stories and record sources. See “Family Search Family Tree: Facebook for Your Ancestors” if you would like to learn more.

Sharing family history is so much easier now than it was 30 years ago when I made my first attempts. Back then, I gathered family addresses, typed newsletters sharing what I had gathered and then snail-mailed them. I am so grateful for the many other ways to share that technology has made possible. For example, Facebook which you are already probably using, can be a way of sharing your family history. Look for groups or pages that contain surnames from your family tree and ask to join a relevant group or page. If you don’t find a Facebook group or page for the surname you would like to share about, consider creating one. It isn’t difficult and you can make it private if you choose and accessible to only people you invite to view it. A friend recently shared with me that she had created a private page and posted several pictures including one in which she wasn’t sure who the people were. A cousin soon commented on the picture and identified the people in it. Creating your own family history blog is another way of sharing your genealogy and you only need moderate internet skills to be successful. I have learned as I posted and figured out how to get my posts to look the way I want it them to look. See “Thoughts on Creating a Genealogy Blog” for more ideas.

While technology is great for sharing with family members that live a distance from you, gathering with family members whenever possible strengthens family relationships. I read an article that encourages creating a “family tree gathering” and gives several ideas how this might be accomplished. A family tree gathering is a way that your family can learn about your family history and work together to preserve it. These gatherings can take several forms depending on what the specific goal for the event is. It could be a gathering of the teenage members of your family who would use their technology skills to scan and post online the photos that other family members can supply. It could be a multi-generational family home evening hosted by Grandma and Grandpa to share stories and pictures of ancestors. For those of you not familiar with family home evening, it is a weekly time when being with family is the main focus and various family related activities are enjoyed. For families who are scattered geographically, technology can help create a family tree gathering by using social media or Skype. The following is a quote from the article:

 On another occasion, share these stories and photos with your children to get them excited to learn about the lives of their family members. Jim Ison of Ohio, USA, added his grandparents’ stories, photos, and documents to his family tree on FamilySearch.org. He created albums on specific topics about his grandparents and then put together an “ancestor challenge” with questions about them that family members could find the answers to on their family tree. He also printed the stories and put them in binders for the younger children to enjoy.

What’s a Family Tree Gathering?

An ancestor matching game to use at a family tree gathering could be made by repurposing a deck of card. Make two copies of each ancestor’s photo that you will include and glue each of them on the face side of the playing cards. Include the ancestor name and maybe their birth and death years. To play the game, 2 or more players would put the cards face down on a table or other flat surface. Each player would take turns turning over two cards at a time looking for matches. This game will help your family members become more familiar with the names of their ancestors and likely want to know more about them.

I feel so strongly that is it very important to share our family history. As I have written before, genealogy is the names, dates and places of our ancestors. Family history is the pictures and stories that make the names become people to whom we can relate. So if you don’t already have a plan for sharing your family history, please consider what would best work for you. If you have a plan, set aside time on a regular basis to implement your plan. And if the people in the photograph at the beginning of this article are also your ancestors, please leave me a comment; I am always on the lookout for more cousins!

Genealogy
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Christine Bell

Christine Bell has been seeking her ancestor for almost forty years and continues to find joy in each one she finds. She volunteers in a Family Search Family History Center where she helps others find their ancestors. As a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Saints, she is grateful to be a member of the Church. She is a wife, mother of six grown children, grandmother of five going on six, and currently living in the western United States. Christine enjoys spending time with family and creating quilts for family, friends and Humanitarian Services of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Every family has a story and the opportunity to record it and protect it.

Photographs and other important documents are very valuable in recording your family story and it is important to protect them. Here are a few simple rules about protecting and preserving family photographs and documents.

Never do anything to photos or documents that cannot be reversed.

This is the first rule because it is the most important rule. This includes not cutting photos. If you want to crop a photo, scan it and then crop the scan. Keep in mind that you are handling irreplaceable originals and treat them accordingly.

Use proper adhesives carefully

a. Use only archival glue sticks or starch paste

b. Avoid white glue, rubber cement and cellophane or other tapes

c. Think twice or maybe even three times before you use any adhesive on original documents

Organize Materials

a. Remove newspapers clippings, pressed leaves, staples, paper clips and rubber bands. All these items cause damage to stored items.

b. Newspapers are acidic which why they become yellow with time. Store them in plastic sleeves. Photocopy newspaper articles and other documents onto acid-free paper, such as bond paper.

        c. Use copies of materials and store the originals in a safe place

To Store materials

a. Use archival quality boxes, folders and plastic sleeves. Archival quality means acid-free and lignin-free. Scrap book supply stores are a good source for archival quality materials

b. Keep materials in a cool, dark, dry area. Avoid moisture and light. Unfinished basements and garages are not good storage areas.

 Label Photos

Use a soft leaded pencil on to write on the back, not the front, of photos.  A photo label should include the date, if known, when the photo was taken along with who is in the photo. It can seem a little silly to write first and last names of the people in the photo but remember you are recording this information for someone years from now that won’t know who the people are.

To Store Photographs

a. Do not touch image side of photographs. Wearing cotton gloves when handling photos will also protect them.

b. Keep the original intact, use a copy

c. Don’t use glue. Use photo corners.

d. Share copies with others in case of loss.

e. Use archival-quality albums.

To Store Digital Items

a. Technology is fleeting, update to new formats as it changes

b. Compact discs last 5 to 10 years

c. If you only have a photograph or document in digital form, making a paper copy is a wise idea since paper is a lasting medium . When printing photos, documents, etc. use acid-free paper and pigment ink.

Genealogy
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There are two types of ink, pigment ink and dye-based ink. Pigment ink is a powdery substance suspended in water while dye-based is water soluble. Pigment ink bonds to paper better than dye-based ink and therefore creates an image that will last much longer. Most black ink cartridges are pigment ink, while color cartridges are dye-based ink, unless they are identified as pigment ink. Color dye-based inks are more vibrant and less expensive and therefore used more often than pigment ink for color cartridges. Printers that use pigment ink are readily available for purchase, or, if you only have a few pictures you want to print, you may want to look for a professional printing service that uses pigment ink.

Any family photos you possess are true treasures.   It is your opportunity and responsibility to protect and preserve them so that others can enjoy them also. If others are going to enjoy them, you will need to find ways to share them. That will be the topic of my next post.

Christine Bell

Christine Bell has been seeking her ancestor for almost forty years and continues to find joy in each one she finds. She volunteers in a Family Search Family History Center where she helps others find their ancestors. As a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Saints, she is grateful to be a member of the Church. She is a wife, mother of six grown children, grandmother of five going on six, and currently living in the western United States. Christine enjoys spending time with family and creating quilts for family, friends and Humanitarian Services of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.