Julie - My Family Tree

March 1, 2014

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – Do You Have a John Smith?

Every day/week I tell myself I am going to go through the different genealogy blogs I have bookmarked and make up a blog post calendar for what days people post what meme’s/genealogy questions, etc. Have I done this yet? Nope, for I am nothing if not a procrastinator combined with a person who constantly has brain fog.

Anyway, I remembered it was Saturday and that I should check Genea-Musings. Each Saturday, Randy posts a different topic to write about (all related to genealogy of course).

Today’s question is…

1) How many persons named John Smith do you have in your genealogy management program or online family tree? How many persons named John Smith are ancestors?

2) Pick out one of those persons named John Smith and do some online research for them in Ancestry, FamilySearch, or another set of record collections. Your goal is to add something to your database.

3) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a post on Facebook or Google+.

Here are my answers…

1) None. I have zero John Smith’s in my tree. I have 2 females with the maiden name of Smith and 1 with the maiden name of Smyth, but nobody named John Smith/Smyth.

2) Since I don’t have a John Smith to do a search on, I’ll use one of the Smith’s I do have. I picked Margaret Smith (about 1382 – about 1430). She is my 18th great-grandmother on my paternal’s maternal’s side. So my dad’s mother’s side. She married Thomas Spencer (1378 – 1433) in 1403 in Eaton, Bedfordshire, England. They had one son, Robert Spencer (1406 – 1477).

After doing a search on Google, I found through a few other family tree and genealogy websites that she was actually born in 1380. None are sure where she actually died, other than that it was still in England. Looking at the hints for her on my tree on ancestry.com, there is a marriage record, a millennium file record and infomation on 18 other ancestry member trees available. I do not have a paid subscription to the site, so those will all have to wait.

3) I’ll be making a comment on the post over at Genea-Musings with a link to here. As well as on Google+.

February 21, 2014

New(ish) Relatives

Is it amazing what the internet can help with!

My mom recently had to fly out to Michigan because her mom, my Bubbie Muriel, has started declining in health and the staff at the health care center she lives in thought it best that my mom come out right away. For those curious, my Bubbie is still hanging on, but she is no longer her old self. She won’t answer her phone and she isn’t talking. So when we call, someone has to hold the phone up to her ear. I believe she can still hear us, just isn’t responding.

My mom stayed with her cousin when she was out there, who happened to have been storing a bunch of my Bubbie’s things for us. My mom brought some of the items back with her. One of these things was a photo album from when my Bubbie went to Israel in the late 1990’s, maybe 2000.

Most of the photos in the album are tourist type pics (she’s on a camel in one of them!) and the rest are of her with people I have never met. One of the pictures is not from her trip. It’s in black & white and you can tell it was taken earlier than the 90’s by the clothing and decor. There’s writing on the back, but it’s in Hebrew/Yiddish so my mom or I could not read it. I scanned the photo and the back and uploaded it to jewishgen.com. They have a section on their site where people can upload photos, documents, etc that they need help either translating whatever is written on helping to figure out the location of the photo. A few people responded, but one guy went above and beyond and actually found the people in the photo! I talked with some of them on Skype last weekend and confirmed we are 2nd and 3rd cousins! We are trying to plan another chat tomorrow so that my mom can talk to them.

Family Tree - Photo Translation

January 20, 2014

January 20th Updates

I just uploaded 15 census files to the census album in the gallery. See the “how to” to read on how to make the files large enough to read more easily.

I’ve also added a link to the links page.

They have not been updated yet, but I have more surnames to add to the surnames page as well as a famous kin to add! I hope to have both of these done by the end of the week.

January 20, 2014

Large File Viewing: How To

I finally figured out how to get the census records (and anything else that is a large pixel file) to show large enough that you can read the information.

Below is an example of how the census file will usually appear. You might be able to view the entire image, but you probably won’t be able to read most of it.

Increase File View 01

What you need to do to view it correctly is click on the small rectangle towards the upper right (next to where the green arrow is pointing). You’ll get a drop down box, like this

Increase File View 02

Click on “Original” and the image should resize to its full size. The file info box on the right will get in the way of view part of the image, so just click on the 2 arrows pointing towards the right (in the green circle) and it will close off to the edge.

Increase File View 03

Reclick those same arrows (only now they will be pointing left) if you need to bring up the info box again.

Before you increase the file size, look for the arrows on the left of the census image. That is where our families information is. So now when you resize the image you know about how far to scroll down without having to read the entire list of names. However, if that interests you too, go right ahead!

September 16, 2013

Gallery Update

Gallery updates:

I’m currently uploading and editing the information for the census records I have.

After that I’ll work on the official records/documents that I have. This will include World War I and II registration cards, newspaper clippings, birth records, etc.

eta: Or possibly not. I’m able to upload the census records, but they won’t enlarge enough that you can actually read the information on them. I’m going to look around for another way to make them viewable. If you have any advice on a gallery view or anything to help with that, please let me know.