tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4187249743850889692024-03-18T21:32:40.049-07:00Roots and BloodGenealogy how-tos, biographies and research into ancestry and family trees for Maynard, Sinks, Norwood, Yarbrough, Kelly, Hursey, Bass and associated families.Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-4236362002730412262020-11-05T14:04:00.002-08:002020-11-05T15:21:59.291-08:008MM Film - Cleaning, Lubricating and Watching<div style="float: left; padding: 5px; position: relative;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiET2amqFnvTDjG0gWpwtuSF3uzAt4WrShWhjcYHkx1ZNr7Lx-4NMZNVnqU4pu9qatbOBUh2bClSGuuQH9ZUaHdUu7rr_eZi4vMXDErGjBhGhh17lu0UE7ieY0aMT-xfP2pxNcoOHPahIE/s1600/8MM+film.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiET2amqFnvTDjG0gWpwtuSF3uzAt4WrShWhjcYHkx1ZNr7Lx-4NMZNVnqU4pu9qatbOBUh2bClSGuuQH9ZUaHdUu7rr_eZi4vMXDErGjBhGhh17lu0UE7ieY0aMT-xfP2pxNcoOHPahIE/s320/8MM+film.jpg" width="180" /></a><br />
<span style="color: #bdbdbd; font-size: 8px;">8MM Brownie Projector and Film / Carrie Norwood / <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/deed.en_US">CC</a> </span>
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Over the summer, my blogs tend to get quiet. Summer is my time for vacations and relaxing and not working on projects. But, this summer, I was presented with a really kind of neat genealogy related project. My aunt sent me about 50 rolls of 8MM film that belonged to my uncle. It's all from the early to mid 50s and chronicles the lives of my mom, her brothers and my grandparents during that time. Having never met my grandfather, I'm pretty excited about the prospect of seeing him in motion. <br />
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At first, I thought this would be easy peasy. Just snag a projector and watch it, with an ultimate goal of digitizing it. But the more the process has unfolded, the more it is like a treasure hunt with this end goal of having a good quality representation of this era of life in my family. <br />
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8MM film, while all the rage in the 50s and 60s, is not used any more. It hasn't been used since about then. So the equipment and supplies are tough to come by and the knowledge of how to use and maintain them properly is sparse. The particular films I'm working with don't appear to have been kept very well... although, to be fair, it doesn't seem like proper film storage supplies are plentiful and at the time, I doubt anyone thought someone would be struggling to watch them 60 years later. So the films themselves need some maintenance before they can really be watched - including cleaning, lubricating (who knew film needed lubrication!?) and potentially repair.<br />
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My goal is to digitize the film. To put it into a format that could be stored as data, uploaded to youtube or burned to DVD. There are services who do that. They charge a few cents per the foot of film. A few rolls of film would cost about $100 to digitize. But who am I to do it the easy way. And also, with 50 rolls of film, that's a little out of my price range. So, my first order of business was to get something to watch them on.<br />
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Ebay and Craigslist both have 8MM film projector listings. I found mine (a Brownie) locally on Craigslist. Still with the original box, excellent condition, for $50. Ironically, as I was going through the film canisters, I found a leaflet advertisement from the 50s for the brownie projector that advertised the price as $62 which, is the equivalent of $600 in 2013 prices. Youch!<br />
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Once I got the projector in my hands, I realized that the lenses probably would need to be cleaned, the bulb replaced - and before I got the film anywhere near it, the film... needed to be cleaned. Film cleaning. It's a thing.<br />
<h3>
How to Clean 8MM Film</h3>
Every single forum post by everyone with any film experience says something completely different about film cleaning. Everyone has their pet method or product that has worked for them for x number of years. I needed something accessible that would get the job done. I'm working with Kodak film, so I turned to <a href="http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/products/techInfo/cis145/cis145.shtml">Kodak, who recommends</a> :<br />
<blockquote>
... isopropyl alcohol that has a purity of 98 percent or higher as a good, general-purpose cleaning solvent for photographic materials. Isopropyl alcohol (also known as 2-propanol or isopropanol) has several benefits. It is available in small volumes at a reasonable price; it has been successful in cleaning tar, streaks, processing scum, and opaque from photographic products; and it had no detrimental effect on the image stability of the emulsions we tested.<br />
Use only isopropyl alcohol that has a purity of 98 percent or higher. Alcohol with a lower purity, such as rubbing alcohol, will cause streaking and take longer to dry. Also, the higher water content of rubbing alcohol may cause the emulsion of the photographic materials to swell, resulting in physical damage and possible deterioration of image-forming dyes.<br />
To use isopropyl alcohol:<br />
<ul style="border: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, "Droid Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 13.6364px; line-height: 19.9858px; list-style-position: outside; margin: -0.428571em 0px 0.714285em 2em; padding: 0px;">
<li style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Make sure your work area is well ventilated, with sufficient positive air flow.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="border: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, "Droid Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 13.6364px; line-height: 19.9858px; list-style-position: outside; margin: -0.428571em 0px 0.714285em 2em; padding: 0px;">
<li style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Use only a soft, lint-free cleaning applicator (e.g., a cotton swab, cloth, or glove).</li>
</ul>
<ul style="border: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, "Droid Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 13.6364px; line-height: 19.9858px; list-style-position: outside; margin: -0.428571em 0px 0.714285em 2em; padding: 0px;">
<li style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Slightly moisten the cleaning applicator and re-moisten it as needed. Do not saturate the applicator with alcohol. Too much alcohol can produce streaks and result in a longer drying time. (If streaks form, you can usually remove them by wiping the area with a fresh, dry cloth.)</li>
</ul>
<ul style="border: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, "Droid Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 13.6364px; line-height: 19.9858px; list-style-position: outside; margin: -0.428571em 0px 0.714285em 2em; padding: 0px;">
<li style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Clean a small area at a time.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="border: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, "Droid Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 13.6364px; line-height: 19.9858px; list-style-position: outside; margin: -0.428571em 0px 0.714285em 2em; padding: 0px;">
<li style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Repeat the application if necessary to remove foreign matter such as china marker, crayon, or other wax-based markers.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
I picked up a bottle of the requisite alcohol and then, I was left with needing actual demonstrations. And I needed two.. one to clean the canisters and the outside of the film and one on how to clean the actual film frames. Ask and ye shall receive. Mostly from the gods of youtube.<br />
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First, I set about cleaning the outside of the canisters of some build up deposits and dirt. I used alcohol, a microfiber cloth and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWi7bw81H1I">this method</a>. Times fifty reels. Joyous times.<br />
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I used this video to get the basic gist of how to clean the actual film inside the canister :<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002HYU304/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002HYU304&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YuTMNEkXWt8" width="320" youtube-src-id="YuTMNEkXWt8"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></a><div><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002HYU304/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002HYU304&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20"></a><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002HYU304/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002HYU304&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20"><br /></a></div><div>I modified it slightly. Using the brownie, I set up the film on the two spindles but did not feed it through the viewer. Instead, I fed it through my fingers with a cloth on a slow forward. </div><div><br /></div><div>But before I ran anything through anything, I read up on splicing because I was pretty sure I'd need to do some repairs in the process. I found the kodak splicer in this video for $20 on ebay and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002HYU304/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002HYU304&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20">KODAK 8mm PRESSTAPE (formerly splice tape)</a><i>(affiliate link)</i><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=rootsandblood-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B002HYU304" style="border: none; margin: 0px;" width="1" /> on amazon so that I could do this : </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7svDF_Gc8pk" width="320" youtube-src-id="7svDF_Gc8pk"></iframe></div><br /><div><br /></div>
<p>It's here that I need to tell you that I lost my nerve. Here, I was looking at family history gold. The only video record of my uncles and mother growing up. The only video record of my grandparents during that time. My grandfather died before I could meet him. Here I would be able to see him moving about through life. What a gift!</p>
<p>It chronicled 20 years of a period of time that I'd never see if I screwed it up. The stakes felt too high. So, after doing some cleaning of the most egregious of the dirt, I found a local shop that could put the films onto CD for me. From there, I was able to rip the CDS and stitch the movies together into chronological order. I made DVDs for everyone in the family. I think I remember it costing somewhere in the neighborhood of a few hundred dollars to get all 50 reels done. </p><p>So, maybe not the authoritative guide to cleaning and splicing and reconstructing old film, but all of this should get you headed in the right direction. And if you, like me, are not a film expert, and you've got history gold in your hands, it could be worth looking up an expert. </p>Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-43279151868351465522020-06-30T09:56:00.002-07:002020-06-30T09:59:40.374-07:00Getting your DNA into gedmatchThere are many companies that you can get your DNA processed with for genetic genealogy purposes. The big three are 23andme, ftdna and ancestry. Once you have your DNA done on one of those sites (or others), you can use the tools on that site to 'match' with other users of that same site. <div><br /></div><div>However, the potential genealogy discoveries you can make are limited to the tools (and quality) that site offers as well as the people who have chosen to get their DNA processed by that site. For a fee, FTDNA and ancestry both give you the option to import DNA from other sites, so many people choose to download their DNA data from the original site and import it into other sites. This gives you a broader toolset to use as well as more potential matches. </div><div><br /></div><div>If only there were a site that were free, had a huge toolset and a huge user base! Enter <a href="https://www.gedmatch.com/" target="_blank">gedmatch</a>. Gedmatch does have paid tiers to support the site but there is a whole lot you can do without paying anything, and users from all of the big three, plus other sites have uploaded their DNA there, giving you a much larger and more diverse user base to test against. </div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>I use gedmatch for the <a href="https://sites.google.com/view/johnturnerproject">John Turner project</a> because it gets all project participants on the same platform without cost to them, regardless of where they originally tested, and because the tools there allow me to do the work I need to do to make discoveries on that project. </div><div><br /></div><div>The number one question I get on that project is 'how do I get a gedmatch kit #'?</div><div><br /></div><div>The first thing you will do is to download your raw DNA data from the site you tested at. </div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/Downloading-AncestryDNA-Raw-Data" target="_blank">instructions for ancestry.com</a> </li><li><a href="https://customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/212196868-Accessing-Your-Raw-Genetic-Data#:~:text=To%20download%20your%20raw%20data,data%20download%20file%20is%20ready." target="_blank">how to download your data at 23andme</a></li><li><a href="https://learn.familytreedna.com/autosomal-ancestry/universal-dna-matching/may-download-family-finder-raw-data/" target="_blank">how to download your DNA from ftdna</a></li></ul><div>Once you have your data, save it somewhere on your computer you will remember (I save all things to my desktop). </div><div><br /></div><div>Now you will create a 'kit' on gedmatch. A kit is a DNA data file. These instructions assume you have never used gedmatch. If you HAVE used gedmatch and have an account, skip down to #3.</div></div><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Go to <a href="https://gedmatch.com" target="_blank">gedmatch.com</a>.</li><li>Under the login, there is a link to click to register. Registration is pretty standard</li><ol><li>fill out your info</li><li>log into your email and gt the confirmation code</li><li>enter confirmation code into gedmatch</li><li>log into gedmatch</li><li>acknowledge terms of service</li></ol><li>Once you are logged in, in the right hand navigation, you will see an option to 'upload your DNA files'.</li><li>Gedmatch will present you with a screen full of questions. They are pretty self explanatory. Answer the required ones that you are able to answer. </li><li>At the bottom of the screen, there are two buttons. One to 'choose file' and one to upload. Click 'choose file'. Use the popup to find the file you downloaded earlier from the site you had your DNA tested on. Once you have selected the file and are back on the page, click 'upload'. It will take some time for gedmatch to process your file. Once it's processed: </li><ol><li>Log into gedmatch again. This time, on the left hand side, it will show some of your profile information. Below that, it will show 'Your DNA resources:'</li><li>The kit # is the ~7 digit/letter identifier that appears to the left of your name under 'Your DNA resources'.</li></ol></ol><div>Once that's done, you can delete your DNA file from your computer if you would like or you can keep it for your own records. If you keep it, I recommend keeping it in a secure location. It's your DNA. Definitely not on your desktop - and at least a password protected zip file, although if you are tech savvy, an encrypted location would be best. </div></div>Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-26611641278013191542018-01-29T13:35:00.002-08:002018-01-29T13:35:48.566-08:00If you hate that it happened, then you hate that you are.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQrzZEOrXPZR7zars0gHmTs6bykXBQtK1o_ljFrFRbIBFAb6BZSG2pW2F7DZRcNjSyOajSGvpRtwF7joG3VAaoe9bIFFE5DL4o6jwFLm3CyAVfkyzdvIkyv9dISKmjQ0spcQ9AMis8WYk/s1600/352.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQrzZEOrXPZR7zars0gHmTs6bykXBQtK1o_ljFrFRbIBFAb6BZSG2pW2F7DZRcNjSyOajSGvpRtwF7joG3VAaoe9bIFFE5DL4o6jwFLm3CyAVfkyzdvIkyv9dISKmjQ0spcQ9AMis8WYk/s320/352.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Today, on the way to work, I caught the latest This American Life episode - <a href="https://www.thisamericanlife.org/352/the-ghost-of-bobby-dunbar">The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar</a>. Whewf. All genealogists and genetic genealogists who have ever encountered a family secret will find it fascinating.<br />
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In short, (you really should go listen), a woman is handed an album of papers and news articles about her grandfather that sets her onto the trail of a family mystery. In uncovering the truth, she is faced with two families who have very different accounts of how the event unfolded. At the crux of the matter is who her grandfather is, and in turn, who she and his other descendants are.<br />
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The mystery is ultimately solved with a DNA test, and similar to any family secret that a genetic genealogist may uncover, there are mixed feelings in her family about what the results mean. On her part, she put her mind to a mystery and relentlessly pursued truth and was a success. To some of her family though, she went messing around with something that should have been left alone and they are less than pleased.<br />
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Near the end of the story, she says "If you hate that it happened, then you hate who you are." If only she could have heard my AMEN, through the podcast, over the radio waves. I've <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2017/04/more-secrets-as-unwelcome-discoveries.html">blogged before about uncovering family secrets</a> in the process of documenting genealogical roots. <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2017/03/genealogy-revelations-and-secrets-and.html">More than once</a>. It's something I've grappled with in my own family and something that people with adoptions and non paternity events in their families (and maybe mine), who are genetically related to me, have talked to me about.<br />
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It's a tough situation to be in. On one hand, there is the truth - and on the other, there are taboos and the feelings of family who are uncomfortable with that truth. Those family connections matter. So then, the researcher is in a predicament. Pursue and insist upon the truth or somehow pursue the truth while not being forthcoming with the family who is offended (because, let's face it, NOT pursuing the truth is not an option to a genealogist with a brick wall).<br />
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Another thing the family said is that the day the mystery was solved was the day the person in question came home. And that. Is what solving my own family mysteries are to me. The feeling of coming home. The sense of finding my home. With all of their flaws and foibles, my ancestors are my home and my roots. They were human and lived human lives with all of it's complexities. Regardless of perception, it all came together to result in me. My sister. My other family members. I wouldn't have it any other way.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 10px;">Photo : <a href="https://www.thisamericanlife.org/352/the-ghost-of-bobby-dunbar">Bobby beside car with unidentified people</a> / This American Life </span> Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-80124475851017825572017-04-17T09:37:00.002-07:002017-04-17T09:38:26.700-07:00Unwelcome Discoveries<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC9aE5L_oN1_2rCEQuoa1FJopiPkIckADBUjkXJ6PaRf-3sy6KMII8JLyujNFVQ1QlRX_JGkEiOQjQfdgFUThN3trW2G6hccpEC7gcY4LfuNPSID_dMg42XcEV45eyamgCxCPW9G8QwnQ/s1600/32271753974_88c4282069_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC9aE5L_oN1_2rCEQuoa1FJopiPkIckADBUjkXJ6PaRf-3sy6KMII8JLyujNFVQ1QlRX_JGkEiOQjQfdgFUThN3trW2G6hccpEC7gcY4LfuNPSID_dMg42XcEV45eyamgCxCPW9G8QwnQ/s320/32271753974_88c4282069_z.jpg" width="305" /></a></div>
About a year ago, my aunt called me and told me that she'd decided to randomly dial people in the town where our family is from, who have our last name. In doing so, she ran across a gentleman who is over 90 years old, who is related to us, and who remembers her parents and grandparents. She asked me to call him and talk to him about our family. Then health stuff happened. And so, finally, a year later, a few weeks ago, I did. He was a delightful guy and very willing to tell me his story and the story of his family, who consequently, at a certain point, was also my family. <br />
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He brought to life the stories and personalities of people who, until that point, had been merely names on pages. I recorded our conversation. About an hour in, I forgot to push record on the tape after I flipped it over and so I'm missing about an hour of the conversation. Doh! But I have these great stories, a tape of a lot of them and lots of written notes. <br />
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<i>(The photo is L to R my grandmother, my little sister, me and my grandfather)</i><br />
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Anyways, about halfway through the conversation, he pauses and says "Well, I can tell you this if you'll keep it to yourself." And I agree, because of course I want to know. And he tells me. And it puts to rest one of my brick walls. I know now. I breathed a sign of relief after that. <br />
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I'm going to update my records to the correct person and I'm going to keep the story in my notes and maybe one day, if ears are receptive, I'll say it out loud.<br />
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I wrote about secrets in genealogy recently... <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2017/02/genealogy-revelations-and-why-i-dont.html">this post</a> and it's follow up, <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2017/03/genealogy-revelations-and-secrets-and.html">this one</a>. I've struggled with it because I have a burning desire to know and often, my research has been hindered by the need for people to keep the truth of lives a secret. I have this secret now and I have to say, it's a bit like a treasured keepsake, on one hand. A thing of delicacy. And on the other, from a very clinical research perspective, it's a vital piece of the puzzle of my family. <br />
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I understand why you wouldn't give a delicate keepsake to someone who won't treasure it and keep it safe. And also, I understand the need to have that keepsake to understand the story. <br />
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So, this morning, when I saw the title <a href="https://dna-explained.com/2017/04/16/unwelcome-discoveries-and-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-52-ancestors-156/">Unwelcome Discoveries and Light at the End of the Tunnel</a> on DNAexplained, I dove right in, eager to read someone else's thoughts on it. She proceeds to unfold a story about some of the biggest revelations a person could find in their tree. She says :<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #373737; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #373737; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Our identity, in many ways, is tied to our family – to our parents. It’s tied to knowing that our parents are our parents, that our father is our father, that our siblings are indeed our siblings. It’s rooted in what we believe to be true and in good memories that make us feel warm, wanted and loved.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #373737; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">"</span></blockquote>
I think this is true. I think it's also tied to knowing that they were 'good', 'stable', 'normal', 'healthy' people (all in quotes because I'm not sure there is an objective measure of that), by whatever measure we have. If they were those things, then I am those things, the logic goes. When they were <b><i>not </i></b>one or all of those things, then it brings into question whether I am also not one of those things and no one wants to <i>NOT</i> be one of those things. <br />
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I think that this makes it easier for someone to brush something under the rug. I started to say that I think that it's easier to do it when the person is deceased - and of course it is, but we do it when the person is alive too. We, American society, have so many taboos around things like non-conformance, religion, mental illness and sex - but those things are part of the lives that ourselves and the humans around us are leading. So while it's tough to counter secrets around that in genealogy research, it's even tougher, for me, to imagine that we are simply ignoring, not seeing and hiding large portions of ourselves and the humans around us. And that, for me, has been at the crux of my discomfort with genealogy secrets. Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-77470688421641512442017-03-20T14:00:00.001-07:002018-06-12T17:48:42.195-07:00When Genetic Genealogy Creates Brick Walls<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I was talking to a cousin not long ago. We are genetically related and we are pretty certain our MRCA is one of two people. She's done exquisite work mapping out the family trees of all of her close genetic cousins and she has a problem... the people who are related genetically should not be related according to their family trees and the ones that should be genetically related to each other, if the trees are correct, are not. She's encountered a genetic genealogy generated brick wall; a place where all of the evidence that all of these people have gathered doesn't match the genetic truth of who actually parented who.<br />
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Talking to her about this situation really made me think a lot over the past couple of weeks about my own research. Frankly, it's terrifying for me to consider, given how much of my soul I put into my research, that really, it could just be - wrong. I mean, I kind of flippantly know that it could all be wrong and for naught... but it's hard to consider in actuality. And from that perspective, in contrast, it seems like the times before genetic genealogy was accessible almost seems heavenly. A for sure, well sourced and researched conclusion on a lineage back as far as possible, without question. Of course, the tree would still be wrong, if you're wanting to understand who your genetic ancestors were... but ignorance being bliss and all. Maybe, in that case, what matters is a sense of knowing. It satisfies the itch to have a story and a sense of belonging, even if in error. <br />
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On the <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2016/01/john-turner-project-genetic-genealogy.html">John Turner Project</a>, I have been careful to only include those where both the tree and the genetic connection holds up. However, it's still possible that two people found the same evidence and created the same tree and are genetically related - but are related to a different father or mother somewhere along the way. A crossing of branches on the tree, genetically, that doesn't show up in the documentation. What if (totally hypothetical - I don't have any evidence that this is the case) our 3rd or 4th great grandfather that we all have in common that we THINK is descended from John Turner, because that is what the evidence shows, and we are genetically related, was actually a Caulder, genetically (chose the name randomly from some associated families)? We would then match each other, not other descendants of John Turner (who are unknown, at this point of our hypothetical, because they aren't matches for us), and instead, would match all of these other people who don't believe themselves to be related to John Turner (because they aren't) - and all of our research would be in error. Eep! (for more info on the John Turner project, visit the <a href="https://sites.google.com/view/johnturnerproject/home">John Tuner project</a> website.<br />
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Once upon a time, there were hard working genealogists who traveled the world to city halls and local libraries to look through microfiche and old documents, scanning for the surname in question. There were extended exchanges by snail mail with people you might be related to, which you know because you found their name in a newspaper once and wrote them a letter and they said that their grandmother's name was the same as your great uncle and whenever you find discoveries, you write the other to let them know. And in the end, you create this family tree and you can tell who your ancestors are and who you are related to. <br />
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Clean. You gather the evidence, you build the case based upon the evidence, the evidence is what is written and what is written is true. Even when digitization and the internet changed the face of genealogy, genealogists still adhered to strict standards of evidence. Tracing roots backwards up trees, finding evidence for each fact, documenting meticulously. At the end, whatever the product was, brick walls and all, was true and accurate as well as we could ascertain without genetic testing. <br />
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And then, genetic genealogy was accessible to the masses! Finally! Proof is possible! I can finally prove definitively that I am a child of my parents and they of their parents and that my cousins are actually related to me. And we are all related to this other family, with a fully documented path to how it happened and genetics to back it up! <br />
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Except when it does exactly the opposite. Sometimes, regardless of how meticulously one's tree is researched, the genetics simply don't match and it generates a brick wall that otherwise, one might not have seen. <br />
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Ultimately, the genetics are the truth of the matter, right? I mean, the are passed from parent to child, without fail, so whatever is in your genetics represents your actual blood ancestors. Except people have children out of wedlock all the time and it's not possible to know who the actual father or mother of an ancestor is, solely based upon genetics, unless they documented it somehow. And although you get half of your genes from your mother and half from your father, as generations pass, the possibilities of anomalies in which halves you inherit become greater. And double cousins. There's that. <br />
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So, often (maybe it's a Southern thing), I encounter situations in which the well-researched family tree just does not match the genetic story. In these cases, instead of clarifying matters, it presents a (previously invisible) brick wall. In these cases, given the genetic evidence, despite all of the compelling documentation and evidence, someone lied or <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2017/02/genealogy-revelations-and-why-i-dont.html">kept a secret</a> and it's all wrong, with no evidence left behind to point to the truth. <br />
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All we can do is our best, which is to follow the evidence on it's face value. If the evidence points to a brick wall, then so be it. It's a brick wall until proven otherwise. Unfortunately, while offering a whole host of additional clues in some cases, genetic genealogy can also offer a few brick walls as well.Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-20373379624177688862017-03-01T13:21:00.001-08:002017-03-01T18:35:49.615-08:00Genealogy, Revelations and Secrets... and ethics<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's true. <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2017/02/genealogy-revelations-and-why-i-dont.html">I have very little patience for the idea that we shouldn't explore a secret because it makes someone uncomfortable</a>. Family secrets and the things my family just 'doesn't talk about' have had an impact on me and the choices I make. I consider all information valuable, even secrets, so I will not shy away from digging into them and documenting the appropriate information. And also, I do have a high degree of respect for the individuals I research as well as my own family members and ancestors. So, somewhere, there has to be a middle ground. I think that middle ground falls under the head of personal ethics of the researchers and writers. <br />
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I heard someone say (I cannot for the life of me remember where or who or in what context) that when a person dies, they actually die three times. Their first death is when their body gives out. Their second death is when everyone who knew them has died and their third death is the last time their name is uttered. Somewhere along those lines, my personal belief is what is remembered lives. I fully intend for my family to be remembered. For their names to be uttered for generations to come. This is one of my core reasons for genealogy research. To do that, I need to write about them and tell people about them.<br />
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Personally, I am pretty privacy minded about my own information and I have no interest in exposing details about living individuals at all. For the immediate family or deceased loved ones of living people, I am also careful about what I express in writing because they are connected to living people. Beyond that, I'm a little more judicious because they are historical figures at that point.<br />
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Here is how I personally straddle the line between writer and genealogy researcher and the privacy needs of my family and the people I research :<br />
<ul>
<li>I don't publish any information about a living person except their last name and their relationship to people in my tree. I know a lot of services say they obscure the details of living people but I don't even trust that. I put the word "Living" in the first name field and their last name in the last name field - and that's it. The only place their details (birth date etc) exist are in my own personal files.</li>
<li>I do store stuff online on services that are also used for sharing - like evernote, flickr and youtube. On all of these services, there are sharing and permission settings that I use in order to show what I want to and not show what I don't want to. <i>Just because something is stored online doesn't mean everyone on the internet can read/see it</i>. </li>
<ul>
<li>Flickr and youtube both offer the option to make something visible only to people who have a link to it - or to only certain users of their system. </li>
<li>I rarely share from Evernote but it's a case of only people who have the link s can see it. Further, I encrypt <a href="https://www.evernote.com/referral/Registration.action?sig=d1bb823e2d8a897921a1484693c0d4b04d00d6a7aa6f14c7018e5b03246edb37&uid=4165418">Evernote notes</a> that contain personal information about anyone living, including myself. Although Evernote employees have access to the contents of all of your notes (within certain circumstances like troubleshooting an issue or for machine learning), encrypting the note gives the option of having the contents of that note only available to me and never by anyone else, including Evernote employees, barring breaking the encryption (which is not like hacking a password... infinitely more complicated. <a href="https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208314128-What-type-of-encryption-does-Evernote-use-">Evernote uses AES with a 128 bit key</a>.). </li>
</ul>
<li>When I choose to write something here or in my public family tree, I exclude details of living family. I've never encountered a time when I wanted to write specifically about a living person in regards to genealogy. </li>
<li>If someone tells me something and says 'please don't publish/write/tell that', barring some negative impact it could have on someone else to NOT tell, I don't. It exists only in my email or private notes.</li>
<li>My personal line is that if I wouldn't publish a thing about me, I shouldn't publish it about someone else. Do unto others, turnabout and whatnot. </li>
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<span style="font-size: 10px;">Photo : <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/132053576@N03/17765606909">Privacy</a> / Owen Moore / <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">CC 2.0</a> </span>
Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-69084049803856476202017-02-28T09:58:00.002-08:002017-03-01T13:22:43.776-08:00Genealogy Revelations and Secrets<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This post is brought to you by the letter Truth and a befuddling (to me) response of consternation from family members when some new piece of history emerges. <br />
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In my genealogy research, I have learned that it's common for families to not want to know a thing. I believe that many people kind of want a very idealized version of family history and ancestry and are not comfortable with ripples in their set in stone family image. I suspect this is because we take quite a bit of who we think we are from where we think we came from. A change in that brings to the surface existential questions related to 'who am I'. <br />
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As someone who has spent most of their life chasing that question, I can attest to it not being comfortable to consider, but the discomfort of not knowing is worse, for me. I was raised largely away from extended family. I met my father's parents and siblings when I was very small and I saw parts of my mother's family here and there through childhood, but that side of my family never stays put for long so we were pretty far flung for most of my childhood. I don't believe I ever, in my entire childhood, had an understanding of people who were passed. So anything beyond grandparents were a complete mystery to me. <br />
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In early adulthood, I started genealogy research because I wanted to know. It's telling that I started this research having no idea how much my maternal grandmother had already done on that side. She'd been researching for 50 years by the time I came on the scene and I didn't know that because we were not really in contact. <br />
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It all felt like a secret so any "secrets" I discovered seemed just as rich as the one before, and none more surprising than the one before. Later, I'd meet first cousins I didn't even know I had. I grew relationships with aunts and uncles whom I'd been estranged from. It is all wonderful and delicious. So, when I uncover a grandparent who had a first husband I didn't know about, a prison record no one knew about, an adopted 2nd cousin or some other family "secret", to me, it's just part of that discovery process. No better, no worse, all surprising, all secrets, all delightful knowledge I didn't have before. I did not have the luxury of being discomforted by it because I needed the information and those relationships to understand myself, my family - and to have family at all. <br />
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When the secrets of abuse, neglect and mental illness in my immediate family needed to come out, I didn't shy away from those either. Why would I? It is a fundamental part of who I am. If what I'm answering is "who am I?", then lets at least be real about it. I can't affect change in myself without addressing it as what it actually is, not the stories that hide it. As it turns out, a lot of what I discovered in calling it what it was is <i>also</i> a family pattern. I am, epigenetically, an extension of my ancestors. Their shit became my shit. That's powerful knowledge. My paternal family had no idea... it changed the way they imagined that I grew up. My sister understands that it happened and doesn't understand why it still matters. My mother hates that I called it out and still denies it happened. I think it's normal to be uncomfortable with that if you don't want to face it. I don't have that luxury. <br />
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When my health started being weird, I needed answers about family health history. I needed to know which boxes to check yes on on the medical family history forms. Without it, I would have never been properly diagnosed. So, I scoured death certificates, hunted through my DNA and asked questions. I found 4 genetic conditions (lost <i>that</i> lotto). In every case, the side of the family from which I got the genes is shocked and a little dismissive... "no.. I know we have x, y and z symptoms but we don't have THAT" or "I just never thought it was a big deal so I didn't think to say anything". I think it's a normal response if the diagnosis is a little scary and there's a chance it applies to you. I also don't have that luxury.<br />
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So while I theoretically understand the potential motivation behind not wanting a thing to be known, that is the response of someone who is enjoying the luxury of not needing to address the truth as the truth. I. Don't. Have. That. Luxury. I sympathize and even empathize with the not wanting to know or for it to be known, but I'm sorry, not sorry. These secrets, are, without fail, part of more than just the person who holds them. They are part of the truth of the individual, the truth of the family, the truth of you, the truth of me.<br />
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<a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2017/03/genealogy-revelations-and-secrets-and.html">Part 2 - the ethics of writing about people as it relates to this</a>. <br />
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<span style="font-size: 10px;">Photo : <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Secret_Jouffroy_Louvre_LP1919-z_detail.jpg">Premier secret confié à Venus</a> / François Jouffroy / <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en">CC 3.0</a> </span>Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-26131511033541878292017-02-23T16:35:00.003-08:002017-02-23T16:35:36.509-08:00Digitizing Photos<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This week, I started the daunting task of scanning all of my paper photos. First, before you develop visions of a wonderful consumer-grade product that you just put a stack of photos on and it scans them into individual image files, I am disappointed to inform you that No. Such. Product. Exists. <br />
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The consumer-grade multi function printer/scanner/fax machines that have auto document feed (ADF) that we have in our homes do not have even <i>optional</i> feed trays for scanning photos. Without the correct feed tray, you can't use ADF for photos because there is nothing to guide your photo though so it either jams or scans crookedly (or really weirdly stretched out. I might have experimented.) . Flatbed works just fine - it's just tedious with hundreds of photos to position the photo, scan it, pull it out, position the next, etc. <br />
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So, my options for photo scanning are:<br />
<ol>
<li>Send them to a service. Going rate is an average of about .25 per photo. That gets pricey pretty fast, plus you're sending your family photos outside your home, which has inherent risk.</li>
<li>Single page photo scanners <a href="http://amzn.to/2mcnW6M">like this</a> that you can feed one at a time through</li>
<li>flat bed photo scanners (no feed). </li>
<li>and then <a href="http://amzn.to/2le943G">Epson makes one with an auto feed</a> for about $500, which is the cheapest I could find (average is closer to $900). At a going average of .25 per photo to get them scanned by a photo scanning service, you'd have to scan over 2,000 photos to make that worth while</li>
</ol>
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For now, I'm using a flatbed scanner. I might try something <a href="http://amzn.to/2lPGhpL">like this</a>, which just seems easier to feed stuff into. I guess it would depend upon the software. It's a whole can of worms though. So for now, flatbed. <br />
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Regardless of what option you choose, you want to make sure to scan at a decent resolution. 600dpi should be sufficient. Most home scanners can get into the neighborhood of 1200 dpi, which is higher quality - but it's overkill for anything less than high quality printing or image editing and will take you forever to scan each image, costs more to store etc. 300 dpi is too low.</div>
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Turn off any special image features like unsharp mask or other bells and whistles. You want to scan the actual image as it appears in the photo. You can always apply effects to copies of the image later. </div>
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On a flatbed scanner, make sure the tell the scanning software what size image you are scanning. it will greatly reduce your scanning time if you tell it a size smaller than 8.5x11. If you leave it at the default, it will scan the whole empty bed every time. </div>
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In your scanning software, set it to save a jpg and turn the quality all the way up. Your scanning software interface will vary but essentially, when you're saving something as a jpg, you have the ability to reduce the file size by saving it at a lower quality. You don't want that. So slide your quality slider, wherever it appears in your scanning software, up to 100% quality. You can use gif or another image file type but don't scan your photos to PDF. <br />
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Naming convention depends upon how you will use your photos. If you will ever sort them by file name (like in Windows explorer), the first thing in the name should be the thing you want to sort by. You also want to make sure that your photos are searchable based upon text in the name. If you intend to share the photos, you want to be very specific about the content of the photo in the file name because the context or surrounding documentation might not follow the image and might want to add your info for reference.<br />
<ul>
<li>If you ever want to sort your photos into a timeline order, start your file names with the date in yyyymmdd format. </li>
<li>If you prefer to sort by Surname, use the prevailing surname of the people in the photo or the surname you care most about or the surname you'd most likely want this photo to pop up for. So, if in the photo, you have your grandfather</li>
</ul>
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After whatever is first in your file name, you want to make sure to get in the names of the people (generally left to right) including maiden names of women as well as any other notes on the photo. However, you can't make the filename a whole paragraph because you're limited to 255 characters in Windows. So for images that have a whole group of people, like a family reunion, you might need to devise some other way of detailing who's in it.</div>
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So, in the end, my image file names look like this : </div>
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<ul>
<li>1980 Maynard Robert Earls house from Sinks Helen Pauline Maynards house</li>
<li>Sinks Helen Pauline Maynard outside her home she loved roses </li>
</ul>
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In these examples, the one beginning with 1980 would be able to be sorted in a timeline view by filename and both would be searchable for the surname Sinks or the person Helen Pauline. </div>
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Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-1950756643472106482017-02-22T08:54:00.000-08:002017-03-01T18:14:59.559-08:00I'm leaving Legacy Family Tree for the cloud<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I have started the genealogy do-over over and over and I sputter out on the data entry portion after a few months, in large part, because working with <a href="https://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555">Legacy Family Tree</a> as my primary system of record just isn't working for me. That conclusion took me about five years to come to, in large part because <a href="https://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555">Legacy Family Tree</a> does so many things well. I have loved working with the software. But at the end of the day, it makes my data a complete silo, which can be a positive for some folks, I'm sure. But for me, it's just not working.<br />
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I need the ability to share my data. And if I'm going to have the ability to share it with family and friends, I would prefer that where I share it already have an active user base so that I can have easier interactions with other researchers about my data. So, while I considered buying a domain and setting up a website for my data to make it shareable with family and friends or people I correspond with, that first, is a whole lot of work and second, it wouldn't have the community of researchers around it that I'd like for my data to have. <br />
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I need the ability to work on my data somewhere other than my desk. Legacy Family Tree, for all of it's wonderful features, is a tether. I've gone so far as putting my data onto a NAS (network attached storage device... like a hard drive that anyone on my wireless network at home can access) and installing the app on both my laptop and my desktop, which gives me the ability to work with it from anywhere inside my home on one of those devices. But I salivate over the ability to do the same work on any device or from any pace, just like I can with my genealogy data that is NOT stored in Legacy... like photos and documents I store in <a href="https://www.evernote.com/referral/Registration.action?sig=d1bb823e2d8a897921a1484693c0d4b04d00d6a7aa6f14c7018e5b03246edb37&uid=4165418">Evernote</a>. <br />
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I need accessibility anywhere and I need the ability to share and collaborate. I need the cloud. So, really, in considering my options, I considered the sites that I already use for research and genetic genealogy : familysearch.org, ancestry.com, <a href="https://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555">ftdna.com</a>, gedmatch.com, <a href="http://refer.23andme.com/v2/share/6249375491697516655">23andme.com</a>. I considered the amount of interactivity that the sites have had for me, historically and where my best data has come from. <br />
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For me, gedmatch has been the best site in the way of connections of genetic genealogy data. Their family tree function, though, while sufficient for finding genetic connections, isn't sufficient for the kind of documentation I want to product. Same for <a href="https://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555">ftdna.com</a>. It's just not made for that. <a href="http://refer.23andme.com/v2/share/6249375491697516655">23andme</a> isn't a contender for me because the "community" there seems to be largely unresponsive and they have monkeyed with family trees in a way that made it more confusing then helpful. <br />
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So, that leaves me with familysearch.org and ancestry.com. Both have heaps of information and active researchers. I love that familysearch.com doesn't have a paywall and I've often been able to find stuff there for free that I would have had to pay for elsewhere. I truly have a devotion to familysearch.org, as a platform. It's easy to use, it's got tons of helpful documentation on how to find things and data and information resources. Ancestry.com, on the other hand, while it has tons of documentation and information, it's all behind a paywall. Paying per month would have made this 20 year research hobby of mine incredibly expensive. However, they have a very active, responsive user base.<br />
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Frankly, the deciding factor between the two for me just boiled down to the fact that I also have genetic data with ancestry.com, which is a nice pairing, I think, with my tree research, as misguided as their tools that link the two may be. <br />
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My other major reservation about ancestry, though, is <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2014/08/how-to-stop-circulation-of-bad-family.html">an issue I've written about before</a>. Ancestry.com is ripe with bad family tree data. One of the really great toolsets that Legacy Family Tree has that I haven't found a replacement for is <a href="http://news.legacyfamilytree.com/legacy_news/2013/07/legacy-family-tree-8-revealed-potential-problem-alerts-and-gaps-of-unusual-size.html">potential problem flagging</a>. It will check for things like death dates that are before birth dates, marriage dates that are after death dates, children who's birth dates are too soon in a parent's life to be possible and will very often find actual problems - like a person who I (or, more likely, some misguided soul on ancestry.com) thought was the person in the tree but can't possibly be.<br />
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So, I'll be building my family tree at ancestry.com. I'll probably pay here and there as inspiration strikes me to actively work on my tree. I will still save cited documents and photos to my <a href="https://www.evernote.com/referral/Registration.action?sig=d1bb823e2d8a897921a1484693c0d4b04d00d6a7aa6f14c7018e5b03246edb37&uid=4165418">Evernote</a> account so that I have access to them even when I'm not a paying subscriber. I'll be able to work on it from anywhere and I'll be able to share my work with family and friends as well as other researchers. And from time to time, when it's due, I'll export from ancestry.com and import into Legacy Family Tree, do some problem solving, wipe my ancestry.com tree and re-import from Legacy. A little bit complicated, perhaps... but it works for me. <br />
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Edit : Oh. My. God. The vigilance that it takes to use ancestry.com with any sort of accuracy is stunning. Even ignoring other tree connections entirely and sticking only to suggested public records, people have associated such ridiculously inaccurate records to my people! <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2014/08/how-to-stop-circulation-of-bad-family.html">It's so easy to just click, click click, whamo, family tree on ancestry... and so much of it is just WRONG</a>. Please, for the love of all that is holy, stop clicking long enough to think!<br />
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<span style="font-size: 10px;">Photo : <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/111692634@N04/16203260320">devices in the cloud</a> / blue coat photos / <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">CC 2.0</a> </span>Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-50304452926944190192016-08-06T10:00:00.001-07:002017-11-29T14:21:41.869-08:00Lately in Hursey/Hussey/Kelly Genealogy and Photo Preservation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp4-DUyO3Extg6A8zCXnGejKM1Eq0f-lQVM2JqIzk8cylv16Fbrc9CIqCJMU9eNIP7hWmZSM16YeHIwZStVG7HxC8DXYnb4Th2zbYS5b8PrzM8PeCncb65cI9Pb2UucyVElZyjDxldL3c/s1600/20160731_123945.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp4-DUyO3Extg6A8zCXnGejKM1Eq0f-lQVM2JqIzk8cylv16Fbrc9CIqCJMU9eNIP7hWmZSM16YeHIwZStVG7HxC8DXYnb4Th2zbYS5b8PrzM8PeCncb65cI9Pb2UucyVElZyjDxldL3c/s320/20160731_123945.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I've had health stuff recently so over the last year, genealogy has fallen down a few slots priority-wise. There are just only so many spoons to go around. However, a few months back, I did get a bunch of papers and photos from my grandmother, which I've been itching to go through. I made a first pass through them just to get them into safer acid free containers a few months ago and then recently, sat down to go through them. What a treasure.<br />
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Yesterday, I sat down and actually got the photos sleeved and preserved (see below for deets). The oldest photo dates from about 1850 and is most likely my 3rd great grandmother Sarah A Matthews (1827-1903). I say most likely because the piece of paper that was with the photo and it's accompanying photo said 'Matthews girls, grandmother and mother, first cousin of Sarah Marie Jordan Hursey' - and there isn't any way that any of the "Matthews girls" could be Sarah Marie Jordan's first cousins... but it IS possible for them to be her aunt. So anyways. Some sleuthing involved in identifying some of the people and dates, which is fun work.<br />
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There were birth, death and marriage certificates, some of which I couldn't get previously, because I am not immediate family and they are less than 50 years old (or whatever the rule is in the respective states they are from), so those are gold. <br />
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There were some photos of Benjamin Worth Hursey, my great grandfather, and his siblings. They are the great great grandchildren of <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2013/12/john-and-patience-turner.html">John Turner</a>... and then there are photos of the whole clan as they got older, had kids, had grandkids, had 50th and 60th wedding anniversaries. There are several pictures of <a href="http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=102761010">Carrie Lee Hilda Wilcox Hursey (1896-1987</a>), Ben's sister, aka Carrie Hursey Reeves, which is who I was named after. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwP8RuokG6NtGyBIbkP1UrRAuly-pD-Gm8JtoeLxJvSSrdNCt3SEktJFk2R36ai7712ZCSe_xLBSdvriyq7Su_sS0DnVEv4eMHz6nBrZWCxHhw6LbcYax51-JEE2CpFK1FeakOUw8YJgs/s1600/VZM.IMG_20160731_123344.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="395" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwP8RuokG6NtGyBIbkP1UrRAuly-pD-Gm8JtoeLxJvSSrdNCt3SEktJFk2R36ai7712ZCSe_xLBSdvriyq7Su_sS0DnVEv4eMHz6nBrZWCxHhw6LbcYax51-JEE2CpFK1FeakOUw8YJgs/s640/VZM.IMG_20160731_123344.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Photos are, top to bottom : Sarah Marion Hursey (Marion Kelly), </span>Sarah Marie Jordan Hursey (Marie Hursey), Benjamin Worth Hursey (Ben Hursey), Lula Mae Wilson Hursey</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I have started to arrange everything in timeline order. I think my grand plan is to get all of their data input into <a href="http://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555">Legacy</a>, build stories and family sheets and then put together a scrapbook of sorts that I can digitize for family. I don't know about you, but it's hard for me to see how all the various faces fit together without knowing who was who's parent or sibling - so I think the visual presentation will be good. I'm still pondering the final form though.<br />
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At any rate, I did also get all of the photos properly preserved. The rules for preserving photos are thus :<br />
<ol><ol>
<li>Everything touching them must be acid free or archival quality. I used <a href="http://amzn.to/2aBxpKA">Ultra Pro 4x6 Soft Sleeves</a> (intended for sports cards, I think), 1 pack of <a href="http://amzn.to/2aur9Vr">C-Line 5x7 pages</a> for a 3 ring binder and, 1 pack of <a href="http://amzn.to/2aupWNM">C-Line 4x6 pages</a> for a 3 ring binder and a <a href="http://amzn.to/2aWQrzr">Pioneer photo storage box</a> for the photos that I did not put in the timeline binders. I used several rolls of <a href="http://amzn.to/2auqDql">Scotch single-sided Scrapbooking tape</a> to seal the sleeves once the photos were in them.</li>
<li>You must be able to see everything that is relevant about the photo without pulling it out of it's storage and touching it or exposing it to air. That means that if there are pertinent notes or handwriting on the back, you can't cover the back. </li>
<ol>
<li>In several cases, this meant that I put a photo in a sleeve and then attached it, in the sleeve, to acid free paper. That means that in the future, I can always pull the whole rig out of it's sleeve and flip the photo over without needing to unsleeve the actual photo.</li>
</ol>
<li>You should not do anything to a photo that would destroy any part of it. That includes using double sided tape on any part of a photo.</li>
<ol>
<li>Where a photo required explanation, the photo went into a single sleeve, which I then attached to an archival piece of paper for notes, which went into a binder sleeve. The end result is a photo with text around it.</li>
</ol>
<li>You should adjust notes or add notes with an archival acid free pen (I love <a href="http://amzn.to/2b1vJ2Y">these colored double sided pens/markers by Zig</a>), if you know who or what or when of the photo and it's not on the photo. For instance, I had two sets of photos of my great grandparents - one from their 50th anniversary and one set from their 60th. It was clear some of them had been mis-labled so those needed to be adjusted. I judge whether to write on it by considering "Would someone know who this was if they were not me, with my knowledge of the family?". </li>
<li>Try not to put multiple photos in one sleeve. Old photos are in so many sizes. I could that the 4x6 and 5x7 sleeves fit most of them but I sometimes needed to reduce the size by folding it over. You can always take multiple sleeved photos and add them to a bigger page or sleeve together. </li>
<li>If you have photos on postcards or other potentially acidic paper, add a sheet of <a href="http://amzn.to/2aurKXp">buffered tissue paper</a> to help preserve them. </li>
</ol>
</ol>
And speaking of photos, while I was googling something, I happened across <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/129493564@N03/albums">this gem</a>, which includes a <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/129493564@N03/sets/72157650070345265/with/16154574012/">Hursey family album from Darlington South Carolina</a>, featuring photos from the 50s, including some of my Hursey family! It also has <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/129493564@N03/sets/72157648341243033/with/15936312687/">this album</a>, which is an album featuring <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/129493564@N03/sets/72157648341243033/with/15936312687/">Carrie Hursey Reeves,</a> who I have precious little about. What a fantastic find! Big thanks to John Wells Sr. for posting those!Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-29554863735224564362016-02-08T18:30:00.001-08:002020-11-05T13:44:54.761-08:00How to Covert Cassette Tape Interviews to Digital<div style="float: left; padding: 5px; position: relative;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxj1Oo9QXXNA1DqJlWhyhkR4GDv18L08I9e7yXTLpH4i2qIgw8OWLiRnIy2jWCxt-JlmqIidgN2POwdm0GnxCDOiO8dFX-KLzJj2-AwXB-0yfiUm-3xqHuDZhCT8JRjR0N8MN0xS9Zn_U/s1600/cassette-699289_960_720.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxj1Oo9QXXNA1DqJlWhyhkR4GDv18L08I9e7yXTLpH4i2qIgw8OWLiRnIy2jWCxt-JlmqIidgN2POwdm0GnxCDOiO8dFX-KLzJj2-AwXB-0yfiUm-3xqHuDZhCT8JRjR0N8MN0xS9Zn_U/s400/cassette-699289_960_720.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Remember cassette tapes? It turns out that people used them for things other than mix tapes. I got some from my grandmother in her papers and one is a cassette recording of my great grandfather, Benjamin Worth Hursey, and his son, talking about things... the crops, who they are, the weather. I've <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2015/11/how-to-convert-8mm-films-into-dvd.html">seen him on film</a>, but now I've also heard his voice. A strong, growling, resonant voice with a South Carolina lilt and a southern slur to his words.<br />
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Getting into digital format is much easier than <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2015/11/how-to-convert-8mm-films-into-dvd.html">The Great Film Project of 2015 was</a>. <br />
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First, I tried "cassette tape to MP3" conversion kits you can buy on amazon. I'm not going to link to any of them because they were terrible. Ultimately, the kits are made to be inexpensive and so the tape players (without fail, if you read the reviews) are crap. They play at variable speeds, giving the resulting audio a warble. One I tried even had a steady 'thump thump thump' behind the audio. if you're working with genealogy stuff, you want a high quality recording. <br />
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So, failing an out-of-the-box solution, I pieced together a really cheap (under $40) and easy way to do it myself, which is what I'm giving you here. <br />
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<b>You will need</b> :<br />
<ul>
<li>a computer with a free USB port</li>
<li>some <i>very</i> basic computer skills</li>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/JENSEN-MCR-100-Cassette-Player-Recorder/dp/B00UY8QEGW/ref=as_li_ss_il?dchild=1&keywords=JENSEN+MCR-100+Cassette+Player/Recorder&s=electronics&sr=1-3&linkCode=li2&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=16c64779628e28ed42580f411e538aa5&language=en_US" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00UY8QEGW&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=rootsandblood-20&language=en_US" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=rootsandblood-20&language=en_US&l=li2&o=1&a=B00UY8QEGW" style="border: none; margin: 0px;" width="1" /> - A tape player with a headphone jack. <a href="http://amzn.to/1nVRp1n">Jensen makes a solid tape player</a> <i>(affiliate link)</i>. There are others but Jensen is a brand that's been around forever, the player is reasonably priced, no frills, and works well. Under $30.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/iXCC-Tangle-Free-Auxiliary-Connectors-Smartphones/dp/B00KWR8ME2/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li1&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=780efc041a8455ac0eee083bcadfee4e&language=en_US" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00KWR8ME2&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=rootsandblood-20&language=en_US" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=rootsandblood-20&language=en_US&l=li1&o=1&a=B00KWR8ME2" style="border: none; margin: 0px;" width="1" />;<a href="http://amzn.to/1nVRDW8">- 3.5mm male to male auxiliary cable</a> <i>(affiliate link).</i> That's a fancy way of saying a standard headphone plug (the outty dooha, in technical jargon) to a standard mic plug cable. Under $5.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IRVQ0F8/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li1&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=470ed04fc8f3b652ff573fe0b0315765&language=en_US" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00IRVQ0F8&Format=_SL110_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=rootsandblood-20&language=en_US" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=rootsandblood-20&language=en_US&l=li1&o=1&a=B00IRVQ0F8" style="border: none; margin: 0px;" width="1" /> <a href="http://amzn.to/1T4fFds">this fancy doo-dad</a> <i>(affiliate link)</i> - an external stereo to USB adapter. It has a mic jack on one side and a USB male adapter on the other. About $5.</li>
</ul>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><i>The product links to products I recommend in this post are amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. If you purchase the advertised products on this page, you won't pay any more for the product and I will earn a small commission, which helps support the site. Win win!<br /></i><br />Ok. Once you have it all in hand, plug one end of the auxiliary cable into the headphone jack of the tape player and the other end into the mic jack of the stereo usb adapter. Then plug the USB end of the adapter into your computer. Windows will automatically add is as a 'usb mic' without any drivers. The hard part is over!<br />
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Finally, you will need something on your computer to listen for the input and record it. For that, download <a href="http://www.audacityteam.org/download/">audacity</a> - whichever version fits your setup. It's free, doesn't install other freeware and is relatively easy to use. In fact, the kits I tried, both came with a copy of this as the software component. <br />
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Install it (double click the file you downloaded and click next a few times). Once it's installed, open it, click 'edit' and then 'preferences'. You'll get a screen that looks like this :<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilOzQGqpVOkYSE9wMtnRBunOvwa4lkt9aqG09P3YxasF7Mg7Pt2Odm3dnf0YaP_4JISE7-36jvYsWCSPiA3o4FMmOaSlQT40pJ0mPRYEy9knsSeKtgjDfQnq127dLTajJ9dQNB4wCzJyw/s1600/audacity1.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilOzQGqpVOkYSE9wMtnRBunOvwa4lkt9aqG09P3YxasF7Mg7Pt2Odm3dnf0YaP_4JISE7-36jvYsWCSPiA3o4FMmOaSlQT40pJ0mPRYEy9knsSeKtgjDfQnq127dLTajJ9dQNB4wCzJyw/s320/audacity1.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
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The very first item on the left hand side says 'devices'. When that is highlighted, on the right hand side, you'll see the heading 'recording' and under that, a menu option that says 'device' with a drop down to the right of it. Your USB mic might already be selected. If it's not, click the drop down, select your USB mic and click 'ok'. That pop up will go away. <br />
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Up at the top of the audacity screen, you'll see lots of buttons like this :<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRwQNUGq0K48qEAoVhBjBAWrtCEcgMj4-J0vfMoApNyKz7qhLTclINn04Oe-AxuNOILw9B9ovOHuQeYVxU9en3iW1VExCcZkf6qA6GVG-WaY_QIPL-E5YSrYpUqHuA-MnxO3_Zo1dPbjo/s1600/audacity2.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="67" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRwQNUGq0K48qEAoVhBjBAWrtCEcgMj4-J0vfMoApNyKz7qhLTclINn04Oe-AxuNOILw9B9ovOHuQeYVxU9en3iW1VExCcZkf6qA6GVG-WaY_QIPL-E5YSrYpUqHuA-MnxO3_Zo1dPbjo/s320/audacity2.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Never fear. You can ignore all of those except these : </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2duF-7hGL1JHEyBaw4SYNdGsCmUTR4bSBegC28Ati48SPxPeHzehyKCcEgxOsXnSv8EIISY0qtcBDZvmyvKfDSp2EJyAsAQ-fQWbsHijVzG1lMKt41IQg3ordewA_kmJ0hA5F_6A9Gj0/s1600/audacity3.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="99" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2duF-7hGL1JHEyBaw4SYNdGsCmUTR4bSBegC28Ati48SPxPeHzehyKCcEgxOsXnSv8EIISY0qtcBDZvmyvKfDSp2EJyAsAQ-fQWbsHijVzG1lMKt41IQg3ordewA_kmJ0hA5F_6A9Gj0/s320/audacity3.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
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They should be mostly familiar. Pause, play, stop, back to the beginning, go to the end, record. Under them, you have the mic volume and the playback volume. Turn the mic volume about halfway up. </div>
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Put your tape into the tape player, rewind it to where you want to start. Turn it's volume to about halfway as well. Click the record button in audacity and then press play on the tap player. </div>
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You will not hear anything over your speakers but you should see, in audacity, a blue line that squiggles up and down with the audio it's hearing. As long as the blue line is fluctuating and is not consistently smooshed against the top or bottom of it's box, you're fine. If it is consistently smooshed against the top or bottom, you'll want to adjust one or both recording volumes down. You can record a little, stop and play it back on your computer a few times to get it just right if you need to. </div>
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Leave it alone for the full length of the tape. You <b><i>can</i></b> use your computer for other things while it's recording. Audacity will only record from the input you selected (the usb mic) not from other sounds in the room or on your computer. </div>
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Let the tape play all the way out. Click stop in audacity, flip the tape over, click record in audacity and push the play button on your tape recorder. When the tap is done, click stop in audacity again. </div>
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<b>Alternatively</b>, you can save side one as one file and then save side two as a second file. To do so, when side one is over, do the following instructions (next paragraph) and then repeat the whole process of playing, recording, stopping and saving with side two of the tape. </div>
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You can save that file in audacity format, which will allow you to tweak it a bit, should you need to or feel so inclined. Otherwise, in order to export the file into a format that you can listen to on other devices, click 'file' and 'export'. In the 'save as type' dropdown, select 'mp3' and save it to wherever you want. There are some more advanced options that<a href="http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/mp3_export_options.html"> the audacity online manual does a great job of explaining</a>. </div>
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<span style="color: #bdbdbd; font-size: 10px;">Photo : <a href="https://pixabay.com/en/cassette-tape-audio-black-and-white-699289/">Cassette tape</a> | Public Domain </span>Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-27805590079010242802016-01-27T12:20:00.000-08:002016-01-27T12:23:56.993-08:008 Things Only a Fellow Genealogy Geek Will Understand<div style="float: left; padding: 5px; position: relative;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOor5e2loR48iQ8NGr8sIaqM_9ydNndyACthoai7JACd0PSKSC7IcXdQuvFpSsuJWFCAO0Q4eAw9RhIUKlNm6-G0UkhWC83Spr5hQdEowKvIB6at2VxG24pXqc8rgVXDlEaX5ufXyX2Z8/s1600/alien-308429_960_720.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOor5e2loR48iQ8NGr8sIaqM_9ydNndyACthoai7JACd0PSKSC7IcXdQuvFpSsuJWFCAO0Q4eAw9RhIUKlNm6-G0UkhWC83Spr5hQdEowKvIB6at2VxG24pXqc8rgVXDlEaX5ufXyX2Z8/s400/alien-308429_960_720.png" width="207" /></a></div>
1) I have at least 500 ancestors in my tree who simply "appeared" where they died. I believe this to be compelling evidence of an alien colonization.<br />
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2) When I meet a new person, see the credits on a show or hear a name on the news, I mentally light up when their surname is one that is in my tree and try to remember where that name appears. <br />
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3) Thou shalt not simply send us money and get a death certificate in return! If the death was between this date and this date go this other website, click this specific link, enter your phone number and zip code and get redirected to this other website where they might decide you don't need to pay for a membership to see the record. If the death was between this date and this date and you are not the child of the deceased (in the 1920s) ancestor, no death certificate for you! If the date was between this date and this date and in this specific city, they are kept in a vault beneath the earth and you need to call this phone number and speak to the nice dwarven lady to get them. And finally, if the death was between this date and this date, mail a money order for $15 and a blood sample from your second born to this address. All alien descendants will be disqualified.<br />
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4) I can rattle off three generations of health history and cause of death to my doctor and I am not a hypochondriac.<br />
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5) There are three Methuselah Silas and Parmelia Missouri Barnabas couples living within a 100 mile radius of each other on the census of 1810. All three couples are childless farmers. One has a cousin named John Smith living with them. It was a sunny day the day the census was taken so they could not have reasonably run really fast in those impractical clothes from house to house to be counted three times. Alien colonization has not yet been discounted. Which one is your ancestor?<br />
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6) My partner does a first call, second call, third call for dinner and sometimes just brings my dinner to me at my desk when I'm working on my "family tree stuff". Heart that guy.<br />
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7) Me and the South Carolina Archives are tight. They now just wait until I've submitted all of my requests and collate them into one neat request instead of sending me a letter for each one I will invariably submit on one day. <br />
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8) I have learned a new appreciation for those dumb word problems we did in school. Although I have never used them when determining the missing price in a pattern of prices at a grocery store, when determining who is sitting next to whom at a party or while determining the probability of grabbing matching socks, I have definitely used them in genealogy. Behold : "If John and Sandra share a DNA segment on his John's father's side and Sandra is related to Carrie on Carrie's mother's side but John and Carrie are related on Carrie's father's and John's mother' side - and this other person is related to John on both of their sides but only to Carrie on her father's side, who is their MRCA? <i>(There is a real answer to this, btw, that does not involve aliens. It's two pages long plus a diagram and took me 8 hours and yes, he had to bring me my dinner.)</i><br />
<span style="color: #bdbdbd; font-size: 8px;">Photo : <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en">CC 0</a> </span>Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-42859311369293715302016-01-25T12:05:00.001-08:002020-11-05T13:52:04.490-08:00Review : A Stranger and a Sojourner: Peter Caulder, Free Black Frontiersman in Antebellum Arkansas by Billy D. Higgins <div style="float: left; padding: 5px; position: relative;">
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/STRANGER-SOJOURNER-PASSAGE-FRONTIER-ARKANSAS/dp/1557287775/ref=as_li_ss_il?dchild=1&keywords=stranger+and+sojourner&sr=8-11&linkCode=li3&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=127475e767d9c0e36a541b16cdd2bc62&language=en_US" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1557287775&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=rootsandblood-20&language=en_US" ></a><img src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=rootsandblood-20&language=en_US&l=li3&o=1&a=1557287775" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></div>
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Oh. My. Gosh. Ya'll. This book.
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There are really two parts to genealogy research to me. One is the facts. When they were born, when they died, where they lived, who their people were, etc. The other is their story... how did those facts line up to create a life and what was that life like? How did the surrounding story of the area blend with their individual story to create a narrative of their lives? It is often really, really tough to pull a story out of the facts. <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2013/12/john-and-patience-turner.html">John Turner and his wife Patience</a> are one of those that are tougher than others.<br />
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John Turner was a person of color, and further, he was a former slave so there are virtually no records of his existence prior to his sale to his wife. Post sale, there are land records. He was a slave - and then he was a landowner, in the space of a few years. Squaring that with what I know of history creates this absolutely fascinating tale of how a family of color lived in the contradictory antebellum south. <br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1557288054/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1557288054&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=FCASWAHXHZIABHHI">A Stranger and a Sojourner: Peter Caulder, Free Black Frontiersman in Antebellum Arkansas by Billy D. Higgins</a> <i>(affiliate link)</i> takes the facts that can be found about the Turners, the Caulders and other families of color in the area, combines them with historical fact and weaves a narrative about their lives, following the sons of Moses Caulder and John Turner into military service together and their lives beyond.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br /><i>The product links to products I recommend in this post are amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. If you purchase the advertised products on this page, you won't pay any more for the product and I will earn a small commission, which helps support the site. Win win!</i><div><br />
Although the focus of the book is on the Caulders and Arkansas, the book really carries them all over the United States and the Caulder's story is only clearly seen sometimes when combined with the details provided by the lives of the Turner family. The author even delves into Powers et al vs McEachern et al, the SC Supreme Court case involving the descendants of John and Patience, along with some of the backstory that I'd completely missed. There is definitely much to read about the Turners in this book, as well!<br />
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The author highlighted historical records I hadn't thought to look at to paint the complete picture - Like the Mills' Atlas of Darlington District, South Carolina map of 1825. For the first time, I saw on a map of South Carolina where John and Patience lived and who their neighbors were.<br />
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<div style="float: right; padding: 5px; position: relative;"><iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=rootsandblood-20&language=en_US&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=1557287775&asins=1557287775&linkId=fc82eef2f6e2d3dbe9ca7fd45df6087b&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true"></iframe></div>
This book is the holy grail for a genealogy researcher - or at least for me. I always hope I'll stumble into a very well written, illustrated, perfectly sourced account of my family members and it has never happened, ever. Until now. Everything in the book is carefully sourced, with almost half of the book being a bibliography, charts, maps and diagrams. Although I characterize this as a BSO (Bright Shiny Object that must. be. ignored. until. I. get. there., in genealogy do-over terms) for now, it's definitely on my list to dig through those sources and see what else I can extract for my own research - and I might, just might, still pick it up from time to time and poke through the end material. You know - just looking!<br />
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Billy Higgins paints a picture of their lives with such exquisite detail that I, for the first time, could get a taste of what the lives of the Caulders and Turners were really like and how they really interacted with the white community around them. This is absolutely a must-have account for anyone descended from these families and many, many thanks to Billy Higgins for doing this work.<br />
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<span style="text-align: start;"><i>PS : This book came out in 2005, after I'd already done my initial research of John and Patience Turner. It was because of the <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2016/01/genealogy-do-over-year-2-or-3-and-some.html">genealogy do-over</a> that I found it. Do-Over, ftw! When I read it, I also felt a little like the old-timer that had to hike to the conclusions uphill. In the snow. Both ways. Barefoot. </i></span></div>
</div>Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-20922959926818018852016-01-25T10:05:00.004-08:002016-01-26T10:32:00.527-08:00Genealogy Do-Over Year 2 or 3 and Some Lessons Learned<div style="float: left; padding: 5px; position: relative;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpYaWP3R5BG52fi-bP2gXpuanRD9YHuiUUqysK82h5Xc6Oxb2YTC5Sle8ZjvnaxrUKQAIlS80ecowhB2R9WZvlPK2R0tD52R74t1aqwvTukXOIH25zqEejEfDai8C22hzLjStdoDBFNZI/s1600/10105717556_745f473f65_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpYaWP3R5BG52fi-bP2gXpuanRD9YHuiUUqysK82h5Xc6Oxb2YTC5Sle8ZjvnaxrUKQAIlS80ecowhB2R9WZvlPK2R0tD52R74t1aqwvTukXOIH25zqEejEfDai8C22hzLjStdoDBFNZI/s400/10105717556_745f473f65_b.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
<span style="color: #bdbdbd; font-size: 8px;">Photo : <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/rs12240/10105717556">My 2,987,000th great grandmother</a> / ..Russ.. / <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">CC 2.0</a> </span>
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I'm participating in the <a href="http://www.geneabloggers.com/genealogy-do-over-month-1-january-2016/">Genealogy Do Over</a> again this year. This is my second year doing the actual event and my third year after starting over on my own personal data. My method of participation is not by the book but I find that the event is helpful because I've got the encouragement and support of hundreds of other participants and I get lots of good ideas from it. <br />
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If the goal were to map my ancestry back to the dinosaurs, the do-over would put me "way behind. It might "take me forever" to re-do "my 15 years of pain staking research". But the object, for me, of genealogy, is discovery. I love to learn new stuff about my ancestors. I get a bounce in my step when I drop another tiny piece into the puzzle of me. The <a href="http://www.geneabloggers.com/genealogy-do-over-month-1-january-2016/">do-over</a> has just made that all the more enjoyable.<br />
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Outside of my own research skills, so much has changed in 15 years. The first generation that I researched was my grandparents. When I started this research, most of the information on them was still restricted because it was so soon after their deaths. Going back to where I started 15 years later has resulted in a whole new wealth of public information about them. <br />
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15ish years ago, when I started my own research, it was the year 2000 (Y2k!). I was hanging on to my Windows 97 install because Windows ME sucked so bad. The world around me was just starting to get it's internet feet under it. Banking was still completely paper based, you had to actually drive to the grocery store to get groceries and to do genealogy, you still had to travel to the location you wanted records on and like... actually... physically view them. <br />
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Fast forward to now - the world is zipping right along on the interwebs! Federal, state and local governments are indexing vast collections regularly that are available from your home via the internet. So it's no surprise that I find new information on relatives on the regular - even if I only researched them a few short years ago. Further, the stuff I find sometimes changes the narrative altogether! For instance, in a recent search on a recent relative, I found evidence of an ancestor living in a state I never even would have considered because there previously was no paper trail that lead there. How could one NOT want to get to the root of the real story when new story-changing evidence surfaces? The idea of NOT doing a do-over is almost ludicrous. <br />
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I suppose if you're one of those that hoofed it across the country or even across oceans to research records locally to the area your ancestor lived, there might be a bit of resentment for this newfangled internet research and perhaps a part of me would put my nose in the air at it, were I someone who did most of my research prior to the internet. But it's real - the stuff off the internet. Just as real as looking at microfiche in person. <br />
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Just last night, as I was emailing with a cousin over a new bunch of clues about a family connection, I sent her <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2013/05/alexander-yarbrough.html">this post about Alexander Yarbrough</a>. That post was written based upon pre do-over information, much of which was over 10 years old. In it, I say "I found, in someone's family tree, that Alexander was a farmer. I do not have a source or any proof for this information..." but within 15 minutes of sending her that link, she'd already unearthed a census I didn't have physical access to when I first did the research that showed his profession as a farmer. Alexander, my great great grandfather is still about a generation away in my do-over list. Although I'm itching to rewrite that post, I'm in no real hurry because the process of the do-over is fun.<br />
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Lessons Learned</h2>
Anyhoo, aside from all the new information that's available, my own skill set has changed quite a bit in 15 years and the do-over event is doing nothing but help me reinforce better habits. Here are some of the things I've noticed in my do-over that I would tell my 15 year younger self. My lessons learned, so far :<br />
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Turn the Page</h3>
At least 10 times in the first 3 generations of my father's side, I've found an image of an original that had a second page or text on the back that I didn't see before. In some cases, it was because I didn't have access to the actual image, only the index. And in some cases, it was probably the impatience of a young researcher. In others, I'm not sure the entire collection was even online yet. I found handwritten letters from brides' parents on the page after the marriage certificate, another line on a census that spilled over onto the back page and 10 pages of military records, giving dimension to the one line of service information in my ancestor's record.<br />
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Spend Time With Every Single Resource</h3>
In my family, it is well known that I am not Carrie the Patient. I don't suffer fools gladly and slow shit makes me itch. So, during the do-over, one of my my motto is to love and caress each and every piece of evidence until I do actually itch. What I'm finding are little bits of information that I might have otherwise looked over. <br />
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Last night, for example, the family connection I was emailing with the cousin about, was a random Turner relative that appeared at the very bottom of the census page for my Maynard family on my father's side. This was a 14 year old niece, born in Kentucky named Bettie Lou Turner. She appeared on 1940 census record I didn't have from my previous research (they were released in 2012), living with my great grandparents and my grandmother. <br />
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You know - <b>Turner connection</b>. <b><span style="font-size: large;">Turner</span></b>. <b><span style="font-size: x-large;">The family on my mother's side I've been obsessed with for all 15 years</span></b>. It's most likely not a Turner family related to my mother's Turner family - but here was a connection that would make it possible for a person with Turner family to be related to me on my father's side! Only through a comprehensive internet search covering all 50 states was it possible for me to discover that Millie Yarbrough, <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2013/05/alexander-yarbrough.html">Alexander Yarbrough</a>'s daughter, married in Montgomery County, Tennessee, had two children, married a second time, moved to Detroit Michigan and had a third child. That child wound up living with my great grandparents in Tennessee when she was 14 and her two other children eventually changed their last names from Arms to Turner. <br />
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Pay Attention to Collateral Relationships - At least a Little</h3>
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In my mad rush to document my families to the dinosaurs, and not being Carrie the Patient, in the past, I have really glossed over the families of brothers and sisters to my own ancestors. I still don't want to spend a ton of time with them. But frankly, even having names of their spouses and children is awfully helpful in piecing together where I might be related to someone. In the above Turner/Yarbrough situation, Millie Yarbrough is is something like a great grand aunt to me, not a direct ancestor, so I never paid much attention to her or the other siblings. Had I previously followed Millie Yarbrough Arms to becoming Millie Yarbrough Turner, I would have known about the Turner connection.<br />
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Do it Over All the Time</h3>
I previously wrote about <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2016/01/mind-fuzzy-gray-areas-drawing.html#more">being ok with being wrong in drawing conclusions about genetic genealogy</a>, and it is equally important in plain old genealogy. Not only does more information become available or exposed all the time (like <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2016/01/review-stranger-and-sojourner-peter.html">this holy grail of genealogy research</a>) that might prove or disprove family stuff, sometimes, in looking at a record a second or third time, I just see something I didn't see before. Looking at the same census once every few years never killed anyone and I have learned the value of constantly going at my research with do-over eyes.<br />
<br />Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-80274248435303823592016-01-13T09:56:00.000-08:002018-06-12T17:46:14.952-07:00John Turner Project - Genetic Genealogy Project for Descendants of John and Patience Turner and Thomas WeathersbeeThe research of <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2013/12/john-and-patience-turner.html">John and Patience Turner</a> has been a pet project of mine for many years, in large part because their story as a couple, as a slave and as a person of color in the South is so compelling but probably also because I have yet to figure out where they came from before their known stories and so there is an element of a puzzle or mystery there. <br />
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Some time ago, I started digging into their genetics via myself <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2014/10/seeking-turner-or-weathersbee-gedmatch.html">and their other descendants</a>. I found <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2014/12/millie-turner-daughter-of-john-and.html">evidence of John Turner's Sub Saharan African ancestry</a> and I'd love to find more. I'd love to be able to continue their family trees. Perhaps I could find evidence that John's father was or was not his slave holder, Thomas Weathersbee or maybe evidence of Patience's family. Pie in the sky, we could maybe even create a pretty comprehensive Lazarus kit for John Turner or Patience Turner! <br />
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To further the effort, I created a 'data collective'. That's a fancy way of saying a spreadsheet of all of the data related to the genetic matches of related descendants (of John Turner and Thomas Weathersbee), accessible by all project participants. The project is in it's wee bitty stages still but it's already looking promising! So far, 13 kits and a couple of months in, we have identified two segments from two ancestors that are most likely from John Turner. (update : 21 kits and family lines identified!)<br />
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We need more descendants' data to work with though. If you are descended from John and Patience Turner or Thomas Weathersbee, I would love to include you in the project. Participation is easy. You only need a gedmatch kit (free and easily created from your <a href="http://refer.23andme.com/v2/share/6249375491697516655">23andme</a>, <a href="https://affiliate.familytreedna.com/idevaffiliate.php?id=1545">ftdna</a> or ancestry.com DNA) and a family tree (even a suspected one is fine) between you and John and Patience Turner. If you have sources for your research, that is all the better - otherwise, I will research your tree to the extent that I can find evidence in support of your tree. You send me your information, I send you a link to the spreadsheet and from there, you can do as much or as little as you'd like!<br />
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To join the project or to read more about the project, visit the <a href="https://sites.google.com/view/johnturnerproject/home">John Turner project website</a>. Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-44720775234882641592016-01-09T14:18:00.004-08:002016-02-09T11:54:48.657-08:00Mind the Fuzzy Gray Areas - Drawing Conclusions in Genetic Genealogy<div style="float: left; padding: 5px; position: relative;">
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I was inspired by an email from a cousin this morning to ponder the logic of genetic genealogy a bit. Genetic genealogy is deceptively easy on some sites. It's packaged and marketed by the big sites as an auto-magical way to find relatives you didn't know you had. So, my experience is that folks get very excited by having these relatives show up and then make assumptions about their own heritage that I often find to be guesswork, at best. The thing is, your relation to to a person and the conclusions you can draw from that connection are not nearly as clear cut as it can sometimes look on whatever website you're using.<br />
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I should also preface this by saying, that to the average person, I'm probably the most annoying genetic cousin ever. When a cousin tells me a conclusion they have drawn, I will, without fail, ask them for enough information so that I can re-discover it on my own and very often tell them that it's not a for sure conclusion - or maybe even wrong. Sorry, not sorry, cousins! Here's why.<br />
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Logic</h3>
Logic is defined as "reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity." It's the principal underlying math and science. Were I to say 1 + 1 = 3, you could very quickly prove otherwise using a step by step reasoning. This is logic. We can use logic to help us prove things we don't already know - like who our third great grandparent is, based upon genetic genealogy.<br />
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There are two places where attempted logical cases often fall short in genetic genealogy:<br />
<ul>
<li>Bad Data or Incorrect Conclusions - this is when one or more parts of your logic are incorrect either because logic was not used, the conclusions were drawn incorrectly or because the foundation assumptions are incorrect. </li>
<li>Logical Fallacy - this is when the structure of your logical case allows for a false conclusion. An example of this which is common to genealogy is an appeal to authority which goes something like "Jane Doe says John and Elizabeth are Gary's parents and Jane probably knows what she's talking about therefore John and Elizabeth are Gary's parents." This is a fallacy because it's actually likely that Jane Doe is incorrect. </li>
</ul>
<a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2014/08/how-to-stop-circulation-of-bad-family.html">Genealogy websites re ripe with really. Bad. Data.</a> People post family trees that are very, very wrong. They make assertions that are not backed up by actual research or logic. I, on a regular basis, encounter people who have assumed something that is just absolutely incorrect. In the Norwood family, there is a family myth that is circulated about king Harold, which is absolutely untrue and has been proved to be untrue and that I can prove to be untrue... but yet it persists. In "my" <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2013/12/john-and-patience-turner.html">John and Patience Turner family</a>, there are all kinds of stories about Patience that are completely false or un-proven that I encounter all the time. Some examples are that her maiden name was Barfield, that she was born in Guatemala or that she was mulatto.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Some are more naturally logical thinkers than others but logic is a practice that can be learned. Once you understand logic and your mind is comfortable working logically, you can apply logic to anything, including genealogy. <br />
<br />
<div>
<h3>
Fuzzy Gray Areas </h3>
<div>
Aside from the bad data of the humans involved in genealogy websites, there are several really fuzzy ray areas in genetic genealogy that make tough to use only genetic data to point to a specific MRCA. </div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><b><a href="http://isogg.org/wiki/Recombination">Recombination</a> is entirely random</b>. While we sometimes consider it "safe to assume" that in every generation, half of each parent's genetic material gets passed on and therefore, half of each of their parents (meaning we have a quarter of each grandparent in us) comes to us and so on up the line, that isn't 100% accurate and sometimes can not be true at all making it not actually safe to assume at all.</li>
<li><b>There is a really fuzzy gray area in precise start and end points of a segment match, on genetic genealogy websites</b>, in my experience. I know this because I tend to use the actual numbers rather than the graphical interfaces and have data from gedmatch, <a href="https://affiliate.familytreedna.com/idevaffiliate.php?id=1545">ftdna</a> and <a href="http://refer.23andme.com/v2/share/6249375491697516655">23andme</a> collated together. Me and a match on <a href="http://refer.23andme.com/v2/share/6249375491697516655">23andme</a> have a segment start and end point. Me and that same match on ftdna and gedmatch wind up with three slightly different start and end points on each site leading to varying matching segment lengths. This happens whether we had completely seperate starting tests or tested once and just imported to all three sites. A cM of difference could be the difference between the generations to MRCA calculation or the degree of relationship calculation - or even the calculation of whether we are related or not and<b> makes working with smaller segments from consumer-friendly genetic genealogy websites entirely untenable</b>. The difference is entirely because of the algorithms used - it's the same two people and same genetic material, often the very same DNA test imported to multiple sites, just displayed on different websites. Below is such visual example of what I mean. The three non-blacked out lines are the matching segments between me and a matching cousin on three different websites. Notice there is more than a cM of difference between FTDNA and the other two sites. </li>
</ul>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkqje3aszSMIDoXkHgWkSCWBs7-G4yC8jUgEUoEAKIMhesJeRb2T-jMvUFAYFFQIftewsFN_ISNK0Flpvt7RYhSdUrGnwFJ835oh0bQUp7o30Wy_J2EU7lNN8WTNpUwyBfpAG35ZwKroY/s1600/genetic+genealogy+fuzzy+gray+area.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="97" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkqje3aszSMIDoXkHgWkSCWBs7-G4yC8jUgEUoEAKIMhesJeRb2T-jMvUFAYFFQIftewsFN_ISNK0Flpvt7RYhSdUrGnwFJ835oh0bQUp7o30Wy_J2EU7lNN8WTNpUwyBfpAG35ZwKroY/s640/genetic+genealogy+fuzzy+gray+area.PNG" width="640" /></a><br />
<ul>
</ul>
<div>
<ul>
<li><b>People have secrets.</b> Those secrets were likely not written down and might not have been common knowledge if they weren't hidden entirely. Adoptions, non-paternity events, double cousins, incest and <a href="http://www.genetic-genealogy.co.uk/Toc115570138.html">a bunch of other scenarios</a> involved in who had babies with who are often lost to researchable knowledge - but show up in our genes. We cannot know, without the corroboration of solid research, that we are not encountering one of these scenarios with one of our genetic matches. </li>
</ul>
The fuzzy gray areas, in general, will not hinder using genetic genealogy as a tool if you are mindful of them. </div>
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
How to Come to a Valid Genetic Genealogy Conclusion</h3>
<div>
<ol>
<li><b>Study up on : </b></li>
<ul>
<li><b>Genetics.</b> Know what is and isn't possible to a reasonable degree. Genetic genealogy appears deceptively simple. It's really not. If you don't know about the fuzzy gray areas above, for instance, you will draw more incorrect conclusions than if you are aware of them. Read, research, learn and understand how genetic material is passed down from generation to generation.</li>
<li><b>Logic. </b></li>
<li><b>the difference between information, evidence and proof</b>. Know how to use information to formulate evidence in a way that proves or disproves a theory logically - and to use this ability to prove or disprove information you encounter and to create your own ancestral narrative. </li>
</ul>
<li><b>A genetic genealogy conclusion must have both genetic genealogy evidence as well as genealogy research evidence.</b> Contrary to how it's marketed by some websites, genetic genealogy is not a magical ancestor finder. It's one piece of a puzzle. There is no way to accurately draw a conclusion from genetic genealogy without having some form of genealogy research in the mix. It is possible to layer in one or the other at various parts of your genealogical case and maintain strong logical integrity but it is not possible to make an argument entirely of only genetics. </li>
<li><b>Question the source. </b> </li>
<ul>
<li>If you're using a tool on a genetic genealogy website, understand how it works, what it does and what it doesn't do. For example, ICW (in common with) tools, in general, tell you who is related to both you and another person (or two other people). It doesn't tell you HOW each person is related and it doesn't guarantee that they all share one common ancestor. Example : you find Person 1 in your matches and run the ICW tool to find out who you and person 1 have in common. It gives you a list that includes Person 2. It is possible for you and Person 2 to be related via MRCA2 and you and Person 1 to be related via MRCA1... two different MRCAs. At face value, you don't know if you all three share the same ancestor or if you have two different ancestors in common. In order to get value from the ICW tool, you have to know more about Person 1 and Person 2 than just that you are all related to one another. The unwitting user of this tool might assume that just because you are all related, you must share the same ancestor.</li>
<li>If you get information from another person or a posted family tree or website, ask for their sources or how they came to know the information.</li>
</ul>
<li><b>Keep really good notes. </b>Keep a step by step for how you came to a conclusion. If you later find out that someone's family tree was wrong or that you misunderstood the results of a particular tool, you can then go back and correct anything that depended upon that data. </li>
<li><b>Be ok with being wrong.</b> In agile project managment, there is the concept of the Ispect and Adapt cycle that I find really useful to genealogy. Be transparent and willing to openly discuss your process in the interest of inspecting your process so that you can potentially suss out shortcomings in the process or research and get more accurate results. </li>
<li><b>While aiming for black and white, get comfortable with the fuzzy gray areas.</b> Because of the nature of genealogy research being that we are researching connections between people who have usually long since died, there are very few 100% sure conclusions that can be drawn in genealogy. The bottom line is that without being there and experiencing their stories first hand, we don't know what we're missing or have miscalculated. At any time, some formerly unknown piece of information might float to the surface and disprove everything. Sometimes,depending upon the circumstances, as close as we can get is a most likely scenario, given the evidence we have. So we do the best we can to do exhaustive research, come to logical, evidence based conclusions and be open to changing them should we find new evidence that suggests otherwise. </li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-33269846396706831262016-01-03T17:48:00.003-08:002020-11-05T14:01:40.368-08:00How To Preserve and Store Family Papers<div style="float: left; padding: 5px; position: relative;">
<img alt="Hursey/ Kelly Family Papers" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRjTusIaLfJmQE-hvD1rDckQn5NaYrt0E44UJgszEE3lztvG47AYHwhgzJcvPuPUNjmVnopIi8czwFoQtgwAu0WzNpmGBX9KxL2kAJguzDf-SoZHuvFR0pk-0FO8LGJ-unms2XRZFrgf4/s400/family+papers+files.jpg" title="Hursey/ Kelly Family Papers" width="225" />
</div>
My grandmother has been researching my mother's side of our family (Kelly, Hussey, Hursey, Ulrich, Turner, Jordan, Anderson, Gee, Heath) since September of 1956 - almost 60 years, give or take. She kept notes of all of her research in spiral bound notebooks and on notebook paper. She has folders of copies of book pages and vital documents. In among her own notes and copies, she has original handwritten letters from her parents and my grandfather's parents of their own personal knowledge and other such gems. It's an incredible collection of family papers.<br />
<br />
She recently moved and I was gifted with two boxes of this research. It's like a genealogist's dream - and also represents a slight preservation crisis. Some of the pages were already fading away and disintegrating. I felt a terror that only a genealogist geek could feel when I unearthed a yellowed page with a family tree that could no longer be clearly read. <br />
<br />
This is my first paper preservation project but I do have a bit of experience storing vital docs for longevity so I had a wee bit of knowledge and boned up quickly on what else I needed to have. Here's the basics.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
When someone later researches you or your parents or children, they will want to know who they were, what their names were, where they lived, military service, education, career, children, marriages, religion and any big life stories. These are all things someone will want to be able to prove or disprove later or that will lead them to sources which might have more detailed records of you or your family member. Consider keeping any piece of paper that yields any of this information. This might include a school record summary, a diploma or certificate, a marriage license, birth and death certificates, letters, court case decrees, company ID badges etc. <br />
<br />
Further than keeping them though, you'll want to make sure they are usable - not just by your family genealogist but viewable by your children and grandchildren etc. so that they can read about their ancestors too!<br />
<br />
<b>To avoid further deterioration, </b>you want to protect the paper from any further degradation. This boils down to lots of physical steps you can take to protect your documents from heat, moisture, insects, rodents, light and dust and dirt.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Location</h3>
<b>The ideal conditions for your papers</b> are at a temperature cooler than 75 degrees Fahrenheit and the relative humidity below 65%, according to <a href="https://www.archives.gov/preservation/family-archives/storing.html">The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration</a>. The <a href="http://www.loc.gov/preservation/care/paper.html">Library of Congress</a> adds that documents should be protected from light and that their protective enclosures should also be supportive to help hold them together while being viewed. So you're looking for a cool, dark, dry place.<br />
<br />
Although it's tempting to store your papers in your basement where it's cool, basements are not known for being exceptionally dry. An attic, although hopefully dry, is likely to be hot. Both are known for harboring pests because they are typically the least populated and therefore the least noticed parts of a home.<br />
<br />
Options might include a special, controlled storage enclosure in either location, a cool dark corner of a closet in your home or even a location in a garage, depending upon how you use your garage. The climate of where you live and condition of the various areas of your home will dictate your in-home options.<br />
<h4>
Do:</h4>
<ul>
<li>Put your documents, in their storage containers (below), on a shelf off of the floor to protect from flooding.</li>
<li>Ask your storage facility about flooding and fire infrastructure that will keep your priceless papers safe in the case of a disaster.</li>
</ul>
<h4>
Don't:</h4>
<ul>
<li>Store your papers in back yard sheds or non-climate controlled storage facilities</li>
<li>Keep your papers near food, where pests are more likely to be.</li>
<li>Store your paper near water like a laundry room or drainage site</li>
</ul>
<h3>
Protection</h3>
<b>The most important thing you might now know about paper is that it is acidic. </b> Although more acid free papers are being produced, older or less expensive paper is generally acidic. Over time, even if it is properly stored, an acidic paper will get brittle, turn yellow and break down or degrade. You can expect regular old acidic paper to last about 500 years before it's powder. But between day one and 500 years, it becomes progressively harder to read and more delicate. My grandmother has an envelope addressed to my third great grandfather is over 100 years old. In a few more generations, it might deteriorate entirely.<br />
<br />
Further : <br />
<ul>
<li>lignin releases acid as it ages. Papers with lignin in them, while they might be acid free, will become more acidic over time.</li>
<li>PVC <span style="background-color: white;">emits hydrochloric acid over time - eep!</span></li>
</ul>
In general, everything that comes into contact with the papers should be acid free, PVC (Polyvinyl chloride) free, lignin free, clean and dry. Look for the words 'PVC Free', 'acid free' and/or archival quality on any products you use with your papers. This includes folders, binders and boxes that you keep them in.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Sheet protectors</b> can be an easy way to store a document. Avery offers a box of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00006IC89/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00006IC89&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=2UHQWKDSVX2GO2IM" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">100 acid free sheet protectors for about $9</a> <i>(affiliate link)</i>- or a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000AN1MUO/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000AN1MUO&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=ZJRLH6RXBDZFCKTZ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">box of 50 of a more heavyweight version for about the same price</a> <i>(affiliate link)</i>. The heavyweight protectors offer more structure but ultimately, in a pinch, either version will protect your paper better than neither version. The page should be protected in a way that allows you to leave it in it's protection without removing it. It should not protrude from it's enclosure (like sticking out of the top of the sheet protector).<div><br /><div><i>The product links to products I recommend in this post are amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. If you purchase the advertised products on this page, you won't pay any more for the product and I will earn a small commission, which helps support the site. Win win!</i><br />
<br />
<b>Seal up the top of your sheet protector</b> with <b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000XAOUVM/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000XAOUVM&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=L4D2JIS22TSPMMN6" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">acid free scrapbooking tape</a> </b><i>(affiliate link)</i>. It's really easy to do. Slip your piece of paper into the sheet protector. Then, careful to not touch the paper with the tape, only the sheet protector, put a strip of scrapbooking tape across the top of the sheet protector and fold it over to the other side to seal the sheet protector entirely.<br />
<br />
Some paper fades more easily than others, some is more fragile. Some has more acid or less acid. For this reason, it's best to <b>keep each piece separate from other pieces</b>. If they must be stored together, consider putting a piece of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EL4SXCI/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00EL4SXCI&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=MD5FJJBMGLRYDEIM" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">acid free tissue paper</a> or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ICUAE4C/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00ICUAE4C&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=7RNV4IU7WEGU3ET3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">lignin and acid free paper</a> <i>(affiliate links) </i>to separate pieces of paper. If you know that you are dealing with acidic papers, try a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&fst=as%3Aoff&keywords=buffered%20tissue%20paper&linkCode=ur2&qid=1451869928&rh=n%3A2617941011%2Ck%3Abuffered%20tissue%20paper&rnid=2941120011&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=B2WAJPZ2UQWRINQ2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">buffered tissue paper</a> <i>(affiliate link)</i>.</div><div>
<br />
Store your pages, in their sealed sheet protectors, in a plain old <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GAZDZ6/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000GAZDZ6&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=Z3ID7XWT4WPLKDKD" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">PVC free binder</a> - or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002AKJTXC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002AKJTXC&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=LWZ3QVZZNRNBKIW4" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">something a little nicer, also PVC free</a> <i>(affiliate links) </i>- or maybe skip plastic altogether and go with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D7L4GW2/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00D7L4GW2&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=A47RB3AUXOIJ3GCA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a leather binder</a> <i>(affiliate links)</i>, which has it's own preservation needs but will not degrade the paper. </div><div>
<br />
If you use file folders, make sure you are using acid and PVC free file folders! I like <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FDLKGK/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000FDLKGK&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=B2GKW7N5S6WMSMAO" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">these poly PVC free folders</a> <i>(affiliate link) </i>because they offer some additional water resistance. And finally, if you're using file folders or if you are storing your binders, store them in a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001P5GFN0/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001P5GFN0&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=ZT5MLEMGDG6F4KL3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sealable, PVC free, plastic box</a> <i>(affiliate link) </i>to avoid moisture.</div><div>
<br />
You might have noticed that some of these supplies are labeled for scrapbooking. Because scrapbooking involves paper, most scrapbooking supplies are made to be paper safe. <br />
<h4>
Do : </h4>
<ul>
<li>When you handle your papers, make sure your hands are freshly washed and that you aren't eating or drinking near them. Consider using <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CIBQCT2/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00CIBQCT2&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=M2VAZJMA7XMZCHK4" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">cotton gloves</a> or even <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008RFTSLC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B008RFTSLC&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=33KVYRI4UCBPIO5E" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">disposable latex and powder free gloves</a> <i>(affiliate links)</i>.</li>
<li>Make your own notes using <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0008G8G8Y/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0008G8G8Y&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=U2V5HJDSKV5HQYEC" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">acid free ink</a> in an <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Z2FROV6/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00Z2FROV6&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=HIMNPJQJKBIKAZFJ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">acid free paper notebook</a> <i>(affiliate links)</i>to avoid fading. If you print out vital documents, print them on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005NL739M/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B005NL739M&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=3QHXAJSXC5GOJS72" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">acid free printer paper</a> <i>(affiliate link)</i>. </li>
</ul>
<h4>
Don't:</h4>
<ul>
<li>Do not laminate, tape, coat, staple or use paper clips on your paper. Staples and paperclips rust, lamination and tape are irreversable and destroy the document.</li>
<li>Do not use pens to notate your document. If you must write on it, use a pencil. </li>
</ul>
<h3>
Digitize Your Records</h3>
Having a digital copy of your original makes it much easier to share with others and gives you a second copy in case something happens to the original. Scan or photograph your original and store it the manner that works for you. <a href="https://www.evernote.com/referral/Registration.action?sig=d1bb823e2d8a897921a1484693c0d4b04d00d6a7aa6f14c7018e5b03246edb37&uid=4165418">I store my geneaology documentation in evernote</a>.<br />
<br />
If you are not good at scanning or imaging, consider allowing a professional to scan them for you. Making a seemingly innocuous mistake on format or resolution can make the files unusable later.<br />
<br />
I recommend staying away from easily removable media because, not only are they more easily lost or damaged, those tend to become outdated more quickly. Remember floppy disk drives? Instead, back up to an <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TKFEEAS/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00TKFEEAS&linkCode=as2&tag=rootsandblood-20&linkId=BLLPLXPOBGOGHJGS" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">external hard drive</a> <i>(affiliate link)</i>, which is more likely to be accessible from any computer in the foreseeable future.</div><div>
<br />
<h3>
Protect Against Tragedy </h3>
Have you ever needed that one document to prove ancestry only to find out that the courthouse burned down in the 1800s and the documents no longer exist? My heart aches every time I run into that. I can't imagine how many personal troves of family memorabilia have been lost that way if government offices have fallen victim to it.<br />
<br />
Store your irreplaceable items in fireproof and/or waterproof boxes or filing cabinets, depending upon what you are most likely to experience in your area. They can be pricey. But after 30 years of collecting original documents, your collection might be worth the extra $50 for a fireproof filing box or even $2,000 for a fireproof filing cabinet.<br />
<br />
Check craigslist or ebay for cheaper used alternatives but ensure that when you get it, the shell or casing has not been damaged or compromised in any way - and research the fireproof rating of the model you are purchasing online before you buy it.<br />
<br />
If you store your images electronically, make sure that your files are backed up. Consider backing them up to the cloud if your originals are on your computer - or backing up to your computer if your originals are stored in the cloud. Print out hard copies of your family tree every so often to store with your genealogy go bag (you have one of those right... everyone does?) or paper files. <br />
<br />
<img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=rootsandblood-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: none; margin: 0px;" width="1" /> </div></div>Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-45115917509639146572015-12-04T13:33:00.002-08:002020-10-30T14:05:38.054-07:00How to Find the Admixture of Shared DNA Segments<div style="float: left; padding: 5px; position: relative;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrNjWswmWtGUC_Xafj_26KZZeSf3w-95NVED40DgJoifiMaAVD0uXSjoKF2IAALVmuHQow9Gx1GEB-5ATEpw1onUscTWbjvH5tKy8Acs4VUkw4eOJbtOnsUTFGBInp5QiMPE5JEXXs4uQ/s1600/Capture.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrNjWswmWtGUC_Xafj_26KZZeSf3w-95NVED40DgJoifiMaAVD0uXSjoKF2IAALVmuHQow9Gx1GEB-5ATEpw1onUscTWbjvH5tKy8Acs4VUkw4eOJbtOnsUTFGBInp5QiMPE5JEXXs4uQ/s320/Capture.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span data-sheets-userformat="[null,null,897,[null,0],null,null,null,null,null,null,0,4,0]" data-sheets-value="[null,2,"How to Tell what Ethnic background your MRCA with a match was\n\nThis can tell you if your MRCA with a match has African ancestry, for instance. \n\nIt's not 100% - it's only as good as the genes that were passed to both of you (see recombination link to the right) and admixture is only as good as it's sample set. But it can offer evidence one way or the other and enough evidence can be compelling.\n\n1) find out what segments you match on. \n2) on gedmatch, open the Admixutre (heritage) tool (http://www4.gedmatch.com/ap_mix1t_gen.php). \n3) On the next screen, in the dropdown, select the admixture tool you want to use. \n\nI am partial to dodecad. The accuracy of the tool you use depends upon the sample size and complexity that was used to build the tool.. ie: if there were no Sub Saharan African people sampled, that tool will not recognize Sub Saharan African. If your ethnic background is profoundly differnt than mine, a different tool might work better for you. \n\n4) select the 'chromosome painting' tool.\n5) click continue\n6) enter your kit number\n7) I select Dodecad k12b - again, it depends upon which one is most accurate for your specific genetic makeup. See note on #3 above.\n8) click continue\n9) It will take it a while to finish.. it will go chromosome by chromosome. When it's done, you have a painting of your admixture. Save it to PDF for reference so that you don't have to run it again, if you don't want to.\n10 ) repeat steps 2-9 for the person you match. \n11) look through their painting for the place they match you (if you match on chromosome 15, scroll down to 15 and then scroll over to the right to the location of your match on chromosome 15). Look through your painting for that same segment. Half of what you see at that segment came from one of your parents and half came from your other parent. So half of what you're seeing in that matching segment on your painting matches your match. Same for theirs. Look for the colors you have in common. They will most likely have a pretty clear start and end point and will be different from the surrounding segments... but for someone for whom this ethnic background makes up a majority of their background, it might not be as obvious. Use the key at the top of the chromosome painting to determine what the color represents."]" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px;">You find a genetic match and you have a family tree ancestor in common. Hooray! It's possible the genes you share could be from that ancestor. Knowing the admixture of the SNPs you have in common could provide more clues. For instance, if the ancestor in question was African, if the genes you share came from that ancestor, it should show that in the admixture. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px;">Tools like ancestry.com, <a href="https://affiliate.familytreedna.com/idevaffiliate.php?id=1545_0_1_21">ftdna</a> and <a href="http://refer.23andme.com/v2/share/6101715999196005916">23andme</a> will give you an overall admixture (I am 3% Lithuanian, for instance). That overall admixture is impossible to use as a clue in gene to gene comparison of matches. You could both share African descent, for instance - and it could be from entirely different ancestors. Lo, the African continent happens to be pretty vast and offers billions of possible ancestors! To find the admixture that is relevant to a particular match, you have to get more granular - down to the segments within a gene. Only gedmatch offers the tools to do that at this time. </span><br />
<span data-sheets-userformat="[null,null,897,[null,0],null,null,null,null,null,null,0,4,0]" data-sheets-value="[null,2,"How to Tell what Ethnic background your MRCA with a match was\n\nThis can tell you if your MRCA with a match has African ancestry, for instance. \n\nIt's not 100% - it's only as good as the genes that were passed to both of you (see recombination link to the right) and admixture is only as good as it's sample set. But it can offer evidence one way or the other and enough evidence can be compelling.\n\n1) find out what segments you match on. \n2) on gedmatch, open the Admixutre (heritage) tool (http://www4.gedmatch.com/ap_mix1t_gen.php). \n3) On the next screen, in the dropdown, select the admixture tool you want to use. \n\nI am partial to dodecad. The accuracy of the tool you use depends upon the sample size and complexity that was used to build the tool.. ie: if there were no Sub Saharan African people sampled, that tool will not recognize Sub Saharan African. If your ethnic background is profoundly differnt than mine, a different tool might work better for you. \n\n4) select the 'chromosome painting' tool.\n5) click continue\n6) enter your kit number\n7) I select Dodecad k12b - again, it depends upon which one is most accurate for your specific genetic makeup. See note on #3 above.\n8) click continue\n9) It will take it a while to finish.. it will go chromosome by chromosome. When it's done, you have a painting of your admixture. Save it to PDF for reference so that you don't have to run it again, if you don't want to.\n10 ) repeat steps 2-9 for the person you match. \n11) look through their painting for the place they match you (if you match on chromosome 15, scroll down to 15 and then scroll over to the right to the location of your match on chromosome 15). Look through your painting for that same segment. Half of what you see at that segment came from one of your parents and half came from your other parent. So half of what you're seeing in that matching segment on your painting matches your match. Same for theirs. Look for the colors you have in common. They will most likely have a pretty clear start and end point and will be different from the surrounding segments... but for someone for whom this ethnic background makes up a majority of their background, it might not be as obvious. Use the key at the top of the chromosome painting to determine what the color represents."]" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>
<span data-sheets-userformat="[null,null,897,[null,0],null,null,null,null,null,null,0,4,0]" data-sheets-value="[null,2,"How to Tell what Ethnic background your MRCA with a match was\n\nThis can tell you if your MRCA with a match has African ancestry, for instance. \n\nIt's not 100% - it's only as good as the genes that were passed to both of you (see recombination link to the right) and admixture is only as good as it's sample set. But it can offer evidence one way or the other and enough evidence can be compelling.\n\n1) find out what segments you match on. \n2) on gedmatch, open the Admixutre (heritage) tool (http://www4.gedmatch.com/ap_mix1t_gen.php). \n3) On the next screen, in the dropdown, select the admixture tool you want to use. \n\nI am partial to dodecad. The accuracy of the tool you use depends upon the sample size and complexity that was used to build the tool.. ie: if there were no Sub Saharan African people sampled, that tool will not recognize Sub Saharan African. If your ethnic background is profoundly differnt than mine, a different tool might work better for you. \n\n4) select the 'chromosome painting' tool.\n5) click continue\n6) enter your kit number\n7) I select Dodecad k12b - again, it depends upon which one is most accurate for your specific genetic makeup. See note on #3 above.\n8) click continue\n9) It will take it a while to finish.. it will go chromosome by chromosome. When it's done, you have a painting of your admixture. Save it to PDF for reference so that you don't have to run it again, if you don't want to.\n10 ) repeat steps 2-9 for the person you match. \n11) look through their painting for the place they match you (if you match on chromosome 15, scroll down to 15 and then scroll over to the right to the location of your match on chromosome 15). Look through your painting for that same segment. Half of what you see at that segment came from one of your parents and half came from your other parent. So half of what you're seeing in that matching segment on your painting matches your match. Same for theirs. Look for the colors you have in common. They will most likely have a pretty clear start and end point and will be different from the surrounding segments... but for someone for whom this ethnic background makes up a majority of their background, it might not be as obvious. Use the key at the top of the chromosome painting to determine what the color represents."]" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px;">These instructions will help you find out </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px;">if the DNA you and you and your genetic cousin have in common has a particular admixture. It is roughly the process I used to<a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2014/12/millie-turner-daughter-of-john-and.html"> find Millie Turner and Samuel Hussey</a> in my genetic makeup.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px;">Although this will not prove a MRCA, it will provide more clues or evidence. </span><br />
<span data-sheets-userformat="[null,null,897,[null,0],null,null,null,null,null,null,0,4,0]" data-sheets-value="[null,2,"How to Tell what Ethnic background your MRCA with a match was\n\nThis can tell you if your MRCA with a match has African ancestry, for instance. \n\nIt's not 100% - it's only as good as the genes that were passed to both of you (see recombination link to the right) and admixture is only as good as it's sample set. But it can offer evidence one way or the other and enough evidence can be compelling.\n\n1) find out what segments you match on. \n2) on gedmatch, open the Admixutre (heritage) tool (http://www4.gedmatch.com/ap_mix1t_gen.php). \n3) On the next screen, in the dropdown, select the admixture tool you want to use. \n\nI am partial to dodecad. The accuracy of the tool you use depends upon the sample size and complexity that was used to build the tool.. ie: if there were no Sub Saharan African people sampled, that tool will not recognize Sub Saharan African. If your ethnic background is profoundly differnt than mine, a different tool might work better for you. \n\n4) select the 'chromosome painting' tool.\n5) click continue\n6) enter your kit number\n7) I select Dodecad k12b - again, it depends upon which one is most accurate for your specific genetic makeup. See note on #3 above.\n8) click continue\n9) It will take it a while to finish.. it will go chromosome by chromosome. When it's done, you have a painting of your admixture. Save it to PDF for reference so that you don't have to run it again, if you don't want to.\n10 ) repeat steps 2-9 for the person you match. \n11) look through their painting for the place they match you (if you match on chromosome 15, scroll down to 15 and then scroll over to the right to the location of your match on chromosome 15). Look through your painting for that same segment. Half of what you see at that segment came from one of your parents and half came from your other parent. So half of what you're seeing in that matching segment on your painting matches your match. Same for theirs. Look for the colors you have in common. They will most likely have a pretty clear start and end point and will be different from the surrounding segments... but for someone for whom this ethnic background makes up a majority of their background, it might not be as obvious. Use the key at the top of the chromosome painting to determine what the color represents."]" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>
<span data-sheets-userformat="[null,null,897,[null,0],null,null,null,null,null,null,0,4,0]" data-sheets-value="[null,2,"How to Tell what Ethnic background your MRCA with a match was\n\nThis can tell you if your MRCA with a match has African ancestry, for instance. \n\nIt's not 100% - it's only as good as the genes that were passed to both of you (see recombination link to the right) and admixture is only as good as it's sample set. But it can offer evidence one way or the other and enough evidence can be compelling.\n\n1) find out what segments you match on. \n2) on gedmatch, open the Admixutre (heritage) tool (http://www4.gedmatch.com/ap_mix1t_gen.php). \n3) On the next screen, in the dropdown, select the admixture tool you want to use. \n\nI am partial to dodecad. The accuracy of the tool you use depends upon the sample size and complexity that was used to build the tool.. ie: if there were no Sub Saharan African people sampled, that tool will not recognize Sub Saharan African. If your ethnic background is profoundly differnt than mine, a different tool might work better for you. \n\n4) select the 'chromosome painting' tool.\n5) click continue\n6) enter your kit number\n7) I select Dodecad k12b - again, it depends upon which one is most accurate for your specific genetic makeup. See note on #3 above.\n8) click continue\n9) It will take it a while to finish.. it will go chromosome by chromosome. When it's done, you have a painting of your admixture. Save it to PDF for reference so that you don't have to run it again, if you don't want to.\n10 ) repeat steps 2-9 for the person you match. \n11) look through their painting for the place they match you (if you match on chromosome 15, scroll down to 15 and then scroll over to the right to the location of your match on chromosome 15). Look through your painting for that same segment. Half of what you see at that segment came from one of your parents and half came from your other parent. So half of what you're seeing in that matching segment on your painting matches your match. Same for theirs. Look for the colors you have in common. They will most likely have a pretty clear start and end point and will be different from the surrounding segments... but for someone for whom this ethnic background makes up a majority of their background, it might not be as obvious. Use the key at the top of the chromosome painting to determine what the color represents."]" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px;">The following caveats apply : </span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px;">An admixture tool is only as good as it's sample size and population. For instance, if the sample didn't include any people of African descent, it will not pick up African admixture. For this reason, d</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px;">ifferent admixture tools interpret genes differently so you might not get a completely straight forward answer. My experience is that you will find one or two admixture tools that do a better job than others of approximating your admixture - and that will differ from person to person.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 13px;">When you look at the admixture of a specific gene, for yourself, for instance, you are seeing what you got from BOTH parents. To find out which admixture on a particular gene came from which parent, you would run through these instructions first to compare yourself to one parent or the other. </span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><b><i>Not</i></b> sharing the admixture of the ethnicity of the ancestor does <i><b>NOT</b></i> mean you do not have that ancestor in common. It could mean that, through recombination, across generations, you just don't have any genes from that ancestor or not enough for it to accurately show up in admixture analysis. </span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 13px;">If your genetic makeup has the admixture of the ancestor in common that also does NOT mean you are definitely related to that person. So, if you have African admixture, that does not prove you are related to the African ancestor in question. You might have other African ancestors that you don't know about yet. </span></span></li>
</ul>
<a name='more'></a><ol><span data-sheets-userformat="[null,null,897,[null,0],null,null,null,null,null,null,0,4,0]" data-sheets-value="[null,2,"How to Tell what Ethnic background your MRCA with a match was\n\nThis can tell you if your MRCA with a match has African ancestry, for instance. \n\nIt's not 100% - it's only as good as the genes that were passed to both of you (see recombination link to the right) and admixture is only as good as it's sample set. But it can offer evidence one way or the other and enough evidence can be compelling.\n\n1) find out what segments you match on. \n2) on gedmatch, open the Admixutre (heritage) tool (http://www4.gedmatch.com/ap_mix1t_gen.php). \n3) On the next screen, in the dropdown, select the admixture tool you want to use. \n\nI am partial to dodecad. The accuracy of the tool you use depends upon the sample size and complexity that was used to build the tool.. ie: if there were no Sub Saharan African people sampled, that tool will not recognize Sub Saharan African. If your ethnic background is profoundly differnt than mine, a different tool might work better for you. \n\n4) select the 'chromosome painting' tool.\n5) click continue\n6) enter your kit number\n7) I select Dodecad k12b - again, it depends upon which one is most accurate for your specific genetic makeup. See note on #3 above.\n8) click continue\n9) It will take it a while to finish.. it will go chromosome by chromosome. When it's done, you have a painting of your admixture. Save it to PDF for reference so that you don't have to run it again, if you don't want to.\n10 ) repeat steps 2-9 for the person you match. \n11) look through their painting for the place they match you (if you match on chromosome 15, scroll down to 15 and then scroll over to the right to the location of your match on chromosome 15). Look through your painting for that same segment. Half of what you see at that segment came from one of your parents and half came from your other parent. So half of what you're seeing in that matching segment on your painting matches your match. Same for theirs. Look for the colors you have in common. They will most likely have a pretty clear start and end point and will be different from the surrounding segments... but for someone for whom this ethnic background makes up a majority of their background, it might not be as obvious. Use the key at the top of the chromosome painting to determine what the color represents."]" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px;">
<li>Using <a href="http://v2.gedmatch.com/u_compare1.php">one to one comparison</a>, enter your kit numbers and find out what chromosome(s) and segments you match on. In the comparison I did <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2014/12/millie-turner-daughter-of-john-and.html">here for Millie Turner and Samuel Hussey</a>, my cousin and I had chromosome 21 and 4, in common.</li>
<li>Open the <a href="http://www4.gedmatch.com/ap_mix1t_gen.php">Admixture (heritage) tool</a>. </li>
<li>In the dropdown, select the admixture tool you want to use. here's where you play with admixture tools to figure out which one works for you. If you've never run through them before, do a few sample runs (steps 4-6) with your own kit to find the one that is most accurate to you. I am partial to dodecad. If you have an admixture that is markedly different from mine, a different tool might work better for you.</li>
<li>Select the 'chromosome painting' tool and click continue.</li>
<li>Enter your kit number and select a tool. I select Dodecad k12b - again, it depends upon which one is most accurate for your specific genetic makeup. See note on #3 above. Click continue.</li>
<li>It will take it a while to finish.. it will go chromosome by chromosome. When it's done, you have a painting of your admixture. Save it to PDF for reference so that you don't have to run it again, if you don't want to. I clip the full page to <a href="https://www.evernote.com/referral/Registration.action?sig=d1bb823e2d8a897921a1484693c0d4b04d00d6a7aa6f14c7018e5b03246edb37&uid=4165418">Evernote</a>.</li>
<li>Repeat steps 2-9 for your parents in order to determine which side of your family your various ethnic components came from. Repeat them for the person you match to compare your admixture on the specific segments you have in common. To do this : </li>
<ol>
<li>Look through their painting for the place they match you. You will scroll down to the chromosome, increase the resolution of the image (Ctrl + in a browser) and then scroll across to the start point of your match. So, looking at the image at the top of this post, It shows the 29M - 36M locations. </li>
<li>Look through your painting for that same segment (and your parent, if one has tested). </li>
<li>Compare visually side by side. Use the key at the top of the chromosome painting to determine what the color represents.</li>
</ol>
</span></ol>
<br />
<ol><span data-sheets-userformat="[null,null,897,[null,0],null,null,null,null,null,null,0,4,0]" data-sheets-value="[null,2,"How to Tell what Ethnic background your MRCA with a match was\n\nThis can tell you if your MRCA with a match has African ancestry, for instance. \n\nIt's not 100% - it's only as good as the genes that were passed to both of you (see recombination link to the right) and admixture is only as good as it's sample set. But it can offer evidence one way or the other and enough evidence can be compelling.\n\n1) find out what segments you match on. \n2) on gedmatch, open the Admixutre (heritage) tool (http://www4.gedmatch.com/ap_mix1t_gen.php). \n3) On the next screen, in the dropdown, select the admixture tool you want to use. \n\nI am partial to dodecad. The accuracy of the tool you use depends upon the sample size and complexity that was used to build the tool.. ie: if there were no Sub Saharan African people sampled, that tool will not recognize Sub Saharan African. If your ethnic background is profoundly differnt than mine, a different tool might work better for you. \n\n4) select the 'chromosome painting' tool.\n5) click continue\n6) enter your kit number\n7) I select Dodecad k12b - again, it depends upon which one is most accurate for your specific genetic makeup. See note on #3 above.\n8) click continue\n9) It will take it a while to finish.. it will go chromosome by chromosome. When it's done, you have a painting of your admixture. Save it to PDF for reference so that you don't have to run it again, if you don't want to.\n10 ) repeat steps 2-9 for the person you match. \n11) look through their painting for the place they match you (if you match on chromosome 15, scroll down to 15 and then scroll over to the right to the location of your match on chromosome 15). Look through your painting for that same segment. Half of what you see at that segment came from one of your parents and half came from your other parent. So half of what you're seeing in that matching segment on your painting matches your match. Same for theirs. Look for the colors you have in common. They will most likely have a pretty clear start and end point and will be different from the surrounding segments... but for someone for whom this ethnic background makes up a majority of their background, it might not be as obvious. Use the key at the top of the chromosome painting to determine what the color represents."]" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px;">
</span></ol>
<span data-sheets-userformat="[null,null,897,[null,0],null,null,null,null,null,null,0,4,0]" data-sheets-value="[null,2,"How to Tell what Ethnic background your MRCA with a match was\n\nThis can tell you if your MRCA with a match has African ancestry, for instance. \n\nIt's not 100% - it's only as good as the genes that were passed to both of you (see recombination link to the right) and admixture is only as good as it's sample set. But it can offer evidence one way or the other and enough evidence can be compelling.\n\n1) find out what segments you match on. \n2) on gedmatch, open the Admixutre (heritage) tool (http://www4.gedmatch.com/ap_mix1t_gen.php). \n3) On the next screen, in the dropdown, select the admixture tool you want to use. \n\nI am partial to dodecad. The accuracy of the tool you use depends upon the sample size and complexity that was used to build the tool.. ie: if there were no Sub Saharan African people sampled, that tool will not recognize Sub Saharan African. If your ethnic background is profoundly differnt than mine, a different tool might work better for you. \n\n4) select the 'chromosome painting' tool.\n5) click continue\n6) enter your kit number\n7) I select Dodecad k12b - again, it depends upon which one is most accurate for your specific genetic makeup. See note on #3 above.\n8) click continue\n9) It will take it a while to finish.. it will go chromosome by chromosome. When it's done, you have a painting of your admixture. Save it to PDF for reference so that you don't have to run it again, if you don't want to.\n10 ) repeat steps 2-9 for the person you match. \n11) look through their painting for the place they match you (if you match on chromosome 15, scroll down to 15 and then scroll over to the right to the location of your match on chromosome 15). Look through your painting for that same segment. Half of what you see at that segment came from one of your parents and half came from your other parent. So half of what you're seeing in that matching segment on your painting matches your match. Same for theirs. Look for the colors you have in common. They will most likely have a pretty clear start and end point and will be different from the surrounding segments... but for someone for whom this ethnic background makes up a majority of their background, it might not be as obvious. Use the key at the top of the chromosome painting to determine what the color represents."]" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13px;">
</span>Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-67104411558224223652015-11-21T12:21:00.000-08:002016-02-09T10:53:37.769-08:00How to Convert 8MM Films into DVD, Reorder Clips and Create a New Movie<div style="float: left; padding: 5px; position: relative;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFM-YsiPGW_E2euEU5nZnNYkpGG-bSRSl_D_-LWzKM3PlUe5_wzEk5vw5reQzaIFdGR6RmDb43ZjxxTayWNNZilIsUUll4ef02kM0TCtYMUTaJi6aOgYHqZ5qxtzaZpv1SEPeqyE2Aqx8/s1600/8mm+films.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFM-YsiPGW_E2euEU5nZnNYkpGG-bSRSl_D_-LWzKM3PlUe5_wzEk5vw5reQzaIFdGR6RmDb43ZjxxTayWNNZilIsUUll4ef02kM0TCtYMUTaJi6aOgYHqZ5qxtzaZpv1SEPeqyE2Aqx8/s320/8mm+films.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Once upon a time, my aunt sent me 71 rolls of 8mm film from my mother's family from when they were kids. It was 20 years of family history - what a treasure! Aaaaand... on a completely inaccessible media type. Doh!<br />
<br />
Being the do it yourselfer that I am, I toyed around with learning how to correctly lubricate, clean and record film to a more accessible media type. I bought an 8mm film projector on craigslist, bought a splicer and all of the stuff I needed... and here's my magic tip for converting 8mm film to digital format : hire a professional.<br />
<br />
Those family films are gold. They are people and events and lives that are 50 or 60 years past. Many of the people in them have passed or have long forgotten what's there. Although here are many accessible techniques online for maintaining film, without having had some practice, it is easy to screw up. Without experience, you won't necessarily know how to counter what you find when you start rolling a film. What if it cracks? And although I am a diy pro and feel pretty confident I could figure it out with enough time, I don't want it to be at the expense of 20 years of family history. <br />
<br />
So take the $200 it would take to buy all the stuff and stash it in a high interest savings account to hire someone and move on to picking someone out. When you're looking for a professional, look for someone who will move it to a master tape and then make a DVD for you. The tape they put it on can always be used to create more DVDs or copies later. At least until one day, it's also inaccessible. But for now, it's easier than 8mm. Check reviews for the person you select. Make sure their price includes repairs or cleaning should the film break down in the process.<br />
<br />
It's worth noting here, that film conversion is usually quoted by the foot. When estimating the number of feet of film you have, on the thicker (wider) 8mm film, although it says 25 feet on the box, it's actually 50 feet of filmed images. So, when pricing out conversion, make sure to do it with how many feet of images there are, not how many feet of film the box says it has. That got me. I was expecting to spend $300 and the bill was $600.<br />
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$600 isn't something I have lying around. So, I created a crowd funding project for my family to pitch in. Within a few months, we had it funded. <br />
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The day came and I went and dropped them off and, a couple of weeks later, they were done. I immediately sat down to watch them. <br />
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<i>Sidebar: I saw my grandfather, who I never met when he was alive. My grandparents - I saw them young and bright eyed with their first baby and watched them mature over the course of these films. I saw <b>both sides</b> of great grandparents, some of whom I've never seen photos of at all. Aunts and uncles I've never seen. This film is truly a treasure. I am so grateful that my grandparents were 'those parents', who filmed everything. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity, the means and the know how to watch them again and that my grandchildren and their grandchildren will hopefully have these in some form. </i><br />
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The new issue was that although some of the film boxes had been labeled or had a post mark date on them and I could sort of put them in the right order for him, most of them were not. Without playing them, I had no idea what was on some of them. So although I labeled them and cataloged them before I dropped them off, when they were put onto tape and then DVD, they, of course, were not in the correct order. <br />
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I wanted to present my family with something they could watch from beginning to end or something my grand-kids (in 20 years, son) could watch and understand how it was moving through time. So, the next step was to figure out how to edit the video well enough to chop up the film, put it into the correct order and then re-create the DVDs in the correct order - with some additional menus and bells and whistles so that they were easier to watch.<br />
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I made lots of mistakes. It turns out, there is some skill involved in film making. Who knew?! I had to redo it 4 times. This post is the final solution for getting family films from DVD, cutting them up, re-ordering them and burning them to DVD again - without dropping ton of cash. It takes relatively advanced computer skills and I don't think I explain it very completely, in large part because I probably don't entirely understand the whys behind a lot of it. <br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
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1) First, you want to play your DVD and find the start and end points for each of the 8mm film. I recorded them in a spreadsheet along with a description of what is on each one (and what was written on the box for that film, if anything).<br />
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2) Next, rip the DVD to your hard drive. Any app will do. You want a direct copy, uncompressed. I ripped to MKV format. Your file should be 2G ish. The max capacity of a DVD is 2G. If your file is smaller than that, either your DVD was not full (you can check that in file explorer) or your app is compressing it int he process of ripping it. <br />
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3) A) My goal software was <a href="https://www.lwks.com/">Lightworks</a>. Lightworks is a full featured video editing suite that is relatively drag and drop and easy to figure out. But it's a beast to get video into. It only takes video in certain formats, using specific codecs. So, to get it into a format that Lightworks will accept, you have to use a piece of software to re-render the video from whatever format you ripped it into into a shiny new video file. <br />
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3) B) You can't use any old piece of software to convert it. Every time your video is compressed or made smaller, it loses quality. In order for the film to be put on DVD to begin with, it had to be compressed. If you rip it and then convert it and compress it in the process (most software will compress it), you will lose more quality. So, what you're looking for is called "Lossless Conversion". I'm sure there is a fancier technical term for it but that term paired with my google-fu landed me on the app I needed. <br />
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I used Avidemux. Avidemux is free and pretty easy to use (or at least it's remedial features are. I didn't poke into the more advanced stuff). You open your file that you ripped from the DVD in it, and on the left hand side, you select your options. Then you save your file to a new name and it will save your file in the new format. But it couldn't be that easy. Nay.<br />
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3) C) Because Lightworks (your goal editing software) is such a beast, the options you use have to be really specific. I found them <a href="http://create%20a%20new%20project%20with%20%27auto%27%20in%20framerate.%20%20you%20can%20put%20a%20specific%20framerate%20if%20you%20know%20it.%20%20%20mouse%20over%20your%20tool%20bar%20on%20the%20left%20hand%20side%20of%20your%20screen%20till%20you%20find%20%27import.%20%20click%20it%20and%20select%20your%20source%20film.%20%20%20mouse%20over%20your%20tool%20bar%20on%20the%20left%20hand%20side%20of%20your%20screen%20till%20you%20find%20%27create%20a%20new%20edit%27.%20%20click%20it.%20%20it%20will%20create%20a%20%27blank%20film%27.%20%20this%20is%20your%20destination.%20%20when%20it%20opens%2C%20on%20the%20right%20hand%20side%20of%20it%27s%20view%20window%2C%20click%20the%20icon%20to%20show%20timeline.%20%20drag%20this%20to%20the%20very%20bottom%20of%20your%20screen%20and%20make%20it%20as%20big%20as%20you%20can.%20%20the%20timeline%20is%20what%20you%27ll%20use%20most.%20if%20your%20project%20browser%20is%20not%20up%2C%20in%20the%20left%20hand%20tool%20bar%2C%20click%20%27browse%20your%20project%27%20and%20you%20will%20get%20a%20window%20that%20lists%20everything%20involved%20in%20this%20project%2C%20including%20the%20source%20film%20you%20imported.%20%20double%20click%20your%20source%20film%20to%20open%20it.%20%20%20when%20it%20opens%2C%20on%20the%20right%20hand%20side%20of%20it%27s%20view%20window%2C%20click%20the%20icon%20to%20show%20timeline.%20%20drag%20this%20down%20a%20bit%20-%20just%20above%20your%20edit%20timeline.%20%20%20click%20on%20your%20source%20video%20view%20screen%20and%20click%20play.%20%20you%27ll%20see%20the%20red%20bar%20start%20to%20move%20long%20the%20timeline.%20click%20that%20red%20line%2C%20hold%20down%20your%20mouse%20button%20and%20drag%20it%20to%20the%20starting%20place%20for%20the%20clip%20you%20want%20to%20copy./">here</a>. So, in Avidemux, on the left, the encoding video option to choose in Avidemux (the top drop down on the left) is MPEG 4 AVC, the audio one (the next drop down down) is AAC (I used AAC(Faac) but my film doesn't have sound) and the container (output format) is MP4 (I used MP4 Muxer). Then you click save. It took my computer about 45 minutes to finish. Your mileage will vary depending upon how much memory and processor juice you have. Once it's done, you have a high quality video file that you can open in Lightworks. <br />
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4) Although later, you will need the paid version (they offer a reasonably priced 1 month paid version that is perfect for occasional or one time use), until you need it, get a free license to Lightworks. It has limitations, but none that will stop you until the end of your project. It took me about 10 hours every time I did the steps that follow. Getting 10 contiguous hours is a rare treat in my world so it wound up taking several months to finish it. I waited until the very end to buy the 1 month paid license to Lightworks and it suited me well.<br />
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5) Create a new project with 'auto' in framerate. You can put a specific framerate if you know it. <br />
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6) Mouse over your tool bar on the left hand side of your screen till you find 'import. Click it and select your source film.<br />
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7) Mouse over your tool bar on the left hand side of your screen till you find 'create a new edit'. Click it. It will create a 'blank film'. This is your destination. When it opens, on the right hand side of it's view window, click the icon to show timeline. Drag this to the very bottom of your screen and make it as big as you can. The timeline is what you'll use most.<br />
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8) If your project browser is not up, in the left hand tool bar, click 'browse your project' and you will get a window that lists everything involved in this project, including the source film you imported. Double click your source film to open it. When it opens, on the right hand side of it's view window, click the icon to show timeline. Drag this down a bit - just above your edit timeline.<br />
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9) Click on your source video view screen and click play. You'll see the red bar start to move long the timeline. Click that red line, hold down your mouse button and drag it to the starting place for the clip you want to copy.<br />
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10) Click 'in'. This will put a blue marker on the timeline. <br />
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11) Drag the red line to the ending place where the clip you want ends. Click 'out'. this will place a blue marker.<br />
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12) Click on the colored area between the two blue markers and drag down to your edit.Drop it in your edit where you want it. If you don't click almost exactly in the middle, it will not drag properly.<br />
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Repeat steps 9-12 for as many clips as you want in your edit. I had about 35 8mm clips per dvd.<br />
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13) Once you have your edit exactly how you want it, pay for the 1 month license to lightworks. Once you have the license installed, you will have the export to DVD option. Right click the title bar for the edit and select 'export'. Choose DVD. Choose the resolution. Let it export. This will take a few minutes.<br />
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14) Open the file in the software you will use to create chapters and/or burn the disk. I used <a href="http://www.vso-software.fr/products/convert_x_to_dvd/">ConvertXToDVD</a>. It offers a 7 day free trial with unlimited functionality, which was perfect for my one time use. It allows you to create top menus, chapters - the things you'd want from a playable DVD - and then compresses your file to burn to DVD. This compression does cause quality loss. It's really important that up until now you have used the highest quality video you can use so that the output is still good quality. Add your chapters, menus ect. Then burn it. Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-78197393137960783372015-04-08T10:41:00.000-07:002015-04-08T15:25:06.246-07:00The Magic of a Horizontal Family Tree<div style="float: left; padding: 5px; position: relative;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz8NDLQP0DFHBQOLrSj-MAzwLDJB7h5CvYS6qJoljn-y5aKXedvHWLeSqyx1gKMOwA0JHzA1AuabkndiQA81d-h6g-aPuCLYc_YwCxlrrTnvt6v_f2Jn8yWiEZyuYmXBzSqYW659Haky0/s1600/horizontal+family+tree.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz8NDLQP0DFHBQOLrSj-MAzwLDJB7h5CvYS6qJoljn-y5aKXedvHWLeSqyx1gKMOwA0JHzA1AuabkndiQA81d-h6g-aPuCLYc_YwCxlrrTnvt6v_f2Jn8yWiEZyuYmXBzSqYW659Haky0/s1600/horizontal+family+tree.PNG" height="265" width="320" /></a><br />
<span style="color: #bdbdbd; font-size: 8px;">Photo : Horizontal Family Tree / Carrie Norwood </span>
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Last week a cousin contacted me. He'd had his DNA processed at <a href="https://affiliate.familytreedna.com/idevaffiliate.php?id=1545_0_1_21" target="_blank">FTDNA</a> and was excited to find that <a href="https://affiliate.familytreedna.com/idevaffiliate.php?id=1545_0_1_21" target="_blank">FTDNA</a> says we are fourth cousins. His father was adopted and he believes us to be related on his father's side. If I only knew who all my 3rd great grandparents were, we might unlock the mystery of his father's heritage!<br />
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Unfortunately, he and I are genetically related on a branch of my family tree that I know very little of. Or should I say, that while I know we are related on my father's side, he and I are NOT related on the branches of my family tree that I have identified MRCA genetics on or that I know a great deal about through research. So I don't have fairy tale story of unlocking the family mysteries of my adopted 4th cousin once removed (even were the <a href="https://affiliate.familytreedna.com/idevaffiliate.php?id=1545_0_1_21" target="_blank">FTDNA</a> estimate to be accurate, which is another post altogether, I'm sure). But I <b>do</b> have a fairy tale about how freakin' easy it was to get a list of my 3rd great grandparents.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
Because I read <a href="http://analyticgenealogy.blogspot.com/2015/02/genetic-genealogy-needs-horizontal.html?m=1" target="_blank">this post</a> a few weeks back and had been intrigued, I'd created a horizontal family tree already. Using my horizontal family tree, it was easy peasy to copy and paste a full list of my 3rd great grandparents on that side. No weeding through ancestor reports or copying and pasting a vertical family tree only to need to un-horizontal the resulting list. It's one really super easy tool for my toolkit that makes a big difference in communicating my data to others.<br />
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Here is a <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1epzulDqldItsTo-PDps3IYrxTchJgcUdVV8YL947LNo/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">free google sheets template for you</a> to start with. If you have a google drive account, Google drive is free to use. If you prefer MS Office or Open Office, you can download the template to your desktop and use it in one of those apps. <br />
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There are two styles of horizontal family tree - left to right or right to left. Pick whichever works best for you. Keep your template tabs unedited so that you can reuse the template as often as you'd like. When you're ready to map out a family tree:<br />
<ol>
<li>copy the template that you want to use into a new tab (click the template tab with the right mouse button and select 'duplicate' from the pop up menu) </li>
<li>rename the duplicate tab to the family member who's tree you will be adding</li>
<li>add your generation titles to the first row of the new tab</li>
<li>Fill in your names</li>
</ol>
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That's it! Next time someone asks you for a list of your 4th great grandparents, it's as easy as copying and pasting the column. </div>
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It's really easy, when using a spreadsheet based pedigree, to highlight certain family lines or ancestors - for instance your X chromosome donors are all one color, or the branch of a tree associated with a particular genetic cousin is another color. It makes it easy to visually follow a particular pattern.</div>
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If you'd like to create one from scratch, it's easy. Here are the basics : </div>
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<ul>
<li>start with a very small line height for the furthest away generation</li>
<li>In the 2nd column, merge two cells to give you a cell that is twice the height of the previous 'generation' of cells or the child of the previous generation.</li>
<li>In the 3rd column, merge 4 cells together and so forth. </li>
<li>Freeze your top row so that your column labels stay in place when you scroll down. </li>
<li>set your vertical alignment and horizontal alignment for every cell to center</li>
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Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-65918127351327713462015-01-18T18:45:00.000-08:002016-02-16T15:47:32.910-08:00Genealogy Do-Over - Week Something - Research Checklist<div style="float: left; padding: 5px; position: relative;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvBU5gotvp7oauJZJKB7VdOnRLOsLV39U57JRW2vSSolp4tPzQg3_0rl4k121Zwi52aCv0XBXMVRO_vsLevEEpf1EkfSc1-zsMeaJSk77nngs55ZPDBlLjs5PcV6h2xlBFbmmHXnvczdc/s1600/checklist.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvBU5gotvp7oauJZJKB7VdOnRLOsLV39U57JRW2vSSolp4tPzQg3_0rl4k121Zwi52aCv0XBXMVRO_vsLevEEpf1EkfSc1-zsMeaJSk77nngs55ZPDBlLjs5PcV6h2xlBFbmmHXnvczdc/s1600/checklist.png" width="256" /></a><br />
<span style="color: #bdbdbd; font-size: 8px;">Photo : <a href="http://pixabay.com/en/checklist-lists-business-form-41335/">Checklist</a> / Nemo / Public Domain </span>
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Week... something. It is a week happening during the genealogy Do-Over in which I'm doing Genealogy Do-Over things a bit behind the weekly schedule. At my own turtle pace. Not a turtle who has seen food though - just a regular, ambling turtle. <br />
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Part of this process for me has been watching <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/genealogydoover/" target="_blank">stuff that other people post</a> and learning new tricks and techniques. One such new (to me) technique is the genealogy research checklist. This helped me solve three problems :<br />
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<h3>
Tracking the Negatives</h3>
I have always kept person-centric notes about the research in which I found something interesting - but I have never tracked what I didn't find. Or where I searched that I didn't find anything. While I don't know of any issues that this definitely caused, thinking about it, I can see how likely it was that I was re-searching for evidence that wasn't there. <br />
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I was also, most likely missing vital clues about an individual resulting from the absence of of a record in a particular place. For instance, this evening, I ran through my checklist and searched each census in which my grandfather would have appeared. I noticed that while he shows up on the census with his parents when he was 4 years old, and I can find a census for his parents and his younger sibling ten years later - he isn't on it. This is the first time I've noticed that. Most likely because I was simply looking for his name and when I couldn't find it on a census, probably put it off for another day, assuming I just needed to look harder or differently. When I wrote down that I found him on the 1920 census and could not check off the 1930 census, this caused me to look for his parents, which I found - and realized the clue that had been staring me in the face the whole time.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
<h3>
Source-Centric view of an Individual</h3>
Kind of dovetailing the ability to track the negatives, when I view my individual in <a href="http://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555" target="_blank">Legacy Family Tree</a>, I see all of the data I <i><b>do</b></i> have about the individual. If I drill in, I can see the sources for that information. I can even set up a to-do list, if I so choose, for that individual. But I don't see, unless I add them individually to that to-do list, a list of sources I haven't searched yet - or possible sources. And with each possible research point comes individual notes like "<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">would have been 14 - does not show up on his father's census</span>" that do not appear in <a href="http://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555">Legacy Family Tree</a>. <br />
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With a Source-Centric View, I also am reminded to search locations I haven't yet searched. If I have a relative who lived in a particular year, there is a set of places I need to search for them, based upon where they lived. For me, it's tough remembering all the possible sources of information available for 1922, for instance. So, having a checklist reminds me to look for things I might not have searched for or forgotten to search for. <br />
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<h3>
Save Up Research</h3>
I do not regularly subscribe to pay per month sites. My genealogy work, in the past, has ebbed and flowed. I might find that I go a month without searching for anything and then I feel like I wasted the $60 on various sites that month. So, I usually stick to the free sites and then once in a while, join a pay site and run all of the searches I'd wanted to run. In the past, it hasn't been easy to save up my searches in a way that makes them easy to find. The research checklist has made that more possible.<br />
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<h3>
Possible Products</h3>
In deciding what to use for my genealogy checklist, I tried the <a href="http://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555">Legacy Family Tree</a> to-do list, Google sheets and Gensmarts.<br />
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<a href="http://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555">Legacy Family Tree</a> has a really great feature set - but a genealogy checklist is not on that list. There is extensive to-do list functionality per individual in <a href="http://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555">Legacy</a> - but you create the list from scratch each time. You cannot create a template list or start from a basic list of your own creation. It didn't work for me. <br />
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Gensmarts is neat. It reads your family tree file from whatever software you use and then suggests places to search for each individual. It wasn't super intuitive though and didn't suggest anything I wouldn't have already thought of. I'm not sure it's worth paying for, really.<br />
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Google sheets wound up being the hot ticket for me. <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhylaeiNkWuWdGZ0REU1cTN5eDh5LS1kQ2pGM2J4NFE&usp=sharing" target="_blank">Here is my template</a>. I have a checklist template tab that I simply 'duplicate' for each individual I'm researching. You can see I created a copy for 'Jane Doe'. I like this approach too because as I discover really amazing new sources, I can add them here in a way that makes it easy to decide what to search for and where.Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-86721221699317594792015-01-09T09:29:00.003-08:002020-10-30T14:06:21.835-07:00Genealogy Do-Over - Oops I cheated<div style="float: left; padding: 5px; position: relative;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEeReUNBps4bvp7R5u9MR-Df9zcW9h-AU6UgsZvWOIk3gcD0f1v_aODrFQ04Xyo9oqHxsXY6bq8roopkMPlpnqgSnt1EU8kMqYjAeSkIIHG8oW1woihg72vjLzrsu0aR8x_eYdkDAyVdM/s1600/break+the+rules.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEeReUNBps4bvp7R5u9MR-Df9zcW9h-AU6UgsZvWOIk3gcD0f1v_aODrFQ04Xyo9oqHxsXY6bq8roopkMPlpnqgSnt1EU8kMqYjAeSkIIHG8oW1woihg72vjLzrsu0aR8x_eYdkDAyVdM/s1600/break+the+rules.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<span style="color: #bdbdbd; font-size: 8px;">Photo : <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/chickspirit/3793649508/">Break the Rules</a> / chickspirit / <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">CC 2.0</a> </span>
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So, I spent last night cheating on the <a href="http://www.geneabloggers.com/announcing-genealogy-doover/" target="_blank">genealogy do-over</a>. Like all night, I absolutely shamelessly cheated. A lot. We weren't supposed to start researching at all. Instead, I entered myself and my father and researched his parents and siblings. At the time, it felt like 90% itch to get moving but in retrospect, in the bright sunshine of a new day, given that I am the victor, I get to write that history any way I want, right? <br />
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So, I say it was all in the name of science! I, in fact, spent my time observing what I was doing and how - and came up with some new insight into doing it right. I have new golden rules, some new <a href="https://www.evernote.com/referral/Registration.action?sig=d1bb823e2d8a897921a1484693c0d4b04d00d6a7aa6f14c7018e5b03246edb37&uid=4165418">Evernote</a> processes and some new knowledge of <a href="https://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555">Legacy Family Tree</a>.<br />
<h3>
<a name='more'></a></h3>
<h3>
New Golden Rules</h3>
<ol>
<li>Impatience is how sources don't get input and details get missed. It's fine to know I have this source, but if I don't actually scour it and input it not only am I losing vital details, I don't have it documented. Yes, it takes an additional fifteen minutes to read every detail on that death certificate but that is how accurate searches happen. And that extra half hour to add that source to every affected family member seems like torture when there are possibly <b>HUNDREDS OF RIPE LEADS</b> I could be browsing in those <b>thirty</b> <b>minutes</b> - but later, I don't have to wonder if I just made that ancestor up. Not that I ever have, mind you. But with all of the potentially eyebrow raising family situations in Southern families, it gets complicated fast without documentation and there have certainly been moments when I doubted the sanity of the former me that input that data. </li>
<li>Revisiting old research turns up new sources. I found a death certificate and an obituary last night that were not there last time I ran those searches. New information is constantly being indexed, made public and made searchable. Re-checking old research is not always retreading the same path.</li>
</ol>
<div>
Aside from my new golden rules, I also spent some time poking at <a href="http://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/?Click=117555" target="_blank">Legacy Family Tree</a> features I've never used as well as some finer aspects of how I use <a href="https://www.evernote.com/referral/Registration.action?sig=d1bb823e2d8a897921a1484693c0d4b04d00d6a7aa6f14c7018e5b03246edb37&uid=4165418" target="_blank">Evernote</a>.<br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Legacy Family Tree</h3>
<div>
I definitely have not been using marriage events to my advantage. Imagine my delight when I could enter one place of residence for the marriage instead of two separate places of residences for two individuals!@</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I dug further into entering cause of death in the manner the software intends (in the medical tab of the notes feature) rather than creating an event for it - same for adoption relationship with a parent. I didn't even know that multiple parent screen existed. #facepalm On the family view, under the individual, there is a spouses icon, which made sense to me, a siblings icon, which also made sense to me - but there is also a parents icon, which maybe because it didn't make sense to me, I never noticed! If you open that screen, it gives the option to associate multiple parents with a person - for instance, a birth parent and a step parent or adopted parent, and to specify the relationship for each.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I spent some time puzzling out Master Sources versus detail. The up side of <a href="https://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555">Legacy</a> is that I was able to successfully create accurate sources without mastering the finer details of this but I definitely wasn't taking full advantage of not entering the same Master Source over and over. Now, for death certificates, for instance, I now have a Tennessee Death Certificate master source - and three different death certificates for different individuals, so far, have been able to use that same Master Source. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I did spend some time looking over the Legacy Family Tree To-Do list functionality and have opted out of using it. Here's why : </div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>In my life, I am very GSD-oriented (getting... <i><b>stuff</b></i> done). I already have a GSD system that works for me. I use google tasks. I have an app on my phone that syncs with it. I have a list for groceries that I compile through my week, I have a list for 'have tos' like 'go to the grocery store' and among my other lists, I also have a 'genealogy' to-do list. If it aint broke, don't fix it. </li>
<li>That list is always on my phone, is available in my gmail account and so follows me to every computer I use - whereas, <a href="https://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555">Legacy Family Tree</a> is anchored firmly to my desktop computer at home. </li>
<li><a href="https://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555">Legacy Family Tree</a> To-Do list is pretty complicated. I mean, it seems to make sense, don't get me wrong. But I don't need all the fields and options it provides. </li>
<li>Given how complicated it is, it still doesn't offer all of the features I'd want, were I to make the effort to switch to it. For instance, the ability to create a standard research to-do list for every individual without re-creating each item for each individual. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>
Evernote</h3>
<div>
Here's how I get a local backup of my <a href="https://www.evernote.com/referral/Registration.action?sig=d1bb823e2d8a897921a1484693c0d4b04d00d6a7aa6f14c7018e5b03246edb37&uid=4165418">Evernote</a> files and so that I can re-use the images in Legacy Family Tree without needing to store duplicate images : </div>
<div>
<ol>
<li> I installed the evernote desktop client.</li>
<li>In the center pane that lists the notes, I select all 4,853 notes I have in Evernote. To do that, click the top one, hold down the shift key, scroll to the bottom and click the bottom one. </li>
<li>I click 'file' and then 'export'. </li>
<li>On the Export pop up, I select 'Export as multiple web pages (html)'</li>
<li>I select the place on my hard drive where I keep my Evernote backup (I have cleaned it out before this process).</li>
<li>It exports every single note, and it's associated images into html files in that directory. I can browse them, search them - and most importantly - reference the images in them. </li>
</ol>
<div>
Having a local backup gives me a bit of peace of mind. In case Evernote ever goes belly up, I still have all my research. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Also, with this local backup, when I get ready to attach an image to a person or a source in <a href="https://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555">Legacy Family Tree</a>, I navigate to my <a href="https://www.evernote.com/referral/Registration.action?sig=d1bb823e2d8a897921a1484693c0d4b04d00d6a7aa6f14c7018e5b03246edb37&uid=4165418">evernote</a> backup, find the image and attach it. I no longer need to have a 'media' folder for my genealogy software that is separate from what I already have in <a href="https://www.evernote.com/referral/Registration.action?sig=d1bb823e2d8a897921a1484693c0d4b04d00d6a7aa6f14c7018e5b03246edb37&uid=4165418">Evernote</a>. Images are stored in folders that are named whatever the note was named in evernote. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The catch to that is - if I change note names in <a href="https://www.evernote.com/referral/Registration.action?sig=d1bb823e2d8a897921a1484693c0d4b04d00d6a7aa6f14c7018e5b03246edb37&uid=4165418">Evernote</a>, I will break the links to my image files next time I export my backup. Luckily, <a href="https://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555">Legacy Family Tree</a> has a great image link fixer. But, also, this time around, I wanted to name my <a href="https://www.evernote.com/referral/Registration.action?sig=d1bb823e2d8a897921a1484693c0d4b04d00d6a7aa6f14c7018e5b03246edb37&uid=4165418">Evernote</a> notes more carefully. So, those notes that are related to genealogy research, I'm naming this way : </div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Last Name, First middle + what the note is + year of thing in the note</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If one of those pieces of information is missing, I'll just put what I have. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
My <a href="https://www.evernote.com/referral/Registration.action?sig=91da72b1f9dca35f1ab2a566821bea34&uid=4165418">Evernote</a> stack is 'Ancestry and Family Tree' and under that, so far, I have these notebooks : </div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Living People - will not ever be shared and will remain segregated from other evidence to prevent accidental leakage</li>
<li>My DNA - will also never be shared and will be kept separate because the work I do with my own DNA - phasing with my parents and admixture - is stuff I want to keep and is unique from what I do with other people's DNA... and also will not necessarily ever be shared</li>
<li>My Family Tree and Names - this is where I will eventually keep gedcoms and family tree reports for easy reference for cousin requests and my own research on the go</li>
<li>Notes and Research - this is my catch all. All my research resources, notes, sources that haven't yet been attached to an individual or sources I don't want to share will be kept here.</li>
<li>Sinks Evidence - this is my first evidence folder. I will have one for each surname. This whole folder will be shared with cousins on an as-needed basis. Everything in it should be ok to share and should be verified. Nothing goes here until the source has been properly added to records in <a href="https://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555">Legacy</a>. </li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
In the process of all of this, I ran across notes from interviews I did and realized that those could heve been better documented. So, I am super excited to get moving on interviews in week 2!</div>
Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-14172901452494001982015-01-07T10:28:00.003-08:002020-10-30T14:05:05.994-07:00Genealogy Do-Over<div style="float: left; padding: 5px; position: relative;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR0lzsPYu4fYBTDto09UgiFjjrHHajVcIbqxjcawT9CZ7JjHOn2OXoZIhtMKaXsg0F9zMM7UBpvlW_cZlkVy6F5A0AevKooFsKhbj1wV19dc-Ifpxkq3-KATogJCKK3iHO4Ev9UGXZny4/s1600/mushroomcloud.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR0lzsPYu4fYBTDto09UgiFjjrHHajVcIbqxjcawT9CZ7JjHOn2OXoZIhtMKaXsg0F9zMM7UBpvlW_cZlkVy6F5A0AevKooFsKhbj1wV19dc-Ifpxkq3-KATogJCKK3iHO4Ev9UGXZny4/s1600/mushroomcloud.jpg" width="333" /></a><br />
<span style="color: #bdbdbd; font-size: 8px;">Photo : <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nagasakibomb.jpg">Nagasaki Bomb</a> / public domain </span>
</div>
<br />
I've decided to start from scratch with a <a href="http://www.geneabloggers.com/tag/genealogy-do-over/">genealogy do-over</a>. Here's why :<br />
<br />
1) I started poking at genealogy about fifteen years ago and since then have amassed a hodge podge of records, notes and tree data, some of which originated before I knew that <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2014/08/how-to-stop-circulation-of-bad-family.html">a lot of what one can find online in other trees is hogwash</a>. I know my knowledge level will continue to evolve, but OHMYGAWSH, my processes could sure use a logical, fresh perspective makeover. Fifteen years is a lot of change and due to the nature of research documentation, incremental change is not always the way to go. Thus the hodge podge.<br />
2) These days, I am chasing down so many ancestor stories at once that I get this flood of information that trickles through various stages of research but most often, never makes it to my tree software. <br />
3) Geneaology, for me, has evolved from 'interesting thing I do sometimes' to 'immersive hobby that I am borderline obsessed by'. Just like a career musician might have the best of the best in instruments, it's time I have the best of the best in well oiled genealogy machines. I want to re-imagine what I'm doing in a way that keeps up with new technology and takes full advantage of what's available these days.<br />
4) There is no better time than now, while there are so many people doing it! I'm excited to have the <a href="http://www.geneabloggers.com/tag/genealogy-do-over/">pointers</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/genealogydoover/">support</a> from everyone who's doing it along with me. Really, having the community has made all the difference.<br />
<ul>
</ul>
Week one is about laying groundwork for where to put genealogy stuff and how to put it there. It looks like this :<br />
<ul>
<li>Setting Previous Research Aside</li>
<li>Preparing to Research</li>
<li>Establishing Base Practices and Guidelines</li>
</ul>
<a name='more'></a><h3>
Setting Previous Research Aside</h3>
Cue panic! All of the naysayer blog posts I've seen have been all in a tizzy about how on earth one could <i><b>POSSIBLY IMAGINE</b></i> setting aside all of that splendid and spotless work one has done for <b><i>UMPTEEEN</i></b> years?! <i>(for full effect, please repeat that with a southern drawl and the back of your right palm plastered to your glistening brow)</i> Could I just say that I am practically giddy to set my previous research aside? I mean... I have done a really swell job - pat on the back to 21 year old me - but mentally, it's like a rat's nest of cobwebs and blergh. Knowing that I get to start over with it delights my inner OCD organizer.<br />
<br />
I use <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2013/12/using-evernote-for-genealogy-research.html">evernote to do my research</a>, google sheets to organize my genetic matches and <a href="http://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555">Legacy Family Tree</a> to store my family tree data in a sortable, searchable, printable kind of way. In <a href="https://www.evernote.com/referral/Registration.action?sig=d1bb823e2d8a897921a1484693c0d4b04d00d6a7aa6f14c7018e5b03246edb37&uid=4165418">Evernote</a>, I am renaming the 'old' stack with OLD in front of the name. I'm not carrying over any of my current data and I will access only primary sources from my old evernote data and move it over as it's needed. I am also removing all of the shares on my old stuff. I will recreate them on the new stuff once there is new stuff to share. <br />
<br />
I did take a moment to consider whether I should continue to use <a href="https://www.evernote.com/referral/Registration.action?sig=d1bb823e2d8a897921a1484693c0d4b04d00d6a7aa6f14c7018e5b03246edb37&uid=4165418">Evernote</a> for my genealogy research, if I'm getting this chance to start over. I will continue to use it. Not only has it served me well and I can't think of a reason I'd want to use a different cloud service like dropbox, but Evernote is integrated into my day to day life so effortlessly that changing systems doesn't make sense.<br />
<br />
Legacy is easy - I'm zipping up all of the old stuff and creating a brand new tree file in a new directory. I will also be attending the <a href="http://www.familytreewebinars.com/webinar_details.php?webinar_id=276">Legacy Family Tree Genealogy Do-Over webinar</a>. <br />
<br />
For my Genetic geneaology, I'm copying my current sheet into a brand new sheet and deleting the MRCA data. I'm keeping the match data (chom and start and end points) because it's a pain in the rear to aggregate that from all three sites.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Preparing to Research</h3>
This one, for me, is more about re-evaluating my organization structure and how I will use the various entities.<br />
<br />
<b>
Evernote</b><br />
My goals are to keep everything really easily accessible with minimal clicks, to make verified sources and data shareable easily and to be able to easily tell where I left off with a particular line of research. My stack/notebook structure currently looks like this :<br />
<ul>
<li>Ancestry and Family Tree</li>
<ul>
<li> Notes and Research</li>
<li> Sinks Evidence</li>
<li> Norwood Evidence</li>
<li> Ulrich Evidence</li>
<li> Hursey Hussey Evidence</li>
<li> Kelly Evidence</li>
</ul>
</ul>
I think I'll keep this structure (although, to clarify, I'm creating it anew in a new stack). Nothing gets moved to the surname folders until it's actually applicable to my own ancestors with that surname. Until then, it stays in 'Notes and Research'. The surname folders are created as I have enough data to warrant it. Those surname folders can be shared with other researchers - my 'Notes and Research' folder is never shared.<br />
<br />
I think I also want to additionally create a 'DNA' folder where I segregate all of my DNA specifics like admixture analysis etc. As well as a 'Family Tree' folder in which I keep versions of my family tree, surnames lists etc so that they are easily accessible for reference, sending and sharing. <br />
<br />
Within those notebooks, I tag individual notes with 'content photo', 'content headstone', 'content document'. These tags have been sufficient for me to easily find specific objects or sources.<br />
<br />
In the past, I was not consistently creating one evernote page for my notes on an individual - they were kind of scattered all over the place. I will create an evernote page for each individual or genetic ancestor to track the why's of each of my conclusions as well as what research I did.<br />
<br />
<b>
Legacy</b><br />
<a href="http://www.legacyfamilytreestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=L8D&Click=117555">Legacy</a> is installed to my desktop PC. A short while ago, I discovered that it was easier for me to directly reference media from my local Evernote backup instead of having a separate media folder on my computer. Then the same image is in both pieces of software without needing to store duplicate copies. I will continue to do that. I am also going to take a different approach to storing my Legacy data. I will have one folder, where it's all stored and each file will be named with a date. In Evernote, I am going to start keeping a change log of sorts so that I know what changes happened in each file and can roll back to a previous version if I need to. <br />
<br />
<h3>
Establishing Base Practices and Guidelines</h3>
This is kind of the nitty gritty of week one, for me. I don't have them yet. I have a collection of things I've discovered over time and I know what mys tucks and problems are - so I'm going to spend some time working through processes that will make data and information flow easily for me. <br />
<br />
I'm feeling great about a fresh new start, so far! <i><a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2015/01/genealogy-do-over-oops-i-cheated.html" target="_blank">More on what I did with Evernote, Legacy Family Tree and my Golden Rules Here</a></i>Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-18300380650502886342014-12-24T10:52:00.001-08:002017-11-29T14:22:35.413-08:00Petition of Free People of Color Asking that an Act to Impose a Poll Tax be Repealed - South Carolina<div style="float: left; padding: 5px; position: relative;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8-PIIu5ZptdFFXe5RtwyC1pCUvMxxWuum-BXrGGWYLsk4p0G2Dz7vzh5RRskjx9YURHw6Ouxxl8JQbgAPqdWPIVESbD9OhSXG48I1TtQwN7NgSxhk7IkoCTZPaYpXMoleTXplf4fg6Ic/s1600/petition+page+1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8-PIIu5ZptdFFXe5RtwyC1pCUvMxxWuum-BXrGGWYLsk4p0G2Dz7vzh5RRskjx9YURHw6Ouxxl8JQbgAPqdWPIVESbD9OhSXG48I1TtQwN7NgSxhk7IkoCTZPaYpXMoleTXplf4fg6Ic/s1600/petition+page+1.jpeg" height="320" width="211" /></a></div>
This petition, and the associated statement of supporters, was filed 20 April 1794 in South Carolina in an effort to overturn the Poll tax. Among it's signers are the Turners, the family of my 5th great grandfather, <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2013/12/john-and-patience-turner.html">John Turner</a>, which is how I encountered this document. <br />
<br />
This entire journey through my own history, dove tailing my experiences with inequalities that still exist in our modern society, has been an eye opening experience in the most horrific of ways. This post isn't about politics, it's about a thing that happened that my ancestors were involved in - but I believe that I would be remiss in my understanding of the experiences of my ancestors, which is the point of my research, without noting two things about this document that highlight the stunning inequality between people of color and white people, at the time. <br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
First, the people of color who are making the petition, in large part, all make a mark rather than signing. Generally, this is because they are unable to read or write. Conversely, presumably, the statement of supporters was signed by white people who support the petition. All of those people, save one, can sign their own names.<br />
<br />
Second, this petition, made by people of color, presumably because their own stake in having the poll tax repealed, clearly states the adverse affects of the poll tax against women, specifically. We know now, that what these petitioners said in this document was the truth, and still the tiniest sliver of the whole truth which was that the poll tax unjustly affected people of color, women and the poor and was a way to discriminate against them without blatantly denying rights. Poll taxes were finally abolished in 1964, 170 years later, with the 24th amendment - but for over 200 years, poll taxes, and the unequal duress is caused for the poor, people of color and women, was supported by our society. We (Americans) voted for it, insisted upon it, supported it, allowed it and encouraged it. <br />
<br />
Let's not continue to do that, please. Let's question why we believe things to be 'right', 'just' or 'fair'. Let's question institutionalized norms in the interest of allowing all of our humans to have a fair shake at happiness, in the shape and form that takes for them. Just because that's how the system is or that's how it's been done for longer than we've been alive, doesn't make it right. <br />
<br />
Each page is displayed below along with a text version and a list of signers. <br />
<br />
Right click the image and choose 'view in new tab' to see a larger version of it or right click and 'save as' to download a copy for yourself.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To the honorable the Representatives of So Carolina the Petition of the people of Colour of the state aforesaid who are under the act entitled an Act for imposing a poll tax on all free Negroes Mustees and Mulatoes - </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Most humbly showeth that whereas (we your humble petitioners) having the honor of being your Citizens, as also free and willing to advance the support of Government anything that might not be prejudicial to us, it being well known that we have not been backward on our part, in performing any other public duties that hath fell in the compass of our knowledge, </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We therefore being sensibly griev'd at our present situation, also having frequently discovered the many distresses, occasioned by your Act imposing the poll tax, such as widows with large families & women scarcely able to support themselves, being frequently followed & payment extorted by your tax gathers -- </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
These considerations on our part hath occasioned us to give you this trouble, requesting your deliberate body to appeal an Act so truly mortifying to your distress'd petitioners for which your petitioners will ever acknowledge, & devoutly pray</blockquote>
[signed] Isaac Linagear, Isaac Mitchell, Jonathan Price, Nathan price, Richard evins, Nathaniel Conbie (Cumbo), George Collins, Willeam x (his mark) Turner, thomas hulen, spencer x (his mark) Bolton, William (his mark) Swett, Solomon (his mark) Bolton, James (his mark) Shewmak, John (his mark) Turner, Solomon (his mark) Shewmk, Sampson (his mark) Shewmak, Thomas (his mark) Shewmake Junr, thomas (his mark) Shumake Senr, John (his mark) Shumake, James (his mark) Shumake, David Collins, thomas Collins, John (his mark) Turner Senr, Mildred (her mark) Turner, Grenelaper (her mark) Turner, Catherine (her mark) Turner, Elias hulon, Cudworth Oxendine, Archmack Oxendine, Greter (his mark) Colder, Moses (his mark) Colder, Delley Gibson, Drusilla Gibson, Georg Mccloud<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ZGnfd7GyndZYnUNAC2hPr3G6t_LNyGgRUyACb7KMGUGXj3qXo6pL0hr3ttLUyGVbB6YGsboAZVbNDWhJ514kDMFzj7fxJH_B8TG6VQTPX66UhM1fBT6DIBcgYXqXS4E4DWcKvOqXEw4/s1600/petition+page+2a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ZGnfd7GyndZYnUNAC2hPr3G6t_LNyGgRUyACb7KMGUGXj3qXo6pL0hr3ttLUyGVbB6YGsboAZVbNDWhJ514kDMFzj7fxJH_B8TG6VQTPX66UhM1fBT6DIBcgYXqXS4E4DWcKvOqXEw4/s1600/petition+page+2a.jpeg" height="229" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In Justice to your petitioners as above, we whose particular knowledge of their situation hath induced us to request in their favor the benefit of a repeal, provided your honorable and deliberate body can then it best to do.</blockquote>
[signed] Stephen Gibson, Isaac Linegear, Jr., Edmund Dickin, Jur Driggers, Moses Mannin, James Arde, Robin Arde, hardey graves, James Ivey, Mark Maning, Joseph (his mark) Bass, Levi Gibson,<br />
Jas Odom Capt.<br />
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You can get a copy of this document by going <a href="http://archives.sc.gov/researchrequest/pages/default.aspx">here</a> and ordering this :<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Lato, 'Myriad Pro', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Petition of Free People of Color Asking that an Act to Impose a Poll [Tax] be Repealed. General Assembly Petitions 1794 # 216, frames 369-374. Roll ST 1368. </span><br />
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Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-418724974385088969.post-32511193720430653102014-12-22T13:54:00.001-08:002017-11-29T14:22:35.423-08:00Millie Turner, Daughter of John and Patience Turner - Genetic Connection Found!<div style="float: left; padding: 5px; position: relative;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb06WBgMwU5fcFceJRBaKlTVit9n69MHJH9xDYDHmxFIHyc6M6r0rYIcOmDjxKRW78aZ4rHIK2YfC3uctvOI36D_cvKHjhIMusPWXmheRJw5jm0ik_SicSpH0brwPbR1fnLnZDlczjh7o/s1600/admixture.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb06WBgMwU5fcFceJRBaKlTVit9n69MHJH9xDYDHmxFIHyc6M6r0rYIcOmDjxKRW78aZ4rHIK2YfC3uctvOI36D_cvKHjhIMusPWXmheRJw5jm0ik_SicSpH0brwPbR1fnLnZDlczjh7o/s1600/admixture.PNG" height="206" width="320" /></a></div>
It seems like all I blog about these days is the Turner connection. I admit, <a href="http://rootsandblood.blogspot.com/2013/12/john-and-patience-turner.html">their story</a> is so intriguing, that I've been focused on it for a good while now. It's the tiny little sliver to the left there - the light pink one, that has just been itching to have a story told about it. Also, it helps that I have some distant cousins hoping to find their own Turner DNA connection and I probably get the most email from them. <br />
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At any rate, today, I finally had the breakthrough I was hoping for. I have definitively pinned down a segment of DNA that came from John Turner's daughter, Millie. <br />
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<a name='more'></a>Initially, one of those cousins I mentioned above, emailed me about another possible match she found. I logged on and sure enough, there is this new match for me and my mother who has the Turner and Hussey surnames on their list. This new match confirmed through email to my cousin that she does, in fact, have a paper trail back to Robert Hussey, Millie and Samuel's son, brother to my 3rd Great Grandfather, John Hussey. That would make Samuel Hussey and Millie Turner, my 4th great grandparents, our MRCA.<br />
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Then, I looked more closely at what we share. I compared what she shares with my mom with what she shares with me and found that all of the smaller segments she shares with me, as well as a portion of one of the larger segments were IBS - pure random chance. While they appear to 'match' on the website, because they didn't come to me through my mother, they are not IBD from Samuel and Millie. <br />
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That left us with two large matching segments, one on Chromosome 4 and one on 21. Because I'd already done some sleuthing before hand, I already knew that my admixture shows the bulk of my Sub Saharan African on chromosome 4. So I went back to admixture to try to narrow it down. <br />
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I use Dodecad k12b via <a href="http://gedmatch.com/">Gedmatch</a> as it's been the most accurate for me, to this point. I ran the percentages by chromosome tool for both my mother and me. I confirmed that we both have the bulk of our Sub Saharan African on chromosome 4, confirming, for me, that my Sub Saharan African on that chromosome came through my mother. Given that my relation to Millie Turner is through my mother and I also match this other descendant of Millie Turner on chromosome 4, I admit, I was quite excited. <br />
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But then, I used the chromosome paint tool. I was not prepared. My eyes teared up to see the Sub Saharan African on chromosome 4 matched almost exactly (plus a little) to the segment on which I match this other descendant of Millie Turner. It was painted there along side all of my other DNA. It was like seeing Millie Turner looking back at me from my screen. That light pink in this one - that's Millie :<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVBhicWES6M0MWmiI4QpDmyGNn5Id283JTf_A2ducKOByDXyUfZjJpg-bwmOm0QPtC_-865vM-3ApAPcqDwiYRoQJzdAZ6gFDy40JvZ8DsanRzzFpah5zSEIlCgQ5EZNeYi78LUQlKk0U/s1600/chrom+4+millie+turner.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVBhicWES6M0MWmiI4QpDmyGNn5Id283JTf_A2ducKOByDXyUfZjJpg-bwmOm0QPtC_-865vM-3ApAPcqDwiYRoQJzdAZ6gFDy40JvZ8DsanRzzFpah5zSEIlCgQ5EZNeYi78LUQlKk0U/s1600/chrom+4+millie+turner.PNG" height="43" width="640" /></a></div>
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Likewise, the chromosome 21 segment is all Caucasian, Atlantic-Med, Gedrosian and European, up until precisely where that shared segment ends. I'd found Samuel Hussey too. He's the segment leading up to the light pink here :<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizdXmKP76d0qs84g4haaNbS2UDcOExuqFxKk8155rhBs1-oaxt_-JCgjAXC3-M4KMedkJt2Huqy6j3Tm-NVdcga_OuwELaqVJfQAeTaVrnveGvcUpdthFd2AbMbUoTCN8YDrRMsll7G4Q/s1600/chrom+21+samuel+hussey.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizdXmKP76d0qs84g4haaNbS2UDcOExuqFxKk8155rhBs1-oaxt_-JCgjAXC3-M4KMedkJt2Huqy6j3Tm-NVdcga_OuwELaqVJfQAeTaVrnveGvcUpdthFd2AbMbUoTCN8YDrRMsll7G4Q/s1600/chrom+21+samuel+hussey.PNG" height="60" width="400" /></a></div>
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Now, I have other Sub Saharan African in my genetic profile (on chromosome 21, for instance) so it's possible that I got more DNA from John Turner than what I share with this new match. Millie could have passed on this plus something else to my 3rd great grandfather and this matching segment plus another bit to the other son. And other descendants of John Turner could have completely different matching segments with other descendants. <br />
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But this is <b>my</b> story as told through my relation with the descendants of Robert Hussey. Just like I have many pictures of myself, this is just one family snapshot of Millie and Samuel, inscribed upon my genes, where I finally found it today. <br />
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It provides evidence that Millie Turner, and by extension, her father, John Turner, was of Sub-Saharan African descent, or, according to Doug McDonald's admixture breakdown for me, specifically, Yoruban. John was described as a mulatto when he was sold to Patience, so more than likely, his mother was a slave and his father was Thomas Weathersbee, her slave holder. His mother or her ancestors before her would have been been ethnically Yoruban, purchased or taken from West Africa prior to 1760.<br />
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Not only does this provide evidence of my connection to Millie Turner and of her ethnic heritage, but seeing those images of them in my genes on the screen has profound sentimental meaning to me. It's like a deep, peaceful breath.Carriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824307609502227408noreply@blogger.com0