I have been having a bit of an epiphany these last weeks.  I discovered that I am a multipotentialite.  Watch this TED talk for an in depth description. https://www.ted.com/talks/emilie_wapnick_why_some_of_us_don_t_have_one_true_calling.
I also joined The Infinite Receivers group on FaceBook.  Since then, I have been receiving all kinds of inspiration, energy, funds, and clients.

I also have been open to more connections between genealogy and my other passions.  I am working with a client with Scandanavian ancestry, and in comes a wonderful magazine I get Piecework.  Its a neddlecraft magazine that covers antique pieces like socks, and includes how to knit, embroider, or crochet them today.  The most recent edition is about socks.  It gave examples of hand-knitted socks from various centuries and countries, including Ludders.  These are "snow socks" from Norway.   They were used throughout most of Norway, except where the temperatures fluctuate more and allow for wetter snow.  Ludders are knitted socks with a sewn in sole and upper part of the shoe.  These are a traditional element that was most likely brought here to the US by his Norwegian ancestors.  I am hoping to make a pair for him along with his genealogy package.  This is what I love about my vocation.  I can bring a bit of my different disciplines into a family history and expand their understanding of their family or remind them of long-lost warm memories of home and family. 
Please look at a variety of different disciplines when researching your family.  Check with fiber people (knitters, crocheters, embroiderers, etc), blacksmiths, carpenters, farmers etc. to learn more about how things may have been done in your ancestor's times.  Visit historical sites that are contemporary with your ancestors and feel free to ask the docents or recreators if the skills or items they are using or displaying are widespread or something that is local.  Ask questions as if you were a child.  Children aren't afraid to ask questions.  They are curious and don't have the inhibitions we do.  The answers you get will allow your understanding of your ancestors to grow and be more complete.

Research Logs

What are research logs and why would I want to use one?  Research logs are simply a way to know what you looked at, where to find it again, what was found and sometimes more importantly what you did not find in that source.  How many times have you looked at a book or film, only to re-order it or go back to it to look for the same information?  If we are honest, most of us have done exactly that sometime in our research career.  This is where a log comes in handy.

Let me demonstrate what a simple log from AmericanAncestors.com looks like. The first piece of information is the repository, the location of where you got the source (a library, the Family History Library, or Ancestry.com). The second piece of information is the date you found this information. A chart follows which asks for simple information – Source Information (title, author, publisher, published date, etc.), Call Number (file #, URL, etc.), Objective (what were you looking for), and Results (what you did and/or did NOT find). Many times, we forget to write down or note somewhere what we did NOT find, and this can be very helpful in solving brick walls. If information cannot be located in sources where we expected to find it, this can tell us that our ancestor may have been located elsewhere, used a very different name, or that we are asking the wrong question, etc. Here is a link to the AmericanAncestors.com version - American Ancestor's Research Log

You should not have to log in or be a member to access this and many more of their learning resources.

Copyright © 2015 Ann Royal

A Western Massachusetts Genealogical Conference

Well, things are coming together for the "first" Western Massachusetts Genealogical Conference.  Keep the date, September 9-10, 2016;  I will have more details very soon.

This conference will be themed around the history and genealogy of Western Massachusetts (the four counties - Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden).

Do you have roots in Western Massachusetts?  Keep watching as more details start pouring in.

The Demise of Family Tree Maker

We knew it was coming, but we all hoped it wouldn't be for a long time yet.  Ancestry has made the announcement. "Ancestry to Retire Family Tree Maker Software".  Support is supposed to continue through January 2017, but we'll have to see what happens.

My biggest concern is that the online version just won't be as robust as the desktop version.  I certainly hope that Ancestry will be adding even more features to its online version.  I use FTM2014 on a daily basis, and I had hoped if they were going to nix it, they would have a premium online version for those of us who consider ourselves "Power Users".  The current online version is okay, but doesn't have all the tools available that a "seasoned" genealogist would be looking for in a program.

The advantages to this is that the database and all its inherent maintenance problems will no longer need to be administered by the individual, but maintained by cloud servers.  This will keep it safe from fire, theft, and other issues.  Compatibility will also become less of an issue, no longer Mac vs PC vs Linux, etc. 

For a wonderful discussion about this and other advantages of Cloudware, see Dick Eastman's article, "Are you Using the Cloud?"

Cemeteries - The Restoration of Hillside Cemetery in North Adams, MA

Why do we flock to cemeteries?  Why do we act like the dogs in the movie UP when the word cemetery is mentioned?

This is our last earthly connection to our ancestors, and the further back in time we go, sometimes the only earthly connection we have.  We go to cemeteries to find that connection to our ancestors, our great grandmothers and great grandfathers.  Whole families can be buried together in a private cemetery or together in several abutting lots in a public cemetery.

We tell ourselves that it is just good methodology, doing a reasonably thorough search of all the sources of information, but it's the connection we crave.  So why do cemeteries fall into disrepair?  Is it that we have lost interest?  Do we no longer care about cemeteries and the graves of our families?

No, I don't think that's true.  I think we get busy being busy in our lives.  We don't want to take the time to learn how to properly take care of the stones, because we are busy doing something else.  We don't want to take pictures of old stones, because our kids won't appreciate it anyway.  They're too busy texting.  But this isn't everyone, let me tell you about some extraordinary students from MCLA (Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, formerly North Adams State College)

Students at MCLA spend time in the Hillside Cemetery of North Adams, Massachusetts helping to preserve these precious pieces of our history.  They choose to help Roger Eurbin of the North Adams Cemetery Commission preserve our precious past.  The college encourages all of their students to do something to give back to the city that hosts their college.  These students could choose a great many other venues to give back to their community, but they choose the hot sun and the extremely hilly cemetery as their place of choice to pay it forward.

Hillside Cemetery of North Adams is a marvelous cemetery and is listed as a National Historic Preservation site.  It spans both sides of Route 2, the older section being on the Brown Street side of the street, and the "newer" section being on the other.  Hillside is a closed cemetery, but those who own lots and wish to be buried there may still do so. Military graves of Revolutionary War heroes through possibly the Vietnam Era await remembrance in Hillside.  Roger and friends have slowly been trying to straighten memorial stones and footstones that are threatening to fall over or worse, fall down one of the steep hills in the cemetery.  Embankments have crumbled making traversing this beautiful cemetery more difficult, and some stones have disintegrated to the point of either being unreadable or have lost their bases and now lie on the ground or both. They are constantly cutting back the brush that threatens to swallow some of the graves and are working hard to make sure that those graves that are to have perpetual care actually get that care.  Roger, especially, tries to personally look after the veteran graves of Hillside.  He feels a duty to those who served our country from its very beginnings to now.

I first met Roger when I was looking for my 2nd Great Grandfather, John H Adams, and his wife Julia F Loomis, and Anna, who I thought at the time would be his mother.  It turns out that Anna was their daughter, who hadn't lived long.  He was able to lead me directly to their resting places.  What a thrill it was to see where they were!  No longer were they just names on a page, they were real.  While traversing up and down the greater and lesser hills and knolls of Hillside, I found Buckleys, other Loomis's, Briggs and other possible collateral lines.  It's going to be fun searching for these long-lost people and see if they're relatives of my direct lines.

As a newer member of the +Western Massachusetts Genealogy Society (WMGS), I volunteered to help out Roger and Hillside.  I am the Chairperson of the Restore Hillside Cemetery Project, and I am organizing a day of working on Hillside - righting stones with Cemetery Personnel Supervision, taking photos of stones before their faces are destroyed, and transcribing the cemetery stones.  This will not only preserve the cemetery and its remaining memorials, but will allow Roger and myself to create a searchable index, so the Cemetery personnel can more easily assist researchers in finding their lost family members.

I will be publishing a date for this restoration project as soon as the membership of WMGS vote on a day.  It will be in early fall of 2014, so keep your date books open, and spread the word.  The more the merrier.  Please feel free to contact me directly.

A story of a Professional Genealogist - Why we do what we do?

Once upon a time there was a professional genealogist who was asked why she became a professional genealogist?  What was her why?  Why her?  The genealogist sat back, took a breath, and then spoke from the heart.  Here is her story and why.

My why starts with why I started to study my family in the first place.  A quick background, my sister Marie and I are the only children of our parents, my mother was an only child, and my father only had one brother, Uncle Joe.  We are a small family, and we had moved away from most of our relatives before I was born.  Marie's teacher in high school asked her class to research a few generations of their families and present them in class.  She brought the assignment home and started asking questions.  I, being the very nosy little sister, listened in on all the stories.  They were fascinating people, these ancestors of mine.  I had heard the names, but unfortunately, I had only ever met them briefly or not at all.  With all the stories, these people started to come alive for me, but I still felt very disconnected.  

You see Marie and I are seven years and seven days apart.  This may not seem like a lot to some, but at times in our lives, it has been an expanse as large as an ocean.  Luckily most times, that generation gap has only been as large as a raindrop.  Finally, seven years later, it was my turn.  Same teacher, same class, same assignment and something happened as I did my assignment.  I fell in love with the knowledge, the discovery and the process.  I was NOT satisfied with just that little bit of history.  I wanted to know more.  A budding genealogist was born, which explains the how, but not necessarily the why.  You see; I still felt very disconnected to those names I couldn't keep straight.  

My family was still very nuclear.  My father's parents had passed during those seven years, and I still didn't know much about the family.  I felt a little like the proverbial red-headed step-child, which I find amusing since I am now a red-head.  Everyone knew these amazing people, and I was out in left field, feeling like I didn't belong, like I was playing catch-up all the time.  I didn't like that feeling, so I decided to do something about it.  I was going to go way past where my sister left off, and get to know our past as well as she did, so I wouldn't feel left out.  This may not have been the best reason in the world to start, but it was MY reason.  I am not going to apologize for it, because it has lead me to where I am today. I was going to be a knowledgeable and contributing part of those conversations if it killed me.  

My why for genealogy has evolved as I have, but feeling disconnected will always be part of the core reason.  And my why for becoming a professional  and "why me" stems directly from that, I want to help people reconnect with their families and their families' histories - not just through pure research, but by adding the family stories and local history into the final product whenever possible.  By being able to connect with my clients emotionally, I can use my 30+ years of research experience to help them find their place in the family history and maybe find that they take after someone in the family after all - a rebel, a genius, or maybe a hero, their hero.

So, that budding genealogist took as many classes, read as many books, and learned from as many local masters of genealogy as she could.  She joined genealogical societies and Listserv groups (That's all they had back in prehistoric times.  LOL).  She worked on that family of hers.  She learned, studied and researched, until she was an expert on her father's side of the family, and earned her place at the family discussions.  She and Marie often work together now.   They learned to collaborate and share the family history, and really enjoy working with each other.

This professional genealogist worked at a Family History Center and founded a PAF User's Group (Personal Ancestral File - a genealogical software program).  She gave presentations at various genealogical societies.  She just graduated from Dr. Thomas W. Jones' Mastering Genealogical Proof Study Group with DearMyrtle, and is slated for ProGen at the beginning of June, pending her placement into a discussion group.  She will never stop learning to be a true master of her craft, nor stop helping people reconnect with their families and stories.

BTW, I changed the names to protect the privacy of those living.  I don't usually write in the third person, but this was an interesting exercise.  We should always know why we are doing something.  You should be able to convey to anyone, the why.  Here, I told the story, but my response to why - I know how it feels to be disconnected, left out, or apart from family, to not know your place.  I help people reconnect to their family and find their place in its history.

Leave a comment on your WHY!!!

Homework Chapter 1 Master Genealogical Proof

Sources: 

Jones, Dr. Thomas W.  Mastering Genealogical Proof.  Arlington: National Genealogy Society, 2013.

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary: 2014.

Chapter 1 Questions

1.  Merriam-Webster defines genealogy as such:

Full Definition of GENEALOGY

1:  an account of the descent of a person, family, or group from an ancestor or from older forms

2:  regular descent of a person, family, or group of organisms from a progenitor or older form :  pedigree

3:  the study of family pedigrees

4:  an account of the origin and historical development of something

— ge·ne·a·log·i·cal  adjective

— ge·ne·a·log·i·cal·ly  adverb¹

Merriam-Webster then quotes the Concise Encyclopedia in the same entry:

genealogy

 noun    (Concise Encyclopedia)

Study of family origins and history. It is found in most parts of the world and is international in scope. Originally concerned with tracing royal, aristocratic, or clerical lines, genealogy has broadened its scope over the centuries, and many ordinary people now pursue it as a hobby. In preliterate cultures genealogical information was transmitted orally, usually as a list of names; later generations recorded this information. Divine origins were often ascribed to kings and heroes. Modern genealogists use artifacts, including ancient records, coins, deeds, tapestries, paintings, and monuments, to help them in their work.²

Dr. Jones describes genealogy as “the accurately reconstructing [of] forgotten or unknown identities and relationships.”³   He goes on to say that “living people”⁴ are also part of genealogy and that it “emphasizes biological and marital kinships, but it also addresses adoptive, extramarital …within and across generations.”⁵

I agree with the above definitions, but I also identify genealogy as the study of and reconstruction of families and their stories, of how they relate to and interact with themselves and with others throughout history. 

2.

1.     Thorough, reasonably exhaustive research

2.     Informative citations

3.     Analysis and correlation

4.     Resolution of conflicts

5.     Written Conclusion

3. Without Proof Statements, Arguments or Summaries, our work cannot be proven accurate or trustworthy, nor will it be useful for the coming generations.

4. All the parts are interdependent of one another

5. Question – Without questions, our research can become scattered and unfocused.  We can miss the very information we wanted to find.

¹Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com: accessed 1 March 2014), “genealogy.”

²Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (2014), “genealogy.”

³Dr. Thomas W. Jones, Mastering Genealogical Proof (Arlington: National Genealogy Society, 2013), 1.

⁴Jones, Mastering Genealogical Proof, 1.

⁵Jones, Mastering Genealogical Proof, 1.