Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Wisdom Wednesday: My Changing World

It's Wednesday again so I'm using GeneaBlogger's blogging prompt called Wisdom Wednesdays and time is flying because I'm having fun! Hope you are too:) This week I'm struck by how fast my genea-world is changing. News flies in the window at every turn, DNA is my new toy, new-to-me cousins are teaming up to bust down brick walls (at least that's the plan), and I'm feeling like the 18-wheeler of information pulled up to my door and unloaded! That's a good thing:)

Right now, it's hard to stick to task as so much pops up and I need to respond to it. Seems like just when I get going on a project, get it organized and make a research plan, a juicy piece of new information about another family line falls in my lap and I need to turn my attention away from my plan to capture information that could be fleeting. That ever happen to you? I was working on the Biggerstaffs and whatta ya know, my Bridget Cocoran Kelly, my 2nd great grandmother, makes an appearance at the exact same time as I hear from a cousin who has information about my 3rd great grandfather Benjamin Thomas and possibly Benjamin's father who might be named Thomas Thomas. Where to turn first?
Feels like what I need is a two-pronged system in which I first save my latest thoughts on the present project, but move swiftly to capture what I can about the other lines. Multitasking, anyone?
Evernote is working for me on the long-term projects. However, I'm thinking that I might actually go back a couple of steps in the technology time line to ye olde spiral notebook that I can grab and go with for stuff that pops up. It's about solving problems with whatever works for each of us, isn't it?

I made a contribution to Ancestry.com by correcting/ updating an entry or three. Was having trouble finding my Whetstone ancestors in the 1850 census. Couldn't figure it out. They should be there, of that there was no discussion. But where had they hidden? Explored all the usual reasons some family might not be where they should, such as a move that year or being missed by the enumerator. Finally I just went "door to door" so to speak looking for them in the area where they should have been. Found them listed as Wheatstone. Now I don't know what it was about that search and the way it was processed but it wouldn't bring back my Whetstones no matter what I tried, and admittedly I was probably just not doing the magical combination of things the search gremlins wanted. But when I found them, I suggested the way it should be listed and they accepted the update and notified me. Cool, they notify you! That felt good.
The same thing happened to my Kelly people in the same census. They were listed as Kelley which I kinda guessed might happen. That got updated and accepted too and I got to feel good all over again.
But here's one I didn't know how to handle and maybe didn't do this correctly. My 3rd GGF, Benjamin Thomas came over on the Barque Tiberius. No discussion there at all. Well documented. Easy-peasy. Except I couldn't find it on Ancestry. Whaa? The other day I finally did find it but the ship's name was listed as the "Liberius" and not "Tiberius". I didn't know how to enter an update for a ship name, so I did it using the update mechanism for my 3rd GGF's name. If there's a better way please let me know! If this confounded me it's probably confounding other.

Geo-Grave, anyone? My good genea-pal, Shawn, mentioned that she puts the Find A Grave memorial numbers in her Family Tree Maker files! Cool idea! This good idea had not crossed my radar before, but it's brilliant and so I'm thinking that everyone but me must be doing it:)
Was also thinking about those really hard to find stones and how a hand-held GPSr (Global Positioning System reader) would be a great helper in knowing exactly where those markers are.
Over here in our house we're avid geocachers (adult hide-and-seek using million dollar satellites to find Tupperware in the woods.) We can see the opportunity to tie Find A Grave memorials into their GPS locations (and package it as a Geo-Grave system...?) My hand-held GPSr will make note of any location anywhere and it would be a breeze to add that notation to the Find A Grave listing, especially for difficult-to-find tombstones or family cemeteries off the beaten path, and we've all been to those. Most GPSr will give an audible beep when you're close to target as well as info on which direction you need to go to get there. It's very cool stuff!


Eckhart Cemetery, Eckhart Mines, Allegany, Maryland.
Could have used a Geo-Grave system there!!


The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/04/wisdom-wednesday-my-changing-world.html

4 comments:

  1. Uh oh! Another 21st century toy (GPSr) that I have to add to my tool box.

    What a great idea, thank you for sharing it with us.

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    1. It's so much fun! If anyone wants to konw more about Geocaching here's a link to a video page. Watch one or two and you'll see what I mean: http://www.geocaching.com/videos/
      Cheers, Diane

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    2. Billion Graves does this already. You can stand in the cemetery and it will pinpoint a gravesite if a photo has already been posted to their site.
      While sitting in the local cemetery parking lot next to the church it shows exactly what parking spot my car is in.
      They have an app that you can download photos to and have online. Truly amazing.
      I'm not affiliated with Billion Graves, just really like the app.

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    3. Getoutta town! Thanks for this Tanya! Ya know, if you think it up, it's quite possible someone has already done it:) I love that. I'm off to download that app right now!
      Cheers, Diane

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