Maryland, My Maryland! (That's the title of the state song of Maryland.) It dawned on me that I am doing a lot of research in the state of Maryland. All, and I do mean all, of my ancestors going back at least the last three generations lived and worked in the state of Maryland, and some go back to my fourth or fifth great grands. That's a lot of Marylanders. I do have a couple of state guides for researching genealogy in Maryland, as well as West Virginia/Virginia, and Pennsylvania guides, but I need more than that. And I need it now. So my educational goal for April is to devote myself to all things Maryland. And I have people to help me. Mom, of course, has been guiding me along and she's born and bred in Maryland and still lives there and has been doing genealogy there sine the early 1970s. Plus, and this is a real blessing, I have a genea-pal who is willing to give me a tour of the Maryland State Archives online. She says it's a beast, but it's our beast:) Pass the Maryland crab cakes! (And I don't mean those weak imitations they offer on the appetizer menu here in San Diego! Yuck!)
Tree Sync. How, oh how, did my work habits get so bad in this one area? I have lost the sync feature between my Family Tree Maker (FTM) tree resident on the desktop computer (and safely backed up online) and my Ancestry Member Tree (AMT)! Discovered it quite a while back but have been ignoring this blister on my tree for too long. Those two buddies need to sync up! How did I not see that? Actually I did but ignored because I didn't know where to turn for answers... and now I do: the email group for Family Tree Maker!
And another thing I did not see before this week: have not updated either the FTM or the AFT with good info from member messages sent to me through Ancestry, after that new information is verified, of course. Remember, Mom started her Big Tree way back when and it's to be expected that there might be mistakes or updates and we find them all the time, some pointed out by other Ancestry members. We like that because those Ancestry members are probably looking at someone close to them but way out on a branch connected to another branch on our tree. Ya gotta love community:)
Cousins and such. Here's something else I've not been looking at: cousins and degrees and removals. Oh, I've known it in a general way so that if someone said, we're third cousins, I'd be looking at a shared great grandparent. And I did vaguely know that if there was a removal, it meant the cousin had kids who were removed down the line from us.
But the other day my laxity in this area stared me right in the face when I realized that my DNA matches on 23andMe who were 4th cousins shared a mutual ancestor not that far back and that for 4th cousins we should be looking at 3rd great grandparents. So the cousin who replied back to my inquiry and said that we probably shared an ancestor too far back to know about didn't have it right. Mom and I know who the 3rd great grandparents are... but maybe that cousin match doesn't.
Here's how I'm remembering it: whatever degree cousin we are, subtract one to find the degree of great grandparent. Example: 4th cousin = 3rd great grandparent. And for gosh sake, if this is wrong, wrong please tell me!! Remember, I'm slightly dyslexic and very math-challenged:)
Photo of the Day from Aunt Betty's Archive:
Jane Price Williams (1862 - 1939)
The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/04/wisdom-wednesday-why-did-i-not-see-that.html
No comments:
Post a Comment