Can It Be November Already? Time Flies!!

Yikes! Can it be November 1st already? Must start holiday shopping right away... truth be told I should have been doing it well before this. But more to the point, it's time again to back up the files.

I like the tradition in the genealogy community that we back up files and check on them on the first of the month. We put out gentle and friendly reminders to each other to go ahead and check the eggs in the nest:) Mine are fine, I just checked. But there is more maintenance to be done.

I need to import Mom's ever growing tree, copied on my recent trip back East to see her. Still not sure how to accomplish this task: what needs to happen is importing the updated tree and integrating it with the one I already have, then syncing the integrated (is that even the right word, don't know) to her Big Tree on Ancestry.com. And for some crazy reason, my Family Tree Maker tree has lost it's sync-ability (is that a word) to the Ancestry tree. This could be an issue. Am thinking that the first step is to poke around Family Tree Maker and try to resolve the sync issue. Then when that's (hopefully) fixed import and combine trees into one updated tree. This is way beyond my "pay grade" and knowledge level so if you have any thoughts I sure would appreciate if you shared!

Because it's the first of the month I took a stab at getting organized. Tackled the Jane Williams file and made copious notes as to what conclusions had been arrived at, checked for holes in her early life in Wales, and left a note for myself to do that much and move the heck on and resume the hunt for her and her adult children in Upstate New York.

Set out a new task for myself and began a notebook on it. A cousin contacted me because she ran into this blog when she searched Samuel Albert House. I've blogged about him quite a bit here. He's my GGGF. He's an interesting guy and this is the third cousin that's contacted me about him. I looked at Mom's Big Tree and saw that that line has been super prolific when it comes to procreation... so there are lots of descendants out there, some working on genealogy it seems:)

I love hearing from the S. A. House descendants because invariably the first topic of conversation is "who da baby daddy?" He was illegitimate, or that's what Mom and I have concluded. It's a long tangled story and my hope is to at least get down what's known about the situation before documents are lost and stories forgotten. Because legitimacy has few if any documents attached to it, we're left with family lore, hearsay, and conclusions drawn from what records we do have. This is not easy!! But there's the fun;)

Today's photo from the Archive:

The year was 1952.
On the ground: Cousin Mikey, Me.
Standing: Dad, Francis Patrick Kelly (1916 - 2007)
Grandma Kelly, Helen Zeller Kelly (1894 - 1985)

GrandPop Kelly, John Lee Kelly (1892 - 1969)

Uncle Bernie, Bernard Kelly (1918 - 2007)

Aunt Ruth, Ruth Mullaney Kelly (1924 - 1996)

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Index THAT!

I've been doing some indexing to get ready for the 1940 US Census. I'm jazzed about indexing the 1940 census... well who knows what can happen in 10 years time when the 1950 census comes around!

These "practice" indexing jobs are small and fun. And I know that if I can't finish in what I consider a timely manner I can return it. Which I did to one this morning. There's a lot on my plate this week and I didn't feel comfortable holding on to the batch all week. Like to get them and return them in 24 to 48 hours. It's fill-in for me so I enter a file every now and then during the day and before I know it the job is done and returned.

I had a run at indexing a sample page of the 1940 census and messed it up. Got confused about "same house" and how to go back to the previous page... well if you've done the practice page you know what I'm talking about. And if not, never mind, just know that I messed up. But I also learned and that's what matters:)

I like indexing death records. Have had a bunch of batches for Texas. 1912, 1921, and 1953. The handwritten ones were extremely difficult for me to read but in the end I managed.

While watching Who Do You Think You Are last Friday, noticed the mention of historical record keeping when it came to African Americans. The researcher indicated that white recorders often didn't take the detailed approach with black citizens that they did with white ones. I could see that played out in the death certificates I indexed, especially the ones from the first two decades of the last century.

On a lighter note, I got one batch of death certificates from 1912 and found two individuals who died from a gunshot wound to the heart... and the notation of "family argument" ... and the notation "suicide"! (Maybe that's not a lighter note.)

Picture of the day from my archive:

The five of the six daughters of Samuel Albert House and Mary Elizabeth Farrell.

Sadie Reckley, Nan Long, Molly Davis, Nora Kaseycamp, and Kate Whetstone (front).

Year unknown.

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