Wisdom Wednesday: Stuff I've Figured Out Lately

I want to try something today and that's to take the GeneaBlogger's Blogging Prompt for Wednesday, called Wisdom Wednesdays, adding a twist, as a list of things I've just recently figured out. I'm a rank and file newbie and if I can stop every now and again and comment on stuff I've figured out, then maybe I'm not doomed to repeat it. Lately, I've figured out the four listed below, some hard come-by personal wisdom that's probably pretty obvious to everyone else:)

Look closely, then look again, then think about what I see, then take another look to see what's hidden in that record or story. The message is: take time and go deeper. This works in all kinds of ways, like even asking myself what's missing from that record, photo or story. Slowing down and going deeper has been the theme of a couple of blog posts recently and it was also my own personal take-away from a seminar Saturday before last. In this rush, rush world, moving too quickly is a habit I can do without.

I can't spell no matter how hard I try, and it's Dad's fault. There are typos and write-ohs everywhere and I'm thankful for spell check. I never met a word I couldn't misspell and dates I couldn't mash up. Again, I have to slow down and check and re-check. Mom said it was Dad's little genetic gift to me as he was always asking her, hey, how do you spell that? Thanks, Dad.

Consistency! As a relative newbie I need to work on being consistent. What are the conventions I'll adopt for maiden and married names so as to be perfectly clear? I've noticed that people do it variously. How should birth and death dates be treated after a name... in parenthesis or not? I see really skilled people handle it differently, and noticed that it's been a shifting target over time.  Remember typed documents with maiden names in all caps because there was no other option? I need to think it through for me and to internalize it so that use is automatic. I observed the variations when I looked at blogger's Surname Saturday posts.

Taming Terrier Mind. Every once in a while I'll wake up with a good night's sleep under my belt, a couple of cups of go-juice, a happy mind, and hit the internet with all the gusto of a terrier pup in a room full of red balls. Off to read the email subscriptions for the blogs I follow, clicking through merrily to informative links, email Mom, clear out junk mail, and so on. Sometimes the click-throughs get a tad out of hand. I need to keep that terrier pup in check because it can waste plenty of time. Ever do that?

As you can see, I'm really a rank beginner with tons to learn:) But then it's not a good day unless I've learned something new. So if you have any thoughts or suggestions, Dear  Reader, please help put me out of my mystery and move me along the learning curve by commenting:)


Photo of the day from the Archive:

This old photo from Mom's files remains unidentified.

Mom thinks they are from the Zeller side.

Sad, no notation on the back.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/01/wisdom-wednesday-stuff-ive-figured-out.html

Good Gestalt and Another Drinking Man Story

Joel Weintraub said something that this newbie thought very interesting at a lecture he gave covering the 1940 census release next year. Well he said a lot of interesting and important stuff... thanks, Joel! But one thing sticks with me: genealogy is geography, or words to that effect. Sorry if I've misquoted Joel:) Nevertheless, I got the point that you need to spend time going beyond names, dates, and places in order to understand more about the ancestors.

One of the things that's also sticking out as I scan the horizon of the ancestors is the need for me to understand the era, get a gestalt for it, a feeling for the whole of it. Here's an example: somehow I had this erroneous concept that no one was in the Western Maryland area in the early and mid 1700s. Bad gestalt! It was populated with frontier farms and a couple of taverns. Taverns were popular... wonder why;)

This becomes an issue for me when I think I have one family group and it turns out to be another. I see a family with kids with names that are close but don't exactly match. Then in a little while I see a mirror family with almost identical names, a few variations, located "over the hill." Grrrr.

Now for the drinking man story. There were men who partook of the drink in my family and some stories to go with them. Mom said to me yesterday, so your Dad's uncle drowned in a rain barrel. What?!! Yeah, seems he got drunk and passed out, face down, in a rain barrel. Tragic... but why am I laughing??