Monday, December 31, 2018

2018 YEAR END FAMILY TREE PROGRESS REPORT ~ By the numbers–How many new people? How many new events and sources?

family stat chart diagram
This is a topic that was first shared on Randy Seaver’s blog Genea-Musings.   It’s all about the statistics or numbers in your database.  How well did we actually do in our research of family?
2018 is quickly drawing to a close.  Each year I take a look back at my Legacy database to see how my family tree has progressed.  
To get to your statistics report in Legacy go to the Help tab>About Legacy and click on General.
  • Have I added more people? Although that isn’t my primary goal.
  • Have I kept up with citing my sources?
  • How about events?  Have I continued to enter events for ancestors lives?
  • Am I continuing to add media to my tree?
I’ve run this year’s report and here is how it looks.

Family stat report 2018 annot

Let’s go back to the 2017 year end report and see what that looked like.

Family stat report 2017

I see that I have 508 more people in my tree.  That’s an addition of 1.4 people per day.  Since I don’t work on my tree each and every day, that’s not bad.

How about citations?  Have I continued to be diligent about adding sources to the items I am entering, census, vital records, newspaper articles etc.?

By dividing the citations by the number of individuals you come up with a percentage.  Last year that percentage was 222.5%.  This year for 2018 the percentage is 213.7%.  That’s a drop of 8.8%.  I believe this is the first year in 5 years that my citations have dropped.  What this means is that I’ve gotten lazy.  I add people and events and I’m not citing them like I used to.  For me it’s vitally important that what I put into my tree, be verified by sources and those sources MUST be cited. Legacy makes it so easy and I’ve been doing it for years, so I have no excuse.

Let’s take a look back 5 years and see what’s happened in my tree. 
Here’s the year end report from December 2013. (Aren’t these some ugly colors I was using back than?)

Family stat report 2013annot

Here’s a comparison table of 5 years of work on my family tree.

family stats table 2018

In these 5 years I’ve added about 360 people per year to my tree.  That’s an average of just under 1 person per day.  This means I’m discovering new families.  How many new families?  According to the stats I am adding about 128 families per year.  The largest jump I see is the number of times I have linked media to events in my tree.  I will admit to being a media junkie.  I want the visual proof of what I record.  Whether it’s a marriage register, a page from a book, a draft card, pension card or census report.  I like to add that image to my tree.
 
The question for me is, what are my goals for 2019? 
  • Definitely to increase my citation percentage and quit being lazy about citing sources
  • To continue to add individuals and families to my tree
  • To go back and look at some of the families I haven’t looked at in a while
  • To continue to blog about my journey
  • To keep attending conferences, seminars and classes to increase my knowledge
  • To break down a couple of brick walls I’ve had for over 15 years
That sounds like enough goals to keep me out of trouble in the coming year.  LOL!

What are your goals for 2019?  I’d love to hear about them.  Perhaps you’ll mention something I’ve missed and inspire me.  Are we cousins?  Maybe we can work together on our goals?  I love collaboration.

I wish you the greatest of success in your research in the coming year.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl
Copyright ©  2010-2018   Diane Gould Hall
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

Sunday, December 30, 2018

SUNDAY’S OBITUARY ~ Roy Jerome Hart (1883-1946) Perry, Shiawassee, Michigan

HART_Roy J_obit_LansingJournal_16 Sep 1946_pg 2
Published in the Lansing State Journal 16 Sep 1946, page 2

Roy Jerome Hart is a descendant of my 3rd great grandfather, Henry Hart and his first wife, Sarah Sumner.  This makes Roy my half 2nd cousin twice removed.

Transcription of Obituary:
 
PERRY, Sept. 16 - Funeral services for Roy J. Hart, 63, will be held Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 o'clock from the Church of the Nazarene, Rev. John Smith, pastor, officiating.  Burial will be in Oak Plains Cemetery, Shaftsburg.
The body is at Oakes funeral home where it will remain until one hour previous to the services at the church.
Mr. Hart died suddenly about noon Sunday while attending church.  He had just taken up the collection and sat down in his pew when he dropped over dead.  Death was caused from a heart attack.  He had been ill about three months.
He was born March 14, 1883, at Plainfield, the son of Seth and Nettie Hart.  He was married twice, the first wife being Olive Hart who died September 9, 1931, at Shaftsburg.  He was married the second time October 29, 1932, to Mrs. Rose Martin at Shaftsburg.
He had been the manager of the Laingsburg pickle station for 15 years and had resided in Shaftsburg until he came to Perry 11 years ago.
Surviving are the widow; three daughters, Mrs. Lizzie Woodbury of Pontiac, Mrs. Lucille Martin of Rochester and Mrs. Lenna Nanasy of Morrice; three sons, LeRoy Hart of Williamston, Leo Hart of Lansing and Lawrence Hart of Perry; five brothers, Ned Hart, Eugene Hart, Hartley Hart, all of Laingsburg, Robert Hart of Haslett and Harry Hart of Shaftsburg; two sisters, Mrs. Lizzie Southwell of Shaftsburg and Mrs. Mable Richard of Lake City; four stepchildren; 31 grandchildren; 1 great grandchild; 13 step grandchildren and 6 step-great grandchildren.


I imagine having someone die in the middle of a church service must have been a shock to all the members.

While I’ve always been interested in my Hart line, that interest was recently peaked when I connected with a 4th cousin via DNA.  She is directly connected to Roy Jerome Hart who is her 2nd great grandfather.

Roy married Olive Venina Hunter on 14 Mar 1901 in Carunna, Shiawassee, Michigan.  They had 7 children together: Lelah May, Vivian “Lizzie”, Leroy Andrew, Lawrence B., Leo George, Lucille V. and Lennah Louise.

Here's Roy & Olive with 5 of their children.  Photo courtesy of Peter Young.
HART_Roy & Olive with 5 children_annot
After Olive died, according to Roy’s obituary, he married again to a Mrs. Rose Martin.  Until finding this obituary I had no record of a second wife.

NOTE:  This particular obituary is full of genealogical information, from marriage and death dates and places to names of a lot of family members.  We don’t always get this lucky when it comes to obituaries.  I’d like to thank whoever wrote this one. 

I have located Roy in census records with his parents, Seth Andrew Hart and Nettie Wright and with his wife Olive.  After his marriage to Olive in 1901 he worked as a Farmer, according to the 1910, 1920 and 1930 census records.  I see from the obituary that he managed a pickle station for 15 years. What in the world is a pickle station?

Since Google is our friend, let’s find out.  According to what I learned Shiawassee County, Michigan was a center for the growing and processing of cucumbers into pickles.  Who knew?  I have no evidence at this point that our Roy Jerome Hart was growing cucumbers in his farming endeavors.  However, he is listed in the Shiawassee Farm Journal (published in 1917)  on page 22.

HART_Roy listed in Farm Jounal

I checked the front of the book to learn what all the abbreviations in the entries stood for and from that I can translate Roy’s entry as follows:

Hart, R. J. (Olive) 5 children, Owns 80 acres with 2 horses and 7 cattle, address of Rural Route No. 1, Shaftsburg Wdhl 48, Ind tel ( I suspect the tel stands for telephone).  I did not find a translation of Wdhl or Ind in the journal.

Roy was only 63 when he died.  He and Olive are buried at Oak Plain Cemetery in Shaftsburg, Michigan.  You can visit their memorials here; Roy #40017951 and Olive #40017952.  There are 39 Hart memorials in the Oak Plain Cemetery.

Update - After finishing this blog post I discovered another child born to Roy & Olive.  A little girl named Edith Pauline, born 29 Jul 1903 and died at age 4 on new year's day 1908.  Her death was a result of peritonitis from an intestinal obstruction.  How sad. I have not found her burial location.

If you are related to any of the people mentioned in this post and want to exchange information, I’d love to hear from you.  Leave me a comment or use the “contact me” tab on the blog.

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST


Happy hunting,
Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2018   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

Monday, December 24, 2018

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL MY READERS BOTH NEAR AND FAR

Christmas pics for 2018 -Gould family circa 1917
Christmas 1916-17 - My grandparents, great grandparents, grand Uncles & Aunts and my Dad as a little boy - Detroit, Michigan
May all your Christmas wishes come true

Here’s some memories from long ago and not so long ago
Christmas pics for 2018 -ron & parents
My husband Ron with his parents, Dorothy & Gordon Hall circa 1953
Christmas pics for 2018 - ron & wagon
Ron & his new Christmas wagon
Christmas pics for 2018 -me 1053
Me looking at my Christmas doll
Christmas pics for 2018 - at grandmas_1954
1954 - Me & my brother, Norm with all 4 of our grandparents & our Mom - my Dad was taking the picture
Christmas pics for 2018 - me & grandpas_1953
1954 - Me with my beloved Grandpas, Harry Gould and Joseph Milne
Christmas pics for 2018 - brooke-paige 2007
Our granddaughters - Brooke & Paige 2006
Christmas pics for 2018 - brooke-paige-us_2005
Me & Ron with Brooke & Paige - 2005
Christmas pics for 2018 - brooke-paige-zach_2008
2008 - Brooke, Paige & Zachary

Christmas pics for 2018 - John-Mom_Myr-Josh_2007
2007 - My (half) brother John Zimmerman, niece & nephew Myriah & Joshua Gould, my Mom & me
Christmas pics for 2018 -my family2005
2005 - Mom, Myriah, Norm, Joshua, me & Melinda at our house
Christmas pics for 2018 -family dinner with Mom 2007
2007 - a special Christmas as my (half) brother John celebrates with his biological family for the first time
IMG_2711
2009 - Las Vegas for Christmas visit with Scott, Jen & our grandson Zachary
IMG_2729
2009 - Scott playing Santa
Christmas pics for 2018 - Hall family 2008
2008 - Hall family all together - Jeff, Laura & granddaughters Brooke & Paige and Scott, Jen & grandson Zachary with me & Ron

May all your Christmas memories be fond and may you make more this year.

Michigan Girl
Copyright ©  2010-2018   Diane Gould Hall
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION