FRIDAY FINDS ~ Probate records you can find on Ancestry–1600’s, 1700’s .....and more

This has been a very fun week.  Taking a look at some of my husband’s ancestors on Ancestry, I located one probate record, which lead me to other probate records.

Sometimes you won’t see these records come up as hints when you look at the people in your tree.  However, if you go directly to the database by searching for records in a particular state, you will find these treasures.

TIP:  For finding records by state on Ancestry, go to the menu at the top and use “Search.”  Then “All Collections,” scroll down the page and click on the specific state on the map.  That will bring up every collection available for that state.  I use this search method quite often and find it very useful.




The Connecticut,  Wills and Probate Records section has  327,217 resources.

I located the following records which contain wonderful proof of family connections and, of course, proof of the year or exact date of death of the ancestor.

CLARKE, Theophilus – 1737 – 6th great grandfather of my husband
CLARK, Deacon Simeon – 1793 – 4th great granduncle of my husband
HALL, Cornelius Clark – 1815 – 3rd great grandfather of my husband
WHEELOCK, Jonathan -  1798 -  5th great grandfather of my husband

I haven’t yet transcribed these records.  I’ve read most of them over once and entered them in my Legacy database.  It takes time to crop, straighten and organize them, depending on how many pages.  Then I save them as JPG images.  Next, I convert those images to one PDF file so that the entire record can be viewed as one document.  Stay tuned for those transcriptions.
 
Here are some pages from the records I located:

1737 - Theophilus Clark - page 1 1793 - Deacon Simeon Clark - page 1

1815 - Cornelius Clark Hall - Inventory page

I’m sure most of you have used probate records in your research.  But, in going back to some of the online records I looked at in previous years, I’ve found many new records added.  Might be worth a peek.

OTHER RECORDS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST

WHAT CAN YOU LEARN FROM A PROBATE RECORD?

AMANEUNSIS MONDAY ~ Samuel Morse Probate 1654

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2016   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

TOO MUCH INFORMATION HAVE YOU OVERWHELMED? You’re not alone

When we begin our journey in researching our family, we might have a few items left by parents or grandparents.  Perhaps we have a box or two of photos or other items?  Maybe we don’t even have that much.

We go along, entering our ancestors in our database, as we find them.  We locate vital records, census records, military records, newspaper articles, immigration records and on and on.
 
Then there comes a time when we have connected with quite a few family members, think cousins.  And, we’ve joined a multitude of groups on Facebook specific to our areas of research.  We’ve joined societies and gone to seminars.  We’ve visited courthouses and libraries and maybe even the Family History Library in Utah.  We have a tree on Ancestry and those hints just never stop popping up….and I’m talking about the good hints.
 

We have now reached the point where we have SO MUCH information, we can’t focus on which family or person to research.  This is a good problem to have, but…..this is pretty much where I’m at right now.

  

What to do?

This is the exact question I asked myself as I was driving somewhere yesterday.  How in the world can I focus on just one person or one family when all these wonderful pieces of information are coming at me?

Well, I need to find a way, because what I’m doing right now isn’t working.  Yes, I’m getting some research done, but I don’t feel as if I’m doing that deep, thorough research that I really enjoy.

Apparently I’m not alone.

 

Amy Johnson Crow wrote a blog post about this very subject, just yesterday.  It’s titled “How to Avoid Genealogy Overwhelm” and you can find her article here.

Amy did a great job of explaining just what I was feeling and how we can go about “fixing” this problem.

I’ll follow up this post and let you know how I’m doing. 

Please tell me if you’ve felt the same way?  What you’ve done about it, if anything?  The more tips we can get the better for all of us.

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST

Digital Folder Organizing & Naming Made Easy

Office Closet Clean Out & Organization Project - Do You Have One of "Those" Spaces?

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2016   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

HAVE LIMITED TIME FOR RESEARCH? Here's What I Did Today in Just 60 minutes

As genealogists we all want more time.  Whether we work full time, part time or are retired.  There never seems to be enough time to work on our research or our files.  And, if you have a family with children there are even more distractions.

WHAT CAN WE DO IN A LIMITED AMOUNT OF TIME?

HERE ARE SOME THINGS I DID TODAY IN 60 MINUTES

• I went to findagrave.com and searched for memorials for one branch of the family.  I located 3, entered the memorial numbers in the User ID in Legacy.  I downloaded and saved the headstone photos to the digital folder and attached it to the burial photos in my database, for that person. 
• I entered a To-Do task to source the photo.
• From those finds I found out that these family members had died in Cabell County, West Virginia.  I know that the wvculture.org site has loads of vital records. 
• I located all three death certificates and death registers on the wvculture website.  I downloaded and saved them to my computer.
• I entered the information from the death records into my Legacy database for that person and created a To-Do item to source the death certificate.

AND THE LAST THING I DID DURING MY 60 MINUTES

• I went into the digital folder where I had just saved the death records for this family.  This is my Frampton family.
• I noticed that some of the death records (including the three I added today) had not been cropped and straightened, so I took care of that today.

Here’s how they looked prior to being edited.
 


I personally, don’t enter any images into my database without first editing them.  I use the Microsoft Office Picture Manager program to perform these tasks.  It’s easy and quick.

Here’s how they look now.  I began this process at 11:29 and finished at 11:34.  
So it took me only 5 minutes and look at the difference!



Here is a post I wrote about using the Microsoft Office Picture Manager program to edit images. The methods here can be used with most photo editing software.

Easy Document Editing

I hope this post has given you a couple of ideas for making use of those small windows of time we may find for our research.

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST

Family History Library - After you return home...then what?

Tuesday's Tip - Photo Repair and Restoration

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2016   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

EVERNOTE ~ How it keeps my genealogy organized

I don’t know about you, but I use Evernote every single day.  Not just for my genealogy items, but for travel, gardening, recipes, receipts and more.  But we are here to talk about one way that I use it to keep track of genealogy items I need to return to.

This morning I was clearing my PC desktop of a few items that I had saved there for easy access.  I don’t like my desktop to be cluttered, so I try very hard to keep items to a minimum. That is true of both my PC desktop and my real desktop.
 
Here is a view of what my PC desktop looked like this morning.



At least half of those items need to be moved.  I’ve circled all that need to go.  My desktop will look much better by this afternoon.



Of course it’s never just one, two, three.  Because the first item I went to was the little icon that is only identified as Img_0555.



I opened it up and it turned out to be a document about a possible ancestor who served during the Revolutionary War.
 


TIP:  Don’t do what I did when I saved this image.  I did not note where it came from.  As a result I began by going online and trying to find this image and other information about Joseph Thorp from Livingston County, Connecticut.

I found quite a bit of information in a book I located on Google books, but I don’t want to work on that particular project this morning.  This book is viewable in part, on Google books, but is still in copyright as it was published in 1932.  Therefore, I cannot download a copy.

ENTER EVERNOTE!

This is when I find Evernote invaluable.

I created a note titled “Book About the Revolutionary War Records of Fairfield, CT.” 

In it, I have put notes and links so that I can return to this information and take the time to record it.

Click here to see the note I created

I currently have 2393 notes in Evernote.  I am a premium subscriber because I want to support the company.  I rarely use the upload limit available to me, but for $5 a month I like knowing I have that option.

What other types of things have I saved to Evernote that might be valuable to us as researchers?  Here are some examples from my own notes in Evernote.


Examples of Old German Handwriting and Type and a page from a yearbook that was sent to me by a cousin.


How about a newspaper article I found about my 1st cousin 4x removed marriage in 1855?  Or a list of members of the 105th infantry from the Civil War listing one of my Gillen ancestors?

I also use Evernote to keep track of all correspondence to and from cousin connections.  I found it very difficult to keep track of which contact was connected to which surname or family.  Now that they are all collected in Evernote and tagged with the surname connections, it’s very easy.  I can either forward the email to Evernote or copy and paste the text of the email or message into a note.
  
Tagging is the key to everything in using Evernote.


There are SO many other ways I use Evernote on a daily basis.  How do you use it?
 
There are many YouTube videos and books about using Evernote.  There is even a Facebook group that I belong to where we share our tips with one another. The group is Evernote Genealogists.

I look forward to hearing from you about how or if you use Evernote.

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST

Evernote - A Very Useful and Free Tool to Help You Organize Genealogy and Everything Else

Facebook - How It Can Be Very Useful in Your Research

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2015   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

OCTOBER IS FAMILY HISTORY MONTH–What do you know about your ancestors?

                                                                   

What a great month to begin or continue your own family history.

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT YOUR ANCESTORS?

• Who were they?
• Where did they come from?
• What did they do for a living?
• How many children did each family have?
• How many times did they move?
• Did they come from another country?
• What were the historical events that shaped their lives?
• What were some of the happy moments?
• What were the saddest moments?
• Did any of them go to college?
• Did any of them leave you photos or letters or other heirlooms?

Have you asked yourself these questions?
Do you know where to look to find the answers?
Do you know where to begin?

Learning about your family can be exciting, heart warming, sometimes frustrating or sad, many times revealing.
There are SO many resources out there for family researchers that I couldn’t possibly list them all here.

TIP: My suggestion to new genealogists (and a reminder to those more experienced researchers) is to interview your living family members NOW.  We really cannot wait on this because we know that age isn’t the determining factor as to whether we lose a family member now or in the coming years.  They are all important and they all have memories to share.

Here are some steps to take to begin your research
.
1.  Google “How to begin genealogy research.”  I did this and had 881,000 results!  WOW!  Some of those ought to give you a good start.

2.  Talk to other family members who are either currently or have in the past, done research on your family.  Find out what they already know, what they’ve already done.  TIP:  Don’t take their word for anything unless they have well documented sources for the information (and I’m not talking about other online trees).  Use their information as a lead for your own research.

3.  Read some of the incredibly well written blogs that you can find online.  Many of the bloggers (and there are over 3,000 of us) offer tips and research strategies on a regular basis.  Most bloggers will give you a list of other bloggers they follow.  One blog will lead to another.  PLEASE SEE THE TAB AT THE TOP OF MY PAGE FOR THE BLOGS I FOLLOW.

4.  Join a local genealogical society and start attending meetings.  Whether it’s a very small group or a large one, you will find other like minded people who love nothing better than to talk about family research.  You’ll hear lots of ideas.  Take the best ones or the ones that fit you best and work from those.
 
Here’s are two posts I wrote about societies and why they will assist you in your research - SEMINARS, WEBINARS, SOCIETIES - Will they help your research?

HISTORICAL & FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETIES - Great Resources for Your Research

5.  Read some books.  I learned an incredible amount from the books I bought and read when I began this journey over 12 years ago.  You can either buy paper copies, download books to your e-reader, check them out from your local library or borrow them from other genealogists.  NOTE:  Our local society the San Diego Genealogical Society, has monthly meetings.  At each of those meetings there are used books for sale.
 
Please see the tab at the top of my blog for Books I Own.  Maybe some of them would be helpful to you?

6.  Join Facebook Groups.  There are a LOT of Facebook groups devoted to genealogy.  Whether it’s research tips, organizing tips, technology tips, location specific groups or whatever you might be looking for, you can probably find it on Facebook.  Here is a list (Click here) with over 5,500 links to Facebook groups from all over the world.  Thanks to Katherine R. Willson who created and updates this list.  
Here’s a post I wrote about how useful Facebook can be FACEBOOK - How it can be very useful in your research

I hope some of these suggestions have given you an idea where to begin your research.  Or maybe given you some new ideas to think about and explore.

I know I haven’t even begun to cover everything.

I’d love to hear about your successes and any other ideas you may have.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2015   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION