Might One of My Ancestors Have Seen a Total Solar Eclipse?

I thought April 8th's total solar eclipse was amazing.  We travelled back roads to a little town about 45 minutes away and sat in the tiny parking lot of a store.  We listened to NASA's live presentation as we waited and watched.  We saw two minutes of totality but not total darkness as shown in this photo.  It was like sunset all around the horizon.  The temperature cooled and some of the birds began their evening song.  Really, just a once in a lifetime experience (unless I'm still alive in 2045!)

Photo courtesy of NASA HQ Photo.   Thank you, NASA.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/53645326260/

My ears perked up when I heard one of the NASA hosts use the word "generation."  She may have said something like, it will be more than a generation before the next eclipse comes to Ohio, but I'm not sure.  Just the word "generation" took my thoughts to my ancestors.  How many of them might have seen a total eclipse?

As I researched online, if what I read can be trusted, a total solar eclipse happens about every 18 months but crosses the same part of the earth in only about every 375 years.  That didn't give me much hope for my Ohio and Pennsylvania ancestors seeing a total solar eclipse. 

Looking at maps of past eclipses, I could not find a total solar eclipse that crossed over the localities where my ancestors lived at the times they were alive.  I had hoped we might share that in common.

However, there were plenty of newspaper reports of eclipses which my ancestors might have read.  I enjoyed the quaint language of this section of a small article from the August 7, 1860, issue of the Cincinnati Daily Press on page 4, column 1, entitled "The Late Solar Eclipse in Europe."

It reads,

    The Paris correspondent of the London
Times writes as follows:
   It wanted a few minutes to two when the
eclipse began, and whenever the sky cleared
the opaque body of the moon might be seen
creeping on in slow but sure advances.  The
greatest portion of the sun was covered about
three o'clock, and such parts of the sky as
were visible assumed a darker blue.  It was
nearly a quarter to four o'clock when the sun
got quite released from the grasp of his in-
vader.

Some past total solar eclipses happened on the dates below, but I didn't note the locations.

• June 16, 1806
• February 12, 1831
• November 30, 1834
• July 17, 1860
• August 7, 1869
• July 29, 1878
• January 1, 1889
• April 16, 1893
• May 28, 1900

Thinking of my ancestors and solar eclipses reminded me of a post I wrote years ago titled Sharing the Sun.  My ancestors and I may not have a lot in common, but we have the sun. 

—Nancy.

Copyright © 2024 Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 
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Presentism, Us, and Our Ancestors

A while ago Yvette Hoitink of Dutch Genealogy published an interesting post, You're Welcome.  She pointed out that from one language to another, if we have a limited knowledge of a second language, we sometimes make assumptions about what the words in the second language mean.  She then suggested that we may similarly make assumptions when we look at the past and the lives and situations of our ancestors.  (If you are a genealogist who is satisfied with finding and recording only names and dates, this post may not interest you.)

Her post reminded me that I had learned a new word, and concept, just a day earlier:  presentism.  Dictionary.com defines the word this way.

pres·ent·ism
/ˈprezenˌtizəm/
noun
    uncritical adherence to present-day attitudes, especially the tendency to interpret past events [and I would add, people] in terms of modern values and concepts.

In what ways or about what situations might we adopt presentism when we think of our ancestors, their lives, and the times in which they lived?  Here are a few ideas.

• clothing and hairstyles
• choices of transportation
• methods of house- and grounds-keeping
• manners and etiquette
• literacy/illiteracy and education in general
  
• religious beliefs and how they lived those beliefs
• attitudes toward and treatment of women
• babies born out of wedlock
• beliefs about raising children
  
• treatment of animals
• men serving in the military, or not
• attitudes toward people of other races and nationalities
  
• and more . . . .
  

As a novice family historian I was surprised when I learned that one of my great-grandmothers was illiterate.  Then I learned that several more ancestors could neither read nor write.  It was common for the times in which they lived.  Don't assume, I told myself.

I wrote about a great-grandfather who drank his coffee from the saucer.  That would be unusual to see now but he'd been born in the early-to-mid 1800s.  Different times, different manners and customs.

One of my great-great-grandmothers became a widow with eight young children in 1870.  She was not given the option to manage her own affairs after the death of her husband.  We've come a long way since then.

When learning about and writing about our ancestors, it's important that we relate facts without editing out the unpleasant ones and without judging our ancestors' decisions and actions.  If we possibly can, we should write without bias.  After all, we did not live in their time, in their situation, among their family and neighbors, or with the mores of their time.  Their values may have been completely different from our own.  They did not live in our present "enlightened" age. 

I understand there are other viewpoints on this concept of presentism.  One is, those who did wrong should be held accountable for their actions.  But the question is, held accountable based on whose beliefs of right and wrong?  Our moral standards (which are not universal) or those contemporary to our ancestor?  For me, the past is the past and there's nothing I or anyone else can do to change it.  I must come to terms with it.  I think I should try to understand my ancestors' situations, their lives, and the times in which they lived in as unbiased and non-judgmental way as possible.

Do you have thoughts on presentism when it comes to your ancestors?

Read more on the topic at the links below.

• "Presentism" Imperils Our Future by Distorting Our Past 
• The allure and the dangers of "presentism" 
• The Growing Threat of Historical Presentism 
• Presentism:  Don’t Judge our Ancestors’ Actions by Today’s Standards 
• Avoiding the Pit of Presentism (from the point of view of a living historian) 
• Presentism:  The Dangerous Virus Spreading Across College Campuses
  

-–Nancy.

Copyright © 2022-2024 Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 
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Not Helpful

Two weeks ago we were visiting my daughter and her family.  While there I played dominoes with my grandson, M. age 9, and granddaughter,  O. age 7.  They were enthusiastic and it was all fun and games until we weren't able to add to our domino trains.  Without a domino to play, O. chose one from the boneyard, looked at it, looked around to see if she could place it on her train or someone else's and, when she couldn't, declared, "Not helpful."  

Today I say that Microsoft Windows is not helpful.  Two days ago it updated, and last night it told me it was configuring.  When it finished I had a whole new, unhelpful, computer configuration.  Nothing looked the same and the files were not readily available to my word processing program and were hard to find.  (I'm a dinosaur who still uses WordPerfect (WP).  We are compatible.  We know and like each other, and neither of us has changed for at least a dozen years.  I don't like change, which makes this nonsense with Windows even more unpleasant.  Not helpful.)  I was finally able to find and move some files and folders so they appeared in WP but by the time I figured it out, it was nearing 2 a.m., 3:30 by the time I went to bed.  Now that we're into a new day, I can't remember where I found the files or how I moved them.  But I (or my new Windows) didn't do such a great job last night/early this morning because the files and folders I moved are a jumble, not at all similar in arrangement to how they were before Windows reconfigured my computer.  I'm trying to figure out how to corral them back to their own folders.

Just not helpful.

Today I decided I should check on my photos.  (I was finally able to find them last night and let the computer, via Picasa, gather them together.)  Now, sadly, I have triple or more the number of folders I had before the reconfiguration and some have the same name (some are named the same thing 3 or 4 times) all with different numbers of photos, some duplicates and some not.  Windows renamed some of the photos or, maybe I should say, added letters, numbers, and underlines to the names they already had.  Those are the easy ones to know they should be deleted.  The others....  How on earth do I determine which are duplicates when they are in separate files?!  And Windows acts like they are not there.

Add to that the fact that Blogger is unable to find photos on my computer.  Well, I'm not able to find some of them either, for that matter.  Is there a lack of communication between Picasa and the computer?  I don't know what's happening.  Besides that, Windows won't let me find or change a photo for the background of my desktop computer, either.

One good thing is that RootsMagic found my files (two with the same name and date, identical as far as I can tell) and everything seems to be in order.  That's a blessing!

My daughter suggested I might have a virus.  I ran TrendMicro's HouseCall last night and again today and no threats were found either time.

I know that in the whole of life, considering the challenges that I could be facing, this is a small inconvenience.  It's not health or life and death, it just prevents me from working on family history -- sources in RootsMagic, renaming photos, etc.  It all just makes me tired, sad, and a little stressed. 

No help.  (No photos, either, for obvious reasons.)

Anyone else have a similar problem with a Windows update?

-–Nancy.

Copyright © 2021 Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 
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"A Very Convincing Lie"

I love this thought--the acknowledgement of a possibility--from The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab.  A similar thought has crossed my mind more than once.

"There’s this family photo," he says, "not the one in the hall, this other one, from back when I was six or seven.  That day was awful.  Muriel put gum in David’s book and I had a cold, and my parents were fighting right up until the flash went off.  And in the photo, we all look so . . . happy.  I remember seeing that picture and realizing that photographs weren’t real.  There’s no context, just the illusion that you’re showing a snapshot of a life, but life isn’t snapshots, it’s fluid.  So photos are like fictions.  I love that about them.  Everyone thinks photography is truth, but it’s just a very convincing lie.”

I have often wondered, when looking at some of my old family photographs, exactly what happened before the camera's shutter snapped.  So often I think I can see the hint of a smile in the eyes or about the mouth.  Had the photographer told a joke, or said "Say cheese," or had a member of the group piped up with a humorous quip? 

But among my family photos there is one in which nearly everyone looks either neutral, sour, or angry.  Only the young lady in the center bears the hit of a smile and the little girl on the right wears a full smile. (Click the photo to enlarge in a new screen, click again to enlarge again.)

Could it be that the "convincing lie" in this photo is that the family is truly a happy family caught in the midst of some unpleasantness just before the photographer snapped the photo?  The photo, a full-page black and white photocopy, was among the papers of my aunt, Polly Meinzen, after she died.  There were no names or a date noted anywhere.  Who knows what size the original image was, perhaps a tiny 2" x 4" snapshot, or maybe larger.  I wish she'd at least made a color photocopy, or better yet, had a real copy made.  I wish I had more but I'm grateful to have this.

Based on the dress sleeves of the two young women, back left, I date this image to about mid 1890s, 1894-1896.  I can identify the older man and woman as Henry and Elizabeth (Armitage) Meinzen.  The man at front left is their son, Henry.  The others are likely their children.

Henry, on the left, born in 1870, would have been about 25.
Other possible children are
> Hannah, born 1875, would have been about 20-21.
> Isabelle, born about, would have been about 15-16.
> Mina, born 1885, would have been 10-11.
> Lula, born 1887, would have been about 8-9.
> Bertha, born 1888, would have been about 7-8.
> W.C.R. Bob, my grandfather, born 1892, would have been about 3-4.
> Jacob, born 1893, would have been about 2-3.

I suspect the little blond boy in the center front is Jacob, and the little boy dressed in black is Bob.  But the girls....  Who could guess their ages and which is which?  I believe the young lady, upper left with the pouty face, is not one of Henry and Elizabeth's children.  She is in other family photos but my aunt, Doris (Meinzen) Dray, did not recognize her as one of her aunts.  Unless I find someone else who has this photograph with names and a date, I doubt I'll ever know for sure who the children are.

Do you have family photographs that you think show something other than the truth?  A photo snapped in the second everyone smiled when just before they were arguing?  The shutter opened just at the moment when everyone grimaced?  Photos showing "a very convincing lie?"  Or perhaps a photograph isn't a lie, just a split-second of real life?

–Nancy.

Copyright ©2021, Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 
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Introverts, Extroverts, Newspapers, and Ancestors

I am always thrilled to find snippets of information about my ancestors in newspapers.  Not long ago I found a tiny news article in the September 8, 1918, issue of the Butler Citizen that told me my great-grandfather, Fred Gerner, had caught his hand in a sulky plow which required amputation of some of his fingers.  Ouch!  It's not an accident you'd hope for anyone but interesting information to learn.

Other than a brief notice that Fred Gerner's will was being probated (which was in a newspaper in an adjacent county) this article about his accident with the plow is the only other time I've found Fred Gerner's name in a newspaper.  Fred and his wife Elvira had plenty of experiences when they could have been in the paper.  With 15 children you'd think they would have been mentioned in news articles about marriages.  Or, when two of their little girls died, one of poisoning, you'd think there would have been something in a newspaper about that.  Many old newspapers, as far as I can tell, were magnets for sensational news stories.  But no, nothing about my great-grandfather Fred Gerner.  Not even an obituary.

When I told my daughter about this article and the accident, her response was something like, "Oh, how awful to have been published in a newspaper, especially for an accident like that!"  She and I are both introverts and generally private about our personal affairs.  I agreed it would be awful to be in the newspaper for that reason, or almost any reason.  And then I began to wonder how much I could tell about whether an ancestor leaned toward being an introvert or an extrovert based on newspaper articles.  Perhaps not much.  But, on the other hand, maybe at least a little.

I've found more in newspapers about my Meinzen ancestors than any other family line.  There were accidents, marriages, obituaries, and two articles about my great--grandfather, Henry Meinzen showing off vegetables he grew.  At the time of the articles, right, he was a gardener living outside of Steubenville proper.  When he grew several plants to great size, a six pound radish and a 12 foot corn stalk, he toted them to the newspaper office in the nearby city where they were put on display and announced in the local newspaper, the Herald-Star (on Oct. 15, 1898, and Sept. 7, 1899).  Those are the actions of an extrovert!

My daughter reminded me of the time my husband sampled an insect at the state fair which resulted in a paragraph in a local newspaper.  He is positively an extrovert.

If I were to base personality on the number of times I see ancestors in newspaper articles I would have to say that most of my ancestors were introverts, or leaned that way, because it is rare to find news articles about them.  In reality that's probably not a fair basis for knowing an ancestor's personality.  Many ancestors lived in rural areas where small, local news items may not have been collected and published or where there may not have been local newspapers.

The idea of personality traits among my ancestors, including being an introvert or extrovert, is fascinating to me.  Would we have become friends?  Would we have enjoyed each others' company?  The only real resources to determine personality are from those who knew ancestors, someone who was a contemporary or a younger person who remembers the ancestor, or from someone who'd heard stories passed down.  That's a rare occurrence in my family.

If searching newspapers for articles about ancestors, be sure to determine whether the locale where they lived had more than one newspaper.  If so, pay attention to which newspaper was the gossipy one, the one that published snippets of who visited whom, who was courting whom, etc.  With today's OCR it's easier than ever to search for news articles about ancestors.

Do you have stories or news articles about ancestors that suggest his or her personality?

--Nancy.
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1850 or 2020 Census? I'd Rather Have the 1850, Please

In March, 2020, our mailbox received not just one but three pieces of mail from the U.S. Census Bureau.  Two were envelopes, the other a postcard.  All three announced that our response was required by law.  And census day wasn't until April 1.  With so many deaths from this pandemic I wonder if the descendants of some early responders to the census questions might be confused by seeing an ancestor listed as alive in the census on April 1, 2020, yet finding a death certificate for the ancestor dated sometime in March, 2020.

Responding to the questions online, all 13 of them, brought to mind the 1850 U.S. census with its 13 questions.  They rival each other for brevity, if not content.  I know the U.S. Census was not created to benefit family historians but from a family history viewpoint I'd rather have the 1850 census over the 2020 any day.  You? 

Just for interest's sake, here are the questions from each of these two census years.  The questions asked on the 1850 U. S. Census (and all other years except 2020) can be found at United States Census Index of Questions.  The questions on the 2020 U.S. Census can be found at United States Census 2020 - Questions Asked on the Form where you can read why the questions were asked and a guide for responding if you have any doubts.

1850 U.S. Census, Questions for Free Inhabitants  (Census date was June 1.)

1. Number of dwelling house (in order visited)
2. Number of family (in order visited)
3. Name
4. Age
5. Sex
6. Color  (This column was to be left blank if a person was White, marked "B" if a person was Black, and marked "M" if a person was Mulatto.)
7. Profession, occupation, or trade of each person over 15 years of age
8. Value of real estate owned by person
9. Place of Birth  (If a person was born in the United States, the enumerator was to enter the state they were born in. If the person was born outside of the United States, the enumerator was to enter their native country.)
10. Was the person married within the last year?
11. Was the person at school within the last year?
12. If this person was over 20 years of age, could they read and write?
13. Is the person "deaf, dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper, or convict?

2020 Census Questions  (Census date was April 1.)
Questions 1-5 were household questions.  Numbers 6-13 were to be answered for each individual living at the address.

1. Number of people living or staying at this address
2. Name of each person who was living or staying at this address
3. Was the house, apartment, or mobile home owned by you or someone in this household with a mortgage or loan; owned by you or someone in this household free and clear (without a mortgage or loan); rented; or occupied without payment of rent?
4. Your telephone number
5. Person's name
6. Sex
7. Age and date of birth
8. Of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin (with option to answer yes or no)?
9. Race (Each option has a space to claim a more detailed ancestry such as Black or African American; American Indian or Alaska Native; Chinese; Asian Indian; Samoan; etc.)
10. Name of Person 2 living at this address
11. Does this person usually live or stay somewhere else?
12. How is other person living in the home related to the first person?  (Respondent can choose from sixteen relationship options.)

There's not much overlap in the questions:  name, age, sex, color.  And location.

Paper-lover that I am, it's hard to imagine what this 2020 census would look like if it had to be compiled into a form other than online.  I love the paper census pages with columns of questions and rows with names and responses to the questions.  The organization makes it easy to view quickly as well as comb through carefully.  This 2020 Census will probably never be presented in such a simple format.

As brief and uninformative as the 2020 Census is (from a genealogist's viewpoint) there's a good chance that any of you reading this post and many others who won't but who are family historians, are already keeping records for yourself and your immediate family members which will give more information than a U.S. Census ever could.  Pity the new researcher in 2092 who's just beginning, hoping to find helpful information in the 2020 census.

–Nancy.

Copyright ©2020, Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 
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A Question of Longevity

I suspect I am tied to paper for the rest of my life.  I love using a computer for some things but others just need paper and pen.  For example, a calendar book.

About a dozen years ago I bought a book similar to the one to the right.  It suited me perfectly with its monthly and weekly 2-page spreads.  Monthly for a quick glance at major events, weekly for to do lists and appointments.  I tried to buy one the next year but that style was not to be found in stores nor online.  I guessed they discontinued making them.  Even then there were probably few people like me who loved the physicality and ease of paper calendars.

So, being resourceful and having enough computer and word processing skills to create a similar book, I set out to duplicate the calendar book I loved.  I succeeded and have been making them annually ever since.

These books get pretty racked up by the end of a year:  I shove the book into and pull it out of my purse, make notes, pencil-in and erase entries, and sometimes paste in bits of paper.  The wire binding and flexible cover allow me to put a pencil between the pages before I close the book.  Handy.  It's all very handy.  If you like paper.  And probably faster than your digital calendar.  My doctor once asked me when I'd had a particular exam.  When I couldn't remember the date, she started looking through my digital records on her computer.  I pulled out my calendar book and found the date in no time.  She bemoaned needing to change to digital medical records.  I find computers are faster for some things, paper is faster for others.

I've probably made at least a dozen of these books.  I cut the paper to size with a paper cutter, punched the holes with a hand paper punch (about 5 pages at a time), used a punch to round the outer corners of all the pages and the cover, made divider tabs for the months, and made tyvek envelopes with holes punched along the side to go at the back of the book for miscellaneous items.

This year I learned of a local company who, for a price, would cut a ream of paper to size (3 calendar book pages per 8½" x 11½" sheet) AND punch holes in all the pages AND include the wire bindings cut to size.  I considered the cost of all of this and the time I spend to make one calendar book each year.  Imagining a whole ream's worth of calendar pages ready for printing and binding almost made me giddy.  It seemed like a dream come true.

And then I realized that having a whole ream of paper cut to size for calendar books would give me 1500 pages and allow me to make 18 books!  Eighteen!  I started to chuckle when the absurdity of having paper and bindings for 18 years' worth of books hit me.  I'll be turning 70 in a few weeks.  Will I still want calendar books like these when I'm 88?  Will I even be able to make them at that age?  Will I even be alive in 2038?

I had the whole ream cut and hole punched.

But the idea of longevity has been swirling around in my mind.

• How long will I live?  Will I be alive in 18 years?
• How long will I be physically capable of creating these books?
• How long will I be mentally capable of creating these books?
• How long will I have a computer/computer program capable of making the calendar pages the way I want them?  The longevity of computer programs seems to be decreasing quickly.  Perhaps the old WordPerfect word processor I use will not be compatible with some new computer I'll need in a few years.
• Will we even be using computers in 18 years, or will we all be using small devices like cellphones and tablets?
• How long will my interest in jotting down to-do lists and appointments last? 
• In 15 or 16 or 17 years, will I have finally converted to a digital calendar?
• And no, I'm not in the least concerned about the longevity of the paper in these books.  They're for my use, not for posterity's sake.  If they last longer than I do, my daughters will probably throw them away, or, if they look through them first, chuckle at what they find inside.

My most recent ancestors have lived only into their 70s or early 80s, but I have earlier ancestors who lived into their 90s.  Am I as healthy as they were?  Or are there other factors at play in their long lives?

We never know how long we'll live, what our life span will be, what we'll be able to accomplish in a lifetime or near the end of our lives.  I guess, long or short life, the point is to live it, enjoy it, do our best and try to keep getting better from one day to the next.  That's my plan.  And I hope to continue making and using my paper calendar books.

Wishing you a long and happy life!

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2020, Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 
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Reasons the Cook is Grateful, Post-Thanksgiving Dinner

Indeed!  I'm grateful not to be one of my ancestors today.  This Thanksgiving I'm feeling so very grateful to live in 2018 instead of 1918 or 1868, or any previous year or any year between those dates.  We cooks and cleaner-uppers have a relatively easy time of it compared to our ancestors, with blessings that we may not even notice.   For example:

Our turkey.  I bought a frozen turkey at the store and thawed in it my refrigerator.  I'm grateful I didn't have to hunt, shoot, kill, and clean a turkey for dinner.  And am even more grateful I didn't have to raise one.

Potatoes.  I bought our our potatoes at the store.  I'm grateful I didn't have to plant, harvest, and clean them, especially because harvests are dependent on the weather and there's no guarantee of a harvest in any particular year.  And I love potatoes!

Stores with plentiful supplies.  I also bought green beans, corn, crescent rolls, bread for stuffing, and all the other food we ate.  I can't imagine having to harvest the wheat, grind it, and bake bread for the meal and for stuffing.

Butter, whipped cream, and milk.  I don't have to keep a cow to have butter and milk.  I don't have to churn the cream to have butter or whip it into cream.  Again, thank goodness for the abundance of the grocery store.

Running water.  And then there's the running water right in my home -- heated, no less.  I don't have to walk a distance to collect limited amounts of water, carry it home, and heat it.  And, of course, we have drains for the used water to flow away.

Kitchen Aid mixer.  It kneads my dough, mixes my cookies and pie fillings, so many things I don't have to do by hand.  What a blessing.

An electric stove (or even a gas stove).  Turn it on, it heats, I put the food in, and it cooks.  Done.  And we eat.  Well, there are a few steps between, like mashing the potatoes and making the gravy.  It's hard to imagine cooking a whole Thanksgiving meal over an outdoor fire, in a fireplace, or even on a wood stove.  (I admit there have been two years when our oven died -- once while the turkey was cooking and another on the day before so electric stoves are not sure-proof, but nearly so.)

A dishwasher.  It doesn't take care of all the pots and pans but what a blessing to have it wash and clean most of the dishes.  During childhood Thanksgivings or any other large get-togethers, the women prepared the food, served, sat and ate, then gathered in the kitchen to take turns washing and drying the dishes.  Depending on the group of ladies involved, it was often a fun time with much laughter and jokes.  But still, it was a lot of work.

Electricity to run all the appliances.  What good would a dishwasher, or stove and oven, be without electricity!  I'm grateful for clean dishes, heat, and light, plus plenty of other appliances, at the flip of a switch.  My post-20th century ancestors carried on without it.

I'm sure I've forgotten some things that make my life easier, things I take for granted.  What would you add to the list?

I know the cooks of centuries ago had no knowledge of future luxuries.  They may have lamented the hardness of their lives and the challenges of some of the tasks they had to perform, but there was usually no easier way until some invention came along.  Gradual progress made lives and work easier.  I'm grateful to live in a time when work is easier.

Happy Thanksgiving, Ancestors!  And Happy Thanksgiving to you, dear readers.

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2018, Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 
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Parting Ways with My Ancestors

Sometimes my ancestors and I part ways for a while.  That happened in September when there were too many real life experiences happening (my husband's foot surgery, a new 20-hour-per-week calling at church, a coming grandbaby who needs a quilt made by his gramma, etc.) requiring my time and attention.  I just couldn't fit family history into my life.  It was too full!  Usually my ancestors' lives are somehow connected to and a part my own, even if only thinking of where to search next or imagining theirs lives, but occasionally I have to let them rest while living my life takes precedence over searching for them and their lives.  I imagine them watching from afar, cheering me on while hoping I'll get back to them soon.




Before I left my ancestors in September I was searching for more information about my Doyle ancestors in England in the early to mid-1800s and in Pennsylvania in the mid-to late-1800s.  The paper copies of documents I'd printed and purchased looked like this, a nice stack several inches high, piled into a notebook.  Each paper has a name and a source and many have additional notes.  Sadly they are not organized other than by surname -- well, two surnames; or maybe three.  But they're all related, the Doyles, Laws, and Reays.

I can almost hear readers who prefer digital saying, "That stack of papers is exactly why I use digital images instead of paper."  To which I would respond, we all have our own preferences but I can assure you that my digital copies for these individuals don't look too much better than these paper ones.

Things got worse when I spread out the papers to sort and organize them.  I had printed the results of searches from the U.K.'s birth, marriage, and death indexes at FreeBMD, Find My Past, and FamilySearch.  I'd also printed indexed church transcriptions from U.K.'s FreeReg and FamilySearch.  And there are transcriptions for a number of families from the 1841 through 1881 U.K. censuses, not to mention 1870 through 1920 U.S. census records.  And, of course, there are the copies of records I received from U.K. GRO.  A treasure trove of Doyle records and notes!  Many of the records have been transcribed into my word processing program but few have been added to RootsMagic.

To make progress on these papers there are some things I need to do.
> Sort them by individual, where possible (not possible with census records)
> Sort them into families
> Note names, relationships, ages, locations, etc.
> Compare information
> Evaluate the information and relationships
> Transcribe (if not already done)
> Add to RootsMagic

The lesson I need to learn is to sort, organize, and file documents when I find them.  On the other hand, having found several documents does not confirm that they are the correct people to add to my family tree.  Sometimes it seems like a delicate balance.

For the sake of conversation and my curiosity, do you ever find yourself with a pile of papers (or digital images) that need sorting and organizing?  If so, what steps do you take?  And do you ever part ways with your ancestors?

I don't like parting ways with my ancestors and hope it doesn't happen again for a while and never for as long as a month!

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2018, Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 
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"You remember when . . . ."

How often have you been doing something when your mind glides to an event that happened days or even years ago and you find yourself deep in a memory?  It happens to me and others in my family often and we can't resist sharing.  Then a conversation begins with the phrase, "You remember when...."  With "Do" omitted from the beginning, it becomes more of a statement than a question, because we're 99% certain that the person we're talking to does "remember when," no matter what the memory.  Here is a sampling of a few of our conversations.

     "You remember when we used to go to Ohio Village nearly every weekend."
     "Yes, I loved it there.  It was almost like a second home.  You remember the General Store."
     "We used to get chocolate covered peanuts there.  And you used to get licorice.  You remember how we took carrots to feed the horses."
     "Oh, yes!  Especially for Jean.  I loved Jean with her soft muzzle and gentle ways.  Belgians are such wonderful horses."
     "You remember that we always went the Friday after Thanksgiving for the market."
     "It was a great way to avoid the crowds at the regular stores and we always found one or two perfect gifts.  You remember the Ohio Village Singers...."
The discussion might continue for 10 or 15 minutes as we share memories of happy times at the Village. 

     "You remember the time when everyone except me got sick on the way to Gouverneur that one year."
     "I kind of remember that.  Remind me what happened."
     "We stopped for pizza.  You guys all ate the pepperoni and I didn't.  We had to stay at a motel even though we were only an hour or two away."
     "Now I remember.  That was awful."

     "You remember when we went to Colonial Williamsburg for the first time."
     "I remember the first house we went in had re-enactors and I didn't understand what was going on.  I asked, 'What year is it?'  Thomas Jefferson pulled out his almanac and confirmed that the year was 1775.  And then he asked where we'd come from.  When we told him Ohio he was astounded that we'd traveled that long distance from the area of Virginia known as Ohio.  He said he could understand why I didn't know what year it was."
     "That was so funny.  You remember 'Little Chops.'  There was that round baby and the man pinched his fat cheeks and called him Little Chops."
     "That baby was very round.  You remember...."

     "You remember doing the ads?"
     "Oh my gosh, who could forget the ads!  Awful job!"
     "You remember how we used to set everything up on the floor in the living room on Saturday nights, then you would stuff the bags while we watched 'Dr. Quinn?'  And sometimes we had pizza."
     "I forgot about the pizza but I remember everything else.  I learned to work really fast to stuff 300 bags with all those papers."
     "You remember that we delivered them on Monday nights?  And that guy who was grumpy?  And the other house that wanted the bag a particular way?"
     "I remember there were several people who were really particular...."

The family of my childhood rarely, if ever, talked about experiences or shared memories of events.  There were no conversations that began with "You remember when."  As adult siblings we sometimes share memories, each voicing the event from a different point of view, but those are also rare occasions.

I think sharing family memories is a way to strengthen family bonds and encourage unity:  we did this together as a family and we enjoyed each others' company.  I also think it's similar to telling family stories.  Not all events and experiences in life are good, happy, or pleasant, yet we can usually learn something from the less pleasant ones. 

While I was writing this post I remembered Bruce Feiler's excellent article, "The Stories That Bind Us," in which he discussed research findings about how family narratives and the sharing of known events in the lives of the adult family members can help children become resilient.  Remembering events together, sharing our own views of how things happened with other family members, can be part of creating a family narrative.

I love that we, in our little family, bring up past events and our memories of them.  So often, we find that we all had similar experiences and views.  I hope my daughters will retell these stories and memories to my grandchildren, thereby creating an inter-generational narrative.  And I hope they'll carry on the tradition of saying, "You remember when...."

Do you and the members of your family share and discuss memories?

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2018, Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission of the owner.  .

Springing Forward for Daylight Saving Time

Are you ready to "spring forward" tonight or in the wee hours of Sunday morning?  Change your clocks (if you have to do it manually) before bed?  Lose one hour of sleep?  Have the morning dark continue an hour later, and the evening light last an hour later--at least according to the clock?  These days I don't think we have a choice if we want to arrive at work or other activities on time, keep appointments, and meet deadlines for travel on planes, buses, etc.

In his book Spring Forward:  The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time, Michael Downing relates the history of Daylight Saving Time from the time it became law in 1918 as "An Act to preserve daylight and provide standard time for the United States," to almost the present.  He also discusses the creation of standard time, time zones, the challenges of having no standard time, and plenty more.

Until reading this book I had not realized that prior to this law there was no standard time in the U.S.  Times between cities or farms could vary by a few minutes or as many as 50 minutes.  A 30-minute ride on a train could result in leaving and arriving at the same time.  Crazy.  The railroads needed the standardized time for the trains to run efficiently.

Part of the purpose of changing the clocks was to save fuel, the idea being that less electricity, gasoline, and oil would be used if it were light an hour later in the evening.  Apparently no one thought of the need for lights during the hour of darkness in the morning traded for the hour of light in the evening. 

There were plenty of people who were opposed to Daylight Saving Time:  farmers, theater owners, baseball players (who refused to play under artificial light), those who looked at leisure time with an eye toward laziness, those who thought government was messing with "God's time."  And there were those who loved it:  golfers, factory workers, automobile manufacturers (because auto sales increased), those who thought it saved fuel, and anyone who wanted an additional hour of light at the end of the day for leisure activities.  Some people and cities chose to change their clocks, others didn't.  It seems that New York City's choice to adopt Daylight Saving Time was the push needed for other cities to adopt it as well.

I searched for an online newspaper contemporary with my farming ancestors in Mercer and Butler Counties, Pennsylvania, which mentioned Daylight Saving Time with the hope of learning how those in the community felt about its adoption.  I guessed that my farmers, Fred Gerner and William and Gust Doyle, would not have been in favor of the change.  For one thing, they couldn't harvest dew-covered crops and would, therefore, have had to wait an additional hour before beginning some of the day's work.

Nothing from their area came to light but I did found "Daylight-Saving Petitions" on the front page of the Wednesday, September 3, 1919, edition of the Harrisburg Telegraph.

DAYLIGHT-SAVING PETITIONS
   Daylight saving petitions which the Harrisburg Telegraph was asked to prepare for the great number of Harrisburg folks who want an extra house of sunshine during the summer months now are ready for distribution.
   The petitions are directed to members of Council and call upon the City Commissioners to pass a daylight saving measure for the months of May, June, July, August and September.
   These petitions may be circulated by baseball players, amateur gardeners, golfers, fishermen and all others who have benefited by the extra hour of daylight.  Any man or woman who desires to stave off darkness next summer may secure one of the petitions or sign one in the business office of this newspaper.

Benjamin Franklin has been attributed as the first person to propose the idea of changing the clocks.  He did not propose changing the hands of the clock but suggested that people get up earlier in the morning to take advantage of every hour of daylight.  Wasn't Franklin a wise man to realize that no matter what you do with the hands of a clock, there are a set number of hours and minutes the sun will shine on any given day?  As if turning the hands of the clock will "save" the daylight, prevent its going, and prevent the sun's setting!

If you're still reading I'm sure you realize by now that I'm not a fan of Daylight Saving Time.  I'm not a morning person but the earlier the sun rises by the clock, the earlier I awake and arise.  I dislike giving up an hour of morning sun only to have it tacked on to the end of the day.  Where I live the sun rose at 6:51 a.m. this morning.  It will not rise at 6:51 a.m. again until April 17, more than five weeks from now.  And that's saving daylight?

Do you like of Daylight Saving Time?  Do you know if your ancestors who lived after 1918 had any opinions about it? 

--Nancy.

P.S.  For more about Daylight Saving Time and its history, see

• Smithsonian Magazine's article, One Hundred Years Later, the Madness of Daylight Saving Time Endures
• National Geographic's article, The Strange and Surprising History of Daylight Saving Time 

Copyright ©2018, Nancy Messier. All Rights Reserved.

What Love Looks Like

It starts with Love with a capital L, hugs, kisses, hearts aflutter, can't get him (or her) of the mind, romance.  Young love, the kind of love one thinks will last forever.  I know that happened with my parents because I can see it in their eyes in photographs.

That love lasts for a few months -- or years, if a couple is lucky.  The romance dwindles and then love begins to become a steady sureness.  Happy moments and sparks of romance may continue.

Then there are three children and he and she are both tired nearly all the time.  He works turns at a steel mill, sometimes 12 hours a day, five or six days a week.  She soldiers on alone at home, keeping the home in order, the children clean and fed.  Both fall into bed exhausted.  You can see the exhaustion in their eyes.  Does love still exist?

By the time I was old enough to have an idea what love was I was certain my parents were not in love.  I didn't see them hug or kiss.  I didn't see them have conversations.  And I was fairly certain that they didn't even love each other. 

What a child knows about love comes from movies, books, and the imagination.  What married couples know about love comes from a lifetime of living together and caring for each other.  Quiet acts of selfless service, choosing forgiveness instead of offense, seeing the best in the other while ignoring (or trying to ignore) the worst, working together toward mutual goals, choosing unity over self.  One doesn't know how much work a marriage takes until married.

As an adult I know the things I saw as a child were evidence of my parents' love for each other.

• Dad working at a hard and tiring job in a steel mill plus several other jobs to provide for his family.
• Mom working to keep a clean and organized home and neat, tidy, well-behaved children.
• Dad and Mom working together to live within a budget and also set aside a little for savings.
• Dad making repairs and improvements at home, making sure everything worked.
• Mom planning and preparing healthy and nutritious meals, packing lunches for Dad.
• Dad always opening the car door for Mom.
• Mom washing and carefully folding Dad's clothes and putting them away.
• Mom and Dad both spoke quietly to each other, as far as I remember.
• They worked together on home improvement projects without quarreling.

My parents had been married nearly 49 years when my father died.  My mother was disconsolate and, I think, felt desolate.  My father had taken care of her in many ways, while she took care of him in other ways.  Both his care for her was gone and her ability to care for him was unneeded.  I think she mourned the rest of her life.

What does love look like?  It has so many faces, from the hearts-aflutter times, through the exhaustion and the challenges of raising and providing for a family, all the way to quiet knowledge of loving and being loved by one's spouse.  I saw what love looks like with my parents.  I just didn't realize it till I was an adult.

The day's almost over but I'd like to wish you a Happy Valentine's Day.

I'm sharing this post as part of Amy Johnson Crow's 2019 version of 52 Ancestors.  The post topic for the week was "Love."

And I'm linking this post to The Genealogy Blog Party Stories of Love at My Descendant's Ancestors.  Thanks for hosting, Elizabeth.

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2018-2019, Nancy Messier. All Rights Reserved.
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A Confession

Everyone is in the same situation I am as far as ancestors go:  we all have the same number of them.  By my count, after 2 parents the number of ancestors in each successive generation back in time doubles, making 14 ancestors by the time we reach our great-grandparents, 126 ancestors by our 4th great-grandparents, and 1,022 by the time we get to our 8th great-grandparents.

But me?  I confess:  I have absolutely too many ancestors.  Finding 1,022 individuals who lived as long ago as the 1700s is entirely too many.  For that matter, finding 126 ancestors seems like too many, too.

Maybe the problem is not the number of ancestors but the fact that I have to find so much information about them to recognize them as my own family members.  A simple search for a death record, which if not available, may turn into a search for a burial record, or a will or probate record, or an obituary, or some other record to indicate a death date and location and a family relationship.  Going back in time we search for a marriage record, either civil or church, and/or banns, or a newspaper article, possibly even an article detailing an anniversary celebration.  Or maybe it's someone else's will naming the couple as husband and wife.  Of course, there's the search for a birth record, either civil or church, newspaper announcement, etc.  And the list of possible documents goes on....

If you want my opinion, there are just too many records and documents available.  We don't need all those documents.  The only ones we need are the ones that document my family.  I suppose we should keep the ones that document your family, too, shouldn't we?

And there are so many places to search for those documents.  If there were three specific, known places to find each ancestor's information it would be so much easier.  Found and done.  But no, the records are all over the place -- online in any number of genealogy collections, in courthouses, in libraries, at historical societies....  Not to mention the fact that our ancestors didn't stay in one place. 

Then there are the relationships.  Keeping them straight is a challenge.  Someone asks, "Who was so-and-so's husband?"  Uh... let me check.  I can't remember everyone.  Besides not remembering them, I confuse them.  Was it Robert Laws or Robert Reay?  You'd think I could keep everyone straight.  After all, they ARE my family.  I can keep three generations of couples in mind and remember who belongs where in the family structure, but when it comes to the children, which we sometimes have to find, that's another problem altogether.  Some ancestors married again after the death of a spouse or after a divorce which means more searches.  Add to that the fact that children died, more children were born who were sometimes given the same name as children who died.  Some ancestors have the same name, passed down from mother to daughter to granddaughter or from father to son to grandson.  Who is who?  Sometimes those names were given to nieces and nephews, confusing the matter even more.  Ancestors can be a challenge to keep in line.

Sometimes the search has to extend to the individual's sons and daughters, sometimes to his or her  siblings, sometimes even more broadly, all in the search for and hope of finding my direct ancestor's parents.  Well, that's not exactly true.  I really want to find all the children of an ancestor so I can gather the family back together.  More people, more challenges -- too many people.

Of course, it's not enough to know only dates of birth, death, and marriage.  I want to know if they owned property, where they lived, what the house looked like, who built it, what church they attended, how far it was to get there, what their occupations were, whether they owned a business or were paid employees, etc.  For my farming ancestors I want to know what crops they grew, how many acres of land they owned, what animals they had, the names of their horses, etc.  For my coal mining ancestors I want to know where they lived, which mines they worked in, exactly what their jobs were in the mines, how much they earned, why they moved from one mine to another, and on and on.  My ancestors could have helped a lot if they'd kept written records and passed them along to me.  (If they had written things down, I'm sure the record would have ended up in some other descendant's hands, probably someone who wouldn't have cared a whit and tossed the papers.)

But despite feeling like I have too many ancestors, I believe their spirits are alive in the Great Beyond and that they want to be found.  So I can't imagine saying to any one of them, I can't search for you.  I already have too many ancestors.  (But just between you and me, sometimes one more ancestor feels like one more ancestor too many.)

I know I wouldn't be here without every single one -- grandparent to nth great-grandparent -- so I'm grateful to each of them.  But that doesn't prevent the occasional thought that there really are just too many of them. 

How about you?  Do you have too many ancestors?

--Nancy.

Copyright © 2017, Nancy Messier. All Rights Reserved.
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Too Much Death on the Same Day

We family historians know about death.  We want to -- really, we need to -- find and document death dates and other information surrounding an ancestor's death.  And we know it's an inevitable part of life.

But today... today was a hard day in the death department.  Of the four U.K. GRO death certificates I requested only three turned out to be for family members, but all three of those people died too early and of unnatural causes.  It breaks my heart to know that a father and daughter died 15 days apart due to very different causes of death, leaving behind a wife and mother and several other children.  It breaks my heart that a mother in a different family died leaving behind a husband and two little girls. 

Learning of these three deaths on the same day... there's been too much death in my family today. 

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2017 Nancy Messier. All Rights Reserved.
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New Technology in the Lives of My Ancestors

This week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, proposed by Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings, sounded fun.  These are the questions to answer:

• What technology changes did your ancestors see?
• What technology changes have you seen?
• Did your family own one of those early changes? - such as television
• Do you like or dislike technology?
• What do you think has been the best technological change in your lifetime and historically?

Before writing this post I briefly researched major inventions and realized that the years most inventions were created were not the years they came into regular use.  For some, it was several decades before they became common in homes.  More recent inventions seem to have hit the market and become popular more quickly.

For example, the compact cassette player was invented in 1962 but did not become popular until a few years later.  I graduated from high school in 1968, went off to college, and in 1971 or 1972, was required to use a cassette recorder for a linguistics course.  Not owning one and choosing not to buy one, I borrowed one from the university.  I took it home over a weekend to work on the project.  My father wanted to see this machine and learn what it did.  He was fascinated.  I think he bought one within a week or so.

New technology popularly used in my dad's lifetime, 1913 to 1987, included sound movies, ballpoint pens, photocopies, microwave ovens, transistor radios, 8 mm film for home movies, pocket calculators, and electric refrigerators which were surely a welcome technology to the women who probably used them more than anyone.

Dad disdained the use of pocket calculators, but that's because he could do the math in his head faster than anyone could punch in the numbers.  But he bought and used a movie camera in 1966 and used it for years.

I think my father liked new technology when he was introduced to it, though he didn't seek it out.  In about 1960 we visited his aunt whose daughter and son-in-law owned a restaurant.  After eating dinner there we ordered pie a la mode.  The pie was warm, the ice cream cold.  Dad asked if the pie had just come out of the oven.  No, they'd put it in the microwave to warm it.  And the ice cream?  Was that added after?  No, they put the ice cream on the pie before putting both in the microwave.  And the pie was warm and the ice cream cold!  Amazing.  I think we were the first in our little town to have a microwave oven.  Of course, Mom and Dad used it for not much more than to heat water for instant coffee and warm pie.

Going back one generation to my grandparents, who lived roughly between the years of 1888 and 1979, they were blessed by the invention of radios, movies, the zipper, airplanes, automobiles, and, especially appreciated by the women, electric vacuum cleaners and electric washers. 

And going back two generations to my great-grandparents, who lived from about the 1840s through the 1920s, they would have seen the inventions of electricity to power electric lights and electric vacuum cleaners;  anaesthesia and pasteurization for health; safety pins and sewing machines; plastics, including celluloid, polyethylene, and bakelite; the telephone, the phonograph, and the gasoline engine.   

Going back to my third generation of ancestors, my great-great-grandparents were born in the in the the early 1800s and lived until nearly the end of the 19th century.  Those ancestors would have appreciated the steam locomotive, the telegraph, and Daguerreotypes.

I imagine all of these inventions would have made the lives of my ancestors easier and/or better.  I try to imagine living without some of the technology we have now -- especially in the medical fields -- and can't.  I can't even imagine going back to only the technology available during my childhood.  What would I do without a computer, a printer, a scanner, a tablet, a cell phone, the internet?  It would feel like the dark ages without them, even though I'm often technologically challenged.  One of the earliest introductions to technology was when our first TV came home in the early 1950s.  I remember how exciting it was to watch the children's programs.  How did they make the people so small that they fit inside the box?  And how did they get out of the box?

To me, one of the best and worst technology inventions is the internet and all the ways we have to connect to it.  It offers so many learning opportunities, contains so much information and, in many ways, it helps people who live at a distance connect to each other.  But I also see it isolating and preventing people from interacting with each other.  Instead of talking face to face, I see eyes focused on gadgets, ignoring the people sitting next to them.

Interesting topic, Randy.  Thanks for choosing it.

--Nancy.

Atari image courtesy of Bibly on Wikimedia Commons.

Copyright ©2017 Nancy Messier. All Rights Reserved.
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The Expectations and Surprises of a Beginning Family History Researcher

"Really?" was one of those words that was often on my lips when I first began family history research.  At the time I knew little about my family or my ancestors and even less about family history research.  I expected that certain things would be true:  names, ages, locations, etc.  At first I was confounded by research results (Is this my ancestor or not?) and then I was surprised.  Below are some of my expectations and the surprises I found.

Expectation #1

• Surnames will be spelled the same on all documents.  Our family's names are spelled D-o-y-l-e, M-e-i-n-z-e-n, and G-e-r-n-e-r, etc.  If a name is spelled some other way it's not my family. 

The Surprise

• What's this:  D-o-y-l, M-i-n-s-e-n, and G-u-r-n-e-r?  Can these be my people when the spelling of surnames changes from one document to the next, from one year to the next?  I deliberated whether a family who looked like it could be my family in a census (same first names and ages, location correct) was really mine because the spelling of the surname was wrong.  I saved the document as a possible match and searched for the family in another census -- and found another spelling variation.  Hmmm. 

And Now I anticipate surname variations and sometimes keep a list of possible spellings at hand.  Occasionally I purposely search the variations.  I take them as clues to how names may have been pronounced.

Expectation #2

• Ages will be the same in documents from the same year and increase the exact number of years from the date of one document to the next. 

The Surprise

• How can he be 52 in the 1880 census when he was 40 in 1870, and the censuses are only 10 years apart?  This probably isn't my person.  

And Now I know that ages can vary by at least several years across all documents with ages on them.  I generally search birth dates within a range.  Ages in census records can be different because census dates vary.  Perhaps people didn't keep track of their ages or perhaps ages were less important a hundred or more years ago.  Sometimes it's possible to narrow down a birth month if one knows the census dates.

The Expectation #3

• Given names will remain the same, will be spelled the same, and if there are given and middle names, they will remain in the same order. 

The Surprise

• Is it Tressa Rose or Rose Tressa?  Is her name Belle, Isabelle, Isabella, or Belletta?  Did people change their names on a whim?

And Now I have no expectation that given names will have exact consistency over time, though I hope for only small/few variations in spelling and order. 

Expectation #4

• Well of course my ancestors could read and write.  That's a given for an educated person.  I'm sure all my ancestors had good educations.

The Surprise

• She's listed as unable to read and write.  Really?!  And so are plenty of others among my ancestors.

And Now I'm surprised when I learn that ancestors could read and write.  My ancestors learned in many different ways and may have known much more than I do about a great variety of things.  Being able to read was less important when not everyone owned books.  Being illiterate does not mean a person was/is unintelligent. 

Expectation #5

• Skeletons in my family's closet?  Surely not!  My ancestors were fine, upstanding, law-abiding citizens who were normal in every way.

The Surprise

• He committed suicide?!  He was killed in an accident?  Why didn't I ever hear about this when I was a kid?  (Of course I wouldn't have heard because I came from a family of non-storytellers.)

And Now I think how sad that an ancestor found himself/herself in a such a situation, but I can't change the past.  Dramatic, traumatic, and horrific events are recorded in newspapers (though not always accurately) which means it's sometimes easier to find the ancestors who were "different" in some way or other.

Expectation #6

• When family "records" tell me that he immigrated with his family in 1869, that's what I expect to find.

The Surprise

• Immigration records show that he came in 1868 and his family came in 1869.  Are those my people?

And Now I don't accept family "records" as gospel.  I think of them as hints and then search for documents to support, correct, and/or clarify the family "records."

Expectation #7

• Finding children will be as easy as looking at a census record.

The Surprise

• There's no "one" list?  One census lists eight children, another says the mother had 12 children with 9 living, and the father's will lists five children. 

And Now I realize there might always be another child and be aware of documents that may reveal them.  If there's a 1910 census I use that as a basis to begin (because it asks how many children the mother had and how many were living at the time).  And just because the census states that she was the mother of 10 children I know her current husband may or may not be the father of all of them. 

Expectation #8

• His wife's name is Sarah.  I'm sure there's a marriage record.

The Surprise

• This marriage records her name as Mary, not Sarah!

And now I wonder if either Mary or Sarah are middle names.  And I'm aware that an individual may have married more than once so I search for marriage records for both Mary and Sarah and/or other documents that indicate they were the same person.

Expectation #9

• Children always know their father's and mother's names.

The Surprise

• Her death certificate says "doesn't know" for name of mother/father.  How can that be?  How could she not know her own parent's name?

And Now I know that the informant listed on the death certificate may be the one who didn't know the parent's name, not the deceased.  I'm also aware that if a parent died when a child was very young he may not know anything about his birth parent, including name, especially if the surviving parent remarried.  And sometimes, people just didn't keep track of that information, especially a mother's maiden name.

These are a few of the expectations I remember having as a beginner.  Those early years of research were interesting with their misunderstandings and uncertainties but I eventually found and sorted out the ancestors of those early searches.

What were some of your expectations when you first began family history research?  What surprises did you find? 

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2017 Nancy Messier. All Rights Reserved.