Thursday 16 October 2014

This N That Times Three, From the Desk of Reflections

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Three things:

1.)  As Man and I contemplate possible travels this winter, here is the latest update on the memorial markers.  All have been ordered and a few dollar$ have been forwarded to the cemeteries for bases and perpetual care.  A few more dollar$ have been spent for deposits on the memorials.  Now we wait.

2.)  I have been participating in the 52 Ancestor Week meme hosted by Amy Johnson Crow, at No Story Too Small.

It is a challenge, but, it is also a great example of how to improve your research on your ancestors.

Here is the basic premise.  Write what you know about one ancestor.  Start at their birth, listing the place and exact date (if you have it) of birth.  List the parents.  Do you know anything about their youth?  Listing any marriage, children, and information on death and interment.

I know, we do this when we enter information in our electronic data bases.  But, do you review each individual in your data base, really review?  I do when I am writing a post for this meme. So far, I have written 40 weeks of the 52 weeks.  It has been quite a eye opening experience.

I have discovered I have not found my ancestors in census enumerations. I have found I have a date of a marriage, but, that date was from an index.  No image of the actual document.  So, I have gone looking for the census or the image.  Just this week I found a marriage certificate/record.  And, I also discovered that the index had the wrong date for the actual marriage.  I spent a few minutes updating my data base.  See, below, isn't it a lovely image??



You do not have to blog to participate.  All you have to do, is pick one person from your data base and study what you have found on them and what you do not have.  Try writing it out, not just looking at the facts you have recorded.  There is something about actually writing it out that brings weaknesses in the data base to the forefront.   As I write what I know, I find myself frequently, asking, “WHAT?”  Or, “WHERE?  And, off I go on a research tangeant.

Want to improve your research and your data base, try writing about your ancestors.

Good luck.

3.)  Hopefully next month we will be somewhere on the road, Las Cruces New Mexico is calling our names.  I need to review my database, I just may have some research I can do along the way.




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1 comment:

  1. Congratulations on being such a stalwart contributor to 52 ancestors. I recently spent time reviewing the little I knew on my ggggrandmother and found it a rewarding exercise.

    ReplyDelete

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