Apologies and Reporting

I have been absent as of late. Not because I have lost my love and zeal for genealogy and blogging, rather, I have not learned to balance family and genealogy research.  It seems for me it is almost an all or nothing activity. I will share with you the past few months of my life. 

I worked with the Preserve the War of 1812 Pensions campaign for 3 years.  I loved the purpose and the activity of searching the files and finding living descendants.  When the funding was accomplished, my activity there was little needed, and I turned to other projects.

At the same time, my children decided they and their children needed equal time with me and this is a bit of my journey into creating family history with my grandchildren and as I have written about before, bridging the generations.

During the summer, we had our first family reunion.  This was important for those who could go because family had not gathered as a unit since my husband, their father, died in 2008.  All but two of 6 children could make it. The single son who was working and a daughter who was pregnant and expecting her 4^th child any minute.  There were 28 plus myself, who made it. Two grandchildren were working and could not attend. Since no one other than myself had ever visited the California family’s home, that was the focus. They planned 4 days of activities for the children and I was excited that they included some time for themselves. 

The trip started with my 20-year-old grandson and I leaving Texas and driving to Salt Lake to meet the Idaho family whose father was flying in. They needed to send one child with me as their car only seated 7 and they had 8 with dad. The connecting 3 different groups at the Salt Lake terminal was a story. The trip from Salt Lake to California and then back to Idaho was an awesome memory for my three grandchildren and me.

In California, we went to the Sequoia Forest, the beach, and learned about railroads going over the mountain grades. The young and new grandchildren were able to create relationships with the older ones. These are a couple of pictures from that family activity.

Once back at home, the two daughters in Texas decided since I had taken time from my genealogy activities for this, I must be up for grabs for activities at home. The Idaho daughter not to be out done scheduled every Monday in September for a Skype class on World War II ending in a lesson and stories about their great grandfather who served and I have written stories about him here.

The classes were successful, and one Texas grandson sat in on a lesson.  At the time I was not sure who was listening, but as the months go by, questions and statement tell me they were. One of the grandson’s chose to be his great grandfather for Halloween, dressed up like a WWII army soldier.  Cool right. History and family stories passed down two generations. I also helped with the Black Watch Costume and made the sporan for that grandchild. One is Pipi Longstocking and one is a Nerd... they LOVE reading. 

I went with another daughter to see the preview for Christmas lights at the Houston Zoo.  We took one of my other daughter’s children with us. There was fun, sharing, and memories made with young and old.

This week I went to a Civil War reenactment at the TexasLiendo plantation that served first as a Confederate headquarters, then when it fell, as a Union prison camp.

My grandson, who is 10, began trying to sort in his mind who and what generation of his family served in the Civil War. We had fun talking about both sides of the war and how he had those that served on both sides and one in the Confederacy that died in Savannah. His 3th great grandfather from Michigan served in the Michigan 3rd Cavalry Regiment from 03 Oct 1861. He was promoted to Full Qtr Master Serg on 19 Jan 1864 and mustered out on 12 Feb 1866 at San Antonio, TX.

We also visited a blacksmith tent and that gave us the opportunity to talk about his great great grandfather who was a blacksmith and we have his anvil.

So there you go, while I am AWOL occasionally, I am keeping the dream alive trying to share with the generations following, so the story is not forgotten.

And Who Might You Be?

Are you planning on going to Germany in 2016? And are you looking for the graves to visit and for cousins to say hello? Things might turn out to be a bit difficult for both.

I wrote about the difficulties of finding your German ancestor’s grave on August 31, 2015 in my blogpost “Finding your Ancestor’s Grave (Or Not)” which you can find here http://bit.ly/1O2Lyi2. But finding relatives actually isn’t that easy either.

The main reason for the difficulty of finding German relatives simply is privacy. Not only are the privacy laws in German very strict and it is complicated, time consuming and sometimes simply impossible to find information on living people. But even when you manage to find them, you might not be able to get in touch with them or even be invited to their house. The reason for this is that Germans like to keep their privacy. They like to stick with their own family and friends and are rather reserved with getting in touch with people they do not know. And most of them simply aren’t looking for new found cousins, be it first, second or third.

Another reason is that in Germany genealogy is a more or less exotic thing to do. Remember, Germans usually stayed put and think they know where they come from. There simply doesn’t seem to be a need to know more and dig deeper. Therefore, most Germans aren’t even aware that they have relatives abroad. It happens quite often that I find relatives but they simply are unfriendly and hang up, making it very clear that they aren’t interested.

Often, there are no relatives in that area, their ancestors simply moved and their descendants are impossible to trace. The earlier emigration took place, the harder it is to find relatives.

But there still is hope and it is in fact possible to find relatives that know about the emigration and welcome you to Germany (which does not mean to their house). These are some examples where I found family members:

The emigrating ancestors had come from a small village close to the Dutch border with a very active Historical Society. They had information on everything a genealogist could ask for and knew directly which family member had emigrated and what became of the siblings. And as it was a Historical Society of a small village, many of its members were related. It only took one phone call and the research was more or less completed. And within 2 months about 200 family members from all over Germany met and welcomed their new found family member from America!

The emigrating ancestors came from a small village in Baden. I found out that there was a journalist living in the village, who also wrote about the old houses in this area. He agreed to meet my client and it turned out that they were distant cousins.

The family moved overseas in the 20^th century; therefore the memory of them simply was alive and the remaining cousins knew about them and wanted to meet (but not in their home). I was only able to find them, because I turned every (and I mean EVERY!) stone around.

Once, I found the name in an online family tree; a sibling had married into this family. The researcher had more information and put me in touch with the lady who had provided him with that part of information. It turned out that she not only was a distant cousin of my client, but also a genealogist and archivist who had actually wondered what had happened to the cousin who all of the sudden vanished.

So, you see, it is possible to find relatives, but you really need time, know your way around, be creative, and, most of all, you need luck! Without luck you will not be able to get there!

But even without meeting your relatives, you will meet a lot of kind and friendly people in Germany. And who knows, maybe it turns out that you are related?

Enjoy your trip! 

A Family Story

So...This is what happens when you put all your eggs in one basket to create a blog post.  You start researching and one rabbit hole leads you down a path that you find yourself at the crossroads of the Cheshire Cat resting place. "Where do you want to go?" A thousand thoughts go through your mind and the next google search points you down another path.  Then the nurse comes in and distracts you from your direction by riling up your mother from her sleep and creating minutes of chaos.  Things quieten down and you try to collect your fractionated thoughts, but you are back a square one. The collected basket of information so far collected is examined and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that there isn't any cohesive points.  A big sigh is breathed, and the process begins again.
Finally 4 days later and many repetitious moments of the previous sentences, the Doctor releases your mother to return to her assisted living facility. All is well again. You figure, Yes! now I can concentrate.
You return home, open your computer to organize and write what you have.  Still, the information appears like a kaleidoscope of ideas.  The phone rings, and you hear..."GrandmomE, come down and play with me, please, Please, Please..." In the sweetest of of pleading voices. "Come play with me."

It is not hard to admit, one looks at the computer, then at the phone...and the sweet voice wins.
The story is not written, but the ground work is planned and the collection has begun. So, here is a preview and see if you can figure out what road we will be traveling next month.

 Normandy Invasion, June 1944

?

Battle of the Bulge September 1944

?

Right now an angel face is patiently waiting for grandmomE to put the computer down and snuggle her to sleep.

And that is how the plans of a genealogy blogger can be waylaid by present day family.  Do you identify?  See you next month with a well organized post. In the mean time snuggle and love your sweeties and make memories for them to write about. 

Finding a place for global family reunions

So, you're the one that inherited the old family photo album. Your distance cousin has the family bible. Is it possible to create an online archive to preserved and share these family treasures without hiring a professional web designer and going to great expense? Yes! You can even hold private meetings where family can join from virtually any spot on the face of the earth with a computer and Internet access.  This month we'll discuss setting up a Google+ Community. Next month we will get into how to host a private Hangout on Air.

It's all about improving communication with your distant family members.

IMAGE: Horydczak, Theodor, approximately 1890-1971, photographer
from the Library of Congress collection.
   http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/thc1995008449/PP/

Set up is surprisingly simple, and since most have Gmail account, your family members are half-way there. There are just three steps to creating the family space:

• Create a Google+ Community.
• Add photos, videos and scanned images.
• Invite family members individually.

1. Create a private Google+ Community. (You want it private to avoid unwanted guests in this space.) You'll log in here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities and click the "Create Community" button shown below:

Next be sure to make the community private, and select "No, Hide it from searches" in response to the question "Can people search for your community?" as shown below.

Follow the screen prompts to name your community, add a "logo" graphic for the community, etc.


2. Add photos and scanned images of a few important documents to get things started and build up content. With 10-15 individual posts of interesting photos, your family members will see the value of this new space. Unlike Facebook, Google+ does not restrict your members views of posts by 94%. This is a screen shot of Grandma Pat's Musings, the Google+ Community I created to share stories and pictures with my grandchildren. I am careful to refer to my Dad as "great-grandpa" since that is who he is in the eyes of my grandchildren, my target audience.

• Point A - I chose a casual pic with my husband to be the "logo" graphic for the Gramma Pat's Musings community on Google Plus. 
• Point B - You may add videos that reside on YouTube or elsewhere on the web. In this case, my 3-year old granddaughter loves the Disney movie Frozen, and so she got a big kick out of the song "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" parody "Do you want to Drive My Tractor?" Naturally, this belongs in our private family space on the web. 
• Point C -  One may add categories and rearrange the left nav bar in communities they own.
• Point D - One may elect to "pin" a post to keep it at the top when people arrive at the community. In this case I pinned a photo of my parents, because of a wedding anniversary coming up.

Notice I keep the story short and sweet, just two or three lines. If I have more to tell, I can add additional text as comments below the image. I'm trying to attract youth. If we were to scroll down through the community you'd see I have current and old photos of each grandchild, and funny images of their parents as children.

3. Invite  - Once you've got your private Google+ Community organized and filled with intriguing content, you'll want to scroll to the top right to find the "Invite people" button, circled in green in the screen shot above. Up pops a dialog box where you can compose a sentence or two for the invitation. Notice the "logo" photo shows up in this invitation. You may invite family members by Google+ profile or email. If they don't yet have a Google Account, they will be invited to create one.

WORLD WIDE PERSPECTIVEFew have the privilege of living in multiple generation households. Employment takes some family units halfway around the world. Creating a private (read that safe) family space on the web to share old family photos, kids' soccer pics, recipes, etc. brings families closer together.

Google+ Communities are free, and easy to set up. Let us know how you've decided to organize your private family community.


HELPFUL LINKS

• Video: DearMYRTLE's Google Hangouts: Enhancing family gatherings and interviews Toward the end of this presentation, Ol' Myrt here actually sets up a Google Community.
• Video: DearMYRTLE's How to Hangout and Use Google+ includes a 19 minute video demonstrating creating a Google+ Community.

Pat Richley-Erickson,
DearMYRTLE
Myrt@DearMYRTLE.com

The Gow Siblings.

The 28th of March has appeared on my doorstep out of nowhere. I've become quite busy with Uni that I haven't had much time to sit down and do the post I would like to. I will have time for that next month as mid-semester break is a couple of weeks away.

Late last year I received some photos from a distant cousin in New Zealand of each of the Gow Siblings. When I refer to the Gow Siblings, I'm talking about my Great Grandfather William & his older siblings John, Robert, Isabella & Jeannie. They were the children of William Gow & Jean Drummond, and were all born in Muthill, Perthshire, Scotland. Up until last year, I only had photos of William & John. You can imagine the genea-happy-dancing I was doing when I received photos of ALL FIVE SIBLINGS!

One of my favorite happy dances is Hugh Grant in Love Actually. 

May I present to you, the Gow Siblings...

John Gow

Birth: 9th of December, 1855 in Muthill, Perthshire, Scotland.

1st Marriage: 1891, to Betsy Ireland Syme Gow in Perthshire.

Number of Children: 1

2nd Marriage: 1896, to Annie Wilson in Perthshire.

Number of Children: 3

Death: 14th of January, 1929 in Glenstal, Ireland.

John Gow

Robert Gow

Birth: 14th of September, 1857 in Muthill, Perthshire, Scotland.

Marriage: 1886, to Mary Agnes Ryan in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Number of Children: 8

Death: 8th of December, 1927 in Sydney.

Robert Gow

Isabella Gow

Birth: 9th of April, 1859 in Muthill, Perthshire, Scotland.

Marriage: 1878, to John Reddoch in Perthshire, Scotland.

Number of Children: 9, and 2 stillborn.

Death: 13th of October, 1897 in Kinross, Scotland.

Isabella Gow

Jeannie Gow

Birth: 6th of July, 1864 in Muthill, Perthshire, Scotland.

Marriage: None.

Number of Children: 1 with an unknown male. 2 with Tom Donaldson. 1 with Allan McFarlane. 

Death: 31st of March, 1912 in Stirling, Scotland.

Jeannie Gow

William Gow

Birth: 21st of May, 1868 in Muthill, Perthshire, Scotland.

Marriage: 4th of December, 1904 to Elizabeth Croal in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Number of Children: 2. 

Death: 28th of November, 1943 in Macksville, New South Wales.

William Gow

 
Sidenote: Y'all are the first people to see photos of all five siblings in one post from me. I'm yet to post them in a single post on my own blog. Lucky ducks! :-D

Until next time genea-friends.