How to "Genealogy"

Lots of people have stopped and asked me how did I get started in this fun world of blog writing about my ancestry and historical events in general..... It sort of evolved from the stuff I have collected all of the years,

I have always been interested in history, a trait I probably picked up from my dad, who is an avid war history buff (though he does like history in general as well).  In my research, I have come to find out his dad was an officer in the history club at his high school, so hey, I know it's at least inherited!  But my mom also loved hearing family stories and to this day loves telling me about her own family memories, so I get the trait from both sides.

It helps that I am still very much the type for whom research is fun.  I love the thrill of being immersed in words and documents.  I also love reading, as I grew up immersed in a world of books (thanks to both Mom and Dad).

Anyway, I digress.

I should probably start with my own genealogy journey first.....

My Journey
In May of 1999, my mom's mother, my grandmother Jean Cox Waldspurger, passed away.  I was a senior in high school at the time, so while I didn't fly back for the funeral with my parents, my mom brought me a copy of a small family tree her cousin Pat had created.  Pat also was into history, and loved the family tree stuff, and her family tree sparked something in me.  Since I always loved history, and took every history class at the high school I could take, it was just a natural progression for me to start filling in the blanks on the tree with what information I could find.

That was nearly 21 years ago.....

I made plenty of mistakes in the beginning. I collected a great deal of information, but one huge thing I didn't do was cite my sources.  The researcher in me was even in college at the time, and learning all about MLA and APA and Chicago/Turabian style citations due to the nature of my degree, but I didn't record where I got the information on a death date for my great-grandmother.... or the distant cousin on the tree.  So when others asked me where I found the information, I wasn't able to tell them.  And when my information was challenged in light of new information, I wasn't able to prove anything.  In fact, one whole branch of my original tree has been erased in light of the fact that I had name collected (I just added names and dates without checking first if they were accurate or "mine"), and the name collection information was entirely inaccurate.

I also put blinders on. I would collect names and then birth, marriage and death dates, but really nothing more, which made for a boring read at times.

About 15 years ago, I started to change my thinking about how I do genealogy. I got serious about redoing my entire line, starting at my parents and working my way backwards.  As I did this, I only focused on my own ancestors, not on any of their children or siblings, so I know now I missed a great deal of information, but the information I did collect was useful, and cited properly.

At the end of 2015, the family tree software program I was using on my personal computer, Family Tree Maker, was discontinued by Ancestry.com.  While later the software was picked up by another company, I decided to jump ship with FTM (at this point I also removed my vast trees from their site as well), which I had been using in its various forms since 1999, and go with a new genealogy program (RootsMagic7 for those who are interested).  Making the switch threw all of my sources into disarray, as it converted them into weird formats (which likely meant I didn't format correctly when switching). This actually was a blessing in disguise, which I will get to in a minute.

Also around that time, I decided to get very serious about making sure sources were cited in the "correct" format, meaning the way any professional genealogist would do it (I am not advocating that everyone do it this way though. I tell others that they should "do you" when citing stuff.  This way just works best for the perfectionist in me.) So I started to re-do ALL of my research once more. merging sources from the old program into the newly created and updated (and correct) sources in the new program and going through each of my ancestors, their children and their siblings and redoing EVERYTHING on them as well as adding new information.

I now track just about anything I can about my ancestors... where they lived and worked, how they were described on certain documents, what property they owned, what illnesses they were reported having, etc. etc. etc.  For my Hangman Ropemaking ancestor Jacob Bupp, it means also that EVERY rope he made has its own event, each with the sources I referenced in his series.

It is a great deal of work, but when it comes to families such as my Woods, where there are FOUR Burris Doudney Woods, or my Vautiers, where there are various William Vautiers (among other repeated names), this kind of thing helps me track exactly which Burris Doudney Wood or William Vautier I am looking at when I find a record, because I not only have name and dates of vital information, but also where they were known to live and what occupation they may have done (also likely nicknames for them as well).  The information sheets I send to family members often overwhelms them, but I like to make sure I have documented everything (plus it helps me out when writing these blogs when I have a timeline to follow on my program).  I have uploaded the aforementioned Jacob Bupp's Individual Summary that can be viewed here for those interested in the kind of detail I try to get.

It's been four and a half years since I made the switch, and I am still working on this kind of in-depth research.  Remember when I said the messing up of my sources was a blessing in disguise?  It now helps me figure out what branches of my tree haven't been updated and verified with the newest information.  Some of those branches I may never get to (a number of them are collateral lines.... lines that married into mine or distant cousins that I was merely name collecting in the beginning).  While some are important, others are not as important to me, and will likely remain on the back burner indefinitely.  It's not that I don't ever want to make sure they are "correct," it's just merely the fact that this is a side hobby for me, not my main job (I still have two!), so I don't have all the time in the world, especially in this ever increasing digitization of records, as more information to help genealogy keeps coming online. I am still finding out all I can about the FANs of my own ancestors.

About three years ago, I started to write little stories about each ancestor for my family members. My dear husband suggested I start sharing them with the world, and so this blog was reborn. I like writing about the different journeys my ancestors have taken, and finding out all I can about the places they lived and the social issues of their day.... it helps to breathe life into them in a way I never could have imagined 21 years ago!

How To "Genealogy"
I get told by people they wish they could do what I do.... but they don't know where to start.

Start by writing down what you know, then asking questions of living relatives.  I do a great deal of interviewing of people, via email or phone calls or even face to face conversations.  I write stuff down, or print out emails, and yes, I do use them as sources too. Find a genealogy program you would like to use - there are free ones out there as well as ones to purchase - or just write stuff down on paper.  I still have the early trees my mom and I made for our lines back in 2000.

Then take to the internet.  I do use Ancestry.com a great deal, as I have an ongoing subscription  (note, this is not a plug for their services - I am not receiving compensation from them!) but I also use  FamilySearch (where I recommend people actually start since it is free and there is a great deal of information here) as well as local history societies and library resources for where ever I am researching. West Virginia has a vast collection on their Archives and History site and my own local library has a collection of local history books in their genealogy section that I use heavily while working on my church history.  Other sites that have been useful to me are FindMyPast, Fold3, and Newspapers.com (the latter two being part of my Ancestry subscription)

Also, search engines are great tools to look for other resources. I tend to do that a lot to find the more obscure stuff or when I am moving my research from one location to the next, especially the books that are being digitized on sites like Google Books, Haithi Trust and Internet Archive.  Google is my primary search engine, and I also use it often to define word for me while researching, look up places (I recently wanted to know what county in Kansas a certain city was) so I can fill them in better, and even search "How to use" guides for certain websites.  FamilySearch's Wiki is also very useful for finding just about anything on genealogy.

Like I said before, just because I am VERY precise with my citations doesn't mean that everyone has to be.  Some in the online communities I belong to use simpler sources (finding what works for them), but they do cite where they got information from.  This is a good idea because it can help you keep track of where you got information from already.  There are "how to" guides for this as well (Evidence Explained is the one I use, but there are many different guides out there).  Citing information also helps because if you are challenged about research (I have had cousins argue with me over things in my research) you can then go back and actually find the records that help prove your research to be correct inasmuch as you know it to be.

Don't overlook the old fashioned pen and paper research.  I planned a trip to Philadelphia almost three years ago just to get to THREE different archival repositories since they had records that weren't online (but the indexes were).  After requesting information in person, I paid for copies of that information, and it helped out a great deal.

A tip I tell people is get creative when searching for documents and learn to accept that the way your name is spelled now may not have been the way it always was spelled.  For years I was told my maiden name of Wood NEVER had an "S' on the end of it.  While that is very true in the era of standardized spellings for surnames because of Social Security and birth certificates and the like, it wasn't always the case.  Before the 20th century my ancestors tended to flip flop between Wood and Woods, once even in consecutive documents.

Don't insist a name HAS to be spelled a certain way.  Often, remember that a number of sites use volunteers to index things, so names might not be spelled correctly in the index because the volunteer reads something different.  A number of my Vautier relatives are indexed Vantier because the cursive U looks like a cursive N.  I found my great-great-uncle Jesse Sperry's death record by searching for just his death date, which I had, and discovered he had been indexed as "Jennie Spring" because that was what the volunteer read (I have since submitted a correction), so try date instead of name, or broaden your search by other means.

Each family has a different journey, and finding information to document that journey can be a fun task, if you love to research....

I am more than willing to help others in their journey, if anyone ever needs help. Whether it's offering guidance with how to find materials, being another set of eyes to comb through a resource, or just offering some support or encouragement, I can help.

I've often been asked why I don't do this professionally. I merely state that this is a fun hobby for me, but not something I would want to be paid full time to do. I am happiest doing this when I don't have looming deadlines over me (because I am a bit of a procrastinator when I can be), and I have other pursuits that I enjoy doing as well, so while on occasion I do research on friends' lines for a bit of compensation, I can't ever see myself doing this on a full time basis.