Heartland Genealogy

During the middle of beta testing for RootsMagic, my husband asked a very scary question: "What happened to my tree? It's not there!" Afraid that in my deleting test trees, I had mistakenly deleted his tree, I was scared too. Upon investigating, we discovered that his tree was still there! However, it wasn't showing on the pull down list of trees. Instead it had been shoved aside (to the bottom) by all of my 'trees'. Several of those trees were trees uploaded for the beta testing. Other trees on the list were ones I created for some of my DNA matches. To get to his tree we had to scroll clear to the bottom of the list of trees and click on the link to 'Create and Manage Trees' From there we could locate his tree and click to 'View Tree Overview' On the overview screen, there was the familiar tree icon with a pull down menu that would take us to the tree view. Relieved that his tree was still there (big relief), I ...

Randy Seaver recently posted, Looking at My New RootsMagic Upload Ancestry Member Tree and Source Citations . A reader posted a comment asking about the downloading of citations from Ancestry. I replied based on my experiences during beta testing. However, I decided to re-look at the issue with the newly updated version of RootsMagic. To experiment with this, I imported a gedcom of a small portion of my database into RootsMagic. I then uploaded that database to Ancestry, creating a new tree. Within that tree, I looked at the hints for Albert Hutchinson. I accepted the hints for the 1850, 1860 and 1870 U.S. Census. On the Ancestry side, this created one source citation and linked it to multiple facts. For example, the 1850 census was linked to both the birth and the residence fact. On the RootsMagic side, TreeShare indicated that there were three new 'Residence' facts on Ancestry that were not in RootsMagic.  Working with the 1850 residence fact, I selected ...

As we all learn to navigate the new RootsMagic TreeShare features, there will be 'bumps' along the way. Having made the decision to UPLOAD my RootsMagic data to Ancestry, I knew that a new tree would create issues with DNA. Expecting to loose both circles and shared matches, I had already documented both. Yesterday, I not only uploaded my tree but I connected my DNA tests to that new tree. As expected, both the circles and the shared matches were gone. HOWEVER, I was pleasantly surprised to discover all of my circles were back within the hour. To get my shared matches back is going to require some work on my part -- accepting hints. Yesterday, I started that process by working with hints for my great-grandfather, Judson Foster Crawford. Knowing that several of my DNA ancestors have him in their trees, I was hoping to get their shared matches back. Unfortunately, they are still 'missing'. This could be caused by my not accepting the exact same hint as my 'cousin...

RootsMagic released their long awaited update today that will allow sharing of data between RootsMagic and Ancestry. I was fortunate to have been a Beta tester. That allowed me to do a lot of experimentation and think thru exactly how I will implement these new features. Thanks to the early release of some of the details about how tree sharing would work, I had already decided to UPLOAD my tree from RootsMagic to Ancestry. From my playing around, I made some additional decisions about my RootsMagic data: Trim the tree -- Over the years, I had researched spouses of nieces and nephews in order to build a family history for a new baby. I archived a copy of my tree and then removed these branches so that I wouldn't inadvertently upload details about living individuals. Private Facts -- I had information regarding my DNA matches in my tree. I made these facts private and elected to not include private facts in my upload. Media -- I ultimately decided to NOT upload any media. F...

I love living in a rural community, but at times I miss the opportunity for face to face discussions about the challenges of doing genealogical research. Thus, I took advantage of the opportunity to visit a couple of societies and really enjoyed those visits. My husband and I attended the RootsMagic Users group meeting sponsored by the Johnson County Genealogical Society on June 3rd. We learned a lot from the presentations on publishing family histories using RootsMagic. I loved being able to see how others are using the software! We are hoping to attend their next meeting in August. Their events calendar is full of opportunities to learn. Last week, I traveled in a different direction to attend a genealogy Roundtable sponsored by the Riley County Genealogical Society . I really enjoyed this opportunity to meet Manhattan area genealogists. Even though I don't have ancestors in early Oklahoma, I enjoyed hearing about the book, Killers of the Flower Moon and the impact of the d...

How can I have a Nathan Douglas Sellers circle? Yes, I have a Nathan Douglas Sellers in my Heartland_Genealogy tree on Ancestry. He is part of my FAN (friends, associates and neighbors) club for my early Kentucky research. The Sellers family is also part of my FAN research for Preble County, Ohio. Yes, I have DNA matches to support a Sellers relationship. No, I don't have the SELLERS surname in my pedigree . I have lots of documentation to support my pedigree back for 5 and 6 generations. Generation wise, Nathan Douglas Sellers (1797-1874) would match up with Nelson Garret Crawford (1808-1864). Nelson Crawford is my 3rd great grandfather (6th generation). I have yDNA results to support my CRAWFORD lineage. So where do the SELLERS fit? Based on my paper research, the only possible connection between Nathan Douglas Sellers and myself is thru his mother, Sarah Crawford. Sarah was given permission to marry William Sellers by Rebekah Crawford in 1795 in Lincoln County, Ke...

It's almost here! The ability to 'sync' my genealogy data stored in RootsMagic with Ancestry is arriving soon. According to the RootsMagic blog post, " Questions about Upcoming Ancestry Features - We've Got Answers ", the first preparatory step will involve a decision. Which set of data do I use to sync RootsMagic with Ancestry? RootsMagic data  Ancestry tree I'm going to use my RootsMagic data RootsMagic contains all of my collateral line research RootsMagic contains sources from outside of Ancestry (deeds, licenses, certificates, FamilySearch, MyHeritage, newspapers, etc.) Most of the events in RootsMagic have documentation attached. Some of this documentation is older and not as accurate as current standards -- but it is documentation.  Since this will be a 'new' tree on Ancestry, I believe there will be some consequences associated with switching to this 'new' tree. ( NOTE: This is MY opinion. The sync may not work this w...

My Communities Early Settlers of the Lower Midwest and Virginia 614 DNA Matches 460,062 AncestryDNA Members Confidence: 20% My Surnames (1775-1825) Beckerdite Bland Buckles Briles Browning Burke Butler Christy Crandall Crawford Foster Ricketts Rush  Smith Story Thompson 

Prior to the release of Ancestry's new genetic communities, Blaine Bettinger posted the following in the Facebook group, Genetic Genealogy Tips and Techniques: What are your two largest cluster predictions? Don’t list every possible cluster, just list two (2) probable clusters where the largest number of your relatives were located in 1800-1850 or so . Even though I've already looked at the genetic communities associated with my DNA, I decided to take the time to study my paper research to see what it would indicate. To help with that 'study' I decided to re-create the ' Where were they born? ' spreadsheet. I extended the spreadsheet to a sixth generation. For the most part, this sixth generation catches people born in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Current evidence indicates that my New Brunswick, Canada branch is actually loyalists from New York. Evidence also suggests that almost all of my New York lines go back to early New England. Thus, I...

Judson Foster Crawford was born in April 1866 in Warren County, Indiana. He was the second child born to Washington Marion and Mary (Foster) Crawford. Judson's father had only been home from the war for a year when Judson was born. At the age of 14, Judson was living with his parents in Warren County, Indiana. Family tradition says that as a young adult, Judson was a cook's helper on a cattle drive worked on a ranch worked in a grocery store Even though these stories are hard to prove, they could all be true. Judson's uncle, James H. Crawford migrated from Indiana to the Dodge City area where he owned both a ranch and a grocery store. Thus, Judson could have worked for his uncle on the ranch or in town at the store. The 1885 Kansas census indicates that Judson did work in a store since his occupation is listed as clerk.

Leon Russell Crawford was born in Newton Kansas on the 6 th of Feb 1894. According to Leon’s wife, Winnie Crawford, the family lived in Oklahoma when Leon and his sister Bernice were young. Winnie stated: Judson Crawford worked on a ranch in Oklahoma because Josie’s sister and husband were there. The family all almost died. Judson was extremely ill. The children, Bernice (over 2) and Leon (1) almost died because of poor diet. Documentation for this story has not been found. However, Josie’s sister and husband did live in Oklahoma. The family was living in Dodge City by his 6 th birthday. As a child, Leon attended the Third Ward School that was located on Boot Hill.

Genealogy Proof Standard Study Group Homework Chapter One  -What is the Genealogical Proof Standard? Your Name Reference: Christine Rose, Genealogical Proof Standard: Building a Solid Case 4th Edition Revised, (San Jose, California: CR Publications) 2014. My book arrived today -- so I can get the homework done in time! While waiting on my book, I've been thinking about which areas of my research that I could pull from for the assignment. However, after spending my day working with a genealogical resource and trying to figure out the mystery behind it, I've decided to use it for my homework. The resource in question is a journal found in the archives of the Nemaha County Historical Society titled: Dr. Fangman's journal of baby deliveries . This journal contains birth information from June 1932 until August 1955. I would categorize this journal as a derivative source . The handwriting is very similar throughout the journal. This would imply that the s...

The number one question I've been asked in the last month has been, "How do you like retirement?" Quickly following that question is one wondering what I do with all my time. My answers to the 2 questions are 'loving it' and 'researching my family'. Since they rarely understand that I could spend all of my time working on my family history, I quickly follow my answer up with the fact that I'm volunteering at the Nemaha County Historical Society . For me, researching my family history is like doing a jigsaw puzzle.

Lately, there has been an emphasis on using the FAN club to help break down brick walls. Evidence of this interest is the recent Legacy Family Tree Webinar by Elizabeth Shown Mills titled "FAN + GPS + DNA". Tonight's "Wacky Wednesday" DearMyrtle Hangout is scheduled to discuss this same topic. I've previously used the FAN club principle in my research. However, I did not branch out as much as Ms. Mills suggested in her presentation. Since I have a brick wall in Kentucky prior to 1800, I want to revisit my research and see if I can apply a broader FAN club along with DNA to make some headway on my CRAWFORD line.

My Crawford lineage has always been like putting together a jigsaw puzzle -- trying to figure out how hundreds of pieces fit together. Many years ago, I wrote about dissecting these pieces in order to identify my line. At the time, I identified four James Crawford families that were in the same region of Kentucky prior to 1800. Rev. James Crawford (1752-1803) who married Rebecca McPheeters James Crawford who married Rebecca Anderson James Crawford (1772-1854) who married Sally Duggins in 1799 in Garrard County, KY James Crawford (1770-1833) who married Martha Knight in 1793 in Lincoln County, KY

Have you had your DNA tested? Do you have a family tree linked to your DNA test? If not, please, please, please post a tree! Over half of the 4th-6th cousin matches on my first page of matches either don't have a tree or have a very small (<10 people) tree. Thus, I can't begin to figure out how we are related. I would love to work with you to research our common ancestor -- so please post a tree

They're Gone (At least on the surface) Even though I already had many of these in my RootsMagic database, I elected to tackle these leaves. Some might ask why I am spending so much time on this versus locating new information. As I was doing this I found that I could double-check my data (i.e. a Go Over) convert my citations from the format I used in Master Genealogist to current standards add images to the citations Besides updating my data, I found that several of these 'shaky leaves' actually led to sources that I didn't realize existed.  Unfortunately, I probably have quite a few more shaky leaves to tackle since I have descendants for at least a generation or two for each of my ancestors. Thus, there are a lot of people waiting for me to look at their screen and confirm or ignore each 'shaky leaf'.

There's a picture floating around Facebook that is labeled as Stull, Kansas showing damage from this morning's earthquake. According to comments on FB, this is not a picture from Stull, Kansas since the community is too small to have the buildings and roadways in the picture. A quick Wikipedia search verifies that Stull is indeed a very small community. Just remember -- not everything is true!  Check it out thru valid sources!

Did you feel it? That is the question of the morning across Kansas as a 5.6 magnitude earthquake struck in Northern Oklahoma. The event happened shortly after 7 am and social media became the quick source for the answer to the question -- did I actually feel an earthquake. The hashtag #earthquake is still in the top trending spot on Twitter over two hours later. Even though I love Twitter for quick information, I know that I have to sift thru the tweets to find the facts. This is like 'panning for gold'. One has to evaluate the source behind the tweet to pull out those golden nuggets of truth. For me, I tend to pay attention to the news reports from the area of the event versus national news. I prefer reports that are based on interviews or eye witness accounts. Thus, I gravitate to the local news outlets to see their reports. Since these reports incorporate personal experiences -- i.e. primary information -- they are the GOLD. Another example of GOLD (primary inform...

I received an email from Ancestry today concerning a DNA match on my CURREY line. For several of my branches, I haven't been able to find direct evidence of a lineage. Instead, I've had to accumulate enough indirect evidence to convince others that I have the relationships in a family line correct. For my CURREY line, this has been the case. I'm working with FOUR generations of Hiram M. Curreys, starting with my great-grandfather Hiram Miles Currey (1866-1943) and going back potentially to the 1820 treasurer of the state of Ohio, Hiram Mirick Currey (potentially my 4th great-grandfather). When I tested my DNA a year ago, I had high hopes of matching a known descendant of Hiram Mirick CURREY. Today, I now have a 16.5 centimorgan match with a sixth cousin one generation removed. Now it is time to learn to write a proof argument!

Finis! I've managed to combine event data from SIX different lines: James Crawford and Sally Smith Duggins (mine - names in blue) James Crawford and Martha Knight (Knight - names in green) James Crawford and Rebecca Anderson (Anderson - names in brown) Alexander Crawford and Mary McPheeters (McPheeters - names in red) William N. Crawford (WilliamN - names in purple) Nathaniel Sellers (Sellers - names in dark yellow) Besides color coding the names, I color coded the four major counties for my branch: Garrard County, Kentucky -- shaded with lime green Preble County, Ohio -- shaded with yellow Warren County, Indiana -- shaded with bright blue Ford County, Kansas -- shaded with orange   Recent DNA tests are shedding more light on potential connections: yDNA indicates probably relationship to William N. Crawford  yDNA indicates my Crawford line may connect to the McPheeters line somehow a Sellers researcher believes I share DNA with SELLERS descendants...

The results from recent DNA tests -- particularly the yDNA -- are pushing me to re-evaluate my CRAWFORD cluster research. Most of this research is pre-Internet and pre-Excel (remember AppleWorks and Microsoft Works?) However, I want to utilize the power of a spreadsheet to hopefully provide a fresh look at the data. Thus, I turned to the Internet for ideas on how to proceed. I found the blog, Cluster Genealogy Research , by Gus Marsh that provided background on the research process. This blog provided hints on where else to look for data for my cluster. Looking around at what others have done, I found the blog post, Timeline Template - How to Create a Timeline in Exel by Jon Wittwer. Not only does this blog offer a pre-packaged template for a reasonable price, it also includes the step-by-step instructions for the do-it-yourself-er. I would like to create this type of timeline -- especially for family reunion -- but I'm not sure it will work for my Cluster data. Still on the...

For some, DNA is all about their ethnicity. For me, it is all about finding actual cousins. I'm not just looking for that 7 cM of common DNA but for much longer pieces -- my cousins. Recently, I discovered that a little work on my part could improve my results on AncestryDNA . I found if I quit ignoring those green leaves (called 'shaky leaves' by some) and actually worked to confirm the hints, the number of 'shared matches' [shared ancestor hints] would increase. When I posted about this on the 11th, my DNA circles hadn't really changed. However, I now have 16 circles when I had only been seeing about six.

Does anyone remember when Ancestry came out with their 'one tree'? I think it was called 'One World Tree'. The concept sounded fantastic! They would take all of the trees submitted to Ancestry and merge them into this one magical tree -- linking research and researchers together -- and helping us find more ancestors. The problem then was that the computers didn't analyze -- they just lumped. If it looked like the same person -- the computer said it was. For me, the result was that the computer lumped two James Crawfords together that I had spent lots of time to separate -- and had the documentation to prove it. I tried to get them separated but eventually gave up the fight. I'm sure that is why some are leery of the tree on Family Search and perhaps why Wiki tree requires the documentation. Well, my nightmare is returning. This time it is on my Currey (Curry) line where I likely have four generations of the same name: Hiram M. Currey. The problem is with...

Earlier this week, I was contacted by another BRILES researcher who is trying to figure out how a third BRILES fits into our family. She had found me thru DNA matches. Discovering that we both descend from Alexander BRILES , I was puzzled as to why her DNA match wasn't showing on my list of 'shared ancestor hints'. Instead it was buried in my 326 pages of matches. It was also puzzling that I don't have a BRILES circle. Because my Ancestry tree isn't my primary tree, I had uploaded the current version sometime in the last year. I also hadn't gotten very far in dealing with all of the shaky leaves. Although I couldn't find documentation to support this, I wondered if I needed to confirm the exact same hint as another DNA tester in order for them to show on my list of 'shared ancestor hints'. Working on that theory, I decided that I needed to confirm some shaky leaves for my more distant ancestors. Not wanting to risk it not picking up the other t...

My brother's yDNA results came back over the weekend. The matches are interesting and yet mysterious. One of those matches is to a William N. Crawford. So, who is this William Nelson Crawford and how might I be related. On Ancestry, I found two trees with what appears to be the same William Nelson Crawford. Neither tree has any parents identified for William N. Crawford. One tree, has linked two different 1850 census records. One of those records I've seen before and is the household of a James & Martha (Knight) Crawford descendant. This 1850 census record matches the family of William Crawford and Lutitia (Snodgrass) Crawford . This William Crawford is the son of James and Martha (Knight) Crawford. However, I don't have William N. Crawford as a son or grandson of James and Martha. So, is the William N. Crawford in the 1850 census the same William Nelson Crawford who died in Washington? Either way, how does the William N. Crawford in the census ...

Last week, I watched the " Watch Geoff Live: DNA " webinar on Legacy Family TreeWebinars. While watching, I followed along by looking at my autosomal DNA results on Ancestry. I had my DNA tested last summer and had studied some of the results but hadn't found the help with 'brick walls' that I had hoped for. One of the brick walls I've been working on is my James Crawford line. My James Crawford died in Preble County Ohio in 1854. He married Sally Duggins in Garrard County Kentucky in 1799. Sally had previously been married to Alexander Duggins by whom she had two sons: William and Henry. Henry Duggins was married to Jane Sellers, daughter of Nathan Sellers. Nathan A. Sellers was a neighbor of my James Crawford and died in Preble County Ohio in 1824. In early Preble County Ohio, there was a second James Crawford who owned land adjoining my James Crawford. This James Crawford married Martha Knight in 1793 in Lincoln County Kentucky. It is believed that two of...