Heartland Genealogy

Mary Crawford purchased land from Richard Cave in 1791. Below is a transcription of that deed.

My ancestor, James Crawford, died in Preble County, Ohio in 1854. In 1821, he sold a piece of land to Wm Sellers. This Preble County Deed (Book 5, page 87), identifies the seller as James Crawford Junr and indicates that James was from Preble County, Ohio. The deed is signed by James Crawford and Sally Crawford. Sally's signature is significant since it identifies my James Crawford and not another James Crawford living in Preble County at the time.

The Facebook group, Genetic Genealogy Tips and Techniques , has provided lots of opportunities to learn how to use my DNA results to support my research -- and to break thru brick walls. Recently, Shelley Crawford has been posting links to her blog posts detailing how to use NodeXL and Microsoft Excel to find DNA connections. Yesterday, I followed the steps in her post, Visualizing Ancestry DNA Part 2 - Loading the Files . With my first attempt, I downloaded all of my matches and worked my way thru the instructions to get a 'blob'. I went back and rechecked my 'alternate' file to make sure I was skipping my siblings, my mother and 1st cousins (once removed). It took a while for the graph to appear but it was still a blob. So, I started over and downloaded my matches for 4th cousins or closer. After creating a new file and again making sure the 'skip' information was included, I still had a blob -- just less dense. Knowing this wasn't what it was supp...

I'm experimenting again! Can I use RootsMagic to modify an overly long citation and then use TreeShare to get that citation uploaded to Ancestry. The first task is to locate the 'offending' citation in my list of sources. Since I know that this citation is associated with several facts for William Taylor Thompson, I'm going to use his screen to locate more info about the citation. When I look at the birth sources, I find the 'offending' citation. From the info on this screen, I know the citation is listed under 'History-IA Wapello Portrait ...' in my list of sources. Since I only want to change the citation one time, I'm hoping that I will be able to use the Master Source List to make the change. After opening the Master Source List (Lists menu), I scroll to locate 'History-IA Wapello Portrait ...' in the list. Having found the source, I click on the Edit button to make changes. I'm going to shorten the citation by removin...

On Wednesday (June 28), I uploaded my RootsMagic data to Ancestry, thus creating a new tree. Since I want to be able to utilize the TreeShare features of Ancestry, I want this new tree to be my primary tree in Ancestry. Thus, I attached my DNA results to this new tree. I knew that when I switched my DNA to this new tree, it was going to cause some 'hiccups' in my DNA screens AND that it might take several days (weeks) for those 'hiccups' to go away. However, I am seeing some strange, unexpected behavior that I'm trying to figure out the cause. The first strange behavior is with the 'Shared Ancestor Hints'. I expected them to drop to zero and had documented those matches. Even though I can understand the few I have back, I can't figure out why I got those and not others. The 5 shared Ancestor Hints are from my Briles (Broyles) / Rush line. I have circles for a couple of men on my Briles line and for my Rush line. However, these 5 people are not ...

Have you ever had the family disappear off of the profile screen in an Ancestry tree? I'd experienced it before but when I recently encountered it, I decided to seek guidance from one of my Facebook communities. Armed with that response, I returned to my tree and, sure enough, there was a citation that had been uploaded with the original gedcom that could be considered 'lengthy'. When I clicked on 'view', I could see most of the citation. Clicking the 'Edit Source' button took me to a screen where I could hopefully make some changes to shorten the citation. So I decided the easiest way to shorten the citation without losing some essential information was to remove some of the subtitling. I then scrolled to the bottom of the page to locate the button to save the source. That's when I got the dreaded 'We're Sorry' page I've tried editing the source multiple times and it always comes to this pag...

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...