The show that started it all...

My first research into family history began when I was assigned a heritage report project in middle school.  For me, that was in the early 1980s.  But, as I continue my research now and hear about how new shows like "Who do you think you are" are inspiring a new batch of genealogists, I'm left to wonder more about a miniseries that is often cited as inspiration for researchers that are my age and older.  "Roots" first aired in 1977 and then received 36 Emmy nominations, of which the show won nine as well as a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award.  The final episode, which originally aired on 30 January 1977, saw a record viewership and remains today the third-highest rated television program in the US of all time, according to the show's Wikipedia entry.  Today, I will see for myself what all the hubbub was about, because the first disk of the 7-disk DVD set has reached the top of my Netflix queue and I'll be watching it tonight.

American Independence and our family

I'm doing the genealogical happy dance this weekend.  A few months ago I wrote about the Hartwell family and their involvement in Paul Revere's famous ride.  This week, I found some more documents that further link this family to the Revolutionary War.  And with today being Independence Day here in the United States, it's only natural that we take another look at this family. 

Not so Wordless Wednesday - who are these people?

The wordless part of this Wordless Wednesday post is that most of the people in this photograph aren't talking to me.  I know who a few of these people were (read more to see them), but who were the rest?

Black Sheep Sunday - fynes in New Haven colony

Yes, it's been a while since I last posted here, but now that a number of large commitments are passed, I have some more time to devote to my genealogical research.  I've been spending some of that time going through old photocopies and correspondence rereading them and re-entering information into my database.  While working through these documents, I found a few notes that fit perfectly into a Black Sheep Sunday post.

So few answers so far

A friend of mine from high school today sent me a link that other genealogists should be interested in.  According to the 2010 census participation map, so far, only 46% of the census forms sent out at the start of March have been completed and returned.  The stats so far shows the top five states as North Dakota (58%), South Dakota (57%), Nebraska (57%), Wisconsin (54%) and Iowa (54%).  We played our part to become part of the current top five states. 

Returning the form in the mail means that a census worker won't have to knock on your door to ask you the same questions.  You've sent your form back, right?

Lot's of work and a new mystery

So it's been a while since my last post.  I'm a bit busy with preparations for the MATC Portfolio Show where I will be exhibiting my photography next month, but I have had a few minutes here and there to do some more research.

I had started on a couple of posts describing how I was working through the keying tools for both Family Search and Ancestry, adding to the indexes of new records that will soon be on both sites (and my frustration on going through one census page from Minnesota that was mostly German and Austrian immigrants).  I also started another post about receiving our own 2010 Census form in the mail recently and that we had saved a photocopy of the form for future generations of researchers in my own family.  Finally, I also started a post on my trials in evaluating Roots Magic and whether or not I will be switching databases any time soon.  But, mostly because I didn't have a chance to fully flesh out my blog ideas on these topics, none of these posts got published.

Now, I've got a bit of a mystery...

Counted twice in 1870

So I'm going through records on the Family Search Pilot website looking for documents to confirm data that I had already known from elsewhere (but didn't make note of the references when I added the information last time).  I'm finding some new information, like a few new siblings to family members that I already knew.  But in the 1870 U.S. census, I found records that show what looks like a double counting for at least one family.

Wordless Wednesday - Poppies!

A younger me and one of my sisters among the poppy fields in California.

Wait, what country is that?

I've recently been looking at records for ancestors on my trees that lived during the American Colonial period in the 17th and early to mid-18th century.  In doing this research, I've noticed what could be a problem if it is extended to territories beyond those in North America; it has to do with where the country borders were and what the territories were named.

Ryan's completed project

Back in September, I wrote about a heritage project that was assigned in my son's American History class.  The project is now complete (okay, it was shown a couple weeks ago, I've just had so many other things going on that I couldn't scrape together a block of time large enough to retouch the photo and post it here), and Ryan has a better idea of how one branch of our family migrated from Switzerland through Alsace-Lorraine to Indiana.  Here he is with his completed project and a few other students' projects around it...

Ryan chose to further examine the time that our family spent in France.  The seated woman in the photograph (just to the right of Ryan's shoulder) is Anna Klopfenstein Shanebeck who was born in Alsace-Lorraine in 1834 and died at age 97 in Allen County, Indiana; the article including the photograph is a copy of her obituary.  You can expect to see more about her in future posts.