Category

Where I Started

When I started this website, I had already worked on my family tree on Ancestry.com for several years. The problem was that I started as a beginner and did a few things I wish I hadn’t done. For example, I attached many personal family trees to my own, thinking it furthered my research.

I guess you could say it was a shortcut. But it led to many inaccurate facts being attached to my family tree, which has put up roadblocks (or brick walls) I’m now trying to work through. 

When I started this website, I also started a new family tree on Ancestry.com. I left the old one in place but started a new one to start from scratch. I didn’t want to lose all of my work, but the old family tree got to the point where it was overwhelming to work on because I had too many hints and inaccuracies. So, I started fresh, with a clean slate.

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March 6-12

The person I started the tree with was Viola Mildred Beyl.  I started with her because I have little information on the Beyl family.  The Beyl family is very special to me, so I was anxious to learn more about them.  Naturally, I researched the next generation after Viola, starting with her father. I researched the following people in order:

The problem I ran into was that I hit a brick wall fairly quickly, after only three generations back. I paused at that point to write the Unsolved Mysteries page and spent many hours reviewing the different records I had for Jacob William Beyl Sr. and anything that looked like his parents. But that didn’t get me through the brick wall.

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March 13-19

Since I couldn’t bust through that wall, I also researched siblings and spouses.  So next, I researched in order:

Unfortunately, those folks didn’t reveal any additional facts to help me break through the brick wall.  But they did reveal additional people to research.  As people marry and have children, this brings additional people to the family tree that must be researched and documented.

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March 20-26

One thing I’d like to prevent this time is winding up with 7,500+ hints collecting dust.  That overwhelms me and makes me feel like I’ll never get done.  It adds unnecessary stress to my work because I can’t catch up. 

Logically, I know this project will not be finished in my lifetime. The stress doesn’t come from the pressure to finish it. What I do want to do, though, is get through all of the documented history to start researching and finding the deep, hidden stories of my ancestors’ lives—the kinds of stories that aren’t easily findable on Federal documents. 

At the same time, there are several lines of people for me to research, so when I spend too much time on one line, I feel like I should be working on another. 

And the hints are starting to add up again.  I already have over 300 hints to work through with this little bit of work that I’ve done. So I started working through spouses and siblings this week and adding the initial person from a few other lines I’d like to research.  I researched the following people this week in order:

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Plan Going Forward

I need to make a plan to research my lineage systematically. I often struggle with deciding who to study at any given time, but now that I’ve started with a clean slate, I think I need to make a plan and stick to it. So, I plan to build my new tree from the ground up.

In other words, I will start with myself and build it back, one generation at a time. I’ve added myself, my sibling, my parents, etc., to my new tree and have added the basic details for each of us. I will continue to fill those in as I go. 

In the meantime, I will start with one generation and research all the people within that generation.  For example, I began with Viola Mildred Beyl.  Once I’ve researched her, I will also research her spouse, children, and siblings. Next, I will move on to another person within the same generation. Again, once I finish that person, I will research their spouse, children, and siblings, including the spouse and children of each of the siblings. 

I will continue from person to person until I have completed that entire generation.  Only then will I move back to the next generation.  This way, I will be able to balance out the work and ensure that I am researching each line and nobody gets left behind. That being said, since I started with Viola Mildred Beyl, I will spend this next week focused on Viola’s spouse, children, siblings, and the spouse and children of each of her siblings.

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Extra Credit

This week, I did a few additional things to advance my genealogical experience a little bit further. While these tasks certainly aren’t necessary for every family historian, they are beneficial to me, and I would recommend them to anybody pursuing their ancestry.

Ancestry Academy Courses

Find A Grave Memorials

I try to conclude each person’s story with their burial. I do this because the burial represents their resting place. Previously, it was quite difficult for family historians to find the graves and headstones of their ancestors…unless, of course, they had a lot of time and money to go grave hunting in various places. 

I do not have that luxury. So, the Find A Grave website has been invaluable in helping me find where my ancestors are resting and obtain photos of their headstones. In most cases, I’ve been lucky enough to have somebody already taken and posted a photo of my ancestor’s headstone on the website.

In some cases, no such luck. When I find a memorial for one of my ancestors on the website, I double-check the accuracy of the information against the research I’ve done so far on that ancestor. If anything needs to be corrected, I submit the corrections so that the monument is accurate for other family historians and family members. 

When I don’t find a memorial, I will make every attempt to get a photo and create one for them. Unfortunately, if I don’t know where the ancestor is buried, I can’t create a memorial. So, I do have a few family members who still need memorials, and I am working to find the appropriate information to create them.

Grave Hunting

Grave hunting may sound a little creepy. I go hunting in nearby cemeteries for specific graves. There are people, just like me, who are searching for the graves of their family members for various reasons. If they are unable to find them, they may submit a photo request asking for someone in the local area to take a picture and post it online for them. 

Since I rely on this to find my own family members, I feel it is important for me to give back. So when I find photo requests for graves near where I live, I’ll take a trip to the local cemetery and try to obtain a photo for them. 

This week, I requested a photo for Grover Thomas Beyl, as he was the only ancestor I worked on recently who didn’t have a photo and doesn’t rest close enough that I can get it myself. 

I know there are mixed feelings about people photographing headstones of people who aren’t their own family.  Unfortunately, some folks get offended by this, or when it causes unintended grief or heartache for someone. 

From my experience, I can say that when I go out to a cemetery for this purpose, I pay the utmost respect to each grave I visit.  When there is trash around the area, I pick it up.   When overgrowth grows on the headstone, I pull it and clean it up.  When the flowers and memorabilia have fallen over, I pick them up and set them right.  This is my way of respecting our ancestors before us…whether they are my own ancestors, or not.

Grave Tagging

I found another website this week that is trying to provide services similar to Find A Grave.  Billion Graves sends volunteers to local cemeteries to take photos of each cemetery’s headstone. 

As you take the pictures, Billion Graves attaches a GPS tag to that headstone.  This allows people to find the graves of their family members online and know exactly where they are on the map. This week, I tagged 562 graves in a local cemetery.

They also have people transcribing the headstones so that they are searchable within the database. This allows family historians like me to find the resting places of their family members and obtain the dates of their birth and death. This week, I transcribed 105 headstones.

Wow, so I did a lot of extra credit work this week!

I feel good because I can give back in these ways to help others do the same things I do for their families. It was a busy week, but I am pretty happy with what I accomplished. 

With that…it’s time to start next week! 

Take care, 

~Kris

What’s New This Week?

My hints have increased a bit this week, but I was able to work through enough that they didn’t increase significantly.

One major obstacle with the hints is that you wind up finding a wife and several children for each person you research.  Finding multiple people adds several more hints to work through.

As I find these additional people, I add them to my list of people to research.  Naturally, as I research those people, I will work through their hints and clear them from this list.  But, of course, working through those people will also add additional people to my list.

I’m reasonably sure I’ll never get my hints down to zero.  I’ll never be able to get through all of them unless I hit so many roadblocks that I run out of people to research.  I don’t see that happening…at least not any time soon.

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March 27 – April 2

This week, I focused a lot on researching people I had already researched earlier in the month. One of the Ancestry Academy courses I watched last week suggested that you always do a Global Search on each person. You never know what you’ll find.

This week, I focused a lot on doing a Global Search on each of the people I had already posted about. Their posts have been updated with the additional information I found in the Global Search.

I researched the following new people this week:

I haven’t yet hit a brick wall with the Applegate line.  I was at one, but when I researched George Washington Applegate, I was able to get that wall down rather quickly.  I knew her married name since I had already done Elsie Mae (his daughter).  I found a death certificate for George Washington Applegate that gave her married name as the informant, which provided a whole lot more details on him and broke down that brick wall.

I have not published posts for all of these folks yet, but as I do, I will return to this page and update the links to them.

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Plan Going Forward

In my previous Progress post, I laid out a plan for continuing my research. I need an organized plan to accomplish all of this systematically.

I planned to start with one generation and research everyone within that generation.  For example, I began with Viola Mildred Beyl.  Once I’ve researched her, I will also research her spouse, children, and siblings.

Next, I planned to move on to another person within the same generation. Again, once I finish that person, I will research their spouse, children, and siblings, including the spouse and children of each of the siblings.

I planned to continue from person to person until I had completed that entire generation.  Only then will I move back to the next generation.  This way, I will be able to balance out the work and ensure that I am researching each line and nobody gets left behind.

That being said, I started with Viola and had already done her siblings and parents, as well as her father’s siblings and parents. So, I was already a few generations back on her line. I also focused last week on Global Search. So, I have several other family members from Viola’s generation that still need to be researched. I will be focusing on them for now. That includes their spouses, siblings, and children.

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Extra Credit

I did a few additional things this week to advance my genealogical experience a little bit further. While these tasks certainly aren’t necessary for every family historian, they are beneficial to me and, therefore, I would recommend them to anybody pursuing their own ancestry.

Ancestry Academy Courses

I did not take Ancestry Academy courses this week as I focused more on research and graves.

Find A Grave Memorials

I try to conclude each person’s story with their burial. I do this because the burial represents their resting place. Previously, it was quite difficult for family historians to find the graves and headstones of their ancestors…unless, of course, they had a lot of time and money to go grave hunting in various places.

I do not have that luxury. So, the Find A Grave website has been an invaluable asset in finding out where my ancestors are resting and obtaining photos of their headstones.

In most cases, I’ve been lucky enough that somebody has already taken and posted a photo of my ancestor’s headstone on the website.  In some cases, no such luck.  When I find a memorial for one of my ancestors on the website, I double-check the accuracy of the information in the memorial against the research I’ve done so far on that ancestor.  If anything needs to be corrected, I submit the corrections so that the monument is accurate for other family historians and family members.

I submitted corrections for several ancestors I researched this week and linked them to the appropriate family members where possible.

When I don’t find a memorial, I will make every attempt to get a photo and create one for them. Unfortunately, if I don’t know where the ancestor is buried, I can’t create a memorial. So, I do have a few family members who still need memorials, and I am working to find the appropriate information to create them.

I requested photos of two graves this week, and those requests were filled promptly.  So I now have the graves for those folks and have updated their posts accordingly.  I also took a small road trip to visit Viola Mildred and Charles Beckett Buchanan.  I photographed their grave and created memorials for them on Find A Grave.

Grave Hunting

Grave hunting may sound a little creepy. What I mean by this is that I go hunting in nearby cemeteries for specific graves. There are people, just like me, who are searching for the graves of their family members for various reasons. If they are unable to find them, they may submit a photo request asking for someone in the local area to take a picture and post it online for them.

Since I rely on this to find my own family members, I feel it is important for me to give back. So when I find photo requests for graves near where I live, I’ll take a trip to the local cemetery and try to obtain a photo for them.

This week, I requested a photo for Elsie Mae Tudor. She was the only ancestor I worked on recently who didn’t have a picture and didn’t rest close enough for me to get it myself. I have not published her post yet, but when I do, it will have her grave included, as the request was filled promptly.

I know there are mixed feelings about people photographing headstones of people who aren’t their own family.  Unfortunately, some folks get offended by this, or when it causes unintended grief or heartache for someone.

From my experience, I can say that when I go out to a cemetery for this purpose, I pay the utmost respect to each grave I visit.  When there is trash around the area, I pick it up.   When overgrowth grows on the headstone, I pull it and clean it up.  When the flowers and memorabilia have fallen over, I pick them up and set them right.  This is my way of respecting our ancestors before us…whether they are my ancestors.

Grave Tagging

Billion Graves sends volunteers to local cemeteries to take photos of the headstones. As you take the photos, Billion Graves attaches a GPS tag to each headstone. This allows people to find the graves of their family members online and know exactly where they are on the map.

This week I tagged 430 graves in two local cemeteries.

They also have people transcribing the headstones so that they are searchable within the database.  This allows family historians like myself to find the resting places of their family members as well as obtain the dates of their birth and death.

This week I transcribed 605 headstones.

Wow, so I did a lot of extra credit work this week!  I feel good in that I can give back in these ways to help others do the same things I do for their families.  At the same time, Billion Graves has now rewarded me with a free month of BG+.  This gives me several super helpful features that will help me keep track of my ancestors on that site.

It was a busy week, but I didn’t get as much done as I wanted to. That’s alright. I’ve spread out my plans for this week a bit throughout the next three weeks so that I have more reasonable expectations of myself.

With that…it’s time to start next week!

Take care,

~Kris