Maybe Granny Didn't Know Afterall

I have to hand it to "Genealogy Roadshow" this week.  It hit on a subject that is very important to me and, if I said I have a "cause" in genealogy, this would be it.

 

There was a young Chinese girl who told the genealogist on the show a story we've all heard.  Paraphrasing her, "My grandmother told me that we were related to < Insert Semi/Well Known Person >.  I want to find out if that's true."

 

We've all be there.  The last names are the same, they were from the same area.  Hey!  Why can't they be related??  Sounds reasonable!

 

The problem was, this young lady was concentrating so hard on the "might be", she wasn't seeing the "really was".  Her family arrived in the United States around 1910.  They traveled quite a bit in the States and even back and forth to China a few times.  Even though they were Chinese, their lives during World War II were not easy.  They were photographed and watched.  They had to carry identification with them constantly.  They were interrogated.  And we're talking not just the parents, but the children of the family too.  I remember even seeing an "official" photograph of the baby!!  The expression on the young lady's face was priceless as the show's genealogist detailed event after event and experience after experience.  She said, "I had no idea."  He cautioned her to not be so caught up so that she misses the real story.

 

Given my family is from the Southern Appalachians, There are all types of "My granny told me...." stories.  By no means am I throwing those out.  Those are wonderful and facinating stories and can offer, at least, a bit of truth; however, don't take your's for gospel.  And don't have the Native American/Daniel Boone/Melungeon blinders on.

 

For the examples in this post, we're going with the Native American princess one.

 

Perhaps it was your granny's granny that was the Native American princess.  I'm using that because, currently, that's the most interesting racial/ethnic background to pick from.  That would make the "possible" Native American your great-great-grandmother.  This is what you'd be looking at - 5 generations: 

 

Yourself > your mother > your grandmother > your great-grandmother > your great-great-grandmother.

 

By rule of thumb, a generation is approximately 25 years.  Of course, that varies given how old each set of parents were when they started having children as well as what birth order you are and the number of siblings you may or may not have.

 

I'm going to use myself as an example...mainly because I don't know your birthdays, ect.  I was born in 1962.  My birth mother was born in 1944 (see paragraph above...not 25 years).  My maternal grandmother was born 1915.  My maternal great-grandmother was born in 1888.  My maternal great-great-grandmother was born in 1864.  Do you see the problem with believing what my granny said about her granny?  How many people in East Kentucky be 100% Native American in 1864?

 

Now for the mathematics section of the article.  I'm sorry for offending you, Mr. Grizzard.  You were right - I really did use algebra (of a sort) in figuring the percentages and such.  You see, a 2g-grandparent gives you 1/16 or 6.25% of your heritage.  Take it back a generation to your 3g-grandparents?  You're looking at 1/32 or 3.125% of your heritage comes from just one person.  4g-grandparents - 1/64 or 1.56%.  5-g-grandparents - 1/128 or .78%.  6g-grandparets - 1/256 or .39%.

 

And therein lies the rub.  Most people who are looking for a Native American ancestor would be looking at their 4th - 6th g-grandparents.  You're pinning your whole significance on someone who may or may not be Native American and, if they are, only contributed between .39% - 1.56% of your heritage.

 

By no means am I saying that isn't important.  I know the feeling of the Old Ones calling out to you and suddenly, you realize why you feel certain ways about certain things; however, to quote Freud, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.  A line that made me cringe, as having first hand experience, was on an episode of the Breaking Amish: LA reality show.  On the trailer, they showed that one of the Amish girls had been adopted and, while she was away from the Amish community, she pursued finding her heritage and birth family.  She found out her mother was Mexican.  Her response - "So that's why I like Mexican food."  It's nothing quite as trite as that.

 

What I am saying is, while you're researching, don't overlook the ancestors who, at first glance, don't seem so adventurous or brave.  You just might be surprised.

Those Coming Behind Us

A few months ago, I was asked to be a "special teacher" for an 8th grade history class.  Sometimes, learning history comes easier from alternative sources.  My subject was how to learn about history from genealogy, specifically letters written home.  I've got copies of letters that were written between my 4th great-grandparents during the Civil War and from their son, my 3rd great-grandfather, to them.  I've blogged about these letters here.

I arrived that morning and was greeted by 40 13 year olds.  That's 80 eyes and they were all on me; however, with all things genealogical, once I get started, I ramble.  We read the letters together and I explained who the ones mentioned in them were.  We talked about how the Civil War was more than just statistics.  Its impact is something that we as a nation are still dealing with.  We talked more specifically how it impacted this particular family - a proud man could no longer work, the only son left to do the duty his father gave his health for, the son-in-law who died hundreds of miles away from home and was temporarily buried on a mountain top before finally resting in a national cemetery near his first grave.  Those 80 eyes were wide, alert and questioning.  They had so many questions that we even went over the end of class a bit.  And they stayed to ask them!  They didn't run out of the room screaming because the crazy lady was STILL talking about some type of scandal.  Truth be told, I think that was a bit of a hook for them.  They found out that people are people, regardless of the time period.

The liaison between the school and the Kentucky Arts Commission told me that some of the kids were going to do their history project on my ancestors and she'd make sure I got copies of their projects.

Well, gentle readers, tonight, she was as good as her word.  I received an article that will be published in the local paper, a play based on the letters between my 4th great-grandparents and a power-point presentation that was not only based on what we'd talked about that day, but some other very interesting things - a piece of Confederate currency, other photos and information on the captain of the 8th Kentucky Infantry.

At the bottom of the email that carried these precious items, she said that she hoped I'd be able to make it for the school's Reading Celebration where these presentations and plays will be performed.

I've already made my reservations.

Some Thoughts on Ancestry.com's New Marketing Ploy

You know the ones I'm talking about.  "I put my grandfather's name in and a leaf popped up."

What concerns me about this is the "about the same" syndrome.  How many times have we been researching John Jones and we find three.  They are all born about the same time in nearly the same area....or not even the same area.  They all married someone named Mary.  Since they nearly share a birthday, all live in Virginia and all are married to Mary, they HAVE to be the same person.  So that person imports and merges all the information into their tree.  We all know that once something hits the 'net, it never goes away.  That one assumption, that one innocent mistake has now the possibility to propagate over and over until it is believed as fact.  You contact the people with the incorrect information and they refuse to correct it, even if you have proof to support you.  People beginning to research their family have to remember to question everything and don't accept anything on face value.

On the other hand, Ancestry.com is great for finding records and making connections.  I found emigration records of my adoptive 3g-grandparents when they came from Germany to the US in 1888.  The search ability is a dream compared to the old days of sitting in front of a cranky (ha!  get it?) microfilm machine and squinting.  I found several cousins easily and was able to share information almost immediately.

So, is Ancestry.com a blessing or the Devil?  I suppose it depends on if it's your ancestors that someone has attached incorrect information to.

What Goes Around...

...comes back around.

It's been some times since I've written anything here.  I promise you that it's not been for lack of wanting to.  I somehow couldn't find the time.  I've been working so hard on the database portion of the site that I neglected this part of it.  Well, that's going to change.

So, Jen...what have you been up to?  I'm glad you asked!  Unfortunately, it hasn't been work.  That's slowed down quite a bit, but that's the transitory way of the telecom business.  Hopefully, it will pick back up soon.  Things are trickling through, but I'm ready (and my wallet's ready) for the faucet to turn on.  On the other hand, that's given me time to work on this site and another one that I'm working on.

My daughter and I recently went away for the weekend to our beloved mountains.  There was quite a bit of snow.  It was gorgeous.  We had beautiful weather and a great time.  After the past year, it was a minor respite, but it was much needed.

That said, I'm recharged and ready to get out to do legwork (canework?) on research.  I'm hoping to be about to take a few days and do some cemetery photography and get to the Archives in Frankfort.

That said, take a look around the site!

Hugs!

Me

My Old Kentucky Home...

Believe it or not, nearly fifteen years ago, genealogy wasn't as easy as it is now on the internet.  There was no Ancestry.com, Rootsweb.com was in it's infancy, and there was definitely no GenWeb.  I know this because I was there when GenWeb was born.

*cue the cane and the hearing trumpet*  Back in my day...no, I'm not going to say that.  Wait!  I am!!

There were a few mailing lists out there, mainly ones for states only.  I was subscribed to the Kentucky mailing list and we began to talk.  There had to be a better way to compile genealogy information.  There had to be a central place with information on specific counties.  There would have to be people who were willing to gather, compile or oversee that information.  What came out of that conversation was the Kentucky Comprehensive Genealogy Database Project in the spring of 1996.  The people involved each volunteered to host counties and develop websites for all the information.

By this time, other states were seeing what we were doing in Kentucky and copied us.  The projects began joining and evolved.  What became known as KYGenWeb evolved into USGenWeb.  Shortly after, it became WorldGenWeb as other countries saw the progress we'd made.

Today, there are pages for every county in the United States as well as provinces, shires, etc world-wide.  Some are more detailed than others, but each is great in it's own way.

I hosted Rockcastle, Madison, Estill and Jackson Counties in Kentucky.  I also hosted a few others, but as time became dear, I had to whittle them down to just Estill County.  One of the things I'm most proud of is that we initiated the Estill County Homecoming.  It was an opportunity for online researchers to gather in Irvine, KY.  They could meet with locals and learn where old homesites and cemeteries were.  They were able to go to the Courthouse and get copies of documents.

Am I tooting my own horn?  Just a bit, but there are so many others that gave their time and information to make this  project become what it has.  To every one of you, I give my thanks.

What Infects Someone with the Genealogy Bug...

What causes someone to want to spend hours in a dusty old courthouse pouring through book after book of marriages or court cases? What gets that person to walk through waist-high weeds to find an old fieldstone marker? What causes another person to drive hundreds of miles just to take a photograph?  Genealogy. but what is it that gets us started? What begins that lifelong search for more and more information?

For me, it was three things:

The first was an absolute obsession with anything relating to Daniel Boone.  Fess Parker. Coonskin cap.  That's what started it, but, as things go, I wanted to find more. I went to the library as a little girl and checked out a book on his wife, Rebecca, at least 30 times. Do you remember the old checkout cards in the back of the book? You would sign your name, the librarian would replace that card with a card that had stamped dates to tell you when your book was due back. Yeah, that signature card had my name only on the front and back. I remember telling my adoptive mother that I wanted to go to Boonesboro for my honeymoon the day i found there was a state park there.

The second was a family story. My adoptive mother passed down to me that there was a rumor she was related to the Howland family that came over on the Mayflower. She didn't have any proof, just that story.

The third was being reunited with my birth family at the age of 30. That ignited the fire that had been burning since i was a child.

Through research, I found my adoptive mother's story was true. She wasn't a direct descendant of John Howland, but of his brother, Henry. Boonesboro, Kentucky? It was the center of one branch of my birth family. The rest were just southeast of it. There were ancestors who knew him. and my unexplained lifelong love of the Applachian mountains? I found that's the land of my ancestors. That was "home" for nearly 200 years.

Did they welcome me? Did the old ones guide me back? That's a story for another time.

Dipping My Toes in the Water...

That's what i'm doing.  I'm officially entering the world of blogging with this.  I've done webpages, MySpace, Facebook, etc, but this is the first time I've done this.

I'll be posting more as I rebuild my family's personal and genealogy website.  I've also got a special project in the works, but more on that later.

As for now, hi!  looking forward to meeting new people.