Wordless Wednesday- Groton Oddities

Satuday Challenge: How Many Trees? Only One?

From Randy Seaver's GeneaMusings fun challenge: Your mission this week, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1) How many different "trees" do you have in your genealogy management program (i.e., RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker, reunion, etc.) or online tree (e.g. Ancestry Member Tree, MyHeritage tree)?

2)  How many trees do you have, and how big is your biggest tree?  Do you have some smaller "bushes" or "twigs?"

This is an easy challenge to answer- one tree. I have a tree that contains my ancestors- both my mother’s and my father’s and my husband’s ancestors as well. Why all of them together in one tree? Because I don’t know how to split the trees apart. It’s not a technical problem, however, but more one of who belongs in which tree if I split them?

Aren't they all in one book here somewhere?

There is Martha (Washburn) Titus (1637-1727) and her sister, Agnes (Washburn) Jackson (1624- after 1657). Well they are great-grandmothers on some of my father’s lines, so they obviously belong in my father’s tree you say. But not so fast, what about their brother Hope Washburn? Where do I put him? His son William Washburn (1669-1741) married Hannah Wooster (1671-1743) and her brother was Sylvester Wooster (1678-1712).

I can’t very well have Sylvester on my father’s tree and not on my mother’s! That would be like cutting off a member of her family. No, not like—I would be omitting her 6^th great-grandfather! So where do I split it? I’m going to have to have spouses William and Hannah on separate trees or siblings on different ones at some place. No, I don’t know how I can ever split them apart.

Okay, well let’s leave my husband’s on a separate tree then. Rich doesn’t need to have his family mixed in with mine does he? No probably not. Except, except, which tree do I put Pierre/Peter Angevine (1666-1730) on? He was married twice you know.

His first wife, Deborah Guion (1668-1711) gave birth to their son Louis making them Rich’s 6^th  great-grandparents. But wait, before we decide, remember his second wife, Maurgerite DeBonrepos (1683-after 1729) gave birth to their son, Eli, making Pierre and her MY 7^th great-grandparents.

Is your head spinning yet?

This is why I have all my family research in one tree. I have no clue how to split them apart and there are even more instances where distant cousins link up across the family lines. Many of these families lived in the same areas in early times in New England and the Hudson valley. So, I say let’s just leave them all together and not worry about it!

Wordless Wednesday- Along Skaneateles Lake

Upcoming CNYGS Meeting April 22nd

Wordless Wednesday- West Niles Rural Cemetery

Saturday Challenge- Great Granparents Counting

Your mission this week, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1) Pick one of your sets of great-grandparents - if possible, the one with the most descendants.

I chose my paternal great-grandparents- John [1854-1932] and Maria (Titus) Ward. [1858-1927]

from a family reunion in 1923

2) Create a descendants list for those great-grandparents either by hand or in your software program.

3) Tell us how many descendants, living or dead, are in each generation from those great-grandparents.
4) How many are still living? Of those, how many have you met and exchanged family information with? Are there any that you should make contact with ASAP? Please don't use last names of living people for this - respect their privacy.

I did the first three generations below.

Children: Six. Living 0.

Grandchildren: Eleven. Living 0.

Great-Grandchildren: 26. Living 20.

By the time we’re getting to the great, great, grandchildren, they are so spread out that I’m not sure I could do an accurate count. To the best of my knowledge, all of that generation is living and there are children in the next generation and even a few 4^th great-grandchildren that are beginning to be born. I have not been in contact with all of these people. However, I have had contact with just about every branch of this tree at one time or another and keep in contact with many on a somewhat irregular basis.

Each generation spreads out farther and farther and it becomes harder. I realized today that the great-grandchildren numerated above that are descendants of my grandparents (that is their grandchildren only), have a spread of thirty-one years from oldest to the youngest. If I included some of my grandfather’s siblings- he was next to they youngest child- the age spread would be even greater.

One Hundred Years

Today marks the 100th anniversary of when we entered the Great War or the War to End All Wars as our ancestors called it. Yes, World War I. Did you have some of your relatives serving during this war? Perhaps they served in Europe? If you did, there's a new database available that Ancestry is announcing today. Below is unofficial information I received about it a couple days ago, but it is being released to the public today. I unfortunately, know of no relatives that served in Europe during this war. I had a few, including my grandparents, but they all served stateside, so I can't find anybody in these records, but maybe you can!

Marion Wooster served along our southern border.

Here's the announcement:

To commemorate the 100^th anniversary of the entry of the United States into World War I, Ancestry today launched a database that includes all of the passenger lists for the American troop ships going to and from Europe during WWI, and beyond. The records include name of next of kin, among other details that might not now be easy to find, thanks to the 1974 fire at the NPRC.

U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939

http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?htx=List&dbid=61174

What is most exciting about this resource is that it goes a long way towards answering the question, “So my ancestor had a draft card … but did he actually serve?” Obviously, if the ancestor was a soldier on the troop ship, he did indeed serve. Some soldiers may have served only in a stateside role during the war, and for them, consulting other sources, such as the records of the Adjutant General for the state in which the man in question resided. Often, these records are now at state archives.

Wordless Wednesday- New Hope Mills

Saturday Challenge: States & Countries Meme

From GeneaMusings: Our Saturday Night Fun Challenge:

1)    A meme on Facebook has been circulating about what states, countries and other places you have visited.  The average for Americans is 8.

2)  Copy the list from this blog post and denote your places visited with an X, and add states or countries you've visited not on the list.  Then total it up at the end of your list.

Samford, Birmingham, Alabama

Here's mine:

Afghanistan 
Alabama  X
Alaska
Algeria
Arizona
Argentina
Arkansas
Aruba
Australia 
Austria
Bahamas
Barbados
Belgium 
Belize
Bermuda
Bonaire
Brazil
British Virgin Islands
California
Canada X
Colombia  
Castaway Island
Cayman Islands 
Chile
China
Chicago
Colorado
Connecticut X
Costa Rica 
Cuba
Curacao 
Czech Republic
Delaware
Denmark
Dominican Republic
Dubai
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
England
Estonia  
Fiji  
Finland 
Florida X
France 
Georgia X
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Guam
Guatemala 
Haiti
Hawaii 
Honduras
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Idaho
Illinois X
India
Indiana X
Iowa
Iran
Iraq
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica 
Japan
Jordan
Kansas
Kentucky X
Kenya
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Latvia
Lithuania
Louisiana
Luxembourg
Maine X
Maryland X
Massachusetts X
Mexico
Michigan X
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri X
Montana
Morocco
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire X
New Jersey X
New Mexico
New York X
New Zealand 
Nicaragua
North Carolina X
North Dakota
Norway 
Ohio X
Oklahoma
Oregon
Palestine
Panamá 
Pennsylvania X
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Puerto Rico 
Rhode Island X
Russia  
Saudi Arabia
Sicily
Scotland 
Singapore
South Africa
South Carolina  X
South Dakota
South Korea
Spain
St Marten
St Thomas
Switzerland
Sweden 
Taiwan
Tennessee X
Texas
Thailand
Trinidad
Turkey
The Netherlands 
United Arab Emirates
US Virgin Islands
Utah X
Venezuela
Vermont X
Vietnam
Virginia X
Washington
Washington DC X
West Virginia X
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Wales

Salt Lake City, Utah

My score:   26

Well, I certainly couldn’t equal Randy’s score of 68. You might just as well have left the foreign countries out of the list as I am far from being a world traveler. Pretty much, if I can drive there, I’ll consider going. I hate to fly and about have an anxiety attack when I’m trapped in an airplane for 3 hours or so like when we’ve flown to Utah.