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!

Visiting Cemeteries

Spring has officially begun. In many places the snow has melted away. Central New York had an extremely mild winter and we missed the snowstorm that eastern New England had yesterday, so there is virtually no snow to be found. The ground is thawing out and in some places it is turning to mud. But in others it is getting nice enough to go out and explore. What are many genealogists thinking about at this point? Cemeteries! Yes, it is finally getting to be good enough weather to get to all those cemeteries and find those gravestones that we have been waiting all winter to get to.

Have others been doing the same as me during the cold winter months? While going through my genealogies, updating and researching to fill in missing information, I have noted many graves that are unknown or where some information from a gravestone would help clarify a date. Working on Find AGrave I have tried to locate these final resting places. If there is no stone pictured, I will request one. I make the requests, even if I hope to get to them myself soon. In this way, if somebody else can get there first, they can get the picture for me. Also, when I go to one, I will print the entire list off of Find A Grave and use that to find as many of the requests as I can, whether my own or somebody else’s. It is my hope that together we can document these stones before they weather away.

Seneca Tobias. Almost too faded to read. Seneca County

When visiting a cemetery, you should go prepared:

·      Take a camera and notepad to record the information. If a stone is badly deteriorated a photograph might not be enough.

·      Take the list from Find A Grave or from other sources of the stones you want to find.

·      If it’s a large cemetery, see if you can get a map and locations from the cemetery office if you don’t already have them. Don’t overwhelm the office! Only ask for a couple at a time and offer to make a donation.

·      Wear appropriate clothes. Not all cemeteries are a walk in the park! Long pants and sturdy shoes may be needed.

·      Have bug spray along and a basic first-aid kit for cuts and such. Hopefully, you won’t need them.

·      When you’re done with a family stone, move on to the surrounding stones. Don’t tell me you’re not interested in them! Look carefully at them before you leave. Why that name sounds familiar! Didn’t grandma’s sister marry somebody with that last name?

·      Take shots of the individual stones; photograph how they are arranged together. Don’t forget to take pictures of how you find the grave. Make a visual map of the cemetery. Otherwise you might not find it again! 

The One I Almost Never Found Again. Chemung County