Saturday Challenge- Oldest and Youngest Women Ancestors

From Randy Seaver and his Genea-Musings blog: Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):
1) Review your Pedigree Chart (either on paper or in your genealogy management software program) and determine the age at death of your female ancestors back at least five generations (and more if you want to).

2)  Tell us the lifespan years for each of these ancestors.  Which of your female ancestors in this group lived the longest?  Which lived the shortest?  

This took me awhile to do. The first problem was to figure out how to create an ahnentafel for my ancestors so that I didn’t have to go back through each line figuring them out. Although it turned out to be rather easy, it took me a little bit to find where in Reunion to create it as for some reason I was thinking it was different than a report. Below are my results:  

Mother

3-Wooster, Alice A

Grandmother

5-Ingalls                        Frances  (19 Oct 1889-6 Jul 1962) 72 years

7-Jennings          Alice V  (14 Feb 1893-28 Oct 1970) 77 years

G Grandmother

9- Titus Maria C (12 Jun 1858-8 Nov 1927) 69 years

11- Brown Achsah L. (31 Aug 1864-25 Jul 1899) 34 years

13-Duff, Edith Mary (30 Oct 1868-19 Dec 1951) 83 years

15- Damery, Sarah (1862-1 Feb 1948) 86 years

GG Grandmother -

17- Blackwell, Mary Ann (14 May 1828-11 Aug 1902) 74 years

19-Tobias, Lodema (16 Oct 1831-28 Mar 1926) 94 years

21- Fay, Mary Ann (11 Nov 1840-24 Jul 1906) 65 years

23-Wright, Anna S (12 Dec 1836-13 Feb 1923) 86 years

25-Tift, Elizabeth Hannah (11 May 1826-24 Mar 1906) 79 years

27-Johnson, Mary Ellen “Nellie” (25 Dec 1847-12 Feb 1921) 73 years

29-Fuller, Mary                                        unknown

31-Wolfe, Elizabeth (1823-abt 1862) 39 years

GGG Grandmother

33-Wood, Elizabeth (abt 1803-7 Nov 1879) 76 years

35-Blackwell, Ann unknown

37-Lockwood, Maria (abt 1801-bef 25 Feb 1862) 61 years or so...

39-Chase, Rebecca (31 Jan 1802- 20 Nov 1850) 48 years

41- Stahl, Gertrude (abt 1800-2 May 1869) 69 years

43-Wood, Louisa (1809- 10 Apr 1845) 36 years

45-Gibbs, Julia Gibbs (1798- 20 Apr 1855) 57 years

47-Ford, Margaret (13 Sep 1808-11 Nov 1894) 86 years

49-[unknown], Jerusha (7 Aug 1781- 24 Mar 1841) 59 years

51-Du Colon, Betsy De Colon (15 March 1794-bef 1850) 55 years or so...

53-McCargo, Mary E. (10 Jan 1815-12 Aug 1908) 93 years

55-Aubin, Mary Jane (15 Apr 1815-29 Feb 1904) 88 years

57-Stanley, Frances              unknown

63 Crostone, Susan (abt 1800-28 March 1865) 65 years

Lodema (Tobias) Titus whens the temporary award for the oldest living female at 94 years. She is closely followed by Mary (McCargo) Johnson at 93 years. However, we need to revisit the second place number in a few months as her gg granddaughter, my mother, may have something different to say about that and create a tie for second place come January.

The sad award of shortest years is given to Achsah (Brown) Ingalls at 34 years. We must also with this one mention her daughter, Emily who passed a month after her mother at age 2 months. Something happening with her birth likely contributed to that death. Louisa Wood is second place with 36 years. An unknown baby girl died just the month before her, so probably complications from childbirth caused her death as well. It is sad how often this occurred in the old days. I’m glad we have more knowledge that enables better health care today. 

Oh, and if you're curious what the picture at the top has to do with the challenge, probably nothing. I was looking for a generic picture to brighten up the post and thought the chickens were cute. As most of these women either grew up or lived on a farm as adults or both, they most certainly encountered and dealt with chickens many times. These chickens were actually on a farm I visited last weekend in Madison County during their Open Farms Day.

Researching In Moments

A stolen moment somewhere in Virginia

How do you do research when you only have moments here and there to work on it? The same way you do any research, with a plan. However, when you’re working in small increments of time here and there, it is even more important to have that plan in place. Oh, I hear many of you groaning, “I can’t do a Research Plan like the professionals do!” “And I don’t have much time, I can’t stop and write out a research plan like that!”

Let’s get one thing straight in the beginning. Your plan doesn’t need to be anything formal. Who is this plan for? Well, you, of course! Perhaps you’ll want to share it with another person or two that is also researching the same family or area. That’s the very first step done already, you’ve determined who it is for. Now that you know that, you can make it as formal or informal as you would like. You can make it simple or complicated. It doesn’t matter as long as you and anyone else that needs to can read and understand it.

For a basic plan of my own, I like to start with 2 basic elements. First I write down what I’m looking for. It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate, just the basic question and some information so that I can see at a glance what it’s about and any details I already have that would help me in my search. One or two sentences are usually enough and they’re not always complete sentences at that. Instead, they’re just little reminders to myself. It’s especially helpful if I have multiple plans around and need to know quickly which this one is for!

The second element looks something like my grocery list. It is mainly just a list of places that I want to look for information. No explanation is necessary unless it is something like this: XYZ Church Records (find Sally’s baptism date; Dad was likely buried from there about same time). This would remind me that there are two facts to be keeping my eye out for in that source. Very simple.

This list within the plan serves two purposes. First, it gives you a place to dump out all the ideas that are coming into your brain faster than you can research them. Second, when you come back to the search after some time away, you don’t have to start from scratch, but have the ideas in front of you with some of them (hopefully!) marked off as already completed.

These places can go on the list in any order. I like to use either a Word or Excel file to jot them down in initially. This way, I just put them on the list in the order in which I think of it. Later I can go back and rearrange them easily in any order that I want to. How do you rearrange them? Sometimes it is best to put them in the order of what is most likely to give you an answer to the least. Other times it is best to group them by repositories- either online or ones to visit in person. Sometimes you might even want to arrange them by things you can do quickly and ones that will take a lot longer to complete.

This flexibility as well as being able to access them in various places makes a digital version of the plan ideal. However, some people prefer a paper based plan. If that’s your preference, it will work too. That’s part of the beauty of an informal research plan for just yourself- you get to do whatever works best for you!

Wordless Wednesday- Scenes from Genesee Country Museum

Legacy Family Tree Webinar on Organizing

I just came across a free webinar on Legacy Family Tree webinars. http://familytreewebinars.com/download.php?webinar_id=369

 It is by Lisa Louise Cooke and is free for anybody and everybody to listen to until July 27^th. The webinar is about organizing your online life and from what I can see, mentions Google Calendar and Evernote amongst other programs. I don’t know about you, but I’m sure I can use this and will be listening to it in the next couple days.

Wouldn't it be great to be this organized?

I have some good systems in place with lists and spreadsheets to keep track of things both online and offline. My life would be total chaos without them. However, there are always new ways to organize that might be better than what I’m doing. Even if the ideas are basically the same as what I already do, there are usually some little quirks and tricks that I either haven’t thought to do or have forgotten about.

I use Google Calendar all the time to keep track of appointments and deadlines for various things. I keep running lists of things that need to get done and errands that need to be run. Maybe you can do without some of these lists, but if I walk into the grocery store without one, I won’t even have a clue what I’m supposed to buy for this week! Lately, I’ve been learning a bit about Evernote and believe that this could be a good place to keep some of these assorted lists of things all in one handy place. The one drawback for me is that I don’t have a smart phone, so would have to print out a list to take with me if I need one on the run.

An organizing tool that I would like to find is one that deals with all the urls for websites that I try to keep track of. I’ve used bookmarks or favorites on web browsers, kept lists in Word files and on spreadsheets, but nothing seems to keep them in order for long. Perhaps somebody has something that works well for them?

This is the great thing about the Legacy webinars if you haven’t already started to explore them. People present on various topics related to genealogy and you get to learn from them as they share their knowledge and experience. As you listen and think about what their discussing, other ideas may pop into your head. You can pause the webinar, unlike an in person presentation, and look into these ideas.

Usually each Wednesday is what is referred to as “Webinar Wednesday” where a live presentation is given that is free to listen to then or for the next week. It is kind of like a free conference spread across the year. If you subscribe to their website, you can get the syllabus material to each webinar as well and access to all of the webinars that have been presented. This is great if you don’t get a chance to listen while the webinar is free. It is also an opportunity to not only hear and watch some of the older ones, but also some that have never been available for free.

A few months ago Thomas MacEntee did a free presentation about using Microsoft Word. It was a good introduction. However, there were many, many more parts to the presentation that are only available to subscribers that goes much more in depth. My advice to everyone is to subscribe to these webinars- you won’t regret it!

Find My Past Friday

In case you didn't realize, Find My Past lists their new databases every Friday and allows free access to certain databases over the weekend as a promotion of what they have. Here is today's announcement:

What has me particularly interested this weekend is the announcement of July updates to PERSI. That's the Periodical Source Index for those that aren't familiar with the acronym. It's a catalog of sorts for articles across many journals in the genealogical world. Originally kept by the Allen County Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana and available on HeritageQuest, Find My Past now takes on part of the job and has the most recent ones available on their website. There were 18,257 articles from 94 publications added during the July report alone! Some are available digitally on the site while others you need to go to a library to look at. Guess what library has all these periodicals available! Of course, Allen County.

Here is why I'm excited to be able to look into all the updates in the catalog.  If you're also headed to the Professional Management Conference in September, you already know that it is being held at the library in Fort Wayne. I need to dive into PERSI and see which articles I'm going to be rushing to get in between sessions.

Family Search & Digital Public Library

I just ran across an announcement of books becoming available on line easier through a joint effort of Family Search and the Digital Public Library. If you don't also subscribe to the NGS email announcement list, Up Front with NGS, you should consider subscribing. You don't need to be a member of the organization to receive their news releases.

I'm not familiar with the Digital Public Library yet, but it looks like a very interesting site with lots of information to explore.

Family Search is a site that I use a lot. It is the website of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. From their site you can reach the catalog to see what is available and plan a research trip to their library. If you can't travel there any time soon, you can request films be sent, for a fee, to your local Family History Center. If you don't know where that is, of course, you can look it up on the website as well!

For me the real treasure of this site is the items that are available in databases online. All kinds of records including census records, vital records and such can be found for any state and many, many foreign countries. Trees that people have completed and submitted are available and many other things. I could go on for hours about what is available and still miss many key things.

The one thing I've been having fun diving into and discovering lately though, are the various published works that are available through the website. There are many, many titles available and more are being added constantly. A couple months ago, while at the NYS Library, I made copies of some pages from an old genealogy about one branch of my family. In working with these pages and researching this family, I realized that one page was unreadable at the bottom and I was lacking the next page totally. I was thrilled to find the book on the Family Search website and obtain these two pages so that my work wasn't interrupted until I could return to Albany.

I'm not sure how expanded access to this library is going to work or what it actually means for the average users, but I have a feeling we are going to enjoy it even more! In the meantime, I have a new website to explore!

Wordless Wednesday- Old Forge in summer