Be Nice to People?

Well, I was deathly ill for about 6 weeks and am finally ready to get back to work on genealogy, writing and scanning pictures.

While I was ill, I was reminded of how tenuous life on Earth is and how dependent we are on our physical bodies to keep us here...and I am grateful to still be here and be able to watch my grandson grow and see how my children are changing and growing in their individual lives.

I told God that if I lived that I would be nicer to people, but I think that when he heard that prayer, He chose to let me live anyway...because I am sure that He knew that I would continue to struggle with the "be nicer to people" promise.

I will keep trying though!

The Ritchey Family

I had gotten into a rut and didn't feel inspired to work on genealogy when my sister sent me an email that listed some names that she had copied from an obituary---that she had found amongst the pictures and slides that I had taken an interest in to digitize by scanning and tagging.

I dutifully printed the email and tucked it in with the other records on the Ritchey family.....

Then I get an email from a stranger who is working on the Ritchey family on Ancestry.com....

The two sources together helped us connect individuals that the other did not know about!!

The Lord works in mysterious and wonderful ways.

920 Slides!

Genealogy is more than looking up names on ancestry.com or any other website. It is connecting with your past and learning something about yourself and your family.

Last week, I finished scanning 920 slides (working 4-5 hours per day for 2 weeks) that my parents had taken during their travels (with kids in tow)that spanned 20 years (1953-1973). These slides included images from Germany, Maryland, Mississippi, South Korea, Vietnam, Okinawa, Philippines, Thailand, Hawaii, Arkansas, Texas,and Utah.

My father and I sat for several hours sorting through and tagging these images and only finished--- maybe 100---obviously there will be several more sittings with my parents to complete the project! It is really a process, but so worth it!

The story these images tell is a fascinating one and truly reminds me that we need to preserve our memories and stories for our descendants.

Back to Work

Well, I have been searching through mountains of work that my sister had done, but she never really organized it, so it has been time consuming.

Anyway, once the work of inputting all that she has done is finished, then I will be able to use the resources at Ancestry.com to confirm, print documents and then sit back to see where to go next.

That is where I am now, hope to have something more concrete for the next post.

Grant, Emery and Fields Family- Follow Up

The Mary Grant line is correct, so my ancestors include names such as Margaret Princess of Denmark, James Stuart King of Scot. Cool.

The Fields line is still in debate until the Great- Grandparents of John Fields (b. 1831). I know that the Great-Grandparents of John Fields of 1831 is correct (I am unsure of which grandkid is his father),nevertheless, Sussannah Emery and her line is correct. YAY!

Emery- Grant-Fields Family

My sister supplied me with some research that she had done and while trying to tie it in with what I had done has been frustrating. So here it is:

Belle Fields is my Great Grandma. Her father is John Fields. His father is either Samuel or George Fields. If his father is Samuel Fields then the work my sister did is correct and the Fields-Emery-Grant lines will lead to some really interesting people.

For example, Mary Grant who was married to William Emery has Cherokee roots that include names like Old Corn Tassell and Keyhum Techea Kahyn.

Mary Grant's father has roots that include James Stuart Earl of Moray and James Stuart King of Scot.

So, I am trying to verify the parents of John Fields because he is the link to all that follows--this is so fun!

Problems with PAF and New Info on the O' Roark Family

I am sure that the problems I had last night were my fault, but it certainly was frustrating.

I decided that I wanted to import new information that I had found on Ancestry.com into my existing Personal Ancestral File (PAF).

Somehow, after I did so, I wound up with 3 of everything that was already in the file along with 1 copy of the new names and dates. It took hours to match/merge the duplicate info! Ugh!

Anyway, I found new names on the Roark or O'Roark family: Timothy O'Roark was born in 1700 in Ireland and died in 1796 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Cool.

Obviously, at some point in his life he traveled to America. I wonder what his circumstances were when he or his parents made such a huge decision?
_______________________

Still nothing new about the Levi's:(

Mistakes

I spent the weekend checking dates and names and found some mistakes.

For example, there were some entries that had children listed that would have meant that their mother would have been in her fifties when the children were born. It may be possible, but unlikely.

Another entry had the mother's age at around 100 years old at the time of the birth!! Now, I know that this cannot be.

So, much work needs to be done to check these entries and correct them.

___________________

Still nothing about Solomon Levi's parents:(

However, there is a possible lead that may find the Levi's in Hungary. If it pans out, that will be exciting.

Burned Out

After hours and hours of searching over the last few days, I could not bring myself to work on genealogy today.

However, yesterday I found some interesting information about the Combs family history.

For example, and I will need to look though the documents again (to sort out which Combs was involved), there are documents that show that the Comb's were involved in the Revolutionary War, Civil War, WWI, and WWII.

One of the Comb's was mustered out at Appomattox-on the day of the surrender!

Cool.

PAF and Pedigree Charts

Today I managed to create a GED file from the information that I had found off of Ancestry.com, exported it to my desktop, imported that info into my PAF program that I downloaded free from FamiliySearch.Org and now I have a working copy for myself!!

YAY!!

It's great; I can now print pedigree charts and see where there are problems or where I need to find more information.

I LOVE it.

The Combs Family

Wow, last night I traced the Combs family back to 1086.

The backward progression is as follows: Living in Arkansas around 1875; Kentucky from 1806-1852; Virginia 1641-1770; England 1086-1602.

I wonder what brought them to America and why?
______________________
As for Solomon Levi: so far I have not been able to find his parents; however, I did find some interesting documents related to him.

His last will and testament excluded my Great-great-great Grandma (Jenni Levi Ritchey) saying that "they have had more than an equal share of my estate."

I assume that he means her and her husband and their children.

Also, a land grant in Kentucky says that he owned 200 acres in the "CHAPTER IV GRANTS SOUTH OF GREEN RIVER (1797-1866) THE COUNTIES OF KENTUCKY."

This hobby is addictive, but fun.

Step One: What do you know?

To find ones ancestors, one must first make note of everything that is already obvious.

So, I searched my closet for the information that my mother, myself and others have already produced and found that on some family lines we had quite a lot of information, while others, very little.

The lines with the least information are the ones that fascinate me the most.

For example, we have a line with the surname of Levi. Sounds like a Jewish name and this fascinates me. There are other Jewish surnames too.

My hope is that over the next year, I will be able to learn more about my Jewish ancestors.

If it takes longer that's great, but I have taken out a one year subscribtion to Ancestry.com and hope that great strides will be made before my subscribtion ends.

in the beginning

I have caught the genealogy bug--again.

I want to find my ancestors, or at least track down their names and where they were born. Maybe I will learn something about them along the way. Should be an interesting journey.

I have caught this bug a few times in my life, and have enjoyed the search for all the little clues that have led to interesting discoveries.

Certain lines are easier than others. For example, my mother's side has been much easier to track because the majority have roots that land in England. On the other hand, my father's side is a mixture of native american, jewish, and english.

Anyhow, can't wait for tomorrow, because tomorrow I might find some small piece of information that will lead to one of my long lost kin.

We are all connected in this kindred web, hope to find you there.