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?
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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.

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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.