Irregular Marriage

If you find this term in your Genealogy it means this...

In Isolated frontier areas couples were not always able to travel to a church or preacher or legal recorder when they wanted to marry so they would publicly state their intentions and set up housekeeping together and then when the first itinerant minister came through, he would marry them.

This term was accepted by church elders, in Scotland and here in the U.S.A. in the earlier days. The couple was not thought of as promiscuous, it was just something that they did. The children under law were never thought as illegitimate, and thus, the church didn't either.

So in some states now, they call it common law marriage, or even the new modern term, Domestic Partner...

Correct Last Names....

My own last name is a huge long German name... and let me tell you, we are a unique bunch, but the problem I am having now is, when my Great Great Grandfather and his family immigrated to this country in 1881, after living in NYC for a short stay, they moved to Illinois. Upon doing research in the community that they lived in, I discovered that there were several other families living there with the same last name but with a different spelling.. my version is ae, another is ea, and then the third, a. And the ones with the A are the ones who spelled it this way when they were living in Germany, but my GGGrandfather changed his name to ae, and a cousin of his switched it to ea.

It has become confusing at times to tie it all together, but I am not quitting, just taking my time to read thru the names, and make out a family group sheet and work on connecting the families. They separated upon leaving Illinois via North Dakota then to Washington state. The cousins, left Illinois for N.D. as well, but then to California and Chicago.

So when you are doing your research, make sure you check with various spellings.. there could be more family than you know..

Snap Fish!!!

I am in love with snapfish, I just cant say it enough.. By the time I take my photos, and upload them to snapfish, pay a small amount, nothing compared to Target, or even costco.. and put my order thru, I have my photos back in my hand and ready to scrapbook. They have some wonderful projects as well, and I am getting ready to start my Christmas gift list and some of them will be through Snapfish.

On average before snapfish I paid .30 cents for a photo, usually because I didnt want to have to make two trips to the store, one to put in my order and two, to pick them up. Usually I would pay the extra money and do instant photos.

Now with snapfish, holy cow, I just load them up, select the ones I want printed, pay, poof, within like 4 days I have my photos. And they are delivered to my mailbox. We are a one car family, so this is totally convenient for us.

Thank you snapfish, I know there are other competitors out there, but none with the prices like snapfish, but more importantly, the extra projects. Thank you!!!

Genealogy Groups..

Starting a Genealogy group is something that is very common, and also very helpful. The people in your group can be friends or they can be people you have met at school while taking a class, or while working.

My girlfriends and I have started a group and sunday is our first get together. I have all the information that I want to take along with me.

A group setting can be so much fun, but also informative. Usually there is someone in the group that has far more insight into a certain area. Then there is a newbie, but has ideas of their own. Everyone brings something to the table, and then more information can be collected by just a few ideas from the table.

Civilian Personnel Records Center

Civilian Personnel Records Center

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Resources for Genealogists and Family Historians

Resources for Genealogists and Family Historians

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Google Reader

The more I have been working online, and using blogspot, blogger.com or Google. I have seen so many new things. Google Reader is wonderful, especially if you follow a lot of blogs, like I do. You can quickly skim thru your blogs, read the ones that you really want to. Or mark as read for others.. save them, delete them, instead of having to go to every single blog.

Where to Start..

When you are seeking your family's tree, how I start is at the end. Yes it sounds morbid, but they cant go anywhere after they are buried. So start with the cemetery. It will give you more than likely a birth date and a death date, and some markers have been fixed with sentiments like wonderful father, husband, uncle etc, that will give you the clue that he had a family. Take the dates that you have and work through the records, you can get a death certificate, birth certificate, and marriage certificate. They will cost anywhere from $10 to $20 dollars, depending on your city.

I started loading all of my family tree information onto Ancestry.com, helps keep it in one place, and well because its free to build a tree, make sure you set it to private, because anyone can copy your photos and take credit for them, and well, im all about sharing but as long as they ask for it, and not take it.

There are many websites that will offer help, most you have to pay, but some are free, and that helps a lot. So many records are being uploaded daily in hopes that others may need, find, discover their families history. Some generations dont go very far, not for lack of looking but for the sheer fact that records weren't kept, or were destroyed. And some generations can go as far as you can find. One of my lines is now up to its 19th generation, they were a very popular family in the 1500's and they kept going on their records as far back as 1100 A.D.

Playing Catch Up

I have been away for a while.. my son has been sick lately and that is where my focus has been. But today he is doing much better so here I am. I am not sure if i mentioned this before but I recently bought into Ancestry.com and wow, the load of information is almost overwhelming. I have been doing one family a night and trying to go as far back as I can and get as much information as I can before moving on, and its easy to do so.

Some girlfriends and I are forming a genealogy group to help the newbies and to refresh the more experienced. I am very excited about this, not only to help each other but to get together with friends.

Another thing to mention is back up your files and then put it on a flash drive and stick it in a safety deposit box. I have been scanning all of our papers incase something crucial happens later in life. Got to be able to prove your tree if someone calls you on something.

Find A Grave

seeing as how i dont get a chance to volunteer or help out with charities that really inspire me, I have been thinking of something to do to give back. I just happened to be working on a little research for my genealogy, and came across this little website, its nothing fancy, but it has 34million grave site photos. http://www.findagrave.com I am soon going to be walking the local cemeteries and taking photos.. Great exercise, great nature walks, and plenty of photos in the hopes of helping out my fellow genealogists. Usually when you have a person to research, you find their last known whereabouts, i.e. their grave. A photo is worth a thousand words, and in this case, a date of birth or a year, etc. If you are like me, and have just a few spare hours, or several to spare and want to get out and about, take your camera to the nearest cemetery and take photos, then upload them to the site. Also, if you need a photo, you can download it, and have it as your own, there are even celebrities listed there.

I Seek Dead People

I have been doing Genealogy for years, since I was about 14, I became very interested in our families history, when my Grandma got involved heavily into it. At 15, I went on a very long road trip with my Grandma, and it involved digging in cemeteries. It was a lot of fun, looking for people, searching thru weeds, snacks, bugs and swamps... yes swamps.. some people were buried in cemeteries that were turned into natural wildlife/flora preserves and then flooded. I basically took it is, the town, city, county or state, didnt feel the need to upkeep it, or didnt have the money to do so, so they just let nature take its course.

Finding Relatives the old school way, involved traveling and lots of microfilm, making photo copies with large bulky copiers and doing a lot of writing. Now in the days of the internet, fax machines, email it is much easier to get the info. Sometimes I still do it the old school way, getting the actual copies of the things i need, from a death certificate to a marriage licence or land deed.

If you are new to this you are not alone, I still consider myself an intermediate Genealogist, but I am very resourceful since I have a background with detective work. I love to help people get in the direction they want to get going, but for me, what is hard, is asking for help. I am still looking for my maternl grandfathers family, the trail stops actually when they leave Germany and enter the USA in the late 1800's. Rumor has it, they changed the spelling of their name, and there is a town in Germany named after them, and I'd like to know why. Someday I know that I will find out why. But for now, I have been working on getting all the research that I have collected from my Grandmother into proper order.

My title "I Seek Dead People" is as plain as it can get. I have dug in dozens of cemeteries, taking photos, rubbings and etchings, putting the last place photo with the person, and then go in reverse. It seems to work best for me this way, and when others need help, they know exactly what I do.