September 2020 Minutes

A big thank you to Linda B. for taking minutes for our meeting this week.

Ferndale Genies Meeting, September 21, 2020 Present were Judith C., Susan M., Bill R., Linda B., Elizabeth D., Judy B., David R., Marjorie C., Rick B., and Mary Kay J.

Judith announced that Sylvia and Peggy were not able to attend but had been in touch with her. Peggy recently found genetic genealogist Blaine Bettinger on her tree and is investigating the connection.

Elizabeth: First introduced her friend, Mary Kay, who joined the group today. Elizabeth has been researching Scotch-Irish and Irish who settled in Newbury, SC area, in the 1700 and 1800s. Relatives on both sides of her family lived there. In particular, she is reading a probate document looking for other family members. The document also contained an interesting list of their belongings. 

Mary Kay: A cousin put together a full history of her mother’s side of the family. She is researching father’s side. She has been to Isle of Man and has some documents but wishes to learn their stories and the historical context. 

Sue: She is researching her mother’s side, grandmother and relatives born in England. Her birth name is Morris and she found a mug, with an engraving that reads William Morris, 1834-1896 Victoria Albert Museum, and is wishing to learn more about it. 

Bill: He and his wife are going through their photos and converting slides. 

Question: He has one large family tree on Ancestry.com that includes media and would like to divide into two separate trees. Can this be done? Will the media also copy over? 

Answers: 1. Separate the tree in your desktop software, if it is also stored there, then upload the two trees to Ancestry.com. Judy B. was able to do this with Legacy software. 2. If using Family Tree Maker, which syncs with Ancestry.com, this method would not be possible, as the software cannot sync with two different trees on Ancestry. 

Judy: She shared a book that may be helpful to Elizabeth, Mary Kay and anyone researching Irish and Scotch Irish, entitled The Scotch Irish: A Social History by James G. Leyburn. Most of the families she is researching arrived in the US prior to the revolutionary war. The book has provided an historical context for the waves of immigration of these folk. She is busy transcribing letters from her husband’s grandfather. There are over a thousand of them, so it is a big project. Judith suggested perhaps another family member could work on this with her. 

Question: How do people manage the many notifications from genealogy groups and websites that would be interesting to follow up at some later date? 

Answers: 1. Keep email notifications in folders on your email account, organized by surname or organization. 2. Keep a notebook with a list of notices to pursue and cross off when complete. 3. Use software to organize your research, such as Evernote. 4. For items found on Ancestry.com, one can store in the “shoebox.” 

David: He has been watching CeCe Moore’s TV series. He did some investigation of his own DNA matches after learning that Ancestry was culling those under 6-7 cM. This removal of matches happened at the end of August. Judith explained that other websites had already set a higher standard for DNA matches, so this culling process brought Ancestry’s match lists in line with the others. Most people still have many more matches at the lower end of their match list than they will find useful unless there is endogamy in the family line. David commented that he had 200 matches above the 20 cM amount, some of which helped to make progress with brick walls. 

Rick: He was surprised to learn of a set of twins in his family born in 1873, Researching them was a bit challenging as each showed up in different census records, but he did locate birth and death records for each twin. He is also busy unpacking after the move into their new home. 

Marjorie: She needs motivation from the group. Works on her genealogy projects in bits and pieces. Made some progress on Norwegian grandparents’ line. She is recording some of their stories. No brick walls at this time. 

Linda: She has finished writing a narrative about her ancestors from Germany, all of whom landed in Milwaukee. She found the book The Making of Milwaukee by John Gurda to be helpful in understanding historical context. She is also researching her husband’s English and Scottish ancestors. She is eager to connect with his cousin in England who traced their family back to the 1600s in England. 

Judith: She has been busy. There are many new genealogy opportunities available and needs to focus. She joined the Eastside Genealogy Society in Bellevue, which has a German Interest Group as a subgroup. She and Linda B. attended a virtual presentation by a member of that group on the means of travel for immigrants from Europe. The presenter was a career maritime professional, who was able to provide perspective on the size of the ships of the time by comparing them to a Washington ferry, among other interesting details. Judith also joined the Seattle Genealogy Society and the Skagit Valley Genealogy Society. Both offer educational programs via Zoom. It is easier to participate in more than one group now that they are meeting online. One needs to decide on goals, then pursue opportunities to learn more about those topics. 

Some things to check out: Skagit Valley Genealogy Society workshop series in October: https://skagitvalleygenealogy.org/calendars/. Roots Tech will be all virtual this year, and is going completely global, with workshop sessions in many languages scheduled to be convenient to the time zones of different countries. To take place February 25-27, 2021. Learn more and register at www.rootstech.org.

Judith described a new business, Keepsake DNA. They harvest DNA from various kinds of objects (envelopes, clothing, teeth, jewelry) and analyze for you, then can add the information to GEDmatch. This is a new commercial application of the process crime labs use. Rather expensive to do, at $400 for the first step, quantification, which determines whether there is enough DNA on the object to pursue the second step, analysis. It is the dream of the future. 

Judith recommends listening to Research Like a Pro podcasts #100 “Top 10 Tips for Research Like a Pro”.  Also #113, which begins a weekly step-by-step review of Diana Elder and Nicole Dyer’s process, also described in their book by the same name as the podcast. 

Questions 1. If one downloads v. 2019 of Family Tree Maker and still has an older version on the computer, can the older one be deleted without losing data? Advice was to compare the number of people in the trees on both versions to ensure the data is the same on both. 

2. Is Newspapers.com free with an Ancestry membership? Answers: No. It is included in the cost of Ancestry All Access. One can sign up for a 7-day trial membership and look up as much as possible before canceling. It is wise to check which geographical areas or newspapers are included before buying.