Heartland Genealogy

Do you ever take the 'easy way' to do something? Well, I do all of the time when it comes to writing about an ancestor. For quite a few years, I've been letting my genealogy software compose the narrative. I first learned to take advantage of turning the events into sentences and thus into a narrative while using The Master Genealogist . Second Site software would take my genealogy data in TMG and turn it into a narrated web site .

I've been trying to learn more about my ancestor, John Thompson (1797-1857) in hopes of identifying his parents. He married Sarah Iglehart in 1820 in Ohio County, Kentucky. Thus, I wanted to learn more about any Thompsons in Ohio County, Kentucky around the time of this marriage. Fortunately, the Ohio County, Kentucky Tax Books, 1799-1875 are available for viewing on Family Search. Even though these images aren't indexed, it was fairly easy to find the images for the 'T' portion of the alphabet. (Note: I also recorded information for the Igleharts while viewing this resource.) I found a John Thompson listed in 1820. This John Thompson was over 21 and owned a horse.

     Charles Oliver Mentzer was born on 1 Jul 1869 in Kewanee, Henry, Illinois, United States. 1 – 12 1 , 10 , 13 – 14 He lived in Kewanee, Henry, Illinois, United States on 23 Aug 1870. 15 Chas O Mentzer was listed in the household of Geo Mentzer on the 1870 census. According to the census, Chas was 1 year old and born in Illinois. He lived in Woodson, Kansas, United States in 1871. 2

Have you ever had trouble documenting a father/son relationship? Or, have you had trouble separating records for men of the same name? My go to source in these situations has been the land records. In Kansas, we are lucky in that most counties maintain what is called the Range Index. Basically, this is an index of the land transactions for the range. What is nice about this index is that each quarter section has its own page. Thus, it is easy to see how land was transferred over time. Last August, I was able to travel to Woodson County, Kansas to track down a court case and to obtain copies of the land records for my Mentzer, Wells, and Ricketts families. Below is a transcription of the information found in the index for Range 14. Woodson County, Kansas Range 14 Index

A comment was made on me previous post about sourcing. I totally agree that if I only count well-documented ancestors, then my % decreases drastically. I recently discovered the ability of the Fan Chart on the Family Search tree to display status of sourcing.

Last May, we started a home improvement project to replace broken and damaged concrete. Since the concrete was under our screened-in-porch, the project included tearing down our the screened-in-porch and replacing it with a room addition. The project quickly expanded to include new siding and windows. In July, I jokingly commented to our contractor that I just wanted to be done by Christmas. Well, the tree is up, and we aren't finished yet. Unfortunately, they ran out of siding. We are on the list for new guttering, but the weather is affecting that contractor's ability to work. Thus, our remodel project is still a work in progress -- a lot like my genealogy projects. Today, someone tweeted Crista Cowan's 2012 blog post, Family History All Done? What's Your Number?  Curious, I decided to 'calculate' my number. Now, when people question why I'm not finished, I can honestly say: I've only discovered 39% of my ancestors back 10 generations! ...

About a month ago, I ran across another Thompson tree on Ancestry.com that had an article from the Belleville newspaper attached to Ulysses Grant Thompson . Curious as to what was in the newspaper, I decided to do a search for Grant Thompson in the Belleville, Kansas newspapers on Newspapers.com . Instead of backing up a step and doing a more focused search, I opened many of the articles in new tabs. Thus, I had a browser open with who knows how many tabs. I not only found an obituary for Ulysses Grant Thompson, but also for his wives. In addition, I found news items related  Grant Thompson's siblings and his children. This newspaper search took quite a few hours (days) to complete. However, the information contained in all of these articles was genealogy GOLD . I hit the JACKPOT!

A recent #52Ancestors prompt was bearded. In thinking about that prompt, my first thought was I don't have anyone to right about since the majority of pictures I have are of men without beards. So instead of writing about someone who was bearded, I'm going to show my unbearded family tree. My Family Tree Parents Eugene David Crawford and Roberta Adell Briles

Do you wish that everyone who took a DNA test had a tree attached going back to at least their grandparents? Do you ever search public member trees hoping to find a cousin with the family Bible or family photographs? I have a lot of family photographs, documents and even a Bible that I want to share with family members. I have a public member tree and I want others to be able to find my tree. As I discovered yesterday, the vast majority of my tree may now be found. However, there are parts of my tree that still aren't indexed. Randy Seaver reminded me of this possibility in his reply to my comment on his blog, Has Ancestry.com Indexed Ancestry Member Trees Yet . It appears that the entire tree isn't indexed. Instead only individuals with Ancestry.com sources are indexed. In order to verify this, I had to go to a section of my tree where I had not worked the Ancestry hints. I selected the John Minnick family to test this theory. My Heartland Genealogy tree contains Ancestry ...

Due to my husband's fight with pneumonia, I have been away from genealogy for a couple of weeks. This evening, I decided to see if my tree would show up in a search of public member trees. (See Ancestry Indexing Update from Aug 2018) To my surprise, my tree, Heartland Genealogy, appeared in the results.

Coffey County Kansas Deed Book O Page 603 Warranty Deed This indenture made this twentieth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand sixty nine between Alexander Briles and Sarah his wife of Neosho Township in the County of Coffey and State of Kansas of the first part and Noah W Briles of Neosho Township in the county of Coffey and State of Kansas of the second part witnesseth that the said party of the first part in consideration of the sum of four hundred dollars to them duly paid have sold and by these presents do grant and convey to the said party of the second part his heirs and assigns all that tract or parcel of land situated in Coffey County and State of Kansas and described as follows to wit: The West Half of the North East Quarter of Section Twelve in Township Twenty Three of Range Fifteen (15) East containing eighty acres more or less with its appurtenances and all the estate titles and interest of the said parties of the first part therein and the said Ale...

Do you search public member trees for hints? Do you search public member trees to try and connect with others researching your ancestor? If so, did you realize that only trees with Ancestry sources attached to the tree will appear in the list of results? It doesn't matter how many other sources are attached, the tree won't appear in the search results. Did you also realize that any trees created since October 10, 2017 won't appear in the list of results. That means that the search results won't contain trees created by DNA testers in the last year. I have no idea how many public trees are hidden because of the lack of an updated index. However, I do know that my Heartland Genealogy tree is one of those that is hidden. I would love for others to be able to find my tree.

Have you ever looked at your genealogy and wondered, 'How did I get that?' That happened to me recently as I was researching the descendants of William Taylor Thompson of Wapello County, Iowa. William had a daughter, Julia. I had found a Wapello County, Iowa marriage record for Julia S Thompson to Edward Bates in 1868. Thus, I was following shaky leaf hints for Julia Thompson Bates. In the process, I found the Find a Grave memorial for Julia A. Thompson Bates - who died in 1922. But wait, I have Julia Thompson dying before 1887. So, where did I get the death information? And, is it correct? If so, does this mean I've mixed up two different Julia Thompsons?

Have you ever been tempted to pull someone else's family history research into your tree? I know I have. Back in the days of PAF, another RICKETTS researcher shared a gedcom with me. Knowing he was a serious worker and that the file was full of information that could help me on my RICKETTS line, I imported his gedcom file into my file. So, when someone would ask me about a RICKETTS, I would have to confess that I had copied the info into my file and really didn't know much about that particular individual. Over time, I was able to figure out how to selectively weed that RICKETTS data so that I only had families I had researched. From this first hand experience, I know how erroneous information can creep into a tree. I do use other trees - for hints and to check my research. I am currently researching my THOMPSON line. My ancestor, William Taylor Thompson, was born and married in Indiana. After his marriage, he moved to Wapello County, Iowa where he died. Hoping to see what ...

Around 2005, I sat down with a small voice recorder and my parents to discuss their life. There wasn't any specific order to our discussions. Thus, they wander all over the place - but provide a lot of insight into their lives. Below is a transcript of one of those interviews: What are your favorite memories of your kids D: Well, I remember collectively I remember how good a student they were. That was not a problem getting any one of the three of you to study and to perform well in school M: I remember them playing out in the backyard in Dodge City with the neighborhood kids. I remember Dave burying his shoe in the sand when they were building the house next door. D: Oh – I remember Dave hanging his glasses on the fence D I remember you being sort of a judge or a referee with the neighborhood kids when playing especially when (what’s her name) (me – Shelly) – when all of you were playing together with Shelly – of course she was (me – down syndrome) retarded – she ...

My calendar declared that this weekend was LAKE WEEKEND. 'Lake Weekend' is when my family gets together at Acorn Resorts on Lake Milford. A typical 'lake weekend' involves food, fire, football, and puzzles. Our weekend typically begins with a shared meal Friday evening followed by gathering around the fire to visit. Even with the light from the fire, the view of the night sky can be amazing. With clouds moving overhead we were able to see a few stars peaking out from behind the clouds. Unfortunately, the youngest member of our party was disappointed in that she couldn't find her favorite night sky object -- the MOON. (Even without clouds, she wouldn't have found her 'moon', since it was a new moon.) As the evening progresses, we have to convince the fire bosses to let the fire die down to coals so we can have dessert. Then the marshmallow sticks and pudgy pie makers come out and the contest to see who can roast the best marshmallows or make th...

I recently watched a video that included a Golden Retriever puppy going down a slide. This brought back memories of our family dog, Peppy. Peppy joined the family while we were living on P street in Lincoln, Nebraska. When Peppy was a puppy, we would take him to Woods Park for him to go down a short children's slide. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of Peppy going down the slide.

This morning, I watched part of the Wacky Wednesday episode: The Source Is Gone and hope to finish it watching it later today. During this presentation, Cousin Russ discusses how he is rethinking how he cites memorials on Find A Grave. During the presentation, Cousin Russ compared the suggested citation for a Find a Grave memorial to how he was citing the memorial in his software. This made me curious about my own citations and how they compare. Below is the suggested citation for the memorial of my second great grandfather, Washington Marion Crawford. When I looked at the footnote for the Find a Grave source in my software (RootsMagic), I found that the footnote was similar to the suggested footnote. My footnote is 'created' using a template to enter the information. The above template is a 'custom' template that I created. I often copy a built-in template and then customize the copy. I like using templates. They make it easy for me to remember to include the importa...

As mentioned in a previous post, my John Thompson ancestor and another John Thompson of a similar age are both living in Warrick County, Indiana at the same time. I'm hoping that land records for Warrick County, Indiana will help me separate these two families. Buried in my paper files were some notes I took from the deed index books for Warrick County. Since there are additional notes in the margins of these notes, I'm assuming I looked at the deeds while on a research trip to the Family History Library in Salt Lake.

Last week, I stumbled upon a hint that the father of my ancestor, John B Thompson , was David Thompson of Barren County, KY. Following that hint, I found the will of a David Thompson in Barren county, KY. Among his children was a John B. Thompson.

I descend from John Thompson -- the John Thompson who married Sarah Iglehart in Ohio County, Kentucky, lived in Warrick County, Indiana, Wapello County, Iowa and Adams County, Iowa. The 1830 and 1840 census records for Warrick County, Indiana include two men named John B Thompson. 1840 Census 1830 Census

I am researching John Thompson who married Sarah Iglehart in 1820 in Ohio county, Kentucky. According to cemetery records, John was born in Kentucky. According to a history of Adams County, Iowa, John resided in Warrick county, Indiana before migrating to Wapella County, Iowa and then to Adams County, Iowa. John and Sarah's children include William Taylor Thompson (1820-1898) md Mary Ann Evans Jacob Thompson (1822-1905) md Rhoda Evans Benjamin Franklin Thompson (1824-1875) md Catherine Black Levi Thompson (1826-1828) Martha Jane Thompson (1828-1848) md Alexander Van Winkle Andrew J Thompson (1832-?) Mary Elizabeth Thompson (1834-1917) md Henry Evans John Lowe Thompson (1836-1917) md Martha Ingersoll Francis Marion Thompson (1838-1921) md Martha Schooling Sarah Ellen Thompson (1841-1844) James Allen Thompson (1841-1868) md Margaret Scott

I recently have been working on a 'go over' for my 2nd great grandfather, George Mentzer . In the process, I utilized Scrivener . I had probably heard about Scrivener, but when I saw it mentioned in the recent Twitter #genchat , I decided to try it. In the process of learning more about Scrivener and genealogy, I discovered Lisa Alzo's Ancestor Profile Template  along with her 25 Genealogist Hacks Every Genealogist Should Know . I haven't used my George Mentzer Scrivener project to write his biography (yet). However, I have used it to transcribe the various documents I've collected over the years.  My research folder contains the actual document files.

For my genealogy research, 'brick walls' and 'same name' often go hand in hand. Hiram M. Currey and James Crawford are two examples where a 'brick wall' also involves working thru 'same name' issues. In the case of Hiram M. Currey, I have four generations that go by that name. To further complicate the issue, there is another Hiram M. Currey that is about the same age as my Hiram M. Currey of Peoria, Illinois. My James Crawford research is more complicated. I have identified three James Crawford families in the same area of early Kentucky. Histories of the region refer to a Rev. James Crawford who is likely the Rev. James Crawford -- a fourth James Crawford. Over the years, I have been able to figure out the relationships between the multiple Hiram M Curreys and to separate the multiple James Crawfords. I have found the following techniques useful: Perform a reasonably exhaustive research of all people of the same name in the same area and time perio...

I feel like I'm going in circles trying to eliminate yellow light bulbs for Ancestry hints. I've been working on the descendants of Albert Hutchinson and it feels like I keep accepting the same hints for the same people. Today, I decided to work with Netta M. Clickenbeard . RootsMagic says I have 4 pending hints. At some time in the past year, I figured out that the hint # doesn't group Ancestry Member Trees but counts them individually. So, this 4 pending hints could be 4 databases, 4 member trees or any combination of the two.   Since I don't accept the hints from RootsMagic, my next step was to locate Netta Clickenbeard in my Ancestry tree.  When I clicked on her profile, it indicated that I didn't have any hints to process.   I then went back to RootsMagic and clicked on the 4 to try and figure out the pending hints. According to the Ancestry WebHints window, I have rejected 2 hints. All of the other hints -- including all trees -- have green c...

As a genealogist and an information junkie, I read quite a few genealogy blogs, belong to quite a few genealogy Facebook groups, have a lot of genealogy friends on Facebook and follow a lot of genealogists on Twitter. (Remember, I am an information junkie!) Thus, I have encountered quite a few discussions of the European Union's G eneral D ata P rotection R egulation (GDPR) . Based on what others - especially the Legal Genealogist - have written, I have tried to understand the GDPR and to implement changes to my blogs and my website. As a volunteer for the Nemaha County Historical Society, I have also tried to inform their board about the GDPR and help them implement changes. One of the challenges was guidelines on what the historical society needed to do. Other than the genealogy related blog posts, there wasn't an organization or government site providing help for non-profits. When guidance was sought from statewide organizations, the responses received were not as inf...