Heartland Genealogy

Do you ever feel like you've figured out a new way to cluster matches and then realize that those clusters you thought you had found included matches from distinctly separate areas of your tree? Well, that was my experience when I expanded my mountain/valley analysis of my Crawford line. As explained in my DNA Clusters: Mountains and Valleys post, I had a 'missing mountain' for the parents of Nelson G. Crawford in my original diagram.

Do you use timelines in your genealogy research? I'm guessing that most people who have been searching their family history for some time have used some sort of timeline. When I retired and starting spending more time researching my family tree, I created a spreadsheet for my Crawford family research. In the spreadsheet, I was able to color code the people, locations and time periods. All of this information was copied from my RootsMagic data into the spreadsheet. It wasn't until I read Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Make a Timeline Report blog that I seriously looked at the Timeline Report in RootsMagic. Thanks to his post, I started looking at the built-in timelines on Ancestry and within RootsMagic.

I just watched Blaine Bettinger's video, Sub-Clustering Shared Matches. As I was following the video, I was also trying to do this with my brother's DNA matches. The match I started with is listed on my match page as a second cousin. In reality, she is a first cousin once removed. Our common ancestors are Judson Crawford and Josie Hammond. Her shared match list contained 157 matches. I marked them all with a yellow dot labeled: ICW EB.

One of my genealogical challenges is identifying the parents and siblings of my ancestor, James Crawford. James marries Sally Duggins in Garrard County, Kentucky in 1799. By 1810, the couple is living in Preble County Ohio. I've already done some cluster research to try and make headway on this line. In the process, I've identified quite a few potential members of a cluster. In trying to figure out how to track my research, I created a spreadsheet to show where these people were at various times. The above spreadsheet provides a visual of what I currently know. Now the struggle is to create a research plan and figure out how best to track this research. Cluster Surnames Crawford, Duggins, Smith, Knight, Neal, Finley Time Period 1770 to 1850   Locations Preble County Ohio pre-1800 Kentucky