Earthquake -- Panning for Gold in the World of Information

Did you feel it?

That is the question of the morning across Kansas as a 5.6 magnitude earthquake struck in Northern Oklahoma. The event happened shortly after 7 am and social media became the quick source for the answer to the question -- did I actually feel an earthquake. The hashtag #earthquake is still in the top trending spot on Twitter over two hours later.

Even though I love Twitter for quick information, I know that I have to sift thru the tweets to find the facts. This is like 'panning for gold'. One has to evaluate the source behind the tweet to pull out those golden nuggets of truth.

For me, I tend to pay attention to the news reports from the area of the event versus national news. I prefer reports that are based on interviews or eye witness accounts. Thus, I gravitate to the local news outlets to see their reports. Since these reports incorporate personal experiences -- i.e. primary information -- they are the GOLD.

Another example of GOLD (primary information) is all of those 'I felt the house shake' tweets and Facebook posts. The person behind the tweet or post experienced the earthquake and is sharing their experience. Besides sharing on social media, we can each report our experience on the DID YOU FEEL IT site.

By reporting our personal experiences on this site, we participate in 'crowdsourcing'. The data collected by the Did You Feel It site will help scientists in the study of earthquakes. The map from this morning shows how widely this earthquake was felt.

All of these personal accounts are small nuggets that help define the larger story. However, I also want some large nuggets of Gold. Thus, I tend to go to the 'experts' in the field. In terms of an earthquake, that is the USGS (United States Geological Survey).

By going to the experts, I can locate the official reports. In terms of an earthquake these reports tell us when, where and how strong the earthquake was.

As a genealogist, I apply these same skills when looking for data to build my family tree.

• Personal experiences in letters, diaries 
• Reports of personal or family experiences in newspapers
• 'Experts' that attain and hold official records -- i.e. -- courthouses for deeds, wills, and vital records

Panning for genealogical gold takes time but even small nuggets of gold can help add another leaf to the family tree.

Icing on the Cake

I received an email from Ancestry today concerning a DNA match on my CURREY line.

For several of my branches, I haven't been able to find direct evidence of a lineage. Instead, I've had to accumulate enough indirect evidence to convince others that I have the relationships in a family line correct. For my CURREY line, this has been the case.

I'm working with FOUR generations of Hiram M. Curreys, starting with my great-grandfather Hiram Miles Currey (1866-1943) and going back potentially to the 1820 treasurer of the state of Ohio, Hiram Mirick Currey (potentially my 4th great-grandfather).

When I tested my DNA a year ago, I had high hopes of matching a known descendant of Hiram Mirick CURREY. Today, I now have a 16.5 centimorgan match with a sixth cousin one generation removed.

Now it is time to learn to write a proof argument!

Crawford Cluster Spreadsheet (Part 2)

Finis!

I've managed to combine event data from SIX different lines:

• James Crawford and Sally Smith Duggins (mine - names in blue)
• James Crawford and Martha Knight (Knight - names in green)
• James Crawford and Rebecca Anderson (Anderson - names in brown)
• Alexander Crawford and Mary McPheeters (McPheeters - names in red)
• William N. Crawford (WilliamN - names in purple)
• Nathaniel Sellers (Sellers - names in dark yellow)

Besides color coding the names, I color coded the four major counties for my branch:

• Garrard County, Kentucky -- shaded with lime green
• Preble County, Ohio -- shaded with yellow
• Warren County, Indiana -- shaded with bright blue
• Ford County, Kansas -- shaded with orange 

 Recent DNA tests are shedding more light on potential connections:

• yDNA indicates probably relationship to William N. Crawford 
• yDNA indicates my Crawford line may connect to the McPheeters line somehow
• a Sellers researcher believes I share DNA with SELLERS descendants (using gedmatch)
• Some Ancestry matches have SELLERS family in their trees
• Some Ancestry matches have Anderson / Vawter families in their trees
• So far DNA does not support relationship between two James Crawfords of Preble County, Ohio 

So what have I learned?

• There's more overlap than I realized. Because of the DUGGINS/SELLERS marriage, I knew there was a connection with my James Crawford (step-son). However, I didn't remember the connections with the James/Martha line.
• I evidently got a lot of marriage info from the IGI or similar source and need to get better documentation.
• The James Crawford / Rebecca Anderson line needs further research because of the Garrard County, Kentucky connection along with potential DNA connections.

Crawford Cluster Spreadsheet

 The spreadsheet is shared for viewing on Google Drive.

Crawford Cluster Spreadsheet (Part 1)

The results from recent DNA tests -- particularly the yDNA -- are pushing me to re-evaluate my CRAWFORD cluster research. Most of this research is pre-Internet and pre-Excel (remember AppleWorks and Microsoft Works?) However, I want to utilize the power of a spreadsheet to hopefully provide a fresh look at the data.

Thus, I turned to the Internet for ideas on how to proceed. I found the blog, Cluster Genealogy Research, by Gus Marsh that provided background on the research process. This blog provided hints on where else to look for data for my cluster.

Looking around at what others have done, I found the blog post, Timeline Template - How to Create a Timeline in Exel by Jon Wittwer. Not only does this blog offer a pre-packaged template for a reasonable price, it also includes the step-by-step instructions for the do-it-yourself-er. I would like to create this type of timeline -- especially for family reunion -- but I'm not sure it will work for my Cluster data.

Still on the lookout for spreadsheet ideas, I found DearMyrtle's post: The Pinball Approach to Genealogical Research. The spreadsheet example in this blog grouped all individuals of the same name together. I really like the concept behind this type of organization and will likely employ it as I begin doing more research in 18th century Virginia.

My brief study of DearMyrtle's method led me to believe that it would separate out the different surnames when I needed to see them together. Thus, I went searching for more and came up with Ancestral Breezes, Using Excel in Genealogy by Jen Baldwin.

After studying all of these excellent ways to use Excel to analyze the data, my next challenge was how to (quickly) get the data out of my genealogy program and into Excel so I could work with it. After looking at various report options, I opted to use the List titled: Timeline (Chronology) List.

Since I had already created named groups for the different aspects of my cluster, I was able to pull this data by the group. The place is an essential piece of information, so I clicked to include it but I turned sources off. (I often have multiple sources for an event. Adding all of this data would have either created a very wide column or made the rows very tall. Either situation would have made it harder to work with the names, dates and places.)

The generated report appeared on the screen and could easily have been printed.

However, I wanted to get it into Excel versus sending it to a printer. Fortunately, I had the option of saving it as a text file.

Once saved, the file opened in Notepad.

Since that isn't what I wanted, I simply closed Notepad and opened Excel. After navigating to location of the file, I pulled down the down arrow next to All Excel Files so I could switch to All Files.

By switching to All Files, I could now see the text files along with the Excel files.

Since this data is in TXT format, I have to go thru the 'Text Import Wizard'. On the first window, I make sure DELIMITED is marked and simply click the NEXT button.

The Import Utility proposes the use of TAB as the DELIMITER. The screen allows one to preview the results so one could experiment with clicking both TAB and SPACE or COMMA to see the impact before actually clicking NEXT to import.

The next screen of the importer allows one to format the columns. Because I have dates over 2 centuries, I don't want to chance Excel misinterpreting them. Thus, I don't make any changes on this screen and click FINISH.

Since I wanted to get the year, given name, surname, county and state into separate columns I had to do some data manipulation. I used the TEXT FORMULA for RIGHT to pull the last 4 characters from the date column and put it in the YEAR column. I had to go back to Google research to figure out how to split the name and found Microsoft's Split Text into Different Cells instructions.

Now I have the data in a format I can work with.

More Circles, Please

For some, DNA is all about their ethnicity. For me, it is all about finding actual cousins. I'm not just looking for that 7 cM of common DNA but for much longer pieces -- my cousins.

Recently, I discovered that a little work on my part could improve my results on AncestryDNA. I found if I quit ignoring those green leaves (called 'shaky leaves' by some) and actually worked to confirm the hints, the number of 'shared matches' [shared ancestor hints] would increase.

When I posted about this on the 11th, my DNA circles hadn't really changed. However, I now have 16 circles when I had only been seeing about six.

Same Name Nightmare!

Does anyone remember when Ancestry came out with their 'one tree'? I think it was called 'One World Tree'. The concept sounded fantastic! They would take all of the trees submitted to Ancestry and merge them into this one magical tree -- linking research and researchers together -- and helping us find more ancestors. The problem then was that the computers didn't analyze -- they just lumped. If it looked like the same person -- the computer said it was.

For me, the result was that the computer lumped two James Crawfords together that I had spent lots of time to separate -- and had the documentation to prove it. I tried to get them separated but eventually gave up the fight.

I'm sure that is why some are leery of the tree on Family Search and perhaps why Wiki tree requires the documentation.

Well, my nightmare is returning. This time it is on my Currey (Curry) line where I likely have four generations of the same name: Hiram M. Currey.

The problem is with my 3rd great-grandfather: Hiram M. Currey of Peoria, Illinois. I have quite a bit of documentation on his life -- BETWEEN 1822 and 1844 -- when he was a lawyer in Indiana and Illinois. A couple of land transactions with Thomas Currey of Indiana tie this Hiram Currey to the family of the treasurer of Ohio in 1820 -- Hiram M. Currey.

So did this Hiram Currey change occupations and become a minister in 1870 and a doctor in 1880 and live to be almost 100? That's what all of the hints for my Hiram M. Currey that lived in Peoria would indicate.

My hypothesis is that the Hiram M. Currey that married Julia Hatfield is NOT the same Hiram M. Currey living in Peoria prior to 1850.

The task begins -- documenting the family of Hiram & Julia Currey. Time will tell whether my hypothesis is accurate or not.