Saturday Night Genealogy Fun

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):

1)  Ellen Thompson-Jennings posted 20 questions on her blog this week - see Even More Questions About Your Ancestors and Maybe A Few About You (posted 27 June). 

2) We will do do these five at a time - Questions 1 to 5 tonight.

3)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.

Question 1: Which ancestor had the most children?

This was NOT an easy question to answer. I found a report in RootsMagic that told me the average children per family and maximum children per family.

However, I couldn't locate a report that would list the various families and the number of children. 

George W. Crawford

Have you ever just stumbled across something that others may seem minor when it provides major clues. That's what happened yesterday when I did a simple Google search for 'Isaac Crawford Nancy Miller'.

That search led to a biography of George W. Crawford of Gentry County, Missouri in the book, The History of Gentry and Worth Counties, Missouri on page 421.

George W. Crawford

Research Notes

Do you keep a research log? I have to admit that I would likely get a 'failing grade' for this part of the genealogy standard. I've tried using a paper log and a spreadsheet log, but don't seem to be able to keep it up. Thus, I don't have a 'master index' to locate my research notes.

In May, Pat Richley-Erickson, posted a question to the Facebook group, The Organized Genealogist, asking group members how they organize their research notes. This was followed up by a Wacky Wednesday presentation, Organizing Active Research Notes.

Organization

Have you been following all of the Facebook posts about organizing and tracking your genealogy research? If you haven't then you might want to check out some of these posts:

• The Genealogy Squad - search for 'organizing' posts 
• The Organized Genealogists - check out the files submitted to this group

If you haven't joined these or other genealogy groups on Facebook, then you are missing out on a lot of help!

Because of the recent discussions around organizing one's genealogy, I thought I'd share what I've found useful. Since my genealogy adventure began prior to the Internet, I started with a lot of paper. Thus, I had to have a way to organize it so I could go back and find my notes. As Drew Smith has suggested, I used the SURNAME as my first level of organization. Because I had too much information to fit in one folder for the SURNAME, I subdivided my notes. Below is an example of how those folders were named for one of my surnames:

• Crawford
• Crawford - Letters
• Crawford - Census
• Crawford - Kansas
• Crawford - Indiana
• Crawford - Ohio
• Crawford - Kentucky
• Crawford - Virginia

James or George

Do you have a brick wall? Does that brick wall involve identifying the father of an ancestor? At some point, many of us face such a brick wall.

One of my brick walls involves my ancestor, James Crawford. My James Crawford married Sally Duggins in 1799 in Garrard County, Kentucky. All of my research efforts have not punched a hole in this brick wall. Thus, I'm using the FAN (friends acquaintances, and neighbors) club method to branch out and try to find a way around this brick wall. I'm currently researching all of the Crawford families in the area of Garrard County, Kentucky during its early days of settlement.

One of those families is James Crawford and his wife Rebecca Anderson. My current theory is that this James Crawford might be an uncle to my ancestor. Thus, I'm hoping that by researching James and Rebecca and their children, I might find something relating to my James Crawford. Unfortunately, identifying the children of James and Rebecca is proving to be difficult.

I found information about this family in the Florence Wilson Houston book, Maxwell History and Genealogy

Aristippus Brown

As part of my CRAWFORD research, I'm trying to determine whether the Isaac Crawford of Jefferson County, Indiana is the same Isaac Crawford who married Nancy Miller in Garrard County, Kentucky. Thus, I'm trying to locate information on potential children. One of those potential children is Elizabeth Crawford who married Aristippus Brown in Clinton County, Missouri.

Unfortunately, I'm having trouble locating much information on Aristippus Brown. What I've been able to locate is a marriage record, land records and mentions in county histories.

Aristippus Brown was married to Elizabeth Crawford in Clinton County, Missouri on 3 August 1836.

According to the History of Davies and Gentry Counties, MIssouri, Aristippus Brown was from Kentucky and lived near Genntryville in 1839. The history indicates that Aristippus Brown moved to California.

In May of 1840, Aristippus Brown and Elizabeth Brown his wife, sold land in Garrard County, Kentucky. This deed identifies Elizabeth as Elizabeth Crawford, daughter of Isaac Crawford and granddaughter of Jacob Miller.

Garrard County Kentucky
Land and Property

Deeds, Vols. N-O 1838-1843
FamilySearch Film 183247 DGS 8568105

Page 396

Ancestry Hints - New Beta

Have you been frustrated by Ancestry hints that seem illogical? I know I have. I seem to get hints for records from England when my ancestor was born, lived and died in the states. That's why I'm excited about the new 'beta' tool to report those bad hints to Ancestry. Not only can I report 'bad' hints, but I can report 'duplicate' photos and explain why a hint is valid.

To enable this new feature, I had to 'turn it on'. This is done by opening the EXTRAS menu

and pick ANCESTRY LAB from the bottom of the menu.

The HINTS FEEDBACK is the new feature. To make it work, click on ENABLE.