Where Do I Start?

Last fall our local children's librarian offered me the opportunity to conduct a family history story time. I was thrilled. I filled my basket with old family photos and simple, colorful family trees for the kids to fill out.  I had the rolling pin my grandfather made on his lathe and a picture of my Granny bowling duckpins and an actual duckpin ball. I chose The Matchbox Diary (Paul Fleischman and Bagram Ibatoulline) and Annushka's Voyage (Edith Tarbescu, Bruce Degen and Lydia Dabcovich.) I couldn't wait.

As I drove to the library I thought about the write up I had seen advertising the event and wondered if any adults would mistakenly think this was a presentation for them. I quickly decided I would point any errant adults to a computer and have them sign up for a free familysearch.org account and went back to preparing myself for all the fun I was going to have with the kids.

Turns out that quick blip on my radar saved the day. Seven adults (including a reporter for the local newspaper) showed up eager to delve into their ancestral past. Nary a child came through the door.

I remembered this mixup when I heard an interview with Blaine Bettinger. He emphasized the need for clear workshop and presentation descriptions so people leave presentations energized instead of bored, overwhelmed or disappointed.

Last week I met with another group of eager family historians at the Jeudevine Memorial Library. This time I expected to work with adults and indeed, welcomed a roomful of passionate adults. What surprised me this time was their depth of knowledge and preparation.  It took mere seconds to realize the Intro to Family History Prezi I fretted over would be useless. I sat down at the laptop and opened tabs for all of my favorite family history resources and proceeded to walk the group through them. We attached sources to familysearch.org tree entries. We found photos of ancestors graves at findagrave.com (and I, of course, made a pitch for them to pay it forward by taking and uploading headstone photos themselves). I continued on through my tabs to show a tiny sample of the Facebook groups that provide a forum for researchers to collaborate on an amazing array of family history topics (my favorite is the Lithuanian Global Genealogical Society group.)

These fine folks also surprised me by declining my offer to have them log onto a library computer and start searching. So, I asked for an ancestor's name and birthplace to see what we could find. Familysearch provided rich rewards even eliciting gasps and tears.

At the end of the evening I added a list of the links we had visited to my abandoned notes with a handful of additional sites and insights. I include them here for your perusal and enjoyment. The skeleton is from a paper guide entitled  Where do I start my family history? published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I picked it up at the Washington D.C. Temple Visitor's Center.




I have decided it's time for Family History. Now what?

1. Write down what you know.
 a pedigree chart and family group sheet
 https://familysearch.org/wiki/en/Genealogy_Research_Forms
 note cards
 Evernote (tips on using it at genealogygems.com or www.cluewagon.com/how-to-use-evernote-for-genealogy/)
Make a free family tree at familysearch.org

Fill in what you know the best you can, leave the rest for later.

Use some kind of sign to show where you estimated e.g.
After grandma died, about 1950; between 1859-1870; near Palmyra; in Caledonia County

2. Talk with your family.
Take notes
Listen more than talk
Take stories with a grain of salt
Ask if there are any documents
Funeral cards
Newspaper clippings
Wedding birth announcements
Obituaries
Discharge papers

Look at old photos and scrap books together and GET names! (No, you won't remember)
Ask who else might know about the family history

 Earn a reputation as the family historian -- your relatives will love you for being a repository for things they know they shouldn't throw out but don't have the oomph to store and care for properly.

3. Search other sources.
Gather your records
Visit local libraries in towns where your family lived. Ask for local histories and family histories. Local historical societies and genealogical societies. Town and county clerks offices. State libraries and historical societies.
Explore online sources
Much is online, use it to connect you to the myriad resources that are not.
Trust original records more than trees. Look for records made contemporary to the event in question. Be wary of copying other people's trees. "Climb your own tree," as my hero Crista Cowan reminds us.

Familysearch.org
Geni (I find most online trees with Lithuanian connections seem to be on Geni)
Cyndi's List
Findmypast.com (Ireland, Great Brittain etc.)
Myheritage.com (Israel, Europe etc. Also a cool new project recording oral genealogies for tribal cultures.)
Heritage quest via Vermont Department of Libraries (for Vermont Residents, check your local library if you aren't blessed to live in the Green Mountain State).


For Cemetery Listing:
Findagrave.com
Billiongraves.com

Use Facebook groups for your family surnames and for geographic areas where your ancestors lived.

Newspapers from 1836-1922 on Library of Congress site Chronicling America

Search Instagram by place name for photos

Search eBay by surname and save your search. Maybe someone will sell a Family Bible or . . .

Maps!

3 b. Get help:
Family history consultants are available to help for free at LDS family history centers

Look for the HELP link

Family Search Wiki
Ancestry Academy
Rootstech.org  Follow links to videos of Presentations given at GIANT family history conference each February in Salt Lake City (GREAT resource)

YouTube videos on ancestry channel (Crista Cowan, the barefoot genealogist is a personal fave)

Podcasts:
Extreme Genes
Genealogy Gems

(If you are hard core you might enjoy The Genealogy Professional Podcast. I do.)


4. Preserve and share what you have gathered -- think outside the box.

(ALWAYS attach your source to your tree. Explain why you give preference to data from one source over another.)

Familysearch, -- Try the Memories, they bring all your hard work to life
Geni etc
Facebook groups
DVDs
Scrapbooks

Instagram
family reunions

Be mindful of basic archival preservation:
No rubber bands or paper clips etc
No heat (not in attic)
No humidity (not in cellar)
Digitize old recordings and photos.

Backup backup backup -- multiple places, multiple media

Label everything

4b. Pay it forward
Most of what we search online was indexed and/or uploaded by volunteers. Spend time indexing or taking photos for a site you love or one close to home.



5. Lather, Rinse, Repeat
Take time to go back to the beginning of the process and benefit from the experience and knowledge you've gained since you started.

Annie Amelia Kinney and her Little Sister Lula Alma Kinney

Lesson #1: Turn the picture over; maybe someone wrote on the back.

Lesson #2: Just because you call her "Mama," doesn't mean anyone 100 years from now will know you wrote it on the back of the photo. Use her name. Her other name.

Lesson #3: Handwriting is tricky.

The back of this photo says, "Mama 15 and Lula aged 2 years."

I know that the photo was handed down from someone whose mother Annie Amelia Kinney was born in 1876 and had a little sister born in 1889. In the second half of 1891, after both girls had celebrated their birthdays, Annie was 15 and Lula was 2.

Now it's February 2016 and I have had some time to look into things a bit.

So, I feel strongly this is Annie Amelia Kinney (Guy and Helen's mother) as a teen with her youngest sister Lula Alma Kinney. In 1891 Anne Amelia would have been 15 and Lula would have been 2. They lived in Eglon, Preston County, West Virginia.

For the ages on the back of the picture to match Annie and Lula Kinney, this picture would have been taken in the latter half of 1891. The older sister's sleeves offer some help.

One line from "Dressed for the Photographer," by Joan Severa (Kent Stare University Press 1995) in the summary for the 1890's decade supports my suspicion:

"Sleeves for this decade were especially expressive; they began with the extremely tight, short-wristed styles of the first year or two. . . ." (p. 474)

1891 was a big year for the Kinney family. In June 1891 Thomas and Salome had a baby -- Albert. In August their 11 year old son John died. In September Saloma died.

Might be enough to make Thomas want photos taken of his surviving family. I wonder if there are other photos taken that day of the children. One more occasion to mourn the loss of the 1890 census.

Here's a link to the family entry on Find A Grave:
http://findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Kinney...&

Do you have a copy of this photo in your attic?

My uncle shared this photo with the family recently. His big brother gave it to him. That's all I know.

You're right. That's a pretty lame blog post. But hear me out.

I'm wondering if you have a photo that looks like this in your collection. Maybe you got a link to my blog because you show up as a DNA match and I'm grasping at straws to figure out our connection.

We have whole bunches of love in our family but mostly half relationships. So this photo may be a common ancestor of my mother's half brothers and her father's half brothers (but no relation to my half brothers, wonderful as they are).

My suspicions:
#1  Tom Kinney 17 February 1853 – 9 August 1938  (FamilySearch ID LCJQ-4DV) or a close family member.

#2 The Mystery Father of Guy Earl Habercom Chubb (that's where you come in).
Guy's dates are 18 January 1895 – 28 February 1988 (FamilySearch ID K4F9-R9N)

Questions for those of you who wonder if you might also be related to this fine fellow:

#1 Are there Husks in your family line? (I seem to remember someone mentioning that name as a possibility if Mr. Chubb didn't pan out at Guy's father).

#2 Who in your family tree lived near Eglon, West Virginia (in Preston, County) in 1895? Any males of the right age to be a daddy (15-80?)


Here's a photo of Guy Sr. taken around 1918 when he was about 23 years old. You decide what resemblance you see.

And for good measure, here's a photo of Guy as a little boy with his mother Ann Amelia and his sister (half sister?) Helen.

Photos from my Lithuanian Family

Thanks to generous support from my mother, I've been able to test through Ancestry DNA. I'm new to the matching process, but I've found a handful of fine folks whose DNA appears to have some common strands with mine and who share a connection to Lithuania.

My aunt gave me the following photos. They were given to her by Aunt Pat, the younger (half?) sister of my great grandmother Mary Petruska Liegus. I don't know the names of all of the people, only some and I don't know how everyone is related. I'll share my long complicated history of trying to unravel their mystery one at a time.

For now, here are the photos in one place for comparison purposes. I'm impatient to share them.

Please share any insights you have about backstory, traditions, locations, photographers, time period, resemblances, weaving patterns, religious iconography etc. etc.

Mary J. Barrow Kimble Both Ways

My cousin Janna brought the photo below on the left to our family reunion in 2012. I had never seen the portrait of our great great grandmother Mary J. Barrow Kimble .

Mary died June 15, 1876 in Monroe County Missouri leaving two young sons, Frederick Lee and William Elbert, and her husband Wiley Kimble, a Civil War veteran from Smyth county Virginia. Within the year Wiley remarried. Less than 3 years later Eliza, his second wife, also died. Wiley eventually returned with the boys to Virginia. Did he carry this photo back to Virginia?

Mary Kimble

Mary Kimble

This week I stumbled on the photo at right. I had uploaded it years ago to our MyFamily.com site from our great Aunt Elva's photo album.

Should I have recognized Janna's photo?






Isn't one a copy of the other? But the sleeves don't show on the photo at right. The photo at left lacks definition. Look closely at the ringlets on Mary's right in both photos. Despite the differences, the details match flawlessly. I suspect both photos came from the same original at different times.

Where is the original? Do you have it?

Who took portrait photographs in Monroe, Missouri in the 1870's? Did each of Mary's sons have their own copy of her photo? William celebrated his second birthday just two weeks before his mother died. His brother Lee hadn't turned four yet. Did they ever gaze at these photos and long for a mother they couldn't remember?

Up in Heaven Sitting on a Log

This is my favorite picture of my great grandfather William Elbert Kimble. Dad's cousin Betty sent this note about it.

"We can't help on the date or place of this picture.   But, he used to say, wish I was up in heaven sitting on a log and now he is."

William E. was born in Monroe County Missouri in 1874 and died in Tazewell, Virginia in 1962.

Walter the Butcher

My great grandfather Walter survived smallpox. When he registered for the draft during World War I the physician noted the scars and found them pronounced enough to distinguish him. He listed them on the draft registration card.

The fingerprints in his VA file, though, don't include any explanation. "What did HE do for a living?" my husband asked when I showed him the prints from Walter's right hand with an empty circle drawn where the tip of his middle finger should have been. 

"Oh duh!" was the brightest thing I could say. "He was a butcher."

My great grandfather's paper trail fills a yawning void in oral history. "My grandfather," Mom told me, "came from Lithuania on a pickle boat." That and the name Ladislas Liegus (or was it Leigus?) constituted the sum total of what I knew about Granny's father. I decided to dig deeper.

The unlabeled photos in the furnace closet intrigued me. Mom said the man in the army uniform holding the cigarette was her mother's father. He had been in World War I and was buried at Arlington Cemetery -- beneath his estranged wife.

My mother worked in suburban Virginia, next to a corner of Arlington Cemetery's vast expanse. She had worked there the better part of twenty years when I asked if she'd take me to Arlington Cemetery to see if we could find her grandparents' grave. I didn't even begin to comprehend the scale of that place, yet I pictured us wandering for hours scanning row upon row of white stones. Instead we went to the office and asked. We asked for Ladislaus Liegus. The only Liegus in the records was a Walter. Mom had never heard anyone call him that and wondered if it was the same person, but I had seen the name as I rolled through microfilms at the Family History Library in Salt Lake and at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. We drove toward the spot on the map then walked. The memorials of my mother's fallen peers, killed in Vietnam, drew her somber attention.  We walked until we reached the low stone wall.

We had a great view of the backside of Mom's office at the Bureau of Naval Personnel because we stood close enough to hit it with a rock. Mom worked all those years closer to her grandparents than to her parking place.