Olive Tree Genealogy is 25 Years Old!

Guess what? It's Olive Tree Genealogy website's 25th birthday! Yep, I started my site in February1995. I'm not talking about this blog, which turned 16 yesterday. I'm talking about my huge website!

I'd never have thought it would become so popular, or that I would still be working on it 25 years later! It's funny how life takes unexpected twists and turns.

After my husband died, and I was injured at school, and had not worked for a year (due to injuries), one of my good friends encouraged me to start a website on that new-fangled thing called "the internet". 

 
I had no idea how to do that, but he just kept telling me "You're smart, you'll figure it out!" Well I'm not sure how smart I am, but I'm stubborn.  Back in those days there were no editors, so I had to learn through trial and error, how to code a website using html.

I started small on a lovely battle-ship grey background (anyone else remember those days when all sites were battle-ship grey with no bells or whistles?)

I wrote up name on one ship's passenger list from the early 1600s that I found with my ancestor Cornelis Van Slyke's name on the manifest - and it got such a positive response from folks online that I put up another. And another. And another. I've lost track of how many ships passenger lists I have published on Olive Tree Genealogy's Ship section - hundreds if not thousands!

This is my most recent Olive Tree Genealogy logo. If you're interested, you can see the evolution of my tree image and a few images of the original look of the site over the past 25 years.

And that is how it all began. My project for 2020 is revamping Olive Tree Genealogy with a new look, a new navigation system, and more great (free) content!

Thank you to everyone for your support and encouragement, for visiting over the years, for offering ideas -- I appreciate all of you. I'm only 73 so I'm good to go at least another 25 years if you'll let me.

Happy 16th Birthday to My Blog!

Wow. I can't believe I started Olive Tree Genealogy blog in February 2003.

I've always had a structured timeline for posting, and for several years I posted every single day! I don't know how I did it.

For the past year or so I've been writing and posting three times a week. And yes, it gets more and more challenging to think of topics to talk about!

I write about lots of things - new databases online, tips for searching specific records, new projects Olive Tree Genealogy is working on, the new books I've completed and published, genealogy wish lists, genealogy discussions, and occasionally my own ancestors. I like to keep this blog more generic than talking about my own ancestry.

But I'm still hanging in and hoping my readers are getting something worthwhile out of my blogging - because believe me, it's not easy. It is truly a labour of love. The only thing that keeps  me going is my hope/belief that I'm adding something of value to online genealogy.

So... cheers! I'll keep blogging as long as I sense a need.

6 Generations of Mothers

 

Wishing all the mothers I know a Happy Mother's Day!

 

That's my unbroken maternal line of 6 generations of mothers and daughters beginning on the right with my daughter Judy. 

Beautiful women inside and out!  

Questions to Ask Mom on Mother's Day

What a great post for Mother's Day! To help celebrate Mother’s Day, Gena Philibert-Ortega provides a list of family history questions to ask mothers on their special day.

Gena very kindly used a tip from me - Olive Tree Genealogy -  as well as a few other genealogists. Here is the link to her article:

Genealogy Tip: What to Ask Mom on Mother’s Day

Happy 23rd Birthday Olive Tree Genealogy!!

Can you believe it???? Twenty-three (23!) ago my baby was born. No, not one of my children - that was when I started my website Olive Tree Genealogy

Olive Tree Genealogy actually began sometime in the winter of 1995 but it wasn't until February 1996 that it was given space on the old Rootsweb site.
 
Many of the big sites we use today did not exist when I set up Olive Tree Genealogy. CyndisList came online right after me. Rootsweb started up around the same time. Ancestry.com didn't exist.

I am often asked why I created Olive Tree Genealogy. After my husband died in 1993 and I was injured at school by a student, my enforced inactivity allowed me to begin creating Olive Tree Genealogy site. Visitors are also intrigued by the name - how and why did I come up with it? My middle name is Olive and I am named after my paternal grandmother Olive McGinnis. So it seemed an obvious step to name my site after her (Olive) and after our "tree".

I started with one ships list which contained my ancestor Cornelis Van Slyke's name, then I wrote  about Huguenots, Walloons, Loyalists and Palatines. The  ships list was so popular and I received so many requests for more that I began hunting for more. Now Olive Tree Genealogy has over 1,600 ships lists online. 

Look at me now! I am a dinosaur in Internet terms. 23 years is a very long life on the Internet. Wonder if I can last another 23!

Happy 23 Year Anniversary to Olive Tree Genealogy!

Olive Tree Genealogy actually began sometime in the winter of 1995 but it wasn't until February 1996 that it was given space on the old Rootsweb site. Imagine – my site has been on the Internet for 23 years - that's a LONG time for a website!

You can read a bit about me or see some of the early versions of Olive Tree Genealogy

I am often asked why I created Olive Tree Genealogy. After my husband died in 1993 and I was injured at school by a student, my enforced inactivity and loneliness was pretty tough to take. A friend suggested I learn how to set up a website on this new thing called "the internet".

An early version of Olive Tree Genealogy

Many of the big sites we use today did not exist when I set up Olive Tree Genealogy. CyndisList came online right after me. Rootsweb started up around the same time. Ancestry.com didn't exist. Hard to imagine, isn't it?  Olive Tree Genealogy is a senior in Internet days. Back then the few genealogy sites online were, as all sites were, battleship grey with no fancy bells and whistles like search engines!

I started with one ships passenger list and some historical articles I wrote about Huguenots, Walloons, Loyalists and Palatines. That one ship's list was so popular and I received so many requests for more that I began hunting for others. Now Olive Tree Genealogy has over 1,500 ships lists online. And they're all free. Everything on my site is free. No strings attached.

Truthfully I've lost count of how many pages and data (names of individuals) are online now.  I've also lost track of how many times I've attempted to come up with a more manageable navigation system for the site! It's so huge and covers so may topics that it's pretty much impossible to make it simple or easy. So fair warning - visiting Olive Tree Genealogy is like going to a relative's home that they've lived in for 23 years (see what I did there?) and it's had additions added over those 23 years. So many additions that it's a bit like a maze but you love it anyway because it's warm and cosy and a very friendly place to be. You also know that you can't visit in a half hour or even an hour, you have to plan to stay for awhile.

So please drop by Olive Tree Genealogy and stay awhile. With any luck you might find an ancestor or two!

Celebrating Sisterhood - 100th Anniversary of Canadian Women's Right to Vote

2016 is the 100th Anniversary of Women first obtaining the right to vote in Canada. Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta were the first Canadian provinces to grant women this right. Canadian women who owned land however had the right to vote as early as 1791 but that right was taken away in 1849.

It was not until 1917 that British Columbia and Ontario followed suit and granted women the right to vote. I wish I knew if either of my grandmothers, who lived in Ontario, were involved in the struggle for women's rights, or at the very least were pleased with their new-found rights! But it is not something I thought to ask about when I was a young teenager.

1918 saw Nova Scotia come on board, then New Brunswick in 1919. Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland lagged behind, not granting women the right to vote until 1922 and 1925 respectively. But the biggest and most shameful holdout was Quebec. That province did not grant women the right to vote until 1940!

I have talked before about Canada's Famous Five, that group of 5 courageous and determined women who forced Canada to recognize women as "persons" in 1929.

You can read more about women's rights in Canada at A greater sisterhood: the Women’s Rights struggle in Canada

WooHoo! Olive Tree Genealogy is 20 Years Old!!!

Twenty years ago my life changed. I started Olive Tree Genealogy website at a time when the internet was just in its baby stages. There were no webpage editors, no blogs, and no one I could ask for help. 

I learned to code my webpages manually, using trial and error. Most websites were battleship gray with no bells and whistles. I was pretty excited and proud of myself when I figured out how to make mine pink-peach! 

The winter of 1995 was actually the debut of the Olive Tree Genealogy website but it was only a few pages. 

It's was located at http://www.bconnex.net/~lschulze/

The nice graphics I created don't display and I don't have them anymore but you get the idea. 

February 1996 saw Olive Tree Genealogy move to Rootsweb.com as the full-fledged OTE site. Here's what Olive Tree Genealogy website looked like in 1997
 
In 1998, considering itself all grown up, Olive Tree Genealogy took its own domain name and moved to its current home. 

My website was among the first to bring primary sources to the Internet with its passenger lists of ships from the Netherlands to New York in the 17th Century. 

What started as a project to take my mind off my accident and losing my husband to cancer, became a career! 

Olive Tree Genealogy grew from a dozen pages to over 2500 pages, and over the years have created in total 10 websites and 10 blogs. If interested you can read the full Biography of Lorine, the creator of Olive Tree Genealogy

See the list of my 10 websites and 9 blogs
  
BLOGS

• Olive Tree Genealogy
• Ask Olive Tree
• Ancestors At Rest
• Past Voices: Letters Home
• The Paper Trail
• Antique Hunter
• Ollie's Yummy in Your Tummy
• Family Bibles
• Tea For Two
  

WEBSITES

• Olive Tree Genealogy
• Naturalization Records
• Ancestors At Rest
• All Census Records
• The Genealogy Spot
• Olive Tree Extras
• Past Voices
• All English Records
• The Great War
• Canadian Military Heritage Project 

One Goal Met! 10K Followers on Twitter!

Yesterday, January 4th, I made my goal of reaching 10,000 followers on my Twitter page.

I'd hoped to reach it by December 31, 2015 but better late than never! This was a huge goal for me, one that I set early last year. It has not been easy. In fact it was a great deal of hard work!

Some of you may be puzzled. Why bother getting more followers on Twitter? In fact, why bother with Twitter at all? And why am I so excited about having reached that 10K number?

If you have any interest in making money from genealogy you need Twitter. In fact you need every social media channel you can join. I use Twitter for business and for my personal enjoyment. It's no secret that I earn a living from my genealogy business. But I'm an avid, obsessed genealogist and want to connect to others in the field. I want to meet new cousins. I want to learn new things. Twitter is an enabler in the sense that it enables me to do all of the above.

My Twitter persona may be quite different from yours. I talk about, and share, posts on genealogy, history, archaeology, DNA, military history, women's issues, antiques, cooking, social media, affiliate marketing and more. Twitter connects me to experts and hobbyists in all those fields.

It also allows me to promote my books and my other genealogy business ventures. The bottom line is - the more (quality) followers I have, the more people I have the potential to reach. Think of it this way - if I post (tweet) something to my 10K followers, and 20 of them repost (or retweet) it, and each of those 20 have 1K followers, I've reached another 20K people! 

I'm such a fan of Twitter and have learned so much in the past year about how to attract quality followers, how to engage them and how to keep them from leaving, and how to connect with other genealogists, that I'm actually in the process of writing an e-book about it. It's a fascinating field and I'm eager to find more followers and more interesting and influential people who I can follow. 

If you want to connect with me on Twitter just reach out and follow me on my Twitter page. As long as you have a profile picture of some kind (I do not follow "eggs", that is those who don't put up a profile photo but instead use the Twitter generic egg), and a brief description of your likes and interests,  and we share some common interest, I'll follow you. 

If you are not on Twitter, there's no time like the present. It's fun and it's educational. The only problem I have is the challenge of saying what I want to say in 140 characters or less! But I like a challenge and I am slowly improving.

Don't Miss the Independence Day Special on DNA Kits!

AncestryDNA is celebrating Independence Day by offering a 20% discount on AncestryDNA. Don't miss this special offer. 

If you haven't tested your DNA yet, or Grandma's or Auntie Helen, now's your chance!

What can DNA tell you? You can learn your ethnicity. It can connect you to cousins you never knew about. Family secrets are often revealed as they were for my husband's and my families. 

My husband discovered that his great grandfather was not really his great grandfather! Instead it was another man. DNA confirmed family rumours on that one. You can read all about that shocker at DNA Gave My Husband a Completely Different Great Grandfather and DNA Results Leave us Gob-Smacked! 

What did I learn? That one of my sons had a first cousin no one ever knew about. I haven't blogged about that as I have not asked permission of the new cousin yet. But in any case, run, do not walk to AncestryDNA to order your kit! The discount will run from July 2-July 6. 

Please celebrate by spreading the word!

Happy Birthday Canada!

Canada Day is a celebration for everyone even though some are working today and taking the holiday on another day. It's still a celebration – whether you’re enjoying fireworks, outdoor concerts or fun with friends and family.  

What are you doing on Canada Day? I'm spending time with my son and his family before they move to Colorado. We'll barbeque and laze around the pool for the day. 

For Canada Day events from the Government of Canada, see

Canada Day from Coast to Coast to Coast

Celebrating Canada Day from coast to coast to coast on July 1, 2015! Come back soon for more information and follow on Twitter at #CanadaDay.

WooHoo! 19 Years and Counting for Olive Tree Genealogy Website!

Happy Birthday to me! Happy Birthday to me! Happy Birthday to Olive Tree Genealogy...... Happy 19th Birthday to me. 

Olive Tree Genealogy began sometime in the winter of 1995 but it wasn't until February 1996 that it was given space on the old Rootsweb site.

That site is still online at http://rootsweb.com/~ote/ and it holds all the "extra" free databases and goodies that I don't have room for on Olive Tree Genealogy at http://olivetreegenealogy.com/

Eventually I purchased my own domain name "Olive Tree Genealogy" and set up another site as a companion to my "Ote" site.  

  I am often asked why I created Olive Tree Genealogy. After my husband died in 1993 and I was injured at school by a student, my enforced inactivity and loneliness was pretty tough to take. A friend suggested I learn how to set up a website on this new phenonemon called "the internet". 

Many of the big sites we use today did not exist when I set up Olive Tree Genealogy. CyndisList came online right after me. Rootsweb started up around the same time. Ancestry.com didn't exist. Hard to imagine, isn't it?  Olive Tree Genealogy is a senior in Internet days. Back then the few genealogy sites online were, as all sites were, battleship grey with no fancy bells and whistles like search engines!


I started with one ships passenger list and some historical articles I wrote about Huguenots, Walloons, Loyalists and Palatines. That  ship's list was so popular and I received so many requests for more that I began hunting for others. Now Olive Tree Genealogy has over 1,500 ships lists online. And they're all free.

What am I up to now? Well I'm busy with writing my books and maintaining my blogs and websites as well as my personal genealogy research of course. Here's a list of my main blogs and websites.

Blogs

Olive Tree Genealogy
Ask Olive Tree
Ancestors At Rest
Past Voices: Letters Home
The Paper Trail
Antique Hunter
Ollie's Yummy in Your Tummy
   
Websites    
 Olive Tree Genealogy
Naturalization Records
Ancestors At Rest
All Census Records
The Genealogy Spot
Olive Tree Extras
Past Voices
The Great War
Canadian Military Heritage Project

Writing genealogy and history books also keeps me pretty busy!  You can read a bit more about me if you are interested, or see some of the early versions of Olive Tree Genealogy at http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/olive-tree-genealogy-history.shtml

American Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all those in the United States who are celebrating this holiday today.

I often wonder which of my American ancestors celebrated this special day with family.

My last ancestor from USA (Levi Peer) left that country in 1801. Would he have celebrated with family? I don't know!

Last night we took our grandsons out for a "Festive Holiday Meal" here in Ontario Canada. We don't celebrate Thanksgiving in November. Ours is in October but one of our chain restaurants is offering Christmas (yes, Christmas!) meals now so that is what we had. I told the boys we were celebrating American Thanksgiving one day early. 

Enjoy your special day!

Happy Canada Day, eh!

The Dominion of Canada was formed on July 1, 1867. In typical British-Canadian ways, it didn't require a Revolution to spark the formation. It wasn't nationalistic pride. No, it was an orderly and planned start to uniting what was then called British North America. New Brunswick, Nova Scotia,  Canada West (Ontario) and  Canada East (Quebec) formed the new Dominion of Canada. Other provinces and territories were slowly brought into the Dominion in later years.

We Canadians should be proud of the formation of our country. We should celebrate Canada Day with remembrance of how Canada began and the steps it took to becoming an independent nation. Instead we spend more time thinking about a 3-day weekend with a 2-4 in the back yard and a barbeque with friends. (For those unfamiliar with our Canadian lingo, a 2-4 is a case of 24 beer). Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with wanting to spend holiday time with our buddies! We Canadians are passionate about our summer barbeques after our long, often brutal winters. But are we as passionate about our country?

One man who is, is TV personality Rick Mercer. His pride in Canada and passion for encouraging the rest of us to step up and care recently earned him the honour of being awarded the Order of Canada. i wish more of us were like Rick Mercer - committed to our country, caring about its future and passionate in trying to change things for the better.

I'm not one of those. Yes I care about Canada. I am proud to be a Canadian (and believe me I know many Canadians who shrug their shoulders and dismiss such pride with a "whatever..."). But I don't have the energy and motivation that is needed to encourage more patriotism.

I wish we as Canadians knew more about the history of our country- the Loyalists who settled here and opened up what had been wilderness, the  various wars Canadian soldiers fought in. I doubt that many Canadians could name our Prime Ministers, even our first one Sir John A. MacDonald!

But in general our culture and way of life doesn't permit passionate nationalism. It's just  not the way it's done - don't make a scene, don't stand out, be polite and reserved are traits we are taught from childhood. And those are all good things! But I sure would like to toss in a little flag-waving pride to that mix. And we have so much to be proud of! If you can't think of anything, please take a few minutes to read 50 Great Gifts Canada Gave the World

As for me, I'm staying quietly at home this Canada Day but I'll be thinking about all the wonderful things I love about Canada and how our nation came into being. For all my Canadian friends and family, Happy Canada Day, eh!!