Nay-Sayers of We're Related Need to Chill Out!

We're Related app by Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com's We're Related App is taking genealogists by storm!  As long as you have a family tree on Ancestry you can try it out. You'll be matched up with celebrities and Facebook friends who are possibly related to you. All you have to do is verify that the shared ancestor shown is in both your trees.

Some genealogist nay-sayers have proclaimed the App "trash", "garbage", "a waste of time" and so on. But I (and others) disagree. As all genealogists know you must remember not to accept the findings until you prove the two lines of descent!

It's important to teach beginners the importance of verifying trees found online. What better way to do that than with something fun? That is what the We're Related app is - a fun way to learn and a fun way to see what celebrities or Facebook friends you are related to.

So I say -- Ease up nay-sayers! Have a bit of fun and enjoy yourselves. Methinks you take yourselves just a little too seriously. And the problem with the dismissive manner with which you are treating those who are enjoying the app is that you create the very division you say doesn't exist - "us" against "them" - the "expert" against the beginner. It makes those of us having fun with We're Related feel like there's a snobbier IN group -- and we aren't part of it.

Okay off my soapbox now -- here's how the app works. First, It's free.

You can mark than one of your  trees as "active" so I created trees for my son's father's line, for each of my daughters-in-law and for my husband, as well as myself. So far it's been fun to see what celebrities and Facebook friends I am related to.I've had dozens of possible relatives so far. I've verified about 10 of them and ditched about 6 as they are not correct. I haven't had time to check the rest but I won't be accepting them as true until I do.

So far I've proven that I'm related to several Facebook friends, got a near miss with Cyndi of Cyndi's List (her male ancestor married my ancestor but it was a second marriage for mine and I am descended from the first husband). The funny thing is that one of my daughters-in-law is related to more of my Facebook friends than I am!

As for celebrities, I've proven my relationship to Teddy Roosevelt, Matt Damon, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. One of my sons has a proven relationship from his dad's line to Winston Churchill which I think is very cool.

So go ahead, ignore the nay-sayers and have a bit of fun!

P.S. Massey is my married name.

Take It With a Genealogy Grain of Salt

Following is a repeat of an older blog post I wrote that think is important to revisit because we all need to remember this as we search for our ancestors.

 

I've been sorting through old papers for the past two days. Tucked away in a folder in a filing cabinet in the basement was a magazine dated 1988. It's a  Financial magazine, all about making money, investing wisely and so on. This particular issue featured stories of people who had invested wisely and retired early, or were successfully juggling a career with pursuing a dream.

I was puzzled as to why I'd saved it but figured there had to be an article featuring someone I knew. Sure enough there was. The article was a glowing report of a man, we'll call him Sam. Let me preface this with the fact that I knew, and still know, Sam very well.

The article revealed that Sam had a  high-paying career and was also a rather successful emerging artist (I use the word artist to describe actors, writers, poets, painters, sculptors). Sam worked part-time to support his art and his yearly wages which were given in the article were extremely good.

The article portrayed Sam as a very successful person pursuing his dream while earning a more than decent living. A descendant finding this article 50 or 100 or more years from now would be thrilled to think their ancestor was such an amazing person!

But the author of the article only knew Sam for a brief moment in Sam's life. I've known him for a very long time and also know what has happened to Sam over the past 24 years since the article was written. 

The truth is that Sam has made bad choices in his life. The details are personal so I will simply say that his path in life was a downhill one, not the successful one portrayed in the magazine. He is not a successful artist. He no longer has a high-paying career.

He's a very different person from the person portrayed in the magazine article. Reading it made me realize that as genealogists we should not rely on one article or one obituary to paint the full picture of an ancestor's life. These are all subjective views written at a specific moment in time. Take it with a grain of salt. Or at least recognize that it's only one small piece of a person's entire life.

Love it, Don't Care, Hate it! How Families React to Genealogy

Have you ever noticed that friends and family react in different ways when you start to relate a genealogy story or find?

In my family most are mildly interested if it's a good story about a rogue or an ancestor who did something exciting. They don't want to hear about 3rd great grandpa Joe who was a farmer his whole life or how I can't find Great Great Grandma Harriet's maiden name. 

There are a couple of my family members who tell me bluntly they aren't interested. At all. Not one little bit. This is usually followed by a yawn.

How many ask me what new things I've found? Zero. None.  I will admit that there are a couple who say the right things "Oh that's cool!" "Wow, good stuff!" but I know they're just being kind. And that's okay because at least I feel like my hard work over the last 30+ years hasn't been totally in vain.

I do wish there were one or two family members who cared, perhaps not as passionately as I do, but who showed more than a passing interest. I'd love to share genealogy discoveries with them. I'd enjoy chatting about brick walls, or brainstorming how to move ahead with a challenging ancestor.

However I count myself lucky to have a husband who shares my love for genealogy and family history. He listens, He enjoys brainstorming sessions. He understands and accepts that if I'm deep into census or church records, I am not stopping to make supper.

What kind of reactions do you get in your family?

Credit: Photo by Stuart Miles

Genealogy Should Be Free - Say What???

An offhand remark in a Facebook Group I am in started me thinking. A woman posted a query asking about a fee-based lookup service offered online. She asked if anyone had used it and was it a) legitimate and b) worth the money. 

As it happens I have used this service and think it is well worth the money, so I posted my experiences with it (all positive - reasonable fee, quick turnaround time, access to records I cannot access personally)

Then came the comment from a woman who said she would never use that site or any site that charged money for genealogy because, in her words, "Genealogy should be free". 

I didn't respond but I wondered if she realized how much time and money is put into gathering records to put online. Big companies are obviously a business entity and their objective is to make a profit, not to provide us genealogists with great grandpa's death certificate for free. Our plumber or electrician or dentist or grocery stores or clothing stores are not providing us with free services so I shake my head at the notion that a company or an individual should. 

If  "genealogy should be free" then by extension the basic necessities of life should also be free! That would mean that food, shelter, and clothing would all be free. Grocery stores should not be charging for food, farmers would spend their lives working for the joy of it... and on and on it would go. I wonder if those who believe that "genealogy should be free" can see how ridiculous a statement that is?

Some people do give their time and expertise for free some of the time. Doctors might travel to other countries to provide free medical care for a month or a year but when they go back home they charge for those same services. 

What is involved in a large company putting data online? The expense of acquiring the database - in time and possibly money. It can take months of negotiations to get a local archive or church to agree to having their records published. Then there is the time and money on hiring people to scan, transcribe and index the records. Add to that the personnel hired to set up and maintain the database, the programmers needed to run the website which the web developers created (these are all jobs that individuals are paid to do) 

What about an individual who has a lookup service such as the one first mentioned? In this specific case, this man creates indexes to previously unindexed records. That's a huge job! He has spent a great deal of time on this. Then he offers, at a very reasonable fee, to go to the Archives and retrieve a record if you find an ancestor in his indexes. Why on earth would anyone think he should do this for free? I say good for him for a) providing a way for those of us living far away to obtain those records and b)finding a creative way to make a bit of money from something he obviously loves doing

Not everyone is independently wealthy or financially stable enough to volunteer hundreds of hours to help other genealogists. Nor do some people want to do such charitable activities.

Genealogists familiar with my website Olive Tree Genealogy know that I have thousands of genealogy records online - for free. Yep, that's right - free. I spend my time and/or money gathering records to provide for other genealogists at no cost to them. How do I do this? I took ads to earn some money from my website. Why? Because it was a choice - continue working at my paid job outside the home and not have a website with these wonderful records OR give up my job, and devote my time to a website offering free genealogy records - and that meant taking ads as a way to help offset the income I lost by quitting my paying job. 

I also think the woman who made the original comment that she would never pay for genealogy, overlooked the fact that if she goes to a local library or archive, she is no doubt paying for some kind of transportation. Other expenses are often involved - money for lunches, for parking, for a babysitter, for photocopies..... rarely is anything actually "free". For me a huge factor too is the convenience of having records online and the ease of access which frees up my time to do other things.

The bottom line is that we live in a world where individuals are compensated for the work that they do. This is how our society functions. Why anyone would expect someone to work long hours providing the rest of us with a free service makes no sense. Sure it's wonderful if someone does volunteer their time and money to help others - and there are lots of volunteer organizations to be found for those who have the time and the inclination. But on a day to day basis, it is usually the case that we humans get up, go out to our jobs, then come home - and we expect a pay check at the end of it. And there's nothing wrong with wanting or needing to be paid for the work we do.