International Day of Families

Sunday May 15 is International Day of Families. Are you looking for something fun to do with your children, grandchildren or extended family that day?

Why not play games, go geo-caching, catch a movie, grab an ice cream in the park...use your imagination and go on a Genealogy Cemetery Hunt.

It's a great opportunity to talk to your children or granchildren about your family tree.

Ancestor Letters on Past Voices: Letters Home

Several years ago I started a site called Past Voices: Letters Home. It is chock full of letters from long ago. The letters are so wonderful to read -- they speak of illness in the family, deaths, births, crops, weather, family, and friends. The site now holds many Canadian and American letters.

Here's a few:

Letter to James A. McChesney, Esq., Port Ontario, New York, from A. C. Dickinson, Smith Town, July 13, 1844; postmarked Peterboro, U. C., July 22, 1844, and Kingston, U. C., July 24, 1844

Letter from Albert Bertram Mudge during WW1 to his mother in Guelph Ontario, 1915

Letter to William Robertson McGillivray in Ontatio, Canada from his brother James McGillivray in Egilsay, Orkney Islands, Scotland, 1857

Search the index to all Canadian letters

Letter to Alvah Bush, Albany New York, from her sister, M.M. Bush, Cooperstown, New York 1843

1915 Letter in French

Letter to Mrs. S. C. Hoskins, Sheffield, Massachusetts, from her daughter Helen, Hampton, Virginia 1849

Letter to Mr. John H. and Anna Northrop, Hebron, Washington County, New York, from Lydia Wells, Lisbon 1829

Letter to Jacob Sharpless, care of Dr. Parrish, Philadelphia Pennsylvania from Blakey Sharpless, Weston

Letter from John McCoy, Captain of the Augusta Co. Militia during the Revolutionary War from Staunton, Augusta Co.Virginia to Thomas Jefferson, 1781 (yes, THE Thomas
Jefferson!)

Letter to unidentified person from Simeon Baldwin, New Haven, [Connecticut], January 4, 1808

Letter to Mrs. Mary Bradford and sister Sarah Jane, Northumberland,Pennsylvania, from Louisa, York Pennsylvania, 1839

1810 letter from Washington DC

Letter to Miss Charlotte H. Ladd, Boston Massachusetts, from her mother, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 1830

Letter to Miss Mary C. Cook, Great Falls, New Hampshire,from Fanny, Concord, New Hampshire, 1847

Mr. S. Newton Dexter, Whitesborough, New York, from Miss Mary Dexter, Providence, Rhode Island, 1823

Letter to Mr. Franklin Hoskins, Sheffield, Berkshire County,Massachusetts, from Wm. Gleason, Jr., Moresville, New York 1840

Letter to Mr. Samuel V. King, China Grove, Georgetown, South Carolina, from M. L. Wilkins, Springfield, 1842

Search the index to all USA letters

Helpful Relationship Chart on Crestleaf

Do the terms "Second cousin twice removed" or "grand-aunt" confuse the heck out of you? 

Image courtesy of Crestleaf.com

Crestleaf has released a helpful chart and infographic to help people see how they're related to other family members and their relationship to them in their family tree. 

It's easy to use - check it out at 

http://crestleaf.com/blog/relative-family-relationship-chart/P

Book Review: The Tiny Portrait

The Tiny Portrait by Heidi Carla is a wonderful children's book about a brother and sister who find a family treasure in their attic. Tess finds a cased portrait of a young woman with her dog, labelled "Lottie & Pearl" When the portrait begins to fade, Tess and her brother Toby decide they need to find out who Lottie was. Their first clue is the year "1890" on the photograph and then Tess finds Lottie's diary.

Then Tess begins to see Lottie everywhere she goes - a shadowy figure who seems to lead the children to places they need to go to find the answers. The children embark on a journey of discovery - not only finding out who Lottie was but discovering that sometimes the greatest treasure of all is the memories the object invokes. 

Beautifully illustrated with sepia toned photographs done by the author's sister Karla Cinquanta, this book is an enchanting venture into the world of genealogy and early photography. 

My 9 year old grandson looked through The Tiny Portrait and proclaimed it "very interesting" He liked that it was about (in his words) "Family trees" and he loved the photographs. He spent quite a bit of time poring over the illustrations and when I asked him what the appeal was, his answer was "I like the details"

This book is a delightfully creative way for genealogists to introduce children or grandchildren to the world of genealogy. The Tiny Portrait is available on Amazon.

Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of this book for review purposes 

Big News! MyHeritage and FamilySearch Partnership Announcement

TEL AVIV, Israel & SALT LAKE CITY, Utah--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

MyHeritage, the popular online family history network, and FamilySearch.org announced today the signing and commencement of a strategic partnership that forges a new path for the family history industry.

Under this multi-year partnership, MyHeritage will provide FamilySearch with access to its powerful technologies and FamilySearch will share billions of global historical records and family tree profiles spanning hundreds of years with MyHeritage. This will help millions of MyHeritage and FamilySearch users discover even more about their family history.

“For more than a hundred years, FamilySearch has been dedicated to working with the world’s archives to preserve their records for future generations”

FamilySearch will provide MyHeritage with more than 2 billion records from its global historic record collections and its online Family Tree. These records will be added to SuperSearch, MyHeritage’s search engine for historical records, and will be matched with family trees on MyHeritage using its matching technologies.

MyHeritage users will gain access to an unprecedented boost of historical records and family tree profiles, which are key to researching and reconstructing their family histories. This reinforces MyHeritage's position as an international market leader, with gigantic assets of family trees and records, which are the most globally diverse in the industry.

FamilySearch members will benefit from MyHeritage's unique technologies which automate family history discoveries. Smart Matching™ automatically finds connections between user-contributed family trees and Record Matching automatically locates historical records relevant to any person in the family tree. By receiving accurate matches between FamilySearch’s Family Tree profiles and historical record collections, such as birth, death, census, and immigration documents, FamilySearch members will be able to more effectively grow their family trees in size and in depth and add conclusions supported by historical records.

“For more than a hundred years, FamilySearch has been dedicated to working with the world’s archives to preserve their records for future generations” said Gilad Japhet, Founder and CEO of MyHeritage. “Their massive undertaking has made family history more accessible to everyone. This partnership highlights MyHeritage’s technology leadership and our firm commitment to adding historical records on a massive global scale, accelerating our vision of helping families everywhere explore and share their legacy online. We look forward to a fruitful future working hand in hand with our friends at FamilySearch.”

“FamilySearch values collaborative partnerships that enable more people, in more places, to discover their family history” said Dennis Brimhall, CEO of FamilySearch. “MyHeritage is an innovative company that has a fast growing, global online audience. We are excited to commence this partnership which enables FamilySearch to better serve the global family history community.”

Easter Bunny's Family Tree Found!

This was announced previously on Olive Tree Genealogy blog but I felt it was worth repeating!

Easter Bunny's Family Tree Found!

Breaking news - yesterday a little girl named Alice was playing in the garden of an old house in England when she fell down a large rabbit hole. Before climbing out she made a unique discovery. In a small wooden box under a pile of rabbit fur hats Alice spotted a yellowed letter. The letter was addressed to "Dear Easter" and signed "Uncle Wiggily", and it provided details of an interesting family tree!

The complete letter has been transcribed below:

Dear Easter,
I'm glad you asked about your family. Time is getting short for me and I think I'm the only one left who knows the stories of our family.

Your great-grandfather, Bugs, was one of three brothers (Bugs, Peter and Brer). The brothers left their home and sailed for America in the late 1800s. The ship they were on was caught up in a terrible storm and the brothers had to tie themselves to the mast. The ship sank but Bugs, Peter and Brer were lucky enough to find a plank and they climbed up on it and drifted for several days until they were rescued by the SS Lollipop.

When they got to Ellis Island, the customs officials changed the brothers' last names before allowing them to leave the ship, and so the three branches of our family began.

Bugs, Your great-grandpa, kept his Bunny name. Peter's was changed to Cottontail and all his descendants have kept that name. Brer's name was changed to Rabbit and it is from his line that our famous cousins White and Velveteen descend.

Great grandpa Bugs later met and married your great-grandmother Bunny Fufu. I don't know anything about her parents. My cousin Willy Bunny has photos and her family bible but he is stingy with the family information and refuses to share. Apparently Bunny Fufu's family bible was tossed into a fire by Indians when they attacked the settlement where she and her parents lived, but Bunny's father leapt into the flames and saved the bible. I wish Willy would not be so secretive with the information!

It gets a bit confusing, but Velveteen Rabbit, your mother, was your father Energizer's second wife and his third cousin once removed. It wasn't unusual for cousins to marry each other, but it does get confusing as we all seem to have large families.

Velveteen's father (your maternal grandfather) was Peter but I don't know too much about your mom's side of the family. I did hear there was an Angora in there somewhere way back. Some say she was a Princess and Peter rescued her from pirates!

Of course you know your grandparents - Buster and Trix. One day you should ask your grandma Trix why she calls your grandpa Buster by his nickname "Hassenfeffer" whenever she is mad at him, it's a cute story.

I've done some research on our family but am stuck on your great-great-grandmother. That would be your Great-Grandpa Bugs' mother. Great-Grandpa Bugs' father (your great-great-grandpa) was named Cadbury but I think your great-great-grandma was left by aliens. She is my brick wall. I know Cadbury called her Flopsy and they had 54 children but even though I've searched everywhere, I can't find what her SIRname was.

I guess I should tell you about the family scandal involving your Great great grandpa Cadbury Bunny. My Aunt Babbity told me she heard the grownups whispering about this when she was little. It seems that Cadbury's father fell in love with a chicken and Cadbury was the result of that love match! This might explain Cadbury's strange behaviour....

Well Easter, I think I've given you enough details to confuse you, but I hope I've gotten you interested in learning more! I know where some of the graves are of your ancestors and will take you there one day if you want to go. It's just a hop, skip and jump away.

Give my best to all the little children when you make your rounds this year,

As ever,
Uncle Wiggily

Since that exciting discovery in 2009, Easter Bunny has found more genealogy goodies!  In 2010 Easter found a family tree chart! You can see it here

In 2011 Easter was delighted to discover a Family Bible that once belonged to his great-grandmother Bunny Fufu! He's been hunting ever since, tracking down leads on the Bunny Trail and exploring every nook and cranny he can find.

So stay tuned for more news as Easter texts us to let us know of his new and exciting genealogy adventures.

Trellis Family Tree Chart - Something Different

Olive Tree Genealogy received an intriguing email on the weekend about Trellis, a new type of genealogy chart. It took me a few minutes to get the hang of how it works but it does look very interesting. Have any of my readers used it?

Progeny introduces the latest innovation in genealogy - the Trellis chart, "the chart with everyone in it".

The Trellis chart is a brand new way to tell the story of your family. It shows everyone in your family, in a way that no traditional box chart can do.

Based on research by a group of scientists, the Trellis is a diagonally-filled matrix, where rows are individuals and columns are nuclear families. Click here for more information.

The Trellis allows for interactive investigation of your family tree. With one click, you can highlight all the ancestors and descendants of an individual. Click a second person and you can see where their pedigrees intersect in a colorful display. Collapse the tree for a condensed view. Navigate up and down the tree with a simple click.

Charting Companion with the Trellis is available for:

• Family Tree Maker
• Personal Ancestral File (PAF)
• Legacy
• Ancestral Quest
• Family Publisher for all other programs

A Photograph Brings Life to an Ancestor

Jack Schulze with parents

Recently my youngest son was given a photo of his grandfather Jack with Jack's parents.  That doesn't sound too exciting but it is. No one in the family knew much about Jack's parents. All we knew was that Jack's father was either Otto or Oscar Schulze and his mom was Harriet.

Years ago I asked my son's father to ask his mother about the Schulze family. Since she divorced Jack in the 50's we weren't sure how accurate or even truthful her answers would be, but it was better than nothing. Jack was long dead and there was no one else to ask. All she could remember was the surname Dewhurst and she wasn't sure if that was Harriet or someone else.

So my hunt began. We knew the family was from Germany originally but settled in Yorkshire England at some point. Searching the online records wasn't as simple as I thought it would be and I couldn't be sure if I had the right man since we weren't even sure if his name was Otto Oscar or Oscar Otto. The family lore was that Jack, whose name was Jack Otto, had been given the middle name Otto after his father's first name. And that this was a tradition in the family so if Jack's father's middle name was Oscar, that meant the next generation back was a man named Oscar (something) Schulze.

Then I remembered a small stationary box that my father-in-law Jack had in his possession when he died.  We'd put it in the attic and of course forgot all about it.  Inside I found the death certificate for his father. Question One answered  - his father's name was Oscar Otto Schulze and he died in 1942 at the age of 58. Armed with an approximate birth year I was able to trace Oscar and find his parents, as well as his marriage to Harriet Dewhirst in 1908.

We've never connected with any other researchers. Oscar and Harriet had only one child - my father-in-law Jack.  Oscar was one of nine siblings born to Henry George Schulze and his wife Mary, but I haven't found anyone else descended from any of them. So it was a thrill for my son to be given this photograph which shows Oscar Otto Schulze (1884-1942) and Harriet Dewhirst (1887-?) The families lived in Halifax, Yorkshire England and my next quest is to hopefully find Harriet's death and send for her certificate.

Slowly but surely we are putting together my son's paternal lineage for him and his children. Since his father died when my son was only 13, this is a very meaningful journey. And this photo brings his ancestors closer, giving a face to what was just a name and a few dates.

Finding a Family Tree on Ancestry.com With Only a User Name

I often see questions about how to find a Family Tree on Ancestry.com when all you know is the submitter's Ancestry UserName. Here's how you do it:

1. Search the Ancestry Member Directory at the Community pages at http://community.ancestry.com/directory/

2. Click the tab labelled BASIC INFORMATION

3.  Fill out the field labelled USER NAME and click SEARCH

4. In the results, find the user name you want and click on it. A list of their family trees, message board posts and a way to contact them pops up.

5. Click on the family tree you want to view

Have fun!

Creating A Family Tree Booklet

A few days ago I talked about my surprise that my nephew did not know about my mother and father's (his grandparents) double wedding ceremony in 1936. That story is at The Things Family Don't Know 

His surprise at finding this out made me realize I know a lot of things that other family members don't. And I have a lot of items - newspaper clippings, photos and so on, that other family members have probably never seen.

It seemed to me I needed to start creating family booklets which contained all this information. That's not as easy or quick as it might seem, because I have become the unofficial keeper of the family papers and photographs. It started when I was about 16 and my grandmother gave me her "stuff". Every time someone in the family passed away, their "stuff" ended up with me. I'm not complaining, but it's a lot of "stuff" to sort and organize before it is ready for a booklet.

Several readers have asked me how to create such a booklet - what do you include, how big do you make it, etc. I've completed one on my McGinnis family which I'll be giving to my brother and nephew today. Here's how I tackled it:

1. Decide what your focus is for your booklet. I wanted to provide photographs and newspaper clippings plus a few documents for my generation (my siblings and I), my parents, my McGinnis grandparents, my great-grandparents and my great-great grandparents. You could focus simply on your generation and your parents, the choices are endless.

2. What size will your booklet be? I made mine on 8.5x11 inch paper, portrait orientation.

3. How many pages will you include? I didn't decide on a specific number other than less than 25 pages. I just kept adding photos until I decided I was done. Actually in my case, my LaserJet Printer ran out of black ink and that ended my project.

4. Think about your audience. What format will you use for your booklet for that audience? Since my booklet won't be in the hands of any avid genealogists, I wanted it to be easy to read, not too many dry facts, and appealing enough to be looked at more than once.

I decided to do brief write-ups on the first 3 generations down to my parents, each write-up giving a few basic facts interspersed with images. I used a program called PictureIt! to create these pages.

First Generation Story

So I talked a bit about my Irish McGinnis family coming from Ireland to Ontario during the Famine. I gave some details from various census and land records (but not too many! I kept in mind that no one in my family but me is a fanatical genealogist)

When I got to my parents' section, I started adding photographs, the more the better.

The Double Wedding

I tried to focus just on our direct male ancestor and not get side-tracked by siblings or spousal lines. Adding photos and documents for siblings and spouses would have meant creating a huge book, not a booklet. For myself and my siblings I didn't provide any text, just photos.

My next section was a scrapbook type section, created in Picassa using the Collages feature.

Scrapbook Section: Mother's Early Years

I created several pages of scrapbook photos complete with captions. These pages were focused on my mom and dad and my siblings and myself.

Some things I mulled over were whether or not to include death certificates. I decided against it because I felt that my family members would not want to read such an item (again - they are not die-hard genealogists!) These are all personal decisions and keeping in mind who will be receiving your booklet helps you make a decision appropriate for that audience.

One item I added was a family tree chart of head shots of our ancestors. It doesn't follow our McGinnis line exclusively because I only have some ancestors' photographs. So these were the ones I put in my chart.

Family Tree Chart

Last, I created a cover page on card stock, laminated front and back and then bound the entire booklet together with a coil spine.

Booklet Cover

Here is an example of the finished product (two pages from the completed booklet) which will be given to my brother and nephew today.

Final Product - Coil Bound Booklet

Setting Your Ancestor in History

One of the things I like to do as a genealogist and avid but amateur historian, is to find out about my ancestors in history. By that I mean once I find an ancestor, I make note of his dates of birth and death, and his geographic locations during his life time. Then I look for events that happened during my ancestor's life.

What I am trying to do is place my ancestor in history, see what events he lived through, perhaps even took part in, but certainly was aware of. I look for world events, country events and local events. That way I can build a story around my ancestor and get a much better appreciation of him as a real person who lived and laughed and cried, who experienced stress as well as happiness. It doesn't have to be huge events like the Halifax Explosion, or the Civil War, or San Francisco earthquake (although you might find your ancestor lived during or was involved in something momentous)

You may find out about a fire in the town where he lived, a series of droughts or hard times in his farming community - perhaps he lived through a recession. But try to think of your ancestor experiencing the same emotions as you do! Going through the same trials and times as you.

How do you find out about all these events? Newspapers are a great source for interesting items in the town or community or country where your ancestors lived. You can either search using keywords (fire, earthquake, drought, and so on) or by choosing a specific day and reading the newspaper for that day to see what happened.

Here are some newspaper archives online that I use in my searches.

* NewspaperARCHIVE.com I am a big fan of this website. I like the display of the newspapers and how quickly they load for me.

* Family History Newspapers 1690-1980 on GenealogyBank

* Footnote has newspapers and so does Ancestry.com

My husband has ancestors who all lived in one small town for generations. So his method of setting them into history was to start reading that small town newspaper, one day at a time. He likes to read it as if he were living there and the paper was coming to his door, that is - he reads each day's paper until he finishes the year. Then he starts over on January 1st of the next year.

However you choose to approach the job of learning the historical events so you can set your ancestor in them, you can be sure your ancestor will come alive for you.

What's in a Name? I Showed you Mine, Your Turn to Show me Yours!

I've talked previously about surnames that changed (either deliberately or accidentally) over the years. This makes research into those families challenging! But what about first names?

Besides the usual nicknames (Bob=Robert, Jim=James, Cathy=Catherine) that we find as we research our ancestors, what other problems might we encounter along the path of our family tree?

How about ancestors with first names that have absolutely nothing to do with the name they were given at birth! These are people whose commonly used first name is not a derivative or nickname or anything other than some invented or pet name used by family and friends.

You can't assume that just because Grandpa was called Charlie that his actual name was Charles. Grandma might have been called Bobbie by her friends but does that mean her name at birth was Roberta? NO! Let me give you some actual examples in the family trees of my husband and myself.

My husband's grandfather was Charlie. Everyone called him that, friends and family alike. His wife called him Charlie. That was the name on their mailbox and in the local phone book. So of course we assumed his given name was Charles. But his birth registration found a few years ago showed that his actual first and middle names were Leon Thomas. How did he get the nickname Charlie? No one knows and he is no longer living to tell us. It's a family tree mystery that will likely never be solved.

My own grandmother was Dolly. As a child I assumed that was her given name but in reality her name was Ruth Ethel. When I asked her about her name she told me that when she was born she was so tiny that her mother thought she looked like a little doll. That was what her mother began calling her, and the name Dolly stuck with Grandma her whole life.

Other examples are my friend Bobbie whose brother could not pronounce her real name of Celia. He called her "baby" which sounded like "Bawby" and thus Bobbie was the name used by family and later her friends. It was many years before I learned her real name!

So don't get too stubborn about refusing to believe that the genealogy record you found for a man named Achilles is in fact your Belgium great grandfather Archie (another example from my husband's family tree) when all the facts fit! In this example, once we had the name Achilles pronounced by a native French speaker, we realized that it sounds like Aw-SHEE, which of course can easly become Archie. And thus my hubby's great grandfather Archie was indeed the man named Achilles baptised in Tielt Belgium in 1894.

Do you have examples of such names? Tell me about the names in your family tree, not common nicknames such as Jim for James, Bob for Robert, Bill for William, Cindy for Cynthia, etc., but pet names or invented names that you discovered for an elusive ancestor. Use the comment section here or write a post to your own blog to share your stories.

It's a Small World After All

My husband's nephew is a blossoming genealogist. He suddenly expressed interest in his mother's family tree and of course my husband and I pounced! What more could genealogists ask for then to find fresh blood so to speak?

We showed him charts of his father's lines. We talked about genealogy resources. He was so interested that I gave him a list of questions to take to his maternal grandfather. A few days later he came back with the answers so I started researching.

Much to my surprise I found that he and one of my daughters-in-law share a common ancestor! Using the Kinship option of FTM I was able to see that they are 10th cousins twice removed.

I like to put things in a manner I can understand better. It is like my future 10th great grandchild hooking up with my sister's 10th great grandchild in the year 2175. I can't even begin to imagine that!

It's a small small world. It doesn't quite match me finding out that I am my father's 8th cousin once removed... but more on that in another post!

Genealogy Journal Writing Part 2

After filling my first 100 page Journal with notes and memories of the town I have lived in for over 30 years, I began Journal 2. This Journal was to be about the town I was born and lived in for the first 17 years of my life.

I also added hand drawn family trees showing my genealogy to Journal 1, and redid them for Journal 2. Why? Because there is no guarantee that any of my Journals will survive, but hopefully at least one will, and I want my genealogy available in it for any descendants.

It has been a lot of fun dredging up old memories - childhood friends, games we played (Kick the Can, anyone?), schools I went to, teachers I remember and so on. Describing the town I lived in (Ajax) was important, because when I lived there it was a village and now it is almost a suburb of Toronto. As I write I remind myself of what I like to read in old journals and pioneer memories - not only do I want to hear about the people who lived there but also how they lived, what they ate, what they wore, how much money they earned, and so on. I add those details to my journals.

The wonderful thing is that adding a simple detail (a memory of the milkman carrying clanging bottles of milk to our front door) often brings back a flood of other memories, such as my mother cooking on a coal burning stove and how archaic that seems now in our days of microwaves! I think (hope) my descendants might get a kick out of reading that, and how we did not own a television until I was 10 years old.

Journal #2 is well underway, I have about 25 pages to go before it too is filled. I have a third journal (100 pages) ready and waiting, and my son knows they are to be his at some time in the future. Hopefully he will take over as caretaker of all the family photos, documents and journals until the next generation has someone ready and willing to carry on with the job.

It's fun to think about which of your grandchildren or nieces or nephews you might groom for the job. I have several grandchildren but one grandson age 10 has already expressed great interest in being the family historian and loves the Ancestor Cards I created last summer.

What more could a genealogist ask for?