Well, I just caught up with the last episode of Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems podcast, and she read my email on the air about my blog! So I thought I better get on over here and write a post. It's a rainy day, luckily, otherwise I'd be outside.
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We've been quite busy lately with the nice weather, and we are getting prepared for our driving trip from Pennsylvania to Yellowstone National Park. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to fit too much genealogy into this trip. Most of my family stopped at Michigan and Indiana. However, some brothers and sisters of my great great grandmother, Sylvia Cobin Seeley Larue, did homestead for some time in McCone County, Montana in the 1910's and beyond. This was after they homesteaded in Saskatchewan. They must have been an adventurous lot! I hope to stop in Circle, Montana, to see the town where they lived. Maybe we can catch a cemetery as well.
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Today was my kids last day of school. What fun for them! The whole summer is now theirs. I wish I had the summer off to do some things, like genealogy. Too bad that I am even more busy in the summer with everything to do outside, plus work and anything else inside. Hopefully will get to some family and genealogy research.
Hope you have more time to do genealogy than I do right now.
Happy Hunting...
Copyright © 2013 Matt Mapes
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Friday, May 3, 2013
What is Genealogy to You?
I know, know....been busy, but I'm trying.
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Have you ever laid awake at night thinking about genealogy? That's why my wife advises me to not look at genealogy too close to bed; sort of like caffeine, it just keeps me up. All the things that I need to look for churning around in my head. Trying to figure out some brick wall or road block.
But the worst things are when I think about the pictures or bibles or documents that are out there and I don't have. Maybe they are known artifacts which someone has, but are unwilling to provide me. Maybe they are artifacts which I know existed, but can't locate now. Those situations just churn my stomach up so much that I definitely can't get to sleep.
Where am I going with this? Well, so maybe it would be easier if everything was just handed to me on a silver platter, right? Here...this is all your genealogy, going back 10 generations, pictures of everyone, documents, etc. Enjoy. Thanks silver platter. You just ruined my hobby.
As much as I want to find everything out there related to my family. I want to be the one to find it. I want to piece it together, to have those moments where you feel you can do the genealogy happy dance, whether it's in a cemetery, library, or in your pajamas in your house at 2:00 in the morning. So I want the thrill of genealogy, but along with that thrill comes the tears. By this I mean the information, the pictures, the documents and the people that I will never find. I have to come to terms with that fact, that this puzzle will never have all of its pieces put together.
Heartbreak and joy. I guess I can handle that. It's better than getting handed my genealogy all done for me. That would so ruin the experience and I wouldn't know what to do with myself after that.
As a side note, I hope that this great transformation in genealogy where so much information is being put online and indexed, does not make genealogy too much easier. I've been worrying about that lately as well. Will it take the fun out of genealogy, just having so much just a click away? Hopefully not; but I guess we are going to have to take the bad with the good.
Copyright © 2013 Matt Mapes
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Have you ever laid awake at night thinking about genealogy? That's why my wife advises me to not look at genealogy too close to bed; sort of like caffeine, it just keeps me up. All the things that I need to look for churning around in my head. Trying to figure out some brick wall or road block.
But the worst things are when I think about the pictures or bibles or documents that are out there and I don't have. Maybe they are known artifacts which someone has, but are unwilling to provide me. Maybe they are artifacts which I know existed, but can't locate now. Those situations just churn my stomach up so much that I definitely can't get to sleep.
Where am I going with this? Well, so maybe it would be easier if everything was just handed to me on a silver platter, right? Here...this is all your genealogy, going back 10 generations, pictures of everyone, documents, etc. Enjoy. Thanks silver platter. You just ruined my hobby.
As much as I want to find everything out there related to my family. I want to be the one to find it. I want to piece it together, to have those moments where you feel you can do the genealogy happy dance, whether it's in a cemetery, library, or in your pajamas in your house at 2:00 in the morning. So I want the thrill of genealogy, but along with that thrill comes the tears. By this I mean the information, the pictures, the documents and the people that I will never find. I have to come to terms with that fact, that this puzzle will never have all of its pieces put together.
Heartbreak and joy. I guess I can handle that. It's better than getting handed my genealogy all done for me. That would so ruin the experience and I wouldn't know what to do with myself after that.
As a side note, I hope that this great transformation in genealogy where so much information is being put online and indexed, does not make genealogy too much easier. I've been worrying about that lately as well. Will it take the fun out of genealogy, just having so much just a click away? Hopefully not; but I guess we are going to have to take the bad with the good.
Copyright © 2013 Matt Mapes
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Genealogy Gold at the Antique Store
Sorry about my long absence! Time flies when you're busy....
So we were in Michigan for Easter weekend, visiting my family. My daughter had some interest in going to an antique store, and I thought it wasn't a bad idea to check it out either, since there are a couple in the St. Louis/Wheeler area of Gratiot County, where so many of my relatives have lived since the 1850's. I thought I might try my luck in finding some family treasures that found their way to the antique store lineup. I have a number of families where pictures and other items are scarce and their whereabouts are unknown, due to families dying out, estate sales, etc.
Never in a million years did I think I would actually find something. But I did.
I was going through a box of old pictures, the ones where the paper picture is glued to a cardboard back (forgive my ignorance on what these kind of pictures are called..my mind has not retained that piece of information today...). A number of the pictures were identified, some of the names I even recognized from the area, but had no connection to. There were pictures in there from other states as well, however.
Then I came across this one, written on the back was "Hopkins Family." Of course it is, because I actually have a reproduction that a distant relative sent me of this exact picture. The old man sitting in the middle is my 3rd great grandfather, Thomas Hopkins. I couldn't believe it. I let out a quick sigh, and my daughter notices and I show her the picture. Amazing.
Of course now, I'm on a mission. This antique store is divided up into shops, not easily distinguished. Every seller has a certain area, and they pay the owner of the store to sell their stuff there. I scour this person's area, every picture is looked at with keen eyes, and I come across two collateral line pictures, "Roscoe Hopkins" with what looks like one of his wives (he is one of the men in the first picture I found) son of Thomas Hopkins; and "Eugene and Matie Milligan," Matie being a Becker by birth and granddaughter of Thomas Hopkins, her mother Margie Hopkins Becker, and also in that first family picture.
That was all I found. I could not physically identify anyone else and there were no other names that popped out at me. I was grateful to find those three. I had seen, as I said earlier, the large family picture. But the other two were unknown to me.
I just wish I knew their history. How did they come to be in this antique shop? Luckily, the lady who owned this spot in the store came in before I left, and I was able to speak to her. Unfortunately, she had no idea where they came from. She bought things from estate sales all over Michigan. Dead end there.
Interestingly, this is the family I would most likely find pictures of at an antique store, I believe. The last two children of the Thomas Hopkins family to die, were Roscoe Hopkins and William Hopkins. They had lost their wives, or first wives, at least, and had no children. I was told by a distant relative that at one of their estate sales, people were buying beautiful old pictures in frames, just for the frames, and this distant relative was trying to ask the people for the pictures before they were thrown away. How sad and tragic an end to family treasures. But some how, a few pictures trickled in here and there, and someone like me can even find some genealogy gold at the antique store.
Moral of the story? Never stop looking and never give up, gold is found in the most unexpected places.
Copyright © 2013 Matt Mapes
So we were in Michigan for Easter weekend, visiting my family. My daughter had some interest in going to an antique store, and I thought it wasn't a bad idea to check it out either, since there are a couple in the St. Louis/Wheeler area of Gratiot County, where so many of my relatives have lived since the 1850's. I thought I might try my luck in finding some family treasures that found their way to the antique store lineup. I have a number of families where pictures and other items are scarce and their whereabouts are unknown, due to families dying out, estate sales, etc.
Never in a million years did I think I would actually find something. But I did.
I was going through a box of old pictures, the ones where the paper picture is glued to a cardboard back (forgive my ignorance on what these kind of pictures are called..my mind has not retained that piece of information today...). A number of the pictures were identified, some of the names I even recognized from the area, but had no connection to. There were pictures in there from other states as well, however.
Then I came across this one, written on the back was "Hopkins Family." Of course it is, because I actually have a reproduction that a distant relative sent me of this exact picture. The old man sitting in the middle is my 3rd great grandfather, Thomas Hopkins. I couldn't believe it. I let out a quick sigh, and my daughter notices and I show her the picture. Amazing.
Of course now, I'm on a mission. This antique store is divided up into shops, not easily distinguished. Every seller has a certain area, and they pay the owner of the store to sell their stuff there. I scour this person's area, every picture is looked at with keen eyes, and I come across two collateral line pictures, "Roscoe Hopkins" with what looks like one of his wives (he is one of the men in the first picture I found) son of Thomas Hopkins; and "Eugene and Matie Milligan," Matie being a Becker by birth and granddaughter of Thomas Hopkins, her mother Margie Hopkins Becker, and also in that first family picture.
That was all I found. I could not physically identify anyone else and there were no other names that popped out at me. I was grateful to find those three. I had seen, as I said earlier, the large family picture. But the other two were unknown to me.
I just wish I knew their history. How did they come to be in this antique shop? Luckily, the lady who owned this spot in the store came in before I left, and I was able to speak to her. Unfortunately, she had no idea where they came from. She bought things from estate sales all over Michigan. Dead end there.
Interestingly, this is the family I would most likely find pictures of at an antique store, I believe. The last two children of the Thomas Hopkins family to die, were Roscoe Hopkins and William Hopkins. They had lost their wives, or first wives, at least, and had no children. I was told by a distant relative that at one of their estate sales, people were buying beautiful old pictures in frames, just for the frames, and this distant relative was trying to ask the people for the pictures before they were thrown away. How sad and tragic an end to family treasures. But some how, a few pictures trickled in here and there, and someone like me can even find some genealogy gold at the antique store.
Moral of the story? Never stop looking and never give up, gold is found in the most unexpected places.
Copyright © 2013 Matt Mapes
Sunday, March 24, 2013
RootsTech
I really enjoyed listening to the keynote speeches this week and a few of the classes through the RootsTech website. While I did not get a chance to go there, it was a nice experience to be able to listen in and feel a part of the show.
I also downloaded all the syllabus for the classes and will be going through them (in my so called free time!) to find out new tricks, websites, etc for researching.
While not genealogy related, I loved David Pogue's keynote Saturday morning. He is a great speaker and made everyone laugh.
If you haven't done so, download the class syllabus so that you can find out what you missed if you weren't able to go...lot's of interesting things to think about and check out!
Copyright © 2013 Matt Mapes
I also downloaded all the syllabus for the classes and will be going through them (in my so called free time!) to find out new tricks, websites, etc for researching.
While not genealogy related, I loved David Pogue's keynote Saturday morning. He is a great speaker and made everyone laugh.
If you haven't done so, download the class syllabus so that you can find out what you missed if you weren't able to go...lot's of interesting things to think about and check out!
Copyright © 2013 Matt Mapes
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
What is original anyway?
So what is a primary source? Or a secondary source? Or an original source? Lots of talk on the blogs about these things, and people refer to them differently. The problem is, you can hash it all you want, but there are very few primary original sources.
Am I a primary source for my birth? Well, technically, I was there. But I don't have recognizable memories until years later. While I do have a birth certificate which tells me when my birth was, if nothing else, I would have my mother to tell me what my birthday is. But would she tell me the correct date or remember the date?
Many times the vital or court records we look at are not the originals, so are they primary sources? Many of them are copied from another primary source. Land record originals were generally held by the individual owning the land and the courthouse only had a copy. Who exactly gave the information to the county clerk in the 1800's for that death or birth or marriage? Did the clerk write it down correctly?
Bill Dollarhide had an interesting blog post a while back, that detailed exactly how the census was taken, and in fact the originals most likely no longer exist, as they were kept at the local level, created by the US Marshalls, before the Census Bureau was created. The "original" census pages we see now were copies of the originals. So this is how far removed that census information is from reality:
(1)Information provided by an unknown person to a US Marshall or Census Bureau employee....
(2)Who wrote it down as best he/she could trying to understand what that unknown person was telling them....
(3)The original census page being copied by an unknown individual onto another sheet to be submitted to DC...
(4)The copied census page being microfilmed, and then destroyed....
(5)The microfilmed census page then being digitized and uploaded to the Internet....
(6)A genealogist downloading that image to keep on their hard drive or to print out....
6 generations removed from the original (and possibly faulty to begin with) information about the family!
So don't ever wonder why the information on a census for a family is incorrect. I think it's a miracle that any of it is even close to being accurate.
Of course we could debate all day what a primary source is, or how many steps removed a primary source has to be for it to be considered a secondary source, and on and on. But that doesn't really get us anywhere, I suppose.
This is a quandary. And I suppose we have to realize the limitations of the documents we use, as well as our limitations in obtaining the "perfect" documents to properly source our material. We can only do our best, with what is provided to us or what is left to us after time has its way with those precious documents.
Copyright © 2013 Matt Mapes
Am I a primary source for my birth? Well, technically, I was there. But I don't have recognizable memories until years later. While I do have a birth certificate which tells me when my birth was, if nothing else, I would have my mother to tell me what my birthday is. But would she tell me the correct date or remember the date?
Many times the vital or court records we look at are not the originals, so are they primary sources? Many of them are copied from another primary source. Land record originals were generally held by the individual owning the land and the courthouse only had a copy. Who exactly gave the information to the county clerk in the 1800's for that death or birth or marriage? Did the clerk write it down correctly?
Bill Dollarhide had an interesting blog post a while back, that detailed exactly how the census was taken, and in fact the originals most likely no longer exist, as they were kept at the local level, created by the US Marshalls, before the Census Bureau was created. The "original" census pages we see now were copies of the originals. So this is how far removed that census information is from reality:
(1)Information provided by an unknown person to a US Marshall or Census Bureau employee....
(2)Who wrote it down as best he/she could trying to understand what that unknown person was telling them....
(3)The original census page being copied by an unknown individual onto another sheet to be submitted to DC...
(4)The copied census page being microfilmed, and then destroyed....
(5)The microfilmed census page then being digitized and uploaded to the Internet....
(6)A genealogist downloading that image to keep on their hard drive or to print out....
6 generations removed from the original (and possibly faulty to begin with) information about the family!
So don't ever wonder why the information on a census for a family is incorrect. I think it's a miracle that any of it is even close to being accurate.
Of course we could debate all day what a primary source is, or how many steps removed a primary source has to be for it to be considered a secondary source, and on and on. But that doesn't really get us anywhere, I suppose.
This is a quandary. And I suppose we have to realize the limitations of the documents we use, as well as our limitations in obtaining the "perfect" documents to properly source our material. We can only do our best, with what is provided to us or what is left to us after time has its way with those precious documents.
Copyright © 2013 Matt Mapes
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