20 May 2006

Two's Company, Three's a Crowd!

20 May 2006 3
I was always fascinated by the story of Sibyl, the woman with 12 multiple personalities (as featured in the eponymous movie starring Sally Field). Little did I know that deep in the depths of my genealogical past, I too, am a multiple personality.

This all started when I made the astonishing discovery that my parents were distant cousins—5th cousins twice removed to be precise. I don't know why I was so surprised, given the rather inbred part of the world from which I hail. I must admit, the thing that fascinates me the most is that my parents, who descend from a common ancestor, were 2 generations apart. During the time it took my father's line to produce 5 generations, my mother's line produced 7.

However, the most interesting, and relevant, consequence of this relationship is that it resulted in there being two lines of descent from my most distant ancestor to myself . . . and that means that I am my own 6th cousin twice removed (my parents were 5th cousins twice removed, so I am my own 6th cousin twice removed).

What's more ... as my genealogy software revealed, because my gggg-grandfather, John Last, married his first cousin, Mary Quinton, I am also my own 7th cousin!

Thus, there you have it, the secret's out. I am myself, I am my 6th cousin twiced removed, I am my 7th cousin.

There are some other interesting consequences to this. For example, all of my 1st cousins are also my 6th cousins twice removed and all of my paternal cousins (cousins on my father's side) are also my 7th cousins. What's more, my maternal grandfather (my mother's father) is also my 6th cousin, making my maternal aunts and uncles, also 6th cousins once removed! My paternal grandfather is also my 5th cousin twice removed as well as my 4th cousin 4 times removed . . . and so on.

I was happy being me but now I'm never alone because I shall always have 2 of my cousins to keep me company.



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19 May 2006

Research: Online: Using the IGI

19 May 2006 2
One of the most useful web sites for researching your family tree is the IGI (International Genealogical Index) database, at FamilySearch.org.

This site contains thousands of baptismal/christening, marriage and death records from all over the world, collated by members of the Mormon (LDS) church.

Many genealogists criticize the IGI because there are a lot of errors, mistranscriptions, duplicate records, etc. However, it provides a great point of reference when first tracking down your ancestors, to provide clues as to the location of original records, and simply to jumpstart your research.

The IGI allows you to search by last name, firstname, names of parents, name of spouse, year range, location and type of record (birth/christening/baptism, marriage, etc.). In my opinion, the biggest weakness of the IGI is that seemingly reasonably combinations of search parameters are sometimes not permitted. For example, if you try to search on last name + mother's first name + region, you will be told that:

"If you enter a last name without a first name, you must either not enter parent or spouse names, a year, or you must enter a batch number or a film number."

Why? I ask myself.

As you start to use the IGI regularly, you will eventually come across the concept of "Batch Numbers." Batches are essentially groups of records, often collected from a single parish, or group of parishes (or other locations). However, the IGI does not provide full details as to what is covered in each batch. However, various helpful souls have put together indexes of batch numbers, available online, to assist people with their IGI research. One of the best is the site compiled by Hugh Wallis, containing records from North America and Great Britain, which is hosted by Rootsweb.com.


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16 May 2006

A Favorite Ancestor: Milton Monroe Comstock

16 May 2006 4
From time to time I thought I would write about some of the most interesting ancestors that I have come across in my genealogy research. This ancestor is not actually one of mine, rather, he is one of my wife's; her great-great-great grandfather.

Milton Monroe Comstock

Milton was born c. 1834 in Jennings County, Indiana, the son of John Carter Comstock and Ruth French. He died February 7th, 1890 in a very mysterious manner ... but more of that in a minute.

Milton was married twice and, in both instances, the marriages ended tragically. His first wife, Emaline Smith (daughter of Dexter Smith and Jemima Keeling), died only 6 days after giving birth to their only child, a daughter, Emaline (my wife's direct ancestor). Emaline was born 3 Feb 1857 in Bloomfield, Davis Co., Iowa and her mother died on the 9th of that month. Emaline was then raised by her grandparents before ending up marrying into the Peugh family and moving to California.

Ten years after the death of his first wife, Milton married again. His second wife was Martha Wells, daughter of William and Mahala Wells, and they married 29 March 1867 in Appanoose Co., Iowa. Three children were born to this marriage, all of whom died in infancy, surviving only a few months. To add to the tragedy, Martha herself died 9 Jan 1870, less than 3 years after their marriage.

After losing both of his wives and three children, Milton must have decided to seek his fortune and left Iowa for Nevada. Certainly, by February 1873, Milton was living in the town of Belmont, Nye Co., Nevada, where he is also recorded in the 1875 Nevada state census.

At that time, Belmont, which is now mostly a ghost town in the middle of nowhere, was the county seat of Nye County (until replaced by Tonopah, in 1905) and a thriving silver-mining community.

Well, the story goes that one day Emaline, his daughter, received a letter from Milton telling her that he had made a strike and they would not have anything more to worry about but a few weeks later she received word of his death and all she ever received was an old trunk with a few clothes in it which was sent to her by his partner, or possibly his lawyer.

Whether this is true or not, I have no idea, but it is certainly plausible.

A few years ago my wife and I took a journey to Belmont, staying a shortish drive away in Tonopah. We looked around the Belmont cemetery and also did some research in the local library/museum but were unable to find any details of his death - so if you should happen to locate any information on him, please let me know!!


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14 May 2006

Keep your Sources in Cite

14 May 2006 1
When I first started my interest in genealogy I quickly found a lot of information that I just couldn't wait to enter into my family tree software. The whole subject was so new, interesting and exciting that I ignored all the advice about making sure I cited my sources ... that is, that I also entered details of where the information I was entering came from.

However, as time went on and my interest deepened and the amount of information I had grew and grew I often needed to look back at those original entries so that I could verify them, only I no longer could remember where the information had come from in the first place! If I had just taken the time to enter even basic information such as "1881 Census" or whatever, at least that would have given me a clue. As it was, many times I had no idea where the information came from - much to my regret.

As time went on, I was able to find out some of the sources and made a point of entering those sources into my software but I still have several "holes" where I'm not sure where a particular piece of information came from.

I have learnt my lesson and now I enter my sources as detailed as possible and if you want to save yourself headaches in the future, you'll do so too!

Recommended Reading: "Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian" by Elizabeth Shown Mills


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13 May 2006

Working out Relationships

13 May 2006 0
One of the things that many people find difficulty with when researching their family tree is how to figure out relationships between people, especially when it comes to 2nd and 3rd cousins, etc. - especially when those cousins are "removed." It's actually really simple, when you know the rules.

What Cousin Am I?
First of all, for all intents and purposes there is no such thing as a half-cousin - you're either dealing with a first, second, third and so on cousin, or they're not a cousin at all.

So, how do you work out which degree of cousinship you're talking about. The key is in counting the Gs for the closest common ancestors.



First cousins share the same grand-parents and are in the same generation. Notice the one "G" in "grand-parents." For example:

  1. Andrew and Amy get married and have children, Brian and Caroline.
  2. Brian grows up and marries Betty, producing child David.
  3. Caroline grows up and married Carl, producing child Emily.
In this scenario, the closest common ancestors between David and Emily are their grandparents, Andrew and Amy, therefore they are first cousins.

Now, the children of first cousins are second cousins because they share common great-grandparents (note the 2 Gs).

To illustrate, if David married Dora and has a child, Fred; and Emily marries Eric and has a child, Gwen; Fred and Gwen are second cousins because their closest common ancestors are their great-grandparents. Similarly, the children of Fred and Gwen would be third cousins (common great-great-grandparents), and so on.

What's This "Cousin Removed" All About?
Going back to our previous example:


1.Andrew (m.Amy)
|
+--2.Brian (m.Betty)
| |
| +--3.David (m.Dora)
| |
| +--4.Fred
|
+--2.Caroline (m.Carl)
|
+--3.Emily (m.Eric)
|
+--4.Gwen


"Removed" comes into play when looking at cousins that are not in the same generation. For example, the relationship between David and Gwen. Now, Andrew and Amy are the closest common ancestors, who are David's grandparents but Gwen's great-grandparents. To work out their relationship we start with the generation closest to the common ancestors, in this case, David's generation. At David's generation the relationship is one of first cousins (because David is first cousin to Gwen's ancestor at that generation). Thus, they are first cousins something removed. In order to work out how many times removed, we merely count the number of generations apart they are. In the example, David is in generation 3 and Gwen in generation 4. Therefore, they are 1 generation apart, or once removed.

Thus, David and Gwen are first cousins once removed. If Gwen had children, they would be David's first cousins twice removed, and so on. Easy, isn't it!

This relationship chart at About.com may help.

Aunts and Uncles
There are a couple of common misconceptions about aunts and uncles too.
  1. First, from a genealogy point of view, aunts and uncles can only be blood relatives. Thus, suppose your father has a brother, Zack, and Zack marries Zelda. Zelda is not your aunt - she is "the wife of your uncle."
  2. There is also no such thing as a great-uncle or great-aunt - the correct term for that is really grand-uncle (like grand-parent) or grand-aunt. Thus, using the example above, if Andrew had a brother, Aaron, Aaron would be David and Emily's grand-uncle.



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Introducing Genealogy

I've been interested in genealogy for a few years now and have traced both my ancestors and my wife's ancestors back many generations, which has been truly fascinating and addictive. Warning: genealogy is addictive!

So what, exactly is genealogy? Genealogy is the study of a person's ancestors (commonly known as your "family tree") or family history - tracing them back generation after generation. So, the further back you go, the more ancestors you have to find ... especially if you then start tracing descendants of the siblings of your own direct ancestors!

For example, I have 2 parents, who each have 2 parents, so there are 4 grandparents ... and so on: 8 great-grandparents, 16 great-great parents, ad infinitum! Then, if each grandparent had brothers and/or sisters, they may well have had descendants also, giving you even more relatives to trace.

Genealogy is definitely an amazing journey that makes you realize just how connected to other people you are, and what a heritage we all have, and share.

As this blog progresses, I shall be giving tips, advice, information, resources, etc. to help you on your journey into the past, tracing your own ancestors and reliving your family history.



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