OGS Conference 2017

At the induction banquet for First Families Of The Old Northwest Territory

The Ohio Genealogical Society's Annual Conference was in Sandusky this past week.  It started on Wednesday evening and ended Saturday night.  I worked all week but ran up there on Friday evening and started in with my workshops early Saturday morning with a 7:40 am registration in order to make an 8 am workshop.  All the workshops I attended were excellent.  I began with "Ohio Research" presented by Dana Ann Palmer.  She presented an informative primer of where to find what kind of Ohio records for which time frames. Then at 9:20 am I listened to Kip Sperry explain "Migration to and Settlement in the Western Reserve of Northeast Ohio".  He was very knowledgeable  of the repositories located in  Cleveland and surrounding areas sound and he explained what type of information were available in each of them.  He also shared websites and an extensive  bibliography.  At 10:45 am Michael D Lacopo mesmerized us all with a presentation called "Medical Genealogy: A Primer of Diseases That Killed Our Ancestors".  He covered the major causes of death by disease of the past.  I was fascinated.  After a leisurely lunch 2 pm found me listening to Drew Smith's workshop called "Your Ancestor's FAN Club:  Using Cluster Research to Get Past Brick Walls" which was a very clear presentation about how to tap in to indirect evidence.  I plan to order his book eventually - which can be found HERE.   My last workshop was at 3:20 pm and was titled "Finding the Hidden Manuscripts of the Ohio River Valley" presented by J. Mark Lowe.   This was the most advanced workshop I attended and I can't wait to study the syllabus in more detail and to try out the search techniques he advocated.  When the workshops were completed I was able to rest up for a couple hours before the induction banquet for the new lineage society of the OGS - see the details HERE.  The dinner really was nice.  

After a good nights sleep and before driving home I stopped in at Rutherford B Hayes estate and toured the house and the museum.  I was also able to check out the library.  More information can be found HERE.  

It was a very nice weekend.   I look forward to a few years in the future when I will be retired and will have more free time and can attend the entire conference instead of just one day.   Next year the conference is in Columbus and I am looking forward to whatever time I can spare to enjoy the event. 

Saturday Night Genealogy Challenge - Google Translate

I have been at the Ohio Genealogical Society Annual Conference this weekend so I am later than usual with my Saturday Night Genealogy Challenge.  The original post with links to the other participants can be found HERE.  The challenge follows with my response:


1) Find some of your favorite sayings, aphorisms, jokes, etc. They can be genealogy-related, or not.

2)  Translate them into Latin using Google Translate (https://translate.google.com/?hl=en&tab=TT)

3)  Share them with us in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook status line or Google Plus Stream post (impress your non-genealogy friends with your Latin skills!).

4)  Of course, you could translate the Latin you read (on my blog, or the blogs of others) back into English (or your native language) using Google Translate too to see who was really funny, or mean, or romantic.  If you want to be really fancy, you could translate your sayings into any other language that uses Google Translate and really confuse all of us.  

"Nihil est, hic est somnium tuum. Praevalentem mandatum perficere omnes hie sua fata est, sua veritas." ~ OSHO

"Vita est iter, non est destination." H.  Len Houghton

"Non omne quod exit gradus et sic alius, oportet esse minus." ~ Hans Asperger (MCMXXXVIII)

Non potes control aliis actionibus, nisi tua profectae.

Quid est Joe scis! Equum in in balneus?

As a foot note - I like using google translate with the LOC newspaper site (Chronicling America - http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov) when the newspapers are in German.  

How Many Trees In Your Data Base? Saturday Night Challenge

The original post to the Saturday Night Challenge this week can be found HERE along with the links to all the people who participate.  The wording of the challenge is as follows.

1) How many different "trees" do you have in your genealogy management program (i.e., RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker, reunion, etc.) or online tree (e.g. Ancestry Member Tree, MyHeritage tree)?

2)  How many trees do you have, and how big is your biggest tree?  Do you have some smaller "bushes" or "twigs?"


I am going to be a fail for this weeks challenge.  I use Reunion software as my genealogy management program and I can find no where that says how many trees I have.  That is probably because I keep everything in one tree.  If I go to the top under "files' my one tree is listed.  It is all connected.  I have my line and my husbands line and my children's father's lines etc all together.  I have step families lines and adopted families lines all in the same one.  So the quick answer to how many trees I have is one.  It has 7202 people in it.  I have thought about trying to separate out the lines but that would get really messy.  Especially if I tried to separate out my mother's side from my father's side.  With my Pennsylvania German Dutch background on both sides there is a lot of intertwining of the branches way back.   I have always worked on my data base as one large tree.

Reunion does have something interesting.  You can go on the left column where there is a section toward the bottom called "sidebar".  In that area something called "tree tops" can be selected.  Then on the far right column, shows up lists under two sub headings - my name and my children's fathers name - how many tree tops are in each.  Mine has 149 tree tops and his has 56 treetops so in my data base I have 205 tree tops.  His top generation is generation 15.  My top generation is generation 26. I have been having issues with my screen shot feature on my lap top so I used my phone to take photos of my tree tops lists.  The first six pictures are mine and the last four are my ex's lines tree tops lists.  My largest tree top is generation 9 which has 34 tree tops listed.

Back around the end of the 1990's when I started messing around with my tree I only wanted to know who my great grandmother's father was.  But in the process got sucked into genealogy as a hobby.  About 2000 I figured out I was supposed to have a research goal.  I decided I would try to get every line to immigration.  I have not had a great deal of interest in searching over seas.  Therefore if there is any information from prior to immigration in my tree it is a gift to me from others.  

As far as information on any given surname that I have that may or may not be connected to my surname.  I have not thrown that info away but I have not worked out a tree of it.  I have the information either in digital or actual folders.  

Writing Group 4/2017

Last month I posted what I wrote for March's meeting for the writing group I joined this year at the local library.  This month the prompt was "Review A Magazine Article You Have Read This Past Month" and what follows is what I wrote to read at the meeting today.   I have enjoyed the five gatherings of this group that I have attended.  They are talented writers and have been kind with their comments about my writing. 

Library Writing Group

April 2017

Topic:

Magazine Article Review

The State Library of Ohio offers the ability to check magazines out on electronic devices.  In order to take advantage of this service, a state library card and either a Nook device or a Nook App is required along with an internet provider.  Because of this capacity, I have been able to enjoy a wider variety of periodicals than I would if I purchased them.  For the first time, last month I read an issue of a magazine called Wired.  It is a monthly magazine that is headquartered in San Francisco, California and has been in publication since 1993.  Wired is owned by the media company Condé Nast. The cover of the March issue reads “The News in Crisis” and within its covers are several articles on the many ways the news media is changing.  The first piece is “Saving The New York Times”. Another one is called “The News Media Is in Trouble”.   Also included is “Keeping Up with The Times”.  “Attention Is Our Business” is one of many graphics displays incorporated in this section of the magazine.   “Robots Wrote This Story”, “Black News Matters”, and “Reporters Need Edward Snowden” are other articles covering the news media in Wired last month. But the feature story “Fake News Factory to the World” by Samantha Subramanian is the write up I selected to review.   I chose this item because of the accusations and finger pointing that has been happening from all corners about “fake news” recently. 

The “Fake News Factory to the World” it turns out, according to the article, is Veles, in the Balkan nation of Macedonia.  It is a town of 55,000 people where the average monthly salary is $371.   One 18-year-old young man there dropped out of high school last fall because between August and November he earned $16,000 posting untrue stories on his pro-Trump website.  These stories were shared, often over 800 times, and contained advertisements which paid him for the amount of times his websites were visited.  The wilder the stories he put up meant there would be more shares and more views and more money for him.   His English is poor but he was able to pull the false stories off other areas on the web and copy them.  It made no difference to him if the information was true or false.  It made no difference to him who won or lost the US election.  He only wanted the pocket money to buy a car, cigarettes and drinks at the bar.  This same young man, now that the election is over, has websites that are about health foods, celebrity news, and other things that can generate clicks by people on social media.  There is a six-week class in the Macedonian capital of Skopje, that is available on line with a price tag of $425, where people can learn to generate this sort of income.   But the class is not about posting fake news but instead teaches participants how to create web sites of interest to people with legitimate content that contain the same click bait ads.  Google has pulled its ads since the election but this practice is still going on therefore the presence of other advertisers remain.  One of the foreign teens who posted during our election is quoted in the article as saying that although he experimented trying to do the same sort of thing with the supporters of other candidates, he discovered that Trump supporters shared the fake news quickly and without questioning it, as long as it was sensational, and in that way increased his profits much more  quickly, than the other supporters who searched for proof and credibility of the information prior to sharing.    It is not known how much impact this sort of thing had on our US voters.  The information these foreign young people  posted was already out on the internet.  Their online behavior only made the mis-information much more widely known and read.  It is clear to me from reading this article that as individuals we need to improve our critical thinking skills.  When I went to high school in the 1970s, questioning what we read and using reason to think things through was stressed to us.  When my kids were in school in the 1990s I did not pick up on any emphasis on teaching critical thinking skills.  Perhaps it isn’t till college now that these skills are introduced.  As parents and grandparents, we should foster this ability in ourselves and our families with discussions and direction.  Learning to recognize false information and conspiracy theories verses legitimate news coverage, learning to know the difference between an editorial and factual reporting, and recognizing the various leanings of the articles we are reading or videos we are watching needs to be part of everyone’s knowledge base. 

The Who In Your Database Has Your Birthday Saturday Night Challenge

Last night's Saturday Night Challenge and the links to those that participated can be found HERE and my post of the exercise follows.  

1) Are there persons in your genealogy database that has the same exact birth date that you do?  If so, tell us about him or her - what do you know, and how is s/he related to you?

No one in my database shares my same exact birthdate.  
2)  Are there persons in your database that are your ancestors that share your birth day (but not the year)?   How many, and who are they?

I got hung up on the definition of "ancestor".  I have an aunt who shares my birthday.  She is living so I won't list her online to respect her privacy.   The obituary at the top of the page is my great grandmother's brother.  His name was Alonzo Shepler and he shares my birthday.   But no one in my direct line back shares my birthday.
3)  Are there other persons in your database that share your birth day (but not the year)?  How many, and who are they?

Eleven.

Jacob E Blair 8/30/1779 - this person is connected to my Sullivan line

Bryon Lester Coffman 8/30/1910 - this person is connected to my children's father's lines

Mary Bernadine Darnell 8/30/1924 - this person is connected to my ex husband's lines

Catherine Fry 8/30/1806 - this person is connected to my children's husbands lines

Hugh Hiner 8/30/1910 - the Hiner line was intermarried into my Rohrer line but no blood relation

Henry Hunt 8/30/1827 - this person is related to my Sheafor line

Selma Selvinia Martin 8/30/1893 - this person is connected to my Rohrer line

James Cornelius Schneider 8/30/1937 - this person is connected to my children's father's lines

Rollin Stine 8/30/1884 - this person is connected to my Stair line.

Jacob Weiss 8/30/1818 - this person is connected to my Moyer line.  

Ester Hettie Werley 8/30/1825 - this person is connected to my Moyer line.  
4)  For bonus points, how did you determine this?  What feature or process did you use in your software to work this problem out?  I think the Calendar feature probably does it, but perhaps you have a trick to make this work outside of the Calendar function.

I have my data base in Reunion software.  On the left task column is a choice called "FIND" and when you click on it the center opens a section that allows you to choose parameters.  I chose "BIRTHDATE" and then "CONTAINS" and then typed in my birthdate.  Then I clicked on "FIND". Only I came up in the right column.   So I deleted the year and clicked "FIND" again.  And a list came up on the right with the names I listed above,  Alonzo, myself and my aunt.  I had to click on the person's name in the right column of some of the people to refresh my memory of where they fit in my database.  

"A Dog's Purpose" by W. Bruce Cameron

A Dog's Purpose

by

W. Bruce Cameron

It was very enjoyable to listen to this book on audio in much the same way a person is read a bedtime story.  The novel is about a dog who is reincarnated several times and has a different purpose in each life.  It is a fun book and I laughed a lot but also has some very sad parts.  For those that are not readers the book is now a movie too.  I don't know anyone who would not enjoy either the book or the movie.  Please click on the title and author's name above and watch the video that follows for more information.  

The "A Family's Increase" Saturday Night Genealogy Challenge

This weeks Saturday Night Challenge post along with links of those who participated can be found HERE.  The questions are listed prior in italics prior to my answers. 

1) Pick one of your sets of great-grandparents - if possible, the one with the most descendants.

Georgia Shepler (1886-1967) and Harve Rairigh (1884-1956)

Georgia and Have Rairigh are my mother's grandparents on her father's side. 

My father's mother had one brother and my father's father was an only child.  My mother's mother had five siblings but I am not as informed on those lines and do not know them well enough to get information from living people on living people.  So I chose my mother's father's family because that is who I know as family from my mother's relatives. 

2) Create a descendants list for those great-grandparents either by hand or in your software program.

I used my Reunion Family Tree Software to create a descendant list.  

3) Tell us how many descendants, living or dead, are in each generation from those great-grandparents.

1 - Children - Two (both deceased)

2- grandchildren - Six - (two deceased)

3-great-grandchildren - Twenty - two - (one deceased)

4- great-great-grandchildren - Thirty-eight - (two deceased)

5- great-great-great-grandchildren - fifteen - (one deceased)

6- great- great-great-great- grandchildren - zero 

 

4) How many are still living? Of those, how many have you met and exchanged family information with? Are there any that you should make contact with ASAP? Please don't use last names of living people for this - respect their privacy.

I have 83 descendants listed for the  great grandparents I chose for this exercise and I have 77 of those descendants listed as still living.  I keep in loose contact with my first cousins.  It has been several years since I obtained updated family information and photos from my cousins regarding their grandchildren and I know from Facebook posts that number five's list needs updated.  I need to email them all and send them what I have for each of their families and ask for corrections and updates again.  It has been over five years already since I have done so.  But I don't think it has been ten years since we worked together for an update of information for my records.  

5) Write about it in your own blog post, in comments to this post, or in comments or a Note on Facebook.

This was challenging for me.  Trying to hand count through the descendant list started to get confusing so I won't promise I did it right.   What was really interesting to me is that my family on this side stays true with the national pattern of a baby boom in my generation and then a decrease in the size of the families from there for each generation.  

Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart

Girl Waits With Gun

by

Amy Stewart

Amy Stewart's Girl Waits With Gun is the book selection that all the book groups in the county that I live are reading this month.  There are various activities that are planned in addition to the group's various meetings such as a visit from the author for a dinner one evening.  I finished listening to the book on my way home from work tonight.  It is not a lengthy read for historical fiction and easily is like the other genre it fits into as the book is also like a mystery.   It is not a deep book and I would not consider it full of meaningful layers within the story line.   I would consider it a fun book.  I enjoyed listening to it and was able to escape right into the world of the Copp Sisters.  The novel takes place in the early 1900's and  involves the story of how they were traveling through town in their buggy and were struck by a motor car.   When they tried to collect damages the driver of the car retaliates with violence and threats.  The sisters stand up for themselves with the help of the police and the book tells the story of how far they have to go to defend their home and personal safety.  Please follow the links above for more information and enjoy the video that follows.  

The "Where Have You Visited" Saturday Night Challenge

This weeks Saturday Night Challenge involves how many places a person has visited.  The original post along with the links to everyone who participated can be found HERE.  The actual wording of the challenge is: 

Copy the list from this blog post and denote your places visited with an X, and add states or countries you've visited not on the list.  Then total it up at the end of your list.

The list is:

Afghanistan 
Alabama X
Alaska X
Algeria
Arizona X
Argentina
Arkansas X
Aruba
Australia
Austria
Bahamas
Barbados
Belgium
Belize
Bermuda
Bonaire
Brazil
British Virgin Islands
California X
Canada X
Colombia
Castaway Island
Cayman Islands  
Chile
China
Chicago X
Colorado X
Connecticut
Costa Rica
Cuba
Curacao 
Czech Republic
Delaware
Denmark
Dominican Republic
Dubai
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
England 
Estonia  
Fiji
Finland
Florida X
France
Georgia X
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Guam
Guatemala
Haiti
Hawaii
Honduras
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Idaho X
Illinois X
India
Indiana X
Iowa X
Iran
Iraq
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kansas X
Kentucky X
Kenya
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Latvia
Lithuania
Louisiana X
Luxembourg
Maine X
Maryland X
Massachusetts X
Mexico
Michigan X
Minnesota X
Mississippi X
Missouri X
Montana X
Morocco
Nebraska X
Nevada X
New Hampshire
New Jersey X
New Mexico X
New York X
New Zealand
Nicaragua
North Carolina X
North Dakota X
Norway  X
Ohio X
Oklahoma X
Oregon X
Palestine
Panamá
Pennsylvania X
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Rhode Island 
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Sicily
Scotland
Singapore
South Africa
South Carolina  X
South Dakota X
South Korea
Spain
St Marten
St Thomas
Switzerland
Sweden
Taiwan
Tennessee X
Texas X
Thailand
Trinidad
Turkey
The Netherlands
United Arab Emirates
US Virgin Islands
Utah X
Venezuela
Vermont
Vietnam
Virginia X
Washington
Washington DC X
West Virginia X
Wisconsin X
Wyoming X
Wales

Total: 46

Other than a couple of visits up into Canada my traveling has been limited to the USA.  I would be curious to see where all people in the Saturday Night Genealogy Challenge group have traveled to on genealogy related research or education related to building their genealogy skills.