Daily Working Now!

 I am hanging in there with LegacyFamilyTree. There's a lot I don't like in it, and a lot that I do. One thing I find is that sources are harder in Legacy than in RM. I had given all my family Reference Numbers in RM, which is linked to my paper files. In Legacy they show on the main Family page. I love that!  So easy to find. Anyway, I am still at it. There is a really big learning curve here. Still so much to learn, but I am determined to continue. I started, back in the day of dinosaurs, on Family Tree Maker, back when it was by Broderbund. Yea, I'm that old! Then I got RootsMagic3. I stuck with that until now. It really takes a long time for a program to become easy.  But Legacy does have a lot more to it than RM. 

At WikiTree I've been getting my families up to snuff! I've been working on my Alexander line this month. In particular my Johns. LOL John H. Alexander (Alexander-2574) and his father John Henry Alexander (Alexander-24431). I've been primarily working on their children, and their families. One family I've lost myself in is the Wilsons. Louisa Alexander Wilson in particular. I've found so many articles about them. They lived in Brownstown, Indiana, a small town in southern Indiana. It had a wonderful newspaper back in the day. The Jackson County Banner. When I was young, I loved when mom picked one up while grocery shopping. It issued 2 times a week and was either mailed or you could get a copy at the store. It was local news. Really local and really news, about the inhabitants of the county. I would read every word. But papers were worth reading back in the day. Not worth the money now. Anyway, the Wilson family had a meat market and grocery store. I must find the way to add at least some of them to WikiTree. They really flesh out these people. I am loving it!

Summer Work

  I've found I cannot work with RootsMagic anymore. I really hate RootsMagic8, so I did not buy version 9. I love Rootsmagic7 but. when I added several people and they simply are gone, I decided after wasting a week trying to find out why, and fix it, that I need to move on. It is moving in a different direction than I am. I just wanted to get as much of the research done as I could, and have it organized as much as possible.  I'm getting old, and I had bought Legacy9 some time ago. If I have to learn a new one, then so be it. 

I have to say that once the decision was made to learn Legacy, I have enjoyed the process. I still have much to learn about the program, but I can say I am no longer lost when I go in to work. Right now, I am cleaning up and adding all of my photos. Next is getting all of my sources, which I am ashamed to say have piled up, in the program. By then I think I will be fairly competent in Legacy. I want to have this done by the end of summer. It is a big job. If I had to make such a big jump though, I wanted to get everything cleaned up. I have learned that the programs charting abilities are awesome!

Working as well to add WikiTree numbers to each ancestor. I clean up their profiles on the site as I check them. By clean up I mean that I organize the sources onsite, add to their bio if I can, and make sure that all the sources for that person is onsite. 

52Ancestors: Week 2 - Favorite Photo

 My favorite photo is this one of my Dad as a child. A photo I did not know existed until late in life. I love this photo!

Rufus Lee Brock Jr.

1932 - 2006

52 Ancestors, Week 1: I'd Like To Meet . . . . . . . . . .

 I have talked over the years about how I wanted to meet one ancestor, in particular, more than the others.  I've written about him before.  I would still love to have a talk with him.  He died just 7 days after I was born. We just missed each other.  Anyway, I wrote about him here, The Eyes of Old Tom, and he came up many times in the blog over the many years I have written. 

I think I need to write about another one I would like to meet. This one is very easy since I always have questions I'd like to have answered from each ancestor.  

I've always felt a special connection with Elizabeth Ellen (Bohall) Hovis. Not that I know that much about her. Her husband I know a lot about. She was never mentioned in the many articles that were written about him. He traveled and would be gone for weeks, she was home with the kids. In the census, he was listed as a farmer, but was he?  I know he was a traveling preacher, and quite a star in a small area of the state. Well, someone was home raising the kids and keeping the farm going. I know it wasn't Henry.  He was there when the census taker came around, but now for much else. I could be just letting my imagination run away with me, but there is these articles in the local paper.

In the May 20, 1897 issue of the  Jackson County Banner there is a small entry: "Elizabeth Hovis vs Henry Hovis, divorce denied, each party to pay their own costs." This is interesting. But in the same paper 2 months later, dated July 22, 1897, there was this.  "Mrs. Henry Hovis died Saturday night. Funeral services were held Sunday at the Bagwell Graveyard." 

I have so many questions. Times were so different for women then, how did she make it?  How did she feel about his constant traveling? How did the farm continue with him gone? How did she feel about being alone? 

Elizabeth was born June 17, 1844  to George David Bohall and Catherine E. Draper.  She was the mother of 4 children, Seth, Mary, Margaret and Martha.  She died  July 17, 1897 in Jackson County, Indiana.

#52Ancestors

My Work

 

All I've been working on this month has been the GenWebs that I coordinate. I have 2 in Alabama and 2 in Kentucky. I've tried to retire from this work before. It just didn't work. DeKalb and Etowah counties in Alabama are where my family came from, really many are still there.  So while looking for something I emailed the State Coordinator about something that was wrong with one of the sites.  He asked if I wanted them and I said no. So, that is how I got to coordinate those.  The Kentucky sites are new for me.  Clay and Perry Counties in Kentucky are where my son-in-laws family is.  Really, I meant to only be there for one. <sigh> 

I've been cleaning up Clay County. It has documents on it that were submitted in 1996, which is when the GenWeb was born. Over a quarter of a century ago. In '96 I did not even own a computer.  There are documents that have gone missing over the years. I spent some quality time on the WayBack Machine trying to get a copy of them.  I was successful in about half the searches that I did.  It breaks my heart to even have one lost. My only hope is having the submitter find that it is gone and re-submitting it. Most were submitted in the late 90's and early 2000's.  Anyway, Clay has a lot of data, which surprised me. It was just hard to find it. To me, the cleaner and simpler the page, the easier to find the data you need. I am almost done reorganizing the site.  

I thought Perry County was in good shape. But I've started clicking around it and there are so many dead links. So I know what I will be doing for a while. 

The GenWebs are the one place that you can submit documents and information about your family, or just data you have collected over the years. It's a great place to get your family out there for others to find. You need to bookmark the counties you are interested in and check them often.  It is free. In the beginning of my online experience with my genealogy, I could not afford the big sites. I was able to find so much on my families, and made so many contacts on these sites. Just a basic knowledge  of html and a lot of love for the work.

If you have the ability, please look into becoming a coordinator. Let's not let this wonderful idea die.

US GenWeb

DeKalb Alabama GenWeb   Etowah Alabama GenWeb

Clay Kentucky GenWeb   Perry Kentucky GenWeb 

Found It!

 I have spent some quality time looking for my old cookbook that housed recipes from my  family.  I was so afraid that I had lost it somehow. It was one of those old church cookbooks that made money for some part of the church, like the ladies clubs, etc. My Grandmother, aunt and cousin belonged to the church at the time. It has a published date of 1984.  My grandmother, aunts, cousins and family friends had added their favorite recipes to this book.  I used to cook from it, so it is not pristine, and it also is quite old and showing its age. It really has yellowed.  I will be cooking from it again. 

Unfortunately, most of the people in this book have passed on. It really was a happy/sad journey. But I am so happy to have taken it!

WikiTree Day!

Are you?

Y'all are invited.