What New Learning Are You Applying?...

 

So, this week’s question is just that. This blog started in January 2025 and there have been 8 speakers, 9 counting this week. What are one or 2 ideas that you have applied to your family history research from all the speakers or from the ideas for beginners? If you couldn’t attend the class or get the recorded version, did you read anything in the Blog that helped?

 

Let’s look specifically at the week. The class was by Daniel Horowitz from MyHeritage. Have you ever tried MyHeritage before this class? Did you try it from the library or from home. One of the extras from this site is that if you are an HQRL member, you can get onto the library edition from home.

 

I have heard people say that it is for European ancestors. It is true that it has that but also US information. All my new information has been for the US. I am anxious to discover new techniques and resources from the speaker that will help me learn more. I know that I haven’t scratched the surface yet.

 

I learned about the catalog on MyHeritage and how to search on that, the translation technology that they use, and that while you are browsing the data that pertains to your ancestor, they are finding more documents that apply the that ancestor and other related people. COOL!

 

But the initial question wasn’t just about this class. We are all busy doing life! If we all truly enjoy family history, what can we learn from these resources available through HQRL be they speakers, librarians, or books? I read something in a recent newsletter from the “Occasional Genealogist,” that many times we are not stuck on our tree for lack of information but for not doing the detective work to learn from the resources that we have found. I know that is true for me. When you do find something on Google, MyHeritage, in R/E Deeds, Kentucky research, Fille Du Roi, Mapping or other places; do you look at it carefully or just for what you wanted in the first place?

 

Reading books, talking to your research buddy and taking classes only helps if you apply the learning. For me, it is helpful to try new ideas sooner rather than later before I forget what I was taught. I don’t have to become an overnight expert, just try something new and see what sticks, what you find.

 

After you try something from MyHeritage get ready to learn about your railroad ancestors, New England ancestors in a double opportunity from New England specifically and then from the American Ancestry data base. And there is more after that….get signed up.

 

I was doing a little reading and noticed, as I often do, the similarities between photography and family history, 2 of my hobbies. I was reading books in each field and just happened to hit one of those similarities, knowing the background of your subject.

 

In photography that means understanding when the wildflowers are going to bloom on Mt Rainier. Do the backyard birds land on a particular branch every time before going to the feeder? In family history, what is the history of the area at the time you are researching? Were there boundary changes at the time? Were there historical events taking place such as battles or major weather issues? What was the major industry of the area?

 

How could this help you in your family history? I found family members in an area at the time of a major drought and then flooding that created havoc with farming which they were engaged in. What do you think they did? Options were to move or change occupations or struggle through it. They did some of each.

 

Understanding the background in photography can help you be more successful in getting the shot. Understanding the background in family history can help you search for the right resources, to get a better idea of what life was like for your families, understand why they might have left a location or went to a new one, and to understand why they pursued various occupations.

 

One of our last speakers talked about the triangle – location, era, group. It is hard to step away from those family surnames that we are trying to connect with, at least it is for me. But, if I know a little about what was going on in Iowa, for example, between 1850 and 1900 it might help me to get an idea of why they moved to Oregon in the early 1900s. What was happening in Wisconsin from 1800-1900 that caused another family to move to Oregon. Because, if either one of those things hadn’t happened, my grandparents might not have met.

 

It so happens that each state section at HQRL has a history section that might help you find what you are after. In the HQRL bookstore there is a history section as well, where you will find 1) The Genealogist’s US History Pocket Reference and 2) History for Genealogists.

 

When we combine this background knowledge with the learning from our speaker on “Using Real Estate Deeds,” I can only imagine that the learning and discovery would be that much greater. Are we looking at the correct locations in the correct time period. Check out godfrey.org for the Godfrey Memorial Library which is a library like ours except older and larger. Al Fiacre gave us so much information that included many, many pieces of information that we can use for verifying relationships, locations, occupations, neighbors, etc. It all helps us gain a better understanding of our background and our family history.

 

Next up, Using MyHeritage Library Edition.

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.org

I have 2 questions today:

Let’s tackle the 1^st question 1^st. Did I think about reorganizing? Yes! Did I move forward with it? No. I may in the future, and we will leave it at that.

 

Question 2 is the challenge I am focusing on now. The reason I was focused on this, my 2x great grandmother, is that all the census reports that I have for her and her husband say her father was from England and spoke English and her mother was from Canada and on some it says she spoke Scottish and on others she spoke French. My thinking was, “go back to what your last known information, Heidi.” That would be their daughter’s birth, in Champaign, New York in 1847. It turns out I don’t know what I thought I knew. So, what next?

Genealogy is a puzzle. We hear that all the time. What do we do when we can’t find the piece we are looking for? We look for the patterns, colors, shapes that surround the missing piece and go hunting, often on the floor, in the dog dish or with the baby. My point being that you look all around to see what might match up. Could there have been a Champaign in a nearby bordering state? Could it be Champlain even though numerous different items say Champaign?

 

I do have names for her parents but that hasn’t helped me up to this point, so I am going to step away for a bit, stay with Suz’s suggestion, and continue to search for the mysterious location.

 

So I stepped away, did you miss me? I decided to look for land information, a step ahead of the next speaker. I didn’t find anything but,  one hint took me to FamilySearch where there was a birthday notice. You know, “one of your ancestors has a birthday coming up.” The first name on the list was the ancestor I was looking for. Wait! It says she was born 1 May 1847 in Champaign, OHIO! Sure enough, that place exists and has lots in it with her name….Now what? Like in Hearst Castle, “KEEP SEARCHING!” (maybe you won’t get that one)

 

Until next time, sign up for more classes and lets “KEEP SEARCHING” for our family history mysteries.

 

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com

(A little side note – I apologize for last week's entry. My system has decided not to let me into our website, so I entered it from my phone which didn’t allow me to edit. Oh well!)

 

I have to ask, did you get unstuck or at least find something new? As you read in my information, I didn’t get unstuck on the person I was looking for only because I didn’t know I had it wrong, but I did correct my thinking and apologize to all those census takers that I thought had it wrong. I do think that I will continue reviewing previous data for a while. I have, over the years, found items that I had overlooked when I went back.

 

When I was teaching high school, we talked about the “reticular activating center.” It is the part of the brain that filters information through it to bring relevant information to our attention. You know, when you buy a new car and suddenly notice everyone is driving the same car. I mention this because I received this months issue of “Family Tree Magazine” and here are a few of the topics: WWII ancestors (sources for my father’s story), Kentucky resources (which our April speaker mentioned), How to use  Full-Text Search on Family Search (which our other April speaker mentioned), MyHeritage resources (our June speaker), and Planning a Family Reunion (which will get at involving family in family history – November class). I also got a newsletter from the “Occasional Genealogist” and “Genealogical Gems.” These issues cover looking at religious records and developing educational plans and using Google. All of these we have discussed or will be discussing. Look at all the places for new and continued learning on topics you may be interested in.

 

I mention these things because as we learn and do more family history research, we can pick up ideas and learn more from so many places. It is called “generative learning,” learning that generates more questions and more curiosity and more learning. We used to refer to this as lifelong learning, but I like generative. It goes beyond just learning new things. It actively engages us in applying what we learned to learn more. I like that concept.

 

Our next 2 topics are about using Google for family history research and about using Real Estate Deeds. I wonder how far back these things can take us. I wonder what new stories we can find. Did my ancestor really sell his tavern in Kentucky to create Brandenburg, Kentucky? Remember, Debbie last week encouraged us to look at executors and witnesses, what names can we find, do they show up as neighbors (FAN) in the census reports? So many questions Heidi!!!!!!!

 

Isn’t learning FUN?

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com

What do you do when you are stuck and have been for a while? Reading my own blog entries, I would apply the new learning I am doing and see what I find. Sometimes that just doesn’t get me unstuck right away. What about you?

 

This morning, I was thinking, go look again, you need to “walk the talk” as they say. Then I thought, maybe I need a little recharge or “reboot” in tech terms. Maybe what I need is to look at someone I haven’t looked at for a long time and see if I find anything new. So that is my plan today. I will start with my 2x great grandfather on my dad’s paternal side and review the information I have, look for new hints to questions I have yet to answer in the information I have, and then look for at least 2 new resources in which I haven’t tried to find life stories for him yet.

 

Remember the phrase, “current level of awareness’? I hope that after 3 months of classes in 2025 alone that my current level of awareness is not the same as it was earlier in the year. When I look at previously seen information with new eyes, there is a chance that something new will appear. Perhaps a note on a census that I had glanced over or a sibling that I had ignored that may have a story to tell. It is the stories that I look for. Yes, I need the birth, marriage, death information but it is the living in between that I want to know and that is sometimes harder to find the further we go back. It may be in the history of the area or country and then knowing your ancestor’s role in that history so some of it may be educated guesses. Or the new information can lead us to the family that came before.

 

I think that is “indirect evidence!” What can I apply from this latest class? Oh, come on! You knew I was going to go there!

 

This class was great! I really appreciated the logical steps to the “Genealogical Proof” needed in support finding and verifying new information. Check out Debbie Wilson Smyth at Oak Trails Genealogy Services. She puts the steps in an easy to understand, logical form. It really is like putting together a “jigsaw puzzle.” Look at the FAN Club (Family, Associates, and Neighbors) Don’t forget to look at witnesses, executors, etc. If you put it together with the new set of eyes that I referred to earlier, we find more than we might think. It isn’t easy and it isn’t fast, so be patient.

 

Going back to my issue, my 2x great grandfather was John R Hartzell. I thought the R was for Rufus and always researched it that way. Looking at everything I had; I suddenly realized the R was for Roland. His son was John Rufus. Now things make sense. I just needed a new set of lenses!

 

Next month Google and R/E Deeds. Sign up yourself, your family and friends and join HQRL on your family history search.

 

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com

I typically try to start these entries with a question to ponder. Here it is for today: How are you applying the learning that you are doing? That learning could be from these blog entries (I hope you are learning from them!). That learning could be from the classes that you take from HQRL or other places. That learning could be from the librarians that you find at HQRL or elsewhere. It could be from your genealogy friends, books, articles, or it could be from your own experiences as you research. All of those are places where you can learn. The question is, when you experience those learning situations, do you apply what you learned in them?

From my own learning in the last class on Kentucky I tried MyHeritage again as it was one of the resources that Debra Dudek discussed. Now I have used it before but this time I followed her suggestion for looking at newspapers and the boundary differences as Kentucky separated from the Virginia Territory. I found an article from 1897 that was under the heading “Genealogical and Historical.” It was about a gentleman who died when thrown from a horse. (As a side note, this was not the only article on the page about someone being thrown from a horse. No wonder cars soon took off.) But I am bird walking ,,,,, the man was my 5x Great grandfather. It mentions his name and his sons including one who I have always seen with the nickname “Choctaw” and it mentions that in the article. I still have some research to do but it is the first time I have seen them linked in the same article from an old newspaper. I am not sure why it came up in this edition because he died long before this, but it did. 

I have also learned over the years the advantage of contacting some of the resources I have found. I contacted a member of the Ostrander Society that I found when looking for on my paternal side. They just sent me the death certificate of my great grandfather listing his parents and both his and his parents marriage records. Cool, huh?! I contacted a historical museum and I was sent my great-great grandfather’s civil war records. Sometimes you just have to take the step and ask the questions. Maybe they will turn up nothing…..but maybe they will be a cool find.

April 17th we will learn about finding indirect evidence, which might be my story about “Choctaw.” In May we will learn about how Google can be effectively used in our research and how to find and use Real Estate Deeds. We will continue to have some great speakers so go to the website and get signed up or call HQRL or go into HQRL and sign-up to continue your learning.

 

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com