We had a new topic for HQRL on Thursday, “One-Name Studies.” Our speaker began by reminding us that we have probably all been fascinated by our own names and that is not unusual. Have you ever traveled and looked through the phone book for surnames that you recognized or googled your name long before AI and any interest in family history? I was glad to know that I wasn’t weird when I did that. 

One-name studies attempt to find all the surnames you may have whether they connect to you or not. By looking for all incidence of a surname, you may find a connection you didn’t know about or explain a non-connection that you were struggling with. To me there is another point that he made that I think is relevant and key to why it would be good to join a one-name study: collaboration. There are several ways to get involved with these studies and from what I can tell they all include collaboration. 

WikiTree has one-name studies that you can contribute to and ask questions of. Guild of One-Name Studies is another site. These sites and others often ask you to help confirm information so that the trees are accurate. What sources do you have that can help support a line? There are also Family Association sites that often send newsletters or have reunions or all sorts of activities. My experience as an educator tells me that like other resources, some are better than others, so my recommendation is to look at the groups carefully. Do they answer your inquiries? Do they support their thinking with facts, documentation, etc? 

I recently connected with a family historian to help me unscramble a part of my tree that I wrote about earlier, a family from N. Ireland that came to America from Londonderry and seemed to become Quakers once here. When I connected with him, he had done a lot of research on the one-name study he was working on and sent me a 140 page draft of a book he is writing. In the process he was able to explain the reason the family left N. Ireland, why they were in N. Ireland in the first place, how they connected with the Quakers and as it turned out, why the children kept marrying within the same surname. I won’t go into all the history (remember I said it was a 140 page draft) but lets just say the surname had been banned and they changed their surname to keep from being executed and they weren’t all changed in the same way. Look, isn’t family history hard enough!!!

Connecting surnames to surname distribution maps like ISOGG Wiki can be interesting as well or even looking at DNA results and I know that at least on Ancestry it will tell me the potential migratory patterns of that DNA then combine that with history and surname info and perhaps you will find a way to get through that brick wall or just find interesting facts about you family lives.

Another new topic for us will be coming on November 5, “Collateral & Cluster Research”  and the last one for the year is the rescheduled class on the “Occasional Genealogist.” 

See you in class!

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com

Well, I want to get some business out of the way first. Rootstech registration is opening September 24. The event itself is March 4-6, 2027. Great event with lots of speakers and topics for all levels of family historian. The online registration and event is typically free but I am not certain of that for this year. I just haven’t seen anything that says otherwise. You can, of course, attend in person in Salt Lake City, which isn’t free but it has the perks of the vendors, other family historians to visit with and, of course, the FamilySearch Library.

Ok, Thursday we heard about “Getting the Scoop on Digitized Historic Newspapers.” It was great. Lots of incredible information about the history of newspapers, where to find them, which are free and which cost, and how to use the online search tools in the major newspaper sites. The speaker, Eleanor Brinsko, had lots of great tips on what to do and what not to do when looking for information in historic newspapers. She suggested a book, The Family Tree Historical Newspaper Guide, for a great resource. Check out the HQRL bookstore as it may be on our shelf. If not it is on Amazon (what isn’t).

Eleanor suggested things to look for in newspapers besides just the names such as addressed, school and church information, advertisements, cooking tips and domestic advice columns, town gossip sections and local events. These things can help tell the story of life for you family when they were in the location as well as suggest links to look for to get more details. For example, an article might mention someone coming to dinner from out of town or attending a party. Names of people and locations they traveled from can give you hints for more research. I found my grandparents’ engagement and later their marriage information in the Portland, Oregon paper. They were from McMinnville, Oregon, 45min. away. Be open minded about where to look and look for information perhaps many year after they have passed. Their names may come up years later when an event is remembered in the community and/or paper. 

On another note, I have a holiday gift idea especially for those with young children. We have often talked about how to get young kids interested in their own family history. Here is a thought, children’s books from other countries. For my own curiosity (and possible early shopping ideas), I Googled “Children’s books from The Netherland” or “Dutch Children’s books.” I did the same thing form Irish, Scottish, German, Swiss, Northern Ireland, etc.  I got all sorts of titles and then looked to see if I could get them on Amazon (of course I could). There were the old standards like Hansel and Gretel, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Chronicles of Narnia, and Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates. I just learned this, did you know many of our standards came in variations in other countries? But there were also those familiar in the country they are from with characters like Miffy, Globi, Violet’s Voyages: Switzerland (includes a St. Bernard), and Our Wee Place. There were others probably from here about traveling other places like The ABCs of Amsterdam (England, etc) or Good Night England (Scotland, etc). You have to watch for the language it is written in and perhaps how scary it might be but there are tons of choices. And of course – HEIDI.

Shop and research to get your toddlers interested in their history!

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.org

Last week we visited cemetery research. We learned how to research in cemeteries, where to find on-line resources for them and got a whole page of places to check into. The speaker was very informative about cemetery marker history. The class happened to coincide with the Family Tree Magazine article on Cemetery Research which provided lots of dos and don’ts about researching in the cemeteries themselves.

I didn’t find anything for myself but maybe some of you did. I have discovered things related to cemeteries that has helped like the cause of death in the records and because of the cemetery’s connection to a religion and the time period and location I was able to make the leap to the immigration time and location which I have already written about (Virginia back to Newry, County of Down, Northern Ireland). I have a resource I have used, The Ancestry Detective by Charles Pembroke, and that really says it all. Family historians must be detectives.

I also discovered on FamilySearch that if you go to the right on a detail page of an ancestor, there will be a score for the information. You can see further what you need to do to get a more complete score. Something similar on WikiTree if you go to the first option along the top and go down that list, you come to Tree Aps. You get a tree that is color coded basked on whether it needs further work to connect to the next level. Both helpful next steps.

I have been trying out some AI more directly. I have tried a general question to Google and then either looked at the resources listed after the response from Google and/or followed up with the questions it generated. If you haven’t done that this is the general trajectory: 

• I am trying to connect (this ancestor to this one) in (time period and location)

• Google response and Google follow-up – do you have a surname • My response • Google gives me history and more questions to narrow down the search

• I respond to that and so it goes

By doing that I found by 3x Great-Grandfather connected back to his Great-grandfather and his wife, where they lived and in some cases what they did for an occupation. It also suggested further places to look and offered to help find information. The information included where to look as it seems there is a rather rare (as I understand it) connection again for Scots-Irish from Scotland to eventually Quakers in America as my ancestor married into a very strict Quaker family. I will have to do more digging but I do have a page from a HQRL resource from a Quaker Meeting that supports this lineage.

A wise HQ librarian reminded me recently that perfect may not be what we are looking for when we are talking about records from the 1600s. What we are looking for is connective tissue. Do the dates make sense? Are the resources reliable? Are the names and locations logical? Is there more than one source saying the same thing and are they from different resources?

Well, enough about me, what are you finding? Are you ready for Newspapers?

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com

We have a break until our next class September 3rd about Cemetery Records and the September 17th about using newspapers. It might be a good time to do a little reflecting. Here are some questions to consider:

1. What have you learned about how to do family history this year or this summer?

2. What have you tried based on that learning?

3. Have you taken that learning further doing learning beyond the presentation?

4. What have you learned about your family history based on that new learning and work?

Topic-wise we have had presentations on using city directories, breaking through brick walls, applying naming patterns, and researching Dutch, Missouri, Norwegian, and Irish records. We also learned how to use AI, German Church records and why we should care about Social History. Wow, we really had a lot of new information to gather and use. Have you applied it to your family history work? 

I have tried, sometimes with more success than other times. Sometimes it didn’t apply to my family, but I tried to take something from it and apply it to my areas of interest.

The most recent class on German church records didn’t prove fruitful but I did learn, as I wrote about before, that my German ancestors on the line I was researching were actually Swiss who moved to Germany and then immigrated so I tried to apply the church records to Switzerland. In doing that I also revisited my German resource information and learned that Swiss records were often kept in the original town or “commune” that they were from but may not live anymore. Because of the Swiss “rights of citizenship” the records stay in the original commune.  The next step is to figure out the original commune. Whew, just when I thought I was making progress. Hey, maybe that is why records say they were from Hirzel and they show the surname in citizenship records in Pfaffikon! I just realized this as I am writing this. I guess that is another piece of evidence supporting the writing of your information as you go.

As you reflect, think forward as well. What do you want to learn from cemeteries, newspapers, one-name studies, and from “The Occasional Genealogist”? Are you familiar with these resources? Is there anything you can do to get ready for these presentations besides get sign-up for the classes? (Cheap plug, I know!) Interesting fact, Family Tree Magazine has an article this issue on German records and one on cemetery research.

Keep learning and happy hunting!

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com

I have been putting off writing this week as I really haven’t found too much. I was able to find a passenger’s list from Germany to Philadelphia for 1727 with my ancestor’s name and family and really that was huge for me. It is the first such link I have found. The disappointment was that even though I found it and the name of the location they departed from, I could not find any church records that listed the family or gave me further information specifically about them.

What I did find was general information about the historical time and location. Many of the Germans in the part of Germany that my ancestors seemed to be from, weren’t German. I know, probably not a huge surprise to most. So, if not German, where did they come from? It seems that many had immigrated earlier to Germany from Switzerland so it may be that I am Swiss. That makes my “’Heidi’ heart happy.” 

Here is where doing research this far back is challenging for me as an amateur. Although there seems to be agreement that the family surname comes from Canton Zurich, Switzerland and that it was strongly connected to the Reformed Church, there are differences beyond that. Trying to find the exact location for church records means trying to figure out which of these theories is correct. Were they from Hirzel, Switzerland or from Pfaffikon in Canton Zurich? Were these places close enough to be one in the same at some point or one smaller and the other housed the church that they attended? Or were they from some other location all together.

I have run across this kind of debate by people writing comments in family history before. I have a surname on my mother’s side that is Brandenburg. Were they part of Brandenburg, Germany as some think or “no, people didn’t use the name of the area as their surname”? In this case, did the Hartzell surname which can be Hertzel- Hirtzel- Hirzel come from the name of the location in Switzerland or have nothing to do with it?

It seems I have a lot more work to do. Researching Switzerland might be fun! Too bad I don’t ski or own goats, but wouldn’t that be fun. (Side note: While I was a principal at Mt Rainier High School someone brought in goats to clear out a wetlands on the ground. I thought they were joking because of my name and the school mascot, the Rams. It turns out they weren’t and the goats did their job, and no cross-town rivalry did harm to the goats.)

With all that said, I am off to the “Alps” and to get ready for the next class in September on Cemeteries. Happy researching!

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.org

Several mini topics are going through my mind currently as I try to follow through on what I said I would do last issue, finding one ancestor that I can confirm from across the seas.

A) Staying true to objective or goal without distractions by “shiny objects” B) Using small steps to get to the larger family history goal C) Step 1: Find an immigrant and Step 2: Review my resources about immigration.

Did I stay focused? Yes, I did. By committing to the objective both to myself and in writing to you, I stayed focused. I think we have said to have a clear objective when you start your research just about every time we talk about how to do research. Instead of wandering about, up and down my family tree, I started at the top and looked for the ancestor that I could confirm as being born in another country (in this case Germany) and died in in the US (in this case (Northampton Co, Pennsylvania.)

During other research times, I would look for one ancestor and then the next and then the next, etc. without following through and finding the evidence for any. Too many balls in the air as they say. This time I didn’t let those other distractions take my attention. Part of this was a reminder from my teaching days of strategies for goal setting and a new topic I have been reading about, Kaizen. They are really the same thing I just didn’t know it. Kaizen is “the approach to goal setting with a step-by-step improvement mindset.” ( Saito, Makoto: Ikigai, Kaizen and Hansei; Troutdale, Oregon,2024.)

All this means is to take your work one little chunk at a time. For example, if I want to lose 30 pounds it is better to set a goal of 1-2 pounds this week and celebrate that success. It is much more manageable than 30 pounds in 3.5 months as long as the celebration doesn’t become eating a gallon of ice cream and skipping the exercise for a week.

In the family history case, it means for me taking one line and finding the ancestor who was the first to be born abroad and die in America. I found a name and then followed the next step to look at the resource others used to verify the birth and death. I go lucky with a researcher who had valid documentation, including the family story and where it came from. It came in part from Find-A-Grave but was found also in a book by a professional genealogist and in a family history book that I have on the family surname. (one-named studies is a class to come.) This is triangulation.

My next step was to review the sources I have on my shelf about immigration. I took notes and looked specifically at what would apply to the time period and to Germany and Pennsylvania, as those were the countries of origin and destination listed in the documentation. 

I haven’t yet looked for the immigration records to verify that but I have a place to start as we look at our next class on Germany. Cemetery information in the documentation helped as well and that will be coming up in September.

This is running a bit long but I wanted to leave you with this thought. We have talked about “your current level of awareness” in the past and boy did that play a part in my finding this week. All of these resources I have had and read in the past but because of the reading I have been doing on Ikigai and Kaizen and the HQ classes I have taken in the past years, I found new meaning and understanding in the materials. The information had a place to sit in my head that was new since the last time I read it. Funny how that works, huh! Keep learning and keep researching.

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.org.