As a teacher, I told kids that it was important to write things down. The process helped to cement it into your brain. That is why when you took notes to use on the test, you seldom needed to use them. The same is true for your research, I think.

I have heard this from speakers and in articles but now it is making sense. I used to think it was an extra step that I just didn’t have time for. I wanted to find more information. I was always amazed by my genealogy friends who could tell you dates and names and locations of ancestors at the “drop of a hat” so to speak.

This last week I was looking for information about that Vermont area we talked about. My 3x GGpa was born there and my 4xGGpa died there. Looking for the older GGpa I figured might lead me to some answers. I did the timeline and there were several gaps and moves. One gap between 1843 and 1850 turns out not to be a gap. Homer, Ohio had a name change and became Burlington.

Here are some other things I learned, 4xGGpa was born in Haverhill, Mass, moved to Hollis, NH because of his father’s investments, met my 4xGGma who was born there, and they married. They moved to Vershire, VT where her brother-in-law was a reverend and 4xGGpa died “suddenly.” Another resource said he was buried or died at sea, and that he was a Cpl in the Revolutionary War, so I am guessing that the “sudden” death was related as was my 4xGGma’s eventual move to Topsham, VT where she died several years later. Her late husband owned land there. Could that be land he got for military services? I also learned that he and his son were blacksmiths. Lots of info, in my eyes, all because I took the time to do the timeline, find the gaps, review what I had and look for connections in the old and the new data, and WROTE IT DOWN.

What more do I want? Maps showing where all these locations were in this time period. I still haven’t found the right source for that. I want to know more about his military service. One suggestion was that he was at Bunkerhill and that he was a minuteman. And based on the births and some of the early child deaths and burials, they may have been Congregational Church members.

Again, more and more questions to look for. I guess when the questions stop, I move to the next line. Could there be more on the American Ancestor site?

I took 15-20 minutes, after finding this information, and wrote a summary of what I found and what I wanted to look for next. I also identified a couple of new places to look. Boy, it did help to do that. “Who’d of thunk?”

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com