Yesterdays Story gains legs. My rookie genealogist came to training today having made an interesting decision.She felt she was being inspired to to write the story of the grandmothers life I wrote about yesterday. She had never been told this story: about the children being split up because the mother was alone, they lived 240 miles from each other, she was a servant according to a census, and even that she was married to another man the next year.
This decision is great news, stories are important.
http://findAgrave.com/ was a big part of our day today. This is a valuable free site. It turns out that two thirds of her first 5 generations of ancestors have some form of memorial in find a grave. We found photos of grandparents, of headstones we photocopied (with Jing), and even a copy of a birth certificate. Now that's a good place to publish documents like this. When FamilyTree goes live, one could link to this memorial.
Both of these tools, Find A Grave and Jing are a must.
Another great feature of Find A Grave we used a lot was the ability to search the cemetary for other people with the same last names. This may be one of the more important features of this website. Think about it, she had family names with dozens of people buried there that she knew nothing about. Cousins, Aunts, or Uncles? Perhaps?
With this search we found one of her grandmothers that had an additional last name posted and on the grave marker. Our original search missed her because of the different last name. We found her and our trainee added this name to new family search.
Other ancestors looking for this grandparent will be glad for the work we did today. And, I am thinking my rookie trainee is not really a rookie. She learns fast, thinks clearly, and is thorough.
Tomorrow we will probably go to the Family History Library and start gathering facts for her newly inspired book. Oh, and we will also have her print out a fan chart.
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