We Irish Have Some Favorite Irish Songs

Mary Did You Know: Ceelo Green

In the Movie Son of God, Ceelo sings this song at the end.

A Fun Family Tree Feature

This is a sample of photos in my family tree people section. Those with the yellow band on the bottom right were placed by someone other than me into family tree. I've been busy posting photos and have added 533 to the tree. Many are from our sons missionary journal. Michael is deceased so the are public. Other people have added another 166 photos of my ancestors.

Their contributions make the tree a fabulous adventure. But to make it even better I have never heard of three of those four above with the banner. When I click the banner it shows my relationship. Edna Brough is a great aunt through my ancestor Lyman Wight Porter. Edward Hunter is a great uncle, also through Lyman Wight Porter, and Edward Hoagland comes to my tree through the notorious Edward Rich South. 

Every two weeks an upgrade to family tree goes live. It is a huge commitment that the church has made. It's free to all and always will be. I encourage you to participate, it's a good thing to do.

Friday Is For Fun< How About Some Genealogy Humor

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Prisons Records For Research? It's Part Of The History

My sister Nancy informs me she found a record of our cousin Orlando Ray Spalding Sr as inmate in an Idaho Prison. He's the guy on the far left.

She posted this in Family Tree: Research by Nancy Cragun Day 1918 WWI Draft Registration, Boise, State of Iowa convict labor 1920 census, Iowa Men's State Reformatory Married aunt Viola 1924 His mother's maiden name, Letitia Violet Decatur Daughter's middle name, Leticia You know Aunt Viola worked in a restaurant/bar. In 1930 census he was a cook in a restaurant. Aunt Ruth and other stories, he was a shady character. although reformatory tells me "juvenile delinquent", Near as I can tell 1 1/2 yrs for rape. I spoke with Calvary Cemetery, it is him. Middle initial "O" and death date that matches Washington Death Index. For more info on him it's $5 to mortuary Gaffney Funeral Home in Tacoma.

From Ray on the left, going to the right is my Aunt Viola, my mother Bertha Cragun, my fathers mother Blanche  Bingham Grundy Cragun Smith (My Grandmother and yep she was married three times), Kent Smith (the only grandpa I knew) my Aunt Myrtle Norma Nelson, and my dads brother Glenn Cragun.

I use this to make a point: what the heck happened? I knew everyone of these people except Ray. His story, even my Aunt Viola's is gone. It hasn't even been three generations but the only thing we know is what my sister Nancy found. Why was he in jail? What influence did he have on my Aunt?

What was said at RootsTech is true. If a story isn't written it's lost in three generations.

Oh, and about prison records. At every stage of the prison process, records were created. They can be a great value to genealogists.

I Did IT! I Chewed That Elephant Up In Pieces

One of the big tasks we have in FamilySearch Family Tree is merging duplicate files. All of the different versions people had put into new.familysearch.org need to be merged together to make the tree clean.

A careful merge brings together  into one file all of the information the various contributors have added.

The older the ancestor is, the more likely the amount of duplicates are to be many. Add to that if they were nobility, it is likely a bigger issue. Such is the case of Lord John Lisle.  A lot more research needs to be performed to verify if the family is as several have input.

So I decided to get all of the information scattered in family tree about Lord Lisle into one file. I gave up the first time at over 100 merges. Later I thought, if not me who? So on several different occassions I again merged about 100 files. They almost all  have the same info, but on a few merges there was a new child to add.

I wish the tree told us how many duplicate files there were, but it usually set the number at 98 or 99. So after completing many setting of merges I wondered will this ever end.

It did, finally. Last night I kept merging away and then suddenly noticed the number was 94 left to merge. Could it be so? I got it down into the 80 's and danag the count jumped up. Oh please no I thought. Then it dropped into the 70's. At 48 I became a believe - there was an end to this task. The count jumped from 41 to 46 but I kept going. It went 46 to 45 and sequencially down to 31 and I said to myself; please don't jump back up to  99. Whoopee, it skipped from 25 to 21. Oh dang it went from 21 to 25. Please no more jumping up.

All went well until 10 were left to merge. I then got the message These records cannot be merged because the corresponding combined record in new.familysearch.org would be too large. To merge these records, please wait until new.familysearch.org shuts down.  You see, Family Tree still uses some of the processes from new.familysearch.org. Over in new.familysearch.org there was a maximum number of records that could be attached to one ancestor. The older they were the more likely a file too large to merge. Family Tree won't have this problem. We all have just the one entry for an ancestor.

This is a tedtious task, but I believe we are doing something very important. Now onto more exciting tasks, such as determining did he really have these  11 children. Is one of them really my ancestor. You see, there is missing proof in 3 generations that he and Lady Lisle are really the great great grandparents of Joshus Whitaker, our Joshua Whitaker.

We shall see.

Onward and forward.

7 Reasons Why I Like Social Media As A Genealogy Tool

Blogs are part of social media. You are here so you are participating by default at worse case. I participate in social media for a few good reasons. Here are some:

1- I use Facebook and Twitter to share my findings with relatives. This is often a photo or a story. Connecting this way to relatives often provides feedback and collaboration. It also brings us closer together as many are quite distant in many meanings of the word.

2- I have over 1000 Twitter followers. Some are Craguns. When I post a Cragun article I forward it to Twitter. When I post a how to do genealogy article I do the same but for the purpose of trying to create some interest in genealogy.

There are buttons at the bottom of each article that is a one click forward to those sites.

3- Blogs are great as they are filled with content and the search engines treat them well. I am amazed where the visits to the blog come from.

4- You often can search Twitter and find a current tweet about a subject you are searching. This is the type of response you would get if you just did a Twitter search for genealogy:

5- Some great resources post to Twitter. For example Indiana Counties often Tweet about new records they publish online. You could pick any to follow.

6- I post some of my sources in Slideshare.net. I received an email telling me that my account was in the top 4% of their traffic. You can post power points and pdf' documents to Slideshare.

7- Blogs are a great way to start recording  your stories, as in chapters of a book.

The definition of social media should have something to do with being social. How's that for a concept?

10 Tips For Genealogy Newbies

There is so much fun in digging into your family history. I enjoy helping people as a part time missionary in the church support unit. Several hundred requests come in daily from novices to experienced with a specific question to get resolved.

Here are a few tips for the genealogy newbie.

1- Start be seeing what is in FamilySearch Family Tree. Learn to use it, it's the genealogy of the world.
2- Use a separate email for genealogy related correspondence.
3- Using these four websites to search for an ancestor cover a lot of ground; there are many more: http://familysearch.org/ http://ancestry.com/ http://google.com/ http://findagrave.com/
4- Read on a regular basis the blogs listed on the right side of this blog. Add to that the FamilySearch blog: https://familysearch.org/blog/en/
5- Talk to your elderly relatives. Dig out their stories and facts. Remember when an old man (woman) dies a library burns.
6- When you find a fact record the source of that fact. Family History without sources is fairy tale.
7- When you want to find a website to tell you where to find an answer go to these two sites first: The Family Search Wiki: https://familysearch.org/ask/researchWiki and Cyndi's list: http://www.cyndislist.com
8- If you are like me and like to learn by video go to this site that is a dirctory of upcoming webinars:  http://www.geneawebinars.com
9- When searching in Google add the word genealogy to the search for better results.
10- There are about 4000 family history centers around the country. Likely there is one near you. Some are only open a few hours a week. They are usually manned by a pretty good expert volunteer. To find the nearest to you go to: https://familysearch.org/locations/centerlocator

Did You Know An Eight Year Old Can Have A Family Tree Account?

Why would an eight year old be allowed an account? With parental approval of course. Two obvious reasons; they get computers and this is their time.

RootsTech 2014 welcomed 4000 youth for special sessions and events. Watching their interest was a fun thing to do. There were special speakers for their sessions. One by Elder Neal A Andersen was great for them, he told them this was there time, and I think you would enjoy it too.  There is a lot of good here. For you non LDS viewers it might be impressive to see what our leaders teach the youth of the Church and get a sense on the good it does.

Updates in Family Tree

If you are like me you have numerous ancestors saved to the watch list. It's a great feature allowing me to stay aware of what changes are made to my ancestors. Currently there is a weekly email sent notifying me of all changes made on those ancestors.I have been told that eventually the notice will be immediate. I'd like that.

The problem just solved is that I can select an option to not be notified of my own changes. Last week I was responsible for over 80% of the changes made. I guess I could enjoy seeing my name in print, but really, I'd rather not.

Users can now optionally remove their changes from the list:  CHANGES TO PEOPLE I’M WATCHING.

Also You Can Switch Person A and Person B During a Merge

During the merge process, users can now switch Person A and Person B to place the person with more data on the lefthand side. If this operation is not allowed, the Switch Positions link does not appear.