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Archive for February, 2013
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The Vegas wedding has become an iconic part of pop culture since 1931, when the new marriage law in Nevada was passed allowing couples to marry on the spot with no wait times or requirements. Since then couples of all kinds including celebrities have been getting hitched in Sin City. With the convenience of time and money, Vegas weddings have become increasingly popular, boasting over 100,000 couples married in Vegas since 1995. As much as the Vegas wedding has become popular for its convenience, it’s become more recognizable for being prone to breakups. As much as people would like to think, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” marriage records like those found on Ancestry.com remain permanently archived. Although they may not last forever, getting married in Vegas is still one of the most popular places to say “I do”. Just how many couples tie the knot in Vegas? Take a look at the infographic below for some interesting Nevada marriage facts. Feel free to share this with friends and family!
Ancestry.com: Las Vegas – The Marriage Capital of the World – An infographic by the team at Ancestry.com: Las Vegas Weddings
Embed Ancestry.com: Las Vegas – The Marriage Capital of the World on Your Site: Copy and Paste the Code Below
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The new AncestryDNA™ service is continually being updated and improved upon—it’s just a part of the overall experience. One exciting new feature of the DNA test is the addition of the shaky leaf hint on your DNA results page. This new kind of hint will help you easily spot a DNA match who shares an ancestor with you—we call it the “Shared Ancestor Hint”. Those who are familiar with the shaky leaf on Ancestry.com know that it’s an exciting hint that could lead you to a new family discovery. So look for it in your AncestryDNA results, right next to your DNA matches as shown in this image:
When you investigate your Shared Ancestor Hint, a simple chart lets you quickly confirm this connection in your family tree and see exactly how you are related. Could finding a long-lost cousin be any easier?
And now you also have the option to filter your DNA matches by hints, so you can quickly locate and review all of the shaky leaf icons in your long list of matches. Just set your filter from the dropdown to ‘Has a Hint’, as shown below.
So, how does the Shared Ancestor Hint work? Let’s take a closer look at this new hinting feature so you can get a better understanding of all that it has to offer and, ultimately, how it can help you in your next big discovery.
- Keeping it in the family. The Shared Ancestry Hint looks at people that you are directly descended from in your family tree. In other words, ancestors that you share DNA with. So when you see a shaky leaf in your DNA results, it means that we’ve spotted an ancestor that both you and your DNA match have in common, and share DNA with. It wouldn’t make sense to consider others in your tree (such as spouses) that could lead to false shared ancestors.
- It’s dynamic. As you or your DNA matches add to or change the family tree linked to the DNA test, the hinting system is automatically triggered to re-evaluate the possibility for hints on all DNA matches. This exciting feature works around the clock, which for lack of a better name we call “tree edit awareness.” So you can be sure that as new discoveries are happening throughout your tree or your DNA match’s tree, your DNA results will continue to pay off with new information for you.
- Old or new, we’re searching for hints. All DNA matches that you receive, old and new, are assessed for a Shared Ancestor Hint. Even if your match occurred months ago, a hint could appear.
- If it’s private, it’s still useful. While you can’t actually see a private tree or any details about a hint on a private tree, the shaky leaf can still appear to let you know a hint has been found for a DNA match that has a private tree. This allows you to reach out and send a message to that DNA match and share information on your own terms.
- Ten generations covered. The Shared Ancestor Hint looks back up to 10 generations in both your and your DNA match’s family tree. We chose 10 generations for a few reasons. The likelihood of finding matches beyond this point is low, as many well-documented trees, on average, aren’t built out that far back and due to the nature of DNA inheritance, autosomal DNA matching gets less reliable beyond 10 generations. Also, it takes massive amounts of processing power to include more generations (there are over 2,000 possible ancestors in each tree going back 10 generations). If we went back further, it would not be as fast or available in real-time.
- Our standards are high. If the shared ancestor does not pass our specifications for determining this hint, we won’t include it. Our quality assessment runs through a whole list of comparisons to make sure it checks off every one.
- Finding shared ancestors even without a hint. We expect customers to discover shared ancestors that are not revealed by our hinting tools. Look for new features in the future that will enable you to identify “customer-found” shared ancestors, for example, to help you track these discoveries even better.
You’ll soon see that the Shared Ancestor Hint is one of the fastest ways to find new relatives and grow your family tree. AncestryDNA is continually keeping an eye out for common ancestors among your list of DNA matches—all you have to do is keep an eye out for the shaky leaf.
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There’s a story behind that marriage date. But unless the tale has been passed down through family lore or you’re the proud owner of a collection of torrid love letters, you’re never going to get it, right?
Don’t give up so easily. Turns out that story of true love could be hiding in a yearbook or a census record. Or it may be waiting in a document or photo that you’ve already found, viewed, and saved … just waiting for you to take a second look.
Here are some places where we found love stories, what we discovered, and which resources might unlock the tales of romance you’re looking for, too.
The Girl Next Door
Anne Mitchell, Sr. Product Manager, Library and Institutional Accounts
Tip: Explore the pages before and after your ancestor in the census to see if you find the prospective bride or groom living nearby.
Charlton Wallace married Martha Jane Cash in Rockbridge County, Virginia, in 1842. According to her death record, Martha was the daughter of Ready Cash and Mary Hartigan of Rockbridge County. Unfortunately vital records weren’t kept at the time of Charlton’s birth or death, so I had to do a little digging to find his parents. I knew from his tombstone that Charlton was born in Rockbridge County in 1823 and died there in 1903, so Rockbridge County seemed a good place to start.
Identifying the family would be tricky since the 1840 census listed only heads of households by name, with children simply tallied by number and age range. Assuming Charlton was living with his parents in 1840—and that they lived in Rockbridge County, where he was born, married, and died—I narrowed the Wallace households that had a boy in the correct age range down to three.
Browsing the neighbors of one of the candidates gave me a very big clue as to the likely identity of Charlton’s probable parents, or at least the folks he was living with. As I paged back to the previous census page, living next door to William Wallace I found the household of Ready Cash. Since then I’ve found further evidence that makes it pretty clear that Charlton married the girl next door.
William Wallace household, 1840 U.S. Census, Rockbridge Co., Virginia
Ready Cash household, 1840 U.S. Census, Rockbridge Co., Virginia
Shipmates for Life?
Juliana Smith, Sr. Marketing and Communications Associate
Tip: Browse through the passenger lists of immigrant ancestors to see if a future couple was traveling together or met on board.
My great-great-grandmother Margaret Dooner was a first-generation American born in Brooklyn, New York, in January 1841. Her parents were Irish immigrants, and her baptism record from St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church lists her parents as John Dooner and Eliza Moran. Since Dooner is a relatively unusual name by Irish standards, I thought I would try to locate John’s arrival in the U.S. in U.S. passenger lists. Using the 1841 birth date of the couple’s eldest child, Margaret, as a starting point, I limited my search to the years prior to that and found a John Dooner who is just about the right age coming to New York on July 10, 1839. I glanced at the others on the page and found a number of twenty-somethings, most of whom appear to be traveling without family, although there were a few young families sprinkled in.
Since the manifest was only two pages long, I scanned the other names on the list, and although there were no other Dooners, I ran across an Eliza Moran on the following page. Because Moran is a common surname, I will have to gather more evidence to prove this is John’s Eliza. It’s also possible that they were coming from the same area of Ireland and knew each other before immigrating. But in either case it’s a fun find and will be interesting to investigate just where love may have bloomed.
Ship “Ganges,” arriving at New York 10 July 1839, p. 1
Ship “Ganges,” arriving at New York 10 July 1839, p. 2
He Joined the What?
Loretto “Lou” Szucs, Vice President, Community Relations
Tip: If your ancestor served in the military, his pension file could include surprising personal details. Some military pension records and indexes can be found online at Ancestry.com and Fold3.com.
When my daughter and I uncovered my great-grandmother Jane Howley’s file for a Civil War pension based on her husband, Thomas’s, service in the Union Navy, we hit the jackpot. The file, found in the Navy Widows’ Certificates collection on Fold3.com, provided great genealogical details, as well as a number of depositions from family and friends.
A deposition by friend Margaret Freil, who knew Jane and Thomas before they were married, even revealed how they met:
I first became acquainted with Thomas Howley sometime about 1855 or 1856. He came to our house on Water St. near Fulton Ferry, Brooklyn, N.Y. about that time and boarded with my parents. He was called a greenhorn then and I understand that he had just came here from England. My father introduced Thomas Howley to this claimant Jane Howley, whom I knew as long as I can remember.
I even learned a little bit about the early years of their marriage. There are 123 pages in the file, largely because Thomas enlisted using his mother’s maiden name of Moore, which left Jane with some explaining to do. She says,
I objected to him going in the service because I was then with child and I did not think it was right for him to go. I did not know he had enlisted until after he went in the recovery ship and then I was told by Lou Barnett, who enlisted him, and brought his civilian clothes back to me. Yes sir, this man Barnett enlisted him, and I understand he got half of the bounty money.
Jane went to see Thomas a couple days later.
I asked him why he enlisted under the name of Moore and he said he did not want me to know it till he had enlisted and he then handed me $400 half of the bounty money he had received.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that meeting. Jane goes on in a later deposition to tell us that following his enlistment, “I felt very sore over it because I had one small child and was with child at the time.”
This is just a small sample of the details that we found in that file. The depositions are full of insights into the lives of all involved, and the clues we found will no doubt lead to more information.
Check for pension indexes and images of some files online at Ancestry.com and Fold3.com. If you find the record in an index, you can request the record from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
Other Resources
Newspapers. Check newspapers for engagement, marriage, and anniversary announcements that could include the story of how the happy couple met. Social pages may list the names of people at events and give you insights into their social circles.
You may even find articles with incredible details about an ancestor’s love story. The following article appeared in the New Castle News (New Castle, Pennsylvania) of 9 December 1910.
“New Castle News” (New Castle, Pennsylvania) of 9 December 1910
Maps. Find your ancestors street addresses in city directories, censuses beginning in 1880, and other records and plot locations on a map. Contemporary maps can give you a general sense of a location, although bear in mind that streets may have been renamed or renumbered. Historical maps, like those found in the following collections, can be even more useful:
- U.S., Indexed County Land Ownership Maps, 1860–1918
- Historic Land Ownership and Reference Atlases, 1507–2000
From U.S., Indexed County Land Ownership Maps, 1860–1918, Carbon County, Pennsylvania, 1875
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Three months on the road and time is flashing by so fast that we are starting to panic a little. We have been planning for February for so long and now that it is here it almost seems surreal, but there is nothing we can do to slow time down so we just keep planning the future and making the most of every day.
EARTH
One of Rob’s greatest fears as sole driver of the motorhome is getting it stuck in the mud. The earth has a funny way of holding onto things when water is added, and we learned how true this is when we parked our motorhome in a grassy field for a few days back in Illinois. We didn’t anticipate it turning into a mud pit the morning of our departure but it did and if it weren’t for some skillful maneuvering and miraculous good fortune we may still be there! We thank Mother Earth for letting us go and we hope and pray we never find ourselves in the mud again.
WIND
Who would have ever guessed that when the wind blows the people inside don’t sleep? Well it is true and we have had our share of near sleepless nights over the last three months thanks to the sound of wind whistling through every microscopic crack and cranny of our home on wheels. It is also a real party to drive a 65’ “wall” on the open highways of Wyoming and Nebraska as mother-nature blasts you with pushes and shoves for hundreds of miles.
FIRE
Other than the half-second when we thought Audrey’s hair was on fire, the flames of good fortune have burned bright and contributed to the positive memories of our adventure. Time spent in blacksmith shops and around campfires making smores have been absolutely awesome times for our whole family.
RAIN
As the old saying goes, “When it rains, it pours”, but being from Utah Valley where the winters can be long and miserable (especially this year), we have put our own positive spin on the old saying. Whenever it rains we like to say “When it rains, it pours, but at least it isn’t SNOWING!!!
The bottom line is that Mother Nature just doesn’t seem to care what we, as brief visitors on this planet, hope or wish for i.e. perfect 75 to 80 degree afternoons with a gentle refreshing breeze. She just does what she does and we can either plan for every possible scenario or suffer the consequences. We have had more than our share of rain and wind on this adventure, but over the past week here in Florida we realize how much more we appreciate the good weather because we have been through the not-so-good weather. We also reflect on the fact that many of the good and bad times faced by our ancestors were directly related to the weather. While some lost fingers and toes to frostbite, others lost their lives to exposure and extreme weather conditions beyond their control. We are just grateful that they left their story and that no matter what weather we have yet to face on this trip, we are facing it together.
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From a very young age it was not uncommon to find me with my head buried in a coloring book surrounded by crayons. As I got older, I traded my coloring books and crayons for sketchpads, canvas, colored pencils, pastels, paints and an assortment of other mediums. Art was something I loved and, in many ways, it acted as a kind of therapy — it calmed me at the end of a crazy school day.
In high school the majority of my classes were art classes; there was no place I’d rather be. To be honest, without trying to sound full of myself, it was the one class that I found to be an easy A, even when I turned in work that was unfinished. I will not get into how much that irritated some of my classmates — who struggled or really had to work at it. For me, art was always something that just came naturally and I took pride in it.
As a kid, I was painfully shy. I was the girl who sat in the back of the class and didn’t speak unless spoken to. I hated attention of any kind and avoided it at all costs, except when it came to my artwork. It was a funny thing; I enjoyed the attention my work got from my classmates while I quietly hid behind it.
My weekends usually consisted of sitting around the dining room table listening to music and drawing with my brother, sister, cousins and my Uncle Joe. We’d sit there with comic books open, redrawing the pictures inside two to three times larger than they were. All of us could draw but I really looked up to my uncle. I was always amazed by his drawings, shading and use of color. I wanted so badly to be able to draw like him, and I remember him telling me, “You keep at it and when you’re my age you’ll be better at this than me…”
I had a hard time believing that.
But when I was younger, I never really put much thought into how many people in my family could draw. I was told many stories of my grandfather’s younger brother who was an artist in Texas, well-known for his oil paintings of the Wild West. I also heard tales about my great grandfather Dennis Hughes, a commercial artist in Boston who had been offered a job to work for Disney (however he turned the job down when he decided a talking mouse was ridiculous and would never catch on).
Then there is my grandfather Robert Hughes, Dennis’ son, who has always been known in my family as an artist and builder. Although my grandfather was involved in several projects in and around Boston, one of his biggest career achievements came with his involvement in Alexander Calder’s 1976 Untitled mobile that hangs in the east building of the National Art Gallery in Washington D.C.
Originally the mobile was to be built in Paris out of steel, but the plans changed when they realized Calder’s design would be too heavy. Instead it would be made of aluminum and titanium with my grandfather hired to lead in the building of Calder’s project. Today a picture of the 76-foot long, 920-pound mobile hangs in my grandparents house, along with a small picture of my grandfather shaking hands with Alexander Calder and Paul Matisse, Grandson of artist Henri Matisse, also involved in the project.
It wasn’t until I began researching my family that the list of family artists and their stories continued to grow. When I asked my grandparents questions I was surprised to find out that my great-grandfather Percy Leslie was also talented in art. As a young child living in Nova Scotia, the local women would ask him to draw designs on burlap bags that they would then follow to make a latch hook rug.
As Percy aged, his wife and children also saw his talent and encouraged him to pursue it. He eventually contacted an art school that sent him an image to redraw freehand; he then mailed in his work to be graded. When Percy finally received a response from the school he was surprised to see that he failed the test. Apparently he had done so well, they accused him of tracing. This is an accusation many of the artists in my family have experienced over the years — even myself. However, unlike my great grandfather, I have learned to take it as a compliment.
My love of genealogy continued to grow along with the list of artists in my family, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this talent was something that could be passed on through generations.
After all, I found many of my friends who had a natural understanding or talent in art, music, athletics, mathematics, and so on shared a similar experience. They came from a family that shared the same strengths and while their peers struggled to succeed in a particular subject, they would excel with little or no effort. For some reason, it just clicked.
I suppose some could argue that these talents could have been created by the environment the person was raised in. Yet I still can’t help but wonder if there is more to it — maybe something even genetic?
Regardless, I enjoy knowing that I possess a talent in art shared with so many of my family members and ancestors. I also look forward to the day I have children, to see if it’s a skill that will also develop in them.
By Kris Williams
Twitter: KrisWilliams81
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RootsTech, hosted by FamilySearch and sponsored by Ancestry.com, offers a unique opportunity to learn about the latest technology to start or accelerate your efforts to find, organize, preserve, and share your family’s connections, stories, and history.
What Does RootsTech Offer?
In addition to over 250 informative classes and hands-on workshops available for those from beginner to expert levels, RootsTech offers a number of fun, family history related activities:
- Scan an old book or documents
- Record a favorite family story
- Print a large format copy of your family tree
- Learn how to create a blog
- Discover ways to organize and share our photos
Just Getting Started?
New for 2013, RootsTech has a special Getting Started track designed especially for those who are just beginning their family history journey. Partner a Getting Started pass with Story@Home and discover the art of storytelling in order to preserve and share your family stories.
Register NOW and take advantage of limited time early bird pricing!
Registration Options
Full Three Day Pass - $149 (Early Bird)
Access to everything RootsTech has to offer.
One Day Only Pass – $89
Full admission for just one day.
Student Three Day Pass – $39
Student ID required.
NEW! Story@Home+Getting Started Combo Pass – $79
Access to all the Story@Home and Getting Started classes, all three days of RootsTech
Getting Started 3-day Pass - $39 (Early Bird)
Beginner track with access to over 30 classes.
Getting Started One Day Only Pass – $19
A selection of fundamental classes to help you get started.
RootsTech has something for everyone, whether you are an avid genealogist, just getting started, or simply want to discover the latest technologies and solutions to better connect with your family. At RootsTech, come prepared to experience world-class content from speakers all over the country, an exciting exhibitor hall, and great keynote speakers.
- http://www.rootstech.org/schedule/sessions/?cid=RTAnctry_FEBemail
- http://www.rootstech.org/gettingstarted/?cid=RTAncstry_GS_Feb
- http://www.rootstech.org/stories/?cid=RTAnctry_Story_Feb
- http://www.rootstech.org/register/?cid=RTAnctry_FebReg
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PBS has gathered its African-American
history content into one place to help you celebrate Black History Month. Watch
programs including Freedom Riders and Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr.,
take a quiz about miletones in African-American history, get ideas for celebrating
the month with kids and more.
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Know a young genealogist who could use $500 toward genealogy education, plus a free
registration to attend the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree? Applications
are being accepted for the 2013
Suzanne Winsor Freeman Memorial Student Genealogy Grant, created to honor the
mother of The Family Curator blogger Denise
Levenick. It’s open to any genealogist who is between the ages of 18 and 25 and has
attended school in the last 12 months. The recipient must attend the 2013 Jamboree
in Burbank, Calif., to receive the award. Application deadline is March 18, 2013,
at midnight PST. Learn more here.
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MyHeritage offering deep
discounts on genetic genealogy tests, provided in partnership with Family Tree
DNA. The Family Finder autosomal test, for example, is $169 (instead of $289) for
a limited period on MyHeritage.com and its websites World Vital Records and Geni.com.
Subscribers can get an additional discount. See
all the details and available tests on the MyHeritage blog. (And learn more about
how autosomal DNA testing can advance your research in the December
2011 Family Tree Magazine)
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Findmypast.com is giving its registered users the opportunity
to watch the BBC show Find My Past, which reveals how ordinary individuals are
related to people from significant historical events. With a free findmypast.com
registration, you can watch episodes that first aired during the past 30 days. Thereafter,
episodes will be available to the sites subscribing members. Learn
more on findmypast.com.
Also new in findmypast.com’s World subscription is a collection
of 200 British newspapers from England, Scotland and Wales from 1700 to 1950.
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Want a closer look at the 15 video classes in our Winter
2013 Virtual Genealogy Conference, Feb. 22-24? In the next couple of weeks, several
of our expert instructors will stop by to share what you’ll learn in their presentations.
Without further ado, here’s Lisa Louise
Cooke of the Genealogy Gems Podcast, who’s put together the class Genealogical
Cold Cases: A Step-by-Step Process:
When it comes to brick walls, sometimes you need to think outside the genealogy box.
Cracking a cold case requires a proven process to guide you through the challenging
waters. And in looking for a solid process that could drum up new leads, my thoughts
continually returned to criminal investigators. They face many of the same challenges
you do, even if your ancestor wasn’t a “black sheep.”
Genealogical Cold Cases: A Step-by-Step Process is a presentation I’ve been wanting
to do for a long time, and I couldn’t be more pleased to to present it at the Virtual
Genealogy Conference. I’ll draw on some of the best ideas from cold case investigators
to create a process that can guide you through the lengthy process of breaking through
genealogical brick walls.
In each step, I’ll give you a cache of strategies you can put into play right away.
Each is designed to keep you organized and focused while generating new leads.
So dig out that old cobwebbed case file you’d just about given up on, and join me
in the Genealogical Cold Cases: A Step-by-Step Process class at the Winter
2013 Virtual Genealogy Conference.
The Virtual
Genealogy Conference is sponsored by
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I’m happy to announce the lucky winner of our Winter
2013 Virtual Genealogy Conference sweepstakes!
My fellow Ohioan Maureen Buckel from Hartville has won a registration to the conference,
taking place Feb. 22-24.
She’ll get access to 15 video classes organized into tracks for technology, research
strategies and ethnic ancestors; exclusive live chats with our expert instructors;
and a message board for conference participants to exchange questions, ideas and surnames.
Congratulations, Maureen! I look forward to “seeing” you at the conference.
Learn
more about the Virtual Genealogy Conference, check out the program of classes and
chats, and register here. Only two more weeks are left to sign up!
The Winter 2013 Virtual Genealogy Conference is sponsored by
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If you’re researching ancestors from Eastern Europe, you’ve probably
encountered your share of name variants, translation troubles,
records access challenges and other obstacles.
We’ve got three new Ultimate Collections to help you overcome these research problems:
-
Ultimate
Polish Genealogy Collection -
Ultimate
Czech and Slovak Genealogy Collection -
Ultimate
Hungarian Genealogy Collection
Each collection has a Family Tree Magazine expert guide, Family Tree University
in-depth independent study course, a 30-minute demo-packed video class, our International
Genealogy Passport CD, and a language or records reference book.
Here’s what you’ll get:
-
expertise on how to research ancestors from Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia,
or Hungary (depending which collection you opt for) -
strategies for discovering your ancestor’s birthplace
- where to find records
- techniques for learning immigrants’ original names
- the best websites and offline resources to use
- language help
Plus, receive a coupon for 25 percent off any future online genealogy course at Family
Tree University.
Only 50 of each Ultimate Collection are available, and to further entice you, they’re
discounted by 63 percent or more.
Check out our new Polish, Czech
and Slovak, and Hungarian ultimate
genealogy collections to start finding your Eastern European ancestors today.