TV reminder: Who Do You Think You Are? is on tonight.

Paula Stuart-Warren  Seminars, WDYTYA  Leave a comment

Don’t forget to watch the show tonight (7 central, 8 east and west coasts) as Mathew Broderick’s family history is covered..

I might miss it live as I will be having dinner with some members of the Monroe County Genealogical Society in Michigan. I am presenting a seminar on Saturday at the Monroe County Community College. I hope to see some of my readers there!  Be sure to introduce yourself to me.

If I miss the show, I will just have to watch it on the NBC website or at hulu.com.

WDYTYA episode 3 Lisa Kudrow

Paula Stuart-Warren  WDYTYA  Leave a comment

Lou Szucs from Ancestry.com reminds us to watch the show tonight and tells us about it being a ratings hit. I am looking forward to this episode.

Lou reports:  It appears the success of the Who Do You Think You Are? premiere wasn’t just a one-hit wonder. In fact, more Americans tuned in to watch the second episode than the first! For a look at the second episode’s ratings, click here.

This Week’s Episode
You won’t want to miss this week’s episode. Lisa Kudrow sets out to learn the hard truth about what really happened to her Jewish ancestors who remained behind in Belarus during World War II. Despite the cold details of how the Holocaust impacted her family, Lisa’s episode ends with a silver lining.

Check out the teaser here featuring Lisa Kudrow, and tune into NBC for the full episode on Friday at 8/7c.

Last Week’s Episode
Faced with the obstacles that surround African American family history research, football legend Emmitt Smith sets out to learn about his enslaved ancestors. The trail takes him to Monroe County, Alabama, where Emmitt traces his family back to his 3rd great-grandfather, Prince Puryear. Prince is found in the 1870 U.S. Federal Census, along with several other Puryears – including one 55-year old woman named “Mariah.” Emmitt calls it destiny when the family historian uses Book 22 (his jersey number) to confirm Mariah is Prince’s mother. Mariah then leads Emmitt on a journey that introduces him to the slave trade in Mecklenburg County, Virginia. Seeking his African origins, Emmitt takes a DNA test that guides him to the shores of Africa.

If you missed the episode, watch it here.

Community Involvement
We have immensely enjoyed your feedback to the show and hope that you will continue to send us your thoughts and what you’ve been doing to take advantage of the series.

Last week, we [Ancestry.com] heard from the San Antonio Genealogical and Historical Society who wrote:
As soon as we heard about the airing, our board members scheduled a beginners class entitled “How to Find Out Who You Are!” to begin Sunday afternoon after the Friday 1st airing of “Who Do You Think You Are?” Our local NBC affiliate, WOAI-TV, not only publicized our event, they filmed our Library and gave us a live interview on the 5:00 & 6:00 pm news. We were inundated with calls, filled our first series of classes and have had to schedule another consecutive round of classes for new researchers! We also scheduled Intermediate level classes to begin March 22nd and they are rapidly filling up.  Thanks to all the above, our 50 year old Society with it’s 16,000 vol. library, is no longer San Antonio’s best kept secret!

Way to go San Antonio! We are thrilled with your success!

Loretto (Lou) Szucs
Vice President of Community Relations
Ancestry.com
[email protected]
60 West 4800 North
Provo, UT 84604

My Irish surnames on this St. Patrick’s Day

Paula Stuart-Warren  Irish Research  Leave a comment

I live in the U.S. but I have ancestral ties to Canada, Denmark, England, France, Ireland, Germany, Scotland, and Sweden but the Irish ancestry is prevelant. They are from several counties in Ireland:

County Kerry (Dingle Peninsula):  Bowler, Fitzgerald, Walsh, Welch (mine ended up in Winona and Ramsey counties in Minnesota; a branch resided in the Boston, Massachusetts area)

County Limerick: Cook, Green, Moriarty/Moriarity (my branch of the  Cooks ended up in Rice and Ramsey counties in Minnesota)

County Tipperary: Hanley (mine ended up in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and Winona and Ramsey counties in Minnesota; a branch ended up in North Dakota)

Unknown county: Saggers (mine ended up in London, England and Rawdon, Quebec, Canada)

And my children have a paternal grandmother with Irish ancestral names including Fee, McCarthy, O’Donnel, O’Donnell, Rowan, and Ryan who ended up in St. Louis, Missouri, Berrien County, Michigan, Winnebago County, Illinois, and Dakota, Rice, and Ramsey counties in Minnesota. Three of my grandchildren have Dougherty Irish blood.

C-SPAN Archives includes a favorite word

Paula Stuart-Warren  C-SPAN  Leave a comment

C-SPAN has put its video archives online. As the website states “The C-SPAN Archives records, indexes, and archives all C-SPAN programming for historical, educational, research, and archival uses. Every C-SPAN program aired since 1987, now totaling over 160,000 hours, is contained in the C-SPAN Archives and immediately accessible through the database and electronic archival systems developed and maintained by the C-SPAN Archives.”

C-SPAN provides a great insight into the political process, good, bad, ugly, and sometimes humorous. It’s free to check. I decided to search for just one word: genealogy. I actually got 1 hit on a person, 7 program results hits, and 205 transcripts. Some don’t apply to the word as family historians use it, but it’s worth checking out. An interesting transcript I read was   Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave.

Transcribing helps in understanding documents

Paula Stuart-Warren  Methodology  Leave a comment

I am presently transcribing part of a neat document in order to clearly understand all that it says. It is a very long sparagraph that lists many individuals and some descendants for each. The individuals are not necessarily related to each other, but rather were a small community of people. Due to the length of the paragraph, it was difficult to sort out everyone without glancing back at the paper multiple times. I was entering the information into The Master Genealogist, but the double checking was slowing down the process.

It is further confusing as some women are only listed with the married name, such as Mrs. John Doe. For a few individuals the descendants are listed with a later place of residence. Some people are listed as grandchildren but often the phrasing was not clear as to the parentage of the grandchildren. That missing generation means additional research is needed. Then the paragraph comes back to show some family links between a few people listed in the document.

The solution is to transcribe every single word. I typed it as a paragraph ending the line just as it ended on the original document. Then I copied and pasted the info and separated the sentences by family grouping. I then printed out my finished product and highlighted (in light blue) each paragraph after the data entry into TMG was accomplished. At a glance I was able to see the individuals that required a bit more research before entering the data. I am also able to make notes right on my typed copy. I am questioning one stated relationship and have some probable given names for the women, so am noting those and continuing the research online. Though, I may be making a couple courthouse visits on a couple of these.

Yes, I did put the citation to the full document and its source on the retyped portion in case it is separated from the original copy. I also noted that it was a transcription of just one paragraph from the full document. Transcribe the balance of the document? Yep, need to do that. [I knew if I didn’t recommend that, someone would ask me why I wasn’t going to do that!]

WDYTYA Episode 2, Emmitt Smith

Paula Stuart-Warren  WDYTYA  Leave a comment

Suzanne Russo Adams from Ancestry.com reports that the tune-in numbers for the first episode of Who Do You Think You Are? have been tabulated by the ratings companies. They show that “more than 6.85 million viewers tuned in to watch it, making it the No. 2-rated show that hour.” Wow. Impressive numbers for something billed as genealogy.

Suzanne reminds us that this Friday, March 12th, the WDYTYA episode features Emmitt Smith, a former NFL football star. Some of you may remember him from Dancing with the Stars. On this week’s episode “Emmitt Smith sets out to discover his slavery roots. In this episode, look for the Monroe County Courthouse in Monroe County, Alabama, and the Mecklenburg County Courthouse in Mecklenburg County, Virginia. Lisa Kudrow calls Emmitt’s episode “unbelievable” and the most compelling of the seven.”

Check out the online teaser. I saw some of it on the Oprah show yesterday and it is going to be a dramatic episode. I think you might want to have the box of tissues handy. I will also be watching my friend Marjorie Sholes talking to Emmitt about his slave roots. Tune in on Friday, March 12th at 8 pm. (7 pm central).

Next seminar: March 27th, Monroe, Michigan

Paula Stuart-Warren  Conferences, Seminars  Leave a comment

If you live in or near Monroe, Michigan I invite you to attend an all day seminar I am presenting for the Genealogical Society of Monroe County, Michigan. Monroe is located in the southeastern tip of Michigan. The date is March 27th. For more information and registration details, please request the flyer as an email attachment from [email protected] or from me at [email protected].

Untrodden Ground: Sources You May Not Have Encountered
Genealogical guidebooks often repeat each other in the sources they teach us about. However, there are many other useful sources. Resources related to occupation, religion, poor ancestors, traveling companions, and records beyond death are filled with family data.

Major Midwestern Archives & their Records
Highlighting some major Midwestern archives and their holdings, finding aids, websites, special indexes, and available assistance for those not visiting in-person. An overview of each state archive will be covered – but those in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio will be covered in greater detail, showing the wealth of material available and how to access it.

New York State: The hanging Face of the Modern Era
New York research is not a simple matter.  However, New York research is not as bleak as many have complained. Today’s genealogists are fortunate to have an expanding array of publications, indexes, ebsites, and advice to help them along in the search. This lecture focuses on some of the “new” things in New York research that have come about in the last several years.

Newspaper Research: The Dailies, Weeklies, and Beyond
Newspapers are one of the most important research sources. The neighborhood, ethnic, cultural, foreign language, and religious newspapers are often overlooked. Learn how to locate the newspapers all over the U.S. and wring more information from them. Examples will also make you aware of newspaper indexes, both published and unpublished, and massive microfilming and digitization projects.

NBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? It has debuted! WOW

Paula Stuart-Warren  WDYTYA  12 Comments

I am typing this as I watch the premier show. I am impressed. Sarah Jessica Parker is the featured celebrity tonight and I am loving that they aren’t jumping from celebrity to celebrity with small snippets of each. That bothered me a bit with the “Faces of America” series that was on PBS recently.

While they can’t show each step of the research I am thrilled that they are showing a variety of records, both online and off. Visits to libraries, specific localities, historical societies, museums are shown. The starting point of talking with family and looking at home sources is represented in the visit with her mother. The audience gets to see Ancestry.com, census, newspaper articles, maps, old letters, original court records, and that not all is online. I did gulp a bit when I saw her pencil a bit too close to an original document. For those of you who have never used such documents, you might have to wear gloves when you use the records at some archives. This is to protect these one-of-a-kind records

If only we all could run from one part of the country to the other to research. Sigh. However, this does show that our answers are not all in one place. Nor does one person have all the knowledge. She worked with professional genealogists, historians, archivists,a librarian.

As a genealogist I was happy to see the range of emotions of the family history discovery that SJP went through — excited, sad, bouncing off the wall, guilt, scared, and more. We saw the neat feelings of walking where your ancestors walked.

SJP’s reactions to finding her ancestral places in history were shown beautifully. The editors did a great job with this show. My friends Natalie Cottrill and Joshua Taylor did great work on their portions of tonight’s show.

I saw some reviews of the show in newspapers from across the country — most were negative. I hope some of them change their minds after watching it on TV or learning more about SJP’s reactions and feelings. On the other hand, I have no interest in stamp collecting, refurbishing antique cars, or bird watching. But I know the folks who do are passionate about what they do and I respect them for that. 

Will I watch the rest of the series. You bet! As a non-genealogist Facebook friend of mine just said, “It’s a cool show.” Thank you Ancestry.com and others for the support that enabled this to be on in prime time!

Cyndi’s List of family history websites is 14 years old today!

Paula Stuart-Warren  Anniversary, census, Cyndi's List, Internet, Websites  Leave a comment

Right at your fingertips — more than 270,000 live and quick links to websites related to family history. How long would it take to you compile such a list? And sort each link into the proper category. And check the link to make sure it is what it should be. And update the link when the webmaster or site owner changes their URL. And change the description of the website when that needs to change. And. And. And. Well, breathe easy. You don’t have to do this work — it has been done for us at Cyndi’s List.

Today is the 14th anniversary of this list. Cindy Ingle Howells began this list of helpful websites for herself and for fellow members of the Tacoma-Pierce County Genealogical Society in Washington State. Lucky for the rest of us she began to share the list with other genealogists.  

The links are categorized. Among the 180+ categories are: adoption, Africa, Beginners, Canada (and by province), Census, City Directories, Ellis Island, Genetics, Lutheran, Military, Newspapers, Organizing Research, Passports, Poorhouses, Schools, Scotland, Ships and Passenger Lists, nd divisions for many other countries and for each of the states in the United States. Bookmark this list now and use it as the great tool it is for finding helpful websites.