I’m back!!!

My handout and laptop.

Well hello! I am back after how many years? Let’s see, I think my last post was in the fall of 2017. So it’s been a while. Unfortunately, I can’t come back with new developments in my family research. I fell on and off and on and off again. Rather than beat myself up for falling off, I am going to start again. I realize that for family historian/genealogist, the road is long and hard and sometimes you take a tumble but the important thing is to get back up. I am pretty sure I will have more setbacks along the way but as I tell my boys, it’s how you respond to them is what is important. 

The feeling I have right now is a bit of frustration and almost feel like I am starting over because I am re-visiting brick walls I had before so it makes me feel like I haven’t accomplished much. What I am learning is that this is part of the journey and I intend on moving a bit slower to ensure that I am doing quality research during this next phase.

The great news is that I signed up for a genealogy class at my local library. It started this past Tuesday. All I knew was that the class is one day a week for 6 weeks. Each class is two hours. The title of the class is Introduction to Genealogy. Although I have been on and off for a little while I still feel like a newbie. The class had about 15 people and our instructor provided several handouts (One of the handouts is in the photo above). Half way through she had each of us introduce ourselves, talk about where we are in the process (beginner, intermediate etc.), name two surnames we would like to focus on and where (town) they are from. I have to say, I think after we all did our introductions, I could tell we all felt more relaxed and looked forward to the journey.

I chose to focus on by maternal grandparents for this class. My maternal grandfather’s surname is Buntin and my maternal grandmother’s surname is D’Aguilar. Since the access to family is limited and I have had difficulties in the past trying to find critical vital records, I am hoping with the help of the instructor I will have more success. She gave us our first assignment and we don’t have class next week so it will provide more opportunity for success.

First, she gave us 3 pedigree charts and told us to pick at least one and fill them out. The catch is that I have to have at least 2 vital records in order to use pen to enter the information into the chart. If I don’t have 2, I have to use pencil. We start with myself and I have a copy of both my birth certificate and my marriage license. I will make copies and place them into the folder I am going to use for class.

Second she would like us to visit our local libraries and find out what resources they offer. She said to possibly check out some resources. But I can tell you I have a load of genealogy books on my shelf that I think will be great reference material. So I don’t need to go to the library for books at this time.

Third, she would like us to begin thinking of an organizational system to use both on and offline. I already have an ancestry account and I use Roots Magic to store information locally. But this will be a good time to come up with a good organizational system for printed files/documents. I currently use an archival safe box with folders. I may need to re-think the organization and structure.

I think this site will be a great place to track my process, successes and roadblocks that I come across during the course of this class.

So stay tuned for more!

Genealogy Education: What I learned at a recent webinar

I attended an amazing webinar on Organizing Your Digital files and the amazing Cindy from Cindy’s list led the workshop.

While listening to her speak, I actually appreciated being a newbie in genealogy because I can more easily implement her suggestions. She raised many issues that forced me to understand the importance of organizing digital files and creating a secure backup system for all genealogy files.  She closed the webinar with a to-do list which really made the list maker in me happy.

A few things that I learned while listening to her speak was that we should:

• learned the importance of establishing a regular back up schedule and sticking to it.
• understand the importance of redundancy to ensure the files are safe.
• explore the many options for cloud-based backup.
• research and find which cloud-based service would work for us and make the investment in safeguarding our files.
• establish a good naming convention for our files and get into the habit of an easy-to-understand naming convention.
• make sure that you rename files as you download them to keep them easy to organize and recognize.

She mentioned a few options for virus protection (Avast and Kaspersky) and I think I will create a list to compare them and see which will work best with my budget.

She mentioned a few cloud-based backup services (Backblaze, Carbonite, CrashPlan). I have heard of Backblaze when I listen to the Genealogy Gems podcast. So I will create a table comparing these services and see what I can afford at this time.

Cindy mentioned good examples of why the content of this webinar was important and one example she talked about ancestry.com membership – that if I have the world membership and decide to change to the basic membership then I can no longer access the files accessible from the world membership. So while in the world membership, I need to make sure I download the files that I access to my computer for safe keeping. I am still learning about all of the features of ancestry but this was a valuable one that I am glad she mentioned. I currently have Roots Magic as my desktop and will be establishing a system to ensure that my desktop and computer files are synced and backed up regularly.

Since the webinar, I have begun to reorganize my digital files and keep them in one location on my computer for quick backups. I am going to work my way through the list to create an organized system for my files.

Do any of you use any of these services and if so how do you like them? Any recommendations?

Have a blessed day!

Belinda

Birth Record Mystery

With preparation for the boys’ school year, I have neglected my genealogy research a bit and hence this blog. But I return with a mystery. As I said, I am at the beginning of this lovely genealogy and family history journey and so I am trying to locate and add all of the documents I currently have into my Roots Magic and Ancestry.com.

Growing up, my mother always said her dad’s origins were somewhat a mystery but she believed he was born in Argentina.  So I went to photograph a copy of my mom’s birth certificate and it says the birthplace for my grandfather is Argentina S. America.  However, I have conflicting census information for him. In the 1940 US Census, it states that his birthplace is Texas. I have no information about when he might have arrived in this country if that is his birthplace. I have started searching on ancestry.com to see if I can find birth information in the state of Texas for my grandfather. But I am hitting a wall.

 

As you can see, I am still trying to find some organization to my approach to my research. So what I am going to do before I go any further is use the advice of Crista Cowan, the Barefoot Genealogist in her YouTube video, How to Research Like a Professional. So I will create a research plan for my grandfather, James Buntin.

In Crista’s video she outlined 5 things for a Research Plan:

1. Identify what you want to know and be specific. For me, I want to find out when and my grandfather James Buntin was born.
2. What do you already know? Not much. I know his name, that he lived in Andover and was married (?) to my grandmother Anna Daguilar Buntin. (I don’t actually have a marriage certificate), according to the 1940 US Census he was 66 years old. According to my mother’s birth certificate, he was a Laborer (in 1932) when he was 58 years old., However in the 1940 Census it appears he was not working because he did not list anything.  That is pretty much all I know.
3. How do you know this? (i.e. Census, birth records etc.) Then Crista says to keep going back to number 2 and 3 until I have everything documented before I jump to #1 (What I want to know). So I need to seek out marriage docs and maybe some type of employment info.
4. Then think about where you can possibly find what you want to know. Think of all of the possible documents that might list info. e.g. death certificate, military records, marriage records, newspapers, more census. Keep notes so you can see the holes.
5. Do the records exist? If so, where?

So I am going to continue to work out this information to the best of my ability so I can solve this mystery once and for all.

Happy researching!!

Belinda

 

Building my foundation

Hello, everyone! I hope you are well. I included a photo from my garden again. I love this pretty new spring bulb. I loved the picture on the package and it actually bloomed even prettier in real life. So I must get more next year! I am still in awe of Ancestry and having fun entering what I know. I know a good foundation is important but I have to admit I am so anxious to find out more about my maternal grandmother was known as Morris Hannah Cecelia (D’Aguilar) Buntin and grandfather, James Buntin. I am very confident that I will be able to go back farther on my paternal side (McDonald) so that is why I want to focus my initial efforts on my maternal side of the tree.

I am still in awe of Ancestry and having fun entering what I know. I know a good foundation is important but I have to admit I am so anxious to find out more about my maternal grandmother was known as Morris Hannah Cecelia (D’Aguilar) Buntin and grandfather, James Buntin. I am very confident that I will be able to go back farther on my paternal side (McDonald) so that is why I want to focus my initial efforts on my maternal side of the tree.

However, while entering all of my aunts and uncles on my maternal side, I have already unearthed a few mysteries regarding three of my mother’s siblings. First, I know that my mother was the youngest of seven kids.  One of her siblings was a half-brother named John Brown who they met later in life. But I don’t know all the details surrounding him and I want to locate his birth information. I also could not locate my mother’s brother James Clarence Buntin in the 1940 census living with the family but I suspect he was already old enough and out of the house. So I am trying to locate his birth information. I do know he served in the US Navy and Ancestry found some of that information so I should be able to piece that story together. My mom had an older sister named Olive Rita Buntin and I believe she was ill and institutionalized at some point and was not able to live at home so she isn’t on the census as well but I need to find her birth information. The only thing is I don’t know her birth year so I am going to try a broad search for births in Andover, Massachusetts and see what I can find. I want to have all of my documents for each of her siblings so that I can try to unearth more information moving forward.

I am thrilled with this process. I can’t imagine why everyone isn’t doing this stuff. It’s absolutely captivating. It’s so much fun trying to solve all these mysteries. I think I might pick up, “The Unofficial Guide to Ancestry.com” from the library so that I can really learn how to maximize my use of this beast of a resource. I believe it is an old edition but I am sure there are some great things that are still relevant and will help me conquer this massive service. So more on that once I get my hands on a copy.

Have a wonderful weekend and for those of you in the US have a wonderful Memorial weekend!

Belinda

Update: My Trial period is complete with Ancestry.com

Hello, everyone! I had hoped to document my experiences during my trial membership more frequently but that thing called life kept me away.  I really enjoyed my time and for mother’s day, my husband has gifted me a year subscription to Ancestry.com. We got lucky and scored a Mother’s day discount. So now I feel even more compelled to take advantage of its features. I continued to add information that my mother provided me with while in the trial membership.

But I think moving forward, I am going to spend some time with ancestry.com’s interface and learn what all those links actually do. Typically I would go right in use things I know and avoid other features but after looking at the cost of the annual membership, I want to make sure I am utilizing as many features as possible. I noticed they have a section called Ancestry Academy and I will look into those videos to see what can help me better navigate this site. It’s quite exciting and overwhelming at the same time. So baby steps for me.