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November Genealogy Blog Party : Thankful

I love the month of November for many reasons. But one of my favorite things about this month is getting to reflect and give thanks for the things we have in our lives. Today, I want to give thanks for what has helped me with my family history.

#1 – I am thankful for the Ancestry company at ancestry.com. They made family history go from just a hobby to something I wanted to spend my life and career doing. They helped me find family that I thought were lost forever. My grandfather was in foster care so I never had much information on his family until ancestry DNA changed my whole life. I was able to find my grandfathers family with so many pictures of my ancestors. I would have never had those priceless pictures if it wasn’t for ancestry.com!

3x great grandparents with their children

Top right picture – my great grandfather, 2x great grandfather and my 3x great grandparents.

#2 – I am thankful that my Great-Uncle Harold is still here and was able to interview him for some oral family history on him and my grandfather. I was able to go into detail on much of their young life, that I wouldn’t have been able to capture and have otherwise! I am also thankful for voice recorders because it’s wonderful to have the interview fully recorded so I can have everything exactly as he said it in his own words.

My Great-Uncle Harold Sommer as a young boy

Harold and I during my visit talking family history

#3 – I am grateful for the Bureau County Genealogical Society who helped me greatly in my research on my Jensen Family line of my tree. The ladies working there actually had connections with my family and one who is actually the wife of my 2nd great aunts brother-in-law! How funny was that! I learned much from them and used microfilm for the first time. It was a wonderful experience.

Lastly, I want to thank the family history YouTube, blog, and Instagram community. As well as the RootsTech conference. The communities have been wonderful and everyone is so helpful. They keep me motivated to learn more! I’ve never been to RootsTech in person but I have attended online and the classes and general conferences have been amazing, inspirational and helpful in my journey to become a genealogist. I am hopeful I’ll be able to attend a conference in person soon.

Thanks for reading and make sure to check out Elizabeth O’Neal’s Genealogy Blog Party for November 2018 and Share your “Saying Thanks” story!

A “Cut and Paste” Family Historian

One of the biggest mistakes a person can make in genealogy is becoming a “cut and paste” family historian. I have been guilty of this mistake and here is my story.

I was 18 years old and just starting genealogy work as a bigger hobby in my life. I bought the Ancestry.com monthly subscription and I was off to the races – or so I thought.

I typed in the several ancestors I knew in my ancestry pedigree chart. To my delightful surprise, I started getting those shaky leaves everywhere. With no experience and not much knowledge under my belt, I excitedly thought that all the hints and all of the connections to other Ancestry trees were correct. I became that “genealogist” who copied and pasted, climbing my family tree with no true regard of what I was doing or whether the research other people did was truly correct.

About a year later, after excitement about all these connections to royalty in multiple branches of my tree and even connections to the Native American Pocahontas….. it finally clicked that even though these connections and having these great grandparents would be so exciting, I could not prove what I found because I didn’t do the research! I was just cutting and pasting someone else’s tree to mine. How could I prove all these trees were correct?

This is where my true journey to learning about genealogy began. I started watching videos online and blog posts. The main ones I loved were with Christa Cowan aka The Barefoot Genealogist. I was learning all that I could about the basics of genealogy and how to be a TRUE genealogist where you actually have to do research! – go figure. I created a whole new tree and essentially started a genealogy do-over.

My advice, that will save new family historians a whole lot of wasted time and energy, is to treat others online trees as clues and not as 100% fact. Make sure you verify and look at all the records on that ancestor in that tree. If there are NO records and the only thing that is there for a source is “Ancestry Family Trees”, that means they copied from someone else without verifying and it just creates this huge cycle with so, so many trees with no records or verification. Let’s not do that or be one of those people!

Did you ever make this mistake? Have you ever been a “cut and paste” family historian? What made you realize your error? Let me know in the comment section below!

Welcome to The GeneaHistorian!

With the word clash between a Genealogist and a Family Historian, my name is Kharyn. I am a wife, mother and woman in her 20s who loves genealogy. Genealogy is not just for grandparents. I am on a mission to show the world that genealogy and family history is fun and exciting for ALL generations!

From my own family history, to genealogy tips & news, to documenting my process of becoming a professional genealogist, this blog will have a bit of everything! So come along with me for the journey!