Attended Del Ritchhart's Presentation On Libraries

Researching at the Allen County Public Library
and the Family History Library
by Del Ritchhart

Del will discuss his visits last year to both the Allen County Public Library in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. He will describe the facilities and what is available at each, and will give suggestions about how to best prepare for your visit and effectively research there. His presentation will be augmented with extensive photos.
Del is a retired Navy captain and aerospace executive who has been active in San Diego genealogical organizations for about ten years. He is the current president of the Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego.

Location: Robinson Auditorium complex at UCSD, La Jolla. See a link to maps on our home page at www.cgssd.org.
Contact: cgssd-board@ucsd.edu

April Week of Blog Recognitions

Ancestor Approved Award

wow wow Thank you Genealogy Community for all your encouragement and support. Where to start?

Cutie Mavis Jones was the first to award me with the "Ancestor Approved Award".

Heather Rojo nominated my mother's lineage blog “Reed Cook Dearman” for the "Ancestor Approved Award"
Heather and I have found common ancestors and we enjoy sharing data together.

"Ruth at “Reed Cook Dearman” for blogging about her fun upcoming genealogy trip to England to research our common Chapin ancestors."

___________________________________________

Geni.com gave a shoot out for a blog I wrote: Ashiya McReynolds Cunningham was kind of enough to let me know that
Geni.com posted a blog: Ruth Himan, blogger "Genealogy is Ruthless without Me" http://genealogyisruthlesswithoutme.blogspot.com/2010/04/my-genealogy-wish-list.htmlGenealogy is Ruthless without Me:
My Genealogy Wish List
genealogyisruthlesswithoutme.blogspot.com
I am trying to prioritize my genealogy wish list. I am writing a list to better identify the significant things to me about genealogy research. To understand what part of genealogy makes me happy and fulfills my individual goals for myself.

Fellow Blogging friends monaveluz, Barbara and Joan also liked this Wish List Blog.
_________________________________________________

A new fb friend; John Boggess on April 12 at 5:51pm commented on a blog at http://genealogyisruthlesswithoutme.blogspot.com/2010/04/Accuracy vs. Precision

John Boggess POSTED: Loved your article, and couldn't agree more!


Randy Seaver of Gena-musing also enjoyed this blog and awarded this blog one of the ten best for the week;

Best of the Genea-Blogs - Week of April 4-10, 2010

* Accuracy versus Precision by Ruth Himan on the Genealogy is Ruthless Without Me blog. Ruth suggests that the genealogy community adopt a standard for data quality, based on her life experiences and the state of online family trees.

All and all not bad for a week of blogging.

My Genealogy Wish List

I am trying to prioritize my genealogy wish list. I am writing a list to better identify the significant things to me about genealogy research. To understand what part of genealogy makes me happy and fulfills my individual goals for myself.

Truthfully, regarding genealogy --- I want it all!!! And I want it NOW.

At some point in my life around the half century mark, I recognize I can not have it all and I can not do it all. I am realizing the same with genealogy. There are just so many hours in a day, so much money in the bank, and so much get up and go in this body.

Once the shock wore off that I can not have it all and could not do it all, I had to resolve how to cope with this new life cycle. (Did I mention my husband and I raised 7 children, worked full time, and were heavily involved with community activities?) The thought that someday we would no longer be able to work at that pace had not come to mind to us.

To muddle through with this new life cycle, I find myself becoming a list maker and a prioritizer. (Yes, I do make up words when it serves me)

When I make list , I first start just brain dumping and put everything down on a piece of paper. Then I come up with some kind of criteria to prioritize the list. Example "Things to Do"
criteria "Must dos versus Wish to dos" and
Urgent versus Not urgent.
MUST and URGENT get the highest priority. Unless I do not like the task and then it goes on my husband's NAG (oops I meant to say, my husband's to-do) list.

So My Genealogy Wish List:

Find more direct-line ancestors
Breakdown brick walls
Visit cemeteries and take photos of grave markers
Visit places of significance of my ancestors and take photos (their church, their residence)
Stay involved with my local genealogy societies
Continue to associate and learn from other genealogist
Meet new cousins
Meet historians of the interesting places my ancestors lived
Travel over seas
Attend all genealogy conferences
Read all genealogy and history books
Become proficient at several genealogy software programs
Scan all my family photos and organize them all
Write books ---I am now in the midst of 5 such books right now
Plan a trip to Texas
Plan a trip to Ireland
Plan a trip to France
Work more on my nephews Italian ancestry
Get more people in my family interested in genealogy
Structure and present orations
Join more genealogy societies (Texas, Lake co.Tenn., Chapins Foundation,
Read all the genealogy periodicals published.
Master Roots Magic
Prepare comprehensive maps for each lineage
Have family reunions

Okay for right now; that is my list Now I can group them;

Group 1:
Plan a trip to Texas
Plan a trip to Ireland
Plan a trip to France
Visit cemeteries and take photos of grave markers
Visit places of significance of my ancestors and take photos (their church, their residence)
Meet historians of the interesting places my ancestors lived

Group 2:
Structure and present a subject of interest
Join more genealogy societies (Texas, Lake co.Tenn., Chapins Foundation,
Attend all genealogy conferences
Stay involved with my local genealogy societies
Continue to associate and learn from other genealogist
Read all the genealogy periodicals published.
Read all genealogy and history books

Group 3:
Become proficient at several genealogy software programs
Master Roots Magic
Prepare comprehensive maps for each lineage
Scan all my family photos and organize them all
Write books ---I am now in the midst of 5 such books right now

Group 4:
Get more people in my family interested in genealogy
Meet new cousins
Have family reunions
Work more on my nephews Italian ancestry
Find more direct-line ancestors
Breakdown brick walls

Final Analysis:

Plan trips to include:
Visit cemeteries and take photos of grave markers
Visit places of significance of my ancestors and take photos (their church, their residence)
Meet historians of the interesting places my ancestors lived

My trip to Texas is planned for December 2010
My trip to Ireland is planned for August 2010

Group 1 in the planning!!!




Share my unique individual genealogy experiences with others
Structure and present subjects of interest
Join more genealogy societies (Texas, Lake co.Tenn., Chapins Foundation,
Attend all genealogy conferences
Stay involved with my local genealogy societies
Continue to associate and learn from other genealogist
Read all the genealogy periodicals published.
Read all genealogy and history books

I have several presentations on my Grandma's Geni Camp scheduled already.

Group 2 on it's way

Become proficient at several genealogy software programs
Master Roots Magic
Prepare comprehensive maps for each lineage
Scan all my family photos and organize them all
Write books ---I am now in the midst of 5 such books right now

Mastering Roots Magic and careful input disciplines will go a long way to allowing the maps, books, and photos organize themselves.

Group 3 possible with the help of Roots Magic.


and Group 4 I think will be a natural fall out of these activities.

So I have my long exhaustive list of 25 items narrowed down to 3 priorities:

Plan and take my planned genealogy trips
Perfect my Grandma's Geni Camp presentation
Master Roots Magic

and most of all have fun.......

Sarah J Parker

Working on a lineage I was following a family from an Elizabeth "Betty" Parker B: 1753

I found she had a father named George Parker but the mother's name was just Sarah
the family lived in Maryland:

The mother "Sarah" was noted as being born in 1735 and died in 1772

imagination my surprise when searching history for this 1700 Sarah I kept getting an obituary page for

United States Obituary Collection
about Sarah Jessica Parker
Name of Deceased: Sarah Jessica Parker
Obituary Date: 5 Dec 2003

It also included

Other Persons Mentioned in Obituary: Matthew Broderick

If this was an isolated case ---- I probably would not copy it-----but I am constantly taken to very strange sites in Ancestry:

It almost seems Ancestry has something on "automatic" and not using what we have always called "bug finders" just groups of people set to find the non-consistencey, so someone could not just fix the occurance but find the root cause of the failure and fix the cause.

Compare With People From Your Family Treeabc Children (1)Elizabeth "Betty" Parker B: 1753

Sarah
B:1735
D:1772 in Worcester, Maryland, United States George Parker B:21 May 1734 in Somerset, Maryland, United States

Parents
UNKNOWN

UNKNOWN


You have saved this record to My Ancestry (Shoebox).
This record has been added to your shoebox.
United States Obituary Collection
about Sarah Jessica Parker
Name of Deceased: Sarah Jessica Parker
Obituary Date: 5 Dec 2003
Newspaper Title: Sun, The
Newspaper Location: Baltimore, MD, Us
Other Persons Mentioned in Obituary: Matthew Broderick


View full obituary

Save This Record
Attach this record to a person in your tree as a source record, or save for later evaluation.
Save

Source Citation: Newspaper: Sun, The; Publication Date: 5 Dec 2003; Publication Place: Baltimore , MD , Us..

Source Information:

Ancestry.com. United States Obituary Collection [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2006.
Original data: See newspaper information provided with each entry.

Description:
This database is a compilation of obituaries published in U.S. newspapers, collected from various online sources. Obituaries can vary in the amount of information they contain, but many of them are genealogical goldmines, including information such as names, dates, places of birth and death, marriage information, and family relationships. Learn more...
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Accuracy versus Precision

Although the two words can be synonymous in colloquial use, they are deliberately contrasted in the context of the scientific method.

Imagine my dismay when I listened to Ancestry.com explain their criteria for accepting data to post when they used the word ACCURACY. I think this is the core of my problem with Ancestry.com. This is probably a flawed side effect from working with engineering configurations for over 30+ years.

My suggested solution for Genealogist as a whole is to adopt a modified ISO 8000. Which is the international standard for data quality.

There are several well-known authors and self-styled experts, with Larry English perhaps the most popular. In addition, the International Association for Information and Data Quality (IAIDQ) was established in 2004 to provide a focal point for professionals and researchers in this field.

The standard governs data collection with several considerations including but not limited to:

1. Rules management
2. Metadata Verification and validation
3. Database sanitation including redundancy
4. Data Profiling

Rules management: Many genealogy software programs have set internal rule engines. Rule engine software is commonly provided as a component of a business rule management system which, among other functions, provides the ability to: register, define, classify, and manage all the rules, verify consistency of rules definitions. Examples Mothers must be at least 13 years of age. People do not have children over the age of 80. Parents do not marry their children.


Metadata Verification and validation: Assess whether metadata accurately describes the actual values in the source database.

Database sanitation including redundancy: Understanding data challenges early in any data intensive project, so that late tree project surprises are avoided. Finding data problems late in your research has caused more than one "professional level" genealogist to dump an entire lineage. (I purposely omitted the names here to protect the guilty, but you know who you are!!)

Therefore I call this data sanitation a phrase I made up when I was asked to analysis large data bases with data not monitored and controlled by myself. My boss would ask when would the report be ready --- depending on the missing data, incorrect data, typos, the answer would vary. Some genealogy programs help with this process by running "possible problem reports" for you. But each "suggestion must be examined carefully and evaluated as to how any changes would effect dependent joined data.

Rather than using any family tree on Ancestry.com or independent web sites. I have found it less time consuming to start from scratch and enter data independently. I often find by the 50th entry I run into a "not possible, probably not correct" data point.

Data Profiling: Several genealogy software programs helps with this by setting up quick easy to read charts and reports. Giving us for examples
Frequency counts: most of my ancestors should be in United States; I have no one born in Japan in my family database history so the largest number of occurrences of code should be USA. I should have no one born in Japan.

Although this seems bogus I have seen Names of Cities mistakenly entered as name of countries,
Statistics:
Minimum value: such as youngest person at death
Maximum value: example oldest person at death
Mean value (average): average age at marriage
Median value: All Civil War veterans lived within 1860----1870 or longer
Standard deviation

As in many scientific disciplines popular opinion does not make it FACT. When I realize "the experts" are basing their findings on popular vote (i.e. One of the Worse Offenders ONE WORLD CONNECT)I am reminded of the story of The Emperor's New Clothing.

It takes every muscle in my body to clamp my mouth shut. My Dearman and Chapyn lineage agree with no other lineage I have seen posted yet. And further more I am okay with that.

In the fields of engineering, industry and statistics, the accuracy of a measurement system is the degree of closeness of measurements of a quantity to its actual (true) value. The precision of a measurement system, also called reproducibility or repeatability, is the degree to which repeated measurements under unchanged conditions show the same results. Ergo if all family historians researched their own data, copied from Family Bibles, land deeds, census records, birth and death records we could use that data to do just as Ancestry.com suggests. Calculate precision based on reproducibility and repeatability. BUT if 20 family historians go in and copy unvalidated, unverified, family trees and then use loose rules of Design of Experiment. We have a very unstable database to almost being to the point as useless.

Then for the LDS to indicate that this will be the basis for their WORLD TREE.......HELP definition of stress: the energy used to prevent myself from screaming at these presentations!!!!

Los Angeles Library, with Chula Vista and San Diego Genealogy Society

We all met and traveled in a comfortable plush bus to Los Angels to visit the library. The bus was only about half full (approximately 25 people) and so not crowded and very comfortable.



Los Angeles Library, with Chula Vista and San Diego Genealogy Society
March 20, 2010,

I had never been to this library before so I was amazed at the size and architecture of the library. Four Floors down and Four Floors up!! The last fourth bottom floor was the genealogy floor. A guide met with the new comers and explained the layout of half of the bottom floor. We were instructed to the way to get periodicals, closed case books, copies and find micrfiche, films and reference books.

Virginia kindly found a table for four and we sat to study.

Susi Pentico met with a cousin from the Foulk/Myers line and shared data.
Her cousin Julie arrived, pulled up a chair to the table next to Susi and they discussed FOULK and MYERS, MEYERS, MOYERS the entire time we were there until the trip end. Susi had a lot to share with this cousin and they found new data also.

The library is large enough to have food stations. We ate at a Chinese fast food found right inside the library for lunch and returned later in the day for a yogurt dessert.
From Susi's blog I copied:
Virgina learned some great information and Ruth found a plat map with Dearman,
Shirley learned some clues also in her lines.
Ruth got the maps copied and we made the bus on time.

Book Review : Who Do You Think You Are?: The Essential Guide to Tracing Your Family History,

Last February it was announced
"Ancestry.com and NBC Team Up to Introduce New 'Who Do You Think You Are?' Series

This series was a big hit in UK. Lisa Kudrow, the former "Friends" star, is not only the subject of one of the episodes of "Who Do You Think You Are?" but one of the executive producers. She was captivated by the original British version of the show.

"I fell in love with the show," she said. "I thought it was fantastic and wanted to know why we don't get to have that in the U.S."

The series of 7 celebrities interviewed as they find their ancestors is very well written and researched. Not only are we treated to seeing these celebrities find their families------we are introduced and treated to meeting the true heroes (IMHO)of this series the well known, educated, devout, dedicated genealogist from all over the world.

In the episode with Emmett Smith ---yes the big hunk of a football player meets with
Megan Smolenyak!!!

As these stars, producers, genealogist collaborated to create this great series ---- Of course it followed that Megan Smolenyak with her easy, smooth contemporary style helped us out with a companion book to this very demanding and sometimes confusing subject of genealogy.

In the Genealogy Community Daily family researchers were anxiously anticipating their book arrivals. The genealogy blogs, facebook, and twitters were ablaze with praise for this book. So it was ironic when Megan posted recently:

Megan Smolenyak: Could I ask y'all a favor? If you've read my #WDYTYA companion book, would you mind sharing a review on Amazon.com? Thanks! #genealogy

Did we forget to tell Amazon how much we appreciated the book??!?? That was very amiss of us. Amazon.com was faithful to early efficient delivery. We did not have long from release date of the book to the airing of the first episode of "WDYTYA" to get our copies in our hot little hands.
Why were we so excited to receive this book? and Who is Megan? I copied the following from Megan's website.......


http://www.honoringourancestors.com/aboutus.html

Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak (yes, that's her real name) is a genealogical adventurer who loves solving mysteries, making unexpected discoveries and pushing the boundaries of conventional genealogy. Since 1999, she's worn many hats in the family history world, including Chief Family Historian and spokesperson for Ancestry.com the largest genealogical company in the world, creator of RootsTelevision.com a pioneering online channel of free videos and winner of four Telly Awards and founder of UnclaimedPersons.org a volunteer group that assists coroners and medical examiners.

A popular writer, speaker and TV guest, she does all she can to get the g-word out there and inspire others in their quest for roots. Megan is a Huffington Post contributor, and was determined to be the most influential Twitter user on the topic of genealogy. Her most recent book is

Who Do You Think You Are?: The Essential Guide to Tracing Your Family History, companion guide to the NBC series.

Meagan's companion book to this series allows the reader/viewer a more thorough understanding to the introduction of genealogy. Megan uses a straightforward gentle approach to a study that can be very demanding and confusing.

Many genealogy resources are dry, technical and presumptuous. I have for years been reading and digesting pompous outdated, and difficult to comprehend accounts of family historians written over the last four centuries. In my particular case, especially my REED family, either wrote in such a pompous, higher than almighty manner explaining how we can trace our lineage to Noah (no I am not kidding!!!) or the back country language of the previous centuries. This companion book was a refreshing welcome respite from my heavy reading.
This book is a basic, measured variation written for the contemporary reader.


Thank you Megan for bringing it all down to the basics and writing this wonderful companion book. There is a lot of technicality that went into the "telling of these histories". You did a great job of helping us to enjoy and share this series even more.