not wanting to offend

Recently, I posted a general query about a family on a mailing list, hoping that someone else out there might have a connection with the same family. I got a reply back within days - the person did have a connection, albeit a very small one, but I did get a death date for a person I had no further info on out of it.

I almost didn't get it, because the person who responded was unsure as to how I would react to being contacted about the person in question. Seems someone in her line was the second wife of a person in my query, and she thought that there might be some resentment because of the marriage. If anything, any ill will from the marriage would probably have come from her side. Because her person died first and then my person died within weeks after that, all the possessions from her person passed on members of the family I was tracing and not back to members of her family.

Now, the family I was inquiring about is a distant one from my line but with a distinctive surname that I was tripping over in my research. Neither I nor anyone in my immediate family benefited from these possessions, but it was clear that the mother of the person who answered my query wished to have something that was promised all those years ago.

I'm still not sure as to why she thought that I or my family would hold anything against her about this second marriage when it was clear that her family lost out on something. But here's the thing - she did answer my query and provided a tidbit of info that I would not have had otherwise if she held any real resentment and didn't answer.

There's drama in every family - you research enough and you are bound to find something that happened that ticked someone off or where spouses or children were abandoned or something similiar. My grandmother Harriett's family has tons of drama - alcoholism, divorce, children in foster homes, possible adultery - that I've not even begun to uncover; it's just hinted in the wings and I'm still trying to sort it all out.

Am I hesitant about posting about this family? Yes. But I do it anyway because each little tidbit given draws me closer to the truth about what happened, since those past generations wouldn't talk about it. None of this could possibly hurt me now - if ever - and it's something that I'd really like to understand because it affected the way I was brought up.

Don't be hesitant about bringing up something possibly unpleasant. Be cryptic if you have to, or answer a query by private mail. If what happened in the past didn't escalate to Hatfield and McCoy proportions and is not sending shockwaves through your family to this day, you should go for it as long as you are comfortable working with it.

Southern plots

I've been to a number of cemeteries in Georgia - Bear's relations - and have noticed a pattern that I don't see elsewhere. The family burial plots are treated like little pieces of personal property.

The plots are mostly blocked off, edged mainly in brick, to separate themselves from the next plot. And it isn't just a few within the cemetery doing it - if one is, then most are done this way. Some are raised and then filled in with small stones or gravel, some are completely cemeted over. I don't know if this is encouraged so that groundskeeping is kept at a minimum, like not having to mow EVER, or if this is tradition.

But it's definitely different.

I can't speak for Northern cemeteries; the ones I usually go to are the large privately owned ones. I think I've only been to one actual church cemetery. Monuments tend to be a bit larger and bit more elaborate in Northern cemeteries. The one I tend to frequent the most, for instance, has a pyramid. Some guy who had an interest in Egyptology decided that instead of a regular mausoleum, he'd have a pyramid. Everytime I visit, I have to go by it - it's part of the directions I give myself ("It's two streets on the right after the pyramid.") Of course, my relations didn't have that kind of money. About a quarter of them don't have any headstones on their plots, and those that do tend to have just one large slab with all the names on it.

My problem with maiden

You may note that I will rarely refer to the surname I was born with as my 'maiden name'.

Since I don't believe that I was ever a maiden (just conjures up too many images of sitting around waiting for some man to claim me as his own so that I can start having a life), I just don't use it on a regular basis.

It's my birth surname - the name I was given at birth. It's mine, even more so now as I use it as my middle name for legal purposes. To me, it's just a better description of my personal information.

going off on tangents

There are days when it seems that if I can't find something new on someone - anyone - in any of my lines, then I'll go chase after something in a collateral line.

Such a day was yesterday. There is this cousin, several times removed, who married and had children. I have the obituary of the wife, but it did not contain her birth surname. The obit did, however, name two sisters as survivors - one with a last name of Kolat and one is a Hall. Every now and then, I try to look for an online obit or death date for the Kolat sister - it's not an ordinary name and should really stand out if and when an obit for her is posted anywhere. I do so hoping that her obituary might have her birth surname.

I know where they all grew up and lived, and I would check the online edition of the local paper to see if anything should appear. I had not been to the site in a while, as I notice that it now has the option of searching for articles dating back to 1990. So I give it try and do a search for the Kolat surname, and what should appear but a birthday announcement for the third sister, noting that the Kolat sister was still alive at that time. I also get some new info in that the original obituary got the third sister's name wrong - her last name is Hull, not Hall. It also gave the sister's birth name. YES.

So now I go scurrying off to find the three sisters on the census and to confirm their surname. Which I do, and find that the Kolat sister is actually their half-sister. Mom was a widow in 1910 and married again in 1912 and later begat the sister who would marry a Kolat. Bonus points are issued in that Mom's brother is living with her in 1910 - giving me HER birth surname.

And then, because the Mom was from Germany, I run off to the Ellis Island site to verify her immigration to the US. I find her - more good news.

And although I added nothing to my direct line, I felt that I had a good day.

Etiquette

So you're at a cemetery walking around, taking notes and pictures of headstones, and then you notice a whole line of cars heading right towards you. It's a funeral procession. What do you do?

I had that happen to me a bit ago when I was looking around an extremely large cemetery. It was a first time for me. It startled me in that I hadn't realized what was going on as the cars were driving behind me. I was reading some flat headstones and hadn't noticed the traffic until I stood up. Bear had gone to get the car that was parked just a little ways down one of the roads, and he was held up with the traffic. So I stopped what I was doing and walked a short ways away so that the line of cars wouldn't be looking at my abundant backside.

All the cars had these little window flags, like they had all come from a service and were given these flags so that traffic would know that they were all together. Some guy, probably from the cemetery office, was collecting the flags as the cars drove by, and my, he was in a good mood. He was greeting people, saying 'hi there' and asking how they were doing and such, and I'm thinking that is such an odd thing to be remarking to people who are AT A FUNERAL.

Finally, the line of cars came to an end, and Bear picked me up.

Walk on

I love visiting cemeteries in my search for relations and extended families.

But there's one thing that always bothers me - walking across the cemetery. I try to not walk across where I think people are actually buried but sometimes it's just not feasible or possible to avoid doing so. There are times when I am not absolutely certain on which side of the marker a person is actually buried. It's not always apparent. I take close-up pictures of headstones and markers so I know that I am probably standing on top of someone.

And I probably shouldn't be greatly concerned about walking across graves because, well, they're dead. But it's the appearance of doing so - it's like it's disrespectful. I steer clear of plots that have obvious recent burials because that would be really rude.

So I tread carefully and take the long way around and try not to worry too much that I might cross over someone's final resting place by accident.

Send me everything

After posting some notes on message boards, I may get a note or two in response but usually nothing that directly relates to the family I'm researching. A good section of the responses will be in the direction of 'I have that same name but in another county, another state, etc - do you think there's any connection'.

Sigh.

What really gets me is the responder who, to my note about John Smith born 1850 and dying in 1911 in Union County, replies, "hey i have smiths in that county 2 send me everything you have!!!"

I don't think so.

First off, I'm not going to send 'everything I have' to someone who hasn't even bothered to identify any possible connection to any of the people I'm researching. Actually, I find that response a bit rude - to demand something without even the offer of providing anything in exchange.

Not that I'm expecting other people to 'send me everything'; I just want to be certain that we might actually have a connection before we waste time posting or sending info about people who may have nothing in common at all. A simple 'I have a John Smith, son of Jack and Catherine, married to Mary Adams in that same area - could we talking about the same people' and give birth and death dates for comparison works much better than demanding people send you stuff. And even if we don't have an immediate connection, it leaves a trail for someone else to find who might have more information for either of us.

A little consideration, some specific information, when writing and answering message board posts goes a long way.

Keeping an open mind

Chances are, at some point in your research, it's going to happen. You find evidence that a couple were not married for at least nine months before the birth of their firstborn, a soldier deserts, a woman is always listed as married in the census listings but her husband is never included in the household, etc.

And you thought that the decay of the moral fiber of mere mortals was a recent thing?

If it will disturb you to find out that your relations have done some not-s0-nice things or things that may embarass you, don't start researching. Because the chances are quite good that you will find something.

Like getting my grandparents' marriage license and realizing that they were only married for seven months before the birth of my aunt. Now, it's not terribly shocking - even taking into account that the marriage happened in 1920 - nor should I probably read too much into it; after all, premature babies are born everyday. And my grandparents had been dead over 30 years when I found this out. Doesn't lessen what few memories I have of them.

I don't fudge the marriage date on my records - I figure that my dad should have been able to figure this out on his own a while ago.

Doing your own work

It's going to happen to at least one of the surnames you're researching - you're looking around online for a new lead and you run smack into someone's posted ancestry that contains your people. You've hit the jackpot, right? You can quit sweating over trying to find out more about this family, right?

Well, no. I hate to be the spoilsport in all of your new-found excitement, but just because someone else has posted a family tree online doesn't make it the truth. You'd be surprised that, if asked, that someone else saw it somewhere else and copied it without verifying one bit of data on it.

But by all means make a note of it. Just follow up on it yourself.

One of Bear's (my husband) surnames is a heavily researched one, with one line in particular documented back to the 1500s. I am able to follow this line from Bear to about the mid 1700s. A researcher, with credentials and a book on the surname to his name, has that mid 1700s family in his research, and I am happily thinking that I've found the line going back to England. I join the surname society, giving the line I've just researched as my verification and tie it in with the line going back to the 1500s.

Only it doesn't tie in. Within two years, other researchers dispute and effectively disprove that Bear's line is part of the 1500s England line. I am basically still at the same point on this line - I have not yet come across the father that will take me further back into the early 1700s.

After this happened, I no longer accept as gospel posted ancestries until I have a chance to check it out for myself. I've gotten a lot of good leads and added several generations by taking a cue from them, but you need to do your own work on the information before claiming them.

If I knew then

Now that I have been at this for a number of years, I find that there are quite a bit of those 'if I knew then what I know now' moments.

Probably the most significant in terms of researching via the internet is using an email address that is not one that use for your personal correspondence.

There are a number of free email opportunities out there. Get one and use it as your subbing address for mailing lists and for online posting. If you subscribe to one of the major internet providers, you usually have the availability of creating several email addresses for your use. Do it.

Cause as just as soon as post to an online message board, chances are you are going to start attracting some spam, as well as attempts to spoof your email address.

What you know

I thought that I should start at the beginning, even though I'm not quite certain when that was. I was visiting my parents - it may have been on the occasion of my brother's marriage to his second wife - and my aunt Ginnie had given me several pages of notes that she and her late sister had put together of 'our family tree'. It was a list of names, grouped by families, of my grandmother's ancestry going back two generations on each side.

I suppose she thought that I could 'do something' with it.

Well, I did.

I started playing with the names online about 1993, when Prodigy was a going thing. After a few months, I got lucky and was contacted by someone who also descended from the same line.

There have been a lot of highs and few lull periods in my search. And there are a lot of places to get advice on how to do your research. Probably the best piece of advice is to start with what you know and go backwards: write down the names and particulars of your parents; then write down their parents' information; and so on and so on for as far back as you or your parents can remember.

Start from there. The 1930 census is available - look up your parents or their parents or even yourself, if you were born by then. And then keep going backwards through the census years and document, document, document.

The one thing that you don't want to get sidetracked on is 'family stories'. Now, I will say that a good number of family lore has a ring of truth in it, and by all means chase them down when you've got some information to work with. However, don't get diverted by the tales of 'my grandmother used to say that we were descended from so-and-so' or 'somewhere back in the line we have Indian blood' or the ever popular 'three brothers arrived by boat to the US and one went north, one went south, and the other went west' when you're just starting out.

When my aunt had given me her notes, she told me that she had heard that we were related to Oliver Wendell Holmes. When I made contact with the distant cousin noted above, she also said that she had been told that the family was related to him. Since a good section of his family line is in print in a book on his father, we quickly concluded that it was probably just a tale based upon our mutual Holmes surname. IF there is a relationship, it's a distant one and more than likely not through the Holmes name.

What I mean is this - don't get bogged down by chasing the unknown when you still have a lot of the basic work to do. Stick with what you know and go backwards and build on it. When you've got some time and you have a few more family names and places to work with, follow grandma's recollections and see if you can build a case for it. It's pretty frustrating to follow a family line, only to conclude that it doesn't come anywhere near yours.