Stacks of paper .......... Genealogy Cloud......... is it for me?

Do you have stacks or piles of papers, thumb drives that all have information to be scanned, documented in your family tree?  I'm one of those that seem to collect all kinds of data everywhere I go and then when I get home, hummmm I get pulled into other things that need my attention.  As a wife, mother, working woman there are all kinds of pull that keeps me from actually getting all my data into the places it should go.  How about you?  Are you able to keep up with all the data you are bringing home after a hard day at the library or surfing the web in search of those elusive ancestors?  What do you do?  I'm getting better at trying to input as I go but it is hard, I've been at this a very long time and it's really hard to break bad habits.  

They say one day, very soon, genealogists will have empty desks, so stacks of paper, paper files etc.  They will all be stored on the "cloud".  Already some companies are getting us there.  For one Ancestry.com would love to have all our data, and make it available to everyone (I'm still a  possession nut that way), but that being said, you would have access to all your data everywhere you went just by signing yourself in and voila, your data at your fingertips.  One Great Family has something called the "genealogy cloud"  I'm interested in this, has anyone used it.  It works like Ancestry.com, Geni.com, familysearch.org.  I'm one for getting your trees out there, see who can connect with you....... who is connected.  I tried Geni.com after meeting the team at the RootsTech 2012 this February, and wow some of my French-Canadian lines were very well represented.  Again, connections to be made, I love it.  Ancestry.com I have my trees, and I say trees, both my parents have trees, my husband has two trees, I have trees for both my son in law and daughter in law.  I try and keep it private for the usual reasons, so I decided to separate families.  I think also because it is easier to share one tree without trying to explain who these other people are in the tree.

The advent of the internet, has made doing genealogy so much easier, everyday there is new information out there on the various sites.  Familysearch.org is constantly putting new digital data out there, they are in the process of putting most of their films out there online for us.  Give it a try if you haven't looked there lately.  I have noticed more Family History Associations out there putting information, photos, CD's out there.  You don't even have to leave your home to view some of the great sites in  the world, but it IS SO GREAT to see your ancestors lands. Still gives me chills to walk down the streets, go into the churches, go by the houses they lived in and I did actually stay in one of my ancestors homes that was an Inn and still is.  It was so great!

Dick Eastman wrote on his blog about genealogy and the cloud, give it a read, he explains it much better than I could.  http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2009/07/why-cloud-computing-makes-sense-for-genealogy.html

I might be able to get rid of all my stacks, how about you?  What are you doing to downsize your paper trails?  Are you using the "cloud"?  What are you using? 

If you have Scottish genealogy you might like to view another of my blogs at:  http://scottishgenealogybycathy.blogspot.com/  I plan on dissecting my ancestral lands County by County.

 Please don't be afraid to send feedback, I love to hear from you.

Paris France this weekend................ any idea on how the weather is going to be?

Just a quick thought................... Anyone think of just jumping over the pond for the weekend?  It's Valentines day this weekend, Do all the countries celebrate Valentine's Day or is it just an American thing?  Those of you viewing this from other countries let us know what you think.  I hear there was a BIG snow storm over Europe has it affected you in anyway?  Nite all...........

Survey time: How common do you think Timothy is in Ireland in the mid to late 1800's? I want to hear from you please!

I'm looking at a family in the middle of Ireland and the father's first name is Timothy, found a 'good' possible family; time fits, mother's name and age are right but can't find my link to "my guy" in the family.

Anyway, let me know what you think..............Please leave a comment and give me your thoughts..............

Okay, the answer was not tooo many.  I didn't find the definate Timothy Mulvey and Kate Lyons in County Leitrim but I am pretty sure I did find the right family.  Times and place fit too well and there was only one Timothy Mulvey with the family of Lyons in ony one Griffiths Valuation, and that was for Tullynapurtlin in the parish of Drumreilly, for County Leitrim.  They seemed to have moved to Aghakilbrack in the parish of Kiltubbrid, same county.  But John just keeps avoiding the records............. But there were only maybe three if I can remember Timothy for the right age in the parish.  Wow, I thought Timothy was pretty common over in Ireland.

Another day at the Library........... which country should I be in today?

It's always a question I ask myself whenever I walk in the doors here.  "Which line feels right today?"  Which line is talking to me and asking me to find them today.............  I guess I'll finish up with the Mulvey line this morning and go into FIFESHIRE to follow my elusive families there.  Details when I get some. 
 

A night out with Carmen

So after a long day, I go with Carmen out for dinner, it's late and we are sharing a meal.  I'm telling her about my day and my searching and finding the brass ring at the end of the day, when this gentleman asks if we do genealogy.... Next thing we know we are shaking hands and introductions are going forth.  It seems he needs some advice regarding his "no father" in the picture and DNA studies and what that showed.  Anyway spent time chatting with him, his email was given and off he went after the guy behind Carmen gets into the conversation.  The second guy is like in his 70's and is from Ottawa, Canada,  he has French-Canadian roots also, we are making connections everywhere.  Networking 24/7. 

I helped two people earlier, one was an ancient one who needed help with her microfilm, the other gal didn't know her film could be turned so she wouldn't make the rest of us have neck aches from looking at it sideways.

So give back, pay it forward, we all had help in something.  Nite all.

Newman and Williams in Gloucstershire to Malvey/Mulvey and Lyons in Ireland.............hummmmmmm

Not sure what happened today. Started out in England researching and ended up dabbling with the Irish. 

So, to back it up, I had a problem finding a record that I had previously found in years past, just wanted to double check and see if there were any other NEWMAN's or WILLIAM's on the roll.  Hummmm wrong film or something, not there.  Double checked  my records and just kept going. Notta.

Then I had the idea....................  MALVEY/MULVEY kept running through my mind, I've learned to answer the call when it occurs.  So off to the computer I go and look at  Granham's Index, the search with two surnames; variations of Malvey/Mulvey and Lyons together and suddenly Ireland becomes more manageable. 

There were only 34 townlands that the two surnames are in together.  This drastically shortens the search, doesn't make it easy..... just easier.  So after going through all 34 of Griffth's Valuations with the names being checked I found only one with the first name of Timothy Mulvey, he was in the Leitrim County, parish of Drumreilly, townland of Tullynapurtlin.  Say that a few times.  So, now I'm in the Parish of Drumreilly looking at the parish records for a baptism for John about the year 1857or 58.  The film I'm looking at is in the negative so that is very hard to read, (black background with white lettering). 

If I locate John I'll give a shout out.  If you have any suggestions, please give me a shout.

Back to MY Roots; Let's try the French! Audet Family of St. Pierre de Maulais, France

How hard can it be to locate a village that existed in 1641 France?  Apparently harder than I thought.  I am trying to locate this village on the http://www.familysearch.org site to get a film so I can view Nicolas Audet's baptism.  Well I guess if I forget following like a lemming the other followers of Nicholas (note the spelling changes frequently), and just try what I had to begin with I might find it easier.  So it is in the Archives of Poitiers, the church is the parish records of Maillé, now called Saint-Pierre-de-Maillé, Vienne, France.  Oh, BTW, the FHL has this online for your viewing please.  I was excited for a moment, the computer said it was online, silly me of course it couldn't be that easy.  Okay so off the the film I go.  I'll post his baptismé later. And here it is.  This was found on the geni.com site by putting in Nicolas Audet dit Lapointe and voila!

Anyone with Audet ancestors? Please let me know..........

Finnish research...........why?

So, today I'm working on a family member's genealogy that has Finnish roots, hummm, you who know me might ask why?  Those that really know me, know it doesn't really matter whose roots I'm following I'll do it and have fun.  


Kelli Isaacson Turi --- this one's for you!


Following the Susanna Ericka YliTarvas who married an Eli Isaacsson Ojala who married in Calumet, Houghton, Michigan in 1891.  Her parents were fairly easy to find, thank you Finland University in Hancock, Michigan.  Her father was Michael Michelsson who lived on the Tarvas farm in the parish of Isokylä, Kemijärvi, Lapland, Finland. Michael's parents were Michel Michelsson of Tarvos who married a Britta Carlsdotter of Kärppå, who parents were Carl and Anna.  Still following that line.  You might see what a challenge it is with the patronymic naming patterns, the language isn't too bad, I do have help with that, the writing can be a challenge tho'


Still trying to locate Eli Ojala born about 1867 somewhere in Finland parents are Isak Ojala and Cath Orni, saloon keeper in  Calumet, Michigan in 1890.  Anyone with info on this one please let me know. 


Well, the Finns are even more difficult than the Swedes.  That's all I'm saying....

First of many to come

So, today I'm starting to share my adventures with the public.  Let me tell you something about myself first, I am  married, a part-time Registered Nurse, my three kids are now old enough to do their own thing and leave me to my hobbies which have become obsessions at this point.  Okay, so if you are wondering what obsessions they might be, here it is...................  I love genealogy!  I am hoping by starting this it will help keep my families (mine and my husband's) aware of what's happening in my crazy world of tracking down that elusive ancestor. 

I've been doing this for over 30 years now, I started this when my father, Francis Smith, wanted to take a class on "how to find your family" back in 1977.  He didn't want to go alone so convinced my since I liked history that I might also like this.  The rest is history.  I now have done and continue to find more (it's never done you know) about my family, Mark's (my husband) and now have started doing my son-in-law Justin's family with tracks to Terrasini, Sicily,Italy and France and now my daughter-in-law's family with tracks to Germany.  

Whenever I hear someone chatting about family it's always interesting to hear where the family name came from, it's to the point I'll even ask some of my patients "any idea what nationality your name is?"  We get chatting if they are interested and sometimes I get people started in thinking about starting their own trees.   I guess that might be dangerous to some.  

I'm lucky that I married into a family that understood about genealogists, my mother-in-law Phyllis and her mother Marion were avid genealogists, although it is my policy to double check everything before adding it to my tree.  I did inherit ,most of Phyllis's "stuff",  do I continue to double check as I go.  It's pretty interesting when I get into the different countries, like the Alsace-Lorraine areas, France, multiple areas of Germany, Finland and Sweden, and of course Italy.  It's always a challenge putting together what I've learned over the years and continuing to learn languages to read the church documents.  I'll be adding some of those so you can see what I mean.  My roots, as I'm only second generation born in the United States,  for my paternal grandmother is Quebec, Canada to France in the 1600's and England into the 1400's for my paternal grandfather, funny story there for a later blog. My maternal grandmother was born in Glasgow, Scotland; her lines go into the late 1700's, and lastly my maternal grandfather was born in Dundee, Scotland; his lines are kinda exciting as he has an Excise Supervisor whose tombstone I've visited at Arbroath, Scotland.  It was so exciting to stand in an Abbey and be next to a stone with my Wright family on it.  

So many stories to tell and so little time............ 

Some of my main surnames:

My group:

Ashby, Audet dit Lapointe,Bouchard, Chaplain, Groves, Harvey, Laidlaw, Newman, Pilote, Reaper, Robertson, Rollo, Surman, Thomson, Wright

Mark's surnames:

Boberg, Damberg, Gigerich, Hell/Hill, Isrealsson, Johansson, Jonsdotter, Kieffer, Meisberger, Miller/Muller, Shelton,Stark/Stork, Swisher, Tamme, Winter