My Genealogy Best Practices

I have been working on my family genealogy on and off for over 45 years and loved every minute of it!  As a result, I have even garnered the reputation as a go-to person in my family when anyone has family history questions.  And this blog, Selected Stories of My Ancestors, was built around my desire to share some of what I have learned with both family and friends.

I feel that I have run to the end of the family stories that I have discovered with my genealogy research over the years, so I am nearing the end of posting regularly to this blog.  I plan to conclude with a couple of general genealogy posts and then end my regular blog posting sometime next month.

About ten years ago, in response to frequent questions about how I stay organized and keep track of all of the bits & pieces of our family history, I wrote My Genealogy Best Practices.  With some updating and editing, I will now share it with you.

1)  The internet and the computer have radically changed genealogy research for the better during my lifetime and have made it sooooo much easier to do research by giving us alternatives to having to travel long distances for many things.  However, all genealogists need to remember that there is “good stuff” on the internet and “garbage” on the internet, and it should be a priority to question and doubt everything that is found and verify it with documentation.

The internet has really simplified our ability to find birth certificates, death certificates, obituaries, wills, probate papers, newspaper stories, passenger lists, censuses, family letters, bible records, diaries, gravesites, and the list goes on.  Also, understand that even original documents can give you differing facts, but at least then you know the “possibilities”.  For example, I have an emigrant ancestor, Thomas Patrick King, and original documentation not only shows different versions of his name, differing records (include his children’s death certificates, various censuses and even his own Civil War military records) also show different places for his birth to include Ireland, Australia, and the West Indies depending on which record you look at – we will probably never know which is right, but that’s OK, and the options provide hints for further research.

2)  Organize yourself!  Whether you want to use paper files and folders in a filing cabinet, three-ring binders, directories and folders on your computer or genealogy software – get organized so that you can find things when you need them, and look cohesively at family groups when working on your files.

I use: 1) paper in folders in a filing cabinet,  AND 2) directories and folders on my computer,  AND 3) a computer software program on my home computer.  I organize both my paper file folders and my computer file folders first by family name, i.e. Smith, Jones, Hughes, etc. and then next by the names of my direct ancestor couples, i.e. Thomas King b.1835 & Margaret Smith b.1838, etc.  Keep copies of all original documentation either in your paper file or computer digital file.  And definitely keep a current backup copy of those computer files!

3)  Use a chart, a genealogy form, or a computer program to organize the basic information about your families. A visual representation makes things much easier for me.  In the late 1970’s, I originally used a free DOS Personal Ancestral File (PAF) from the LDS Church, however now I use Family Tree Maker (FTM) software on my computer.  And there are plenty of other computer software programs to choose from today.   It doesn’t matter what system or software that you use, but use something to help you stay organized so that you can quickly see what you have AND what you don’t have. 

Ancestry.com or a similar online tree should never be the only system that you use – it doesn’t belong to you.  To maintain access, you would have to subscribe to the provider (i.e. Ancestry, or others, etc.) FOREVER, and you can’t pass it down to your children!!!  Don’t get me wrong, online trees are a wonderful research TOOL.  Ancestry is a great tool and you should definitely use it and build your basic family tree online.  You will need to decide if you want your tree to be “private” or “public”.    I prefer “private” but there are valid reasons for both – and it is worth thinking about.  If you want to discuss those reasons with me, please feel free to contact me. 

Do NOT merge another tree into your own online tree.  When you find another Ancestry tree that seems to have branches of your family, and IF it seems correct AND well documented then use it to explore further – but DON’T merge it into your tree.  You would be adding all of the inaccuracies in that tree to your tree, and will end up with a lot of people that are not very directly related to you as well.  It can totally mess up your own tree that you have worked so hard to build!  Simply use the new information found to further your own research, and then you can manually add new relevant individuals, details, documents and sources to your own tree program.  If an Ancestry tree is “private”, you can still email the tree owner and ask questions or exchange information.

4)  Record the “source” for every document that you keep.  It might be as simple as putting a statement on the bottom of a letter that says “written by Ellen O’Conner Smith in 1971” or as formal as a bibliography citation for a book source, but put as much detail as possible into it.  If possible, don’t simply cite a web address as your source because over time that web address could easily change or disappear.  If you get a document image online from Ancestry or Family Search, use the full “Original Source” information that they provide in their detail – simply copy & paste it to your notes if you like, and then you can add the webpage address to allow you to easily return to that website in the future, as well.

5)  Use ALL of the resources that are available to you.  Call, write or email parents, grandparents, aunts & uncles and cousins – they all probably have different pieces to the puzzle. Also find out the people in your family that also have an interest in your family history – you can become a team.  You might be surprised with the family stories and photos that will come your way.  Learn to use both Ancestry and Family Search, both are great online resources. 

Search newspapers online or in libraries.  And learn how to order or find copies of birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates, and order or download files from the National Archives.  

Don’t be shy about writing, emailing or calling others for assistance.  I have called cemetery offices and out of state librarians looking for records and help, and also contacted local historical societies and town clerks.  Often they are more than willing to either assist you or refer you to other resources.  A few will ask for a small copy or research fee or donation, but I always felt it was well worth it to get the assistance.  

Call or write letters to cemeteries and see who else might be in the old family plots; or contact churches whose old records aren’t online – they typically won’t “research” anything for you, but if you have specific dates, they will often look something up.  I had one sweet church receptionist in New York that looked up an old 1853 marriage in a parish record book.  She said that the register book was too fragile to fully open and put on the copier machine, but she was more than happy to take a photo of the page with her phone and text it to me!  

Check, check and double check!  You should always base your conclusions on ALL sources available to you.  Census records often contain errors.  And surprisingly, death certificates have often been found to have errors when listing the date or place of birth and/or the parents of the deceased because that information is always provided by a third party after the death.  In the case of the death of an elderly person, the individual providing the information for the death certificate is often a couple of generations younger than the deceased.  And during the time of grief and anxiety surrounding a sudden death, providing answers to those questions can easily result in errors.

Last, but not least, learn to use your local library, and also their ability to access even more materials for you through the interlibrary loan system.  Our library in Midland has an excellent genealogical department that I believe is one of the finest in the state.  I don’t have any ancestors from Texas, but this library has helped me find resources on my family from all over the United States. 

6)  Practice genealogical courtesy.  Don’t assume that if someone in your family or even a fellow genealogist gives you a copy of a document or photo that you should put it online for everyone to see and copy without asking first.  It could be copyrighted; it could be a very personal family memory; or it might have taken years of research and/or expense to find and your source just may not want all their hard work passed out to everyone in mass.  By respecting the wishes of the person giving you documents or photos, you can hope that they will let you know in the future when they find something else that may be of interest to you.

7)  Enjoy your quest!  You will learn fascinating family stories and vignettes that will amaze you, make you laugh, and make you cry.  There are plenty of wonderful family stories around – and some of them are yours.  You’ll also connect with interesting people along the way that you might never have otherwise met.  Genealogy is a hobby that can hold your interest and last a lifetime – and it is addictive!

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Notes:

I remind you that ancestry research is ever changing as new documents may become available in the future that could add to your knowledge and break down your brick walls.  Also, be prepared for new information that could disprove things that you thought were correct – be flexible when that happens.

And as a final comment, it is quite possible that something I have written in any of my blog posts will prove to be incorrect.  In that case, I apologize and remind you that my work is only as good as the material that I found available at the time.

 – Jane Scribner McCrary

Random Stories from My Youth – my folks

I promise this is the last of my blog posts about my memories.  Thank you for bearing with me as I reminisce about my younger years.

Not a tall family.  My Mom was very tiny at less than a hundred pounds and she stretched it to say she was 5’ tall.  I always envied her petite size.  My Dad wasn’t very tall either, about 5’ 8”, and as a young man he was slightly built.  He tells that he was almost dropped from flight school because they told him that his weight wasn’t enough to deploy a parachute, a critical requirement if he ever had to eject from a plane.  He said that he ate lots of bananas, ice cream and everything he could get his hands on and when he re-weighed he was accepted.  But it always remained in his mind that if he ever had to eject from the plane, the parachute might not work for him.  In the end, he never did parachute out of a plane, but he did land several planes that he probably should have ejected from.  He related one incident in his memoirs when he took the plane in, saying he wasn’t able to eject:

“Before breakfast on Feb. 21, 1952, Maj. Carl Schmidt, our engineering officer, asked me to test fly one of the planes that had just come out of repair. I was only airborne about 10 minutes when I noticed fire by my feet.  I tried to call the tower and then realized that the fire had melted all my electronics including my airspeed indicator and radio.  I maneuvered close to the field to eject and found out the fire had also melted the lines to the canopy ejection system.  Unable to eject, my only choice was to put the aircraft down on a 3600-foot runway or the beach.  I elected the runway because I knew I needed someone to get me out of the aircraft. I could not lower my flaps, speed brakes or landing gear.  Not having any airspeed indicator I did not want to stall out and spin in so I held a lot of speed, people who saw it guessed 200 knots, and jammed it down on the very start of the runway and started shedding parts; tip tanks, wings and tail.  I used the whole runway and then some and came to rest about 200 feet off of the end of the runway. I started to take my 38 cal. Smith & Wesson, that we carried all the time, and try and shoot a hole to escape through in the canopy when an ordnance man, Cpl DeAngelo, saw my predicament and picked up a big rock and busted the canopy and hauled me out just in time, because after we had moved about 50 feet from the fuselage the ejection seat blew.  About that time the Chaplin came over to the crash site to give the pilot ‘Last Rites’ as he knew I could not of survived that crash.  I ended up with just a cut on my chin that took the Flight Surgeon three stitches to fix.”

Dad also told us that the medic told him that he was consequently entitled to a Purple Heart for his injury.  And Dad immediately said that he definitely did not want anything to do with that – as he was worried that Mom would get the communication and needlessly panic all over a cut to his chin!

My crazy Dad.  For some reason people either absolutely loved my Dad for his kind and generous heart; or they wanted to keep their distance from that crazy Marine!  I’ll share a few examples…

Surveyors in our pasture.  The pasture area of our ranch took up about half of the top of the mesa.  The other half of the mesa belonged to the Creel family, and old Mr Creel was our school bus driver.  At some point the Creel property was purchased by a developer.  One day Dad saw a pickup in our field next to the old Creel property and there were a couple of fellows hammering stakes into our field.  Dad rode up on his horse and asked what was going on.  He was told that they were subdividing the old Creel property for the new owner, that the fence was in the wrong place, and that some of our pasture belonged to the new owner.  Dad pulled up the stakes and told them to leave. 

The next day they were back putting stakes in our field.  Dad once again rode over and told them to leave and that the fence had been there as an accepted boundary for over 40 years.  They were more assertive this time and continued to drive stakes into the pasture.  So Dad told them that he was going over to the house to get a gun, and that he would be back and shoot out their truck tires so that when he called the sheriff their truck would be proof that they were trespassing on our property.  He did ride over to the house and get the gun, but the surveyors also quickly left the field.  They were staying in a trailer nearby on the Creel property, so Dad rode up to the trailer and knocked, but no one answered the door.  Someone looked out the window and Dad heard them say “It’s that Marine from the next ranch and he has a gun.”  Dad left, went back to the pasture, and pulled up the rest of the stakes throwing them over the fence.  They never came back.

 

A pig farm.  Years later a developer proposed putting up a multi-story building right next to our property line that would have obstructed the view of Sierra Blanca Mountain from my folks’ home. Dad protested saying that the property agreement between him and the developer prohibited just that, though I don’t know if that was true or not.  Dad then told the developer that he would put up a large sign that said “SCRIBNER PIG FARM” and get a few sows to corral along that fence boundary.  After that, no more was ever said about the project.

 

Private property.  One year during deer season, Jeff, my brother was out with Dad hunting down along Eagle Creek when they came around a bend and there was a hunter sitting there with his rifle propped up on a tree nearby.  Jeff tells that Dad asked the hunter if he knew where he was, and the response from the hunter was that he had permission to hunt there.  At that point, Dad informed the hunter that he was the owner of the property and that he was trespassing and should leave.  The hunter got sassy and told Dad that there was plenty of land and he wasn’t leaving.  According to Jeff, Dad’s response was to quietly pull up his rifle and blow the stock off of the other guy’s rifle that was leaning on the tree about two feet away from where he sat.  Dad said, “I guess that you are done hunting now.  You’d best leave.”  The hunter was shaken but he picked up the pieces that remained of his gun and quickly left.

 

A Red Cross volunteer.  My Dad served as the local Red Cross volunteer for Lincoln County in a capacity to facilitate getting military personnel home for family emergencies, usually the death of a family member.  During the time of the Vietnam War, I remember he would sometimes get a late call and go into his office where many phone calls later he would have arranged for emergency leave and a trip home for a soldier who was on deployment.  I think he did that job for twenty or thirty years. 

In 1978, my Air Force pilot husband, Marc, was in a serious airplane crash while on a military exercise in California, and I called home to let my parents know.  I told them that I was soon scheduled to be escorted by a fellow officer on a commercial flight from Arkansas (where we lived) to California; that Marc had a serious brain injury, was in surgery, and I would let them know when I found out more.  Unknown to me, Dad pulled out all of his contacts, verified how critical Marc’s condition was, and he found a way to beat me to California where he unexpectedly met my plane when I arrived. 

 

A ranch home.  By Christmas of 1963, we moved into our 5-bedroom home that Mom and Dad had been building on top of the mesa at our ranch in Alto.  Our new home had 3 fireplaces – and I still love a fire in the fireplace on cool winter evenings. Two of the fireplaces were made of rocks that Mom had picked up on the property.  She loved the stones that had a bit of green moss growing on them, and I remember her working with the stone mason to place those rocks the just way she wanted them. 

Our home also sported lots of wood paneling, Saltillo tile, green shag carpet (there was a rake attachment on the vacuum to use when vacuuming it), and avocado green appliances in the kitchen along with Mexican tile on the countertops.  The ranch house was a lovely home, and our family lived there until most of us had grown or left for college. 

A new home.  Once the family had begun to downsize, Mom and Dad decided that it was time for a simpler retired life.  They decided to sell most of the ranch property, and retain 10 acres on the opposite side of the mesa to build a new, smaller home where they lived together for the remainder of their lives. 

Both Mom and Dad died in January of 2006, following a lifetime of much love and adventure as true partners in life.

I was very fortunate to have so many wonderful times together with my parents and family whether at home or traveling.  And it has been a delight for me to write this last group of blog posts and relive those memories.

Once again, thank you for your patience during all of my musings as I shared my memories in these blog posts.  While I know that my siblings have enjoyed the reminiscing, it might not have been be as welcome to other readers.

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Key Individuals:

     Robert Gordon Scribner  (1923 – 2006)

     Ann Hart Hughes Scribner  (1921 – 2006)

               Jane Hughes Scribner Simonitsch McCrary (1953 – and more)

               and my four siblings:  Bob, Jeff, David and Mary Ann                       

- Jane Scribner McCrary