RootsWeb Review: RootsWeb's Weekly E-zine 23 June 2004, Vol. 7, No. 25, Circulation: 838,091+ (c) 1998-2004 RootsWeb.com, Inc. http://www.rootsweb.com/ * * * Editor: Myra Vanderpool Gormley, Certified Genealogist Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com Certification: http://www.bcgcertification.org/certification/ * * * =============================================================== IN THIS ISSUE: 1. NEWS AND NOTES 1a. Updating WorldConnect Trees: "Keeping up with the Joneses" 1b. Editor's Desk: Some Sites Worth Seeing: "Acronyms, Abbreviations, and Universal Time" 1c. Tips from Readers: "Recording Locations with GPS" 2. Connecting Through RootsWeb: "Board Connection Produces Treasures" 3. New RootsWeb Mailing Lists 4. New Webpages at RootsWeb 5. New/Updated FreePages and HomePages 6. New User-contributed Databases 7. RootsWeb Review's Bottomless Mailbag "Searching for Gravestones" "Bible Copying Tips" "Goodies in a Cookbook" "Expunging Family History" "Finding Disguised Ancestors" "Discovering Ancestors Hidden Under Spelling Variations" 8. Humor/Humour: "Kissing Cousins" 9. Submissions, Subscriptions, Advertising, Reprints =============================================================== 1. NEWS AND NOTES 1a. Updating WorldConnect Trees: Keeping up with the Joneses When you uploaded your WorldConnect GEDCOM (GEnealogical Data COMmunications) file, bet you prided yourself on that accomplishment and the meticulous research it took to compile your Welsh JONES family tree. While not perfect or complete by any means, you included every branch known to you at the time, including a vast array of grandparents and great-grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and allied and collateral family lines. Over time, your online tree accomplished exactly what you had hoped -- you have been contacted by many researchers by e-mail and via Post-em Notes. A few errors have been pointed out, and you have added several new branches to your JONES family, plus you've learned more about those distant cousins who left Wales many years ago and founded new family branches in North America, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. Perhaps it is time to clean up your WorldConnect tree by correcting a few factual errors or typos (oops, that marriage date should be 1843, not 1743!) and by adding some new information that your cousins have supplied. Want to change the manner in which locations are shown in your database to avoid confusing abbreviations since your database has become so international in scope? Good idea. It is best to show the full names of counties, provinces, parishes, states, and towns, as well as to include the countries. You might know where Boucherville, PQ is, but others might not recognize the abbreviation for Province of Quebec in Canada, and were you inconsistent in your early entries for this province -- using PQ sometimes and QC at other times? How about changing the way you show female spouses in your tree when their maiden names are not known? If you originally listed them as MNU -- for Maiden Name Unknown -- because you didn't know how else to do it, you might have confused researchers who thought they had a MNU family line. To indicate that a maiden name is unknown, scholarly genealogists use [--?--], which works well, and is recognized by most researchers. This format is especially valuable when dealing with a female ancestor who was a widow when she married your ancestor. Recording her as Mary [--?--] BROWN indicates that BROWN was a married name and that her maiden name is still unknown to you. Finding Your Old Trees If you have revised your family tree in your genealogy software program and the new JONES file is all ready and sitting there on your computer hard drive, what's the next step? If you are like many of us, you might have uploaded several trees and can't remember where or when. If you think you submitted a couple of trees to Ancestry.com and others to RootsWeb's WorldConnect, how can you figure out where to update your tree if you can't remember where you originally uploaded it? You are aware that the two databases are combined for viewing and searching and that you do not need to submit the same database to both as that creates duplicate trees, so what do you do? First, verify that you are submitting your tree to the right place. You can do this by checking your user code and password for your JONES tree at RootsWeb's Password Central by requesting your WorldConnect accounts: http://passwordcentral.rootsweb.com/ If your JONES tree account information is not included in the results you receive from Password Central, then you know it must have been submitted to Ancestry.com and you will have to go there to update it. However, if e-mail arrives from Password Central and your JONES tree is listed in the results, complete with user code and password for World- Connect, then you are ready to continue. If you have not created a GEDCOM file from the updated tree you wish to upload to WorldConnect -- be sure to do this now and make note of the path to (location of) the GEDCOM on your computer as WorldConnect will need to know where to find the updated file. The file you submit must be in a GEDCOM format or a zipped file created from your GEDCOM formatted file. Updating Your Tree at WorldConnect Head off to the main WorldConnect page: http://wc.rootsweb.com/ and click on the link that says: "Also, go here to update or correct your existing Family Tree." Type in your user code and password for your JONES tree and select either the standard or advanced setup page (based upon your preference) for updating your file. Review the account information already showing on this page to be certain that you are looking at the correct GEDCOM edit page -- your JONES file. Once you establish that you are on the right page with the correct account information, then find the LOCATION OF GEDCOM box on the setup page and either type in or browse to the path (on your computer) of the new updated GEDCOM file you wish to upload. WorldConnect must have this "path" information in order to know where to find the file you are uploading on your computer, as well as to know that you wish to upload a new, updated file as opposed to merely updating account options such as your e-mail address or title or header text. Update or change any of your account information on the WorldConnect setup page, if needed, then scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the UPLOAD/UPDATE option. Wait for the file to be transferred. You will receive a confirmation message when the updating is completed. It takes a short time for the file actually to be in place so that you can view it. Then check it to be certain all is as it should be. Keep in mind that the WorldConnect index takes a minimum of 24 hours to be updated. So, don't expect your changes to be reflected there by the search engine (even through the file itself is already updated) until the database is re-indexed by Global Search. That's all there is to it -- your new JONES tree will be online for the world to see. You can now rest assured that you are truly keeping up with the JONESes -- well, at least with your JONESes. * * * 1b. EDITOR'S DESK. Some Sites Worth Seeing A Dictionary of Quaternary Acronyms and Abbreviations: http://www.scirpus.ca/cgi-bin/dictqaa.cgi/ Abbreviations (country and regional locations) and Characters Codes (umlauted vowels and symbols) for RootsWeb.com Users: http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/codes/ What is UT -- Universal Time? http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/UT.html * * * 1c. TIPS FROM READERS Recording Locations with GPS By Mike Hurburgh in Australia Mark Hile of Richmond, Virginia (RootsWeb Review, 2 June 2004) has suggested an excellent idea for documenting the locations of cemeteries and other memorials. It certainly is feasible. In fact, some genealogical programs already have a facility for recording latitude and longitude against key locations. However, the Universal Mercator System (UTM) is not as universal as some think and all UTM systems are not the same -- different countries have applied it in various ways. (Yes, your newsletter is read outside the USA). Other readers have describe how useful the position coordinates are and how they can be used. But they assume that the waypoints they have recorded are precise, and can be used with any mapping system -- not so! You need to be careful how you record the positions and understand the limitations of the GPS unit you are using. You should be sure that you record them in a format compatible with the mapping system you intend to use, be it UTM or any other, and with the maps and aerial photos, etc. that you might want to incorporate your points with. That is why I suggest WGS coordinates (the fundamental coordinate system on which all GPS calculations are based) -- every worthwhile digital mapping system will be able to use them either directly or will be able to convert the values to and from their own system. And they can be used by every GPS unit when you head out to find that grave or other feature you have wanted to find for so long. This is not a simple subject. Advice should be sought from experts before investing too much time and money. Cheap hand-held GPS units are readily available and many outdoors people, particularly keen fishermen, have units or are experienced in using them. Most are less complicated than a mobile (cell) phone to use. However, to lead others precisely to a particular gravesite, you need to understand how the Global Positioning System works. There are about 30 satellites in orbit, sending out signals continuously. The hand-held unit receives the signal, and knowing the precise position of the satellite and the precise time the signal was sent (both sent in the signal), can calculate the precise distance from the satellite. By using many calculations to many satellites, the position of the GPS unit can be determined by simple (?) spherical trigonometry. A maximum of about 12 satellites will be above the horizon at any one time, but there may be only five or six available for short periods. As line of sight is required, a location in a valley or close to steep hills or large trees may restrict the number from which a signal can be received. At least six satellites are needed for a good fix of position. The geometry of the satellites also has to be considered. If they are not evenly spread around the sky, but concentrated in one sector, or if most are at a low altitude and none is high, then a good fix is not possible. Some units will tell you what satellites are visible, what direction they are, and what their altitude is. And now to define a good fix -- many cheaper hand-held units will only give a consistent position to about five metres (15 feet) with more than seven or eight satellites and good geometry. This means that defining a road intersection is not a problem, but fixing a particular grave by one reading may not be reliable. Don't be fooled by the readout on the GPS -- it may give a value to two decimal places, but that is just an instantaneous calculation -- 10 minutes later it could give you a position 10 metres away. To get a more reliable fix, take a few readings over at least half an hour, or come back for more readings later in the day, or even on another day. The mean of all the readings you take will be much closer to the true value than any one reading. Most GPS units will give a readout in latitude/longitude, in WGS coordinates, and in any local coordinate system for which the conversion parameters have to be entered into the unit. Specify the location using the first two systems, rather than a local system -- other visitors may not have the conversions for your local system in their GPS unit, but they will always have lat/long and WGS. Some other tricks you might use: Take readings at all the corners of the cemetery -- some GPS units have digital maps available, and the cemetery can thus be plotted on the base map and maybe printed out later. If you cannot get a direct reading on the grave itself (too close to a large tree, a wall or the church), pace away from it north, south, east or west until you can get a reading. Then record the location of the point you are at and the distance and direction to the grave. Taking it one step further, simple addition or subtraction of the distance (1 foot = 0.3 metres) from the WGS coordinates (in metres) will give you the actual position you wanted. The above is taken from my experience working as a land surveyor, using GPS for the last 10 years (but with GPS units having better than centimetre accuracy, and costing up to A$100,000). 2. Connecting Through RootsWeb. Thanks for sharing your stories. Board Connection Produces Treasures By Kathleen C. Kirk in Portland, Oregon I saw the article by Ted Pack in the 9 June RootsWeb Review about having someone drive to a cemetery and transcribe CADY information. We have just had a wonderful experience on the Message Boards with a woman named CADY. We have received the scrapbook mentioned there and are awaiting the arrival of Great-grandpa Billy's trunk. This is a very emotional happening for us all. Mrs. Cady is interested in genealogy, so I thought Ted might want to contact her. http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/message/an/surnames.kirk/1417 3. New Mailing Lists at RootsWeb Request a New Mailing List: http://resources.rootsweb.com/adopt/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Brand-new mailing lists can be found under OTHER/MISCELLANEOUS until moved to their proper categories. For information and an index to the more than 28,200 RootsWeb-hosted genealogy Mailing Lists and for easy subscribing (joining) options go to: http://lists.rootsweb.com/ NEW SURNAME MAILING LISTS BAGEN GONCE, GREALY HOLSINGER, HOUDESHELL HEMINGWAY-DNA (discussion of the HEMINGWAY DNA project) KIMBLETON LOOSE MCELVEEN, MCGRICE, MENEGAZZI STAMETIETHIS ZANUSSI NEW ETHNIC AND SPECIAL INTEREST MAILING LISTS NH-NORTHWOOD -- The Northwood (New Hampshire) Historical Society URL: http://www.rootsweb.com/~nhnhs 4. New Webpages at RootsWeb To Request a Free Web Account: http://accounts.rootsweb.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------- Some of these webpages might not yet be accessible. They are created by volunteers, so if one that interests you isn't up yet, please check again in a few days or next week. http://www.rootsweb.com/~[accountname] Note that the ~[tilde] before the Web account name is required. For example, the Esther Reed (Washington) Chapter website is at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~waercdar/ U.S.A. gacampb2 -- Campbell County (Georgia) gaclark2 -- Clarke County (Georgia) gacrawf2 -- Crawford County (Georgia) gagreen3 -- Greene County (Georgia) gajeffe2 -- Jefferson County (Georgia) inposey2 -- Posey County (Indiana) inwvgs -- Wabash Valley (Indiana) Genealogical Society nddunn2 -- Dunn County (North Dakota) ndhetti2 -- Hettinger County (North Dakota) ndrichl2 -- Richland County (North Dakota) ndtrail2 -- Traill County (North Dakota) njhswt -- Historical Society of Winslow Township (New Jersey) nytphg -- Town of Potter (New York) Historical Group orgofca -- Glenada-Oddfellows (Oregon) Cemetery Association txdrt -- Daughters of the Republic of Texas waercdar -- Esther Reed (Washington) Chapter DAR 5. New/Updated Freepages and Homepages -------------------------------------- LEHMANN, HUNDRIESER. LEHMANN family was from Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Germany -- came from the towns of Buetzow, Kuhs, Luedershagen, Boldebuck, Hoppenrade, Koelln; settled in Chicago, Illinois and Whittemore, Kossuth County, Iowa. HUNDRIESERs were from Putzig, West Prussia and Salzburg, Austria; went to Detroit, Michigan. Other surnames include: BELL, RIECHOW, PAEGELOW, COLLINS, YEREB, SOPLANDA, DALEY, BAAS, KOLLASCH, SIEMS, BEHNKE, WARKENTIN, EHLERS, BEHRENS, GLAEVKE, SCHMEIDEKAMPF, SIEVERT, KUEKER, and SCHULTZ. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~fkruse/Lehmann/ McCAFFREY. The history and genealogy of Bailey and Lydia McCAFFREY of Loudoun County, Virginia, Belmont and Lawrence counties, Ohio. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~dwoody/mccaffrey.htm McCORKLE. The history and genealogy of Samuel and Sarah McCORKLE of Colonial Augusta County, Virginia. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~dwoody/mccorkle.htm SHORT. The history and genealogy of Obediah and Leona SHORT of Patrick County, Virginia and Floyd County, Georgia. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~dwoody/short.htm WOODY. The history and genealogy of Henry and Susannah WOODY of Colonial Franklin County, Virginia. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~dwoody/woody.htm Note: Comments and questions about any of these independently authored webpages should be directed to their respective compilers/webmasters. When your new, updated, or substantially revised personal pages located at RootsWeb (they will have "freepages" or "homepages" in the URL) are up and ready for visitors, please send the URL (Web address), along with a brief description, including the major pertinent surnames and what is available on your site, to: Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com 6. New User-Contributed Databases at RootsWeb http://userdb.rootsweb.com/submit/ ---------------------------------------------- The following database has come online recently. It is searchable, but not browseable. Browse: To view the entire contents of a file or a group of files. Search: To look for specific data or occurrence of text in a file. GERMANY, Hessen. Bensheim. Catholic Church baptisms, 1759 through 1856, Schaider surnames; 356 records; Gary Womack http://userdb.rootsweb.com/deu/ 7. FROM ROOTSWEB REVIEW'S BOTTOMLESS MAILBAG [Editor's note: The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the editor or of RootsWeb.com]. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Searching for Gravestones By Patricia Haslam For those of you who are writing about not finding gravestones for their ancestors in a cemetery where they almost have to be: don't give up! Try to find a sexton or cemetery commissioner who can steer you to the written record books. We have in Stowe, Vermont an unofficial ledger written by a teacher who just sat down and copied from other records the "deaths and ages of Stowe people," in 1896. I have been comparing the entries in this damaged ledger against extant gravestone inscriptions and have found many more burials than there are gravestones in our three largest cemeteries alone. And then there are the official record books of burials. You might even be able to obtain permission to use a prod in a known family plot in the cemetery to find stones now buried. A cemetery commissioner would want to go along to supervise the process. * * * Bible Copying Tips By Melissa Swoager in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania Registrar, Col. Wm. Wallace Chapter, NSDAR I am the registrar for my chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Believe me, one of the most valuable and trusted sources of genealogical data is a Family Bible. But, while you're photocopying all of the birth/marriage/death records, be sure to photocopy the title page of the Bible, including the year of publication. A few pages of information without a source can be from anywhere, and a good genealogist will be sure to identify the source (along with who has the original Bible, where it can be found, and when you found this source). Taking the time to note the source at the beginning will save much backtracking later -- for you AND future generations! Also, in this age of divorce and blended families, if you are applying to a lineage society and have any children at all, please include the name and dates for "that person to whom I was married," whether or not you enjoy acknowledging him or her. You may only have sons, but they may have daughters someday, who will be so happy that their grandmother made their lineage a bit easier. * * * Goodies in a Cookbook By Sue Samotis When I was growing up I was never interested much in the things my dad would tell me about his mother or father, who had both died before I was born. It wasn't until I was in my 40s, and my own father had passed away, that I started wondering who his parents were and where they came from. I started with a few things I remembered him saying, like that his dad was from England, and his grandfather's name was John. I really wasn't finding much information with so little to go on, until my cousin showed me the things she had from her mother, who was a sister to my father. I felt like I had dug up buried treasure when she showed me pictures of my grandmother and grandfather, and a very special handwritten record that my grandmother had written on the back of a cookbook, with dates and names of all her children and her marriage date, and the information that she was in an orphan home prior to her marriage. I was shocked to see that there were 12 children, and most had not made it past childhood. I was able to copy all the pictures and info my cousin had and pass it on to my many relatives. What joy she gave me by sharing those pieces of our family history with me, she will never know! Now, each new piece of information I find on my ancestors is like digging up another treasure, and only those of us who truly love genealogy can know how that feels. My only wish is that one day, one of my children will gain the love that I have for this wonderful hobby and continue where I leave off. * * * Expunging Family History By Lois Ahntholz in Iowa Not always do our good intentions meet with kindness. I and two of my sisters have been doing family research for more than 25 years, and we have met and gotten to know some of the most wonderful, helpful people in the process. People have given us information, loaned us pictures, told family stories, opened their homes, and, in some cases, visited many times with us. In turn, we have shared the same kinds of information, pictures and stories with them. However, several months ago I ran into something I had never encountered before. We attended the 60th wedding anniversary of my husband's aunt and uncle and reconnected with his cousins, met their children and spouses, After we returned home, I noticed I did not have basic information on some of them. I wrote a letter to both the female cousins, who were divorced and married again, and asked if they would be so kind as to update the information on their family. I told them how much we enjoyed the party and the opportunity to reconnect with their families (since relationships with that family had been rather cold through the years since we were married 40 years ago). The day the cousin received the letter, she left a message on our answering machine to call her. When I did, I discovered how upset she was with the fact that her first husband was listed in a family history record. She said my sending those sheets brought back all kinds of memories and that her second husband is the only father her daughters "knew." (Her daughters were almost teenagers when she married the second time.) She asked where I had gotten the information and I told her I had copied it from a published history on the family done by someone else. I apologized repeatedly and told her I meant no harm. She requested I delete his information from my family history records, which I said I could do, but I assured her I had no intention of publishing my information. (What she doesn't know is there are probably hundreds of copies of this published history in the hands of relatives. I didn't tell her because I was afraid it would only upset her more.) I thought I handled it well, but then the next day, her current husband left a message. He yelled and called me every name in the book--told me I was not to send any more of those sheets, and if I had any requests like that he would personally come to our house and take care of my husband. The cousin had indicated in our conversation that her husband was not at the anniversary celebration because of the relationship with her parents. In my conversation with the cousin, I asked if her sister would have problems such as this with my request. She didn't know, and I've never heard from her. I choose not to have any more contact with any of them and if I see any of them again, I'll keep my distance. Somehow, someone in the family either gave the original information to the lady doing the history or she certainly could have dug it out of the public records in the area courthouses, newspapers, and church records, I don't see how a person can be "deleted" from a family history record, especially when that person is the parent of two children. Have RootsWeb Review readers encountered a request such as this before? If so, how was it handled? * * * Finding Disguised Ancestors By Carol Embesi For a couple of years, I couldn't find my Catherine WALDROP in Desoto or Tate counties in Mississippi in the 1870 census. I knew she was there. I just couldn't find her. Researching the husband of one of her daughters, I came upon a Catherine HOWARD. Guess what? This was my Catherine WALDROP. The children in her house in 1860 and 1880 matched perfectly. And, the husband of the child was two doors down. These census records have been recopied several times. Each record is subject to the interpretation of the person copying the record. How WALDROP became HOWARD is still a mystery to me, but it happened. So, if exact name and Soundex fail, use any means you can think of to access the record, including going line-by-line on the census. f you know they were there, they probably are. * * * Discovering Ancestors Hidden Under Spelling Variations By Richard May in Suffolk, UK There have been several articles recently on the "dark art" of searching for names. My story concerns my great-great-grandfather Stephen LAPWOOD -- a fairly straightforward name you would think and a relatively rare surname. I discovered from the, Familysearch.org website's 1881 UK census records, that he had been born in Sudbury, Suffolk in 1842. Living nearby, I phoned the Sudbury record office directly and they were very happy to search for his birth certificate. Unfortunately, they drew a complete blank, even checking variations such as LARWOOD, LAPPARD, and LAMPARD. These spellings had been suggested previously by a very helpful lady from New Zealand, who I had found via the Internet, and who has researched the family name over here. As happens with this hobby, I was now a touch deflated. Luckily the Sudbury library has microfiche of the local census records. I started with 1851, but a lengthy trawl found nothing. I wasn't going to find Stephen, but I figured that his parents must have been in the Sudbury area in 1841, so I tried that census. I knew from Stephen's marriage certificate (found via the FreeBMD website) that his father was Joseph. Again, I found no LAPWOODs, and then I stumbled across -- and nearly missed -- what looked from the handwriting like Joseph LAPPETT, Tallow Chandler (maker of candles from animal fat -- a very smelly job). The ages and dates seemed to fit and on contacting the record office again, sure enough, Stephen's birth certificate was found. I would never have thought of searching on LAPPETT, but thinking about the local accent "lapud" could easily end up written this way. I still don't know if the records have been written incorrectly (several times) or if the family changed its name. They were certainly all known as LAPWOOD from around 1860. As an aside, it was amazing to discover, totally out of the blue, that we now live only a few minutes from where my ancestors lived 160 years ago and now regularly tread the same streets. The family seems to have moved away by 1851 and no one in our family has lived in East Anglia since then. We had no idea when we moved here 12 years ago, that there was a connection. It is pure coincidence . . . or is it? 8. Humor/Humour: Kissing Cousins --------------------------------------------- Cousins marrying cousins: Very tangled roots. Cousins marrying cousins: A non-branching family tree. 9. Submissions, Subscriptions, Advertising, Reprints ----------------------------------------------------- The RootsWeb Review does not publish or answer genealogical queries, and the editor regrets that she is unable to provide any personal research assistance or advice. RootsWeb Review welcomes short (500 words or less) articles, humor, stories, or letters, and reserves the right to edit all submissions. All mail sent to the RootsWeb Review editor is considered to be for publication -- send in PLAIN TEXT (please, no attachments) to: Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com Search/download past issues of the RootsWeb Review: http://e-zine.rootsweb.com/ * * * SUBSCRIPTIONS. To manage your e-mail communications (i.e. to subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter, or to sign up for others), visit our newsletter management center any time at: http://newsletters.rootsweb.com/ The RootsWeb Review is a free publication of MyFamily.com, Inc., 360 West 4800 North, Provo, UT, 84604 * * * ROOTSWEB REVIEW ADVERTISING CONTACTS. Ad Sales Operations Mgr. Shana Davis sdavis@myfamilyinc.com U.S., Worldwide Sales: Sacha Yenkana syenkana@myfamilyinc.com * * * REPRINTS. Permission to reprint articles from RootsWeb Review is granted unless specifically stated otherwise, provided: (1) the reprint is used for non-commercial, educational purposes; and (2) the following notice appears at the end of the article: Previously published in RootsWeb Review: 23 June 2004, Vol. 7, No. 25. * * * *