Beyond Basic Genealogy - Spotlight

 This link is for CLL Students Who are Taking the Beyond Basic Genealogy Class!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19TcyHDurckQGhUYH8FNCAe9umj7iJj4by0RRaZbGt20/pub

What's Wrong with This Picture?!!

1940 Census Okaloosa County

I have looked at hundreds of census images.  Can you guess why I am unhappy with this one?  "T.J" Barks was married to Rebecca Jane (nee Arnett).  She may have gone by "Becky".  Never before in my experience have I seen "Mrs."  so and so; well, I don't remember seeing it.  It's bad enough that men had to go by their initials.  It's bad enough that all of Southern society (or is it broader than that?) accepted the whole "initials, only" thing, but to call the wife, not by her given name but by her husband's initials?!!

Okay, I'm not that upset about it; after all at least I found them in the census and I do have to thank the enumerator for doing his job, kind of.  I do have the 1930 Census Record and a marriage record for additional sources, plus a death record for Rebecca.  What I'd really like is to have known some of these people. 

The fun in family history research is that every time you add one little tidbit of information to a person's profile, you are one step closer to cementing his or her identity.

1900 Bibb County Alabama (Jesse Winters Family)

I found the census record for George B. Winters (well, he was a child in the family of Jesse F. Winters), for both 1900 and 1910. For once the ages for George actually synced! He was 15 in 1900 and 25 in 1910.

In 1900, the family was located in Bibb County, Alabama. See above.

1910 Walker County Alabama Census

In 1910, they were located in Walker County, Alabama, where other members of Jesse's "nuclear" family were already living, and/or they were living also in Winston County, which is contiguous to Walker County.

Building a profile for the family, one individual at a time, is a labor of love.

You will catch yourself getting dizzy as you find and add new sources, then go from one to the other source, making sure the story lines up, and sometimes finding that it doesn't!

RootsMagic has been a great piece of software for my genealogy, as it lets you add so many different types of facts and documents. I track my census info by adding it as a "residence" fact. That way, I have the enumeration date of the census. I "peg" the individual's info and include the occupation if there is one, in the notes section. I've also, at times, added the occupation as fact, so that I can track that (folks often had more than one occupation and I like to add as much to that individual's profile as I can locate).

At the beginning, some of our family groups are a little bit lacking in information; the chart is nearly naked, here!  However, as we pursue records and evaluate the data, the result becomes more and more satisfying.

Starting Off: A Little Slim on the Pickins'