Quarter in Review

Since I haven't been blogging much since Christmas, I thought I would give everyone a quarterly update of what I have been doing. Of course, there was the RootsMagic Genealogy Cruise in February, but I've been holding off on posting about that until I get my pictures on the computer. It was awesome to meet Bruce Buzbee and his family, George Morgan, Drew Smith, Gary Smith, Diana Crisman Smith, and all the new genealogy buddies I met on the cruise. I even found out that Bruce had read my blog prior to the cruise! I wrote several posts in late summer/early fall comparing RootsMagic and Legacy. But I'll refrain from posting too many details until I get the pics up because it would be much more fun to post with cruise pics.

My main project since the fall has been cleaning up my new RootsMagic database. First of all, I never completely finished entering everything in my Legacy database before transferring to RootsMagic in September 2009. Plus, everything I had entered in Legacy was mostly entered in Legacy 6.0 beginning in the fall of 2007. In December 2008, Legacy released a new version called Legacy 7.0, which included source templates based on Evidence Explained. I had never finished updating my sources in Legacy 7.0 to the new templates when I transferred over to RootsMagic. Too much transferring, but I am finally satisfied with RootsMagic. My goal now is to clean up what I do have in RootsMagic before entering the rest of my research. By clean up, I mean fixing my sources to match Evidence Explained citations, cleaning up the master source list, adding detail text and media to my source citations, and adding detail comments, when necessary. Of course, I cannot help myself and have been adding new sources to the database as well that I've found on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch. I'm also cleaning up the events lists for many of my ancestors.

I cleaned up the sources and events for my parents, myself, and my siblings first. Then I started working on those for my brother-in-law's family, going in the order of the ahnentafel numbering system. Since he joined the family in October 2008, I've been doing research on both his paternal and maternal lines. It's always fun to start researching a new family, isn't it? In the first quarter of 2010, I completed the following in my clean-up process:

1) Cleaned up all sources for my brother-in-law's parents and siblings.

2) Cleaned up sources and events for my brother-in-law's paternal grandparents, Peter Louis DeLUCA, Jr. (1916-2003) and Gertrude "Ernestine" HARTMAN (1917-2009). Found his grandparents in the 1939 St. Louis city directory, as well as 1941 and 1942 city directories for Coldwater, Michigan. Added these city directory source citations to my database. Also added Ernestine's obituary that I found online in The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, California) as a source citation for her death, burial, marriage, and birth.

3) Cleaned up sources and events for my brother-in-law's maternal grandparents, Gerald Frederick ROBERTS (1907-1988) and Eula HASTE (1903-1984). Found them in 1940, 1942, 1947-1948, and 1959 city directories for San Diego. Also found Gerald with his brother and mother in 1928, 1930, 1933, and 1934 city directories for Buffalo, New York and with his mother in the 1937 San Diego city directory. Found Eula in voter's registration lists for San Diego from 1924 to 1944. Added city directories and voter's registration lists as sources in my database.

4) Cleaned up sources and events for my brother-in-law's great-grandparents, Peter Louis DeLUCA, Sr. (1877/78-1945) and Clementina TRILLO (1886-1967). Found a funeral notice for Peter in the L.A. Times. Still need to add this to my database as a source.

5) Cleaned up sources and events for my brother-in-law's great-grandparents, Ralph Allen HARTMAN (1890-1930) and Inez SEE (1886-1974). Found Ralph in the 1895 and 1905 Kansas state census records. Added Ralph's death certificate from Illinois that I found on microfilm at the FHC a few months ago. Added a more legible copy of their marriage certificate from 1914 in Shannon County, Missouri, that I found on microfilm at the FHC. I had found the marriage certificate on Ancestry.com, but it was very faded and hard to read. Also added Inez's entry in the SSDI as a source.

6) Cleaned up sources and events for my brother-in-law's great-grandparents, George John ROBERTS (abt 1871-1908) and Catherine/Kathleen Sophia McGRATH (1877-1967). Found George and Catherine's marriage certificate from 1905 in Toronto, Canada. Found that the names of George's parents Thomas ROBERTS and Mary J. RUSSELL, but there was no clue as to what part of England George was from. Found that Catherine's parents were Felix McGRATH and Mary BARRETT and that Catherine was born in Quebec. Then found sources for Catherine's birth and baptism as well as that of all her siblings, her parent's marriage, some of her siblings' marriages, and her parent's burials and deaths in the Quebec church records at Ancestry.com. Found Catherine's entry in the California Death Index at Ancestry.com.

7) Cleaned up sources and events for my brother-in-law's great-grandparents, William Meadows HASTE (1861-1938) and Ella Olena GAMMILL (1872-1929). Found William and Ella's marriage record from 1894 in Benton County, Arkansas, at the new marriage record collection for Arkansas counties at FamilySearch. Found a FindAGrave entry for their daughter, Mimi HASTE, in Mt. Hope Cemetery in San Diego, and one for their son, Myron HASTE, at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego. Learned Mimi died in 1918 at the age of 19, info which I previously didn't have. Also found newspaper articles about William's purchase of the Bank Hotel in Deming, Luna, New Mexico, in 1912, and his opening of an electrical supply and general contractor business in Deming in 1914. This helped explain why their oldest son, Glenn Roy HASTE, lived in New Mexico while the rest of the family lived in San Diego in 1930. It also helped explain why their oldest daughter, Gladys HASTE, married a guy who lived in Deming at the time of the WWI draft registration. I had previously thought they moved from Arkansas to Louisiana to California. Seems like they stopped in New Mexico on the way. Found William in voter's registration lists from 1922 to 1938 in San Diego.

Phew! Now that I've got the grandparents and great-grandparents done, I'm working on cleaning up the sources and events for the great-great-grandparents of my brother-in-law. A genealogist's work is never finished! I hope to provide updates every 2 weeks or so going forward.

It Has Been Awhile..

I've recently noticed that I haven't blogged since Christmas Eve! I'm not quite sure what happened. I guess that my company announced it was moving and everything has been crazy at work ever since. It's mostly because I'm an accountant (the only staff accountant) and the beginning of the year is always stressful. On top of that, it's difficult to work because everyone is still abuzz with the moving news.

I even missed my blogoversary on January 26. My blog is now one year old. Yay! Hopefully, I will be getting back to regular blogging shortly.

I now have some even bigger news...this time it is actually genealogy related! My sister and brother-in-law in California are expecting their first child in September! I'm going to be an aunt for the very first time! I'm very EXCITED!!

I have managed to do some genealogy work in the meantime. In the fall, I decided to switch from Legacy software to RootsMagic software. I imported my Legacy database into RootsMagic, but the sources translated incorrectly, so I've been doing some clean up with those. I needed to do some cleanup with those anyway because Legacy switched to source templates based upon Elizabeth Shown Mills' Evidence Explained when upgrading from Legacy 6.0 to 7.0. I never did convert some of my sources from Legacy 6.0 to the 7.0 standards. I love that I can create brand new source templates in RootsMagic, which I couldn't do in Legacy 7.0. It takes some patience, but it's well worth the end result. The only thing I miss from Legacy 7.0 is the reporting and publishing features. I think Legacy 7.0 definitely had more advanced reporting and publishing features. RootsMagic is annoying me with its reporting features because when I share an event, such as a christening, with the godparents involved, the christening shows up on the godparents' family group sheets as if it were their own christening. Hopefully, RootsMagic will fix that feature soon. I know that sharing events is a new feature, so it is probably just a bug that needs to be worked out.

I decided that I would finish tweaking the sources in RootsMagic before doing any further research on anyone else, but I just can't help myself sometimes. I've been finding info on my brother-in-law's McGRATH ancestors, who immigrated from Ireland to Canada sometime prior to 1850. His great-grandmother was Katherine/Kathleen Sophia McGRATH, who was born 20 May 1877 and was baptized 3 Jun 1877 at St. Stephen Catholic Church in Old Chelsea, Quebec. I just found her baptism record at Ancestry.com in the "Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967" collection. I've also found the baptism records for all of Catherine's siblings and the marriage record of her parents, so I've been entering those in my RootsMagic database as well. Her parents were Felix McGRATH and Mary BARRETT, who were married in St. Stephen's Church on 12 May 1870. Catherine was the fourth of nine children born to Felix and Mary. I've also found the census records for Catherine at Ancestry.com for 1881, 1891, and 1901. Catherine married George John ROBERTS of England on 27 Apr 1904 in Hamilton, Ontario. She became the mother of my brother-in-law's maternal grandfather, Gerald Frederick ROBERTS, who was born on 6 Jul 1907 in Hamilton. In 1927, Catherine, Gerald, and his older brother, Thomas Felix ROBERTS, immigrated to Buffalo, New York, where Gerald began working as an electrician for Consolidated Aircraft Corporation. When Consolidated Aircraft Corporation moved it's headquarters from Buffalo to San Diego, it appears that Catherine and Gerald followed suit, and that is how the family ended up in California. Now, I wonder if my descendants will be able to figure out that I ended up in North Carolina due to my company's headquarters moving...thank goodness for city directories!

Well, that is a little short synopsis of my genealogy musings of late! I will be heading out next Saturday for Miami for the RootsMagic Valentine's Cruise! This is my first genealogy conference, so I'm very excited! My mom is going with me, though she will not be participating in the seminars. We will have two full days of classes on the days at sea and one half day of classes while in port one day. We will be stopping in Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and Cozumel, as well as Royal Caribbean's private resort at Labadee, Haiti. There has been much controversy in the news about Royal Caribbean's decision to continue docking in Haiti during this time of crisis. Their argument is that they are helping the Haitian economy and that it would be more devastating if they did not dock there. I'm not sure if I will be getting off the ship in Haiti or not, especially since that is our day of half day classes, but I have several excursions planned for the rest of the ports. In Jamaica, Mom and I will be visiting two waterfalls, including Dunn's River Falls, and doing some shopping. In the Cayman Islands, we will be visiting Seven Mile Beach, which is ranked one of the best beaches in the world. In Cozumel, we will be visiting the private beach at Passion Island, which is the shore excursion I'm most excited about. As for the classes, probably what I'm most excited about is an opportunity to meet George and Drew of the Genealogy Guys Podcast, who will be speakers for some of the classes. I'll report on the classes and post pics when I get back on February 21!

Anyhow, I need to go for now. Just wanted to catch everyone up on what is going on! Hopefully, I will be back to regular blogging now.