Shakin' the Family Tree

I want to be like them...

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 01:08:49 GMT

Well, not really, I'd just like to have the free time they do.

Like this chick on FAG who has the time to count the number of someone else's memorials that are listed as "burial unknown."

On the bright side, I bet she has all her holiday presents bought and wrapped, and can tell you which of her neighbors are woefully inadequate in that regard...

Geez...

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Tombstone Tuesday: He did it again...

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 02:22:55 GMT

Find a Grave volunteer Larry Hart went back to Union Cemetery in Panola Co., MS, and got the rest of the gravestone photos in what must have been the Conner family plot.

He emailed me to let me know, so I could create memorials for them.

Then he posted his photos.

William Henry Conner, 1808-1858, my 3rd great grandfather.

Elizabeth Curtis Conner, my 3rd great grandmother.

Henry Conner, 1874-1874, and Claudius Conner, 1876-1876, baby sons of James Alfred Conner, one of William and Elizabeth's sons.

And then he sent me the photos he took by email.

You just don't very often run across people like Mr. Hart.

When you do, you've found a real gem.

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Find a Grave "suggest a corrections"

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 15:00:33 GMT

I've had an account at Find a Grave for several years now.

I try to deal promptly with corrections for my records suggested by other folks, but there are things I won't do.

I will not copy and paste every census transcription for the deceased's natural life into the bio section.

I don't do verbatim transcription of obituaries unless I am sure that 1) there's not going to be a copyright infringement issue; and 2) I'm not making names of living survivors searchable.

Friday, I got another request from someone to add the cause of death cited in a news article to the bio field. The requestor had already asked me to do that several months ago, and I declined.

So she was asking again.

I emailed her and told her that I prefer to use the bio field for a real bio - information about the person while they were living, to flesh them out as a 3 dimensional human being - and I didn't think adding that this individual died of pneumonia contributed to that.

I also offered to transfer the record to her in the event that she felt very strongly that the record just could not be complete without the cause of death.

Haven't heard back from her...

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Why all the negative energy?

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 14:28:48 GMT

I hope this post doesn't wind up sounding like a rant. I would only be adding to the negative energy I found this morning.

I found a genealogy blog solely devoted to making fun of people who have errors in their published family trees.

Who among us has not found a published family tree containing our own ancestors?

And maybe contacted the owner, providing correct information, and offering to untangle some limbs?

And maybe getting no reply at all, or perhaps one that hotly defends the errors?

And maybe we blog about it. That, I get.

What I do not get is the significant investment of time and energy expended in searching out family trees unrelated to my own, looking for obvious errors and broadcasting it in a blog solely devoted to sarcastic fingerpointing.

AND failing at the same time to provide the correct information.

Because we all know that some folks just seize on a string of search results and re-publish them, compounding the error.

So what's accomplished by that?

Of course, I have to consider where I found the link to the referenced blog.

At the Find-a-Grave forums. Where more often than not, all that's going on is negative.

I had gone there to see how far behind the cemetery fix-it thread was.

And ran across one of those discussion threads where someone with way too much time on their hands was asking...

Look at this photo and see if you think it's a post-mortem photo...you can't see a casket, but I'm just sure it's a post-mortem photo...

Because Find-a-Grave does not permit post-mortem photos on its grave records, and someone just might need to be cyber-whipped.

One commenter pointed out that the subject's eyes could have been closed when the photo was taken.

A couple of commenters tried valiantly to talk about the differences in burial and mourning rituals in other cultures, and in western US culture over history.

Then, words like creepy, jarring, physically repulsed, SCARY (caps in original), and disturbing started creeping into the comments.

And all I could think about was the wonderful work of the volunteer photographers at Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, who give modern day grieving parents a tastefully photographed portrait of their deceased child - the only one they will ever have.

I understand the rules at Find-a-Grave. But where is all the judgement coming from?

If you don't want to see a post-mortem photo, don't look.

But don't judge the family for having it.

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Anniversary of "Shakin' the Family Tree"...

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 15:13:02 GMT

The first anniversary will be tomorrow.

Technically, about 6 p.m. tomorrow night. I was piled up on the couch with the laptop and a bowl of candy for the trick or treaters when I had my Nike moment.

Just do it.

390 blog posts.

That's not bad.

It's the number of comments that blows me away, though.

791.

From people all over the United States and a few from the United Kingdom, if Google Analytics is correct.

That's 791 times someone has stopped by and felt enough for what they were reading to comment about it - offering words of encouragement, tips and tricks to help me break down a brick wall, or to say something to the effect of...

I think we are related.

I used to keep count of how many people made contact with me through my online genealogy activities.

Before I started this blog, those contacts were made through post-ems and emails about my family tree hosted at Rootsweb, or through my posting activities at Find A Grave.

Since starting this blog, I've lost count of the contacts I've gotten this year, and exactly where they came from. This year, there have been weeks I've received contacts in the double digits. (Sometimes, I take a day off from my day job to deal with those, because I think it's important to reply to everyone who contacts me in a timely fashion.)

People have gotten a lot more tech-savvy and I have cross-linked from every online genealogy profile I have, so usually, when they find me here, they also find me there.

If you are one of those people who has stopped by and taken the time to comment, I want to thank you.

I am honored that you took the time.

If you are one of the people who just comes by to read, and you're kind of hanging out in cyberspace, wondering if blogging could help you along in your family history search, maybe it's time for your Nike moment.

Just do it.

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Tombstone Tuesday: Online Stroll

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 16:50:42 GMT

This is for me one of the more interesting features of Find a Grave...

The online stroll, where you can use the arrow keys on the top of the random record to move back and forth through online burial records that have been submitted to the online stroll database for that purpose.

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