DAR

If you had an ancestor who was born between 1715-1767 in the American Colonies, there is a good chance that they served in the Revolutionary War. The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is a lineage society you can join if you have ancestors that served in the American Revolution. Applicants need to prove through documentation that they are a direct descendant of that ancestor. It is this proof documentation that makes the DAR an essential resource for your family history and is available to nonmembers to purchase as a download.

Documentation can be personal letters, pages from Bibles, obituaries, etc. and is scrutinized by professional genealogists for accuracy. Legacy Family Tree Webinars recently had an excellent webinar on the DAR by Rick Sayre. Sayre mentioned in this webinar that there are 205 new members added to DAR each week and 55 NEW patriots added each month. That is a lot of documentation proving ancestry for new members. There are also 7,100,000 descendants listed in this database.

On the DAR home page (ww.dar.org), you need to:

· Click on the green GRS tab at the very top. This tab will take you to their Genealogical Research System. This system is up-to-date and replaces the DAR index books.

· After you enter the GRS system, you need to click on the Ancestor tab. This tab will take you to a search page where there is a search box to search for ancestors. Even though there are red asterisks that indicate you must have information in a field, I was still able to search with just a last name.

I choose an ancestor’s last name of Sleeper and found fourteen different Sleepers listed. I chose my ancestor David Sleeper and found that around forty of his descendants had joined the DAR using his Revolutionary War Service. On this page is the column Nat’l Num. This is the DAR member number. The larger the number, the more accurate the documentation. I clicked on member 919051, and for $30 I can get both the lineage and the ten pages of documentation used to prove this lineage to downloaded to my computer. On the Bible tab by the Ancestor tab, I found that someone had used a page from David Sleeper’s Bible to prove their relationship. I can also purchase a copy of this page.

Don’t overlook this underused resource to aid you in expanding your family history!

New York Immigration Records

Most American family stories begin with an immigrant. Who are your immigrants? When did they arrive? Where did they come from? Luckily, immigrants created a wealth of information, whether it is from their immigration voyage or trying to become an American citizen.

FamilySearch has the complete New York immigration records online. These records document 63.7 million people who arrived in the United States between 1820 and 1957. These records have become available through a partnership with FamilySearch and the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation.

FamilySearch has divided this collection into three parts.

· New York Passenger Lists (Castle Garden) 1820-1891

· New York Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island) 1892-1924

· New York, New York Passenger and Crew Lists 1925-1957

The first part covers Castle Garden that was in operation before Elis Island. More than 100 million Americans arrived during this time. Each arriving ship had a passenger list and filed it with customs officials.

The federal government then took control of all ports of entry and the processing of immigrants into the United States. The government closed Castle Garden and moved the processing of immigrants to Ellis Island. Ellis Island was an isolated island to protect U.S. citizens from exposure to diseases that many of the immigrants carried with them.

The third part includes immigrants arriving at New York airports. Many immigrants during this time were from Italy, Russia, Hungary, Austria, Germany, England, Ireland, Sweden, and Greece.

The ship records list passenger names, age, last place of residence, American sponsor, port of departure, and date of arrival in New York. They may even include a photograph. By studying every detail in these records, you may find clues to further your research. You may find the names and addresses of family members in the U.S. and the old country.

Search for your ancestor by name, age, date of arrival, and country of origin. Your ancestor may not have used their Americanized version of their name, and so it is essential to know the ethnic equivalents. Also, watch for other passengers from the same locality. They may be relatives. If your ancestor was alive after 1900, look for them in 1900, 1910, 1920, or 1930 census that includes immigration and naturalization details that may help in your search.

What is your immigrant’s story? Search these records and learn more about them, why they immigrated and the sacrifices they made to become an American. Their story is your story.

Thomas Philbrick vs. Goody Cole

At my house, Halloween brings about the question of whether we had any ancestors that participated in the Salem Witch Trials. This is an excellent opportunity to share ancestor stories, good or bad, with my children. The witch trials were a tragic chapter in American history but are a great lesson on how important tolerance is in our society.

The superstitions and fear of witches brought by settlers from England became a fundamental part of New England society. But it was the Puritans who conducted the trials and executed those whom they declared guilty. As life in the new world became difficult, the Puritans blamed witches for all their problems. They concluded that eliminating witches from their society was the only way to survive. Enclycopedia.com has a great article, “Witch-Hunts in Puritan England,” that explains this part of American History well.

It was in this setting that we meet Goody Cole. Eunice “Goody” Cole lived in Hampton, New Hampshire. Not all witch trials took place in Salem, Massachusetts. Goody Cole’s problem was that she was an unpleasant woman to be around. She was older and had a sharp tongue and took advantage of the local’s superstitions and frightened them by making terrifying prophecies.

Goody Cole warned Thomas Philbrick (my 9th Great Grandfather) that if his calves got into her place once more, she would poison them or choke them. He never saw one of his calves again, and another one got sick and died. Because of this and other incidents in the town, Goody Cole found herself before the court in 1656. Many testified against her, and she was found guilty. 

 

Goody Cole eventually released from prison and soon after passed away. The townspeople quickly buried her in a deep hole by a ditch that was too unclean for consecrated ground. The people fashioned a long stake with a horseshoe nailed to the end of it, and they drove the stake through her heart as protection from her witchcraft. Her grave was left unmarked. Her life inspired the poem by John Greenleaf Whittier, The Wreck of Rivermouth. In 1938, the town of Hampton, New Hampshire declared her innocent.

Relative Finder (www.relativefinder.org) will search through your FamilySearch database and look for your ancestors who were part of the Salem Witch Trials. By searching Google, you can find stories like the one I found about Goody Cole, witch, and Thomas Philbrick, witch accuser.

Who is on Your Ofrenda?

Pixar’s movie Coco, currently on Netflix, was a hit at Rootstech 2018. It is a family movie about a boy’s adventure with Dia de Los Muertos or Day of the Dead. Dia de Los Muertos is celebrated October 31 – November 2. The movie Coco shows how essential it is that we remember our ancestors and build a connection that goes beyond names and dates.

On the FamilySearch Blog is an article “Dia de Muertos: A Day to Honor Your Ancestors” by Jose Lopez. He tells about how his family in Guatemala would fly kites to “symbolize sending messages to loved ones who have left this life.” Another tradition was the decorating the tombs of ancestors. Many add flowers and skulls to their ancestor’s graves. Families would clean the graves and decorate them with not only marigolds but photos, mementos, and the ancestor’s favorite food. This was done to attract the spirits of deceased ancestors whom they believe visits them during this festival.

Dia de Los Muertos is a great time to remember our ancestors and preserve their memories. We can share stories about our ancestors and add those stories to FamilySearch. We can scan photos to share by adding them to FamilySearch; or use the Memories app for on-the-spot sharing. It would be easy to make this Day of the Dead a day to add memories to FamilySearch and make it an annual tradition.

An important part of the Day of the Dead is the Ofrenda. An Ofrenda is a display that families create to honor their ancestors; it helps keep their memories alive. You can honor a different ancestor each year, or several ancestors. Each Ofrenda is different so have fun with your unique design. It can be as simple as pictures of parents, grandparents, great grandparents, along with some types of food and drink they enjoyed. Some people include on their Ofrenda Marigolds, candles and of course sugar skulls. You might get creative and add the name of your ancestor across the forehead of the skull. Pinterest has new and fun ideas of how people assemble their family’s Ofrenda.

Dia de Los Muertos is an excellent opportunity to honor and pay tribute to the lives of our deceased loved ones by keeping their memories alive. This is an occasion to create fun memories with your children and grandchildren, let your hair down and have a party!

Tips for using FamilySearch Record Hints

The computer age is great for genealogy as technology allows us to research as we sleep, work, and play. FamilySearch uses algorithms to search its vast amount of records to determine if they match the people in your family tree. The FamilySearch blog article “Use Record Hints” states that “FamilySearch is constantly scouring their digitized, indexed records to identify records that may match your family—and these blue boxes signal to you that they might have succeeded.”

When dealing with record hints, it is important to remember:

· Information on the Record Hint may not be right.

· If you are not sure the Record Hint matches your person, don’t attach it.

· Don’t attach the Record Hint without looking at the actual record. Remember, the image often has more information than the index, and you can usually learn new details about the person and their family. Many researchers are finding that if they print off a family group record with the sources included they will find more information such as birth, death, and marriages with complete dates. This information may consist of spouses for your couple’s children too. Some have found children they did not know existed.

· If there is more information on the Record Hint, but it doesn’t give you the option to “Add” it over, go back to the person’s main profile page, and add it yourself. Having a notebook nearby is helpful to write down the information you need to add to your person as you study the Record Hint.

· Many records in FamilySearch are indexed more than once. Still, attach the record even if that means there will be two or three of the same record.

· There are many significant databases not accessed by the Record Hints. Many databases have not been indexed yet and are image only, so you will have to search them yourself.

· You need to standardize the dates are as follows: day, the full name of the month, and year. The location needs to be standardized too. FamilySearch will give you a hint on how they want this information standardized. If your data is standardized, you will get more record hints.

If you clean up your family tree by standardizing your information, the algorithms FamilySearch uses can find more Record Hints. This allows FamilySearch to research for you as you sleep helping you find more ancestors. Technology is amazing!

Christmas Ideas

With Christmas just around the corner, it is time to think of some fun genealogy gifts that are treasured for years to come. Even though fifteen weeks may seem like plenty of time to prepare for Christmas, some presents take time to create. The two ideas in today's article will take some time to make but are well worth the enjoyment that they bring.

A great gift is to create a book about your ancestors that your children and grandchildren will want to read. Ancestors at a Glance is a book where you create just one page for the ancestor you wish to highlight. The book I made included all my pioneer ancestors. I added only one favorite story to highlight and kept the story on one page. I also included a photo and birth and death statistics on each ancestor. I put the husband on one side of the page and the wife on the back side and the second page would have a family group record for the family. By doing it this way, it kept the book simple, and your children and grandchildren are more likely to read one page rather than a large book. It may also create an interest in their ancestors where they are more likely to pick up a larger book and read about them.

If you lack stories, a good place to look is FamilySearch. Many are putting their ancestors’ stories, and photos on FamilySearch and these are just perfect for a book like Ancestors at a Glance. Google is another good resource to use to find stories and photos to use.

A twist to a book like this is to group your ancestors’ stories into a book of virtues. “Responsibility. Courage. Compassion. Honesty. Friendship. Persistence. Faith. In order for our children to develop such traits, we have to offer them examples of good and bad, right and wrong.” This is a description of William J. Bennett’s Book of Virtues from Amazon.com and a great example on how you can put together your own virtues book. You can add other virtues such as prayerful. A book like this makes an excellent resource for children to use for talks in Primary, church, and on other occasions. We can learn compassion from Grandpa’s story on how he used compassion to help in a difficult situation.

Books like these make the best Christmas presents!

Changes in FamilySearch’s Family Tree Person Page

If you look at FamilySearch’s Family Tree, you will notice a new look. FamilySearch has given their Person Page a big update. At first glance, it seems the same, but as you study the page, you will notice a lot of changes. FamilySearch states that these changes “will make learning about your ancestors easier than ever before.”

The menu tab across the top of the page now includes buttons that take you to Details, Time Line, Sources, Collaborate, Memories, and Ordinances. These tabs include the number of documents in Sources, Collaborate, and Memories.

The Time Line section is new and is a great tool that gives you a glimpse of your ancestor’s life in context. This timeline helps you to identify missing events. It even adds the record hints that may lead you to sources to help fill in the missing events. There is a map function inside the timeline section too, and this shows where events and the record hints included in the timeline took place.

The Collaborate tab now contains the previous notes and discussions. This is great that they kept these. There can be valuable research information included in these notes and discussions.

There are edit buttons visible next to the information on your ancestor. This makes it easier to edit the information. It also lists the number of sources used to verify the vital information. If there are no sources on the date of birth, this is a good heads-up on where you need to research next. The Data Problems alert not only lets you know if your data is not formatted correctly but will alert you to possible duplicates and includes a number to show you the number of issues with this alert.

Another nice feature is the number included with the Record Hints tab. If you have ever tried to add record hints and the hints seem to go on forever, you can now see the actual number of hints you need to check out.

These changes are a great asset to FamilySearch. They help you to see where research is lacking and what information has no sources. Now at first glance, we can see what information is reliable and what is not. By adding a timeline and map section, we can see our gaps in information on our ancestors in a more visual way.