Research, FTM, Maps

I've been hunting through census records, working on my Hall line. As you know, the records from 1790 - 1840 only list the head of household name. I've been trying to match up all those little chicken scratches with known family members. I keep getting totals that don't add up. A child is missing. There are two more children than I expected. Entire families are hiding.

A good deal of what I know about the descendants of William Hall and Ruhamah Andrews comes from the surrogate record of their granddaughter, Laura Carter, which states:

Your petitioners have made diligent inquiry from descendants surviving relatives, known to them, to ascertain the names and residences of said decedents surviving relatives, but cannot ascertain them all.

I've already found mistakes with some of the relationships and names listed. I now believe that the Percy Cook listed was Pierce G Cook, based on information from Pierce's descendants. To complicate matters Pierce married Ursula Hall, who is not named in the surrogate record but is believed to be another descendant. Was she left out because she was married to a descendant and therefore it was unnecessary to list her separately? Was she simply overlooked? Or do we have her from the wrong Hall family?

I put my Hall tree up at Ancestry so my cousins could access it and I've found it much easier and faster to work on the tree online, so I guess I'm going to go with FTM 2010. At $40 it will have to wait until I start earning a paycheck again.

I had originally made the tree private and have now switched it to public in hopes of making a connection with someone who has more answers than I. It has been a couple of days now and it is still showing up in searches as private so I don't know how long it will be before others can see it and maybe make connections. (It is listed as public with a link from my profile page.) I have accepted many "Ancestry hints" of other trees, hoping that the new Member Connect function will alert me if those trees add something new and hopefully helpful.

I'm also loving that you can attach census records from certain years to an entire family at once. You do need to be careful that you're not adding duplicate individuals. For lines that are new to me it even adds spouses and children, so I can add several people in a minute or two rather then the 30 minutes it would have taken me on FTM 2008. Again, this feature must be used with caution.

Having had distant cousins contact me about a line I haven't worked on in a long time has really helped me see where I have mistakes and missing information.

In trying to locate some individuals in the census I have been looking in places where other family members were found. About 1830 the family really started to scatter so I have started on a google map that shows who was where when. Take a look and let me know what you think. Should I have created a separate map for each decade?


View Hall Family Migration in a larger map

Crabby Apple

I recently connected with some very distant cousins research my Hall line and I've spent the last week working on it. I hadn't looked at my file for some of the branches of this line for years so it was a very good thing they contacted me. When I first started out I made some very wrong assumptions and added them to my file. I spent a good part of last weekend going over that part of the tree and trying to fix it. Hoping I have it all untangled now and have everyone in the correct family. I continue to move laterally along the brickwalls in this line in hopes of finding that loose brick or two that will bring the whole thing down!

A big frustration was trying to fix both on file on my computer and my tree at ancestry.com. In reading Randy's article about FTM 2010 I think it will be much easier in the future, as I can work on just one tree and simply download it to the other. The thing is I have been very frustrated with FTM 2008 because it is sooooooooo slow. I hate to spend good money and still be unhappy. Several people have recommended that I switch to Roots Magic. I have to make a decsion soon.

I spent way too much time at FaceBook this week. I find myself reading blog articles there. Then I get them again in my reader. I also see lots of comments left at FB on blog articles rather then on the actual blogs. Before joining FB I had wondered if that was where the commenting had disappeared to. It's sad because comments left there aren't available to others reading reading the blog online.

I also have added We're Related to my page there. What is the point? I have yet to figure out how to look at anyone else's tree. It keeps asking me to add my "friends." I've added my sister and my nieces. I guess I could add Randy and Bill too now that I stop and think about it but what will it do if I do that? Will it then suggest that I become "friends" with all of their "friends." I haven't found a page that really explains what We're Related really does or how best to use it. I thought it might search other FB user's trees and see if we connect. FB continually suggests people that I should add as friends based on my friend's, friends. There was one suggestion seemingly out of the blue for another very distant cousin, who does not seem to be a friend of any of my other friends, so does that mean the program is working? There was no reference to We're Related. (I've sent her a friend request.) I have found other distant cousins on FB that it has not suggested and that I have not contacted yet. I guess I feel funny about saying, "Hey I'm your 3rd cousin, six times removed. Do you want to be friends?"

The whole friend thing still is weird to me. Maybe if they called it something else I'd be better with it. I'm also finding myself on information overload on FB. How on earth do those of you with several hundred friends manage!?

I feel guilty about the time I did not spend working outside this week. Even though it has been a cool, wet summer our summers here are too short to not spend as much time outside as we can. I'll try to get back to posting letters as I can. I really need to find some way to manage my time better for the next few weeks!