Anecdote

My fiancé’s grandfather, E.A., was a businessman in Alabama. He also traveled up north in the 1930s or so to the Chicago area. E.A. married and divorced two women up there, and had a girl with the first wife and a boy with the second wife. He died a wealthy man in the south before my fiancé was born, and the daughter, much older than her younger brother, was the executor of his estate. She usurped all of the estate when my fiancé’s father died a few years later, leaving my fiancé and his brother with no legacy of their grandfather.

His Family

My fiancé wanted me to help him search for his family history. His parents separated when he was a baby and he didn’t know much about his father’s side. His mother’s side was sketchy as well. So, I searched for his father’s side, as they had an unusual last name.

The main information I had to go on was a probate case letter my fiancé had. He was supposed to go down to Alabama to contest the local gas company’s seizure of family land (per imminent domain), but he was a minor and his mother did not pursue the matter further. I searched the probate case on the county’s court website, and they had the judgment online. The judgment was in favor of the gas company; however, the real value was that I had the names of everyone who had claim to the land. This included my fiancé’s father and grandfather.

I found my fiancé’s father and grandfather on the social security death index (SSDI), and I will soon be sending out for their applications. However, finding his grandfather on the old census was a little troublesome. See, his name was E.A. on the SSDI, but the only person that I could find in the census with the same birth year was R.A., which was the same name of my fiancé’s father. Plus, R.A. was living with relatives and not with his immediate family. However, after hours of tracing, I determined that R.A. was probably E.A., and I could ascertain that W.A. was his father, since he was listed as W.A.’s son in the following census. I still have to verify this with my fiancé’s family members in Alabama, if we can ever get a hold of them.

Now, going further gets tricky. I can’t find W.A. or his parents before 1900 (he was born in the tricky 1880s). In addition, the mulatto/black A.’s that lived in the area in the early 1900s were suddenly white in the 1800s. So, although I can trace the A’s all the way to the 1820s or so, I can’t directly trace my fiancé to those early A.’s. Once again, I would need to confer with his family to see what the deal was.

My fiancé was pretty excited about the information I found. His mom’s side is a little trickier, as I said, but if I put a little more time into it later, I can probably dig up some stuff on her side.

One Great Family

I did the trial for onegreatfamily.com. The search engine is lovely! I can search across different databases and sites. Albeit, you have to be a subscriber to some sites in order to view the full information, but just having the option is exciting! The service also searches for you on other family trees while you’re offline. I didn’t get any hits during my trial, but I thought that was a nice feature as well. Other features include family statistics (i.e. top death countries, migration), and it notifies you of missing information and how many people you need to add to have a good search. I didn’t subscribe because I didn’t get enough new information to justify the additional cost, but if you’re just starting out, this service does provide a wealth of information at your fingertips.

Family Tree Software

My brother gave me Family Tree Maker last summer. What a great gift! As my research expands and my family tree gets bigger, the software will help a lot! Plus, I can put my notes all in one place, as far as discrepancies with names and dates.

Previously, I used a pedigree chart from genealogy.about.com. It was cool starting out, but was hellish to type as I went along. I also wrote my notes as I go along, but it’s frustrating to find family tree notes on my desk at work, in the closet at home, etc.

I’m still inputting stuff into the software, since I know so much about my family and extended members now. But when I finish, my family tree is going to be great, I tell you!

It's been a while...

I know I’ve been seriously slacking on my blog, but I’ve been extremely busy, plus I found out that I have a little one on the way. So I’ll have a new addition to my family tree. :)

Today I’ll be briefly discussing genealogy.com. It looks pretty cool, although 2 elements of it preclude my subscription to it. One, it links to ancestry.com, which I already have a subscription to. Two, it has family tree maker software, which I already have. But if I had neither subscriptions, then I would definitely subscribe to genealogy.com.