The RAGU Challenge

Oh, we have a Challenge from my cousin DearMYRTLE. Please read about it in her blog.

Dear MYRTLE’s 3-2-1 Cite Genealogy Contest

April 2014 Edition

We also have a Video on what this contest is all about.

Click on this image to view the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow9oQQK_RdU

There is the 4 letter word CITE. Sounds like work for me, but so has trying to understand Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace and Mastering Genealogical Proof by Dr Thomas W Jones. But in the Dear MYRTLE’s Genealogy Community on Google+ we have been studying this book. What a great idea to study a book like this within a group of fine panelists and a great community.

So, the challenge is for us to blog about 3 Documents and write two Paragraphs about 1 Event. Then the kicker, CITE those sources.

Now to the task at hand, I thought I would take a different approach, and not go to my genealogy database management program for this subject. There will be a couple of follow up blog posts over there that are a fall out from this Blog Post.

I have done a number of blog posts on Evidentia! a genealogy program that approaches our research from a different angle, that is starting with the Source documentation BEFORE moving any information into our genealogy software. There is a link to the Evidentia! website on the right of this blog post. This is the first time that I am using Evidentia Version 2.

I chose an uncle of mine, William James Hart, as the information that I have on him may help with this challenge.

I have three documents as source information on him. One is a Family Group Sheet that was created by his natural daughter. I am not going to include an image of that, because there is information about living people on it. This daughter, Joanna Hart Yunninger and I have been trying to find the parents of her grandmother who was adopted. Every once in a while I’ll go looking for her. In that Family Group Sheet is all of the information about my Uncle. His full name, his date and place of birth.^[1]

The second source was from the Find-A-Grave website. The image on the website is like the one I took, which is here.

This confirms the birth date of my uncle. William and Hart are the same as the Family Group Sheet. The difference is that the Family Group Sheet has his full middle name of James. So, “J” works for me, as does the birth and death dates.^[2]The pictures are mine, but the citation is from the Find-A-Grave website which has a similar photo. I don’t own that photo, so it’s not included here.

 

 My third source is the 1940 U.S. Federal Census Record^[3].

This census has William J Hart, age 26, born in Pennsylvania.

This data was entered into Evidentia. This program, for me, asks the right questions that help me understand the Genealogical Proof Standard. Each piece of information from these three sources are entered as Claims from these sources. Each Claim is then a piece of Evidence for which we must analyze. What I like about this program is that you can’t move on to the next step until you complete the first, then second. We must right out our evaluation of each piece of Evidence. Then draw our conclusion.

My goal was to determine the Birth Information for my Uncle Bill. I used the three Sources, per the goal. Now for the two paragraphs I am going to include the Genealogical Proof Report as a result of these steps. I know this will meet the 2 paragraph requirement.

Genealogical Proof Report
for the Birth of William James Hart

Summary of Findings

Based on the Family Group Sheet, provided by William James Hart’s daughter, Joanna Hart Yunninger, the 1940 US Federal Census, and the headstone on the Find-A-Grave website and my own photograph of that headstone; there is no conflicting information that would indicate that he was not born on 14 Jun 1914 in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

Itemized Research Findings

5 assertions from 3 sources were considered in evaluating this claim.

The Joanna’s Family Group Sheet^[1] asserts that Birth Date is 19 Jun 1914.

The source reviewed was an Authored work, introducing the risk of errors in interpretation. The information is believed to be Secondary (meaning the person providing the information received that information second hand, from another person or work). The evidence supporting the claim is considered Direct (meaning it adequate to answer the question directly).

Joanna Hart Yunninger is the daughter of Williams James Hart and recorded his birth date to be 19 Jun 1914

The Joanna’s Family Group Sheet^[1] asserts that Birth Location was West Grove, Chester County, Pennsylvania.

The source reviewed was an Authored work, introducing the risk of errors in interpretation. The information is believed to be Secondary. The evidence supporting the claim is considered Direct.

Joanna Hart Yunninger is the daughter of Williams James Hart and recorded his birth place to be West Grove, Chester Couinty, Pennsylvania

The Find-A-Grave^[2] asserts that his Birth date 19 Jun 1914.

The source reviewed was a Derived Record, introducing the risk of copy errors. The information is believed to be Secondary. The evidence supporting the claim is considered Direct.

The Find-A-Grave memorial and stone shows William J Hart’s brith date to be 19 Jun 1914

The 1940 US Federal Census^[3] asserts that he was born in Pennsylvania.

The source reviewed was a Derived Record, introducing the risk of copy errors. The information is believed to be Secondary. The evidence supporting the claim is considered Direct.

The 1940 US Federal Census recorded William J Harts birth state to be Pennsylvania

The 1940 US Federal Census^[3] asserts that his age is 26.

The source reviewed was a Derived Record, introducing the risk of copy errors. The information is believed to be Secondary. The evidence supporting the claim is considered Indirect (meaning the evidence is implied or circumstantial).

The 1940 US Federal Census recorded William J Harts age to be 26, which would have him born about 1914

End Notes

1. Joanna Hart Yuninger, Family Group Sheets, Hart Collection; Joanna Hart Yuninger, {[Address For Private Use], }[Owner Or Supplier’s Location], 2000. Family Group Sheets. Joanna does family research for her father’s family, William James Hart.

2. Find A Grave, Database And Images (http://findagrave.com : Accessed 27 Nov 2009), Memorial Page For William James Hart, Find A Grave Memorial No. 45164446, Citing Little Britain Presbyterian Cemetery, Peach Bottom, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA.

3. 1940; U.S. Census, Ward 8, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; Population Schedule; enumeration district (ED) 36-89, Sheet 8-B, dwelling 754 West Vine Street, family 135, lines 70-72, William J Hart household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 09 Apr 2012); citing NARA microfilm T657, roll 3532.

Prepared 2 Apr 2014

The RAGU Challenge

Evidentia© 2012-2014

Query: Texas Worthington’s

A Query from Don:

I have a lot of info on the Texas Worthington who surveyed Texas in 1830s. I do not know how he died or where. He descends from Robert the Quaker in PA.

Anyone have any information on this Texas Worthington?

A funny thing happened at #RootsTech 2014

RootsTech is now an annual Genealogy Event in Salt Lake City. See more at rootstech.org. Its a great opportunity to learn lots of “stuff” and to meet and chat with new and online friends. Many GeneaBloggers gather just for that purpose. We know one another “online” through Blogs, both posting and reading, and I have heard it said that it’s like a big Family Reunion.

But, I want to share one of the many things that have happened, just today.

I am sitting at Lunch, in the Family Search (familysearch.org) lunch on the topic of “With Dramatically Changing Technologies, What MUST NOT CHANGE! The speaker was David Rencher, Chief Genealogical Officer, FamilySearch.org. Food was good, talk was GREAT, BUT, isn’t there always a “but”, he puts up on the screen a picture of the “Baldwin Book Barn” just out side of West Chester, Pennsylvania. He told us about a box of photographs of people, just sitting there. I am sure that I have seen THAT BOX in THAT BARN more than one time. His comments was more than identifying the people, but if YOU have a photo that is writing on the back, WE MUST identify WHO wrote that information on the back. My thought was “Thank you for the EXTRA Work”, but then it dawned on me, that of course we need to do that.

I am thinking about the scanning that I have to do, with my mothers photo albums (90+ of them), where I know my mothers hand writing, but anyone coming later may not. So, IF I know who wrote on the back of that Photo, I need to document that as well. Did my mother know that person, or did her mother tell her who that person was. OK, I get that, as it makes total sense.

Now for the really fun part.

I checked my cell phone, to make sure I had the photo in my Online Tree of my grandparents house (my mother’s house) and I did. So, I went up to Mr Rencher after the presentation as showed the picture my the house taken in 1939, I had marked the photo with the ADDRESS and the Date of the Picture, and asked My Rencher if he ever saw that building before. He KNEW the address and recognized the house.

After I picked myself up off of the floor (as they say), he had family in the SAME TOWN where I was born, where my grandparents lived and the he was born in the same area.

It’s a small world after all. BUT isn’t the technology that Mr Rencher was talking about just awesome, where you can have your family tree, on your cell phone, and to be able to share a photograph to someone else, right there “on the spot”.

 

This is the back of the barn where my mother raised her horse. Its now the 3rd to 5th floor (I think) of the Baldwin Book Barn

 

This is the house in 1929, where my grandparents and my mother lived.

Mr Rencher, thank you.

As a side note, as I write this blog, I am reminded of the 1940 Census of this Household. Before those census records were indexed, I did some browsing of those census records and found my MOTHER listed twice. Once in a house that I never knew about, in West Chester, with my father (they had married the year before), but she was ALSO listed in this household with my grandfather. The information about “my mother” was really the information about my GRANDMOTHER and my Aunt was NOT listed at all but she was still in school, living in this house in 1940. I know this, because when I found the record, I just had to call my aunt to make sure I have my information right and I did. The Informant was my Grandfather.

Yes, it’s all noted in my genealogy database.

DNA Test Results

I have received my 2nd set of DNA results from Ancestry.com. The first test was “old” and I was very discouraged by the lack of connections with anyone. I moved the results to FamilyTreeDNA, which did confirm one connection and maybe let to two others. But, nothing firm.

The new test results at Ancestry.com is new technology and returns an Ethnical view of my ancestry. Still not very helpful.

BUT, that has now changed. I first received a couple of emails with “hint” to others, in the 3rd to 6th cousin range. Communicating to several of those with similar results didn’t help too much. I looked at the Ancestry Member Tree (AMT) that was provided, but the names didn’t make too much sense. One of the  issues, I think, it that WE all are thinking about the “old” version, where it was surname based, and not location based, which is what it appears these new results will show.

I received another email, with some new hints and I wanted to see if I could understand what I was looking for. Remembering the Location vs Surname thought that I had, I printed a Surname Report from my genealogy database management program, with the list of surnames back 6 generations. That should help me look at another persons tree to see if any of those Surnames are on my list. I have 53 surnames back 6 generations.

I then looked at this first example, 3rd to 4th cousin range to see if any of my 53 surnames were there. Sure enough, there was one. Not only that, but it was in the right LOCATION.

Comparing my file against what was in this persons AMT I had my “hit”. I didn’t have much on this specific person, but I know the surname and in my file I actually had this person in my file. Middle name was different, but I had it. Looking at where I received the information on this person, my mother actually had a newspaper article on this person. Having her scrapbook, I tried to locate the article, but the scrapbook is in really bad shape and I couldn’t find it quickly. Will take more time with that book so that I can share this article with my potential cousin.

The relationship from the “common” person is Great-Grand Aunt. It would appear that the prediction was right on the mark. Email has been sent to my new found “cousin” and we’ll go from there.

Query: Charles Worthington (b: 02 Aug 1820 in Pennsylvania)

Penny wrote

 

I’ve traced my Worthington line to Charles Worthington, born August 2nd 1820 in Pennsylvania, but I can’t find his parents! He was married to Caroline Dimm, and the two lived in Wolf, Lycoming, PA, before moving to Kansas. Any help with his parents would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Technology Tuesday–Evidentia

A couple of weeks ago, I had the honor of hosting on of Dear MYRTLE’s “Monday’s with Myrt” webinar series. You know how sometimes timing is everything? That webinar was one of those times. In preparation for that webinar, DearMYRTLE has an “Across My Desk” segment so I had been looking for articles to include. In this case, if found me. A Blog Post by Laura Cosgrove Lorenzana, of The Last Leaf on This Branch. The specific blog post was Technology Tuesday – Pulling Evidence from Thin Paper

She talked about Evidentia, a relatively new software program that may be of use for genealogists. Laura did a great job of explaining how the program worked and why it might be a program to have in our Genealogy Toolbox.

As it would happen, I had a technical problem recording the Webinar. Based on the discussion and feedback, Dear MYRTLE will be hosting a two part Webinar on Evidentia.

So, what IS Evidentia

• Not a database management system for families / people
• Had heard of “evidenced based” research
• Start with a CLAIM
• Names, Dates, Relationships, etc
• Each Claim has SUBJECT(s)
• Quality of Evidence

I had heard some time ago about the need to have an Evidence based genealogy program. Or, rather then entering names and dates into a genealogy database program, you start with a document or record or “evidence”. I wasn’t sure what that meant until I saw were “evidence” in such a source CLAIMS something to be “true”. A census record claims that a person (named) was so many years old at the time that the census was taken. If further CLAIMS that this person was born in a certain state.

So far, we have three (3) claims: name, age, and state of birth.

Here is where Evidentia comes in. You enter the Source of the Claim, there are built in Templates for an appropriate Citation, and you enter the Claims that this source suggests. You are further asked to enter more information about the Quality of the Evidence, and each of the steps that the Genealogical Proof Standard suggests. I am not an expert in this area, but the program has the right questions for me to answer, and provides where to answer them. Its all still a learning curve for me. But it does help move me in the right direction for recording the Evidence that I gather for a specific person.

Here is a link to the Evidentia website: http://evidentia.ed4becky.net/

There are videos to help learn about and how to use the program.

So, I downloaded the free trial version of the program as I have a project that needs something like this.

At Christmas, I was visiting family and one of my nephews “brought” an old “book” that he wanted to show me. It was handed down from his great great great grandmother (I think). So, he allowed me to borrow it.

 

 

It’s old, about 9” x 13’, and it’s a page numbers “log book”. Mostly Names and dates. The inside cover has writing about the “author”, the best that I can tell, and newspaper clippings.

 

 

The first number of pages are information that might be found on Family Group Sheets. The names, birth dates, death dates, you can visually see relationships. Of course, none of it has any citations. The newspaper clipping that are scattered throughout this 300 page book have the date of the newspaper, nor newspaper name. Pretty useless, one might say.

Knowing many of the surnames throughout this book, clearly the people named in this “log book” lived is Chester County, Pennsylvania. But, there are some great pieces of data. I would NOT want to enter any of this into my genealogy database. BUT there might be hints that I haven’t seen before.

I have started to entering the Claims that this Source has to offer, and I am citing that this claim came from this log book. I have no clue IF any of this data will end up in my genealogy database, but I suspect it will. For example, the young man’s great great grandfather is listed.

There are about 40 pages of family listings, then for the next 150 pages are names and dates. Toward the end of the book are 5 interesting entries:

• Weather
• Cyclones
• Earthquakes
• Explosions
• Fires

Page 286 has an entry “Earthquake Oct. 9, 9:30am, 1871

Page 287 A Darlington’s House burnt – Dec 25, 1888

Hey, that’s one of mine.

Page 78 – William L Howard, Newtown, May 4, 1881 – Kicked by a horse Age 50

Page 72 – Pres. William (James) A Garfield, Wash, aged 50, Sept 19 1881 (shot by Chas Julius Guitan. C Guitan hung June 30, 1882 at Wash at 12:35 pm

What about this newspaper clipping: Malvern Man Killed in Own Garage By Carbon Monoxide; William H Hicks, 37, is victim of fatal fumes, inhaled while placing new tags on car – Body is found in kneeling position by his wife. (hand written note: Jan 9 1931), but it’s between pages 92 and 93. The placement of this article, in this logbook doesn’t make any sense, but that’s where I found it and will leave it there.

Because of all of the potential data in this book, knowing that it will be returned, I want the data captured somewhere. I want to evaluate the data BEFORE any of it is placed into my database.

This log book, to me, is like a compiled genealogy. You know the books without Citations or Source information?

I will then look at my database and see who might the logbook entry be referring to in my database. IF I have a match, after evaluating the evidence (claims) I’ll enter the information into my database.

I have several family Bibles what are in the same condition, where I don’t want to handle them, but want to capture the Claims that are included to data entry later IF it applies.

Social Media strikes again

I was reading Facebook yesterday, and there was a picture of the Sign for the Burial Ground where my Grandparents (all 4 of them) are buried. A number of my aunts and uncles (Dad’s side) are buried there.

My pictures, not from Facebook

Who posted that photo? The gentleman who currently lives is the house where my Dad’s family lived.

Little did my friend Steve know, that my Grandparents were married in this same building, the Birmingham Friends Meeting in 1915.

This picture is from about 1915. My grandparents were married in this building June 17, 1915. I don’t know, for sure, the date that Steve was at Birmingham, but I am guessing it was a couple of days ago, around the their 97th anniversary. (happy belated Anniversary)

Not only were they Married their, but the are also resting in the Cemetery just behind this building.

I send a link to my Find-A-Grave posting for my grandfather, as on his Find-A-Grave Memorial, there are links to my Aunts and Uncles who are buried in the same area of the cemetery and a link to where my dad is resting.

Henry Russell Worthington (1887 – 1956)

Good thing Steve is interested in Genealogy.

But why stop there, I have other family in the same Cemetery that Steve visited.

Birmingham-Lafayette Cemetery, West Chester, Pennsylvania

Who say’s Social Media doesn’t work. For me it works well, hope it doesn’t overwhelm Steve.