Tag: Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday: Cousin Bait

On 2 April 2015

I hope all of you got through April Fools with ease! As a past teacher, I dreaded the day. Luckily it normally landed on spring break but when it didn’t, I always felt extra cautious!

When I started this blog over a year ago (it was then My People in History), I didn’t really know what to expect. I got the blogging idea after searching for people’s opinions on some genealogy education I was looking into and found a LOT of genealogy blogs. I decided to participate and created my blog with the intention of discussing going from a hobbyist to a professional as well as a place to record my own family history.

What I didn’t expect was the “cousin bait.” If you’re unfamiliar with this term, “cousin bait” is what bloggers use to describe some or all of their blog posts about their ancestors. The hope is that other “cousins” looking for the same relative will stumble upon your blog and connect with you.

All of us have a very LARGE extended family with many 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. cousins. So why didn’t I expect to this? Well, I come from a very small family. I mean small – I have three sets of aunts and uncles and five first cousins. That’s it – just five. The closest cousin in age to me is nearly ten years older than me too, so it’s safe to say that I didn’t know my cousins very well. I assumed then that I just had a small family even though I knew my paternal grandmother came from a large family and my maternal grandfather came from a large family. My maternal grandfather’s siblings I did know (my aunt Betty is one of them) but I can’t really remember meeting a lot of my mom’s cousins. I didn’t meet any of my paternal grandmother’s siblings (that I know of anyway) and although I probably met some of my dad’s cousins from that side, I couldn’t tell you who.

So, when I began searching in to my family and discovered just how large it really was, I was astounded! Then, when I started getting emails, I was elated! By far, this blog has brought me (and my dad) closer to family members we never knew existed. In fact, many cousins even went to the same school around the same time period as my dad but he didn’t know about them. How amazing is that?

I mentioned before that I recently met a Raifsnider cousin (my paternal grandmother’s mother’s family that my dad knew nothing about) and this week I “met” some Hummel cousins! Pictures and stories were shared and I feel a bit overwhelmed with everything that has happened! I am going home for the holiday this weekend and I cannot wait to share this with my dad!

The Hummel side is my grandmother Mary’s family. I can’t fully describe how much I miss that woman although I think I’ve mentioned it a few times on this blog. My grandmother meant the world to me and even though I was only 17 at the time she died, my world fell apart a bit at her death. It’s been 15 years since she passed but I still cry whenever I talk about her and not a day goes by when I don’t wish she was here. I wish she could have known me as an adult, see what I’ve done, met my husband, traveled to my home. This wonderful woman even taught me to love my family history. This past week with all these new stories about “Aunt Mary” have been amazing. In my own way, I do genealogy to feel closer to her and this last week made that even more clear.

1980’s sometime – Me, my grandmother, and my brother at Bronners in Frankenmuth, MI

So if you’ve ever wondered about starting your own family history blog but wasn’t quite sure what it could bring you, let me tell you that it’s absolutely worth it because of the amazing connections you can make!

If you have any wonderful cousin bait stories, please share below!

Happy hunting everyone 🙂

Thankful Thursday: Boston University Genealogical Research Certificate Program

By Nichelle Barra

On 4 September 2014

In Research

As I mentioned in a previous post, I complete the Boston University’s 15 week course called the Genealogical Research Certificate Program. I had heard this program was intense and hard but incredibly worth it for those wishing to bring their genealogy to a more professional level. I’ll break down what the course entails and give you my review of it.

The course is broken up into five modules. Each module is run by a different set of instructors and assistants. The five modules are:

Foundations of Genealogical Research: This covers some of the basics of genealogy like kinship, genealogical methods, genealogy standards, documentation (which gets more in depth later), finding information, documents to find them in, and the research process.
Problem-Solving Techniques and Technology: Self-explanatory really
Evidence Evaluation and Documentation: This course was taught by Tom Jones and I was VERY excited about it since genealogy citations are hard for me as I am used to a basic format like in MLA, APA, or even Chicago.
Forensic Genealogical Research: This focuses on some of the fields that genealogists can find themselves working in as well as ethics, finding the most efficient path to a solution, and thinking like a genealogist. This was probably my favorite module.
Professional Genealogy: again, self explanatory

There are about 30 students in a class and as each module goes along, there are readings (online and in the required books), discussions, and assignments. These are graded and you need at least a C in every module and a final grade of a B- to earn the certificate.

Not only do you get to meet and work with some wonderful classmates who are just as genealogy obsessed as you, but you also get to learn from some of the best genealogy minds that are out there! Besides the mentioned Tom Jones, Elissa Powell (the current president of BCG) also taught two of the courses. There was also Allison Ryall, and Melinde Lutz Byrne. You can read about all of the instructors accomplishments here. We also had a range of assistants with great experiences who had such wonderful and interesting stories to share. I learned from them all and they were all wonderful instructors.

So my overall expectations were that this would be a time-consuming class (20-30 hours of work a week) with hard work, but that it was incredibly beneficial. These expectations were all met and even exceeded! The course work IS really 20-30 hours of work a week. I read through every chapter, even the recommended ones or the ones we were told we could skim, and kept notes on ALL of my readings. So perhaps, if you weren’t as attentive to detail like that, you could work through the course work faster as I know several of my colleagues did. However, I learn best by reading everything I can and taking notes; it helps me to understand fully. Since this is my chosen career, I did not want to miss a thing!

The homework is difficult. There’s no way around that. I felt myself unsure about my assignments whenever I turned them in and always felt like second-guessing on what I turned in. This seemed to be a common feeling too among my classmates. It was the first time I had ever done work like that and I was unsure of the expectations (even with all the examples and directions). Now this is probably just me as I was always that type of student in school: the over-doer and over-achiever. However, the comments and the work are probably some of the best things I received from the class. We did do client reports with a time limit (like genealogists have for clients) and I made sure to write the report as if I was honestly doing it for a client. The remarks and grade I received on that assignment made me feel very good about the work I did and feel like I was doing good professional genealogy work. Again, as this is my chosen career, I am VERY happy to have this time to practice and confirmation that yes, I can do this and do it well.

My expectations were exceeded when it came to how valuable I found this class. I loved the learning, the assignments, the real-life practice, the discussions, and getting to know other like-minded people. I know this may sound weird, but I really do miss this class. I hope my time on the ProGen waiting list won’t be too long!

The one drawback to this course is the cost. There are recommended books which may change over the years but those books can be costly. I already had all the books though as they are considered some of the must-haves for genealogy like Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills, Professional Genealogy edited by Elizabeth Shown Mills, Mastering Genealogical Proof by Tom Jones, and Genealogy Standards 50th Anniversary Edition from the Board for Certification of Genealogists. For me, this was a moot point since I already had them. However, the course itself is expensive. Being a part of the National Genealogical Society, Association of Professional Genealogists, or the New England Historical Genealogical Society does get a discount, which I also used. I feel it’s money well spent.

After my five years of college (changing your major 3 times does do that sometimes) and all of its costs, I learned more in this course then I did in ANY of mine from college. I don’t mean I learned more about genealogy, I mean learning in general. My college courses were fine and I did learn a lot, but this had such practical application and you had to do the work you intended to do in the future, that I found this course to be so much more valuable. I was an education major and NONE of my courses (besides student teaching) prepared me for my chosen career like this one did.

One last thing – I am NOT a certified genealogist. I earned my certificate in Genealogical Research from Boston University. There is a difference. I still plan on becoming certified through BCG after ProGen is completed. I am currently on the wait list for ProGen and while I am waiting (and while I am taking it), I am going to take on clients and get as much experience as I can to help me to become successfully certified. This means that besides taking on clients, I will also be writing articles and lecturing.

That was a long post! I thank all of you who read through that. 🙂 If you have any questions on the coursework, please let me know and I will be more than happy to help you!

Thankful Thursday: Civil War Records

By Nichelle Barra

On 31 July 2014

In Research

Yesterday I received one of my favorite things in the mail: records from NARA 🙂

These are the Civil War Pension Records for my 3x Great-Grandfather, Judson Almy. He was a private in the 15th New York Volunteers Engineers.

There are 118 different pages in this file. 118!!!

Not only that, but it explained why I haven’t been able to find his marriage certificate:

“I was legally married on the 8th day of May 1876 to Nancy Abby by Reverend O.B. Hale, a Methodist Pastor at Lees Corners, Ingersoll Township in Midland County, State of Michigan, and that said O.B. Hale promised to forward to me a proper marriage Certificate, but that he failed to do so and I verily believe that he failed to have said marriage Certificate properly recorded as I have carefully searched the Township and County Records at the place of marriage and I am unable to locate any official record of the said marriage between myself and Nancy Abby.”

These wonderful records also mention that Judson had a homestead that he co-owned with another person. That gives me a place to look up his land records 🙂

Judson created many records over the years. In his last years, he had very bad health. The description of these are rather humorous, in a dark way, and mostly because these aren’t used anymore. He asked for an increase of $2 in 1901 because of his health issues and was denied. He had disease of the liver and a disease that effected his lungs. In parentheses it was marked as simply old. He continuously applied for an increase because as a farmer, he could no longer do hard labor. He also had several people, including his doctors, write in to say that he was an honorable man; in other words, that his liver disease did not come from too much drinking. His physician also wrote in in 1921 and said that Judson was 80 and “in a state of practiced decrepitude.” Interesting wording.

There is also mention of a family Bible. This is the first I’ve heard of an Almy Bible! Well, I hoped but had yet to see that there was anyway. The family Bible was used to confirm Judson’s birth date. The Bible was in the hands of his sister. Judson had two sisters, as far as I can find anyway. One sister died in 1904 and this affidavit was written in 1913, which means the family Bible was with his sister Carrie Agnes (Almy) Cooley. I am going to see if I can track down her relatives to see if that Bible still exists.

I’ve ordered records through NARA before – including Civil War records – but I have never had this much information come from them. I am very excited and can’t wait to dive into them even further!