Tuesday, March 16, 2021

Ancestry Explorer Map

 Going through my inbox today, I came across a post by Randy Seaver about Ancestor Explorer.  

I entered in my WikiTree ID and was shocked to see that it didn't work because apparently my profile is set to "Private" instead of "Private with Public Family Tree".  I fixed that immediately, and tried again.

This time I got a nice long list and it reported:

"Hewitt-615 (Kristina Hewitt) has 1237 unique ancestors and 244 duplicate ancestors (additional lines of descent from a unique ancestor) within 20 generations"

I then took a look at the map generated.  Interesting!

You can access Ancestor Explorer here.

I really don't work as often on WikiTree.  I do really like their DNA feature, so I probably should put in a bit more effort to get my tree there a bit more filled out.

Monday, March 1, 2021

Howard Freeman Abbe

 I generated a list of all the people born on Feb 28th in my Legacy Family Tree file.  The first one I picked to post about was Howard Freeman Abbe.  He is a descendant of Edmund Rice. He was my 6th cousin 4 times removed.  

Since everyone has been talking about the new Deep Nostalgia feature at MyHeritage, I chose to give it a go with a photo I found of Howard.  This is the original photo, from a yearbook:


And here is the animation! Not bad at all considering how little they had to work with!




Howard Freeman Abbe was born 28 Feb 1889 in Springfield, Massachusetts to James Pease Abbe and Mary Alice Ormrod.

The Evening Herald, Fall River, Massachusetts; 8 Nov 1913

"HOWARD F. ABBE.  Howard F. Abbe died in Springfield Thursday after a long illness.  He was 24 years of age and employed as an assistant in the mechanical department of the Technical High school in that city.  He was a brother of Miss Lena P. Abbe, a member of the Durfee High faculty"

Notes regarding database cleanup:

I generated a file for the descendants of  Sarah (White) Wilder, born 1680.  This made a 180 page book, with a name and location index, which I then reviewed and made some merges.

I can not emphasize enough how much work I have to do still on database cleanup!! I use Legacy Family Tree Deluxe, but sadly it does not integrate with Ancestry.  When I download my Ancestry.com tree to add sources to the Legacy file, it often duplicates people, and don't even get me started on the way Ancestry does source citations....

After a couple hours of working on the 180 page book, I generated a new one...this gave me a new book that was only 171 pages, I left off at the beginning of the 4th generation...

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Improving my family tree at FamilySearch

 Since I am currently working on connecting with all the cousins showing in my Relatives at Rootstech page (2410 and going up fast) I took a look at my fan chart of my family tree at FamilySearch.  

There are some nice views you can choose from.  One shows a different colour for each country of birth.  White is used for Unknown, so I went in and added the country of birth for all the people with white coloured parts of the fan chart.

You can also view the family tree fan chart with colours added for sources...white is for 0, then there are slightly darker orange colours for 1-4, 5-9 and 10+

Another viewing option is for how many photos have been attached.

Yet another option is to view the Research Helps.  This shows blue for Record Hints, orange for Data Problems and purple for research suggestions.

As I work on contacting all my Relatives at Rootstech I will try to work a bit on improving my FamilySearch tree.  

Relatives at Rootstech

You can go to https://www.familysearch.org/connect/ 

and get a list of all the people who are related to you who are also registered at Rootstech.

I currently have 2208 cousins listed, and the number is going up rapidly! While writing this it went up to 2226!

I am going to try the impossible, to message, friend request, and make sure I have added all my relatives who are at Rootstech to my Ancestry and Geni trees!

This has already worked well for me, as my 2nd listed cousin, who is a third cousin twice removed, was not already in my tree!

Five more hours to the Expo Hall preview....

*Update, Thursday, Feb 25, 10:30 am EST*

I am now up to 3080 cousins listed, and have found a new set of ancestors from researching my line with one of the first ones I contacted....

*Update, Friday, Feb 26, 6 pm EST*

I now have 4177 cousins listed but my system is now broken.  I was adding each person as a friend when I messaged them.  This way I could see when new people appeared in the list....but....apparently 19 is the max number of friends you can have!

I am really pleased with how much new information I have already added to my tree with the first 19 that I have reviewed....I have added probable parents to 3 ancestors already! 

I was considering a new system, where I added an Ancestry custom tag to each person.  I guess now I will have to keep a list, because if not, I will accidentally message the same people twice or risk missing people who were added since I started...

I really hope Rootstech is in person next year!

*Update, Friday, Feb 26, 9:30 pm EST*

My list now has over 4218 people on it.  

Geni also has this feature, which I opted in to.  I think you can try it at https://www.geni.com/pathfinder?evt=rt2021

I only get 21 people so far on the list generated by Geni.  Clearly, there are many people who are in the FamilySearch tree who have not claimed their profiles at Geni!

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

FREE MyHeritage DNA upload and Advanced Tools (EXTENDED TILL MAR 8!!!)

 Until March 8th, 2021 you can upload your DNA results from AncestryDNA or 23andMe for FREE to MyHeritage and get the Advanced DNA Tools unlocked forever FREE. Just go to the following link and upload:

https://www.myheritage.com/dna/upload

MyHeritage's DNA Tools include the ability to download your matches and matching segment info to use in a program like GenomeMate Pro, AutoClusters, Ethnicity Estimates, and more and very importantly include a chromosome browser.  AncestryDNA does not have a chromosome browser which is really important for advanced DNA working with matches.

If you need to download your AncestryDNA file you can do so by going to the DNA settings page 


Scroll down to Test Management, and then click the "Download DNA Data"...fill it out and they will e-mail you a link to get your DNA data.

Monday, February 15, 2021

Margaret Emily Thompson

 Margaret Emily Thompson was the daughter of Hugh Thompson and Anne Marie Chatterton.

Margaret Emily Thompson was born on 6 Feb 1853 in New Carlisle, Quebec, Canada

Margaret Emily Thompson was baptized 3 Oct 1853 on in New Carlisle, Quebec, Canada.


Baptism of Margaret Emily Thompson
Baptism of Margaret Emily Thompson, from Drouin Collection at Ancestry.com


Margaret Emily Thompson died on 19 Mar 1854 in New Carlisle, Quebec, Canada.

Margaret Emily Thompson was buried on 20 Mar 1854 in New Carlisle, Quebec, Canada.

burial of Margaret Emily Thompson
burial of Margaret Emily Thompson, from Drouin Collection at Ancestry.com


This record mentions that the burial was in the presence of Charles Dobson, uncle, and William Henry Flowers and others. 

This Charles Dobson would have been the husband of Hugh Thompson's sister, Mary Thompson.


Tuesday, February 9, 2021

The new Color Restoration feature at MyHeritage

 This evening I took a look at the new Color Restoration feature at MyHeritage.  I have some scanned photos that came from Poloroids that I scanned years ago, and they came out with a very greenish colour.


Check out the results!

Photo before


Photo after

Comparison



This is a photo of me and my sister Sandra.  I'm guessing it was taken around 1980 but may have been a bit later than that.  I remember those Narnia books well, and the Viewmaster that is on the floor. You can also see our dollhouse to the left.  Our grandfather made it for us, complete with doll furniture.  Over the years we redecorated it a few times with my mother. That is a Strawberry Shortcake doll my sister is holding, I remember she loved that cartoon.