My new career
Jan. 1st, 2010 06:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
persimmonfrostI would seem to be destined to do data input on my family for the rest of my natural life.
Okay, not that it's not really interesting because it is, but Jeebus, what a mess these notes are. They came from my cousin John Glenn (no, not the astronaut) and they are ALL over the place. Remember when I bitched at everyone about labeling their photos? Well let me add another bitch: If you're going to keep records on your family for future generations, Get. Them. Right. Seriously people, if someone is going through your information in 100 years and can't tell if great aunt Hester had a twin and what year they were born in, or falls over some cryptic note that says "both died 1895" they will curse the name of everyone who boogered the information. Yes, genealogical researchers are a tetchy lot. I've just spent the last five hours trying to decipher and add three pages worth of information to my family tree. Two freakin' generations worth of info. There are six pages to go just on this branch of the family, and the pages look like a battle plan.
On the upside, I've met a cousin over on ancestry.com, who filled in some names and who is a close enough relative that I believe I may have found the right person to give all the research material when I've finished with it. I love this stuff, but I don't have any children who arecrazy enough willing to take on the responsibility of caring for all the family records and photos. Digital is fine for me, especially as I have redundant copies of all the photos, plus they're stored on Flickr. (A place that is worth the annual fees about a million times over, IMO.)
So without further ado, I present to you Things I Learned While Trying to Make Sense of My Family's Records:
1) I have relatives with names like LaFayette, Salome, Preserved, Love, Thankful and Jedediah.
2) I'm distantly related to Kate Hepburn, Julia Child, Button Gwynett, John and John Quincy Adams, George H.W. Bush, and the Lees of Virginia (as in Robert E.)
3) My family has been in this country since at least 1550 and lived in places like James City, Virginia.
4) With some exceptions, we are a ferociously fertile family. One of my Lee forebears fathered 19 children who produced 66 grandchildren. No wonder we're related to everyone.
5) We seem to have almost single-handedly populated New England.
6) I have more second cousins than I imagined, and I met the husband of my first cousin once removed online today. He filled in some gaps in my records, bless him.
In other news, we had a reasonably quiet but fun New Year's Eve and Day. Dawn got off work early and picked up a metric fucktonne of bbq from a local place. Mr. Jim came in and we gorged on bbq, chips and dip and really awful sparkling wine. We watched "A Night at the Opera" and "Up,' the latter of which I'd never seen before. I loved it! If you haven't seen it, you must. And today we kind of laid around. Dawn's been trying to get back to her knitting so she brought it down with her when we had dinner (leftover bbq) and watched FotR which was on TBS. And that was about it. It was a good way to start the year.
I wish all of you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2010.
Okay, not that it's not really interesting because it is, but Jeebus, what a mess these notes are. They came from my cousin John Glenn (no, not the astronaut) and they are ALL over the place. Remember when I bitched at everyone about labeling their photos? Well let me add another bitch: If you're going to keep records on your family for future generations, Get. Them. Right. Seriously people, if someone is going through your information in 100 years and can't tell if great aunt Hester had a twin and what year they were born in, or falls over some cryptic note that says "both died 1895" they will curse the name of everyone who boogered the information. Yes, genealogical researchers are a tetchy lot. I've just spent the last five hours trying to decipher and add three pages worth of information to my family tree. Two freakin' generations worth of info. There are six pages to go just on this branch of the family, and the pages look like a battle plan.
On the upside, I've met a cousin over on ancestry.com, who filled in some names and who is a close enough relative that I believe I may have found the right person to give all the research material when I've finished with it. I love this stuff, but I don't have any children who are
So without further ado, I present to you Things I Learned While Trying to Make Sense of My Family's Records:
1) I have relatives with names like LaFayette, Salome, Preserved, Love, Thankful and Jedediah.
2) I'm distantly related to Kate Hepburn, Julia Child, Button Gwynett, John and John Quincy Adams, George H.W. Bush, and the Lees of Virginia (as in Robert E.)
3) My family has been in this country since at least 1550 and lived in places like James City, Virginia.
4) With some exceptions, we are a ferociously fertile family. One of my Lee forebears fathered 19 children who produced 66 grandchildren. No wonder we're related to everyone.
5) We seem to have almost single-handedly populated New England.
6) I have more second cousins than I imagined, and I met the husband of my first cousin once removed online today. He filled in some gaps in my records, bless him.
In other news, we had a reasonably quiet but fun New Year's Eve and Day. Dawn got off work early and picked up a metric fucktonne of bbq from a local place. Mr. Jim came in and we gorged on bbq, chips and dip and really awful sparkling wine. We watched "A Night at the Opera" and "Up,' the latter of which I'd never seen before. I loved it! If you haven't seen it, you must. And today we kind of laid around. Dawn's been trying to get back to her knitting so she brought it down with her when we had dinner (leftover bbq) and watched FotR which was on TBS. And that was about it. It was a good way to start the year.
I wish all of you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2010.
