Stories of a Canadian Family

Janet (Aspinall) Jackson

2018-01-12T22:51:00.001-06:00

For week two of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, the prompt is "Favourite Photo". I love finding photographs of my ancestors. So often it's difficult to find more than bare bones facts about my ancestors, as found in vital records, censuses, and the like. Having a photo of them really brings them to life! One that I'm especially fond of is this one of my great grandmother, Janet (Aspinall) Jackson.

Janet was born in 1894 in Southowram, which is just outside of Halifax, West Yorkshire. She was the third of four children of Jonas Aspinall and Sarah Hannah Fretwell.

She immigrated to Manitoba, Canada, in 1920, and in 1922 she married my great grandfather, Herbert Jackson. He had lost his first wife in 1921 and been left with a 3-year-old and a newborn baby, and Janet had moved in to help take care of them.

Janet gave birth to her first child, Charles, in 1925, but he only lived to be one year old. A few years later they had Leonard, my grandfather.

Janet died in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1968. She was 73 years old. She is buried in Boyd Cemetery, in Minto, along with Herbert, his first wife Emmeline, and baby Charles.

Revisiting my research on Janet Aspinall this week has filled in a few gaps, and I improved her biography on WikiTree a bit, but I still want to know more details about her! This has definitely motivated me to ask my grandpa for some stories!

Tune in next week for week three of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, when the prompt is "Longevity"! I'll be writing about the longest-lived of all my great grandparents.

Alphonse Richard

2018-01-03T13:33:00.000-06:00

Welcome to my first 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks post! I had originally intended to start by writing about each of my great grandparents in a specific order. However, now that I've learned that this challenge is officially happening and there are weekly prompts we're supposed to use to pick an ancestor, I've decided to be a little more flexible. I'll still be doing one generation completely before moving on to the next, but I'll determine the order within that generation based on the prompts.

For week 1, the prompt is "Start". So, I chose Alphonse Richard, because when I started my family tree in high school, it was the Richard line that led me down the rabbit hole, resulting in a lifelong genealogy addiction.

Seriously, how cool is this picture?!

Alphonse Richard was born in Dakota Territory in 1889, the son of Albert Richard and Arthemise Ducharme. In 1899 the family moved north to St. François Xavier, Manitoba.

In 1910, Alphonse married Bertha Daigneault, daughter of Narcisse Daigneault and Domitilde Perras. They had 7 children, including my paternal grandmother, Clemence Richard.

Alphonse died in Saint-Boniface, Manitoba, in 1960, and is buried in Green Acres Memorial Gardens just outside the city.

For more details about Alphonse's life, plus all my sources, take a look at his WikiTree profile. I keep that up-to-date with all my research.

Taking another look at Alphonse's life has been a great start to the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. I thought of him as someone that I was "done" researching, as much as that's ever true. I knew his parents, his siblings, his wife, all his children, and had lots of sources for him. But when I looked at his WikiTree profile, I hadn't edited it in 3 and a half years! In just a few days of focusing my efforts on him, I got more photos of him from my aunt who has been digitizing her photo collection, found his obituary in the Winnipeg Free Press archive, took a look at all his census records and found a few new details in them, and totally revamped his profile, writing a nice bio and improving my source citations.

Tune in next week for week 2 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, with the prompt of "Favourite Photo"!

2018 Plan: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

2017-12-22T22:48:00.002-06:00

For years I've used this blog for no specific purpose, with the idea that I occasionally write posts about my research to help me sort out my thoughts. That's exactly how I used this blog in 2011 and 2012, and I found it really helpful. But then it slowed down for a few years, and somehow I have gone two full years without writing anything here at all! These have also been slower years for me in terms of actually working on my genealogy, as other aspects of my life have taken over. I went back to school from 2013 to 2016, for instance.

Well, I'm still super busy, but I have at least a bit of time for my family tree! So I've decided to write about 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks in 2018. I know at one point this was a popular challenge with genealogy bloggers, but I don't know if anyone is still doing it. If you are, let me know! I'd love to have other blogs to follow on this journey.

So, each week of 2018, I will be focusing on one of my direct ancestors. I will do as much research on that person as time permits, attempting to fill in all their basic data and immediate family members, and perhaps even adding a bit of life to their stories. I'll write a blog post about that ancestor, improve their WikiTree profile, and perhaps also improve their profiles on some other sites I use like FamilySearch.

Since many of my ancestors end up neglected by my random, go-where-the-wind-takes-me approach to genealogy, I'll be methodically working my way through my direct ancestors in this endeavour. I'll start with my 8 great grandparents, followed by my 16 great great grandparents, and then 28 of my great great great grandparents, going left-to-right (or top-to-bottom) on my family tree, which will bring me up to the end of the year.

Enjoy the holidays, everybody, and then I hope you'll check out my first 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks post in the first week of January, when I research my great grandfather, Joseph Carmel Lavoie.

Genealogy Do-Over: Week 1

2015-01-01T23:49:00.000-06:00

The Genealogy Do-Over has begun! Week 1's topics are as follows:

Set aside previous research.
Prepare to research.
Establish base practices and guidelines.

Set Aside Previous Research

This is the part of the do-over that doesn't really fit with my practice of only using WikiTree as a genealogy database. I don't really want to enter everything again on a desktop program, since I don't like the desktop programs anyway.

So, my version of this will be that as I progress through the do-over I will go over every WikiTree profile in my tree and every source connected to those people with a fresh perspective. I will take nothing for granted.

Prepare to Research

My research up until now has been chaotic at best. Productive, perhaps, but probably not as productive as it would have been if I'd ever had a plan. Or a research log so I don't search the same things again and again.

I've decided to give Evernote a try. It seems like it could be useful to someone like me, who doesn't have a desktop genealogy program. I already use it to clip recipes from the web, so I'm familiar with the basics, though I haven't used it extensively. This week I'll be setting up a few notebooks for genealogy. One notebook will be for research plans and logs. This is what I desperately need to improve, so it's my focus. I haven't decided yet what else to put in Evernote.

In addition, as I've done a little bit in the past, I'll be using Remember the Milk for specific to do lists. For example, "Find So and So's parents." might be on a to do list in Evernote that keeps track of research I want to get back to. But the specific item "Look up So and So's obituary in the Winnipeg Free Press archives." would go in Remember the Milk and be tagged with location:library. Then, when I'm at the library, I can see all the to do items that can be done there. Maybe Evernote could do this too, but I already use Remember the Milk for blogging and housework to do items, so for now I'm sticking with what I'm used to.

Establish Base Practices and Guidelines

This is where I actually change how I research. The plan is to sit down and work on a specific person or event. I will get all the information I can get from the sources I'm looking at. When the exciting leads pop up that would normally have me off in some random direction, I will put it in my research to do list so I remember to come back to it, and then continue what I was doing.

I can't promise I'll be perfect at this, since sometimes inspiration strikes and I just gotta go where the wind takes me, but I'm hoping that this strategy will do a lot to give my research a sense of direction, and help me actually finish tasks instead of just starting all of them.

As a sidenote, I'm loving the community aspect of this challenge! Watching the Facebook group over the past few days has been a great experience. I'm looking forward to learning a lot over the next few months!

The Genealogy Do-Over

2014-12-30T22:00:00.002-06:00

Basically my research plan.

Thomas MacEntee of Geneabloggers has come up with a challenge of sorts, which is exactly what I need: a Genealogy Do-Over. The idea is to start over with your genealogy research, and do it right this time, rather than continuing to build off of old, bad research.

Because of the way I do genealogy, my Genealogy Do-Over is going to look a little different from most people's, I think. I use WikiTree as my primary (read: only) genealogy software. So obviously I can't just wipe the slate and begin again, since my research is integrated with that of countless other people. I may, however, start using a desktop program just to track my progress in this endeavour. (Alternatively, I could just keep track in a spreadsheet of the WikiTree IDs I've covered so far.)

My reason for wanting to do this is primarily source citations. I'm confident in my facts. Like many genealogists, I went through a phase of thinking I could trust everything in an online tree. But after learning that lesson, I joined WikiTree and started my tree for scratch there, so in a way I've already done one of these do-overs. In the three years since, I'm confident that all my information has come from decent quality sources, such as vital records, censuses, tombstones, obituaries, etc. None of it was blindly taken from another tree. But, often I look at my research and I can't tell where I got a fact from. I'm sure I got it somewhere good, but where is a mystery.

Basically, I'm rushed. I find a census record, add a whole bunch of information from it, use it to add a bunch of family members, and then just throw the link to the census in the sources section of each profile. Only recently have I started really using a lot of footnotes to specify where I got each fact. And I'm still not formatting my sources in any formal way.

Additionally, I don't keep track of my research at all. I just go where the wind takes me. I know that probably means I'm being inefficient, and I've probably lost track of a lot of leads I should have followed. I have a few things on to do lists here and there, but no semblance of a research plan.

So, it's time to go over it all again! I'm sure I'll make some great improvements to my WikiTree profiles, and maybe I'll even find some hidden doors through those pesky brick walls of mine.

More posts to come, once the challenge begins!

What's Your Number?

2014-10-08T11:12:00.002-05:00

I first saw it on Pinterest, and since then on numerous genealogy blogs, inculding Olive Tree Genealogy Blog. Everybody's figuring out how many of their ancestors they've identified back to their 7x great grandparents (1022 ancestors in all [not 1024 as everyone keeps saying; do the math!]). What fun!

So I decided to give it a try myself:

Generation	Potential Ancestors	My Identified Ancestors
Parents	2	2
Grandparents	4	4
Great Grandparents	8	8
2x Great Grandparents	16	16
3x Great Grandparents	32	32
4x Great Grandparents	64	47
5x Great Grandparents	128	38
6x Great Grandparents	256	34
7x Great Grandparents	512	41

Grand Total: 222 out a possible 1022, or just under 22%!

Darn. I started out so strong! 100% out to my 3x great grandparents! But the numbers really started to dwindle as I got further back.

In particular, I noticed my mom's side dropped out of the calculations pretty quickly, other than my direct maternal line which I've put a lot of work into. But all those English lines, they go back to 1830 or so and then things start to get challenging! My dad's side, on the other hand, is all French Canadian, so those lines tend to go back to the 1600s pretty easily.

But I'm not discouraged! I'm still thrilled by how much my tree has grown in recent years, and am excited to see the new directions it will take in the future. (I recently learned I'm part German! Who knew?) Perhaps I'll fill in this table again a year from now and see how far I've come.

GFR Family History Month Challenge: Day 5

2014-10-05T22:14:00.000-05:00

Check out my Day 1 post to see this challenge from the beginning!

It's time for Day 5 of the GFR Family History Month Challenge! (You may have noticed I missed Day 4. I had a busy day, and also do not have the free time for scrapbooking!) Today's challenge is: Research a collateral ancestor. Who was your great aunt’s husband? What about that gal with the funny name who married your fifth great uncle? Go find out about someone new. Sometimes clues for your own direct line lay buried with those collateral families.

This is actually a topic I quite enjoy. Apparently it's common in the genealogy community to only research your direct ancestors. When I found this out I was thoroughly confused. I never even considered limiting my tree in that way. I do focus on people who are no more than two generations removed from my direct ancestors (by which I mean all of my ancestors' grandchildren), but there are plenty of times when I go off further than that.

Today's challenge prompted me to look through my Watchlist for a name I haven't looked at in a while, though, and I ended up looking at Samuel Cockroft and Martha Ann Shaw. The Cockrofts aren't related to me by blood, but they are blood relatives of my blood relatives. Emmeline Cockroft was my great grandfather's first wife. When she died, Herbert Jackson was left alone with two small children, and he soon remarried to my great grandmother, Janet Aspinall.

Samuel and Martha Cockroft were Emmeline's parents. A quick search on FamilySearch led me to their marriage registration index. So now, if I want, I can order their marriage record, and continue researching the Cockroft and Shaw lines.

GFR Family History Month Challenge: Day 3

2014-10-03T23:16:00.001-05:00

Check out my Day 1 post to see this challenge from the beginning!

It's time for Day 3 of the GFR Family History Month Challenge! Today's challenge is: Visit a cemetery you haven't yet to find the headstones of some of your ancestors. Take pictures. Post them on that collaborative site you joined!

After a day filled with work and homework, I'm writing this when it's already pitch black outside and past my bedtime. :) But tomorrow, I'll stop by the Cimetière de Cathédrale de Saint-Boniface, a nearby cemetery that I'm in the process of photographing for the Manitoba Cemeteries Project. As far as I know, I don't have relatives buried there. Or at least, not close ones, but most of the people buried there are French Canadian, and we're totally all related!

Cimetière de Cathédrale de Saint-Boniface also happens to be the final resting place of Manitoba folk hero Louis Riel, who led the Métis in two rebellions against the Canadian government and was executed for treason, yet is widely considered the "Father of Manitoba". He's also, as I recently discovered, my eighth cousin, twice removed!

GFR Family History Month Challenge: Day 2

2014-10-02T13:24:00.003-05:00

Check out my Day 1 post to see this challenge from the beginning!

It's time for Day 2 of the GFR Family History Month Challenge! Today's challenge is: Start a One Name Study for one of your unique family names or one of your favorites.

As it happens, I've already done this one, too! I always imagined I'd one day start a One Name Study on the Daigneaults, which would be fairly manageable, but so far I haven't gotten around to it. What I did was start a Jackson study, limited to the Huddersfield and the surrounding area in West Yorkshire.

I started my study because my Jackson line goes back to John Jackson, son of William Jackson, of Huddersfield. The reason it doesn't go back any further is because that area just happens to have Johns and Williams Jackson coming out of its ears. So I started this study to research all of them and tease out the various family groups. It is not easy.

So, since I've already done today's challenge of starting a One Name Study, I'll participate today by doing a bit of work on those John Jackson families.

Do you have a One Name Study? WikiTree has a One Name Studies Project! It's great for working with other people who are also facing the specific challenges of One Names Studies.

GFR Family History Month Challenge: Day 1

2014-10-01T19:04:00.000-05:00

For Family History Month (which is October, and I always forget about it), the Global Family Reunion blog is hosting a daily challenge with ways of celebrating your family history.

Day 1's challenge is: Join a collaborative genealogy site to start sharing your research with others.

This one is too easy for me! :) But if you haven't yet joined a collaborative genealogy site, you should! It's a great way to connect with cousins, collaborate on brick walls, and help others connect to their roots, just to name a few benefits!

This is my blog, so I'm allowed to be totally biased and say you should really join WikiTree.com. It's free, has a great Q&A forum called G2G, and has projects for people who share genealogical interests.

The Global Cemeteries Project's First Cemetery Challenge!

2014-09-04T16:33:00.001-05:00

If you've seen me around WikiTree, you may have noticed my very high level of enthusiasm and excitement when it comes to the Global Cemeteries Project, which a few of us started up in June (though the Australian WikiTreers had had their own regional version for some time). I'm so happy to finally have a place to upload tombstone photos that also 1) doesn't take ownership of the photos away from me, and 2) allows me to link up those tombstone photos to other information about the people buried there, and ultimately to the global family tree.

Well, this excitement, when combined with my naturally competitive nature, could only lead to one thing: a challenge! Thus was the September 2014 Tombstone Photo Challenge born. The challenge is to photograph as many tombstones as possible during the month of September.

My inspiration for this particular challenge came from my location: Winnipeg, Manitoba, often nicknamed Winterpeg. A city in which the cemeteries spend half the year buried under a substantial quantity of snow. So I wanted to make sure I took lots and lots of pictures before that happened, so that I'd have plenty to do transcribing them and creating WikiTree profiles for them over the winter.

So if you haven't joined the Global Cemeteries Project yet, now's the time! Join in the challenge and see if you can lurk around more cemeteries than anyone else! ;) Compete for bragging rights and a sweet profile badge, all the while helping to improve WikiTree's coverage of the world's cemeteries. And as I can already say from experience, before too long you'll be getting messages thanking you for posting a picture of someone's ancestor's tombstone. And that's a pretty great feeling.

Why WikiTree's Cemeteries Project is a Good Use of Time

2014-06-26T16:34:00.001-05:00

My usual disclaimer: I work for WikiTree.com, but this is my personal genealogy blog. I am not paid to blog here and my opinions do not necessarily reflect "official WikiTree opinions" or anything like that. This is just Lianne talking.

So, some WikiTreers (including myself) recently started up the Global Cemeteries Project, which grew out of WikiTree team member Paul Bech's Cemeteries of Australia Project. I am BEYOND EXCITED about this project, and will later write a blog post all about how much I love it. But for now, I wanted to write about the reaction to it.

A lot of people share my excitement. Enough people that I think this project is going to grow and become something wonderful. But what I find interesting is that the negative (or maybe not negative but simply uncertain) reactions all seem to be taking the exact same form:

Aren't you just reinventing the wheel? Find a Grave already does this.

First, let me just say that if you said something like this, don't worry: I'm not angrily replying to your comment. I'm writing this because a whole bunch of people said the exact same thing and I find it interesting. Because I disagree with it in literally every way. Let's break it down.

1) Having info in only one place is bad.

We all know this. That's why geneabloggers are always writing about having backups. Not to mention, aside from crashing, sites can shut down. While I like Find a Grave and hope it sticks around, let's face it: it's owned by Ancestry, and it's free. That has not historically been a great combination.

But my point here is that just because there's one site that has cemeteries and tombstones on it doesn't mean there shouldn't be another one. Which brings me to...

2) There's already more than one.

I don't understand the implication that Find a Grave has some kind of monopoly and we'd be crazy to "compete" with it. Isn't BillionGraves kind of huge? Not to mention country-specific ones, like Canada GenWeb's Cemetery Project, which is my personal favourite site for looking up cemeteries in Canada, as it's by far the most complete in my experience. So, obviously, this town is more than big enough for the two of us.

3) Find a Grave is not "international".

People always argue with me on this one, because technically Find a Grave is international. But it isn't really. For example, let's say I want to browse for a cemetery in a certain location. I have no clue what it's name is. From the cemetery search page there are options to "browse by US county" or "browse by non-US country". (There's your first big hint, by the way.) So I click the second link, and select Canada from the dropdown list. Surprise, surprise, there are too many cemeteries in Canada to list on one page so the query simply fails.

Simply put, any site that lets you drill down to the county in the US, but only the country elsewhere is not international. At all.

4) The Cemeteries Project directly contributes to WikiTree's mission.

This is the most important reason. We want to eventually have a profile for everyone, right? Presumably including everyone who has a tombstone in any cemetery. And a good, complete profile would ideally have a picture of that person's tombstone on it. So, really, the Cemeteries project is just doing what we normally do on WikiTree, but from a slightly different angle: starting with the source and creating profiles from it, instead of the other way around. Which, since it only creates profiles with at least one good quality source (the tombstone), is really a pretty good way of going about contributing to the tree.

So, I hope you'll consider checking out WikiTree's Global Cemeteries Project! Now, I'm off to go transcribe some more tombstone photos.

My connection to A.J. Jacobs in the global family tree!

2014-03-14T16:03:00.000-05:00

Background Info

In case you haven't heard, A.J. Jacobs (author of The Know-It-All, The Year of Living Biblically, and Drop Dead Healthy) has a new project: connecting himself to as many people as possible in the global family tree! So right now, tonnes of people are working on A.J.'s tree, trying to connect it to their own. All of this is leading up to the Global Family Reunion that will be held in New York on June 6, 2015.

I'm a huge fan of A.J. Jacobs, so I was super excited when I heard about this project! And even more excited when I met A.J. at RootsTech in February!

Yeah, that happened!

WikiTree's Global Family Reunion Project

This whole idea just happens to perfectly match WikiTree's goal of building one worldwide family tree, so it was only natural for us to start a Global Family Reunion Project there. That's been going extremely well, with all sorts of connections being made. You can get updates on our progress in the Google+ Community.

Finding My Connection

I'd been contributing to the tree where I could, and keeping an eye out for any French-souding names in hopes of finding a French Canadian connection. I got my hopes up when I came across a Toussaint family, but that led me back to an immigrant from the Netherlands.

Finally, a connection was found to a French Canadian family. As I expected would happen as soon as a French Canadian popped up, I very quickly connected that tree to mine! Erin had found the path from A.J. to Josiah Rising Raizenne. Josiah's great great grandson's wife is my 5th cousin, 4 times removed!

So, here's the path from me to A.J. Jacobs:

Lianne Lavoie (me) -> my father, Louis Gilbert Lavoie -> his mother, Clemence Wilhelmina Marguerite Richard -> her mother, Marie Alberta "Bertha" Daigneault -> her father, Narcisse Daigneault -> his father, Anselme Daigneault -> his father, Louis Daigneault -> his father, Pierre Deneau -> his father, Jacques Deniau -> his father, Pierre Deniau -> his brother, René Deniau -> his son, Jean-Baptiste Deniau -> his son, Joseph Deniau -> his daughter, Josephe Deniau -> her daughter, Marie Josephe "Angelique" Bissonnette -> her daughter, Angele Andre dit St. Amant -> her husband, Guillaume Seguin -> his father, Guillaume Seguin -> his father, Guillaume Seguin -> his mother, Marie Anne Raizenne -> her father, Josiah Rising Raizenne -> his father, John Rising -> his wife, Mary Claflin Rising -> her brother, Daniel Claflin -> his son, Robert Claflin -> his son, Daniel Claflin-> his daughter Phoebe Claflin Sprague -> her son, Almon Sprague -> his wife, Lucy Bentley Sprague -> her brother, Orlando Bentley -> his wife, Caroline Sears Bentley -> her sister, Elizaette Sears Austin -> her son, Duane S. Austin -> his son, Lloyd Austin -> his daughter, Gertrude Austin English -> her husband, James A. English -> his father, John Royal English -> his mother, Alice Parker Finnell -> her husband Ashford Bartlett Finnell -> his sister, Nora Finnell Ayers -> her husband, Frank C. Ayers -> his father, George Ayers -> his wife, Nancy Morrison Ayers -> her daughter, Nellie Crowley Kuntz -> her husband, Edward Kuntz -> his sister, Emma Kuntz Ferrell -> her daughter, Georgia Ferrell Hirsch Takacs -> her husband, Irwin Hirsch -> his mother, Harriet Friedenheit Hirsch -> her sister, Sophie Friedenheit Kingsbacher (AJ's 2nd great grandmother).

Or, to write that the (slightly) shorter way, I'm A.J.'s 1st cousins 3x removed's wife's uncle's wife's mother's husband's son's wife's brother's wife's grandson's wife's great great aunt's husband's sister's husband's great great great aunt's husband's great great great grandson's wife's 5th cousin 4x removed.

So, basically, we're practically cousins!

As for accuracy, the link from me back through my Deniau ancestors is all from my personal research, which I'm quite confident in. I think most of the path from Josiah Raizenne to A.J. Jacobs was done by members of the Global Family Reunion Project, and from what I've seen that means it's probably pretty solid. The remaining French Canadian bit of the path was already on WikiTree, and not well-sourced, but it does seem to match what's on Nos Origines, which seems to always be right.

So, I'm fairly confident in this path being accurate. But just to be safe, my next task as part of this project will be to go along this line adding all the sources I can, and branching out from it as well to help others connect to the global tree more easily.

I'm thrilled that my connection wound up being through my Daigneault line! The more recent part of that line, once they're in Manitoba, is a personal favourite of mine. I've often thought if I ever did a one name study it would probably be on the Daigneaults.

If you're interested in finding your connection to A.J. Jacobs, and you aren't already on WikiTree.com, I highly recommend signing up! It's free, and with so many connections being made to his tree there you're bound to find yours!

Why I Love WikiTree

2014-01-04T22:36:00.000-06:00

Here's why I love WikiTree! To see why other people love WikiTree (and to share why you do), check out the I Love WikiTree Photo Festival!

Honestly, it was hard to come up with an idea for this picture because there are so many reasons why I love WikiTree, and most of them would be hard to fit on a piece of paper. (They're more inclined to take the form of impassioned speeches.) But I think this captures at least one of those reasons: on WikiTree, you're not doing genealogy alone. People all over the world whose research overlaps are working together to break through their brick walls, and learn about their ancestor's lives. And there are WikiTreers with so many different areas of expertise that you're almost certain to find someone who can help you with a research problem.

Starting a mini one name study

2013-12-11T16:17:00.002-06:00

Recently, I've started looking again at my Jackson line. Years ago, I traced it back from my grandpa to John Jackson, born around 1838 in Huddersfield, pretty easily. But as it turns out, finding more information about John Jackson, son of William Jackson, is no easy task. There are a LOT of John Jacksons in West Yorkshire!

Therefore, I've joined the new One Name Studies project on WikiTree. I've started a one name study of all Jacksons in and around Huddersfield. I know focusing on such a small area is a far cry from a full one name study, but even this is no small undertaking.

Basically what I'm doing is creating WikiTree profiles for all the Jacksons I find records for, whether or not I'm related to them. My hope is that this will help me to sort out all the different families. To give you an example of how important this detangling is, right now I'm looking at the records for Joseph Jackson and his wife Martha. I've tried to find their marriage record, and I've discovered that there were three couples named Joseph and Martha Jackson who got married in the 1830s in West Yorkshire. Seriously! So, I think this Martha might be Martha Scargill, based on the location, but she could also theoretically be Martha Moor or Martha Holdroyd, because they weren't too far away.

So wish me luck with this! And if you have Jackson ancestors in the Huddersfield area, let me know! Maybe we can work together to sort them out. Also, I ordered a yDNA test for my grandpa, so soon I might have another source of leads!

Tracking Frances Armitage through the censuses

2013-11-08T16:32:00.001-06:00

My great great great grandmother, Frances Armitage, was born around 1829 in Lockwood, Yorkshire, which is now part of Huddersfield. On 11 July 1847, she married William Broughton in nearby Almondbury. From her marriage record, I know that her father's name was Joseph Armitage.

With this knowledge, it was easy enough to find Frances and her family in the 1871 census. Once I looked on Ancestry I also quickly found them in the 1861 and 1881 censuses (Ancestry subscription required for those last two links). But I didn't have enough information to find Frances before her marriage.

I've found various records that seem promising based on the name, approximate birth date, and father's name, including a birth record on FamilySearch. They all have a mother named Martha. So I figured, if I could just determine that Frances' mother's name was Martha, it would be a pretty safe assumption that these other records belonged to her as well.

Enter the 1851 census (Ancestry link). The image is nigh unreadable, but looking at that and the transcription together I was able to figure out some things. Frances' family group was transcribed as William Broughton, age 30, head; Frances Broughton, age 23, daughter; Benjamin Wetherhill, age 24, lodger. Now, obviously this is a mistake in relationships, since Frances couldn't be William's daughter when she's only seven years younger than him.

But it all started to make sense when I looked at the people listed right before this family: Martha Armitage, age 61, head; Ann Armitage, age 15, son [weird...]; Richard Armitage, age 13, grandson. And, it appears that this household and the Broughton household are actually all at the same address! So, I figure that Frances Broughton is listed as daughter because she is actually the daughter of the head of the household, Martha Armitage, and for whatever reason William was listed as head instead of son-in-law.

So, the result of all this is that I'm reasonably certain that Frances' mother was named Martha, and therefore I'm reasonably certain that I have the right birth record, meaning I now have Frances' exact birth date! Next step: get her birth record from the parish records. This is a step I haven't taken yet in any of my English lines; I always just get back to the beginning of the civil BMD records and then stop and work on something else. This is because I tend to shy away from things that I can't do online. But eventually I'm going to want my English lines to go back pre-1830s, so this is definitely a skill I need to learn!

The brand-new Society for One-Place Studies

2013-09-05T16:45:00.001-05:00

There's a Society for One-Place Studies now! While I'm disappointed that the free listing of one-place studies appears to be gone, at the same time I'm quite excited about the creation of this society, and have already joined and registered my one-place study.

For only £10 (currently about $16.37 Canadian) a year, plus a one-time registration fee of £10 for each study registered, you get access to the forum, a regular e-newsletter, an email alias (mine's lianne.lavoie@one-place-studies.org), and a page for your one-place study in the listing.

If you have a one-place study, you should consider joining. And if you don't have a one place study, you should consider starting one! They're a great way to add local context to your genealogy.

My mtDNA results!

2013-06-26T22:57:00.001-05:00

A few days ago, I got the results back from my Family Tree DNA mtFullSequence test, the most detailed mtDNA test available. It turns out I'm in haplogroup H1c1.

So, I guess the next step is to start contacting matches and seeing if we have any common names in our maternal lines. A few matches contacted me as soon as my results were ready, but sadly we haven't found any connections yet. But there are plenty left to try; I have 144 matches that match in HVR1, HVR2, and the coding region, and 45 of them are exact matches! Since apparently those have a 50% chance of being related to me within 6 generations, surely I must find something.

What I'd really like would be if everyone in my haplogroup had their maternal lines on WikiTree, so we could all easily compare and connect our trees together! I think I'll mention that idea to the people I talk to, and see if they'll either join and put up their tree, or give me a GEDCOM of their maternal lines that I could manage on WikiTree for them. A DNA project like that could be really interesting!

In the meantime, for the sake of anyone who finds this post when googling H1c1 because it's also their haplogroup, here's my direct maternal line. Do let me know if you see any names from your tree here!

updated live from WikiTree

Trying out FamilySearch's Family Tree

2013-04-17T06:00:00.000-05:00

Note: I work for WikiTree, but this blog is my personal space and any opinions expressed here are not the official opinions of WikiTree. I am not paid to blog here. Obviously I have a bit of a bias caused by my undying love for WikiTree, but I have tried to keep an open mind when trying out new things.

After hearing a whole lot about Family Tree while at RootsTech, I decided to try it out. I figured I at least should have more experience with which to answer people who ask me "Why should I use WikiTree when Family Tree does the same thing?" (Spoiler alert: The answer is "Because they don't do the same thing.")

One of my great grandparents was already in the tree, so I started by adding just enough of my tree to connect to him.

Positive first impressions at this point include the fact that a whole line of my tree, from my great grandfather all the way back to my immigrant ancestor, was already on the site. Also, the graphical tree that you can drag around and expand pieces of is really nice.

Negative first impressions include the fact that the immigrant ancestor had all kinds of incorrect parents and spouses attached to him, and there are duplicates coming out of my ears. (To be fair, that family was just as bad on WikiTree before I got my hands on it. But people keep talking about how Family Tree is "source-based", and therefore more accurate, and I'm just not seeing it.) Also, I don't really like how couples are grouped into one box in the pedigree chart. It means that when I look at my pedigree, only half of it is used, because the other half is reserved for my husband.

So, I started merging duplicates. It's what I do best, after all! Right away I ran into problems. Some of my 2x great grandparents' daughters were duplicated, with one copy of each being male. I quickly learned that you can't merge a male and a female. You also can't change the gender. Or delete a person. So, all you can do is disconnect the incorrect person from the tree, and leave it to float around forever, with no accurate information in it. I don't much like the thought of that.

The processes of editing and merging are pretty nice. When editing, you're asked to provide a reason why you think your info is true, which I quite like. When merging, you select data to save from the person that will be deleted, and it slides over to the other side, clearly showing you what will be kept. There's an annoying issue where some people cannot be merged, but apparently that will become less common when New FamilySearch is gone. In the meantime, it means there are duplicates out there that we can't do anything about.

Overall, I think once the kinks are worked out Family Tree will be a pretty good collaborative tree. But keep in mind that that's all it is. There is nothing but the bare bones here. There are no biographies. There are no pages for cemeteries, towns, buildings, etc. Right now, it appears that you can't even add photos. This is strictly names, dates, places, and relationships.

So, while I will try to improve the pages for my ancestors on Family Tree, because I hate to see mistakes in my tree anywhere, it's not something that will absorb a lot of my time. For me, there's a lot more to genealogy than raw data, so I prefer sites/apps that allow for that richer content.

Giving Bloglovin' a try!

2013-04-07T18:28:00.003-05:00

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

I'm trying out various Google Reader alternatives as I prepare for its untimely demise. Bloglovin' seems to be popular amongst the bloggers I follow, so I've signed up there. It seems promising so far!

Going to Rootstech!

2013-03-20T18:34:00.000-05:00

It's time for Rootstech!! It starts tomorrow, and I'm currently in Salt Lake City, excited for a few days of all genealogy all the time! I'll be working at the WikiTree booth, along with WikiTreer-in-Chief Chris Whitten, and two of the site's power users, Ed Burke and Mike Gabbard.

If you're at Rootstech, come by the WikiTree booth and say hello! :)

The Never-Ending Search for Sarah Jane Elson's Marriage Record

2013-03-11T07:00:00.000-05:00

You may have heard me complain about Sarah Jane Elson. My matrilineal great-great-great-great grandmother is both my favourite and my least favourite person to research. I'm rather obsessed with my maternal line, and the fact that Sarah Jane has been a brick wall for me for the last year has been very frustrating. It's really taught me how little I know about genealogical research. In all my other lines, I've been able to get by with the basic census records and vital records, mostly available for free online. Rarely have I ever had to look at a microfilm. But with Sarah Jane, it's become apparent that I need to expand my research horizons.

Some googling led me to learn that marriages in Ontario between 1858 and 1869 are recorded in county marriage registers. It's quite likely that Sarah Jane Elson and Henry Prince were married during this time. (It was definitely after 1852 and before 1861. They had their first child in 1861, when Sarah Jane was about 22.) These records are available to order to any FamilySearch Centre. So, for the first time, I have a reason to go to a FamilySearch Centre! How exciting! I'm kind of embarassed as a genealogist that I haven't been yet. :)

So I'm going to order the microfilm for the Middlesex County marriage registers. Sarah Jane shows up in censuses in that county both before and after marrying Henry, so it's pretty likely that that's where they would have been married.

It's only $8 (plus possible taxes) for me to get these microfilm records for at least two months, which is pretty awesome. And now that I'm working irregular hours, rather than business hours, I'll probably have more chances to get to the FamilySearch Centre during its very limited hours.

Once my order arrives, and I get a chance to take a look, I'll write more about my visit to the FamilySearch Centre, and about my continued search for this elusive marriage record! Wish me luck!

Wordless Wednesday - Emmeline Cockroft

2012-12-12T06:00:00.000-06:00

Emmeline Cockroft (abt. 1883 - 1921) was the first wife of my great grandfather, Herbert Jackson. After her death, Herbert married my great grandmother, Janet Aspinall.

A jump across the pond!

2012-12-10T07:00:00.000-06:00

I have been able to trace another branch of my family back to Europe! That's always so exciting! For a long time now, my 4x great grandparents, Henry Prince and Sarah Jane Elson, have been a big brick wall for me. Alas, Sarah Jane's origins remain elusive, but I've made a lot of progress on Henry!

Previously, I only had records from after Henry and Sarah Jane were married. I did have an 1852 census record that looked promising, but I couldn't be sure that it was him. He was the right age, and had parents named Joseph and Elizabeth, but those are pretty common names, so I wasn't confident.

Then, in response to one of my usual queries looking for their marriage record, someone posted a transcription of an 1841 England census record. There were enough common family members for me to be sure that this one matched the 1852 record. But again, that didn't tell me if these records were for my Henry Prince.

To try to fill in the gap, I went to the library to use Ancestry Library Edition to check the 1861 Canadian census. I found this record. It shows Henry Prince married to Sarah, proving that this is my Henry. But again, no sure way to connect it to the earlier records.

At this point, I made a very smart decision: I went back over what I had! Always a good idea! And that's when I found the answer. In the 1881 census, there's another Prince living with Henry, Sarah Jane, and their children: James. He's 33, exactly the right age to be Henry's brother James from the 1852 census. With everything else lining up so nicely, this was the bit of evidence that brought my confidence to the point where I strongly believe that the Henry Prince in those earlier records is in fact my ancestor.

So, that 1841 England census record is quite exciting! At that time, Henry was living in Bramshaw, Wiltshire (Bramshaw used to be split between Wiltshire and Hampshire; it is now completely in Hampshire.), which is also where he was born. This is far from most of my other English ancestors, almost all of whom originated in West Yorkshire, in Huddersfield and the surrounding areas. So I have another county to explore! And by explore I mean research because who can afford a trip to England? :)

December To Dos

2012-12-06T07:00:00.000-06:00

It's been awhile (a year!) since I wrote a to do post, so I thought I'd bring them back! One of my weaknesses is my inability to actually plan my research (I go with the flow!), so I should probably work on that. Here's what I'd like to get done this month:

Start scanning my Cockroft family album. I haven't prioritised this one since the people in it aren't related to me (they're from my great grandfather's first wife's family), but recently I was contacted on WikiTree by someone in that family, so I'd like to send her some pictures!
Write a blog post about my progress on Henry Prince, my 4x great grandfather.
Finally finish my post about the Romeo and Juliette in my family, which I keep starting and not finishing for some reason.
Order the mtFullSequence DNA test from Family Tree DNA! I'm so excited to do this! A series of blog posts will follow, probably in January.
Catch up on my genealogy blog reading in my Google Reader, which I've let get way out of hand!

What are you hoping to accomplish this month? Let me know in the comments!