The Chart Chick

The Chart Chick's Quick Insider's Guide to Salt Lake City

2012-01-23T09:41:00.003-07:00

To help you with your trip to RootsTech and the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy, I've been hard at work revising and updating my earlier blog posts about Salt Lake City into a quick and easy guide that will make your trip more enjoyable.

Introducing:

The Chart Chick's Quick Insider's Guide to Salt Lake City.

It is available as a free pdf available at www.familychartmasters.com/slc.

And I've put it on Lulu for anyone who wants a print copy. You can order it right now until RootsTech starts on February 2nd for 30% off the regular $14.95 price making it just over $10.

Thanks to Thomas MacEntee for encouraging me to get this out there. I hope you all enjoy it. Stop by the Family ChartMasters' booth and let me know what you tried out and how you liked it. We'll see you soon.

Getting the next generation involved--a testimonial

2012-01-18T07:09:00.004-07:00

This testimonial made our day today. And just look at these pictures! This is why we do what we do.

Dear Janet and Erin,

Hope your new year's off to a good start!

I've been meaning to write and tell you just how thrilled my family was with the custom chart you created for us. It turned out even more beautifully than I had imagined, and I was so excited to give it to them Christmas morning. My mother- and father-in-law were speechless at first, then in tears when they realized what it was. My sisters- and brothers-in-law were also amazed, even though they knew I was making it, and so appreciative when I gave them their own copies. But what really surprised me was how touched my nieces, nephews, and own children were (a total of eight kids in their teens and 20's). The chart really moved them. To say it was a hit would be quite an understatement. Within a day, it was hanging in a place of honor in the front foyer.

I truly believe this is the best thing I could have possibly done to share my work on the family history and get the rest of the family interested in their ancestry. Thank you for all the hours you put into making the chart a reality for me. Family ChartMasters was a delight to work with from start to finish. You seemed to grasp my idea for the chart right away, and whenever I made yet another revision or swapped another picture you cheerfully incorporated it. The chart will be a family treasure for many years to come. I look forward to working with you again on other branches of my family!

Just to give you an idea, my 24-year-old daughter put a picture of her grandmother and grandfather holding the chart on her Facebook page with the caption, "The best Christmas gift ever!"

Thanks again and best wishes,
Shelley
http://www.asenseoffamily.com/

The 6 basic principles of sharing your family history with your children.

2012-01-16T08:26:00.005-07:00

I've got a bunch of videos we've been editing from how things went over Christmas. I can't wait to show you Mom and Dad's reaction to the kids' family history present for them and how it went when we took everyone to the library to start verifying these records. So stay tuned for that. 15-year-old boy is editing the videos and I'm trying to get him to repress the perfectionist in his nature or you'd never see them. But as much as I want you to see them, I want him to do it himself more, so you'll have to be patient.

In the meantime I have a section of my new book for you. Likewise coming soon. Here's a sneak peek. The 6 basic principles of sharing your family history with your children.

If you make it boring it will be boring. Start with an attention getter and make sure you are a good story teller. Anyone would be interested in seeing a picture of their great-grandfather who looked just like them. And any child would like to see his grandfather's school report card when he was their age. All children will listen to stories about the trouble their mother got into as a child. Start with photos, games, or engaging stories if you want your family to be interested in what you have to tell them about their family's past.
Don't underestimate their abilities and interest level. Working with children, I've been consistently amazed at how much interest they had even when I didn't expect it. When you expect them to be interested, but keep in mind their attention level, you will find that they will surprise you with their excitement about their history. If they aren't all that interested, return to the paragraph above and analyze the way you are presenting it to them.
You may not inspire a self proclaimed genealogist but you will have a child that knows about their family history. While your children or grandchildren my not identify themselves as a genealogist, they may still grow up knowing alot about their family of origin. Any child can benefit from the blessings of family history whether they become a zealot for the cause or not. Each time they encounter their family's history more and more of the benefits of knowing their past will come into play in their lives.
Teaching about family history is a lifestyle, not a single event. Every little encounter children have with their family history is a little more they know about their past. Encounters can be as small as a comment or as large as a full scale family event. But over the course of time, big and small encounters with family history add up to a foundational knowledge about where the family came from and a more developed sense of self for the child.
Family history is best passed down when you know the family members you are trying to involve. Know the attention span of the children you are working with. Know how they approach problems and what frustrates them. Know what interests and hobbies they have that might tie in to a project you want to do. Find a characteristic they have in common with an ancestor. When you bring the family history to the child rather than try to bring the child to family history, your child's connection will be much stronger and easier to forge.
If you are excited about it, and if you have a good relationship, they will be more inclined to be excited about their family history too. My kids joke that when they work on family history with me they get in my "good zone." They know that I am passionate about it, and they know that I love it when they get involved. They know that after working on family history with me, they can talk me into many privileges that I might have otherwise said no to because I trust that their souls are fed and I can trust them more with other aspects of their lives. Hopefully they will come away from our time together with a love for family history because they love me. I know they have already developed a love for family history because they love their grandparents. And hopefully their experiences with family history will be associated with joy because their mother was so happy with them when they were working on it.

Like my Great Grandfather Joseph Hatten Carpenter said, "One arises from the study of genealogy with a clearer and more charitable conception of the whole brotherhood of man." Who wouldn't want to inspire that in their kids?

2012 Conference Plans--So Far

2011-12-30T07:26:00.000-07:00

January 20th and 21st 2012,Family History Expo, Mesa, Arizona
January 23rd-27th, 2012, Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy, Salt Lake City, UT--Janet will be Administrating as UGA President.
February 2nd-4th 2012,Rootstech Family History Conference, Salt Lake City, UT--Janet will be speaking.
February 24th-26th, 2012, Who Do You Think You Are Live Conference, London England--Janet will be speaking.
March 3rd, 2012, Utah Genealogical Association Semi-Annual Conference, Bountiful, UT--Janet will be speaking.
May 9th-12th, 2012, National Genealogy Society Conference, Cincinnati, OH
June 8th-10th, 2012, Southern California Genealogical Society Conference, Burbank, CA--Janet will be speaking.

Triumph!!!

2011-12-24T11:52:00.004-07:00

11:30 am Christmas Eve Morning. We've finished. We did it. Woot Woot. There were moments where I didn't think we were going to make it. I've been worried this week that the kids would experience the agony of defeat and a learning experience rather than the joy of a successful project. But yea! It worked, it worked.

453 family group sheets digitized
145 Kim
90 Janet
98 15 year old boy
60 13 year old boy
60 11 year old girl.

How it all went down before it took a swing for the better.

Last night, on Christmas Adam (the night before Eve), we left the kids to themselves while we went to our traditional Iron Chef competition with my sisters (another story). The kids were supposed to stay home and work on their extraction. The last two days that they've been out of school we've been working and working as long as their attention spans would allow. The attention spans haven't been much. When they are sitting at a computer, using the internet, the draw of the surf is harsh. They can't concentrate. They are drawn to this and that--mostly the boys are drawn to the current video game that all their friends are playing. Honestly I know alot of adults who are the same way. It seems like we are becoming a culture of trivia buffs who can't get a major project done. I have days like that too at times.

So we'd been dragging through the last couple of days. I've been frustrated that they've said "yeah, I'm doing it" but then the surf drags them away. It was coming down to the line. We still had way too much to do.

In retrospect it was crazy to think they'd work on it last night. They're teenagers for heaven's sake. I expect alot out of them. But when we got home, I would have been disappointed to find out they hadn't gotten much done, but I was downright mad when I found out they hadn't been doing much that morning when I was sitting in the family room working on it with them. I was really mad.

So we had one of those terrible motherhood moments. I yelled at them last night. I was so frustrated with them that they couldn't do it without me sitting there with them. I had wanted it to get finished up so that we could do other things today (Christmas Eve). Why couldn't we have gotten it done early? I wanted to make Christmas cookies, relax, visit with family more etc. But the morning was spent go, go, go on getting this project done. In the end it was ok. Saved us some calories. But we went to bed last night not thinking we were going to be able to finish it. And I went to bed thinking I had forever ruined my children's chances of ever liking family history. If they have this Mom that is uber-stressed about it, they'll just resent it. I hadn't won the battle, and more importantly I had lost the war.

So last night, when we were going to bed, I asked them--how are you going to get it done? 15 year old boy said he wanted us to get him up at 7am. Now you have to understand that getting this child out of bed in the morning is harder than raising the dead--literally. Nothing gets him up--not love or money. Some school days it's come to a glass of cold water. He's growing and he just needs alot of sleep. But that's when the turning point came.

At 7 am when Kim and I came down to wake him up, he was already sitting on the couch doing extraction.

Yes, yes he was.

I attribute it more to his love of his grandparents at this point than to his love of family history. But I'll take it.

In the end we all worked together. Kim saved us. Kim rocks at Genealogy. He did pages and pages of this extraction, and finished up the two younger kids projects. Kim can always find the things on microfilm that I can. He is just quick at it. In a religious sense it came out as a perfect celebration of the life of Christ. Kim came in and made up for what the younger kids couldn't do themselves. 15 year old helped with some of that too. Or as 15 year old son put it to his younger brother as he was doing some of younger brother's pages "You have saved our lives--we are eternally grateful (In a little green alien voice from the movie Toy Story."

Yes--their Mom has put too much emphasis on this. They think their lives are at stake.

It was really beautiful watching it all come together this morning. I was sitting by 11 year old girl, encouraging every little bit out of her last two pages. She was too stressed. But it all melted away as those last couple of pages were done. It was a real sense of joy. I think they all felt it. Relief. Pride. A job well done.

I'm a little worried about the Christmas memories they will take into their respective families. Instead of sweet Christmas baking memories they'll have these mad family history project memories. Oh well. There already weren't alot of cookie making memories--more packaging and shipping family history chart memories. We'll relax next week like we always do.

I think the major point to learn today, is that it is really good to have deadlines. We've all drug it out, me included, thinking we would have time to do it later. But when it comes down to a deadline, it gets done. Birthdays, Anniversaries, Christmas are great excuses for deadlines. It just works.

We're off to have a beautiful Christmas celebration. And present to my Mom and Dad the family history project extraordinare. They boys have already said that they may be willing to do another book next year. We've already decided though that we are going to start in January and have it done early to avoid the last minute drama. I wonder if that will work or if we will need to rely on the deadline principle again. Whatever happens, I think cleaning up and going over this database we've created is going to need to be the next project. I'm looking forward to doing that one myself.

Stay tuned. We're headed to the library with my parents on Wednesday to verify some of this stuff.

Thank heavens for key strokes

2011-12-22T12:35:00.008-07:00

All too many laptops in this house...

So I probably made too big of a deal out of citing all the sources perfectly. I've annoyed myself now.

We're in crunch time with the present for Mom and Dad. Family ChartMaster's Christmas rush is over--you can't mail anything anymore. Since most of our charts are shipped out all over the world, we have a respite the two days before Christmas when you can't ship anything. Over the years as Christmas Rush has become busier and busier that last two days seem more and more peaceful in comparison. But not this year. I've been so busy with the company, we're in a different kind of rush now, a rush to get this indexing project done. But that's a good rush.

Making new genealogists do sources perfectly is not the smartest thing to do. You don't want to get them bogged down in the details or it isn't fun. I know better than to start the kids out with demanding perfect sourcing, but that is so important in this project so that we can build on the research my great-grandfather did. The kids haven't complained. They've been really good about it. But in this last push to finish the project--I'm the one wishing it were easier :)

About three sources for each of the events. *Tedious*. But I know it's going to pay off big when we go back to combine people and further the research. I hope the kids forgive me at that point. I just couldn't do it otherwise. Just think how wonderful it will be to have a big clean database of all this research that then we can go and verify and build on. It would be a mess to go back and have to clean up sources later. We had to start with the sources right from the beginning.

Keystrokes have saved me. That's why you can't really compare genealogy softwares and say one is better than the other. Some take alot of screens and clicks to do something and some take less. I think they're all a different number of clicks for different tasks too. If you are going to use genealogy software alot for one task, it might be useful to go through the different softwares and see how many clicks and keystrokes it takes to do what you are doing. It would be interesting to see a tally of how many clicks and keystrokes there are for the many of the tasks in each of the softwares. But even then, that wouldn't tell you which is the best for you at something else. That's why I always say that the softwares are like a pair of shoes. They each have their good points and their bad points, they each go with different clothes and fit different people. (And it helps to stay neutral when we work with each of the companies so much.)

Once again it is amazing how when I sit and do it with them they concentrate and get to work. Yesterday they had just as much to do, but even though they intended to work on it, they didn't. I'm convinced that's because I was busy finishing up genealogy charts for clients rather than sitting with them. Inspire not Require they say. It's true.

I've done enough extraction today that I've found a person who's birthday is today, and who's birthday is the same as mine. That's *alot* of extraction LOL. It feels good though. Like eating nutritiously. I'm so excited to take this data to the library and see what we can build. I think we're going to make it.

Are we going to make it?

2011-12-17T11:29:00.001-07:00

453 pages of family group sheets. Perhaps we bit off more than we could chew? I'm not sure how much we've gotten done and how much we have left. Wouldn't you know it- I'm the one who has the most to do. What was I thinking taking on something like this in the middle of Christmas rush?
One week left. I'll let you know.

New Gift Certificate ordering system

2011-12-16T06:42:00.000-07:00

Just in time for the perfect holiday gift. Go to our new Gift Certificate page for an instant .pdf that you can give right away. Simply choose the number of certificates you want, proceed to the payment page, and then the .pdf page appears in your browser. Simply print and give--or even save and email to someone special.

Available in $25 and $50 denominations, the beautiful certificates make for a nice presentation and allow the recipient to utilize any of our chart printing services. When they are ready for the perfect chart, we'll take great care of your loved one and make sure they get the attention to detail that Family ChartMasters is known for.

So glad to help strengthen family ties.

2011-12-11T11:48:00.001-07:00

A few emails have brightened our days lately. We're always so glad to hear that we've helped a family. They've agreed that we can share their letters with you here.

"Got the charts ... thanks so much. My husband feels he can better understand who is who now."

---Barbara

Hi Erin,

I just wanted to drop you a line thanking you for the help with printing my Mother-in-Law’s chart. It was a lot of work getting you the information but you were very patient with me and I thank you for that. I gave her the chart her Thanksgiving dinner for her children. I was somewhat flattered when she immediately removed a wall hanging and said to hang it there. That spot was above the head of the table in the kitchen with nothing else to clutter around the picture. I have visited her twice since Thanksgiving and was met with hugs each time. She takes me to the chart and starts telling stories that she has recalled about her childhood and her favorite and not so favorite ancestors. Between the two of us we have made a special lady very happy.

Thanks,
David

We're so glad we can make David's mother-in-law happy and help Barbara's husband understand who he is. We're looking forward to helping you soon too.

Radio Radio Radio

2011-12-10T18:24:00.002-07:00

I had a great time this weekend talking to Thomas McEntee of Geneablogger's Radio about Christmas gifts and getting your family involved with family history. And then today I got to talk to D.Josh Taylor on the Federation of Genealogical Societies Radio about UGA and all the great things we are doing there. Love talking to both of them. They are both so knowledgeable and have such innovative ideas. I get so passionate about these topics. I'm not sure if I let them get a word in edgewise. I'm sure not a hard radio guest to get to talk. LOL.

Listen to internet radio with GeneaBloggers on Blog Talk Radio

Perish or Parish

2011-12-09T06:00:00.001-07:00

Found my daughter trying to enter Perish records instead of Parish records. Again--Thank heavens for auto fill and God bless the genealogy software programmers. Typing lessons ensuing. And spelling lessons now too.

The ingredients that go into my children

2011-12-08T11:45:00.000-07:00

We took some time to read to the kids about the focus of our extraction project again the other day. Joseph Hatten Carpenter was a good man, a great example of scholarship, and a great model of how consistent work can do great things over time. His strength has reached down through two generations of good hard working men--both college professors and great contributors to the community--into my family and into the example and ethics I now set for my children. I'm so grateful that I get to know him through my Grandfather's book. Although my grandfather Alvin (Joseph's son) did no other genealogical work of which I know, he connected me to his father in such a powerful way just by writing about what he knew of his father. I'm so grateful for that. It serves as a reminder of how powerful the little bit of work that we do in genealogy can be for future generations.

As I read it felt like I was reading to them a list of ingredients of things that were in their dna. I felt like I was reading to them about who they are and what they can grow up to be. Ingredients that they get to choose from of course--they are free to choose how they will become. But it was very powerful to me that these good qualities were there, already in their possession, ready to develop more and be improved upon even in this coming generation. I hope they can feel the power they have inside to be strong and capable adults who can make contributions to this world.

That's why I want them to know their family history. I want them to be confident and to strike out into the world with a sense of purpose and faith in their abilities. And I want them to be grounded in an understanding of why and how things at times didn't go the best way in our family. I want them to go forth into the world with that broad perspective that family history brings--that good choices can have long term affects on your life and on lives to come. I hope that as they come to know well the goodness in our family tree they will have the deep roots to branch out and become successful adults. To have them grow up with purpose and substance would be my greatest happiness in life and I'm going to put every tool at my disposal to use toward that direction--including family history.

Antique Genealogy

2011-12-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

So I've been learning alot about antique genealogy practices in our extraction project. It's been quite interesting.

With cursory glances through the information that has been digitized, it looked like my great-Grandfather was keeping good track of the sources he'd used to find the information in his volumes of family group records. I've taken several friends to the Family History Library in Salt Lake to look up old family group records submitted by aunts or grandparents. And in the little box they were given to record the source of the information, there was often nothing listed, or a quick "family records" notation or something like that. My friends were left with little to nothing to go on. Glancing through Joseph's records it looked like he had real notations on each page, and I had looked forward to going through and really being able to build on his work.

But now that we are into this project, I'm finding that those notations--though blessedly consistent, are pretty brief. Often it sites parish records for the places listed in the group sheets. But as we've gone to look for those records at the library, we are finding that there may be several parishes in that vicinity and we are unsure which one Grandpa was referring to. It won't take much to figure out, but I'm realizing that perhaps Grandpa wasn't quite as meticulous as I had previously supposed.

Also, there are lots of abbreviations of place names throughout his work. I think there are two reasons for this. First, he was from England and in the British notations we are working on he didn't have to write it out, he knew where he was talking about. But three generations removed now, we don't. We'll have to go figure it out. But in Grandpa's defense, secondly, the family group sheets that were the standard back then didn't leave alot of room to be able to spell out all the details in the place names. He did what he could with the space he had.

It also looks like alot of his work was based on marriage records. I'm sure waiting for letters from England was tedious. It appears he went straight for the marriage records, and then estimated the births for each bride and groom and then went about piecing things together from there. There are alot of family group records with exact marriage information and estimated births.

I'm really proud of the fact that Joseph Hatten Carpenter, my Great grandfather was a member of the Genealogical Society of Utah, a fellow of the Institute of American Genealogy in Chicago, member of the Society of Genealogists of London, member of the National Genealogical Society in Washington D.C. and the National Genealogical Research Institute as well as other geographic and historical associations. I wish I could talk to him about my work as UGA president this year. I would love to hear what he thought about that.

In April 1959 Joseph wrote: "I have now reached my 98th birthday and I feel I can do little more to add to my several lines of ancestry. I can do nothing more with Rev. Grubbs, Rector of Spaxton, Somerset, who has so grossly deceived me. I leave the further solution to my descendants to attend to it when Grubbs died and a successor comes in who can more readily furnish the records of the Gibbs, Elliotts, and Carpenters of Tugswell Manor. Thus I close my research labors." However he continued working on his genealogical records until he died at the age of 103.

I wonder what Joseph thought about the generations that would come next and if they would try to build on his work. I'm sure he could never have imagined the databases, the software, and ipads, and google searches that would be available to us today. I know he did the best he could to pass things down to us in an organized way. I wonder what I should be doing to make sure that things are ready for future generations. Probably the most important thing would be to make sure that the next generation is vested in it and committed to keeping things updated and moving forward. Still working on them. Hopefully that is where we are headed.

Picture--Joseph and his second wife Lydia in 1961

Back on track

2011-12-07T00:28:00.002-07:00

Extraction Attempt # ??
We've been working hard. 15 year-old boy is about done with his section. I'm hoping he will finish soon and help the rest of us. It is getting easier and easier. All three of them have sat down and worked on it alone at times. But we've found the best time we can all work on it together is Sunday mornings. They seem to work the best because there is so little interference from other things in comparison to other times. And while I'm so proud of them when they choose to work on our project on their own, it really works best when we are all on our laptops working together. As in all parenting--it sinks in more when you are being an example.

That said, we've come up with a little friendly competition. Most Sunday mornings when we've been working together I've been helping the younger kids, or making waffles to be supportive etc. We've been figuring that I could do it while the kids were in school--but not really--we're in the middle of Christmas Rush and busy as all get out (Thanks!). So this last Sunday morning I finally sat down and got going myself. Again--it felt good--like eating nutritious food. I think it felt good to me because it was something I'd been wanting to accomplish so much. And once you get going it's easy to get addicted to extraction. It feels so good to see progress being made.

So I couldn't resist a little trash talking. Yeah I'm behind, but I'm going to beat you all in getting my part done. Oh yeah. It's on.

Wish me luck.

Failure

2011-12-01T06:08:00.001-07:00

I get a big fat fail for our extraction attempt the other night. I had the kids all ready to work on extraction but I got busy with the company and didn't get in to help them. 15 year old boy did a little, but other than that, they didn't get anything done. It wasn't that they didn't want to, it was just that the TV, online games, and friends were more loud and enticing.

I think family history is one of those things in life that has a quiet satisfaction. It isn't usually glitz and glamour. It isn't loud and clamoring for attention. But it feels good when you do it. It feels better than all those other loud and obnoxious things. It's like how your body feels when you eat good rather than stuff it with burgers and fries. Soul satisfying.

But I have to walk the walk with them. I didn't do that last night so they got seduced by other, less nutritious pastimes. I failed. But it isn't over yet.

Thank Heavens for Genealogy Software

2011-11-27T19:50:00.000-07:00

I can't imagine how people did genealogy before there was software to help. In this last extraction session, my daughter was really getting the form of it. She knew which part of the document went in which part of the software. And it helps that the places were repeating in the documents. With all the struggling she is doing with the typing, it is so good that when she starts to type, St. Martins, Birmingham, England, after the "St" it all pops up and she can just click on it. It really sped up the tedious process and made her feel more accomplished. God bless Autofill.

It is also so nice that the sources repeat and it is so quick and easy to go in and put in a source you've already used. By the end, she was feeling really confident and wanted to do the last page on her own. You go girl. You go.

Extraction Attempt 5--our teenager experiment

2011-11-25T19:37:00.001-07:00

So we set up the laptops again tonight. I took 11 year old girl, and Kim took 13 year old boy, and the 15 year old was on his own again.

Again it was an all out typing lesson with my daughter. This time we worked on holding the shift key down with her pinky instead of hitting the Caps Lock key and then going back to hit it again. It makes things take longer than I had anticipated, but I'm ok with the typing lessons. I think learning to type better might be a side benefit of this for her. And without this project I might not have noticed how much she needs to work on her typing.

Typing skills is the last thing I would have guessed would come out of this project. Geography sure, but typing? Family history really holds such a wealth of learning for young people. I once knew someone who was thinking about putting together a year-long homeschooling curriculum based on their family history. I've always thought that was the coolest idea. Just think what that would envelop--history, geography, language, culture, art, music, research skills, communication skills, computers, who knows all of the things you could tie in. If we had had the constitutions to be a homeschooling family, that would have been the greatest fun. I guess that's what I'm working on now--in a supplementary way.

I think they are enjoying it because they are getting alot of praise. I so want them to pick this up. It is easy for me to get excited about what they are doing and heap praise on them because I'm so excited that they are spending some time on this. I just know it could be a really important grounding aspect to their teenage years. We'll see if it works. Stay tuned.

Extraction attempt 4--our teenager experiment

2011-11-20T06:51:00.001-07:00

So this time I took girl 11 year old girl and Kim took 13-year-old boy and we got out all the laptops. 15 year old boy and I had worked together one on one before so we had him print out the pages he was going to work on and proceed on his own. Kim and I pulled the appropriate pages up on our laptops, and then our 11 year old, and 13 year old pulled the softwares up on the laptops they were using and entered in what Kim and I showed them. It worked well to have the page being entered on our computers and then work with them to enter it on theirs. Amazing/sad/lucky that we have so many computers to work on this with. Thus the problem that started the whole situation in the first place. But it is proving useful now.

My daughter isn't quite as much of a computer person as the rest of the family is. She is much more into her friends and being outside. Thus she hasn't developed the typing skills that the rest of us have. It was really slow going, often going back to correct capitalization and spelling. I taught her to use control c and control v to cut and paste things when she needed to enter them in. I think she must have known that before, but just hasn't used it all that often. It was slow but she definitely was proud of her accomplishments. We entered four pages of family group sheets with all of the source notations. I think she would have kept going had we not been interrupted by something else we needed to do.

Moving along. They aren't fighting me or saying they don't want to do it. I'm kind of surprised. I expected more of a fight. Especially with extraction--not the most exciting part of family history. And I especially expected more complaining about doing correct source citations. Perhaps I've explained to them well enough that these are the bread crumbs that we are going to follow later to be able to build on Great Grandpa's work? I don't know if any of that really sunk in. Being the children of a librarian, probably some of it did sink in. But whatever it is, I'm just glad they aren't complaining about it. They really aren't as adverse to this as I would have thought.

It echos.

2011-11-19T07:41:00.001-07:00

Dave Davenport, one of our favorite people who constantly sends us his friends for beautiful custom picture charts, wrote me this yesterday:
"Many of your charts end up at Michael's, Aaron Brothers or Joann's for custom framing. I hear comments all the time from the families, that these charts touch the hearts of those doing the framing. I think someday we will find out just how many lives these charts touch. You have to feel good about what you are doing. I appreciate your hard work. "

I had a funny experience last week with this too. My regular hairstylist is in the middle of changing salons, and she is cutting hair out of one of her neighbor's private homes for the time being. When I went to get my hair cut last week, low and behold, this person had one of our charts hanging on the wall, right in a prominent place as you walk in the door. The chart had been created for her by her cousin--the owner of the home had no idea I owned the company who had created the chart. But there it was, making me amazed at how far our work reaches.

There is something timeless about a genealogy chart. I feel pretty confident that our work may be packed up somewhere in a closet, maybe not appreciated for the time being sometimes, but I don't think they are ever discarded. Family is important. I couldn't wish for something better to do with my time every day than to help you express that.

Why bother? and the one thing I've learned.--Our teenage experiment

2011-11-17T05:45:00.006-07:00

Randy Seaver over at the Geneamusings Blog had an interesting post yesterday. It gave me another reason as to "why bother to involve your kids?" What are you going to do with all of your genealogy material after you are gone? I think this is a scary question for all of us. Is someone going to care about my years and years of research? How tragic if no one does.

The answer is really what we've been working on here. Get your family invested. And the sooner you involve them, the easier it will be to get them interested. That's why I talk about it so much on our blog. And that's why we print charts--a great way to get your family invested.

I think the one thing I've learned over the last several weeks of trying to get my teenagers involved in our family history is this: DON'T UNDERESTIMATE THEIR INTEREST. I have three teenagers with every reason not to like this family project we are working on. First, I gave them something really hard to do--extraction isn't the most exciting part of family history. Second, my kids have lots of reasons to resent family history in general--it's what their Mom and Dad have been so busy with for so many years. As teenagers sometimes do they could mis-blame family history for alot of the stress in our family. And third, they've certainly had overdoses of genealogy in the last 8 years--they are constantly surrounded by it, just not particularly their own. You would think they'd had enough.

But they've taken to it. I think they are enjoying seeing the pieces fit together, and working on something that they have been taught is important. They aren't complaining or whining that "Mom is making me do it" at all. I think they are really catching the geneainspiration of it. It feeds the soul. And that's exactly what I was trying to do. Hopefully in the end, I'll have someone to carry on my work, and I'll have children who are really well grounded in who they are and where they come from, which should help with where they are going too.

Interviewing Grandpa about his Grandpa--our teenage experiment

2011-11-15T13:47:00.000-07:00

So our teenage experiment continues. We had the kids interview their Grandpa about his Grandpa (the focus of our extraction project.) Lots of great details to make him come to life for them since Grandpa knew his Grandpa. The kids were asking questions. And stayed awake :) And I got several other ideas about how to make this man become a real person to them. Stay tuned. I think I'm going to see if I can pull them in with some more videos.

But they're going to mess it up!!--Our teenage experiment

2011-11-11T06:00:00.007-07:00

If they start now, even if they are screwing it up now, think how good they will be at it when they get to be my age.

I have to remember I wasn't very good at this when I started.

Why don't genealogists remember that when we are helping beginners? I think it is because we all have poor genealogy (read bad source citations) from when we started that is still sitting there needing to be cleaned up. Or maybe we've gone through the painful process of cleaning it up. Either way, we want to save them the trouble.

But you can't save someone from going through the process of learning. I have to let them not do it the way I think it should be done. They have to learn. They may not be perfect. That's ok.

Otherwise I shut them down. When I go on and on about how to research, or laboriously show them how to document perfectly, they shut down. That's too much for a beginner. They have to see the fun of it--finding things, learning about your family. They'll have time to discover how to do it right--but only if I teach them to love it first, and not browbeat them that it has to be done perfectly.

I need to let them do it in a teenage way. They can do it in a 40 year old way when they get to be that age.

Facebook Page Sale

2011-11-10T18:00:00.003-07:00

Blank Charts 50% off

www.facebook.com/familychartmasters
Since changing our name earlier this year, our facebook page has been a bit lonely. Facebook makes you start a new page instead of changing the name of the old one, so we still have lots of users who are lost.

We'll be closing down the old facebook page this month, so we have a special deal for anyone who has joined our new facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/familychartmasters. Just order any blank chart at Family ChartMasters with the code "11FC121950" or give us that code when you order over the phone and we'll cross reference the facebook page. If you've liked us there, you'll save 1/2 the price of your charts.

Got em.--our teenage experiment

2011-11-10T10:28:00.003-07:00

Ok that was EASIER than I thought. I arranged to have my parents talk to my kids about their grandparents. So Mom and Dad were telling the kids about the kids’ great great grandparents. The kids were good and listened while Mom and Dad told them about their experiences as grandchildren. I was impressed that the kids were so interested and asking questions.

Then at the end, one of the kids asked them to name off all of their grandparents full names and we taped that too. And THEN….13 year old boy asked about how far the genealogy my mother has collected goes. We explained that we had British lines that tied into British kings, and once you did that, you can follow those king’s lines back to Adam. We explained that those lines were suspect and usually concocted to legitimize a king’s reign. And bingo… He asked for a copy of the file. So I emailed him the old PAF file that my grandmother had worked on. I really haven’t done much with it, and hey… maybe he’ll be enthralled.

I’ve been thinking. I think part of the reason I haven’t involved them as teenagers in the actual work of researching and entering things into the computer is that they will mess up my clean work. But then again that is not how to encourage a beginner. So I gave him a copy of my file, and I’m going to let him play with it. I can interact with him carefully and keep my file separate until I feel that I can trust him. But honestly, If I get him started at 13 years old, he has plenty of time to learn how to do it right and understand methodology and sourcing. By the time he’s my age, he’ll be far beyond my abilities.

He went in and added a notation to our civil war ancestor. It wasn’t a crisp clean citation, but it was learning the software, and learning how to document what you know about an ancestor.

Who would have thought. My sweet, silly, somewhat unfocused 13 year old is the one that came along and got serious first. He is the one who was on Familysearch with the scouts years ago and came home all excited that he had found an ancestor named William Cakebread. He thought the name was funny and I brushed it off as too far back to be concerned about. He’s sitting next to me now, looking for the oldest person in my Mother’s file. Yes he’s a name collector—but just think what level he’ll be at my age.

Doing family history in a 11 year old way.

2011-11-08T06:34:00.001-07:00

LOL. She's engaged in her family history. When we were in DC we took the kids to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian. Wow what a place. While there, I realized there was a family history opportunity so I seized it. There was a plane there that was the same type that my grandfather worked on as a mechanic in the Army in World War II. Take a look: