Merry Christmas!

Callie May Fenity Keats

Violet Greene Baker (far right) with daughter Judy Faye Baker (far left)

Judy Faye Baker Keats (back) with Darlene Keats (middle)

Violet Greene Phelps (remarried)

Callie May Fenity Keats

Callie May Fenity Keats

Click here to view her memorial on Find a Grave

I'm thankful that I have such a great family who is willing to share their photos with me. So many of the treasures I have now wouldn't exist if family wasn't so important to them. This is yet another gem from the geriatric fiesta I had at my great aunt Shirley's house.

Woolworth's

This is a Woolworth's postcard from my great grandmother's postcard collection. Callie Fenity Keats worked at Woolworth's, as did her son Moses Keats and my grandmother Judy. That was how they met, working together at a Baltimore area Woolworth's.

My Geriatric Fiesta

The great thing about the American South is they hold onto their history. If you hail from anywhere south of the Mason Dixon, you can be sure that someone in your family has a great stash of treasures just waiting for you to discover them.

That has been the case with my great aunt Shirley.

She gave me my first great start in doing genealogy. I was 17 and just starting to see some progress on my work. I was getting pretty discouraged that it wasn't going better. We went to Shirley's place, and she showed me a 20 page genealogy some distant cousin had sent her. I went from having a handful of names to hundreds of names.

Over time, I grew wiser and learned how to document and check someone else's work. And that was when I realized I probably didn't get everything Aunt Shirley had. She still had all of my great grandmother's stuff. There had to be answers to questions I still had somewhere in the ephemera of Callie's possessions.

So I called her up and made arrangements to go back. When I showed up, she had a dining room table full of boxes. Albums, stray documents, copies, envelopes, and stacks and stacks of pictures. At first I was like:

But it wasn't until I tried to reach for my first box that I realized this would take a long time, and it would take longer if I did it wrong. Then I was like:

Some helpful hints for any large-scale scanning opportunities you have this holiday season.

Don't get overwhelmed

Eventually I just decided to go by box, that way I could put it all back the way I found it. Several times I had to remember that I wasn't there to organize the boxes of stuff she has, especially since she doesn't ever plan on going through these things again. I'm here to digitize them. Just grab one and dig in. But don't go crazy and unpack the whole box all at once, or you'll skip stuff and scan things twice.

Or just make a mess.

Review first, copy second

Don't waste time unpacking a box or scanning things that have nothing to do with you. I don't need to scan pictures from the 2004 Disneyland vacation. It's important to be thorough and make sure you don't miss anything by accident. But if you're tight on time, focus your sights. Make a list of what you need to find so you search, not mosey through the boxes. It'll help you to keep your pace and not get distracted.

If you're there with other family members, be sure to include them in what you're doing. Looking at old photographs can help jog their memories so good stuff falls out. Ask them questions about the things you're looking at. In the process of asking about a newspaper article about my grandfather's death, I found out about an article for my grandmother's little sister I had no idea existed.

But if including them becomes problematic or distracting, like them telling you the same story for the third time in a row, taking a break to spend time with them doing something else is a good idea.

Budget your time

I gave myself three days. Any more than that, I knew it would be more polite to come back for another trip because I only live an hour away. Budget differently based on your likelihood of coming back and the present circumstances of your visit. Aunt Shirley was going in for surgery and I was helping to babysit her husband with Alzheimer's. I don't want to create more work for them. For the amount of work I had to do, three days was ideal. I was able to go at a comfortable pace.

When I got bored with scanning pictures I changed it up. I'd take a break for about 10 minutes, then do documents instead. When I couldn't deal with boxes anymore, I started organizing and labeling the files on my computer. I kept switching it up so I could keep working, and the change of pace made it possible for me to find everything that I did. I got more done switching things up than if I just had a scanning bonanza and waited to "do the rest later."

Small doses are better

Maybe it's because scanning is such a repetitious activity, but eventually you start to burn out.

So do your work in bite sizes. Make small piles of things to scan. Scan them. Put them back. Maybe sort and label the files on your computer. Set a start time or a stop time, or set a goal for the number of things you want to scan. Once you reach your goal, give yourself a present. I got myself some presents before, during AND after I finished.

Share the love

One of the greatest gifts you can give to your family is to share what you discover in small, but meaningful ways. Shirley loved hearing about Pomp Fenity's autograph album. I also shared pictures with my mom via Facebook. And be sure to send a thank you card to whoever has just allowed you to make a royal mess at their house. Be sure to include a picture, relatives love that sort of thing.

Scanning trips don't have to be difficult. They can be fun, meaningful, productive experiences. If you organize yourself and take your time, you can discover indispensable knowledge you never knew you couldn't live without!

Happy Holidays!
-Heather 

Pomp Fenity

Pomp Fenity of Pittsylvania County, Virginia
about 1900

Click here for his memorial on Find a Grave!

The Autograph Album of a Tobacco Farmer

Six years.

Hundreds of hours of researching and trying to uncover the remnants of a forgotten life.

She has been my challenge and my motivation.

And now I have a picture.

I can finally say I've seen her face.

I still don't know where she came from or who her parents were. But having a picture is a nice intermediate victory on the way to that knowledge. Now I have a face attached to my search. I feel like it gives me a clearer destination. I'm not looking for more information about Annie Fenity, born somewhere in Virginia in 1885 and buried in some approximate location in 1924. I'm looking for this woman.

She was married on December 28, 1904 to Pomp Fenity. They had a felicitous relationship worthy of love poetry. And I don't know that because of this (although it did finally give me the date I didn't have.)

I know it because of this.

This is my great great grandfather's personal memo book/autograph album. Autograph albums are a Victorian custom, similar to a yearbook. A person would keep a small notebook, which they would pass to dear friends or new acquaintances to sign their name. The friend would also accompany their signature with a proverbial sayings or a verse of poetry. After some research, I also discovered that newspapers and periodicals would publish small columns of sayings specifically to aid the masses with things to write in autograph albums.

Pomp's has a lot of blank pages, and is also interspersed with personal brief entries on the weather or appointments he had. He also has sums written on a page or two, no doubt for the leaf tobacco he sold to wholesalers throughout Virginia. He also appears to have copied quite a few phrases and poems to use, because they don't have signatures at the bottom.

One is quite clever, and I liked it a lot.

The Rose

I sent a white Rose

and a Red to her I

Loved and wrote if I

may hope I pray you wear

tonight the Rose that

pure and sweet and white

an' if you wish my Love

to die and if you Love

another Wear the

Red Rose that I send

and Let me know my

Sorrow and forget

and try to Love again

Somewhere that night 

she smiled I hoped

to see the white

Rose I had called my

own and Looked as she

was passing me she

wore a yellow Rose alone

But it wasn't until I had been looking at the copied pages for some time that I started to recognize what I was seeing. Many of these pages are dated between 1900 and 1902. It's just before Pomp and Annie get married in 1904. How long have they known each other? When did Pomp meet her? Is one of these from her?

And I start to see evidence that their interaction with each other has already begun because there's a note of some kind dated January 1st, 1901 regarding Mr. Nance, who was Annie's uncle and guardian. And recognizing this, I was able to see one of the longest entries for what it was: Annie's signature.

When years and months

Have glided by and

On this page you change

to look perhaps in some

successful year then

stop and kindly think

of the one

Who in Friendship

wrote this here

When in this Book you

Look to see close the

Book and think of me

Remember I say and

Bear in mind a good

true friend is hard to find

But when you find

one good and true

Don't forsake the old

one for the new

When you get married

and washing dishes

Think of me with your

Best wishes

June 9, 1901

A. L. G. R.

Remember me when

life is sweet Remember

me and if my grave

is first bed

Remember when I am

dead

A. L. G. R. is for Annie Gertrude Rorer, and this is her autograph in Pomp's book.

When you recall that Annie did die in 1924 at the age of 38, this signature takes on an eerily prophetic tone. Her husband lived for many more decades after her and never remarried. How often did he look back on these words with tender affection? How many times throughout his life did he do exactly as his love had asked, and remembered her?

If you think about it, this custom is the original Facebook--leaving notes and pithy sayings on people's walls. There must be something inherent in us that feels a need for that connection. Today we have social media, back then they had autograph albums.

There truly is nothing new under the sun.

Namesakes: Nancy

Abijah Bray was one of the original settlers of eastern Tennessee. He received a substantial amount of land from the land grants of North Carolina and Tennessee that begin to shape this portion of the State throughout the Antebellum period. That I've been able to locate, there are three land grants attached to his name:

Land grant to Abijah Bray for a portion of land in Claiborne County, Tennessee; 28 Jul 1824

Land grant to Abijah Bray for land in Grainger County, Tennessee; 20 September 1832

Land grant to Abijah Bray for land in Hancock County, Tennessee; 9 July 1857

I find that these land grants are better off paired with this website, The Atlas of Historical County Boundaries. Included are interactive maps for the United States, which allow you to track the changes in county boundaries over time. Of interest here will be the interactive map for Tennessee.

While I was searching online, I saw that there is a lot of confusion about this particular family because names repeat every other generation, so there is more than one Abijah Bray, and likely more than one Stogner Bray.

I began with the marriage record and pieced the story together from there.

Marriage record for Abijah Bray and Polly Webb, married on 4 January 1838 in Tennessee
(Line 68 in the image)

Mary Polly Webb on the 1860 census for Hancock County, TN

From there, I was about to find the 1860 census, where Polly appears with her daughter Rachel, from whom I'm descended. We also see that Rachel Bray is named after her grandmother, Rachel Webb, who is living together with her daughter at the age of 86.

Rachel Bray's brother Stogner lives in the same community and appears on a different page of the census, with his wife Jane and daughters Nancy and Mary.

In 1870, Stogner Bray will appear with a 9 year old son, also named Abijah. Much of the confusion in regards to this family happens here between these two names. I also suspect that Stogner is not the first of his namesake, and confusion arises from there as well.

Rachel has three daughters from an unknown husband; Eliza, Tennessee, and Nancy. She marries William Farmer in 1877, but it must be noted that he is not the father to her children. Her daughter Nancy Bray later marries John P. Clark, and I'm descended through their children.

What I find so interesting is that all of this confusion arises from reusing names, but the name that I most readily recognize is Nancy. Nancy was my great-grandmother's actual given name, and nobody knew it because she always went by Violet. We didn't find out until after my great-grandmother died that her legal name was Nancy, and not Violet.

I loved my great-grandmother very dearly as a child. She was a wonderful playmate for me, and my memories of her stand out remarkably well to me even in my adulthood. If ever I were to give my child a namesake, it would be after my great-grandmother, Violet Nancy Greene.

I suspect that somewhere in the history of her family is a great matriarch named Nancy, who inspired generations after her to name their children after her. I haven't discovered her yet, but I'm hoping some day I will. Anyone who has had their name travel down through this many generations has to be a pretty special person.

For now, I'm just happy to have known the Nancy that I knew.

Tracing Rose Bailey Dallas Pinheiro

As I continue to make my way backwards in the records for the Pinheiro family, Judith Fingard's article has given me some needed confirmation for Charles' Pinheiro's wife, Rose. If you'll look back to her death certificate, you'll notice that her parents are listed as John Delless from Grenada and Hannah Quinn from Nova Scotia. But it wasn't until I found Fingard's article that I was able to do anything with that information.

Augustus Dallas on the 1871 Canadian census for Halifax, Nova Scotia

The citation in her article pointed me to this census image from 1871, where Rose appears with her parents, Augustus Dallas and Hannah Dallas. I had suspected that Delless was a misspelling of the name Dallas. It was nice to see my instincts confirmed on that.

Fingard mentioned that Rose has a step-father and a step-sister named Catherine. Based on these images, I'm not sure when or how this information comes into the picture. So I decided to do some digging.

Hannah Dallas on the 1871 Canadian census for Halifax, Nova Scotia

On the 1881 Canadian Census for Halifax, Hannah appears with her two children Rose and Augustus. William was already old enough to have left home. But their father is visibly absent, and returns for the next census. His absence was likely related to his job, seeing as he was a seaman.

Augustus Dallas on the 1891 Canadian census for Halifax, Nova Scotia

By 1891, Augustus Sr. and Hannah appear alone on the census. So the question of where Rose's step-father and step-siblings come from would have to come from somewhere else. Fortunately, I was able to contact Judith Fingard and she'll be able to provide me with some information on these lines in the next couple of weeks. I'm surprised how much I was already able to discover without her help. She clearly knows much more than I do about Rose and her parentage.

I'm looking forward to talking to Judith in the coming weeks. Although, the questions I had when I first contacted her and the questions I have now are certainly very different. Either way, she'll still be able to fill me in with many details I do not have.

Now the only trick is waiting patiently until then...

Good Eats

My research also recently tipped me off to the fact that Charles Pinheiro was a Freemason. He wasn't the first in my family to be a Freemason, but despite that fact I still don't know much about the organization. I can tell Charles was an officer, but what is an S.S., and what would that have meant his duties entailed?

I found my answer in a pretty unconventional place. Did you know that The Complete Dummies series did a book on Freemasons? I didn't either. Their guide was actually pretty helpful!

Senior Steward and Junior Steward
Because the Stewards are the low guys on the totem pole of the officers' line, they do much of the grunt work. They're the Junior Warden's assistants, and they help to set up the lodge room. They prepare all new candidates before entering the lodge for their degree rituals, and escort them to the lodge room, where the Senior Deacon takes over. They may also be the kitchen and wait staff of the lodge, which means they're champing at the bit to move up to the Junior Warden's job.
The Stewards, like the Deacons, also carry rods, in imitation of England's Lord High Steward's rod in the House of Lords. The rods are also topped with the jewels of their offices.
The Stewards' officers jewels are the same: a cornucopia, or "horn of plenty," symbolizing — what else? — lots of food. Masons love to eat and will find any excuse they can to have a breakfast, luncheon, or dinner to commemorate just about anything.

As I continued to search across the internet for more mention of Charles, I found him in several more partial entries on Google Books, as well as on this blog. As I continued to explore the New Memories blog, I found something pretty exciting; a recipe for something I sure Charles would've eaten.

Akara (Bean Balls)Makes a great snack, or may be served as a side dish.
Ingredients2 cups of cooked beans (navy, black-eyed or lima)
1 egg
1 large onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup cooked meat (any kind of meat can be used)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground chili pepper
1/3 cup peanut oil
flour 

Directions

1. Cook the beans until they are soft. 
2. Mash the beans.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the oil and flour.
4. Mix into a thick paste, then form into small balls.
5. Coat the balls lightly with flour.
6. Heat the oil. Fry the bean balls in the oil until crisp and brown.

Recipe taken from: The Black Canadians: Their History and Contributions, by Velma Carter and Levro (Lee) Carter. (Edmonton: Reidmore Books, 1989)

We're planning on making it tomorrow after Church to try it. Who doesn't like trying new food, right? Who knows, may it was his favorite and he always made it for the lodge meetings. Or whenever he came home from his church meetings. Here's to a new tradition if it turns out well!

Exploring the Black Community of Halifax, Nova Scotia

Good research questions get you thinking about your old roadblocks in new ways, and that exactly what just happened with all of the questions I was asking myself yesterday. I have just had an incredible flow of answers and new information. I can hardly keep up with it, between the fast pace and the excitement I'm feeling.

So let's just start with the questions I began with yesterday, before I make a mess!

Question 1: Did Charles and Lester working for the railroad impact their moving from Barbados to Halifax, Nova Scotia?

Answer: YES!

Google Book Search for "Intercolonial Railway and Barbados" produced this result. And you want to talk about genealogical serendipity--I didn't even put Charles' Pinheiro's name in the search, and the blurb on the search result included his name. I would have skimmed right on over it if I hadn't seen the name. I love this stuff!

Check out this page from this book I found, North of the Color Line: Migration and Black Resistance in Canada, 1870-1955 by Sarah-Jane Mathieu. Saje Mathieu teaches history and the University of Minnesota. It was at this point that I began to recognize that my ancestor is a very well-researched individual in all the right circles.

Question 2: Where did Charles go to church? What bearing did it play on his personal life?

Answer: St. Paul's Church of England

I hit Google Books again, this time for Charles Pinheiro in Halifax, and found a fantastic article by Judith Fingard, From Sea to Rail: Black Transportation Workers and their Families in Halifax, c.1870-1916. She goes into an unprecedented level of detail on the personal life of my ancestor.

Fingard mentions that he was a member of St. Paul's Church of England, with the exception that he and his wife Rose Dallas were married in the Methodist church because her family was Methodist. He was also a Freemason, and Fingard points out how many other black men in the railway industry would have been masons in the same lodge together.

Question 3: What happened to Lester Ince?

Answer: He joined the military

My family has veterans galore. Now I can say I have them from two different countries. Lester Ince joined the Canadian military as part of the troops assembled to fight in World War I. Library and Archives Canada provides access to the applications, which provide insight into what Lester looked like and his other military service.

Lester Edgar Ince CEF WWI Attestation, front

Lester Edgar Ince CEF WWI Attestation,back

Because he doesn't appear with his family after the war in the 1921 census, I think it's safe to theorize that he died in the war. That would certainly explain why he doesn't show up in any of the death or burial records back in Halifax. I'll have to keep looking so I can substantiate that theory, but it does provide me with my next step.

Question 4: What happened to Charles? Where did he die? Where is he buried?

Answer: He moved to Montreal and died there.

And there's an obituary! I can't find an online archive for the newspaper yet. But thanks to Judith Fingard, I know there's an obituary for him in The Halifax Chronicle of 22 July 1944. Once I get a copy of this obituary, hopefully it'll tell me where Charles is buried. He was a true patriarch. He loved and cared for the extended generations of his family. I want to know where the final resting place of his body is. If I ever get the chance, I want to be able to pay my respects.

I wrote to Judith Fingard with what I deduced must be the email address provided to her from the university. I asked her for whatever help and insight with which she could provide me. She just wrote me back about 20 minutes ago, and we'll be touching base in a couple of weeks. I'm simply in awe of how quickly and completely these pieces are falling into place.

There is even MORE to go into, but I'm going to call it good for today. Be on the lookout for the follow up with Judith Fingard, the missing Pinheiro census records, and the new records I found for Rose Dallas and her family!

My Barbadian Immigrants in Nova Scotia

So when we left off in terms of new discovery, I was unraveling the mysteries of my Black Canadian heritage. When I said I was taking a break from them, I ended up taking a break from genealogy in general. I've slugged my way through some adulthood complications, and I've decided to continue plugging away at these same families.

I may not be able to take the lines back into the records of their native countries, but I can fill in the gaps I still have missing. And many of them center around the men in these families. So I want to take the time to revisit all of the documentation I've already found, establish what I know about these families, and make some specific research questions so I can decide what I need to find and where to look next.

Charles Pinheiro is definitely the patriarch and staple of this family. It's only from knowing about him that I've been able to find as much information as I have. He's always attached to anything significant that happens to his descendants. The important events in this family either occur in his house, or his signature is attached--as was the case when his grandson Lester died at 12, or his granddaughter Muriel was married. Even after his only daughter, Ethel May Pinheiro, married Lester Ince--they still lived in her father's house as a large extended family.

According to the records, Charles is originally from Barbados and he entered Canada some time in or around 1875. Lester Ince is from Barbados as well, entering  Canada in 1900. They both work for the railroad, Charles for IRC, or Intercolonial Railway. Lester works for CPR, or Canadian Pacific Railway. I'm instantly beginning to wonder if their ability to immigrate across the globe was related to their jobs. Did either of these railroads have shipping sectors in their business that would have picked these men up in Barbados and brought them to Canada?

Charles Pinheiro and family on the 1891 Census for Halifax, Nova Scotia

They were members of the Church of England, and it appears that Ethel and Lester were married in an Anglican Church somewhere in Halifax. Where was that church? What does that mean in terms of their personal beliefs and lifestyle?

Charles Pinheiro and family on the 1911 Census for Halifax, Nova Scotia

Between 1911 and 1921, something happens to Lester Ince and he is no longer a part of the picture. Ethel's last child, William Ince, was born in 1916. So some time between 1916 and 1921, Lester Ince either died, left, or was simply away from home when the 1921 census was taken in Halifax. But I have my questions about what was going on in this relationship--because when you look at the 1921 census, Ethel's marital statue was written over. This census taker appears to have done this more than once on this page, so it may be irrelevant. But the question remains of where Lester was and what happened to him. If he died, where was he buried?

Charles Pinheiro and family on the 1921 Census for Halifax, Nova Scotia

These documents have quite a few addresses on them, which I need to compile and explore as best I can. The numbers on the streets have changed drastically, but if I can find a decent historical map of Halifax, I should be able to figure out where things were.

• 54 Garrish Lane--Charles' home
• 174 Gottingen Street--Charles' home at time of Rose's death
• 80 Oxford Street--the address attached to Muriel's marriage license, appears to be the address of the Church. What church is it?

Charles outlives his wife and seems to disappear off of the record. Is he buried in Camp Hill cemetery like the other members of his family? What happened to him? Where did he die? 

These are just a few of the questions I was able to come up with after looking at the records again. I barely got these questions down before I started finding the answers to them. Sometimes the information is just waiting for us to find it, and we can barely keep up with it once we do.

Everything we know always merits a second look. And overwhelming majority of the time, what we need to keep moving forward is buried somewhere in what we already know.

Getting Started: Why You Should

I feel like part of the reason that more young people aren't into genealogy is because young people have this very real unwillingness to do anything "uncool." If your friends aren't doing it, then it must be weird, and if it's weird then it's not okay to do. Kinda like the Spice Girls I still have stashed inside my iPod.

I still believe you can totally judge a person by their favorite Spice Girl.
Posh Spice FTW!

If you want to reach younger people with the message that genealogy matters, you have to go after the ones that have already decided they don't care what what other people think of them.

Yes. I'm talking about your geeks, nerds, and bookworms. The young people with enough self awareness to understand a few basic realities about life and their place in it.

The thing about this particular group of young people is that they're already spoken for in terms of obsessions. They're often part of fandoms--online communities that share in their entertainment interests, especially literature. Whether it's a show, movie, book, series, or game, the time they spend in those associations is what lays claim on any time they would use to investigate something like genealogy.

Fandoms exist in every kind and variety--Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Sherlock, Twi-hards, Nerdfighters, and all the rest. The people involved are genuinely smart and funny, and they love connecting with people online for stuff they care about. More than anything else, they appreciate a good story, which is why they dedicate significant amounts of time to their chosen fandoms. And I would argue that young people in fandoms would make excellent genealogists, even if they don't realize it.

We relate to famous people and fictional characters because they often represent traits we want to see in ourselves. Fandoms thrive on that association. These traits are exactly what we want to find in the lives of our ancestors. And because these fandoms also come along with appreciation for history, literature, technology, and science (and thereby, scientific proof) fandom nerds have the skill sets they need to be pretty amazing at genealogy.

The best way to reach people in any fandom is through the people and characters they care about, so I wanted to point out the connection genealogy has to some of the more popular fandoms that exist.

Who Do You Think You Are?--J.K.Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series.

The popularity of this series is based largely on how Rowling presents the fight against evil, and triumph over struggle. Much of the experience she uses to paint that picture are the struggles from her own life. By learning about her family's history, she was able to see where she really comes from. It gives all of her success an even deeper meaning, because she wasn't just overcoming her struggles. She was overcoming all the bad hands that have been dealt to her since before she was born. Seeing how her story provides a resolution for her ancestors is as good as any of the books she ever wrote.

FindMyPast.co.uk Blog--Benedict Cumberbatch, actor for Sherlock Holmes in BBC's Sherlock

With a murder case and a slave owner from Barbados among his lineage, the influence these ancestors have on Cumberbatch is actually really personal. The role he plays in Amazing Grace is directly influenced by his family's connection to slavery. A dark past leads to a depth of emotion and complexity of character that give us shows like Sherlock. What few people stop to think about is that this depth and complexity are a reflection of the actor's real life--and everyone's real life is a reflection of their genealogy.

Who Do You Think You Are?--David Tennant, actor for The Doctor in BBC's Doctor Who

I never appreciated how much of David Tennant simply made his incarnation of the Doctor after himself until I watched this episode of Who Do You Think You Are? To see him romping through church yards and randomly picking up skulls without thinking about it is exactly what you would imagine The Doctor doing. Watching Tennant interact with his family made me not only want to know him personally, but to know his whole family.

Who Do You Think You Are?--Alex Kingston, actor for River Song in BBC's Doctor Who

I love River Song's character in Doctor Who, and seeing her discover her Jewish heritage was fantastic. You can see how the strong female characters she plays have been provided for out of Alex's rich heritage of determined women. Even if the brothel one of them was running sounds like something out of Les Miserables!

Bella said it, and now we will too. You really are a vampire.

Ancestry.com Press--Robert Pattinson; actor, played Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter Potter films 4 and 5, Edward Cullen in the Twilight film series

Apparently he is related to Vlad III Dracula, also known as Vlad the Impaler, who was the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula. Coincidence? Typecasting? You decide!

And, last but not least, there are the Nerdfighters!

Gussie Manlove--Vlogbrothers, Nerdfighters, etc.

So, I actually attempted to find out if anything has ever been said about John or Hank Green's genealogy. But in the process of all that Googling, I discovered something even better--how Nerdfighteria actually unraveled the mystery of Gussie Manlove! Now imagine if the members of this (rather large) online community all learned about their own family history. And like, started blogging about it like crazy. They would certainly take down an Ancestry.com server or two... or ten!

DFTBA!

So yeah. Lots of cool and famous people do genealogy. And if you're a young person reading this, and you admire these famous people, ask yourself one question: "Do I know more about these (or any other) famous people than I do about myself?"

And if you answered in the affirmative, I invite you to start exploring your own family's mysteries. And we want to hear about what you discover! Check out the submit tab at the top, send us an email and let us know what you find!

Happy researching!
Heather

Willis I. Greene, Tennessee Tobacco Farmer

This is who he was on paper...

Death certificate for Willis Idle Greene

This is who he was in real life...

Willis Idle Greene

Willis Idle Greene and Laura Clark Greene

How to Be Wrong

So when you hit the online scene for genealogy, you will see all sorts of tutorials and guides for how to do things the "right" way. Where to start on your German research, a YouTube video on using Evernote for genealogy, a seminar on source citations and why you should care about them--the list goes on and on.

The purpose of the Learning posts to is cover these sorts of topics, but there was one topic I wanted to cover first. One that doesn't get a lot of attention because it's not really the sort of thing you go looking for.

How to be Wrong

There is a right way to be wrong. And, I would argue that this is one of the most important lessons you learn as a genealogist. The sooner you learn it, the better off you'll be--and it's a lesson that some people simply never learn. And, one could argue, that a lot of the tutorials that exist online would be totally unnecessary if we were better at admitting it when we're wrong. So today, I'm gonna teach you how to do it.

Step 1: Acknowledge it

Here's a GIF that should help you if you don't know exactly what that looks like.

What you wrote, what you copied, what your grandmother said, the name spelling, the birthplace, the marriage date--whatever it is that you're holding onto as irrefutable fact--is wrong. And it is THAT piece of information that is screwing you up. You see a lot of talk about "Brick Walls" in genealogy. Paid genealogists develop entire seminars on these "brick walls," and people pay actual money to go to these seminars to be told they're wrong.

The admission of being wrong is always free. Correcting what you've done? Now that costs time and money, and that's usually what keeps us from admitting it to ourselves. But we all make mistakes, and most of the success we experience comes after we admit to ourselves that we were wrong about something. And personally, I find it better to be my own editor than to pay someone else to be my critic.

Step 2: Think. Also known as "Don't Panic."

My husband and I were driving home from San Antonio, which is a journey of about 3 days. We were planning on stopping at several cemeteries in Virginia and Tennessee along the way. The journey was long, we were both cranky and tired, and by the time we got to the cemeteries we had already pushed our newlywed patience to its limits.

When we arrived at the first cemetery, to my horror, not a single name in the place was one that I recognized. I had known that there were two Brogan cemeteries in Tennessee. I even mentioned it to my husband, which had precipitated in him asking me, repeatedly, if I had the right information. He even suggested that we bring both locations, "Just in case."

Just in case nothing, I thought. I'm always right. 

So I did what no genealogist should ever do in similar circumstances. I started to panic. I got mad and threw a fit, and cursed that ever a place existed with no cell reception to correct my mistake. Fortunately for me, my husband is as patient with me as he is awesome. He pulled over to a funeral home on the main road, who just happened to have a book on the very cemetery I needed. They gave us some new directions and we continued on our journey.

Because of the delay, we ran into bad weather and could only stop for 1 of the 3 cemeteries I had planned. And I may never get another chance to go back to that part of Tennessee because it is extremely remote. The time it took to correct my mistake was far exceeded by the time I wasted panicking. And the only reason I panicked is because I couldn't admit to myself that I was wrong.

So let that be a lesson to you. Don't throw a fit. The only person you're going to hurt if you do is yourself.

Step 3: Get Educated

Kablam! Elimination!
Lack of Education!

We all make mistakes because we don't know exactly what we're doing. Sometimes we just make it up as we go along, and we forget that we're bluffing. We start to believe ourselves, and it takes someone who knows a lot more than we do to show us how much we still have to learn. And there are many resources in genealogy that help us develop our skills so we don't have to make things up anymore.

Identify exactly what you did wrong, and figure out how to fix it. You're the one in the best position to do it because you care, you've already been working on the problem, and if you don't then who will? Sometimes it takes years and a lot of different theories before we find the right answer. You may even need to take a break until more records are available. The only wrong thing you can do is give up.

Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org both have learning centers. They host videos and tutorials that can helps us work through the exact problems we are having. YouTube is also a great place to look for this sort of instruction.

• The Barefoot Genealogist by Crista Cowan
• Ancestry.com on YouTube
• Genealogy Gems by Lisa Louise Cook

There are a lot of other videos and channels too, but these are the ones I have found to be the most helpful to me. You can also look for solutions to specific questions, like doing Irish genealogy or different methods for sorting your information. Some of the simplest solutions I've found to my most complicated research problems I've found on YouTube.

Here are a few other sites you may find helpful as well:

• Brigham Young University's Family History Library, not to be confused with the regular Family History Library in Salt Lake City.
• BYU Family History Training Center
• BYUtv does broadcasts, rebroadcasts, and streaming of all kinds of genealogy programming.
• FamilySearch Wiki--Looking for a record from a specific place? Find the place in the Wiki and they'll tell you what records are available and where to find them. They were the first place I looked to start working on my ancestors from the Caribbean.
• Google Books--Search by location and surname. You never know what you might find.

If you are stuck beyond all stuck, you may need to ask for help. We take help requests here, more info under the submit tab up top. Also try to look for other researchers working on your same lines. The more you share your family tree on sites like Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, WikiTrees, Mocavo, and connect with other researchers on Google+, Twitter, Facebook, the more likely you are to find someone researching the same family you are. Or at least someone who can help you out who has been stuck in a similar way.

Step 4: Practice those victory dances for when you're right next time!

Work it!

Happy researching!