Being a Beginner Again--A Good Lesson

A Bridge To The Past

I have always enjoyed reading the article, "Being a Beginner Again" by Amy Johnson Crow, CG, written in 2003 for the National Genealogical Society's magazine. She has give me permission to use this topic for my blog. In all the beginner classes I gave in genealogy (as a volunteer), I always discussed this topic, and it seemed to make the beginning researchers feel good, because they felt they fit in with the other students in the intermediate and advanced student levels. She wrote, "A Colleague once passed along a very wise observation: 'No matter how long you've been researching, every time that you move your research to a new area, you're a beginner again.'"


After reading this, I would explain that statement to the students. At every new generation we tackle, we are all beginners. I am a beginner now try to trace one of my ggg grandmother's roots, just as another person who is working on their grandfather---we are all in the same boat.


I tell them that on February 18, 2003 Ancestry.com had one of their Instant survey's, there was a simple question and a choice of a few answers to choose from. On that day, it was "Do you consider yourself a beginner, intermediate or expert when it comes to family history?" Once I plugged in my answer, I was then able to see the results. For this survey, 79% replied Beginner, 17% replied Intermediate and 4% replied Expert. I think this survey ties into the article, "Being a Beginner Again," it is true, we are all beginners with the line we are working on.


Your new search may continue in the same location as your previous generation. You will already be somewhat familiar with the resources. If the family moved, all the more fun in playing detective. To learn about the new location, read The Red Book to find out basic information, check out Google Maps (to see what towns and cities are nearby), Wikipedia for more background, contact (perhaps by internet) the local library and town hall in that area to see what records they have available. My Bishop line was in Connecticut from the 1650s until 1981 -- no real challenge there. But other lines out of Massachusetts migrated to Illinois, New York or Michigan forced me to learn much more and research harder. I loved it. Don't think of it so much as a hard challenge but as an adventure.


Have confidence that you will be successful either way, whether familiar or unknown locations, the research is basically the same. I have had my eyes opened to many new areas in the United States, can't beat that for an education.

Another Method in trying to Solve your Brick Wall -- Alden and Adams

The discovery that I'm related to President John Adams came about so easily, but the fact that I discovered he was related to John Alden of the Mayflower line was quite a surprise. John Alden is an ancestor of mine, and I did a post of his descendants. An update will be done soon, so I can add in Generation 2 #9, the children of Ruth Alden and John Bass. If any of you have John Alden, you might like to see who his ancestors were.

For many years (15) I have been searching for the parents of a brick wall John Adams of Connecticut and New York. He was included in my Top Ten Brick Walls, the post in which I offered to pay $100 if anybody can solve them. What makes his case more interesting is that four cousins, a first cousin, a 3rd, a 5th cousin, and I have all heard through our families we were related to the President. My above, John Adams was supposedly the black sheep of that family, and nobody, as yet, has discovered his ancestry beyond about 1757.

My 3rd cousin and I were corresponding yesterday, and I decided to try and find the President's ancestors, and more importantly try to find an outstanding source for it. As luck would have it, through a google search, I found the link for the Massachusetts Historical Society. While excited with the older Adams names, I couldn't find anybody who could be the parents of my John Adams. So my search goes on. The President is my 3rd cousin, 8x removed, and is Not an ancestor of mine.

In this case, I felt it was necessary to look beyond the President's ancestors, it could have provided information for my problem. I think most times, we just stop at the name we are looking for, but I believe there could be great clues if you look at their ancestors. They could tie into your line somehow.

On facebook last night, I posted a quick line that I made the discovery about the President and John Alden. Over 35 people liked that or made comments. It was because of the interest I thought maybe somebody could benefit from this information, especially if they already have the President, but no Mayflower ancestor. My brick wall wasn't solved, but going to his ancestors proved to be quite interesting.

Select "Learn About the Family." Below is what shows up, then click on Family Tree.

The page shows the Family tree. Scroll to the left to get the ancestors, and to the right for his descendants. I could not scroll on the iPad, so went to my laptop.

With his descendants on the screen I took photos to show you what it looks like. The minute I saw John Bass and Ruth Alden, I thought maybe there was a connection, and sure enough, you can clearly see the names of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins.

Below give you an idea of the partial chart for both his ancestors and descendants.

How Did I get Over 5,600 Hits in a Week?

Merrimack River, Lowell, MA

Last week was quite interesting; I was on a roll with my blog. How did this happen, what can you learn from this, and what did I learn from it?

How Did This Happen?

The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) has a free The Weekly Genealogist magazine. One of their features has been the weekly survey, In Nov. the question was how many genealogical blogs do you follow? The response was 60% don't follow any. I wrote about this in a post, A Surprising Survey.

As a result of this, Randy Seaver submitted to NEHGS a list of New England Bloggers and suggested they highlight our blogs. But first, we had to write our own introduction. Mine was the fourth to be highlighted, and I was at the NEHGS last Wednesday when I was told it had been posted. When I got home, I already had 1,855 hits, and that total went up through the evening. There were times I was downright scared, and almost took the blog off.

What Can You Learn From This?

As the days went by, and I was still getting a lot of hits, I realized there probably weren't a huge number of readers, but that the ones I had were reading a large number of my individual posts. I'm basing that on the emails that I received; they were all about the surnames, and the posts that were read. The surnames I have, the ones they have and the ones we share. They also enjoyed reading about murder. It is apparent, to me, that the readers looked at the labels I provided. I then spent time looking at some of the 250 blogs I follow, to gain clues as to why I was getting these hits, and compared my blog to theirs. I discovered there are a lot of bloggers who:

• don't use labels
• don't provide a search bar
• don't allow you to subscribe via email. Only two months ago, I set up the email subscription, and because of that, in less than a week, I received 28 new subscribers, and 9 who used the "Follow" option, with their picture.

What Did I learn?

I should have reviewed my own blog before it went public. The tabs at the top of the blog should be expanded or eliminated. They are the worst of any tabs I've ever seen. A lot of things in my blog are not consistent with other postings of mine. For example, sometimes I bold the entire post, sometimes not. There are other improvements I'd like to make as well. Some of you might already receive these high hit numbers, but for me, I average between 700-850 a week, not 5,600!

My blog is not the best out there, that being said, I plan on providing a list soon, of what I consider to be among the very best of the genealogy blogs. Keep posted.

NARA Separation Form 214 For Free

The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) is located in St. Louis, Missouri. If you are looking for your father's, mother's or brother's military record, you might be able to find it here, at a ridiculous low price of FREE. After going to the home page of the NPRC,  click on the Personnel Records, Quick Find, shown below. My example is for "the veteran separated from military service before 1951 (for my father).

Personnel Records, Quick Find:

MILITARY PERSONNEL RECORDS
If the veteran separated from military service before 1951	If the veteran separated from military service after 1950

CIVILIAN PERSONNEL RECORDS
If the Federal civil servant's employment ended before 1952	If the Federal civil servant's employment ended after 1951

Step two is click on the link in this sentence.  Please order these records by using the process outlined in, "How to Access Archival Records, Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF)". (Even though there is considerable information, you probably won't need to figure anything out. I found it was easier to put in information about my father, then just see if I qualified for the information, and more importantly, see if there was information.

After clicking on the "How to Access..." (above link) you will be brought to How do I request copies of records? Read everything, then click on REQUEST RECORDS ONLINE!

You are brought to: Online Requests Using eVetRecs

“Our online eVetRecs system creates a customized order form to request information from your, or your relative's, military personnel records. You may use this system if you are:

·                          A military veteran, or 

·                          Next of kin of a deceased, former member of the military. The next of kin can be any of the following:

o                                          Surviving spouse that has not remarried

o                                          Father

o                                          Mother

o                                          Son

o                                          Daughter

o                                          Sister

o                                          Brother

Please note:   Records are accessioned into the National Archives, and become archival, 62 years after the service member's separation from the military. This is a rolling date; hence, the current year, 2012, minus 62 years is 1950. Records with a discharge date of 1950 or prior are archival and are open to the public. Records with a discharge date of 1950 or after are non-archival and are maintained under the Federal Records Center program. Non-archival records are subject to access restrictions.   Learn more”

Click on: Launch theeVetRecs System to start your requestOnline.

This is where you begin filling out your information, such as: Your relationship to the Deceased, Branch of Service, Officer or Enlisted, Reason for information, such as medical, genealogy, retirement, and others. I selected medical since I wasn't sure what would happen with the genealogy option. I also needed to provide the name, birth date, and other bits of information, nothing too difficult. Since this was done in August 2010, I don't recall everything, but do know it was very easy. I received immediate online verification, just to be sure they had a record for my father, and a form, shown below.  I had to sign it, and mail it to them before I could receive two copies of the record.

A few weeks later, I received Form 214, Report of Separation (shown below) with information on my father. (I used white-out on some of his personal information.)