52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy - Week 12 - Podcasts

Podcasts—hmmm…This is one area of genealogical education/technology that I have not embraced…yet.

On my phone, I do have the app for Lisa Louise Cooke’s Genealogy Gems Podcast. I’ve tried to listen to an episode, but I tend to get antsy when I just sit. I haven’t tried listening while I do something else.

One thing I want to try is to listen while I drive, particularly on those hour-long drives to society meetings or to visit friends in other areas. But to do that, I need to get a phone charger for my car…guess I should go shopping because I have one of those drives coming up soon!

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2012) that invite genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your thoughts on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

© 2012 Denise Spurlock, Ancestral Trees Research

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy - Week 11 - Webinars

Webinars are the best thing to come along since sliced bread! The ability to attend quality genealogical programs at little or no cost—what could be better!

For those who want to learn more about genealogy, but who are unable to attend meetings or conferences because of time constraints or physical or financial limitations, webinars are surely a god-send. For the rest of us, it’s an easy way to feed our insatiable hunger for knowledge about all things genealogical.

I have participated in webinars made available by a variety of genealogical societies and vendors. All of them have been worthwhile.

Here are links to two of my favorite webinar providers:

• Legacy Family Tree – webinars are free at time of live broadcast (usually during work hours in the U.S.) and for a limited time afterward (7-10 days); recorded broadcasts which include handouts are available for purchase [Note: I am a Legacy affiliate; if you click on links on my blog to go to their site and subsequently purchase something, I receive a small commission.]

• Southern California Genealogical Society – webinars are free at time of live broadcast (Saturday mornings and Wednesday evenings) and afterward are available to SCGS members on the society’s website. [Note: I am a dues-paying member of the SCGS and a volunteer on their Jamboree Committee. I am presenting a webinar in September for which I will be compensated.]

The only thing missing from webinars is the camaraderie and socialization with other like-minded individuals that one can only get in person!

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2012) that invite genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your thoughts on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

© 2012 Denise Spurlock, Ancestral Trees Research

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy - Week 10 - Road Trips

I was born, raised, and still live in California, but my roots are elsewhere—from Texas and Louisiana to Kansas and Missouri, up to Minnesota, and all the way back to New England.

The only genealogy road trips I’ve taken have been in the Texas/Louisiana area. My sister lives in Texas and, when I go to visit, we usually plan a two or three day road trip to see some sights and do some genealogy. (She’s not a genealogist, but makes a wonderful courthouse research assistant.)

About 5 years ago, we took my granddaughter along and did a 4-state trip from her home in Texas, up to Oklahoma to visit family, a brief stop in Arkansas (it only counts as a state visited if you actually get out of the car!) and then on to northwestern Louisiana to visit the area in which our Spurlock ancestors settled.

We searched out and visited several cemeteries—Hurricane Cemetery in Claiborne Parish, Mt. Zion (Driskill) Cumberland Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Bienville Parish, and Antioch Cumberland Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Jackson Parish—and paid our respects to the ancestors buried there. I discovered that my sister has a wonderful ability to find tombstones.

We travelled the length of Spurlock Road in Claiborne Parish; I think this road was an original boundary of Ransom Spurlock’s homestead but haven’t mapped it out. We also visited the Bonnie and Clyde Museum and ate at a wonderful restaurant called Ernie’s in Shreveport.

Digital image. Denise Spurlock, 2007.

From a research standpoint, this wasn’t the most productive genealogical road trip, but in terms of making family history, it tops my list! It was a wonderful opportunity to share my passion with both my sister and my granddaughter.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2012) that invite genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your thoughts on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.


© 2012 Denise Spurlock, Ancestral Trees Research

Tuesday’s Tip – Never Enough Time!

Like genealogists everywhere, I love the thrill of the hunt – searching through online databases, records and books for tidbits of information about my ancestors and their lives! I admit that sometimes I get so caught up in the hunt and recording the information in my database that I haven’t always taken the time to properly cite my sources. I made notes on the sources – usually a copy and paste of the information to a text document – with every good intention of writing the source citations later.

In the last year, I’ve changed my errant ways and record my source citations as I go along. But I still have lots of catching up to do. This weekend I spent several hours going through those old documents (some back from November 2009!) and creating the proper source citations in my database. What I’ve learned from experience is that if I’d just done it right the first time, it probably would have taken me far less time!

It reminds me of this quote attributed to Jack Bergman:

There's never enough time to do it right,

but there's always enough time to do it over!

Take whatever steps are necessary to set up a system that makes it easy to create your source citations right the first time! Whether you use the templates available in your genealogy software, free-form citations that you write using Elizabeth Shown Mill’s Evidence Explained as a guide, or templates you create on your own in your word processing software, get that source citation written! It will save you time in the long run.

If you need help, here are three resources to make it easier:

• Cite Your Genealogy Sources: A Guide to Documenting Your Genealogy Research
• Genealogy Citations Made Easy
• Citation Guide

© 2012 Denise Spurlock, Ancestral Trees Research

Wyatt Scrapbook - So What is Left?

In November 2011, I purchased a scrapbook at an antiques mall in Carson, California. The scrapbook is believed to have belonged to Laurine Wyatt. I am transcribing the articles and documents contained in the scrapbook with the hope that it may be of value to genealogists who may be researching the individuals named.

Over the past two weeks, I posted the few items from the scrapbook that directly mentioned Laurine Wyatt. So what is left?

There are photo corners glued in the scrapbook that now hold nothing so certainly there were other items; I imagine those items were of some value to the individual who last owned the scrapbook.

There are additional items that, in my estimation, lack genealogical value in the sense they do not report vital events in the lives of individuals. But certainly those items represent people, places and events that were meaningful to Laurine.

While working with the scrapbook, I have done some research on Laurine Wyatt that is posted on a public member tree at Ancestry.com. From what I have been able to determine, she never married and has no direct descendants.

Over the next few months, I plan to continue to research Laurine’s life. I also plan to assemble a digital scrapbook containing all of the contents of the physical scrapbook. (I welcome any suggestions for the best place to publish such a digital scrapbook; I would like for it to be accessible free of charge.)

My hope is that one of Laurine Wyatt’s distant cousins will someday claim her legacy.

© 2012 Denise Spurlock, Ancestral Trees Research

Motivation Monday – Where Did February Go?

Public domain,
via Wikimedia.

My goodness, February flew by—even with an extra day, I didn’t accomplish nearly as much as I had hoped. To review:

Client Research

• Assisted on two heir search cases—one involving an Irish immigrant to the Los Angeles area and an ongoing heir search in the Midwestern U.S.

Personal Research and Organization

• Using the Surname Saturday prompt, I blogged each week about one of my ancestors. In last month’s report, I commented that I thought I might not be able to continue at the rate of one ancestor per week. I’m still concerned about being able to maintain the pace. I am getting a little ahead on my posting so maybe my concerns aren’t warranted.
• I managed to transcribe three documents for Amanuensis Monday postings and organized about a dozen other documents. I would like to pick up the pace here, so in March I plan to process a document a day! 

Writing

• Continued weekly participation in Amy Coffin’s 52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy, although I was a little late on a couple posts!
• I have been tracking my word count and in February I wrote 13,762 words for blog posts and Examiner articles. Plus I wrote another 22,406 words at 750words.com – a kind of daily brain dump!
• I developed editorial calendars for my blogs and for Examiner.com to make sure that I am writing and posting on a regular basis on all.

Speaking

• I presented “Countdown to the Release of the 1940 Census” at the February 15^th meeting of the Genealogical Society of North Orange County California.
• Scheduled a presentation of “Digging for Clues in Census Records” for the April 15^th meeting of Questing Heirs Genealogical Society in Long Beach.
• Scheduled presentation of “Using Dropbox for Genealogy” on May 8^th with the Computer Oriented Genealogy Group of the North San Diego County Genealogical Society.

Education

• Completed my time management assignments for ProGen; as part of this assignment, I developed a client list which includes everything I am working on with due dates and estimated hours to complete. I hope this will help keep me on task!
• I participated in an excellent Legacy Family Tree webinar Ten Brick Wall Tips for Beginners presented by Marian Pierre-Louis.
• The Legacy Genealogy Idol Competition (available free on Legacy’s website) was fun to watch. Some great tips were presented by competitors Elizabeth Clark, Marian Pierre-Louis, Michael Hait, and Elyse Doerflinger.
• Thomas MacEntee of High-Definition Genealogy presented a great Introduction to GoToMeeting designed to give a behind-the-scenes look at one of the popular formats for presenting webinars. I’m scheduled to present a webinar later in the year so it was timely for me.
• I’ve almost finished reading Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret by Steve Luxenberg, and still need to write the review of The Family Tree Problem Solver: Tried and True Tactics for Researching Your Elusive Ancestors by Marsha Hoffman Rising. 

Giving Back

• Signed up as a 1940 Ambassador but haven’t written any posts yet.
• Signed up for indexing the 1940 census when available.
• Created two memorials on FindAGrave for deceased family members, but did not get out to a cemetery to take photos.

Enough about February! I do find that writing these updates each month is helping keep me on track to reach my 2012 goals. On to March!

© 2012 Denise Spurlock, Ancestral Trees Research

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy - Week 9 - Cemeteries

My dad, Jasper J. “Jack” Spurlock (1912-1978), and my oldest sister, Gloria Jane Spurlock Chaney (1936-2004), are interred at Lone Grove Cemetery in Lone Grove, Carter County, Oklahoma. Although my mother, Beaulah Belle Yawman Spurlock (1915-1999), is not buried there—at her request, her body was donated to science—she is memorialized with my father. Whenever I visit my sister in Texas, we try to schedule a visit up to the cemetery.

Three of my four grandparents are buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California:

• Jasper Jackson Spurlock (1876-1940) – paternal grandfather
• William Lee Yawman (1870-1948) – maternal grandfather
• Myrtle Arminta Snider Yawman (1878-1958) – maternal grandmother

My maternal grandmother, Mamie Olive Martindale Spurlock (1884-1971), is buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery, Houston, Harris County, Texas. I have never visited her grave.

I didn’t know either of my grandfathers and I didn’t know my grandmothers well, but I am grateful that three of the four are buried at Forest Lawn which is reasonably close to my home. By visiting their gravesites, I am able to honor them as well as my parents.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2012) that invite genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your thoughts on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

© 2012 Denise Spurlock, Ancestral Trees Research