Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – A Fearless Females Prompt

Genealogy is Fun

Post prompt is from Randy at Genea-Musings.

1) Read Lisa Alzo’s blog post Back for a Fourth Year: Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month on her blog, The Accidental Genealogist. [The post is from last year, but Lisa’s using the same list this year.]

2) Choose one of her daily blog prompts from the list (you could choose the March 8th prompt or choose another), and write about it.

3) Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, in a Facebook post or a Google+ post.

I chose the prompt from March 2 — Post a photo of one of your female ancestors. Who is in the photo? When was it taken? Why did you select this photo?

My Family Tree: family fun in 1951

This photo contains not just one, but 5 female ancestors. There is a 6th women in the photo, but she is related to me by marriage while the rest are all blood related.

The people in the photo are (from left to right, top to bottom):
Harriet (Goodman) Rice, Benjamin Silverstein, Muriel (Forman) Silverstein, Phillip Silverstein, Sarah Silverstein, Rose Silverstone, Ella (Silverstein) Goodman, Mollie (Goodman) Silverstein and Jim Silverstone.

Harriet, 19, is a 1st cousin.
Benjamin, 60, is my maternal great-grandfather.
Muriel, 23, is my grandmother (Bubbie) that just passed away the other week.
Phillip, 26, is Muriel’s husband and my grandfather (Zeidi).
Sarah is Phillip’s biological sister.
Rose is the sister-in-law of Phillip.
Ella is Phillip’s half-sister and my grand-aunt.
Mollie is my paternal great-grandmother and the wife of Benjamin.
Jim is Phillip’s half-brother, my grand-uncle and the husband of Rose.

The photo is dated July 22, 1951. She’s not in the photo, but my mom was almost 2 months old at the time. It appeared to be a hot summer day in Detroit based on what some people were wearing. I selected this photo because everyone in it seems to be having a great time. They all look very happy and almost like someone told a joke just before the photo was taken.

Extra tibit: Mollie’s maiden name was Goodman and Ella married a man with the last name Goodman, but those 2 lines of Goodman families were not previously related to each other. Or if they are I have not discovered it yet.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – Do You Have a John Smith?

Every day/week I tell myself I am going to go through the different genealogy blogs I have bookmarked and make up a blog post calendar for what days people post what meme’s/genealogy questions, etc. Have I done this yet? Nope, for I am nothing if not a procrastinator combined with a person who constantly has brain fog.

Anyway, I remembered it was Saturday and that I should check Genea-Musings. Each Saturday, Randy posts a different topic to write about (all related to genealogy of course).

Today’s question is…

1) How many persons named John Smith do you have in your genealogy management program or online family tree? How many persons named John Smith are ancestors?

2) Pick out one of those persons named John Smith and do some online research for them in Ancestry, FamilySearch, or another set of record collections. Your goal is to add something to your database.

3) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a post on Facebook or Google+.

Here are my answers…

1) None. I have zero John Smith’s in my tree. I have 2 females with the maiden name of Smith and 1 with the maiden name of Smyth, but nobody named John Smith/Smyth.

2) Since I don’t have a John Smith to do a search on, I’ll use one of the Smith’s I do have. I picked Margaret Smith (about 1382 – about 1430). She is my 18th great-grandmother on my paternal’s maternal’s side. So my dad’s mother’s side. She married Thomas Spencer (1378 – 1433) in 1403 in Eaton, Bedfordshire, England. They had one son, Robert Spencer (1406 – 1477).

After doing a search on Google, I found through a few other family tree and genealogy websites that she was actually born in 1380. None are sure where she actually died, other than that it was still in England. Looking at the hints for her on my tree on ancestry.com, there is a marriage record, a millennium file record and infomation on 18 other ancestry member trees available. I do not have a paid subscription to the site, so those will all have to wait.

3) I’ll be making a comment on the post over at Genea-Musings with a link to here. As well as on Google+.

The Bloggers’ Geneameme

What are the titles and URLs of your genealogy blog(s)?
geekofgenealogy.tumblr.com
familytree.elementfx.com

Do you have a wonderful “Cousin Bait” blog story?
I’ve had 3 cousins contact me on ancestry.com after finding the tree I am working on while they were working on theirs. One is a 5th cousin, one is a 4th cousin and the last is a 3rd cousin. Other than trading a little bit of info back and forth through ancestry.com, I’ve had no contact with any of them.

Why did you start blogging? Is there someone who inspired you to start blogging?
I’ve had a website in some form or another for almost 20 years, but as far as having a blog where I actually updated about my life, that started in 2001. I had paper journals/diaries for years and got caught into the whirl of livejournal in 2001.

How did you decide on your blog(s) title?
I based the website name on the fact that it was all about my family tree and the tumblr blog on the fact that I’m using it to interact with more genealogists.

Do you ever blog from mobile devices? What are they?
I have the WordPress app on my phone, but have never actually used it.

How do you let others know when you have published a new post?
I don’t. lol I haven’t really given out the family tree website url and the tumblr was just started so there’s nothing there to share. On my personal blog, I pin some stuff on Pinterest and the rest are just out there.

How long have you been blogging?
Since September 2001.

What widgets or elements do you consider essential on a genealogy blog?
For tumblr, the tag function is really great. For WordPress, I haven’t discovered anything that helps (genealogy wise anyway).

What is the purpose of your blog(s)? Who is your intended audience?
The purpose of both is to share information about/with other geneaology buffs and with family. The website is more to share with family, so they can view the family tree, photos, etc and to help fill in blanks. The tumblr is more to help me connect with other genealogists, but it’ll be linked on the other website as well.

Which of your posts are you particularly proud of?
Just starting out with both, so none so far.

How do you keep up with your blog reading?
For tumblr, I’m following other genealogy fans. If it’s someone else’s website, I visit site by site. I do have a Blog Lovin’ account and have blogs added, but don’t read it every day.

What platform do you use for publishing your blog(s)?
Tumblr and WordPress

What new features would you like to see in your blogging sosftware?
I have no idea.

Which of your posts has been the most popular with readers?
None so far.

Are you a sole blogger or do you contribute to a shared blog?
It’s just me, myself and I.

How do you compose your blog posts?
It depends on what the post is about. Sometimes I’ll write it in Notepad, then copy/paste it over to WordPress. Or I’ll start on WordPress and just keep saving it as a draft. Once it’s in WordPress, I’ll add in photos, links, etc. I haven’t made any posts yet on tumblr, but it’ll probably be the same process.

Do you have any blogs that are not genealogy related? If you wish please share their titles and URLs.
Yup. http://beautifulmess.elementfx.com

Have you listed your blog(s) at Geneabloggers?
Gotta get a bit more info up on the website before submitting.

Which resources have helped you with your blogging?
I’ve gotten ideas from geneabloggers.com and from the people I’m following on tumbrl.

What advice would you give to a new Geneablogger?
Start slow.
Work on one name at a time instead of bouncing back and forth between people. Though I admit I’ve done this before myself.
You will hit roadblocks. I usually will stop researching for a while, even if it’s only a day or two, then start in again. Sometimes I’ve even waited a month or more because I had been working on it so much I needed a longer break.

taken from Geniaus