Beginning Genealogy Tip - Capitalize Your Direct Line

I don't know how many times I have looked at families far back in my tree and I wonder to myself which one of these siblings is MY ancestor again?? So to make it easier on my memory I just learned this tip - type only your direct ancestors in capital letters. I know some people type all their surnames in capital letters. I hate when they do that. What is the purpose? But with this method of capitalizing only my direct ancestors I can look at a group of siblings and right away see my line.

Tim McGraw - Daniel Smith Connection

Google Search: Watch Tim McGraw Who Do You Think You Are

(This is especially for my Indian Creek Nikitie Study Group) I was watching a re-run of Who Do You Think You Are? - Tim McGraw - and I heard them mention our Daniel Smith who lived at Indian Creek, Virginia. He was best friends with our Thomas Mastin. They were friends at Indian Creek and then decided to move to Tennessee together where Daniel Smith became senator. The episode of WDYTYA touches on a lot of our genealogy. They even showed a map that Daniel Smith (he was also a surveyor) made. Here is a map he made of the headwaters of the Clinch:

(Click on Image for larger size) I circled our Indian Creek in red. He includes "Burk's Garden" and Abb Valley - both important places for our families.

Polygamy and Divorce

Found something interesting while I was checking out the changes at Family Search. I was following one of my lines and I found an ancestor named Winthrop Farley. I wanted to know more about him so I Googled him and found out he had 5 wives. Polygamy is not unusual in a Mormon family but 5 is a lot! I found a paper written by Diane Stokoe saying that one of his wives divorced him - Mary Ellen Reed. Mary Ellen Reed was my 3rd great grandmother! I don't really care one way or another if people have polygamous marriages but I feel like she must have really been strong willed to have decided she wanted no part in it. And imagine asking for a divorce in 1859! I am amazed. I can't wait to tell my mom.

The sad part is she had to leave her children behind - they were raised by Winthrop's first wife Angelina Calkins. Here is a portrait of Angelina:

Isn't that a beautiful painting? You can read more about Angelina here. I'm going to try to find out if Mary Ellen Reed lived near Winthrop so she could see her children. I wonder what all the arrangements were like? Although Mary Ellen Reed married again soon after her divorce, to another Mormon, he did not take other wives. Here is a photograph of Mary Ellen Farley, my 2nd great grandmother who was raised by Angelina Calkins:

Now that I know about the divorce and I am figuring out which children go with which wife - I am going to use this family to explore how polygamy was reflected in the census records. More on that later...

The Mormon LDS Family Search Site Now Has Shaky Leaf (Hints) Technology

This is to let some of you part-time genealogists who may not keep up with the news know that Family Search - the Mormon - LDS free genealogy site now has "hint" technology. Most of you are familiar with the "shaky leaf" at Ancestry.com that lets you know if there are documents or census data that might match your ancestor. You can now use that technology at Family Search. Family Search is free. And they have and will continue to expand their photo archive. I looked up one of my lines and there were all kinds of new-to-me photos that are not on Ancestry.

Family Search is a collaborative site like WeRelate. That means there is only one entry per person. Unlike Ancestry where there are 100s of pages for each person and wrong information gets copied over and over again. The future of genealogy is collaborative sites. I don't know how Ancestry is going to compete. We'll see!

Evernote Online Shared Notebook Kludge

Image by Heisenberg Media  Some Rights Reserved

I am working on some projects that will require sharing some Evernote notebooks online. Right away there is a problem. Although Evernote allows you to set the view (by date or title) in your notebooks, when you share them online the first view you see is defaulted to last note created at the top. So, yes, the viewer can then go to the bottom of the page and choose "view options" but who is going to know how to do that? Not about 99% of my readers. They are just going to be lost in the jumble of notes in an odd order and they are going to leave. So. Yes I have checked the message boards and no one else likes this but it will not be changed any time soon. I think most people would want it to default to either how you set it in your own offline notebook, or default to title and you would number or label each note to display how you want the viewer to see it. By the way, I don't really have time to search the forums for things like this. Evernote - please get some kind of voting system in place because I bet this would be number one change request.

My kludge is to create a note and then go into its info and change the date created to 2025. Hopefully I will remember to change that in 2025 (if I am still alive). That way when a new reader looks at my shared notebook they will see the note that I chose at the top. I also title the note "1 - Table of Contents", that way if Evernote changes the default to title or to my chosen offline view (title) - either way "1 - Table of Contents" will come up first and I won't have to change all my notebooks.

If you have a better way or if you hear they are going to change the default view policy please let me know!

Evernote Kludge #1

Johannes Abel -Daniel Abel & Susan Hatfield - Genealogy Name and Location Variation Chart

I'm starting a chart that compares the variations of the Abel/Auvil name and also gives a location for a map I have planned for a future project. The purpose is for researchers to be able to see what surnames they might want to search for during different time periods or locations. hope you find this helpful. I used to keep the copy here on the blog but I moved it to my Evernote notebooks so I could easily update it. LINK HERE

ΣAuvil

Daniel Abel is Daniel Orville? an example of deciphering no-name census forms

This is an example of what to do when you are working with old census data that does not list first names of family members.

I think I found Daniel Abel on the 1830 census. He purchased land from his father-in-law in 1826 in Georges Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania. In 1830 there is a man named Daniel Orville in the Georges census. I don't think there ever was a man named Daniel Orville in Fayette County, I will be looking into that but I have looked at the handwriting and it could be transcribed as Auville. but I am mostly basing it on the fact that I don't believe Daniel Orville existed and Daniel Abel is missing from 1830. And he bout property there 4 years before. The census doesn't have names. It only has numbers so I made a chart. The children don't quite work out but the adults are right on - is that Lewis Auvil? I don't know I think he is on the Randolph census for 1830. It is possible he was moving around and got caught on two census forms.

Let me know what you think.

1830 Census Daniel Orville	Daniel Abel's family in 1830
2 males 5-10 years old	William 4, Elias 6
2 males 10-15 years old	John 10, George 11, Daniel 13
1 male 20-30	Lewis Auvil 27, from 1st marriage?
1 male 50-60	Daniel - 49
2 females under 5	Katie 4, Lydia 2, Harriet 1
1 female 40-50	Susan - 41

ΣAuvil