Correcting Mistakes ~ Missed Opportunities

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 37 (MISTAKE)


I have been researching my family history since I was a child. 

Me, about age 11

I first began researching my last name, and was enthralled by the Scottish history. I envisioned myself a "Highland Lass" wearing my family's tartan. 

Robertson Modern Plaid, from google images

Robertson Ancient Hunting Plaid, from google images

It was many years later that I discovered that my Scottish Grandfather was Ukrainian, and the last name had been randomly chosen for reasons I still don't know. 

newly married Clyde & Mary (nee Thomson) Robertson (my grandparents)
December 1940, Granville Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

In 2013 I was having surgery that would require a 6 week recovery time with lots of rest. I am not a restful person. I decided to purchase an Ancestry World Deluxe membership to assist me with remaining stationary. After 6 weeks of screen time I had made amazing progress in tracking back. 


I went back to work feeling super accomplished and an expert in genealogy.


My Ancestry membership remained dormant for several months. 


On a day off from work I decided to record some details from notes I had taken while talking to my grandmother. I had a bit of a hard time adding the details because I had created some errors in my collecting from all those trees. Simply adding people to my tree from the Ancestry Hints had resulted in children married to their parents, children assigned to the wrong parents, children born after mother's deaths, and more. I sat looking at the mess of my tree, and realized that I had made some serious rookie mistakes. 


My 6 week recovery was successful, but all the research I had done was not. My tree was a mess.  I fixed a few people, but then overwhelmed signed out of my Ancestry account leaving the paid membership to go dormant again. 


I signed up for an online course from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow,  Scotland through FutureLearn. I learned about proper research techniques & how to conduct a reasonable exhaustive search. I began trying to fix the errors in my tree.  I made slow progress because there was a lot of errors.


One day I opened my email to discover I had received an inbox message from a fellow Ancestry member. In reading the message I realized this person was a distant relative


The message was not very friendly. This person was very upset with an error in my tree that intersected with his tree. The message is below with private information redacted. 

Message I received from a distant relative

I immediately went to my tree, and considered how to fix the issue. I looked at his tree, and mine. I removed the second husband after confirming my only source was another Ancestry Tree.


I didn't reply to the message. I deleted the message. I made my tree private, and not findable deciding that I would make it public again after I corrected the errors. 



With my new found research techniques I decided that fixing my old tree would be too hard. I deleted my tree, and began a new one.


Receiving that email was discouraging.


I wonder how things would have worked out if he would have reached out in kindness. I wonder if we would be collaborating in our shared research on our shared branches.


In the years since I received that email I have found errors in the trees of others. When that happens I reach out in a friendly manner asking for their source.


Who knows - maybe they are right, and I am wrong as shown in the amount of adoptees and NPEs (non parental events) I have discovered in my tree.





Keeping it friendly when seeking clarification!







This is why I search - 



Cause ... 





You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family you know!















***Any errors are my own. Please send me any updates or corrections via the comments at the bottom of this blog post***







Links:

Amy Johnson Crow, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge
https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/

If you reference or use my blog posts in any way please

include a link to the specific blog and

credit http://somehowrelated.blogspot.com/

My blogs are ©Deborah Buchner, 2014 forward.

All rights reserved.

Please & Thank you!

_____________________________________________________________________

This lady in waiting --- too late to meet my famous cousin

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 4 (I'd Like to Meet)

Growing up I had a very small family circle. I didn't have very many extended family members. Anytime I wondered why I was told that my ancestors didn't stay connected to their families or they came from a small family. It wasn't until I started searching that I realized the lack of family connections was because I descend from at least 3 black-sheep lines.

My grandmother was born Bayes. This family line is not a black-sheep line. As far back as I knew it was a proper English line. For this reason I didn't bother searching. I thought I already knew the line was boring. 

The only exciting part of that line that I knew was that I was related to the actress Nora Bayes. This famous relative was paraded out at all family gatherings. When I first started researching I discovered Nora Bayes' birth name was Rachel Eleanora Goldberg. My Bayes family line is not related to Nora Bayes. I have told my grandmother we aren't related to Nora Bayes many times. The last time she mentioned it again, I smiled & said how exciting that was. I realized that I wan't responsible for altering my senior grandmother's reality.
Family lore is interesting. 

What would have been way more exciting to parade out at all our family gatherings is that THIS particular Bayes line includes Princess Diana. Princess Diana is my 11th cousin.  Her 10th great grandparents are also my 10th great grandparents.
The grandparents we have in common are:

Thomas Ford

BIRTH 1587 • Bridport, Dorset, England

DEATH 9 NOV 1676 • Northampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America
and

Elizabeth Charde

BIRTH 1589 • Thorncombe, Bridgeport, Dorsetshire, England

DEATH 18 APR 1643 • Windsor, Hartford, Colony of Connecticut, British Colonial America

I am the 10th great granddaughter of Thomas & Elizabeth through their daugher Hepzibah, and Diana is their 10th great granddaughter through their daughter Abigail.  I was delighted when I opened the library book with Princess Diana's genealogy to find my ancestors. If I was being honest I would have to admit that I really was searching for famous folks in my family tree. Through this line I found the genealogy jackpot.

To find a royal relative was beyond anything I had imagined. Until I took a moment to realize I am related to Diana through HER black-sheep line (her mom's branch of the family tree). One more black-sheep line found.

I would love to have met Diana. Not only because she was a princess, but because she was an amazing person who accomplished amazing things.

My mother passed away about a year before I discovered the family connection to Diana. Mom would have loved knowing she was related to a princess.

Have to admit I was shocked when my invitation to Harry & Megan's wedding never arrived. I guess they didn't want to invite the Canadian cousins.

This lady in waiting is watching the mailbox for the invite to the baby shower!

Diana circa 1992

Can you see the family resemblance?

Me circa 1984

This is why I search - 

Cause ... 

You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family you know!

***Any errors are my own. Please send me any updates or corrections via the comments at the bottom of to the blog post***

If you reference or use my blog posts in any way please

include a link to the specific blog and

credit http://somehowrelated.blogspot.com/

My blogs are ©Deborah Buchner, 2014 forward.

All rights reserved.

Please & Thank you!

If I were a man and wore a cowboy hat.

Recently a coworker (for privacy sake lets call her Kelly) emailed me letting me know that if I were a man and wore a cowboy hat I would look just like Clint Walker as he appeared on the front of the tv series Cheyenne Season 1.  


I promptly ordered in season 1 of the tv series from my library, and realized she is right.  

The why and wherefores of the mystery of my paternal grandfather is too big for just one blog entry. For this entry I will share that there is a missing 10 years from the time he left his family in Saskatchewan (with name #1) and when he met my grandmother in Calgary (with name #2).


If there was no mystery surrounding this one relative I might not be left wondering if I could be related to this actor. But since I know this, and many other mysteries, I am left truly wondering - could we be related.  


My grandfather would have only been 17 when Norman Eugene Walker (better known as Clint Walker) was born, but the time of his birth fits into the missing 10 years. My quick online research reveals a twin sister, but no mention of other siblings or parents.

Then again - the library copy has shortened the cover and Clint Walker doesn't actually look like the cowboy on the front of the dvd cover either. I think we can call this mystery resolved - I am not a man, I don't own a cowboy hat, and this is not my relative.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047720/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

If you reference or use my blog posts in any way please

include a link to the specific blog and

credit http://somehowrelated.blogspot.com/

My blogs are ©Deborah Buchner, 2014 forward.

All rights reserved.

Please & Thank you!