Month: June 2020

Practicing What I Preach About Organization

Hello, Dear Readers!  Didn’t blog last weekend because I was trying to do what I recommend everyone do – organize your genealogy. It is NOT fun!
Let’s start with the negative to get it out of the way…
It resulted in my allergies going bonkers from the dust (and the Sahara Dust Storm further put me over the edge), bags of refuse for the trash collectors to have to heave away in the intense heat (we’ve had advisories for a week now) and a field day for the cats who were running through the piles knocking them to the floor just to see paper fluttering.  Why do cats do what they do?
On a positive note:

  • I can find everything I need quickly
  • I have a lot more office space
  • I have a much healthier environment
  • I found a few personal genealogical gems
  • I feel great that I am well on my way to completing the task

I would love to tell you I started this major undertaking because it was the right thing to do but that wouldn’t be honest.  Two weekends ago, we had a generator installed since I’ve got a freezer full of food that I typically don’t have at this time of year due to the ‘rona.  In Florida, summer is the lean times, meaning we grill and eat lots of quickly made cool foods right from the fridge.  Open a can of kidney beans for a salad, mix up a can of tuna with some mayo and you have a sandwich, you get the picture.  Since our groceries were in such short supply of canned goods and charcoal from the break in the supply lines, I didn’t stock up as usual and instead, had to rely on frozen items.  I don’t want to lose all that food when the power goes out, which it does in our area frequently, so we decided to buy a generator and have it installed.  
That meant we had sporadic electricity the day it was installed so I didn’t blog.  I had all intentions of doing that the following day but, I was bored so I decided I would just go through one of four tubs I keep in the office where we store our warranty receipts and other important papers.  That project consumed me for the next few days so the blogging didn’t happen.
I may have mentioned in past blogs that my family and I have been fortunate so far escaping covid which is spreading like wildfire in my area (well, we think one of our kids had it in late January and the other in early February but it was mild compared to what could have been and hubby and I didn’t get it, although we were in close proximity to both of them at their sickest. One kid tested with the results of no immunity so we have no idea what they had but it matched all but one of the symptoms.  Hmm.)  
I don’t know what “virus” infected our appliances but in the past three months, the following has needed repair:  refrigerator, dishwasher, microwave (still waiting for parts), toaster, coffee maker, iron, sewing machine, vacuum, pool vacuum, pool heater, laptop power cord, cell phone, blow dryer, flash light, water softener, ceiling fan, chain saw, pole saw, blower, jet ski battery and then, there was the well guys cutting the lines so we had to have the internet and phone cables reinstalled and they broke several sprinkler heads so there was more fixing needed.  Luckily, most of those items were under warranty (which says a lot about how items are made these day). Although that saved us tons of money, it resulted in my constantly pulling out the four tubs to find the necessary paperwork to contact companies to arrange repairs. The organizational system quickly became a mess and I knew I had to devote time to cleaning it.  With the electricity off it seemed like a great time to devote to it.
You may be thinking – why does she keep this stuff in tubs?  Simply because I live in a hurricane state.  After losing everything in Hurricane Elena in 1985 I learned that file cabinets aren’t the way to go here.  Put stuff in tubs and you can easily transport in your car when you flee and have the documentation to prove to FEMA when you return.  Plus, no bugs get in and it does cut down on dust somewhat.
I got the brilliant idea to change the file folders from “Small Appliances”say, to the room in which the item is held.  That meant making new labels; I love my Dymo but that’s starting to act weird, too.  Any item we no longer owned went into the trash and those remaining went into a pile on the desk based on the room they were housed.  That’s where the cats had a field day.
My reorganization left me with space in the tubs so I decided I’d tackle an attic niche where we store tax returns.  I had taken Judy Russell’s APG seminar earlier that week and according to her, I only needed to store the IRS documentation for 7 years.  I’ve had much more saved and although I hated the thought of pulling it all down and going through it, decided I  had to do it.  That’s where I made my personal genealogical discoveries that are meaningless to everyone but my husband and I.  I found his very first tax return from the 1970’s when he worked part time at Pepper Pot Pizza.  I found my Work Permit signed by my guidance counselor and school nurse for my first job while in high school (it was for a summer job as a “basket girl” at a local pool – I became a mole that summer, standing for hours in a dark room that was a partial basement handing patrons baskets to put their belongings in and then retrieving them when they were ready to leave.  It smelled of chlorine and sweat.  Yuck!  But I was making $2.00 a hour so all way good.)  I found paperwork for family members who were deceased that my husband and I served as administrators.  Looking over some of the medical records reminded me of things I once knew about the person but had filed away somewhere in my brain and wouldn’t have been able to retrieve had the documents not jogged my mind.  
Tossing all that stuff out felt great and now everything is together!  You’d think I’d stop there but I was on a roll so I next decided to clean a small tub that I place in person conference syllabuses.  I decided to pitch what wasn’t important to me and scan what was.  I am in the middle of that project now.
I am leaving two shelves of genealogical gems to clean out when I retire someday.  They once were housed in the attic (hence the dust) but when we cleaned the attic out a year ago I moved them to an indoor storage area.  I seriously hate the thought of going through that stuff and figure it will take me a few months to get all that organized – it’s WW2 diaries, notes from older family members, letters, etc.  What does one do with old film, negatives, camcorder stuff?  We’ve digitized all of it to DVDs and some to the Cloud but what should I do with the original?  It’s probably deteriorated and no longer viewable even if I had the device to see it.  I actually was ready to pitch it but hubby said no which is surprising as I’m the one who usually hangs on to stuff.  Let me know if you’ve faced this situation and how you resolved it.  
So, for the remainder of today, as I look out at the milky white sky, I’ll be scanning my dwindling pile of syllabi.  Think I’ll get another cup of coffee first.  Have a great weekend!

The Caribbean Connection…An Update

Last week I blogged about my strange experience looking for my Hollingshead family going from England to Barbados to Pennsylvania/New Jersey.  I was desperately searching for a document to show proof that my ancestor, Daniel, was the individual in all of those locations. 
Some odd happening occurred – a dream, an undelivered email, an internet site popping up after the electricity had been turned off  – put me back on track.  Here’s what happened this week…
Although the member of my local genealogy association that I had reached out to for help in connecting with a presenter’s email was returned as undeliverable, I used the same email address and reached the person I was seeking a few minutes later.  She responded she was unavailable but when get back with me soon.
I’ve signed up for a British seminar online that I found by “looking small” as instructed in my dream. It’s scheduled for Friday and I’m eagerly awaiting it.
Being impatient, I had a hunch that the dream meant more than just the upcoming lecture.  I don’t know why I did the following, but I did and I’m glad of that.  I decided to check Ancestry.com hints for Daniel.  I don’t use the hint option very often.  I do sometimes if I’m starting a new search for a client but for my own tree, not so much.  In case you aren’t aware, your Ancestry hints never really leave you.  If you click “Ignore” that isn’t the same as delete – which isn’t an option.  When you Ignore, it simply goes to the Hint section and is placed under that heading.  The other categories are Undecided and Accepted.  Accepted hints are all those that are showing in your Facts section, Undecided are those you can’t make up your mind about after you’ve reviewed it.  
In my Undecided section, I had about 15 hints and most were completely wrong – wrong locations (like Ohio and I was searching before there was even an Ohio territory), wrong time period (like the 1900’s and I needed 1600-1700’s), or wrong names (like Hollins).  There were 2 interesting hints, however, that I clicked on and both were from a DNA relative I’ve corresponded with in the past.  I trust her work and she always uses citations!  The hints were notes she had taken from old texts she had found in her local library.  Lucky lady, she lives close to an awesome research library.. I wanted to find the original books to check her notes so I did a Google book search (on Google, click the “Other” box and then click “Books” is the easiest to find and lo and behold, this is what I discovered:

Alfred Mathews. History of Wayne, Pike and Monroe Counties, Pennsylvania.  Philadelphia:  R. T. Peck & Co,1886, p. 1156.

Even though this is exactly what I’m looking for regarding the route of immigration, there is no proof, other than that Stroud J. Hollinshead, a likely descendant, shared the info for his personal biographical sketch.  Sigh!  He even got some of the facts wrong.  The second paragraph is a hot mess; How could Daniel, the first ancestor, be killed at the Battle of Blenheim and then hold public office in Sussex County, New Jersey?  Quite a feat, I say.  The date of birth is off by a few years.  Didn’t mention the first wife, Ann Alexander, from whom I’m descended but does mention their child, Mary, as the daughter of the second wife, Thomasin.  Mary married a Duer; according to this bio, so did Mary’s stepmom after the death of Daniel.  Hmm, but something isn’t quite correct there, either.  Thomasin was a female and the information states she married a Jane Deuer.  I suspect they meant John as this would have been the early 1700’s.  
Then I found the following interesting story:
Rev. John C. Rankin, DD.  The Presbyterian Church in Basking Ridge, NJ. Jersey City:  John H. Lyon, 1872., p.7.

I knew Daniel was flipping property but I didn’t know that he had sold to a James Alexander of New York.  That peaked my interest as his first wife was an Alexander and I’ve not been successful in locating her family.  So I read up on James Alexander and Lord Stirling.  The family liked to hide among other Alexander families in Ireland and France where they fled after picking the wrong political side in Scotland.  Scholars haven’t been able to sort through all the stories the family told in the documentation they left behind of who was related to whom as the same individual’s tales changed from time to time.  Then, there’s the whole timely topic of race relationships.  Lord Stirling made his money partially from the slave trade while father James was alive and didn’t object.  My Daniel, however, appeared to have not been in favor of slavery.  He brought a slave family with him to New Jersey but it appears there was manumision.  I told myself (no proof here!) that Daniel was empathetic as he was purportedly an indentured servant, though others felt this showed he was of the Quaker faith.  Yet, as I learned more about James Alexander, I discovered that Daniel’s second wife Thomasin left several slaves to her children when she died so the couple may not have the same shared beliefs or, I’m completely wrong about Daniel. More research definitely needed.
The Presbyterian Church reference provides another important clue.  Some believe that Daniel was Quaker but I’ve found nothing to support that.  He and his children were baptized in the Church of England in England and Barbados,  Some of the Alexander land was later donated to the Presbyterian Church.  That’s not surprising since James was a Scott and probably of that faith.  Further reading informed me there were no Quakers in the the area when Daniel relocated there.  If he had been a devout Quaker, he would have likely settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania as the Duer’s initially did.  This would explain why I’ve never found a Quaker record for Daniel.
Although all of this is interesting to my research, the last weird occurrence happened while I was reading online.  My husband and I share an office and he decided he was going to clean his workspace.  He is a piler and I’m a filer – he has piles everywhere and I have everything sorted in a variety of devices (handing file folders, in/out baskets, file cabinets, tubs in folders, etc.).  As I was deeply involved in an old text my husband said, “Is this yours?”  He was holding a CD.  I haven’t used CD’s in I don’t know how long so I shook my head no.  “Should I toss it?”  he asked.  “What’s on it?” I replied.  “The theme song of Pirates of the Caribbean.”  I thought he was kidding me.  “Yeah, right.” I said.  “Seriously,” he replied.  He thought I had recorded it to help me with my search.  (Photo above – you can see it’s scratched so it’s not new.) Nope, wasn’t I but somewhere in the great beyond there’s a tech savvy spirit with a sense of humor who is helping me along.  Keep it coming!

Synchronocity and my Roots

It’s been a rainy, windy week in my area with Tropical Storm Cristobal passing off shore.  I spent my free time catching up on two books I’ve always had on my “To Read” list but never got around to checking out – Henry Z. Jones’ Psychic Roots and More Psychic Roots.
If you’ve followed my blog for some time, you know I occasionally write about the unexplainable and downright weird things that happen to me when I am deep into a genealogical research problem.  I get a hunch, am driven to reach out to follow through on that thought and voila, a long lost photo or document or knowledgeable individual miraculously provides me what I am seeking.
Several years ago, one of my blog posts was selected by a major organization to be featured in their newsletter.  One of my dear readers and the editor of the newsletter both suggested I ready the books but I was so involved with other projects, I didn’t have time. I finally made time when I saw that both titles were available through genealogical.com which I subscribed to for 3 months during the pandemic.  
Does reading about coincidences increase them?!  It seemed to work for me this week.  Perhaps it’s like opening a communication link. You have internet access, however, if you don’t go on you’ll never be connected to the wealth of information out there.  That’s my take on how this all works and you’ll see why in a moment.
I really enjoyed reading the events that others experienced, especially when I have met some and others are my followers.  One of my husband’s distant ancestors was also mentioned, Thomas Harbaugh and his wife, Polly.  Thomas’ story always was one of my favorite Harbaugh recollections so I wasn’t surprised that his descendants would have a strange event when they sought information on him.
Just like the author cannot explain his passion for Palatine research, I can’t explain mine for the Harbaughs.  I’m not one, bloodwise.  Some have married into some of my related lines but the connection hasn’t been close.  The Harbaughs’ are my husband’s maternal line.  I was never close to my mother-in-law and his grandfather had passed before I met him.  Why did I take the time to enter every bit of Harbaugh data into our family tree?  Beats me but I was (and am) obsessed.  I would work late into the night entering information and trying to connect all the Harbaughs in the US since the 1947 Cooprider & Cooprider book on Harbaugh History was published.  
I’m a quick reader so I finished both Jones’ books in three days.  Each night, I had a genealogical related dream.  The first night I dreamt that the Gateway Ancestor for the Harbaugh’s was not Yost but Jost and if I looked for records for Jost I would find them.  I told my husband the next morning and he laughed, pointing out in German that was probably correct.  I don’t know German and my husband and I have been a couple since our high school days.  He knows that renown Harbaugh historians have puzzled over the oddness of a Swiss first name of Yost.  Did my husband ever mention that the name wasn’t odd at all in German?  Nope.  Later that day I was reading a different book on genealogical.com and sure enough, it explained German names.  Everyone assumes that the Harbaughs emigrated from Switzerland so no one looks at the surname as being of German origin.  In the German book I looked at later in the day, Harbaugh is recorded as meaning being near a brook (baugh).  I’ve read that before but somehow it never sunk in.  The family lived for a time in Kaiserslautern, in the Palatine region of what is now Germany.  How did I miss the obvious all these years?  How did everyone else researching this family?  I don’t know!  This helpful hint from beyond will be useful going forward.
I’ve been working on finding proof for one of my Gateway ancestors, Daniel Hollingshead for a lineage application I submitted.  He is not listed in any of the typical texts that show emigration so I’m required to document more fully.  He left Saxelby, England for Barbados in the early 1700’s, possibly indentured (according to family tales).  He married in 1710 (have the record), wife, Ann from whom I descended died in 1714 (record)  and he remarried in 1716 (record).  The family relocated to New Jersey via Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) about 1720 (land and tax records).  One of his children from his second marriage even moved back to Barbados with her husband.  The rest of the family remained together in the colonies.  I can prove he left Barbados and lived in what is now the US but I can’t prove how he got to Barbados.  My second night’s dream had me standing in front of a mirror but the reflection was not mine, it was blurred, like a computer screen without my glasses.  A male voice told me to look in the mirror and to look “smaller.”  What the heck did that mean?!  I shared that dream with hubby, too.  He laughed and said he thought it meant the information was in front of me but I wasn’t seeing it all.  Hmm.  We’ll come back to how this played out.
After finishing the second book, the third night I dreamt my deceased maternal aunt was taking me to her new home.  We entered the back door into a kitchen and I saw my grandmother and mother.  Everyone was glad to see me and I was taken to the kitchen counter where a box was being unpacked.  It contained the most beautiful clear glass plates I’ve ever seen.  My aunt asked me to help unwrap them and put them into the cabinet.  I thought we should wash them first but she said they were fine.  The bowls were exquisite and I remarked I wished I could find a set like this (on my side of the universe).  I then said they wouldn’t work for me because I don’t have a wooden table but a glass one where they wouldn’t show up well on it.  When I awoke I instantly knew one of my family members will be dying soon and the “move to a bigger house” was to prepare for their “homecoming.”  I don’t know who that will be but I have a hunch between 3 individuals.  None are ill.  I’m keeping my mouth shut to see how this turns out.  In the meantime, my second dream’s meaning surfaced…
Thursday afternoon I got an idea out of the blue to contact a local woman who does British research.  I searched for her email address, which I know I have as I distinctly remember writing it down a few years ago after she gave a lecture.  I couldn’t find it but I did clean up my office!  I decided that evening to email the former president of my local society who I thought would surely have her email.  I hate asking someone to give me a phone or email address without the individual’s permission so I requested he forward the email I would have sent to her.  Three hours later he responded that he had tried but the email bounced back as undeliverable.  He had used it recently and was surprised.  He gave me her phone number and suggested I call.  It was late in the evening and I told him I would follow up the next day and let him know if we connected.  I then sent the email, which didn’t come back as undelivered.  I decided to give her a day or two to respond before I called (since the weather is inclement and knowing our power would be up and down for the next few days).  Knowing that my power would be out is also weird, as you’ll see in a minute.
While writing the email to her I had rechecked several sources I had used to try to find emigration, census and indentured records online.  Typically, I close out any work I’m doing on the computer when I stop for the day to insure I don’t lose anything.  I thought I had done that but perhaps I hadn’t.  
On Friday morning our doorbell rang and an employee of our power company informed us that we were scheduled to get a new meter installed so he was requesting we turn off all appliances, televisions, computers and the air conditioner while he installs the new device.  I distinctly remember walking into our office and turning off my and my husband’s computers, then turning off the A/C.  
The new meter was installed quickly but I was reading on my Kindle so I had no reason to immediately turn the office computers back on.  Later that afternoon I decided to restart mine but I walked away before it was fully up.  
I can’t recall what the reason was that made me go back to my desktop Friday evening because what happened next totally threw me.  I sat down at my desk and saw that the Google was already up on my right screen.  I thought my husband must have used my system for some quick need since his computer hadn’t been restarted.  I clicked and what was displayed was a page from the National Archives of England (shown at the top of this blog).  I remember thinking that was odd since there is no reason my husband would ever have gone to that site.  Something caught my eye on the bottom right corner so I scrolled down and what did I discover?  A link to Caribbean Connections!  I clicked and discovered that an online lecture will be held on June 19th at 2 PM London time.  I immediately signed up for the class.  

You can see for yourself from the top picture above what I saw when I clicked on my Google browser.  I had to scroll down to see the map on the right (shown directly above).  If not, I would have missed it.  
Even odder, how did that website show on my computer when it had been shut down for the installation of a new meter?  I got the eebie jeebie feeling for sure!  I told my husband that the strangest thing had just happened and asked if he had used my computer.  No, he replied.  I then told him his explanation of my dream was correct.  The information was in front of me but I wasn’t seeing it because I was only seeing a small part of it.  
I can’t wait to attend the lecture and I’m hopeful I will be finding the information I am seeking soon.  I love these strange experiences and hope they keep coming.  I hope you find all that you are seeking, too.