Overwhelmed!

For the past few months, I have been slowly whittling away at the green leaves on my Ancestry family tree – Heartland_Genealogy. When I look at the pedigree view, it looks pretty good since almost all of the leaves are gone.

I have to admit that the initial pedigree view is somewhat deceiving since expanding the pedigree on almost any branch will produce green leaves.

This morning, I made the mistake of looking at the ‘View People with Hints’ page and discovered that I have lots of work yet to do.

Yes, that is over FIFTEEN THOUSAND records to look at and see if they fit someone in my tree.

 

That’s a lot of records to look at!

 

Some might assume that I’m just a collector of names when they look at the summary for my tree. After all, I have over 9000 names and only a little over 1500 records.  However, those stats are deceiving!

Some in the genealogy community have stated that they don’t worry about the green leaves and continue following my previous research pattern. However, I have found these hints to actually be helpful since they

 

• force me to review my data
• allow me to update citations to current standards
• allow me to download and attach the images
• attach documentation to my Ancestry tree

For years, I was using my computer program — Master Genealogist — to record the events and sources for those 9000 people. About 2 years ago, I switched to Roots Magic, continuing the process of recording events in the lives of my ancestors and their descendants and then documenting the source of the information.  My sources are not up to the standards of Evidence Explained. Nor do I have images attached to anything entered before 2014.

Even though my Ancestry data is daunting, my RootsMagic data provides a better picture of my status. I do try and cite the source of my data!

Getting these two trees in sync in one of my Christmas wishes since RootsMagic is working on the ability to sync with Ancestry.

My other Christmas wish is that I will be able to update my web site with my RootsMagic data. My website was created with SecondSite from my Master Genealogy data. John Cardinal, creator of SecondSite is working on replacement software that hopefully will be able to accomplish this task. I anxiously am waiting for an announcement that the new software, GedSite, has been released.

The numbers on Ancestry may look overwhelming, but knowing they will lead to new information and help me improve my current documentation, I will keep working to reduce that number.

 

 

Veterans History Project

In researching my father’s military service aboard the USS Oneida (APA-221) during World War II, I stumbled across the Veterans History Project. Within that collection, I found an interview with John H. Garner, seaman 1st class, US Navy. Mr. Garner’s experience is similar to my fathers: training at Great Lakes Naval Station and service aboard the USS Oneida (APA-221).

I am thankful for the work of the Library of Congress to organize and preserve these resources and for groups like the Daughters of the American Revolution and other for conducting the interviews. Thru the Veterans History Project, the experiences of our veterans is being preserved.

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My Military Heroes

In honor of Veterans’ Day this Friday, I would like to honor my ancestor Veterans.

While still in high school, my father, Eugene David Crawford, enlisted in the US. Navy and attended training at the Naval Training Center (EE & RW) in Gulfport, Mississippi and at the Naval Training Center in Great Lakes, Ill. He was assigned to the U.S.S. Oneida (APA-221) from May 1946 to July 1946. The U.S.S. Oneida was part of Operation Magic Carpet to bring troops home from the Pacific Theater. Eugene received an honorable discharge from the service in August 1946.

Eugene’s father, Leon Russel Crawford, began his military service on 26 Apr 1917 in Dodge City, Kansas and was appointed wagoner 2nd class gunner in the 25th A. A. Battery 1st A.A. Sector. Leon’s unit was at the St. Misner 2nd Battle of the Marne from 31 Mar 1918 to 31 May 1918 in France. Later in 1918, his unit was assigned to the outer defense of Paris. On 28 Mar 1919, Leon received an honorable discharge from the service and returned to Dodge City.

None of my great-grandfathers served in the military. However, most of my great-great grandfathers and one great-great-great grandfather served during the War Between the States.

• Washington Marion Crawford — Sergt in Co. H of the 2nd Regiment New York Calvary Volunteer — better known as the “Harris Light Horse”. Washington Marion was captured on 22 Sep 1863 in Liberty Mills, Virginia and imprisoned at Andersonville and Belle Isle.
• Richmond Fisk Hammond – began his military service as a private in Company E 17th Illinois Volunteers later joining the 1st Illinois Cavalry Volunteers and Company D in the 14th Regiment Illinois Cavalry. Richmond was captured near Atlanta and taken as a prisoner to Andersonville on 5 Aug 1864.
• Hiram M. Currey — served in Company B of the 12th Cavalry Regiment of the Kansas State Militia under Captain Samuel Hollister
• Albert Hutchinson — served as a private in Company D of the 1st Regiment of the Iowa Cavalry Volunteers commanded by Captain Jinks and re-enlisted as a private in Iowa First Calvary Company D
• Noah Washington Briles — served as a private in Company I, 1st Regiment Iowa Volunteers
• Alexander Briles (Noah’s father) — served under Captain John Douglas in Company I of the Kansas State Militia
• James Marshall Ricketts — served in Company K of the 7th Indiana Cavalry
• George Mentzer — served in Company C of the Twenty-Foruth Massachusetts Infantry

According to my great-grandmother’s (Josie Hammond Crawford) DAR application, her ancestor, Jason Hammond, served as a private in Captain Coon’s Company of Col. J. Well’s Regiment in the Connecticut line. There is some question as to whether this military record is for my ancestor or another Jason Hammond. Thus, my DAR membership is thru his father, Nathaniel Hammond, for giving service to the cause.

Since almost all of my ancestors were in the colonies prior to the revolutionary war, it is likely that many of them served during the revolutionary war. It is even possible that at least one line traces back to loyalists.

It is thru this type of military service that our country was built. May we all pause to honor our military this week.

Hutchinson / Merry Ties

We’re Related Potential Success

According to the We’re Related app from Ancestry, I am related to Winston Churchill (7th Cousin 4x Removed).

Our common ancestor is Elizabeth Pye (1579-1638) — but it takes me 11 generations to get to Elizabeth. According to Ancestry, my ancestor, Albert Hutchinson is the son of Sarah Merry. If I can verify this relationship, it would extend my tree a generation and add the MERRY surname.

Currently, I am stuck on Albert Hutchinson. Albert Hutchinson married Julia Harding in 1859 in Black Hawk County, Iowa. According to his military record, Albert was born about 1838 in Northhampton, Fulton County, New York. Albert consistently appears in census records starting in 1860 thru 1895 in Iowa, Missouri and then Kansas. However, neither potential parents or brothers have been found in these records.

 

An Albert Hutchinson was found in the 1850 census living in Wheatland, Monroe County, New York. A 14 year old male born in New York identified as Albert Hutchinson was listed in the household of Ephraim Finch and his wife Cynthia. (Ancestry – Year: 1850; Census Place: Wheatland, Monroe, New York; Roll: M432_528; Page: 240A; Image: 207)

 

According to Find A Grave, Cynthia Hutchinson Finch (#14430101) was the daughter of Aaron and Hannah (Nettleton) Hutchinson and sister of the Aaron Hutchinson who married Sarah Merry. If the 14 year old Albert Hutchinson was the son of Aaron and Sarah (Merry) Hutchinson, then Ephraim and Cynthia (Hutchinson) Finch would be his aunt and uncle.

A lot of additional research will be needed to verify the relationship between the 14 year old Albert Hutchinson and Cynthia Finch and to verify that the 14 year old Albert Hutchinson migrated to Iowa where he married Julia Harding. However, this hint provided by the We’re Related app is definitely worth pursuing.

 

 

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Hints Discovery

Thanks to Randy Seaver and his blog about using the links from Family Search to access hints from Ancestry and other genealogy sites, I retried the links. I did discover that (for me at least), I have to use Chrome for those links to work.

The Ancestry link gave me 111,849 hints — and the first 50 appear to actually be for my grandfather!

In that list of 50 were a couple of links to high school yearbooks. Following the first of those links, I discovered a list of ‘Athenian’ members that included my grandfather’s name.

 

 

Since I have no idea what the ‘Athenian’ group is, I started browsing the yearbook from the start to make sure I was looking at a yearbook from Dodge City and to see if I could find my grandfather elsewhere in the publication. That’s when I found the unlabeled picture of the freshman class that includes my grandfather. (The next page of the yearbook lists the members of the class.)

I could see my grandfather in this picture before finding the list of class members on the next page. I see a lot of my nephew in the way my grandfather is standing. I wonder if other family members will be able to pick him out!

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