1950 Kansas Census

Are you eagerly awaiting the release of the 1950 census? If you follow Randy Seaver’s Genea-Musings blog, then you may have seen his challenge to identify members of our ancestral families that will be in the 1950 United States census.

Although it will be interesting to see the household configurations in the 1950 census, there is census data available for that time period — IF the person lived in Kansas. Yes, that’s correct, one can find census data for Kansas thru 1961. This information can be found in Ancestry’s collection: Kansas, City and County Census Records, 1919-1961.

Since all of my ancestral lines were in Kansas prior to 1919, this collection has proven to be very helpful.

For example, my great-grandmother, Josie Crawford was living in Dodge City in 1950. Thus, I did a search of the collection for a Josie Crawford living in Ford County, Kansas.

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Since I didn’t select ‘exact’ for Josie’s first name, the results included Josie, Jessie and even J Frank. However, at the top of the list was one Josie Crawford.

Clicking on the link to Josie took me to a screen giving her information and a link to the image.

Clicking on the image shows the household of my grandfather, Leon Crawford. In this household was my grandfather, my grandmother, Winnie, my great-grandmother, Josie, and my uncle, Leon, Jr.

Using this collection of Kansas census records, I have been able to find my grandparents and all of my great-grandparents living in 1950. This includes the following:

• Edward O. Briles (often listed as E O Briles) living in Emporia, Kansas
• Edward G. Briles listed in the 1948 census in Yates Center Kansas
• Charles Mentzer living in Neosho Falls between 1946 and 1949 and then living in Emporia in 1953

With my Kansas heritage, this set of records has been very helpful. If you have relatives living in Kansas between 1919 and 1961, be sure to check out this collection: Kansas, City and County Census Records, 1919-1961!

Disclaimer

Who Am I?

• Daughter, Sister, Aunt, Great-Aunt, Friend
• Kansan – Resident of Seneca, Kansas
• Retired teacher, library and technology coordinator
• Long time genealogist
• Person behind ‘Heartland Genealogy’
• Blogger
• Methodist
• Volunteer

Contrary to the perception of some, I do not make any type of financial benefit from my work with genealogy. The only ‘profit’ I make from my activities is the personal connections I make.
Since retirement, the vast majority of my online presence revolves around the research of my family history.

Online Trees

Is organization one of your 2020 goals? If so, have you been following the tips in The Genealogy Guys Blog? Today’s post, ‘Organizing Your Online Trees,’ is a challenge for me.

It is a challenge since I never considered having to ‘keep  them up to date.’

For years, I have shared my work with others either thru a website, thru my Ancestry tree or thru a gedcom file. Since having my DNA tested, I have used gedcom files to share my tree with the various sites where my DNA data has been uploaded.

Thanks to hosting site and software changes, some of my early attempts at sharing are no longer easily accessed. This would include my original website hosted on GeoCities. About the time GeoCities was being discontinued, I had transitioned to using The Master Genealogist for my genealogy research. Thus, I was able to take advantage of John Cardinal’s software, Second Site and his hosting service to continue sharing my work online.

When support for The Master Genealogist was discontinued, I converted my data to RootsMagic. One of the ‘selling’ points for RootsMagic was the ability to publish my data online. Thus, I switched my online file from Second Site to RootsMagic’s.

Since the release of RootsMagic’s TreeShare, I have had my RootsMagic data connected to my Ancestry Tree. I’ve also been taking advantage of the ability to connect individuals in my RM data to Family Search.

Thus, my primary online trees include

• Heartland Genealogy on Ancestry
• FamilySearch tree – Eugene Crawford
• RootsMagic Online data

For DNA purposes, I do have some of my data on the following sites:

• My Heritage
• FamilyTree DNA
• GedMatch

Since my GedCom has been shared in many ways, I don’t have a complete list of where my data may be available online. Thus, the challenge!

Since most of my current research has not involved new DNA ancestors, I don’t feel a lot of pressure to update my GedCom data on My Heritage, FamilyTree DNA or GedMatch.

In terms of updating online trees, my focus will be on my Ancestry tree, my ancestors on FamilySearch and my RootsMagic online data. Thank you ‘The Genealogy Guys’ for the challenge!

Alternate Names

I don’t know about you, but when it comes to my genealogy skills, I feel like I am constantly learning and sometimes, re-learning? I’m currently ‘re-learning’ about ‘alternate names.’

Thanks to a post in the RootsMagic Users Facebook group about the ‘Alternate Name’ fact, I’ve been prompted to evaluate how I deal with married names.
When I migrated my data from The Master Genealogist (TMG) to RootsMagic, the ‘Name-Marr’ event from TMG was automatically converted to the ‘Alternate Name’ fact in Roots Magic. 

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However, I didn’t do a good job of learning about my new software since I didn’t realize the correlation between the  ‘Name-Marr’ and ‘Alternate Name’ facts. Nor did I realize that I had to create the fact for a female when adding a spouse.
After reading the FB post, I am going back to make sure the I have added the Alternate Name Fact — especially for my direct lines. As I’ve been working thru this, I also realized that my ‘INDEX’ list was not showing those names. This was a ‘simple’ fix in that I only had to pull down the OPTIONS button and place a check by ‘Show Alternate Names’

In order to make it easier to make these changes, I wanted to create a list of those needing an ‘Alternate Name’ fact added. For the most part, this would be females who were married but who do not have the ‘Alternate Name’ fact. I couldn’t figure out how to create a marked list with that list of criteria. However, I was able to create a marked list for females who have a marriage record and called the list ‘Married Female’.

Using this marked group, I was then able to create a ‘FACT LIST’ report for people missing the ‘Alternate Name’ Fact.

Now, I have a list of women who need to have an ‘Alternate Name’ fact added. I can now slowly work my way thru this report. Even though this will take some time to add the Alternate Name fact where appropriate, I am thankful to the users on the RootsMagic Users Facebook group for discussing this fact.

Setting Goals

It’s the new year and time for resolutions. Right? Or, if you are like me, you’ve given up on resolutions. I gave up on ‘New Years Resolutions’ quite a while ago. Like many people, one of the reasons I quit making resolutions was because I didn’t keep them. However, looking back, I think another reason is that we perceive a ‘New Year’s Resolution’ as a declaration to change something about our lives.

Instead of making resolutions to ‘change,’ I want to set goals for things I want to accomplish – particularly with my genealogy research. Before writing goals for 2020, I thought I’d look back at my previous goals to see how well I’ve done. 
And guess what – I would receive a failing grade for goal setting in 2019 because I can’t find any goals for 2019. However, I did find that I wrote goals for 2018. 

• Get my tree indexed on Ancestry!
• Reduce number of shaky leaves on Ancestry
• Use RootsMagic’s link to FamilySearch to add sources for my direct line ancestors
• Connect with cousins on Facebook by sharing family photos
• Blog about my ancestors 
• SCAN — I still have some photo albums to scan
• Clean up files (sadly I have duplicates of some photos and others that need re-scanned)
• DNA — update my spreadsheet of matches
• Finish doing visual phasing with my brother’s DNA results and then hopefully add a cousin or two 
• Attend a genealogy conference 
• Participate in genealogy study groups and round-tables

With two years to accomplish these goals, one would hope that I could report progress. Even though I can report progress on some goals, I don’t have any data to support progress on others and I’ve abandoned other goals.
In terms of progress, I can claim success for the following goals:

• My Heartland Genealogy tree on Ancestry is indexed and TreeShare with RootsMagic is working great.
• I have attended the Topeka Genealogical Society’s conference
• Weather and schedule permitting, I have participated in the DNA Study Group and Brick Wall Study group sponsored by the Topeka Genealogy Society.
• Until recently taking a detour to work with Ancestry hints, I have been frequently blogging about my findings

Even though I think I’ve been successful with some of the other goals, I have no data to support my feeling of success. For example, I have no idea how many shaky leaves I had at the beginning of 2018, or the number of hints worked. 
In terms of adding sources to FamilySearch, I know I have added some sources. Even though I’m not responsible for adding all of the sources to the individuals in my tree, my tree is gradually turning ‘orange’ to reflect 10 or more sources for each ancestor.

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Because of the overwhelming amount of data, I’ve abandoned the DNA related goals. Instead, I’m using the Notes and color coding capabilities for my Ancestry matches to try and keep up with all of this data. 
I do have data to show growth in my RootsMagic database over the past year.

Even though my goals shifted over the past two years, I’m glad I listed them. So, looking ahead, I would like to continue

• Researching both ancestors and their descendants
• Blogging
• Attending the study groups sponsored by the Topeka Genealogical Society 
• Utilizing webinars and YouTube videos to improve my skill set

My dream goal for this year would be a research trip to Eastern Kentucky University and the Lancaster area of Kentucky.
Hopefully, in a year, I can look back and say that I’ve had a successful year and learned a lot.