Geneoloblog.--70

My first three attempts at getting the computer to use facial recognition software for a celebrity collage couldn't find any results for me. When I did a set of three more all in a batch, two of them actually worked. So I guess perseverance is the watchword. My result can be found right here on the blog. (Immediately prior to Geneoblog--69 entry.)

Thoughts on what people are doing on footnote: more than anything, it looked to me like a combination of the kind of randomness I expect to find on facebook with the kinds of genealogically relevant data-sharing my wife periodically mentions running into on ancestry.com. (Which itself has been a mix of valuable information and obnoxious harassment.)

Geneoloblog.--69

I looked up my grandmother on Ancestry.com. Off the top of my head I didn't remember birth & death dates, and results were too varied to be helpful. Then I thought to add her middle name and immediately spotted a Social Security Death Index. This gave me the exact birth and death date information to further refine the search and with it I managed to turn up a U.S. Public Records entry. Trying to move on to exact match searches didn't seem to help at all, oddly enough. By far the best thing I could do to improve results on Ancestry.com would be to log into my wife's account there and utilized all the extra bells and whistles that come with payed membership.

Geneoloblog.--68

I haven't worked in any real depth on an oral history project. It seems unlikely that I would launch into one focused on my family since, as I mentioned previously, my wife has all ready done more in-depth research into these issues than I am ever likely to find time for. It also seems far more like me to delve into oral history or whatever other research more as a springboard to inspire fictional writing than for its own sake. If I were to do so, however, I think my paternal Grandmother would be my best starting point. She actually experienced life in the Great Depression, my other grandparents have all passed away.

Tracking down gravesites... and there absolutely must be a more efficient tool for this than I ever managed to find on the site... and discounting "unknown" dates, the oldest listed burial at Evergreen Cemetery in Mendocino County, CA appears to be:

Charlotte Whipple Lansing
Born June 2, 1847
Died March 5, 1851
Inscription: Age 36 9m 3d
Find A Grave Memorial# 28775309

Geneoloblog.--67

I have not to any real degree studied genealogy.

If I were to do so... three of my first steps would be:

1. Talk to my wife about how best to go about researching genealogy. She has done so extensively and could provide me with the specific and personalized tricks and hints that wouldn't come together as cohesively from a more generic source.

2. Decide what it is I want to research, what my goals are. If I just want more information about my ancestors then I probably can get more of what I need from just glancing at trees my wife has all ready created. If I want the experience of researching genealogy then I might wish to intentionally ignore resources she has all ready uncovered for the sake of coming up with them on my own. Picking the best path to my destination requires figuring out what that destination is.

3. Look through the genealogy folders my grandfather put together way back when. There is a great font of family information there.

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph