This week has been a rough one for me for reasons I will not go into. Instead of explaining what I did in my travels up my family tree, I found myself reading another blog that relates to the question, 'How did you get here?' It is a question I bet everyone who has an interest in discovering the details of their own family tree have asked and can have several meanings. Obviously, the general question about one's family history relating to genealogy is probably the foremost question, but for me, it was something else.
Here is my story.
As a reader of my blog knows, I am not a professional genealogist and as far as I know, there are no other people in my family that have ever been interested in our shared family history. I know this because if there had been anyone interested in discovering our shared past or in leaving some information for our future generations, there would be documents or stories or photos with details. I have no documents of any kind and very few photos, most of which have very little or no information written on them
I was not left with one significant date; what I know I have learned through painstaking online research. But much of what I thought I knew as a child - like what I thought was a direct Irish ancestry - turned out to be inaccurate and things I did not know - like my direct Quebec connection - turned out to be a major part of my family history. My early knowledge of my family was restricted to several New England states; it did not include a rather substantial, fairly recent branch in Utah and Nevada. And all of that is only one one side of my family, my father's. I have not even begun looking at my maternal grandmother's Quebec history for one basic reason - I do not have a good recollection of my high school French!
So, with little to go on, poor childhood memories, and no adult before pushing my interest in the 'family history' direction, how did I get here? It really is pretty simple, though the process took almost 40 years to ferment into an action plan.
In 1967, an historian and anthropologist, Harold Courlander, wrote a novel that became the focal point in a very public plagiarism lawsuit against what would become one of the most significant books in the 1970's. You may know the Alex Haley book by the wildly popular 1977 television miniseries....Roots.
Though Roots was later shown to be largely fictional - the genealogical basis for the book was contested almost immediately upon publication in 1976 - the miniseries helped initiate a national interest in learning about one's own family history. Ours is a nation of immigrants, whether African, English, Irish, or the original American Indian residents. We all have an interest in knowing how we got here.
I never saw the television series - my wife was in grad school and we were raising our first child at the time, so there was no money for a television in the house - but I did have access to a library and managed to check out the rather hefty book. I read it cover to cover over the course of a few weeks working the night shift at a local retirement home where I had a job.
I can say with certainty that book did ignite the ember that eventually became a full-blown fire of interest in my family history, 40 years later. That fire continues today and is the reason I do what I do and why I write about it.
That is how I got here. What is your story?
Showing posts with label Irish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Irish. Show all posts
Sunday, April 23, 2017
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
More details, please!
I began this blog as a way to describe in some detail how I climbed the branches to my own family tree. So far, I have not done such a good job in the "some detail" department, so I will remedy that now as I describe how I hope to learn the middle name of the person I think is my <3rd?> great-grandfather, JOHN J BURKE in my tree.
In case you have not read my previous posts - and you should - I learned many facts that conflicted mightily with what I thought I knew growing up. For example, whereas I thought all four of my grandparents were early-1900's immigrants, I quickly learned that was not at all true. My maternal grandfather, JOHN FRANCIS BURKE, was a native-born Wilton, NH, citizen, and his wife, my maternal grandmother, NINA LILLIAN THOMPSON, was a native-born Canadian. Both do appear to have their roots in Ireland.
Digging up those roots is the journey I am on now, starting with his father, JOHN RICHARD BURKE, whose name is verified through several documented sources
My first step in any new clue is to investigate United States Census reports, if any. These are generally reliable sources of information as long as one understands the limitations that might exist because of name spelling, house occupants, census taker's penmanship, and legibility of the online document itself.
As an aside, recall that I use Ancestry.com as my primary source, though there are many others, and I am not compensated in any way by them for using their databases; I pay for it all.
When I am there, however, I do not use other subscribers' trees and rarely follow those 'shaking leaf' clues because I have found them to be inaccurate and often full of information or merely copied from someone else's tree...often mine...and not verified. I have, however, found a few reliable member sources online; in fact, there are three with whom I share information and clues pretty regularly, but I prefer making my own judgements about those clues.
Knowing that my maternal grandfather was staying with one of his two daughters, my only maternal aunt, in Alomogordo, New Mexico, where she was working as a teacher when he passed away on 28 Jan 1963, at the age of 72, and that he was born in Wilton, NH, in 1891, I began looking for his father in the first census report where he would have appeared. That was the 1900 Census. I was successful finding JOHN RICHARD BURKE listed as the head-of-household, married to a woman named BERTHA JULIA BURKE, my maternal grandmother. Others in the household included:
An 8-year old boy named John F Burke;
A 7-year old boy named James E Burke;
A 3-year old boy named Edward H Burke;
A 53-year old woman named Mary Raymond; and,
A 32-year old woman named Annie M Raymond
Digging a little deeper into the actual census record itself, I learned more about those names.
The census report contains clues to help validate or fill in gaps in the information, like birthplace of the individual being recorded, marriage year, if any, years married, father's and mother's birthplace (particularly critical for early immigrants), citizenship for those not native-born, and home in the year of the census (1900). Neighbors shown in the census report can be a good source of validation, so I look there, too.
Using the three photos, I validated that JOHN R BURKE is my 2nd great-grandfather, that Mary Raymond matches the relative found elsewhere in my family tree, and since the name was not familiar to me before, it added ANNIE M RAYMOND to my search.
From here, I slowly and steadily make steps up my tree, validating information and following new name-clues as I go. I am still looking for validation of my 3rd great-grandfather because I do not know his middle name; that is the brick wall I have encountered on this side of the tree.
But you know what? It does not diminish my excitement or the fun of the search. That is what genealogy is all about!
In case you have not read my previous posts - and you should - I learned many facts that conflicted mightily with what I thought I knew growing up. For example, whereas I thought all four of my grandparents were early-1900's immigrants, I quickly learned that was not at all true. My maternal grandfather, JOHN FRANCIS BURKE, was a native-born Wilton, NH, citizen, and his wife, my maternal grandmother, NINA LILLIAN THOMPSON, was a native-born Canadian. Both do appear to have their roots in Ireland.
Digging up those roots is the journey I am on now, starting with his father, JOHN RICHARD BURKE, whose name is verified through several documented sources
My first step in any new clue is to investigate United States Census reports, if any. These are generally reliable sources of information as long as one understands the limitations that might exist because of name spelling, house occupants, census taker's penmanship, and legibility of the online document itself.
As an aside, recall that I use Ancestry.com as my primary source, though there are many others, and I am not compensated in any way by them for using their databases; I pay for it all.
When I am there, however, I do not use other subscribers' trees and rarely follow those 'shaking leaf' clues because I have found them to be inaccurate and often full of information or merely copied from someone else's tree...often mine...and not verified. I have, however, found a few reliable member sources online; in fact, there are three with whom I share information and clues pretty regularly, but I prefer making my own judgements about those clues.
Knowing that my maternal grandfather was staying with one of his two daughters, my only maternal aunt, in Alomogordo, New Mexico, where she was working as a teacher when he passed away on 28 Jan 1963, at the age of 72, and that he was born in Wilton, NH, in 1891, I began looking for his father in the first census report where he would have appeared. That was the 1900 Census. I was successful finding JOHN RICHARD BURKE listed as the head-of-household, married to a woman named BERTHA JULIA BURKE, my maternal grandmother. Others in the household included:
An 8-year old boy named John F Burke;
A 7-year old boy named James E Burke;
A 3-year old boy named Edward H Burke;
A 53-year old woman named Mary Raymond; and,
A 32-year old woman named Annie M Raymond
Digging a little deeper into the actual census record itself, I learned more about those names.
The census report contains clues to help validate or fill in gaps in the information, like birthplace of the individual being recorded, marriage year, if any, years married, father's and mother's birthplace (particularly critical for early immigrants), citizenship for those not native-born, and home in the year of the census (1900). Neighbors shown in the census report can be a good source of validation, so I look there, too.
Using the three photos, I validated that JOHN R BURKE is my 2nd great-grandfather, that Mary Raymond matches the relative found elsewhere in my family tree, and since the name was not familiar to me before, it added ANNIE M RAYMOND to my search.
From here, I slowly and steadily make steps up my tree, validating information and following new name-clues as I go. I am still looking for validation of my 3rd great-grandfather because I do not know his middle name; that is the brick wall I have encountered on this side of the tree.
But you know what? It does not diminish my excitement or the fun of the search. That is what genealogy is all about!
Sunday, January 22, 2017
Complications and Care
While working on my family tree, specifically on the brick wall I have encountered with my maternal grandfather, I wanted to write about one of the major difficulties one can experience in genealogy...similar and common foreign-based names. For clarity, let me list the three most recent ancestors I have been working on.
The Irish connection is what I have been researching. According to an Irish blog to which I subscribe, the name Burke may come from Richard Óg de Burgh who was the second Earl of Ulster and third Baron of Connacht in the 13th and 14th centuries. Richard Óg means Richard the Young, either to distinguish him from his grandfather Richard Mór or because he was a young man in 1270. I am far, far from determining if there is a familial connection between that Richard and any John in my family. In fact, I have not even found enough definitive clues to help me figure out the middle name of a US resident in the late 1890's.
My primary source of information is the United States Census reports. Normally, they will provide valuable clues to names, dates, locations, and such to help an investigator determine who is who and where at what time. Unfortunately for me, the census reports for John J Burke have not yet provided a middle name. The task is much more challenging because as I said, "John Burke" is a very popular Irish name; there are many of them in my tree and in the towns and states I am looking at.
That is both the challenge and the fun of genealogy. This obstacle is a very clear example of why validating information from other genealogical sources is important to creating as accurate a family tree as you can. I see other family trees with all kinds of conflicting information when it is very clear that birth years would prevent a relationship, for example, or other inconsistencies. Many people just copy/paste those shaking leaves into their tree and call it a day. I do not do that, as frustrating as it can be some days.
Like today!
- JOHN FRANCIS BURKE - my maternal grandfather. I have birth and death certificates for him, so the information is reliable.
- JOHN RICHARD BURKE - his father, my first great-grandfather. I have the death certificate for him and have been searching for another validating document, but I am fairly confident of his relationship, even not really knowing the name from my childhood.
- JOHN J BURKE - his father, my 2nd great-grandfather. The 'J' is probably James, but I have to validate that.
The Irish connection is what I have been researching. According to an Irish blog to which I subscribe, the name Burke may come from Richard Óg de Burgh who was the second Earl of Ulster and third Baron of Connacht in the 13th and 14th centuries. Richard Óg means Richard the Young, either to distinguish him from his grandfather Richard Mór or because he was a young man in 1270. I am far, far from determining if there is a familial connection between that Richard and any John in my family. In fact, I have not even found enough definitive clues to help me figure out the middle name of a US resident in the late 1890's.
My primary source of information is the United States Census reports. Normally, they will provide valuable clues to names, dates, locations, and such to help an investigator determine who is who and where at what time. Unfortunately for me, the census reports for John J Burke have not yet provided a middle name. The task is much more challenging because as I said, "John Burke" is a very popular Irish name; there are many of them in my tree and in the towns and states I am looking at.
That is both the challenge and the fun of genealogy. This obstacle is a very clear example of why validating information from other genealogical sources is important to creating as accurate a family tree as you can. I see other family trees with all kinds of conflicting information when it is very clear that birth years would prevent a relationship, for example, or other inconsistencies. Many people just copy/paste those shaking leaves into their tree and call it a day. I do not do that, as frustrating as it can be some days.
Like today!
Monday, January 16, 2017
Why do this now?
According to professional genealogist Heather Wilkinson Rojo, there are two main Wilkinson lines in New England: the line from which she came and the line from which I came. Hers is much longer and much more New England-based; she can trace her ancestors back to the Pilgrims. On the other hand, my ancestors came to the United States in the wave of European immigrants in the early 20th Century.
So why am I doing this? Why now? The answer is simple and complex.
I am a 68-year old unmarried federal retiree. When I retired on December 31, 2011, I thought of ways to spend the rest of my life "not working" but doing what I wanted to do. I am not much of a television or movie fan and I read a lot, so I created a "bucket list" of skills I wanted to develop plus tasks and 'stuff' I wanted to do.
Learning to drive a truck was on the list and was the first new skill I learned. I grew up the son of a US diplomat in the Middle East, so traveling was really in my blood. It seemed like the traveling over-the-road in an 18-wheeler just fit and for four years, it worked...until the day I decided I had 'checked the block' and stopped. My last day driving a truck was October 17, 2016
After retirement, while I was "cleaning, clearing, and culling the herd, I found a shoebox (a real old-timey shoebox!) filled with pictures and mementos sent to me years ago after my only aunt, my mother's only sibling, passed away. My sister was the executrix of her estate and the box was addressed to me. The pictures were of people I did not recognize. Some of them had notations on the back with names I had heard growing up and I wanted to know who these people were to me.
About the same time that I found those pictures, Ancestry.com began to ramp up its advertising budget as it branched out. I have been told that their executives saw a market in the Baby Boomer Generation - I was born in 1949, so I am an early Boomer. Somehow, I came across either one of their advertisements or a link to their site online. I clicked, typed in my grandfather's name, and my journey up my family tree began.
Next time, I will name names! Until then, thank you for reading and following along. If you have any suggestions of criticisms, please comment. As I said, I love reading. I read everything!
- The four family names in my Wilkinson family tree are: Wilkinson, from my father and his father; Burke, from my mother and her father; Batty, from my paternal grandmother; and Thompson, from my maternal grandmother. My paternal line came straight to the United States from England and my maternal line came here through Canada. Tracing those lines has been exciting and really changed what I thought I knew about my grandparents; learning the true story, of course, is part of the excitement.
- After the death of my paternal grandmother, my grandfather remarried a woman he knew from Wilton, Alyce. Because she is not a "blood" relative, I have chosen not to consider Alyce in my own family tree...for now.
So why am I doing this? Why now? The answer is simple and complex.
I am a 68-year old unmarried federal retiree. When I retired on December 31, 2011, I thought of ways to spend the rest of my life "not working" but doing what I wanted to do. I am not much of a television or movie fan and I read a lot, so I created a "bucket list" of skills I wanted to develop plus tasks and 'stuff' I wanted to do.
Learning to drive a truck was on the list and was the first new skill I learned. I grew up the son of a US diplomat in the Middle East, so traveling was really in my blood. It seemed like the traveling over-the-road in an 18-wheeler just fit and for four years, it worked...until the day I decided I had 'checked the block' and stopped. My last day driving a truck was October 17, 2016
After retirement, while I was "cleaning, clearing, and culling the herd, I found a shoebox (a real old-timey shoebox!) filled with pictures and mementos sent to me years ago after my only aunt, my mother's only sibling, passed away. My sister was the executrix of her estate and the box was addressed to me. The pictures were of people I did not recognize. Some of them had notations on the back with names I had heard growing up and I wanted to know who these people were to me.
- As an aside, my family and I left my parents' hometown, Wilton, New Hampshire, in 1959 when he was posted to Amman, Jordan. We only returned once or twice for 3-month home leave periods. During those times, I was put in school with other students I did not know. Even though Wilton was then and is now a very small town, I always felt like an outsider. As I got older, learning about my past became more important to me.
- When we returned after my Dad resigned from Foreign Service, we relocated as a family to Lexington, Massachusetts, not Wilton.
About the same time that I found those pictures, Ancestry.com began to ramp up its advertising budget as it branched out. I have been told that their executives saw a market in the Baby Boomer Generation - I was born in 1949, so I am an early Boomer. Somehow, I came across either one of their advertisements or a link to their site online. I clicked, typed in my grandfather's name, and my journey up my family tree began.
Next time, I will name names! Until then, thank you for reading and following along. If you have any suggestions of criticisms, please comment. As I said, I love reading. I read everything!
Sunday, January 15, 2017
My family tree - and why and how I do this
This is the kick-off entry to my new Wilkinson Family-related blog. I want to give you, my reader, some background and an sense of where I hope to take this.
First, me. I am neither a professional nor a trained genealogist. Like many others, I am interested in my own family's history. As I age, where I "came from" becomes more important and because my parents and grandparents left no written records of their own past - no family Holy Books, for example - I am left to my own devices on how to discover my past.
I come from two immigrant families, Burke/Thompson (my maternal line) and Wilkinson/Batty (my paternal line). From early childhood, I believed all four of my grandparents emigrated to the USA during the early part of the 20th Century, a time when millions of Europeans came here to settle and work. My grandparents came from England, Scotland, and Ireland and like many others, settled in Hillsborough County in southern New Hampshire in basically the Wilton-Peterborough-Lyndeborough town area to work in various mills and factories there.
My purpose is to describe what I have done so far and explain the steps, stops, stumbles, and roadblocks I, like every other person, have and will experience on my trek up my family tree. I have learned interesting facts that support and conflict with what I "knew" about them as I grew up. I will share those in later posts. I hope to inspire other beginner-level genealogists and anyone wanting to learn a bit more about their own history. I hope to trace my journey in some detail but there will have to be some parts left out. I will not clearly identify my children or grandchildren and will do what I can to protect the identity of any living person. That should be easy enough to do because most genealogy sites do not provide identifying details about any living person for obvious security reasons. Going back, however, I will be specific as to names, places, and details I learn. I am open to hearing from more experienced genealogists of all levels, professional or not. If you have tips, recommendations, corrections or other input on my posts, the Comment section is available for your use. I will read each one.
These details become critically important to validate anything one learns. After a 30-year career as a federal investigator, I know "facts" must be verified before they assume any credibility. As online access to genealogy records becomes more widespread, more people create family trees and begin populating them. Some are private and hidden. Some, like mine, are public and visible. The problem comes when a public, visible tree gets populated with inaccurate, unverified information and links. That inaccurate information then possibly gets shared with other family trees, thus spreading erroneous genealogical information. I have experienced that and hope to minimize my own sharing by validating what I can to the best of my ability and within the limits of my resources.
Climbing ones family tree is time-consuming and can be expensive. Depending on all sorts of external factors, the expense and time can be quite burdensome. I am retired and on fixed income, so I am not able to do what I really want to do: travel to Ireland and England to search records and places in person. My expenses come from paying for membership in genealogical record repositories and, from time to time, sending off for copies of documents the details of which are not included in online records I find.
For me, this exercise has become quite addictive. After having done this for a couple of years, I have a much better, though far from clear, picture of my grandparents. As I mentioned, my own ancestors left no records of their immigration and lives and I have precious few photographs. Following the clues to their journey has been frustrating, slow, and always exciting. In my own way, I hope to leave a trail for my own offspring to follow as they age. Hopefully, the trail of breadcrumbs I leave will stay in place and available for many years.
First, me. I am neither a professional nor a trained genealogist. Like many others, I am interested in my own family's history. As I age, where I "came from" becomes more important and because my parents and grandparents left no written records of their own past - no family Holy Books, for example - I am left to my own devices on how to discover my past.
I come from two immigrant families, Burke/Thompson (my maternal line) and Wilkinson/Batty (my paternal line). From early childhood, I believed all four of my grandparents emigrated to the USA during the early part of the 20th Century, a time when millions of Europeans came here to settle and work. My grandparents came from England, Scotland, and Ireland and like many others, settled in Hillsborough County in southern New Hampshire in basically the Wilton-Peterborough-Lyndeborough town area to work in various mills and factories there.
My purpose is to describe what I have done so far and explain the steps, stops, stumbles, and roadblocks I, like every other person, have and will experience on my trek up my family tree. I have learned interesting facts that support and conflict with what I "knew" about them as I grew up. I will share those in later posts. I hope to inspire other beginner-level genealogists and anyone wanting to learn a bit more about their own history. I hope to trace my journey in some detail but there will have to be some parts left out. I will not clearly identify my children or grandchildren and will do what I can to protect the identity of any living person. That should be easy enough to do because most genealogy sites do not provide identifying details about any living person for obvious security reasons. Going back, however, I will be specific as to names, places, and details I learn. I am open to hearing from more experienced genealogists of all levels, professional or not. If you have tips, recommendations, corrections or other input on my posts, the Comment section is available for your use. I will read each one.
These details become critically important to validate anything one learns. After a 30-year career as a federal investigator, I know "facts" must be verified before they assume any credibility. As online access to genealogy records becomes more widespread, more people create family trees and begin populating them. Some are private and hidden. Some, like mine, are public and visible. The problem comes when a public, visible tree gets populated with inaccurate, unverified information and links. That inaccurate information then possibly gets shared with other family trees, thus spreading erroneous genealogical information. I have experienced that and hope to minimize my own sharing by validating what I can to the best of my ability and within the limits of my resources.
Climbing ones family tree is time-consuming and can be expensive. Depending on all sorts of external factors, the expense and time can be quite burdensome. I am retired and on fixed income, so I am not able to do what I really want to do: travel to Ireland and England to search records and places in person. My expenses come from paying for membership in genealogical record repositories and, from time to time, sending off for copies of documents the details of which are not included in online records I find.
For me, this exercise has become quite addictive. After having done this for a couple of years, I have a much better, though far from clear, picture of my grandparents. As I mentioned, my own ancestors left no records of their immigration and lives and I have precious few photographs. Following the clues to their journey has been frustrating, slow, and always exciting. In my own way, I hope to leave a trail for my own offspring to follow as they age. Hopefully, the trail of breadcrumbs I leave will stay in place and available for many years.
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