Posts Tagged ‘Illinois’

by Sherry Stocking Kline
06 June 2011

It’s a couple of days past Randy Seaver’s June 4th Saturday night challenge, but this challenge really resonated with me!  If only I could turn back the clock or jump into a time machine and re-do a few things!

Greetings, genea-philes. it’s SATURDAY NIGHT – time for more GENEALOGY FUN!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1)  On GeneaBloggers Radio last night (www.blogtalkradio.com/geneabloggers/) the discussion turned to regrets that we all have about our genealogy and family history experiences.  Someone said “If I knew then, what I know now, I would have…” I thought that it would make a good SNGF topic, and it may be a general topic on a future GeneaBloggers Radio show.

2)  Tell us about your “If I knew then what I know now, I would have…” regret in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook status or note.

High on my list of wish I could re-do is the opportunity to document my sources better from the very beginning, so if you are in the same boat, check out Randy Seaver’s June 4th Saturday Night Genealogy Challenge at www.geneamusings.com!  When I first started, I had so few family ‘lines’ going, and I really, truly believed I would remember where each piece of information came from.  And, frankly, I just wasn’t thinking.

But it isn’t the citations and sources I most wish I could re-do.  It’s the missed opportunities to ask the people who would (or might) actually KNOW the answers to questions that I now want to ask them.  Oh, if only.

1.  I wasn’t into genealogy when I was eight years old (that’s how old I was when my Grandmother Jones died), but if I could ask her now, I would ask her what she knew about her father-in-law’s father (he’s a huge Jones brick wall!).  Did she know his name?  Did he even know his own father’s name?  What was herding cattle all day on horseback in Nebraska like when you were barely old enough to attend school?  How scared were you when the Indians stopped by your home to get food?  Did they ever come back?  Which one of the two young ladies in the neat photo you left behind is your niece, and which is her friend?

2.  And oh, if only I could hear my Grandmother Stocking re-tell her stories of my father’s childhood?  Why didn’t I write them down?  I was only ten, eleven, or maybe twelve, but how I wish I had taken the time to write them down.  Now, it is only bits and pieces that I remember.  I know the horses spooked, and my dad got hurt.  His teeth poked a pretty good hole in his lip.  But what spooked the horses?  I don’t remember.  And if only I could ask her where the farm was where she grew up in Illinois?  What was it like? What schools did she attend?  Now, I will spend hours, and days, and still never have all the answers.  And the one question I really wanted to know when I was in grade school, who was our Native American ancestor?  What was his/her name?  Were they actually Cherokee?  Where did they live/come from?

3.  And why didn’t I think to ask my Great-Aunt Dr. M. Ethel McGinnis more questions about her fascinating life as a teacher, professor, and gifted student?  And her life with my grandmother Stocking when they were children? 

I have many more ‘if only’s'  but they all involve asking my much older relatives questions that I wasn’t interested in knowing the answers to for many, many more years.   

If.  Only.

It’s Saturday Night!  And below is the SNGF Challenge from Genea-Musings Randy Seaver!

Cue up your “Mission Impossible” music, or maybe you really ought to turn on your favorite Christmas Songs!  Either Way, Enjoy!

Welcome to SNGF — it’s Saturday Night, time for more Genealogy Fun!

We had a great response last week to our Dear Genea-Santa wish list – thank you all for posting – perhaps you can use that post as a start for the upcoming Canrival of Genealogy with the topic of “Dear Genea-Santa.” My apologies for duplicating the theme last week.

I think that we all want lots of imaged and indexed databases online for our pajama-clad viewing pleasure… so for this week’s SNGF, let’s express our wishes for databases we want the genealogy companies to bring to us:

1) Define one or more genealogy or family history databases, that are not currently online, that would really help you in your research. Where does this database currently reside?

2) Tell us about it/them in a blog post on your own blog or GenealogyWise or Facebook, in a comment to this blog post, or in a comment to this post on Facebook.

This one is really easy.

I’ve sat at my computer in sweats and jammies in the wee hours many nights  just wishing that every small-town’s newspaper where my ancestors (and my family here, for that matter!) lived in were on-line and available for research.

Just think!  You could do your census and then check for the obituaries!

Indexed, too?  Oh, be still my heart!

The problem with that is, I believe, financial. For the companies who are making this kind of wonderful technology available. Say for Ancestry.com to want to do this, they would probably want to justify the numbers.

So just how many descendants might be looking?

Many of my ancestors lived in very rural areas, and the tiny town newspaper I might be searching for might be serving a population of less than 500.  Maybe even a lot less.

I figure my great-grandfather now has somewhere between 2 and 3 hundred descendants.  If everyone in my tiny town of Mayfield, Population then about 100, (area population maybe another 3 to 4 hundred) population now about 100, (area population probably a bit lower now) had 200 descendants looking, they might only be talking about 3,000 to 5,000 individuals at the max who might be looking?

Anyone want to guess with me?

On the other hand, there are always peripheral family members researching family, so could the number looking be higher?

And my tiny town had a newspaper for less than a year, so it wouldn’t take them long to scan, so is that a plus or a minus?

On the other hand, if there were actually 5 to 6 thousand plus individuals involved what percentage of those would be researching and paying a monthly or yearly subscription to access this information.  And will those numbers ever justify scanning the small-town newspapers?  I sure hope so!

Anyhow, that’s my wish, Santa!

Anyhow, that’s my wish, Santa, so I hope you and your elves can make this happen.  (That’s Kansas, Santa, land of the South Wind, and I’ve got lots of ancestral ties to Illinois, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania, too)

Dare I hope that the new Kindle-type technology that Apple and various others will soon have available might just include the capability to view this info while sitting at home or at your favorite brick and mortar library?

Dare I to dream?

If so, I may just start on my 2010 Christmas list right now….