OUR LOVE HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH SOCIAL MEDIA.

I am the unofficial family historian with a membership at Ancestry.com and a regular visitor to several websites related to family history and or history in general.  One place I pay for a membership is NewspaperArchive.com.   There are several good websites with newspaper collections from around the country and around the world.   Some states are better represented in their collection than others.    Indiana newspapers are well represented in their collection and that was one reason I selected them over some of the others.

As I've learned so often there really is nothing new under the sun. While the the mechanics of delivering social media has changed over the last century the message remains the same..."Here I am, look at me, I made this, I did that, join me in my happy, sad, or meaningful endeavors, I am!"

The other evening I did a search for articles containing the name of my Great grandmother Olive Robinson and discovered that she and her family were frequently mentioned in stories from the Monticello Herald. In those days the Monticello paper was a weekly and every week they included "reports" from all the little communities around the county.  Almost always the reports were of mundane, everyday events.  Who went to visit who, who had guests from out of town, who visited someone out of town, who got engaged or got married, funerals attended.....in short they were almost always just reports of neighborhood social events.  As I was reading the items it occurred to me "Oh my God.....these sound just like what I read at Facebook"  It became quite clear to me...our ancestors were every bit as hooked on social media as some of us are today.  The only difference I could see was that they didn't have the option of including a photo of the group gathered for the dinner party they were reporting about, or a picture of their new car.    Three randomly selected articles are shown below as the sort of Social Media our ancestors enjoyed.

I am confident that had "Facebook" existed in 1915 my great grandmother would have been a power user of the app.

WHO ARE THOSE PEOPLE, AND WHY DID GRANDMA SAVE THIS PICTURE?

Cooper-Best Family Reunion Circa 1904

There are 75 individuals in this picture.   It was given to me about 1987 by my grandfather Robinson's first cousin Harry Klepinger.  I easily recognized my great great grandfather, David Cooper sitting in the first row off the ground...what I've since come to call Patriarch row. Harry told me that it was a picture of a Cooper & Best Family reunion.  His parents are on the far right side and two of his older siblings are standing high in the back row but he didn't remember who many of the others were and he didn't have any idea what the location was or the occasion, other than a "reunion". David Cooper was Harry's maternal grandfather.  The only identification on the picture was written on the reverse indicating the names of the two families involved.  Coopers and Bests.  David Cooper was married to Amanda Best and she had died before this picture was taken.  In a closer examination with a magnifying glass I realized that three of David Cooper's children were also present, William P. Cooper, Kate Klepinger, and Mary Schoonover.  My own great grandmother and any of her family seemed to be missing.  Everyone else was a mystery.      This might have remained a mostly unidentified picture but for two reasons.   Collaboration, and the internet.  For several years this remained in a folder of other Cooper family pictures and data.

A few years later I connected with Cheryl Hipp, a great great granddaughter of Isaac Newton Best and we exchanged some family data. Isaac was the brother of Amanda Best Coooper.   I had started scanning my old family photographs and I sent Cheryl a copy of this image telling her the names of those I knew and asking if she recognized anyone else in the picture based on the old family photographs she had in her possession.  Imagine my surprise when she wrote back and told me that she also had that very picture in her own collection and that she knew which was her great grandfather and grandfather.  

If descendants of both Amanda and Isaac had copies there must have been many copies of the image given to others who were in attendance that day and while we are still waiting for another copy to turn up we have been able to identify several other family members based on other photographs posted to various family trees at Ancestry.com and others by simply going through our own collections.

One of the first chores we accomplished was figuring out the year it was taken.   Since Amanda was not in the picture we knew it was taken after her death in 1896.   We also realized that William P. Cooper's wife, Lottie was standing next to him and she died in June 1905.  So there we had our brackets.   Fashions are ever changing, and because of that change it is often possible to date an image with a fair amount of accuracy based only on the clothing being worn in the picture, and this picture is loaded with fashion hints all of which point to the first decade of the 20th Century.

Cheryl sent copies of the picture to several other Best family researchers she was exchanging information with asking for them to look for anyone they might recognize. We made a low resolution copy of the image and numbered each person then Cheryl made a spread sheet and we plugged in the names next to the numbers of those we knew.  That led us to thinking more about the image in a couple of different ways.   First....what event was this?  Was it just a run of the mill family reunion or was something else going on?  Had the family gathered for a celebration of a birthday or wedding anniversary, or maybe even a funeral?   Cheryl and I had both started out calling it a picture of a Cooper/Best family Reunion...and then we started thinking about family reunions and other family gatherings.  In our experience two large families might come together for a funeral or wedding, but usually other gatherings involve one side of your family or the other, not usually both.   David Cooper was married to Amada Best, and her brother Isaac N Best was married to David's sister Rebecca....so there was more than the average mixing between those two families, but still it seemed to me that if it were a family reunion it was probably for one famil or the other, not both, except those that intermarried.  Keeping that in mind it's probably safe to assume the majority of the others are going to be members of that family.

The presence of Henry Best, older brother of Amanda and Isaac N in the photo along with some of his children seem to tip the balance toward this being a Best family reunion picture.   Also present was David and Rebecca's brother Benjamin Cooper, but his presence at a Best family function is easily explained because he was making his home with his sister Rebecca and her family at this time. Henry Best, on the other hand had lived in Iowa for many years indicating a trip back to Indiana required a sort of special effort and his presence at a Cooper family reunion would seem less likely. 

Two additional spreadsheet pages were created to help us evaluate the image and those who might have been present.  One was a list of the various Best family members who might have attended and their ages and known residences in 1900.  The other was for the Cooper family members who might have attended along with ages and residences.     We have assumed that those in attendance were probably all descendants of Isaac and Jane Best, early pioneers of Tippecanoe County, along with those members of the Cooper family who had married into the Best family.   Isaac and Jane had ten children, but by 1905 only three remained, Isaac N, Henry, and Samuel who died in July of that year.  However, many of Isaac and Jane's grandchildren and great grandchildren were alive in 1905.  It is possible that the invitation extended beyond the families of the children of Isaac and Jane and perhaps some cousins might have shown up also.

We now have positive or nearly positive identifications of 23 of the faces in this picture, but neither of us are ready to throw in the towel.  Though not yet half done, both Cheryl and I feel there is hope that we might eventually figure out as many as half of these people, or maybe somewhere in a box someone has another copy of this picture on which the original owner wrote the names of everyone. Wouldn't that be nice!

Just because you don't know everyone in your old family pictures doesn't mean they can't be figured out with some effort and help from others and a bit of luck.  There are some good books devoted to working with your old family photographs.  Well worth the cost if you are serious about working with the old photos.          

How email became my worst nightmare.

Holy Crap!  What a mess.   I'm 66 years old and you would think I'd know better than to let something like this happen.  What happened you ask?   I changed internet providers.   I dumped Comcast...is that cheering I hear?  Comcast finally got some "real" competition here in town...Fiber to the home service, fast stuff, much faster than cable even, and a promise of good customer service.   So far my speed tests have verified what Metronet has promised, at least as far as the speed....and the service is cheaper than Comcast.  It comes with up to seven new email addresses....woo-hoo~!

So here is the problem, and it is one that has been building ever since I first got Comcast and opted to use a Comcast email instead of one of the big, free, online email services like gmail or Yahoo or MSN, AOL, etc.  Actually I did get a gmail address around 2008 and I used it on occasion, mainly I thought of it as a back up service in case something happened with Comcast.  Every time I signed up for a newsletter, or joined some online service I gave them the comcast email.   When businesses asked for my email I gave them the Comcast address, when I made a political donation I gave them the Comcast address, when I ordered something online I gave them my Comcast address,  everyone I've corresponded with since about the year 2005 has my Comcast address, friends, relatives, business associates, everyone.  

Ok...all you smart people out there can start laughing now.   I can see you shaking your heads, wondering how I could have been so dense.  I deserve it...

Of course this very issue is probably the reason all the internet providers out there offer "free" email...  like a worm on a hook...once you swallow it, and especially if you use it for a long time then switching away from that internet service company is going to be very painful...and they know that. They want it to be painful to leave.

I've spent the last four days going through my contacts folder....deleting a lot of old ones, addresses for people I have no idea who they are or why I have their addresses in my contacts....Those I recognize I've been sending a change of address email, directing them all to the gmail account.   I've also been going through all the newsletters, and services where my email is used, making changes on those I want to continue to receive....and smugly ignoring those who I don't want to hear from again.

I did set up a couple of address boxes with the new server...one will be used only for a small handful of the companies that I wish to still get advertising from, or daily news headlines, political or financial commentary and the other is reserved for junk...if I make a political donation that special email address will be used...it will be a box that I can look at occasionally, and then just delete the entire contents. If the hardware store wants my email I'll probably tell them NO, but if they insist, well, they will get that special address. robjnk@newprovider.com  It will be my email version of a "drop-gun".

I will probably forget changing something, or someone, but I'm getting most of them and even at age 66 I'm still capable of learning a lesson the hard way.  If you too want to prevent a nightmare like this, do as I say, not as I do.  

Politically Incorrect

TRIGGER WARNING: examples of hateful racial, ethnic, & religious slurs below.  You have been warned.

I was thinking about something Donald Trump keeps saying...  that he sick of "Political Correctness" and that it is "killing our country".  Jeb Bush was pretty ticked off the other day too after being caught in a Political Correctness "got ya!"    I'm thinking to myself...Trump is just an asshole who will use anything as an excuse for having no control over his mouth.  The anchor baby comment by Bush might be another story.  Has political correctness gone too far?  While political correctness is sometimes, maybe even often, over done I see it as one way to at least put a sock in the mouths of those who have no self control, but have we become so obsessed with the idea that we can't hurt anyone's feelings that certain topics are off limits or so limited by the fear of saying anything incorrectly that we just avoid the whole issue?  

I thought I should at least read up on "political correctness", what it is, how and when it came about...I just wanted to find a quick executive summary of the topic..sadly, none exist. It's a much larger subject than I initially gave it credit for.  However, after reading or reviewing a dozen or so articles I was able to learn a few of the basics.   The phrase has been around for quite a long time, much longer than I would have suspected.   That the meaning of political correctness varies with the person describing it and that the definition has changed  so often it has become a nearly a useless phrase. Most often is is used as a hammer, and you hear it used as a hammer more often by those on the right. At least that's my conclusion, and I don't mean hammer, as in "a useful tool", I mean hammer as in a weapon used to bludgeon others.

On the one hand political correctness makes for more polite conversation. I'll give it that much.  The use of words that can be hurtful like chink, dink, darky, half-breed, hymie, jap, jungle bunny, raghead, sambo, mackerel snapper, wetback, and wop are discouraged. That's a good thing.  Where Donald Trump and I disagree is that I don't see "political correctness as being inherently bad, unless it goes way overboard, which sadly, seems to be the case more often than I'm comfortable with.    To me "political correctness is about using respectful language, be it based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.  

Beyond acting to modify crude comments political correctness is overdone and in some cases people have just gone nuts.   Take the subject of "trigger warnings".  That the very idea of a topic is so offensive that we can't even talk about it without first warning our listeners that some part of the discussion might be uncomfortable.   If we do talk about it we have to be so careful in selecting our words that talking about the subject is something like trying to walk through a mine field blindfolded.  Sometimes perfectly serviceable words are deemed in appropriate.   Anchor babies is a good example.  When you say it Everyone knows what it means...so if you are talking about persons (not citizens) who come to America and have children and you want to debate whether or not those children should be citizens if they are born here I don't see the issue with using the term.  Just me, probably someone will explain to me why it's offensive, but it seems like a perfectly descriptive phrase.  When I say it or hear it I don't think of it as a slur, just as a description that describes babies born here of parents who are not citizens.  It's probably a conversation we should be having...the subject of immigration I mean...whether it be legal or illegal, documented or not documented, yet we can't have said debate because just hearing the term throws a wrench in the gears of a discussion.

It's true, some ideas make some people uncomfortable, but ideas have always made some people uncomfortable.   The earth is round!  That idea once got people in trouble.   To expect College professors, to warn their students ahead of time if certain ideas and concepts are going to be mentioned in class is just about the craziest notion I've ever heard of.  Yet Trigger Warnings have become "a thing" at universities all over the country.    Of all the places where  freedom of thought should be encouraged you would think college would near the top of the list.  Students protest if a speaker is brought to the campus who has controversial ideas.

What have we done to our children and grandchildren?  We seem to have protected them for so long, from anything that might make them uncomfortable, that they can't even be in the same room with someone who might have an idea that offends them.  I wonder how that will work for them in the real world after graduation?     Yes, maybe "The Donald" is right,  Political Correctness as gone too far, though in his case a good strong muzzle or a dirty sock in his mouth might be just what is needed.

It's sad, political campaigns are supposed to be about ideas for solving the problems of the nation, instead we argue about HOW we should talk about certain subjects.   Instead of hearing discussions about immigration policy we hear a discussion about what words we can and can't use when, if, we ever get around to actually having that discussion.  It's rather like diplomats arguing about the shape of the table and the seating arrangement instead of getting down to the purpose of the meeting in the first place.

Two sides of the same coin.

Here's something to think about.  Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump....they would seem to be opposites and in many respects they are, but they are opposites like heads and tails of the same coin.  I call it the Anti-establishment coin.  They both represent the same thing...the same promise....simply, that they are not a part of the larger "political establishment". They are outsiders. Not part of the old guard.  They hold out the promise of being different than the rest of the Washington establishment.  They are both willing to say things and take positions others fear to take. Trump seems to revel in being the anti politically correct candidate and he doesn't seem to care what Washington insiders think of him (must less media pundits).    I believe he has the Washington establishment worried, although they continue to believe (or hope) he will eventually flame out.  There is a lot of irony in Donald Trump claiming to be the anti-establishment GOP candidate, considering he has admitted giving truck loads of cash to politicians of all stripes for the sole purpose of extracting "favors" from them. I guess it's like he is saying "I'm not one of them, but I've been smart enough, and rich enough to USE them" and I guess that probably annoys them as much as anything....that someone actually admits they give big political donations with the expectation of getting something in return.  That our government really is "for sale" The establishment, Right and Left,  would rather not talk about that.

For many Americans the financial crisis of 2008 and the resulting recession brought into sharp focus the failings of the "free market", and and the financial deregulation that fueled the crisis.  A sagging middle class, income inequality, within a system that seems designed for the 1% by the 1% have created a deep suspicion of so called "Corporate Democrats". Sanders, like Trump is not afraid to say what he thinks and champions himself as the only true friend of the middle class.  Like Trump worries the establishment Republicans, Bernie Sanders has the "establishment"  wing of his party worried. Sanders and Trump, Two sides of the same coin based on a deep distrust of the usual politicians, playing the usual games, and making the same hollow promises.  There are a lot of pissed off voters if the numbers supporting Trump or Sanders are any indication...and I believe they are. Maybe some folks are even beginning to understand that "trickle down" economics doesn't work, never has worked, and never will work.

I find it amazing that the "establishment" cartel in Washington seems so clueless about how unhappy the vast majority of voters are.  Hell, all you have to do is set up a Facebook page, accumulate a couple hundred "friends" and just watch the news feed.  It isn't rocket science, just open their eyes and look around.  Personally if I were them I'd be getting damn nervous.  

  Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone wrote this today, and I can't agree more.
 
 "Trump's followers are a gang of pissed-off nativists who are tired of being laughed at, belittled, dismissed, and told who to vote for. So it seems incredible that the Republican establishment thinks it's going to get rid of Trump by laughing at, belittling and dismissing him, and telling his voters who they should be picking."   

The current crew running the train seems to think the passengers will just keep riding quietly along doing what is asked, believing what is said, no questions asked. As one of those passengers, I hate to tell the crew...your days might be numbered. I'm enjoying watching the Republican establishment try to tear Trump down, it might back fire on them, but this much we know for sure.  The next few months will be very entertaining if nothing else.     

 

More of What this country needs!

Back in April of 2009 I wrote a piece about the need for us to slow down so we can actually see what is around us and get an appreciation for what America really looks like.   It started with the following thought.  Fellow Hoosier and Vice President, Thomas R. Marshall once said "What this country needs is a really good five cent cigar!" Today I'll add to the list of what this country needs. One of the things this country needs today is for everyone to just slow down.

Thomas Marshall from North Manchester, Indiana was a Democrat and the popular 27th Governor of Indiana.  While in office he proposed the passage of a new Progressive State Constitution and worked for other progressive era reforms.  At that time Indiana was an important "swing state" in national politics, much like Florida is today.  Because he had been a popular figure in Indiana politics he was chosen as Woodrow Wilson's Vice Presidential candidate and served from 1913-1921 as the 28th U. S. Vice President.  Sadly Marshall is most remembered because he failed to press the issue of succession after Wilson became incapacitated by two strokes in 1919.   Though he was urged to take over as "Acting President" during Wilson's illness he opted not to because at that time the process of determining when a president was "incapacitated" was not well defined and he feared a constitutional crisis if he acted incorrectly. So historians give him low marks....at least he didn't embarrass fellow Hoosiers like the most recent Hoosier Vice President, Dan Quayle.   But I digress.

We Americans value speed, getting things done fast, fast food, fast lanes on the highway, fast cars.  We lead fast paced lives.   What we need to do is decelerate, get out of the fast lane, and turn off the interstate at the first exit.  Life would seem so much less hectic and you'd be amazed at what you might see.

According to Google Maps it is 1,711 miles from my house to my son's house just outside of Tucson, Arizona.  With the exception of the first 25 miles and the last 8 miles of the trip it can all be made via Interstate Highway travel.  Interstates 74, 72, 55, 44, 40, 25, and 10.  Twenty five hours drive time.  I can vouch for that...you can make the trip in a couple of 14 or 15 hour marathon drive days.  I've even done that a couple of times, but that isn't the way I like to travel.  It isn't pleasant, and it probably isn't safe.  Probably more importantly there are a lot of interesting things to see over that 1,711 mile journey if you just slow down and get out of the fast lane.  Below are some of the things you might find if you get off the interstate and explore some back roads.

Waiting for Harvest
Beauty is where you find it, but you can't savor it from the fast lane.
Rural road, Tippecanoe County, Indiana

Ears to the Stars.
National Radio Astronomy Observatory Very Large Array
Off the beaten path west of Socoro, NM along Hwy 60

The Great Plains
Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve
Off the beaten path south of Council Grove, KA on Hwy 177

Wigwam Motel
Off the beaten path on Old Route 66, Holbrook AZ

On the bottom of Canyon de Chelly
Way off the beaten path outside of Chinle AZ
nearest highway US 191

Near Hanksville UT
Off the beaten path along Utah hwy 24

Dark Sky
If you get far enough off the beaten path the night sky puts on quite a show.
Off Utah Hwy 12 north west of Bryce Canyon.

Hard Times
Colfax County New Mexico.  Though Interstate 25 cuts through the county
north to south, just about every other road in the county could be considered
off the beaten path.

Somewhere north of Alamosa Colorado
along a local rural road way off the beaten path. 

Prairie Sentinel
Off the beaten trail in western Indiana

     

Irritating things at Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com is first and foremost a company doing business with a profit in mind.  They have not collected vast amounts of data and made it available for altruistic reasons...they've done that for the purpose of attracting customers.  They are not particular about what sort of customers they attract, as long as said customer has a valid credit card.  None of that makes their collection of data any less valuable but bear in mind that the trees people have created there were done by persons with all levels of research experience and knowledge of their ancestors.   Some of the trees you find at Ancestry are well documented and researched.   Information from those trees can help you build your own tree.   Some of the trees you find there contain no documentation or source material for the information posted and those trees can lead you down a blind alley in no time.  What I'm saying is that there is much to like at Ancestry.com, but also much to beware of.  I am not a family tree snob, I don't mind sharing information with others, in fact I encourage it.  I have a public tree at ancestry.com  and I have made it public knowing others can access it and use information I have uploaded to the tree, including source material, photographs and other data.  I honestly don't mind sharing, that's how I was able to grow my own tree, because people willingly shared information, photographs, and memories.

I should also say at the beginning of this rant that I understand some people using Ancestry.com are new to genealogy, and that they sometimes make mistakes that people with more experience learned to avoid a long time ago.   

All that said, it still drives me crazy when people lift information or pictures off my tree and use them on their own trees in a way that is incorrect or in a way that doesn't fit their tree at all.  Some people want to know if they have made a mistake and will correct information that they have incorrectly understood and or used, and some are not interested in making corrections at all.    

Here is just one example of things that make me crazy when I see them at Ancestry.   

The same or similar name mistake:

A member ( I hesitate to call her a family historian or genealogist, both of which imply she knows something about what she's doing) at Ancestry.com has a woman on her tree named Dortha E Jones with a birth date given as 8 Aug 1909.   She shows as proof a birth record for someone named Dorothy E. Quebbeman, born in Knox County Indiana with parents Wm and Atta (Hendricks) Quebbeman.    Yet on the tree she is showing parents for Dorotha Jones as being Walter E. Jones and Mary J. Jones.   That's where I come into the picture.   Mary J. Jones was Mary J. Robinson and she was a first cousin of my grandfather and they did have a daughter named Dorothy Fay Jones.     So.....who the hell is person on the birth certificate?  In trying to read between the lines of that tree I see she has Dortha married to Harley G. Jones. Is Dortha who married Harley the same as Dorothy Quebbeman?  Can't really tell by looking at her tree...I think so, maybe.
Some of that confusion would be eliminated if people would please use the maiden name of women when entering them on a tree...it's much less confusing for everyone involved.  I can't tell if the woman who married Harley G. Jones was actually Dorthey E. Quebbeman or someone named Dortha E. Jones.

Ancestry.com really should require or at least encourage maiden names be used if known for all females on all trees.  This example gets worse,  the tree owner has uploaded census records for the Walter E. Jones family which does include a daughter named Dorthy Fay Jones....and also census records for Dortha  after her marriage to Harley Jones.   It seems clear, based on census records that the Dortha who married Harley is not the same Dorothy Jones who was the daughter of Walter and Mary. What seems to have happened is the records for two different women of similar names have been blended, leaving anyone looking at the tree very confused.   It's a good example of one of those "same name" problems but by no means is this a rare mistake at Ancestry.   For some reason a lot of people building family trees can't get past the fact that it is not only possible, but probable that a lot of people have the same names and even the same or similar years of birth and death.  I've done a couple of Google searches on my own name, Quentin Robinson.......there are a lot of us and I used to think it was a somewhat unique name. Imagine how many Jane Smith's there have been!

Some time ago I found another Ancestry user taking a lot of my Robinson photographs and information from my tree and got kind of excited, thinking I had found a long lost cousin.   Then I started looking at her tree and her connection to my tree which was with someone named Sarah Robinson.   She had an ancestor named Sarah Robinson who was born in PA. who married Asa Sprague and died in 1837 Orleans County New York.    I had a Sarah Robinson on my tree born about the same time, but born in Ohio.    The Sarah on my tree was a daughter of Richard and Ann Mary Robinson and was married to William Wilson McLaughlin and she died in 1832 in Ohio at a fairly young age after giving birth to 4 children.  The other Ancestry user had "adopted" the Sarah on my tree as her own Sarah.   Well heck, the name is the same, it MUST BE the same person, right?    I contacted her and sent her the marriage record for Sarah and William W. McLaughlin, explained where that Sarah was born, and how I knew that information with source material...thinking she'd want to correct her tree, or maybe ask me for additional information.    WRONG...not interested in correcting her tree at all and she essentially told me to mind my own damn business and that even if her tree was wrong it wasn't hurting anything because no one cares, and no one looks at it anyhow and it is her tree, not my tree, who appointed me as the tree police,  and to leave her alone.  (I left out all the expletives she spiced it up with)  

I recently looked at her tree again a couple years later it has grown to well over 20,000 names.  I guess it's pretty easy to build a big tree when you just start lifting whole branches off other trees and just plugging them in wherever the hell you want on your own tree.   The woman had absolutely no concept why her use of my Sarah Robinson's family on her tree, showing a different husband, different kids, different death date and location might be of any concern at all to me.   Maybe what ticked her off  was the idea that if she had to give up Sarah's family off my tree then she'd loose a few hundred good names that went with Sarah  and I guess if you are going for numbers then that would be a hard hit. Maybe she couldn't face the fact that if she removed my Robinson's from her tree that would leave her with a dead end for her Sarah, or maybe she's just a crazy bat.    Quantity over quality....he (or she) who gets the most names on a tree wins.  What horse shit!!!   Sadly it appears the woman has accumulated a lot of other mistakes on her tree besides the wrong Robinson family attached to her Sarah.   What she, and maybe a lot of people don't understand is that the information they post on those trees is likely to be around for a very long time, and at some point some innocent newby is going to be looking at those trees and will have no idea how inaccurate they are.  Those inaccuracies will just be perpetuated long into the future.

Believe me...a lot of information gets copied from tree to tree to tree because people see something that looks like it MIGHT fit and just plug it in without any additional proof....and sometimes what gets copied is so absurd I think my elementary school age grandkids could probably catch it as wrong.   I've seen children listed on trees with birth dates that are years after the parent died....or at a date when the mother would have been 5 years old. (That would have been a newsworthy event I imagine)

Often locations of events like birth, death, or marriage don't make any sense either.  If a family was living in Ohio in 1830 why would anyone believe one of their children was born in Germany in 1835 when all the other children of the family were born in Ohio?   Another example of the "same name" issue.   The Ohio family had a son Benjamin, and a family in Germany also had a son Benjamin..."must be the same guy".  Doesn't it seem unlikely that a family living in Ohio in 1835, made up of a husband born in Maryland and a wife born in Virginia, having a dozen kids all born in Ohio have one child born in Germany?   Could that happen,  sure it could, is it likely, not on your life. Just because you know your great great grandfather was named Benjamin and that he was born in Germany and you find another family of the same surname with a son named Benjamin IT DOES NOT MEAN YOUR GREAT GREAT GRANDFATHER AND THE OTHER ONE ARE THE SAME PERSON!

Here is another one that drives me nuts...my fourth great grandmother was Isabella Anderson Davisson.   Born in Virginia in 1756 and married there but she and her husband and children migrated to Ohio about 1810 where they settled in Clark County and bought a farm.   In 1818 and 1819 Isabella Davisson and her husband Isaac sell all their land in Clark County and she is not heard from again.

Isaac however is found soon after 1820 living in Johnson County Indiana where several of their children migrated about the time of the Ohio land sales.   There is no census record or any other type of record indicating Isabella was still around after the land sale in Ohio. There are at least 22 family trees at Ancestry.com and a few actually give an exact date of death for her, however most use an estimated  death date of 1819 or 1820.   Sometimes when arriving at a death date for early ancestors all you can do is estimate, but the craziest thing I find about her is that the majority of those 22 trees show her place of death as Indianola in Warren County Iowa.  Not Ohio, not Indiana.

Now think about that for a minute.   1820.....what was going on in Iowa in 1820?  I'll tell you what, not very damn much, that's what!  Indiana was at the western edge of the frontier in 1820.   What was going on with the rest of Isabella's family in 1820?   Where were they?   I'll tell you....not a one of them was in Iowa in 1820.  None.  Why would you think a woman of almost 70 years old would strike out and head west of the Mississippi in 1820 when her husband and all of her family was in either Ohio or Indiana?  Did she run away from home, abandon her husband and family?  If she did that then how did anyone back in Ohio and Indiana figure out that she made it as far as Indianola Iowa and how did anyone arrive at an exact date of death?   Maybe someone telegraphed them?  Maybe the health department in Indianola kept a record?   Yes, I'm being snarky.

    I once, as an experiment, contacted the owners of all 22 of those trees and asked them if they could provide any additional information about the death date or death location for Isabella Davisson...less than half even responded, but each of those ten  people told me that they got the death date and Indianola Iowa place of death from another tree...I shook my head, thanked them and went on my way.   In fairness, I have since that time corresponded with a few other Davisson descendants who have explained how they arrived at an estimated death date and location for Isabella...  based on the land sales and based on a lack of census or other proof from Indiana they believe she probably died around 1820 either in Clark County, before Isaac moved west into Indiana, or she died in Johnson County Indiana not long after they moved there. Sometimes that is just about as accurate as you can get or should get.

Changing gears a bit.  Below, selected at random, are a few of my favorite pictures from the family album.

My grandma taught school here.  Her dad, Edgar Ferguson standing by the hack. 

 The Painter family...my mother in law is the next to youngest child on left.
Can you imagine 16 siblings? 

Great Grandpa Robinson's house in White County Indiana. 

 Hotel in Plymouth Nebraska owned by great-great grand Uncle John D. Robinson. 

Home where I grew up....lots of memories there.