The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding

I first came across TNG, probably three years ago when I was looking for a easy way to present my data in a “pretty” fashion. That first release was TNG v.5. The project has come a long way since then. Darrin Lythgoe is the brilliant developer behind this project. For a reasonable price, you can put together a nice clean, Web 2.0, friendly genealogy website. I would recommend checking it out.

Note: I have received no compensation from TNG or Darrin Lythgoe in making this post, nor will I receive anything in the future.

Tags: Follow Friday

I have installed TNG to host my family history research data at http://genealogy.koen.net. This is just a starting point with what I feel is reasonably clean data. I will continue to update it as my clean up process continues.

I have also added a widget on the right side that will have the most five most recent updates to the data listed in it. You can subscribe to this information in your favorite RSS reader if you’d like.

If you have any questions about this data, please contact me.

Tags: Genealogy

Over the weekend I was looking around on Smashing Magazine for some theme ideas for another site that I will be launching this week. I ran across the theme that you now see. It’s called Aspire and it was created by the folks at InfoCreek.

I think it looks great.

What do you think?

Tags: New Theme

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This weeks activities included running across the largest research file that I have on my ancestors. I said largest, I didn’t say cleanest. This file has its origins from my “junk genealogy” days. However, it was nice to run across it, as I will use it has a road map to create a new, safe for public consumption database.

The first family that I chose to research was my maternal grandmother’s parents. Henry Harrison Ekey (1884-1964) and Orpha Allen (1890-1964). They had one daughter Vivian Verniece Ekey (1917-1987), my grandmother. I chose this family for two reasons, my mother visited them many times when she was growing up and has many memories of them and the close proximity to St. Louis. As a kid, I remember visiting the cemeteries with my grandparents around Memorial Day each year to place flowers on their graves.

What I know

Henry Harrison Ekey was born 7 Nov 1884 in Franklin County, Missouri. He married Orpha Allen on 4 May 1910 in Montgomery County, Missouri. He died 20 Aug 1964 in New Florence, Montgomery, Missouri.

According to the 1920 and 1930 Federal Census, they lived in the Bear Creek township of Montgomery County where Henry listed his occupation as a farmer on property that was owned by the family. He appears in the 1900 and 1910 Federal Census with his parents Rezon Barkhurst Ekey and Elizabeth Frances “Lizzie” Wallace and many of his siblings.

Orpha Allen was born 2 Aug 1890 in New Florence, Montgomery, Missouri to Edward Lee Allen and Magnolia Elrod. She died shortly before Henry on 28 Apr 1964 in New Florence, Montgomery, Missouri. She appears on the 1910 Census, which was taken shortly before they were married, with her parents and two brothers, George D. Allen and Joseph B. Allen in the Danville Township, Montgomery, Missouri. She also appears with Henry on the 1920 and 1930 Census.

They were married 4 May 1910 in New Florence, Montgomery, Missouri and only had one daughter, Vivian Verniece Ekey. This marriage was listed in an index to Montgomery County Marriages on Ancestry.com.

I have both of their obituaries from the Montgomery County Leader somewhere in my files. Once I locate them, I will post them on this site.

Research to do

• Compile the complete listing of Henry Ekey’s siblings.
• Locate the land records and transactions for the property that was own by the family.
• Get tombstone pictures from the New Florence cemetery.
• Locate Death certificates for Henry Ekey and Orpha Allen.
• Interview my mother to she what she has on this family. She has some pictures and other items from them.

Notes

Most of what I have recorded with sources is what I have been able to find in sources on Ancestry.com, not including the user-submitted records. It’s now time to do the further digging necessary to develop a complete picture of their life.

Please feel free to share what you have, if anything on this family.

Tags: Allen Family, Ekey Family, Elrod Family, Franklin County, Missouri, Montgomery County, Wallace Family

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I have recently been reading Emily Croom’s Unpuzzling Your Past. She talks about the benefits of doing “cluster genealogy.”  This got me to thinking about what this really means. A quick search on Google, shows Wikipedia’s definition first:

Cluster genealogy is a research technique employed by genealogists to learn more about an ancestor by examining records left by the ancestor’s cluster. A person’s cluster consists of the extended family, friends, neighbors, and other associates, such as business partners. Researching the lives of an ancestor’s cluster leads to a more complete and more accurate picture of the ancestor’s life.

Why do it?

Most of us get so focused on researching the direct line ancestors, but here’s why this technique helps:

• The records of those extended family members and friends can provide pointers to the previous generation.
• Family groups often migrated to the same towns and lived near each other. You might find that neighbors are relatives.
• In a lot of cases a single record isn’t sufficient evidence to meet the proof standard, so researching by the cluster can provide additional records.
• Your direct line ancestor may be indexed incorrectly. Knowing the entire family can help you locate the family.
• Researching a larger group of ancestors improves your chances of connecting with other researcher.

How does it work?

You need to search beyond your direct line ancestors. Check out brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors and friends. Look for these individuals in vital records, land records, census records, and other compiled genealogies. Record your finding in your software, just as if they were related.

Don’t forget the spouses of these individuals, either. If your tree is lacking other researchers, the spouses’ trees might not be. Here again compiled genealogies may be available on these allied lines.

Census records really shine for doing this type of resource. Land and church records can also provide pointers to additional individuals of interest.

Conclusion

I certainly hope that you can see that by increasing your research options, you improve your chances of finding details and records about your ancestors.

Feel free to share how these techniques have helped you.

Finally, I’d like to thank Kimberly Powell, about.com Genealogy Guide for the information here.

Tags: Family tree, Genealogy

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One of the intentions of this blog was to share with those that are interested my ongoing efforts in researching my family history. In the year or so that this incarnation of the blog there has not been a single post regarding my genealogical research. It’s time for this to change.

I have done research off and on for the past 11 years. However, I have yet to correct many of the careless entries in my family files from my early days. There is a lot of the data that is undocumented and in some cases, just plain wrong. This is as a result of not following sound research practices and being more concerned with going “deep,” rather than accurate. There is quite a bit of criticism regarding some of the “homegrown” data that is published online. So, I want to ensure that my data is correct and well-documented.

I eventually intend to publish a family history. So, this is a good exercise for that project.

I am pursuing the following steps to make this happen:

1. Extract any and all information that I can find on my direct line ancestors. This includes online, as well as, in my own files.
2. Create a “sloppy” data set from this data.
3. Use tools like GenSmarts and The Master Genealogist’s Audit feature to create an action plan.
4. Follow the advice and guidance of these tools to create a new “clean” data set that is accurate and well-documented.
5. Post the clean findings here and elsewhere online.

If you have gone through a similar exercise, I would be curious to hear about your experience and what strategies you found worked well for you.

Tags: Family, Genealogy, Research, Researchers