Into the Deep End

In preparation for our stake Family Discovery Day, I've viewed several RootsTech presentations and tutorials about the FamilySearch Tree descendancy view. All emphasized the temple icon and neglected the other three. I explored the opposite approach. Happily only two of my Teter cousins showed problem icons, about pre-adolescent brides. With historical record hints I adjusted a too-early marriage date for one bride and a too-recent birthdate for the other. Problems solved.

The system did not mind that John Poole of England, husband of Mrs. John Poole, had been combined with John Whipps Poole of Maryland and Ohio, husband of Ann Pierce and Rebecca C. John Whipps Poole had daughters with his second wife, Rebecca, born in Ross County, Ohio in the years before and after John Poole's son George was born in Wiveliscombe, Somerset, England. The pregnancies would pass a math test but not a geography check. Searching the Tree turned up a record for John Poole of Wiveliscombe, stripped of relationships but with the same no-contact contributor as George and Mrs. John.

I like being the lifeguard on duty.

Pancakes

A cousin who wants to join the DAR recently traded some information with me. At last I know that Matilda G. Teter McKenzie and Edith T. Teter Pancake, found in Ross County, Ohio marriage records, were daughters of Samuel D. Teter and Henrietta Given. Both women's death certificates named their parents.

A few months ago I would only attach a FamilySearch historical record to the principal individual, and only tag the date and place it documented. Then, remembering the joy of connecting Samuel D. Teter to his parents George and Christiana Davis Teter through land partitions, I began attaching the historical records to everyone mentioned, documenting relationships as well as events.

Names I'm still reluctant to tag, changeable as they are in the historical records. Edith Pancake's first known son was either Rolle, Rollins, or Roland. Her second was Darrel or Dorrel, and her third was Forest or Forrest G. G for Grant, not Gump. I trust the names on the World War I draft registrations when I can find them; that's one place where the middle name was unabbreviated.

I've attached all the hints for four children and six grandchildren. FamilySearch wants me to look for more, but I think ten Pancakes is enough for one day.

My first Tweet

I skipped Social-Media Sunday-Monday; today is Twitter Tuesday. Having discovered that a descendant of Napoleon belongs to YDNA haplogroup E1b1b, along with Barack Obama, Einstein, the Wright brothers, Hitler, and eight of the twelve participants in the Teater-Teter surname project, I decided the news deserved to be my first tweet to my follower. Whee!

post-RootsTech post

Ok, I'm motivated to try this blog thing one more time. Surname Saturday will happen another day; today is Software Saturday.

Restoring several years' of genealogy research that went out the window on a stolen computer has been difficult. I recovered an old Excel file from SkyDrive, of Kressers from Vorarlberg Austria, and my 1999 submission to the Pedigree Resource File from CD 5, of compiled Teter descendants after my first research trip to Ross County and Union County Ohio. Both of these datasets were outdated and missing more recent information, only some of which had been uploaded to the new FamilySearch. One by one updating from Legacy worked well for the Kressers but progressed too slowly with the Teters.

I checked the list of partner products for NFS; the free utility Get My Ancestors looked promising. After installation I chose my most distant Teter ancestor, Captain Samuel, and asked for nine generations of his descendants. Get My Ancestors actually created a PAF file of six generations, which is appropriate for the separation between living and dead.

Since Legacy can import a PAF file directly, I skipped the GEDCOM step. A Potential Problems report and 312 tagged records later, I'm grateful for the efficiency of Get My Ancestors and Legacy. On to the cleanup (and backup)!

Ahnenwald is live!

The current economy has given me lots of free time, so the Web site upgrade I've been building for several years is now pretty enough to publish. Research projects include

• Descendants of Samuel Teter and Mary Doddridge
• Kresser relations in the Bregenzerwald, Vorarlberg, Austria
• Ehmig relations in Rheinhessen, Germany
• Szafranski relations in Poznan, Poland

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