Kindo Family Blog

Everyone hits a brick wall in genealogy, where the birth and death records just aren’t easy to find. In that case, try some different records. One good source you may try:  historic land records. Deeds often contain information on who sold what to whom; who inherited what from whom; or how some land was divided among a family.  Historic tax records on land also sometimes have interesting information, such as co-ownership.

One example from Flickr

photo credit: S Migol

Most archives have land records, and many have an online way to search the index and then order a copy of the record you want for a small fee. Just as an example, you could use these sites in Great Britain.

• For English and Welsh records see Public Record Office Leaflet: Tithe Records in the Public Record Office. Scottish records are held at the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh.
• Legal Terms in Land Records is a useful glossary of obscure terms which occur in property deeds.
• Robin Alston’s Country House Database “represents a first attempt at listing country houses in the British Isles from the late medieval period to ca. 1850, together with an index to all the families so far traced as having occupied them”.
• Estate Records held by Kings College, Cambridge.

It’s only August and the weekend offered us some nice sunshine and t-shirt weather. Still, the sun is starting to set earlier and is a reminder about the season that will soon be upon us.

Just as the squirrels and different kinds of birds collect nuts and seeds, someone in the Kindo office seems to be doing some really solid forward planning.

Judging from this picture - it’s going to be a looong winter.

As I point out in my book, Genealogy Online 8th Edition, you can do a lot of good research using search engines and Boolean operators (AND, NOT, OR, and parentheses.) Recently, Yahoo! has stopped supporting the operators NOT and AND, although the plus or minus sign in front of a term still work.

The NOT is very important to genealogists searching for surnames that are also common words: BROWN, FOX, BANKS, & WEEKS are just some examples.  To find genealogy pages for these surnames in Yahoo now, be sure to put a minus-sign directly in front of a term that you want excluded from search result (meaning that Yahoo! will exclude pages that has that term in their text) and a plus sign in front of terms you must have. So to get hits for pages with genealogy and Banks surname, instead of

BANKS AND GENEALOGY NOT FINANCE NOT RIVER

you would formulate it as

+BANKS +GENEALOGY -FINANCE -RIVER

The OR operator still works, and the AND is assumed if you use no operators, but nesting with parentheses doesn’t as in

+(BANKS AND GENEALOGY) - (FINANCE OR RIVER)

Advanced Google still accepts the most popular Boolean terms, and Exalead even supports the NEAR operator, which really helps with common surnames, but Live Search is now the only major search engine with full Boolean support.

For more details on how to do the Boolean Boogie for genealogy, read Genealogy Online 8th Edition.

Most beginners to genealogy are fuzzy about cousinship. For example, while many understand first cousins are people with common grandparents, many folks confuse first cousin once removed and second cousin.

Then, there are families like mine: My mother’s siblings were born from 1911 to 1932. That means her youngest brother “Mike” went to school with the oldest sister’s oldest child, his niece “Karen”. As it turned out, Uncle “Mike” and niece “Karen” married two people who were siblings, “Michelle”  and “Kevin”, making their children both first cousins and first cousins once removed.

Confused yet? Okay. The number of cousinship is how many generations back the connection is, and the removed part shows the connection is more generations back for one person than another. “Mike” and “Michelle” ’s kids have common grandparents with “Kevin” and “Karen’s”, ergo, first cousins. But on the other side, “Mike” and “Michelle’s” kids have an aunt who is grandmother to “Karen’s” and “Kevin’s” children, ergo, first cousins removed by one generation.

“Mike” and “Michelle’s” grandkids are second cousins to my mother’s grandkids, i. e. my children. “Mike” and “Michelle’s” children are my first cousins. “Kevin” and “Karen’s” children are my first cousins once removed, because “Karen” and I are first cousins.

Another way to look at it: Determine the latest common ancestor, and then the number of “G”s you share.  That is the number of cousins you are. Any difference in “G”s is the number “Removed”. So, people who have the same great-grand-parents (2G) are second cousins (2C). If the great-grand-parents (2G) of one person are the great-great-grand-parents (3G) of another person, then those two people are second cousins, once removed (2C1R). They share 2Gs with a difference of 1G (3-2=1).

Here are some links to charts that might make it easier to see:

• A Chart for Figuring Relationships
• A Chart for Figuring Relationships
• A Chart of Consanguinity
• Consanguinity Chart
  Showing degrees of relationship by blood.
• Cousin Calculator
• Cousin Chart
  From Wikipedia.

Residents of Iredell County learned a new way to trace their origins last Saturday during the Genealogical Society’s daylong event, “Genealogies of Yadkin Valley.”

“Using DNA is one of the newest and latest tools of tracing your genealogy, and it’s remarkable,” said Wells, who represented Family Tree DNA.”You can see if they migrated, you can find out more about your great-aunt and maybe she acted strangely, but that was because she had a baby die at childbirth … you just never know what secrets the past will reveal,” Wells said.

We all know that because of paper trails for genealogical lines usually stopping in the late 1700s or early 1800s, because of spelling changes and fires in courthouses or libraries… it is hard to find relatives. But DNA helps discover previously unknown kinships, identify errors in paper form and as a result makes research easier.

How does it work? After obtaining samples and finding a reliable testing company, it takes between almost a month and a half to get the results, it means a string of numbers that you’ll have to read and compare. Some group of administrator also exist to help you analyze results.

However, it’s worth shedding light on some shortcomings:

-First it does not replace paper documentation since it does not name common ancestors, it is more a tool to prove lineage. Several companies, like Family Tree DNA, can assist you to confirm your family tree or allow you to determine whether two people are related if you give them DNA of someone.

- It’s less reffective for females to use DNA than for males because thanks to Y-DNA, we can determine paternal and maternal lines, whereas for females it is just maternal.

It’s back to school time, and maybe you’re thinking you need to know more about genealogy techniques and methods. One way to learn about genealogy is to take an online  course. Here are a few suggestions to get you started: Introduction to Genealogy from National Genealogical Society (U.S.) Most genealogists take this course first. It is very American-centric, but the techniques can be applied to any country’s vital statistics. There are more advance courses for specific regions and resources (e.g. wills). Introduction to Genealogy is an online course for those who have done little, if any, research on their families. It is open to anyone who wishes to enroll. Members of the National Genealogical Society (NGS) receive a tuition discount. Family History Personal Enrichment Classes Learn from Brigham Young University about research in the United States, France and Germany. These are non-credit courses, so there are no exams! Certificate in Genealogical Studies The National Institute for Genealogical Studies has joined forces with the Professional Learning Centre, Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto to provide web-based courses for both family historians and professional genealogists. Canadian-based. GenClass Online classes in a variety of genealogical topics are conducted online by qualified, experienced instructors. Each four-week class includes a detailed course curriculum and online class meetings for $29.95. A more comprehensive listing, along with seminars, workshops and classes, can be found in my book.

Boris family tree is full of surprises. Not only does his family tree disclose Turkish and noble relatives but also royal antecedents.

Indeed, on the one hand his great grandfather was Ali Kemal, Minister of the Interior in the government of Damat Ferid Pasha, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. On the other hand, his great, grandmother was the illegitimate daughter of Prince Paul von Rothenburg. The latter is linked to the Royal British Family as the great, great Grandson of George II but also to the Swedish and Dutch royals and the Romanoffs.

Therefore, we can easily understand Boris when he described himself as a “one-man melting point”

For those who want to know more, the Mayor’s royal antecedents are revealed in an episode of the BBC documentary Who do You Think You Are? screened on 20 August.

It’s always fun to get feedback from you Kindo users. Here’s a virtual postcard that arrived yesterday:

Hi!
These days, I’m showing my cousin, which I “found” through Kindo, around in the town. Kindo has actually enabled me to get back in touch with some of my many cousins. I now know who they are and just not some names my parents mention.

So Kindo - thanks! //CJ

Thanks yourself CJ!

Modern genealogy programs all have a way to output your data to paper, at least  by GEDCOM. Some common output forms are:

Ahnentafel :  a numeric list with all male ancestors assigned odd numbers and all female ancestors assigned even numbers.

Pedigree Charts: using the same numbering system as above, this is the familiar branching chart. It can run from left to right, or be formatted as a fan or a tree.

Outline or narrative: A format where the earliest known ancestor is the beginning, and spouses and children are listed, in many cases with notes on major life milestones, careers, etc.

But these are not the only ways to display your research. Especially at a family reunion, you may want to try these formats:

Time Line: Starting with the earliest known ancestor, show the names of all by birthdate. Add historical events to understand your ancestor’s life better, including a location timeline for your ancestor, entering in where he was for each date.  Show the cousin relationships by entering dates of birth on a timeline and putting your common ancestor in parenthesis.

Fabric: You can create a family tree in the pedigree chart of your choice using photographs and the transfer paper that allows you to iron images onto cloth. You can do this with quilt blocks, t-shirts, tablecloths, and many other textiles.

Photograph Collage: Scan in old photographs of ancestors, print them out and create a pedigree chart, framed and captioned with names and dates.

Maps: Show the migration of your ancestors with map pins attached to names and dates. You can find outline maps at  http://www.eduplace.com/ss/ssmaps/. Use different colors for different generations!

If you see someone with squinting eyes today, chances are that he or she has observed this morning’s solar eclipse. In most countries it was only a partial one, but if you e.g. are one of our users on Greenland (yes we do have users there), you had the rare opportunity to observe a total eclipse!

However, this makes me think of one of my family’s stories - you know, that kind of stories that all families have and are told over and over again.

As I said, partial eclipses happen every now and then, but the total are really rare. My grandmother was a primary school teacher in the northern part of Sweden back in the 1950’s. For a long time, newspapers had written about the astronomical sensation that would occur and my grandma had pedagogically prepared her class and told them to bring sooted glass to look through from the school yard.

The other class in the little school had a more old school (ok, sorry for that one) teacher. My grandma, aged 32, tried without any progress to convince her to also let her kids have the chance to observe the phenomenon. It could maybe be regarded as a field study in nature science? The old woman refused - the kids should have their grammary class as normal, there’s a curriculum to follow, right?

- Why would we give them extra break just for something stupid as a total solar eclipse, they can see it next time!

Well, maybe not - the next similar event in Sweden won’t come until the year 2126! In other words, something that makes Halley’s comet look like a yo-yo! Maybe it’s these poor kids that moved to Greenland!