Kindo Family Blog

One way to share what data you have and note what data you need is to post your genealogy on the web. Before you do that, however, please read the Guidelines For Publishing Web Pages On The Internet. This document sets out the best ways to make your page findable and useable by other genealogists.

How do you publish? Why using the Kindo interface, of course, is one easy way. Just remember this important rule: Leave out data on living persons if you can.

That brings up another point, that is very, very important. Some folks are afraid that their hard work and research might be “stolen” from the Internet, so they deliberately insert factual errors on their web pages.

Dont. Do. That.

Ever.

If you have data you want to keep in reserve for future information swaps, simply omit it. If you have data you want to keep private until you publish your hardbound, limited edition genealogy, that’s fine. And of course, never publish anything that could be used to steal your identity.

But do not ever publish anything, in print or online, that you know to be false. It’s extremely difficult to remove all traces of anything on the Web, and that incorrect information may linger longer than you do!

Happy Family Tree Climbing!

EPC

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809–April 15, 1865), the sixteenth President of the United States, successfully led his country through its greatest crisis, the Civil War, only to be assassinated less than a month after the war’s end. Before his election as President, he was a lawyer, a member of the United States House of Representatives, and an unsuccessful candidate for election to the Senate. As an outspoken opponent of the expansion of slavery in the United States, Lincoln won the Republican Party nomination in 1860 and was elected president later that year. During his term, he helped preserve the United States by leading the defeat of the secessionist Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. Kindo has Linconln’s family tree.

William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946) was the forty-second President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. He was the third-youngest president, older only than Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. He became president at the end of the Cold War, and as he was born in the period after World War II, is known as the first Baby Boomer president. He is the husband of New York Senator and 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. The famous Clinton family is up here on Kindo. Visit their family tree here.

George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the forty-third and current President of the United States of America. He served as the forty-sixth Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000 and is the eldest son of former American President George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Bush. On October 7, 2001, U.S. and Australian forces initiated bombing campaigns that led to the arrival on November 13 of Northern Alliance troops in Kabul. The main goals of the war were to defeat the Taliban, drive al Qaeda out of Afghanistan, and capture key al Qaeda leaders. In December 2001, the Pentagon reported that the Taliban had been defeated but cautioned that the war would go on to continue weakening Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders. Later that month the UN had installed the Afghan Interim Authority chaired by Hamid KarzaiHe was inaugurated as President on January 20, 2001 and his current term is scheduled to end at noon EST (17:00 UTC) on Tuesday, January 20, 2009. Check out his family tree here.

For more information about other celebrity trees visit our celebrity family trees page.

All of them are new faces in the section Kindo Celebrity Trees

New faces today are the golfer Tiger Woods (just announced that a wounded knee will make him miss the rest of the season), the tennis champ Roger Federer (now playing in Wimbledon) and the Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates.
We encourage all of you to drop a comment here if you would like to see a special celebrity’s family tree.

Image via WikipediaAmitabh Bachchan (Born as Amitabh Harivansh Srivastav on October 11, 1942 in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh), is one of the most prominent Indian film actors of Hindi cinema. He gained popularity in India in the 1970s as an action hero and over the decades of his career which have since spanned numerous film genres, he has become one of the most prominent figures in the history of Indian cinema.

Amitabh Bachchan holds the record for the most number of Best Actor nominations at the Filmfare Awards and has won three National Film Awards and twelve Filmfare Awards to date. In addition to acting, Bachchan has worked as a playback singer, film producer and television presenter of Kaun Banega Crorepati, India’s version of the British television game-show, who wants to be a Millionaire? He was also an elected member of the Indian Parliament from 1984 to 1987.

Amitabh Bachchan is the father of bollywood hero Abhishek Bachchan. Kindo has his family tree. For more information about other celebrity trees visit our celebrity family trees page.

Happy First Day of Summer!

I’ll start off this week’s blog with an announcement: I have wrestled with the Internet (or at least my ISP’s portion) and won. My daily blog is now at Blog.EPCrowe.com! If you subscribed before this, you need to update your links. Go to the blog, scroll down on the left and click Entries (RSS).

Now to this week’s tip for beginners. In my book, Genealogy Online 8th Edition, I discuss many useful web sites. One of the best for genealogists of any level is the all-volunteer effort of WorldGenWeb.Org.

Here is a screen capture of the European WorldGenWeb page, which leads you to  British IslesGenWeb, CenEuroGenWeb, EastEuroGenWeb and the MediterraneanGenWeb regions.

The goal of the WorldGenWeb Project is to have every country in the world represented by an online website and hosted by researchers who either live the country represented or who are familiar with that country’s resources. The WorldGenWeb Project is a not-for-profit volunteer genealogical organization dedicated to the free access of genealogical information by anyone in the world. Each of the hosted countries maintains a system for submitting queries, for uploading transcribed or scanned documents, and help desks.  (NOTE: Once you are up and running with your genealogy, you can become a volunteer with the project!)

Use the WorldGenWeb to search for the information you need on your ancestors!

When Lukas Podolski scored two goals in Germany’s opening encounter against Poland his heart showed mixed emotions. He was happy for leading his german-team to a comfortable victory against Poland. But deep inside he was little sad for scoring goals against a country where he was born. Podolski, certainly, did not celebrate his two goals and this is what he had to say, “Of course I have mixed feelings. I have a large family in Poland. I have to respect the country”.

Infact, Germany is not the only country to have played from mixed nationalities. Portugal has relied on Brazilian’s Deco and Roger Guerreiro to take it across to them Euro 2008 semis this year.

Germany and Spain are the two countries who have selected Brazilian players Kevin Kuranyiand and Marcos Senna respectively. France has always looked upon it’s former colonies for football talent. Les Bleus have Patrice Evra (Senegal), Jean-Alain Boumsong (Cameroon), Patrick Vieira (Senegal) as some of their popular imports. If we look at the non-European-born players then they can be easily placed into one-squad with five substitutes and six reserves.

Purists say that its good for the game. Some also opine that it is a cause of worry when teams do not feel players from their own countries. What are your thoughts on the influx of players from different nationalities in this edition’s Euro 2008? What sort of emotion do these players go through while playing against their countries of origin/birth? What do their families feel about it? Do drop in your comments about that

Talking about football players don’t miss out the celebrity family trees of famous football players Zlatan Ibrahimović, David Beckham, Michael Ballack and Gianluigi Buffon. For family trees of other celebrities please visit our celebrity trees page.

Zlatan Ibrahimović, is a fotball striker (born October 3 1981) now in the limelight during the UEFA European Championship. Born and raised in Malmö, Sweden with parents from former Yugoslavia, the young talent was early discovered. While playing for Malmö FF in the Swedish national league, he was acquired by the Dutch AFC Ajax as the most expensive player ever in the Swedish league.

After Italian league-wins in Juventus, Zlatan now plays in Inter, his favourite team as a boy, where he is very succesful. At the moment though he is very busy taking Sweden to the final in the European Championships and scored in the first game against Greece. Even though the Swedes call him Zlatan, the Italian nick-name is “Ibra”. Outside the pitch, Zlatan is the father of two - Kindo has his family tree!

• More celebrity trees can be found here!

Hugh Grant, actually Hugh John Mungo Grant is an extremely well educated chap. He is also a well-known British actor. British to the root, most would say. Well, do I have news for you!

His roots do not all pass into the soul of Notting Hill or Scotland - it passes deep through our Mother City, Cape Town and not only the British Isles – as one would think. His roots run deep into South Africa, notwithstanding his excellent British education. Major Ronald Grant was born in the Cape and died at his home in Newlands, Cape Town. Whilst his paternal roots run deep into the South African heart, his maternal roots are as Scottish as can be – and she is an aristocrat, without doubt.

“Hugh attended Wetherby School, Latymer Upper School as well as gaining a scholarship at the New College in Oxford where he studied English and was a member of the Piers Gaveston Society, a notorious dining club. Before his finals exams at Oxford, he was set to do a PhD in the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute but could not follow through as he failed to attain a first class degree which he would have required to achieve for his doctoral studies”

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s mother actually gave him piano lessons, so he is musical as well!

Lets forget all the scandal and concentrate on the positive. Apart from his well-publicised film career, where he became famous as a result of Four Weddings and a Funeral, he is an accomplished producer and comedian and good musician.

Scandal seems to have followed him throughout his life and I think he really has the knack to ‘step into it’ – as it were.

Grant is an ‘addictive’ golfer, albeit it very competitive and often extremely unsporting about it, a very good rugby union player who played In his Schools first team and even plays soccer.

You can have a look at Hugh’s Family Tree here.

It’s time to talk about the elephant in the genealogy room.

Be aware that when you shake the family tree, all the apples fall out…and no matter how astonishing, they are all “good” ones. There will be revelations up there in the far reaches of the family tree. Ancestors who had secrets can startle not only the genealogist, but other family members.   And family members’ reactions, as well as your own, may also knock you for a loop!

For example, in this story from the Montreal Gazette, a genealogist discusses finding out his ancestor was a “not so nice Jewish boy” in the Mafia. And in my book, I discuss trying to find out about my husband’s Cherokee ancestor, but being stymied by the generation that considered that to be the family scandal, as well as the story of a woman whose in-laws got absolutely livid when she tried to trace their family tree.

And I heard of a couple who found out with the birth of their first child that the father’s family was African-American, but had been living as European-descended Americans for so long, the young father was completely unaware of it. Until the baby was born, that is.

So the point of today’s blog: Your ancestry may contain surprises. And that’s OK. You’re still you. And, as Steve Olson says in Mapping Human History:

“The greater the number of generations taken into account, the greater the possibility that any two people … are distant cousins. By the tenth generation back, almost all of us have circles of inheritance in our ancestry.”

I highly recommend reading Mapping Human History, by the way.

Until next week!

Libbi

The number one task in all your genealogy research is to document all you find. This serves two purposes.

1. It allows others to judge and evaluate your evidence.

2. It keeps you from repeating yourself years down the road.

An example: Mother found an old book of biographies from a small town in Kansas. It had engravings of the town’s founding fathers. One of them had her maiden name, and the engraving looked a lot like her grandfather. But this was early in her researches and she wasn’t sure. So she photocopied the article and picture. A few years later she found census and birth certificate evidence that she had indeed found her grandfather’s father in that book! But, she had neglected to photocopy the title page of the book, and had to search through several libraries to find it again in order to document it as a source.

A lot of time and effort would have been saved had she documented the source from the beginning.

An extensive discussion of documentation can be found in my book, Genealogy Online 8th Edition. It makes a great Father’s Day present!

Till next week,

Libbi