You've got to remember the basics...

Ancestry.com saved me from a stupid mistake of not following one of the basic premises of census research: I didn't look at the rest of the page while searching for my Grandmother's natural parents. I was looking in the 1920 for Harry Williamson, with his unnamed wife (who's maiden name was Hambst), and either one or both daughters: Claire or Francis. Using Ancestry.com's great search feature, I found them fairly quickly (see line 29-31 of the attached photos), even learning that my natural great-grandmother's name was Theresa:

Even though I store very little of my research on paper by putting most in the computer, I do like to pull out a census form and copy everything down so I can think about each item. So that's what I did. But, I never looked around the rest of the page. Luckily for me, as I was backing out of the form, I noticed that Ancestry.com had three other people listed as part of the household. Duh! So going back into the form, I quickly realized that not only had I found my natural great-grandmother, but her mother and two brothers (see lines 32-34 for Walburga Hambsch and her sons Anthony and Peter). Wow. What luck!

Research Map for the Bongiovi Family in Brooklyn, NY

I've been using the location of some of the homes for the Brooklyn Research a lot, lately, so I whipped up this map in Google Earth to help me place everything. Very easy!

Found the Bongiovi's in 1900

I took on finding my great grandfather and his parents in the 1900 census last night. Once again, a simple Ancestry.com search for "Albert Bongiovi" or his parents Giuseppe (Joseph) or Angelina (Angela) did not return anything. So, much like my 1910 search, I decided to see if they were listed at the same address.

Once again, I turned to the excellent Brooklyn Genealogy web site I found. Particularly useful was this map of Ward 26 and this list of the 1900 census enumeration districts.

After a few turns of Ancestry's online images for enumeration district 457, I had them: Joseph Bongiove, his wife Angela, and four of their children (Josephine, Lilly, Francis, and Albert). Here's the detail from the image.



This is the part I like about family history research -- locating your ancestors in the distant past!

Legacy Web Pages and my Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone

Had to go on a business trip this week. At the last minute I decided to export my whole family file as a web page using Legacy's web page creator and try them on the phone, so I could contemplate my next steps while on the road.

Wow! What a great idea! It was only a few megs of files and, using mobile Internet explorer on the phone, I was able to view all of my data (I set it to pretty much export everything including the pictures and images of sources). I could zip along in the tree mode and find anyone in the name index.

I was about to drop some money on getting a Windows Mobile program that would sync with legacy, but after this experiment, have decided not to. Why? Because it was very easy to access all the data on the web system in my phone and, since I don't believe in editing my database in the middle of researching something, I don't need to pay just to be able to edit the data on the road!

Results of New York Trip

Well, just back from New York...and the trip was a success personally (because I really think my Grandparents are neat people and they really enjoy catching up with Gabby and Sam) and for my family history research.

My grandfather was really interested in what I had discovered. He was really happy to see the passenger list with his grandfather and grandmother's name in it. He also liked seeing his name in the 1930 U.S. Census. In the end, he walked me through his whole family and gave me a box of family photos, his World War II dog tags and enlistment records, his regimental histories and funeral mass cards for many of my ancestors (which list the death dates)!

My grandmother doesn't like to discuss her past as much for reasons I'm not going to publish online. But, she also filled in the holes in her background and disproved this research I discussed earlier.

All in all a great trip to visit with family...and a great trip for moving my research along!

Got 'em!

As I was preparing for my trip to New York, I was reminded that my trail back to my Great-Grandfather, Albert Bongiovi, and his parents, Giuseppe (Joseph) Bongiovi and Angelina Guardino skips about 30 years from the 1920 U.S. Census and Albert's WW I draft and enlistment records back to 1890, when his parents arrived in America (as I discuss in this link).

I remember, back in the day, doing a Soundex search in the 1910 census, but no luck. With my new fangled Ancestry.com account, I tried to search the 1910 U.S. census, but again, no Giuseppe, Angelina, or Albert. They all should have been alive and should have been together.

So, I decided to take the dive into a manual scan of the census images on Ancestry. But, as they lived in Brooklyn, NY, I thought it might be a big project. Luckily, I had a flash of brilliance (or just common sense) and decided to start at the address listed in Albert's World War I documents and in the 1920 Census (where Albert is living alone with his mother Angelina). A quick google search turned up this site, that returns the Enumeration District given a set of cross streets. Unfortunately, my 1899 map of Brooklyn was not very easy to read and some of the road names have changed, so my first attempt was a few blocks to the east of the address I was looking for. But, I found what looks to be a great Brooklyn Genealogy site that had some better maps. With a better set of cross streets, I went right to ED 756 and very quickly found them at the same address!

What happened that they weren't indexed? Well, they were listed as Bonheor instead of Bongiovi (see the clipping below). But, the similarities are too great: Joseph (Giuseppe), Lena (Angelina), and Albert all living at the same address as in 1917 and 1920, with the correct birth years and immigration year. As an added bonus, found 4 new siblings (or my Great-Great-Great Aunts and Uncles) that I can discuss with my Grandfather. Now, I wouldn't call this a slam dunk source, but it sure helps me find some!

Also, I found something else out: using the same techniques I used in the small towns of Wisconsin when researching my wife's family works in the "big city" of Brooklyn. What a great lesson!

Done preparing for my trip to my Grandparents in New York

Finally stopped playing around researching long enough to set up for my trip to New York to visit my Grandparents. Not taking a computer (have a PocketPC phone to check email and surf the web on), so set up a binder. Used an old tried and true method. Since I am only worried about the one branch of my family research, printed out a pedigree chart -- four generations is all I need on that side. I then set up a small binder with a tabs labelled 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 corresponding to the numbers of the male boxes on the pedigree chart. Into each section, I put the primary family group sheet up front (the one represented by the box on the pedigree chart), then the family group sheet for any other marriages by the two ancestors, then family group sheets for any children not in my line. (I actually only know with some certainty boxes 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10. I put a family I am speculating is the correct family in section 12 so I can discuss with my Grandparents.)

Finally, I printed copies of the sources I've digitized and dropped them in the right section.

Still need to print out a few blank forms and put some blank paper in the folder, but that should be quick.

Found another trail to the shore...

My goal is to trace back to the immigration point for all of my family's branches. I found one more this week! By using Ancestry.com's New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957, I found my great-great grandfather and grandmother's entry in the passenger list for the S/S Iniziative, travelling from Italy (Naples and Palermo) to New York, arriving 30 Jul 1890. They were travelling with a son as well (a new great-great-great uncle!). Very lucky - the entry was on a very clear part of the page!

Lost Ancestors

Today I signed up for Ancestry.com's free trial. My, how easy some of the basic genealogy research has become. Within minutes, I had found my grandfather's and grandmother's 1930 census entries.

My grandmother's entry led me down a really interesting trail. She was living with her father, his wife and a younger sister. But I found something interesting -- my grandmother's grandfather seems to be living either in the same apartment or just next door. Not conclusive, but a good start to go off and prove.

Here's where things get fun. That assumed grandfather (my great great grandfather) was living with his second (or later) wife, a daughter and a step daughter. When I searched the 1920 census, I can't find my great grandfather. I find my great great grandfather, living alone as a lodger and listed as widowed. I find that daughter from the 1930 census living alone in the New York Catholic Protectory. And I find that second wife, widowed, and living with 2 daughters. So, where is my great grandfather, and, wow, what a tough life it looks like they had. Of course this was all in New York City in the depression, so I imagine it could be really bad!

This could keep me going for months!

On my visit next weekend, hopefully I can get my grandmother to help sort this out a little.

JLog -- another Genealogy Technical Geek

I think Family History appeals to me because I am a little bit of a closet geek -- I have all the latest gadgets and I like areas where technology is applied in unique ways. Genealogy is definitely undergoing a revolution in organizing, storing, and preserving your data because of technology. Technology is also radically changing how you do family history research -- I'm still amazed how much Ancestry.com seems to have online now compared to the late 1990's.

Along these lines, I like this new genealogy blog: JLog. Check it out!

More on scanning...

I was a little afraid, after beginning to scan in my sources, that my knowledge of that art was a little dated, too, so I did a little research. Through Cyndi's List, I found this great little site of scanning tips. Based on this, I think I need to be scanning at 200 dpi and saving as a PNG file (not to a Tiff file). This will also make it easier for me to upload photos to the blog, too (I couldn't directly upload a tiff to my post last night)!

Archiving the Sources -- Digitally

While reorganizing my data, I had found that, although my source documentation was pretty well organized during the time I was actively doing my family history, the things people gave me in the slow period of the last ten years or so, just kind of ended up in a box. Even the copies of the source documentation I had carefully filed was starting to show its age. So, I took some time to start scanning the copy of the source documentation into my database.

I would have preferred to keep things in PDF format, as they are a very common way to handle documents, but, as this post from the legacy user groups discusses, a "documents" button is still in the works. For now they recommend you attach the under the "sound" category.

A "documents" button is on the request list. In the meantime, using the Sound or Video button the workaround we recommend for non-graphic files.

Thanks for using Legacy.

Sherry

Customer Support

Millennia Corporation

However, legacy seems to have good support for pictures (and maybe even sound and video). So I scanned each document as a .tiff and linked it to both the source record and, if appropriate, the event it documents. Seems to work well and even prints out a thumbnail print on the family group sheets! But, makes large (3-4 meg) files. Not an issue for me as I have a lot of disk space (about 500 GB). The other problem is that I can only scan one page at a time. For death certificates and the like, this should be fine. But, I'll probably scan some of the larger documents (letters, etc) as PDFs and link them into the database.



Here's one of my favorites, a transcription of my Great-Grandfather's 1894 Baptism as transcribed in 1922 (in Italian, though the church is in Brooklyn, NY).

A new start

Over the past few weeks, I have been restarting the work I've done on our family history. I've had two reasons to do this. First, my kids are starting to get to the age where they will be able to ask questions about this. Second, I like to do it and I need to get reengaged on it.

So, I dusted off my copy of Legacy Family Tree software (and ended up upgrading to 6.0 because of their generous upgrade policy. Then I completed the conversion of my data file from my old Mac Reunion file to Legacy (this slow task may have been what kept me from doing this in the past). Now I am polishing my father's ancestors records by ensuring the facts are straight and reviewing the sources from when I researched them last. Why? Because we are heading to New York next weekend to visit my Great Grandparents, who are in their 80's. So, I am hoping I can get a little info out of them (and maybe some copies of more sources!), so I can expand that part of the tree a little.

What else do I plan to do? Well...

1. Explore the Internet resources now available (and it is a LOT more than I remember from the late 90s).
2. Work hard on getting our family history documented to the dates they immigrated to the U.S. This is mostly on my side of the family, which is centered around New York City and Chicago.
3. "Make the leap" oversees

Along the way, I also plan to publish our research on line, but I'm not there, yet...

First, off to Ancestry.com to see what they have to offer (and get some Census research done).