Family Tree Firsts is a genealogy blog following the adventures of Brian Parotto of Hampshire, Ill., a budding genealogist, as he works his way through the Family Tree University curriculum and reports on his family history research.

The Case of the Missing Grandfather, part 1

Now that I’ve had such a great streak of luck recenty, it’s time to climb down my Shively tree for a while and head up my Allen tree. (But to everybody who’s left comments about the Shivelys on my posts, don’t let that stop you!) Growing up, I had an interesting assortment of grandparents on Dad’s side of the family. I had Grandmommy and Grandaddy Allen but I also had Grandma Gray. Grandmommy and Grandaddy Allen were actually my father’s grandparents—it was explained to me … Learn More →

The Mysterious Michael

Well I have finally finished scanning the photos from the Christmas albums! Whew! It takes some time to scan 100 photos! An interesting side effect of finding all these photos of my husband’s family. They have started to seem like real people to me. Before I started doing genealogy, if I thought about my ancestors at all, it was like trying to see someone in the fog. There was a vague outline of a person, but no details. Nothing of their personality, their lives and loves and losses. I … Learn More →

Photo Mysteries

Now that Christmas is over, I’ve been busy scanning and uploading the photos to my Shively tree on Ancestry.com. Scanning the first album has presented some challenges, though. Learn More →

A Christmas Miracle

About a month ago a gentleman who had just purchased an antique photo album on eBay contacted me via an Ancestry.com message. There were almost 50 photos in the album, all identified as Shivelys. Being a genealogist himself, he looked up the names on Ancestry, found my Shively tree and contacted me to let me know he was willing to re-sell it to me. My first reaction was, “Yeah, right. This has to be a scam.” But he sent me some scans of the photos, and I was gobsmacked. Learn More →

The Ex-Files

I have a confession. Like many other people these days, I’ve been divorced. We had a long marriage, especially by today’s standards: almost 21 years. We had four great children together during that time and are now sharing our first grandchild. The divorce was almost 13 years ago now, and in that time we’ve both remarried, hopefully having learned from past mistakes. I’m happy to say that my wonderful husband Dennis and I will celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary this month. Anyway, I’ve found that … Learn More →

Case of the Missing Baby, Part 2

(Read Part 1 here!) To recap: My grandparents, who lived in Oklahoma in the 1920s, had a baby named Samuel, who died in infancy. I’ve been unable to find any trace of him, but this is the cemetery where I suspect Baby Samuel is buried. Although the gate says 1923, the town clerk I spoke to said the cemetery actually predates that. It was originally privately owned by a fraternal organization, which turned it over to the town. During the oil boom of the early … Learn More →

Genealogy Kindergarten: First Day of School

Hooray!  Today is the first day of school—genealogy school, that is. When I was chosen as the Family Tree Firsts blogger a few weeks ago, one of the things I was most excited about was the opportunity to take online genealogy courses at Family Tree University. I promptly enrolled in two classes: Discover Your Family Tree: Genealogy for the Absolute Beginner (for obvious reasons) and Organize Your Photos: Preserve Your Family’s Pictorial Legacy because I have albums like this: And boxes like this: When you have … Learn More →

History Mystery #1: The Case of the Missing Baby

This handsome young man is my maternal grandfather, Moses Lee Easley. He died when I was 6, so I have very few memories of him. All I knew was that he grew up in Tennessee and served in World War I. That he had worked in the Oklahoma oil boom in the 1920′s—no one ever mentioned which town. That he and my grandmother had a baby who had died in infancy while living there. That in 1926 they had another son, my Uncle Charles, and shortly … Learn More →

Ahnentafel? Gesundheit!

Ahnentafel. I have no idea how to pronounce this word but I think it would sound like someone sneezing in German. Actually, according to Emily Croom in Unpuzzling Your Past, Ahnentafel means “ancestor table.” It’s an organizational system that assigns a number to everyone on your pedigree charts. Fathers are even numbers and mothers are odd. Numbers, that is. I’m sure it’s brilliant, and whoever invented it must be a genius. (Along with the person who invented knitting. Seriously, who figured that out?) But I … Learn More →