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.
I’m suffering from a severe case of déjà vu. Once again I find myself helping my oldest child create a family tree for his social studies class. In Fall 2010 I helped him draw a family tree back to his 2nd great-grandparents for a unit on family history. Now I am helping him document and create a chart tracing his Mayflower ancestors for extra credit on his English Colonization unit. I have the coolest kid ever: This was his idea, not mine.
A few months ago, I received an invitation to buy a DNA beta test from Ancestry.com. Since I had already convinced my dad to do one, I figured I should jump on board as well. My kit showed up, I spit in a test tube, and sent it back. A month went by—an agonizing month—before I got the results back. It was an excruciating wait for the results. This was an autosomal test, so I would be getting hints on my full ancestry. I wondered …
Last December I became the second Family Tree Firsts Blogger, and boy has it been an amazing year. I have shared my discoveries, thoughts, ideas and accomplishments with all of you. At times I can’t believe that it has been nearly a year, let alone that I was the one selected. Time flies when you’re having fun! I can still remember the day my welcome package from Family Tree Magazine came in the mail. Two weeks before Christmas and I had a box of goodies …
My American roots reside firmly in Virginia. I find this funny, seeing as I now live in the state and had always wanted to live on the East Coast near D.C. Odd how life’s natural choreography can sometimes bring you home. Not all of my family hails from the Old Dominion State. I have a good share from North Carolina, a line from New England, and a couple from Maryland and South Carolina. They all merge in Kentucky and Indiana, which makes sense considering the …
As a person delves into family genealogy, they run a high likelihood of stumbling across instances of childhood and infant death. Poor health, disease, questionable living conditions and limited access to medical care frequently plagued our ancestors. Those who made it through were the lucky ones. I have written in the past about my Great-grandmother, Sylvia Freeman Combs, who lost 4 children in 10 years. All of the children were less than a year old, and most likely died due to starvation. Breast milk is …
I have a confession to make: I have a passion outside of genealogy. Gasp! I know, terrible, right? In my spare time I enjoy studying the Middle Ages, including the art of heraldry. Did you know that heraldry has a connection to family history? Well, besides the cool pictures, it is a way to trace lineages. It also leaves me cringing most of the time when I see people plastering family coats of arms everywhere, because, unfortunately, those are most likely not their ancestors’ actual …
Many of you may remember that I was attempting to put together a Civil War book for my oldest son’s birthday. Well…his birthday came and went. Summer was not the time for me to take on such a project. Especially because I was trying to do it in secret and the kids were constantly hovering around. I had all of the information—I just needed to put it to paper. After talking it over with my husband, as well as some historian friends, I’m taking their …
Okay, so who out there was at the Virtual Conference? I was! Once again it was fantastic, and I was very excited to “see” everyone there. I even had a couple of local friends join in on the fun. Yay—people nearby who can relive the event with me! Yes, I can be excitable; it is just one of those things. I had every intention of spending the weekend on my couch plugged into my laptop, but last minute activities crept into my life. On Friday …
The first lesson I learned on the path of family history: Not everyone cares as much as you. I naively thought my family would get great joy and have overflowing interest in my discoveries. That they would wait with bated breath for my next phone call or email. Well, only a handful actually had those feelings, and the rest just wonder why I’m wasting my time. They think that—once again–I picked an oddball hobby, only practiced by the strange and unusual. For instance, I have …
Over the past month, I’ve been reviewing my family research, looking for any shred, scrap or string of information that could unravel my next break through. Which is what happened. I have been living in misery trying to locate something stating the death and place of my 3rd Great-grandfather, James McCraw (or McGraw) Combs. A cousin I met online told me he died in Keensburg, Wabash County, Ill. on January 23, 1885. Her information came from another cousin, whose sister had done extensive research on …