Monday, September 17, 2018

My Summer Workspace

I have been very unorganized. Not only in my genealogy work space but in my moderating of this blog. I didn't realize that when google fixed the moderation notification, my email was removed and thus didn't get any notifications. SORRY EVERYONE!

However, one of the more recent comments was to do an update to my previous post http://simplygenealogy.blogspot.com/2014/05/my-workspace.html so here goes.

I have a summer home which is 1900 miles from my main home in the state I grew up. I had been using my dinning room table as my work space, well at least one half of the table. Therefore I decided to start using my secretary's desk that I purchased and painted a few years ago.


Over all, this setup worked pretty good for me. However, what didn't work was using a TV monitor for my second screen. It is not clear like a computer monitor is. Therefore, next year, I am going to look into getting a real computer monitor. 

When I set up this area, I have windows to the left of me, that worked great when we have a nice clear sunny day, which was true for most of the summer. However, then near the end of my summer, I was getting cloudy days and the dinning room chandelier was not enough light for me. I purchased a small LED table lamp. The third problem I had was there are no outlets in this corner of the room. The other three corners have outlets, thus I had to have a long extension cord from the other side of the room to extend over to the desk. I think I will ask my husband to install an outlet in this corner.

Perhaps not ideal, however I had a small chair next to this table, which I set some of my files and books on when not working. I also can use the corner of my dinning room table to set out papers for examining and then easily pack up when I am done, and leave it on the chair or place them all in the desk. I really need to clear out one of the drawers to place all these files, however, they are full of other important stuff. (wink wink)

That chair also came in handy for a small fan, so when I had the window open which is located to the right side of the desk, I could feel a nice breeze without it blowing the papers on the top of my desk.

In the corner behind me, I set up my printer. I don't print out a lot of stuff, until my relatives who still live  in the area, come over and want me to share my research with them.


The printer stand is home made. The organizer is one I purchased and used when I use to have a real, paying job. My husband attached a board to the bottom and then the legs to the bottom of that. I am able to have a ream of paper handy, along with a label maker and a three hole punch. The vertical storage is for some notebooks and folders. I have extra pens, highlighters, markers and pencils in one drawer and ink and label cartridges in the other draw. I had to purchase a new printer this year, because of lack of use, my old one stop working. This is why the box for the printer is still there. I have a large box of more paper below the stand. 

If I didn't like this look, I could had easily made a skirt to go around the bottom of the printer stand, I mean that board is perfect to attach some Velcro to and then attach fabric that also would have Velcro. Now that I am thinking about it. I just might have to do that next summer when I return.

Basically, if you are setting up a work area, it is nice to have a dedicated spot for your work, my desk, a comfortable chair, good lighting room plus some basic office supplies. This is not as fancy as my main home, however, it works and that is what is really important. 

If you are really serious about organizing your genealogy, you may want to check out the book by Drew Smith titled "Organize your genealogy; Strategies and Solutions for Every Researcher." It is what got me motivated to move from the dinning room table to my secretary's desk.

Sunday, August 26, 2018

The Tale of Edith M Tyler (1899-1921)


Edith M Tyler is my 1st cousin 2x removed who was born Jul 22 1899 in Iowa, USA. She is the daughter of George H Tyler and his wife Edith L Jones. George is 2nd great-uncle the brother of Great Grandfather John Tyler. They are the sons of George William Tyler and his wife Sarah Agnes Long.

I decided I wanted to search for the descendants of my Tyler branch, and I was working on George H Tyler and found him in the 1880 US Census for Ross, Franklin County, Iowa, USA living with his parents George and Sarah. George is the third born child.

The suggested hints via Ancestry give me plenty to work on. The first thing I like to do, is open each hint into a new tab. Then I sort the tabs based on date, left to right, oldest to most current.

The first record is of George’s marriage record to his wife Edith L Jones on 5 Feb 1896 in Cerro Gordo, Iowa, USA. It gives George’s parents’ names of Geo Tyler and Sarah Long along with Edith’s parents’ names of Peter and Margh Jones.

I find an Iowa, Births and Christening Index record for Hazel Blanche Tyler born 10 Jul 1897 in Lincoln, Cerro Gordo, Iowa, USA to Geo Tyler and Edith Jones.

I find an Iowa, Births and Christening Index record for Ethel M Tyler born 22 Jul 1899 in Lincoln, Cerro Gordo, Iowa, USA to Geo H Tyler and Edith Jones. It gives me suggested records for Ethel, however we will hold off for now.

The 1900 US Census record for Lincoln, Cerro Gordo, Iowa, USA has the small family unit of George, wife Edith and daughter’s Blanche H and Ethel M.

The 1905 Minnesota State Census has them living together in Akron, Big Stone, Minnesota, USA.

The 1920 US Census record for George H has him listed as Divorced, living in Mason, Cerro Gordo, Iowa with his widowed father, George and some siblings, a brother-in-law and nephew.

First question, where are they in 1910? Are George and Ethel still married?

The 1910 US Census was found using just first names and they are living in Ortonville Ward 2, Big Stone, Minnesota, USA. Their last name was missed transcribed as Syler. However, they are still living as a married coupled with their daughters’ age 12 and 10.

Next question, where are Edith, Blanche and Ethel in the 1920 US Census? While looking for them, I did find a 1915 North Dakota, Territorial and State Census with Edith, Hazel B and Ethel M living together. Listed directly above Ethel is a man named George M Sturgis. Edith had a hint for the 1930 and 1940 US Census as Edith L Sturgis, this makes be look into these two censuses a little more closely.

The 1930 US Census has Edith married to George W Sturgis and 12 year old Blanch E Hollister is living with them as a granddaughter. Wow, a new person, so if a granddaughter, is it for George or Edith?

Tracing Blanch E Holister back to the 1920 census, I find her living in Township 21, Corson, South Dakota with her father Albert D Hollister and his wife Ethel M Hollister.

Following more hints I find Ethel Tyler marrying A H Hollester in Corson, South Dakota, USA on 11 Dec 1916. I also find Ethel Hollister’s Death Index for Walworth, South Dakota, USA on 7 Dec 1921.

The whole part of this exercise was to document my path to Ethel’s death. When I started recording these entries, I had not found Edith married to George and living with Blanche Hollister. I also, thought at first glance that Blanche was some sort of mistake, because my brain was thinking Blanche was a daughter not granddaughter. It wasn’t until I started following Hints and investigating further, that I finally found Ethel’s marriage record which leads me to her death record.

When I found Ethel’s birth record, I had many hints, however following those hints at the time of her birth, weren’t helpful, because the marriage index did not list her parents, her death index also did not list her parents. It wasn’t until I could tie the surname Sturgis to Ethel’s mom who at the time was raising her motherless granddaughter that I could finally come full circle and make all the hints fit into place.

Now I need to enter all these facts and people, along with my source citations.

Friday, June 1, 2018

Finding Relatives with DNA


When I first had my DNA done, I used Ancestry DNA. I wanted to figure out who my maternal biological grandfather was. So when I went to check for new matches I was excited that a 1-2nd cousin match finally showed up. However, that excitement soon faded when I realized she was a match on my father’s side and she was adopted. I contacted her and found out that she was only interested in her Ethnicity and I shared who I thought was our most common ancestor, my grandparents.

Fast forward a few years to last month, she contacted me through 23andMe and I recognized her as my adopted cousin. She was interested in her heritage and figuring out her tree. I was beyond excited to help her.

My paternal grandparents only had three children, my aunt, my uncle and my dad. On 23andMe my uncle’s daughter tested and it showed her relationship to AC (adopted cousin) as a 2nd cousin match. This meant that AC was the granddaughter of my Aunt. Why granddaughter and not daughter? First of all her age was in line with my aunt’s grandchildren and the amount of shared DNA was more inline with a 1st cousin once removed.
I convinced AC into granting me access to her AncestryDNA results and access to help build out her tree. AC's closest match is CC as a close match. I surmise that CC is either her Aunt or half sibling. Either way, with no tree, I could not determine which. However, CC had two distinct branches of close matches. I started on the assumption that one was for CC's paternal branch and the other was her maternal branch.
Next I try comparing trees of CC's matches. Plus Ancestry gave AC a New Ancestor Discovery. From the 27 people in that circle, I believed I found AC's great grandparent. These MCA (most common ancestor) was on one side of CC's matches. Next I looked at the other matches with CC. Only one was close, a 2nd cousin range and a few were 3rd cousins. However, I managed to find a good prospect for another great grandparents. I researched their children and found the daughter that married the other great grandparents son. BINGO, I found AC's other grandparents.

Since my aunt  only had two daughters, and neither of them were pregnant when AC was born, it left me to believe that one of my aunts sons is AC's father. Thus this other set of grandparents must be the parents of AC's mother. I found the obituaries of both grandparents, however no children are listed by name. They had nine children, 5 girls and four sons.

I updated AC's tree and told her what I found. She reached out to one of her matches that has the surname of her maternal grandparents. Her match responded that she talked to her dad and her aunt and she gave AC her most likely mother’s name. AC and I looked her up on facebook and AC looks so much like her mother.

This weekend I am going to talk to my cousin, AC's aunt and see if she knows anything about a baby being given up for adoption. I would like to figure out who her father is. He might not know he has a daughter. Now that I have a possible mother’s name, perhaps my cousin can ask her brothers if they recognize the name. Maybe my cousin will recognize the name as a girl friend of one of her brothers.

All in all, I am just excited that my research skills worked and AC might finally have the answers she has been looking for. I feel honored that AC entrusted me with DNA results.

Monday, March 12, 2018

AncestryDNA Circles


I have heard many good and bad things about AncestryDNA Cirlces.  However, I have decided to look on the positive side of things, thus let us look at a positive side of AncestryDNA circles.

First of all, how do AncestryDNA Circles work? According to their support center, A DNA circle will form around an ancestor in your family tree if your tree is public and linked to your DNA test and if two or more of your DNA matches…
  • Are DNA matches to you and to each other at a 2nd cousin level or further out
  • Have public family trees attached to their DNA tests; and
  • Share a common ancestor (according to their trees)

In my example, I have decided to select my husband’s DNA test. He does not have a lot of matches and only recently has one DNA circle finally showed up. My husband’s paternal grandfather is the immigrant ancestor and on his mother’s side, they have only been here perhaps 100 years, or 2-3 generatons. Thus there are not a lot of descendants in the United States to be taking DNA tests.
What I am trying to do, is build out his tree, not only backwards, but what I call sideways and find who his cousins are too. I already found descendants of his paternal grandfather’s sister, who we didn’t know and was pleasantly surprise to see had come to America. From these matches, I have a lead on his great-grandparents names.  


What can you learn from your DNA Circles that you can't learn from your DNA matches? It all depends on your Circles. Let’s look at my husband’s circle. His Circle has 8 people, from the list option, I can easily see those who match my husband and the one who matches someone in his circle, but not directly with him. 

Therefore, this is a new person, that I might not have discovered, because the match and him don’t actually share DNA. You might wonder how they don’t share DNA when they share Ancestors.  Looking at the Chances of Finding a Match chart, as you move further up your Pedigree chart or further from yourself, you will match less and less of your distant cousins. This is why most Autosomal tests can predict common Ancestors at a limit of about 8 generations.
Looking at the Relationship Path back to the common Ancestor, I can see that my Husband and his match are 3rd Cousins 1x Removed.


So his relationship falls between 3rd cousin range who will not match 10% of their 3rd cousins and 4th cousins range where he will not match about 50% of his 4th cousins. This explains why he might not match all his cousins via DNA.

When I view his matches DNA Profile, I can see her tree and I can see her grandmother married an unknown Block, thus my husband’s match’s father is an unknown Block. My matches name, which I have hidden for her privacy, has her first and last name in her username. I went a step farther and looked up the name in Facebook and found someone with that name living in Wisconsin. Since my husband’s family is from this area, I feel confident that this is most likely his match.

The final thing I like to do is to add his matches to his tree. I do this in my genealogy software program. You can read my “Tracking MyDNA Matches” blog post to see how I actually keep track of my matches.

Anyway, my matches’ tree has who her great grandmother married and the date of their marriage. Even though the 1940 marriage date does not help me with on-line census research, the last name will help my physical research.  If I go back to the Shawano County, Wisconsin court house, I have several new surnames that I can look up and expand this branch of the family. I can also possibly find some information in online birth and marriage indexes from Wisconsin.  I can add these tasks to my to-do-list.


Keep in mind, even though my husband doesn’t match this descendant, it doesn’t mean he won’t match some of her first cousins, or her father’s first cousins.  Having new names in his tree, means my research has not hit a brick wall and has open up new research possibilities.

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

An anomaly found in the 1930 US Census.


I decided to start looking at some of my DNA matches a little more completely. I was hoping I could build out the tree and see if I could figure out our relationship. All I know is that this family is in my Hilts/Hiltz branch, my maternal grandmother's maiden name. This branch of the family has been in the America's since 1710 and thus I have many, many matches to the Hilts/Hiltz branch. The biggest problem is trying to figure out which Hilts/Hiltz ancestor is our common ancestor.

Looking at this tree, the Williams name looks familiar. I have a Hilts/Hiltz descendant who married a Williams, however Eva Louise Williams doesn't look familiar, while Clara Frances Kyle does.  In fact, I found Clara married to Shepard Williams. I only have one child for Clara and Shepard and this is through another DNA match. Thus I have never actually researched this branch.

I decided to do a search on Shepard and Clara and I find the 1930 US Census record for them with their children, Laurence and Alice. Since I already had Laurence through that other DNA match, I was happy to find this census record.
I moved forward to the 1940 US Census and Shepard has passed away and Laurence is married and living with his family, on his own, however Alice is living with Clara along with Eva L.
Wait a Minute? If Eva is 19, should she not be living with her parents in the prior census? I looked at the census image, thinking perhaps the child is missed transcribed into the next family. I have seen this happen, however she is not the next person listed.
However, she is in the next house, the last person listed, is Eva L Williams, 8 years old and listed as the step-daughter. Strange indeed. Her father's birth location and her mother's birth location doesn't match either Ora Homes or his wife Flay Holmes. It even looks like someone added "step" after the fact. This are getting stranger and stranger.

When I did a Google Map search on the address, it doesn't exist anymore. To verify this fact, I have also check the tax records for the area, and that address does not come up. Neither, 812 or 814. 

If you look at Eva L Williams compare to her sister Alice R Williams, they are both born in Iowa and both their father's are listed as born in Wisconsin while both their mother's are listed as born in
Illinois. Shepard is showing born in Wisconsin and Clara is showing born in Illinois.

Finally, I did find a death certificate for Eva which listed her parents.



How did 1930 census record get created? We will probably never know how this error occurred, however I feel confident that Eva L Williams is actually the daughter of Shepard and Clara.

Thursday, February 22, 2018

Research Goals – Who needs them?

I do!

I research my husband’s side of the family on and off over the years. I had his DNA results on Ancestry.com, FTDNA and 23andMe. I have a tree that is attached to his AncestryDNA results. One of his matches asked if I have picture of my husband’s paternal grandparents. Since I knew, I didn’t, I went to a family group on Facebook that my husband’s oldest sister started and decided to post a query there. The response was wonderful and within hours I had a picture of his grandfather in his elder years and another one as a young man with his wife and their first two children.

That little query, sparked an interest in my husband’s first cousins (brothers). The one brother had his DNA tested and sent out a message to me and I informed him that my husband’s tree is public, however if he didn’t have an Ancestry paid account, I could send him an invite. The other brother, asked to be invited to the tree and I posted a quick instructions on how to create a guest account.

With all this new interest, I decided I need to review the paperwork and docs that I have on this branch of the family. I realized that I have death certificates, however I never scanned them and they were not readily available on my sync drive that is stored in the cloud. I decided to look at his paternal grandmother’s parents. I started scanning documents and went to Ancestry to make sure I have saved records that I found there, in my sync drive. I also verified everything was sourced and entered in my genealogy program that I Sync with the Ancestry tree.

So my husband’s great grandparents had 10 children. I wanted to make sure I had complete information on this level, with complete birth and death dates, spouse’s names, marriage dates, and if possible even grandchildren. I know with DNA, it will be easier for me to see how his matches fit into the family if I expand his tree.

The first child, I struck gold. There was an obituary for this person on-line. His obituary as you can see has a wealth of information. I finally found out all the girls, married names. I see when he died, he had six living siblings. According to the 1900 US Census, his mother had 10 children and only 7 were still living. Therefore, this obituary gave me all those living children from the 1900 US Census.

Taking the first sister’s new found married name, (Mary Revolinski), I decided to search Ancestry for any records. All I found was two census records, one for 1930 and another for 1940.  Mary is listed as Marie and in the 1930 Census she is living with three adult children. In 1940, one of these children is still living with her, however now two grandsons are also living with her.

I click on the grandchildren and one of the hints is for the 1930 Census where the two brothers are living with their father, mother and 9 year old sister. I am guessing at this point that the mother (Rose) is probably Mary’s daughter. So I have possibly four children’s names and two grandchildren and one son-in-law’s name. I need to find more, however my searches are coming up zero.

 I decided to check all my husband’s matches with that Revolinski surname and one match came up. This matches’ tree ended with the sister and possibly her husband. Even though the matches’ tree has the husband’s name as Paul, my Ancestry search found a death index for John P. who is a little bit older than Marie, however, his burial & residence place is the same place that Mary’s brother’s obituary listed as where she is from. I am thinking this is looking promising.
I did a new search on Ancestry with John Paul Revolinski, his birth year and place from the death index along with Marie’s name, and the four children names I have found previously. I wasn’t finding any new census records. Therefore I decided to go directly to the 1920 US Census for the same location as found on the 1930 and 1940 census. I was lucky, there was only one enumeration district that contained 31 images. On image, 27, John, Mary and 6 children where two of the children name’s match the 1930 census and a third child matches the correct age, however is using a nickname in 1920.
John and Mary’s name is spelled Rewolinski and thus I modify my previous search with this new spelling and find the 1900 US census. The 1900 US Census gives lots of little clues, if you know where to look. It tells me that John and Mary just go married, 0 years married. Thus the 5 children listed, are most likely her step-children, since Mary is only 21 and John is 35.

I still can’t find a 1910 census, so I go back to my previous trick and go directly into the 1910 US census for the same location as before. There are still 31 images and I scroll through the pages. This time the last name is spelled Radvylenski. The first three children are the three youngest from 1910 and then there are four more children. I found Rose (her oldest) along with Walter, her youngest who was the oldest adult child from the 1930 US Census. I am feeling more comfortable that I perhaps have found the correct family.
Finally step, I need to go back to the DNA match and see what child of Paul and Mary is in her tree,  does it match what I have found as John P and Mary’s children. BINGO, her tree has the child Mary, the same age as my 4 year old Mary on the 1910 US Census and then 14 year old on the 1920 US Census.

My research goal was to find out information about the children of my husband’s paternal grandmother’s parents. Even though I only made it through 3 of their 10 children. This is a great start towards that research goal. Now I need to go back and actually save, enter and source what I have found.

Monday, January 29, 2018

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 5 "In the Census"

The Week 5 prompt from Amy Johnson Crow is "In the Census." What intriguing find have you made in a census? What has a series of census records shown you? Do you have an ancestor who constantly ages only 7 years between censuses? (Those are fun!)

I decided to look at this prompt in a different light. I went to my Great Grandmother who I can't seem to find in the 1930 Census (since she was divorced at that time) and see if anything new comes up. So I opened up my genealogical software program and realized I did not record a 1900 or 1940 census for her either.




This prompt gives me the perfect opportunity to add some additional source material to my database.  

I now realize why I didn't record the 1900 census, the transcriber listed Fred as her spouse when in fact the name should be David. I have no idea how the transcriber figured out anything for the name based on the image. 


I can make out the name David as the Head of Household. This census is very interesting as it stated she had 2 children however only one is living. This does correspond with the birth and death record I found for their son David who was born in 1897 and died in 1898. I added alternate info to the Ancestry Census record, it's my way of "paying it forward". 




My quick searches for my great-grandparents in the 1940 census did not turn up anything. They remarried in 1936 and thus should be living together. They both were alive. I may have to search page by page through the census records for that area. Since they were divorced during the 1930 US Census, using their last address is not very helpful. I still can't find my great-grandmother in the 1930 US Census either, she is not living with her children and she might had been living as a "common law wife" and I have no idea what the mans name would be. Talk about looking for a needle in a haystack. 


Thursday, January 4, 2018

Tracing our Roots

In 2018 I am hoping to blog more than I did last year. However, I know that having a specific goal is much better than a vague one. Therefore I hope to blog once a week and I decided to try the 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks goal. This isn't a new idea, and Amy Johnson Crow is even going to help by sending those who sign up with her, by sending them a series of prompts.

Therefore, my first post for the year will be about an article that appeared in my local paper about the Genealogical Society I belong too and we operate a library too. The article happens to be about my experience in genealogy and I am including it here... "Reprinted with permission from the 'Today's News-Herald,' Lake Havasu City, Arizona".


Tracing our Roots: Lake Havasu Genealogical Society helps connect families to history
By Buck Dopp Special to Today’s News-Herald

Every now and then we hear of someone who is related to royalty or a celebrity, and wonder if we might also be descended from a famous person, such as Susan B. Anthony, Louisa May Alcott, Francis Bacon or Ludwig van Beethoven. 

The Lake Havasu Genealogical Society, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last October, provides free training and assistance to anyone who wants to investigate family history. The society’s research library contains over 3,000 books and periodicals, and is located at suite #17 in Shambles Village, 2126 N. McCulloch Blvd.

Charlene Filipiak, who is the membership administrator and web master for the society, describes herself as “a city girl whose ancestors were a lot of farmers from Wisconsin.” When she was 14-years old, her father told her he was going to take her “to see some relatives.” He took her to a cemetery.
“That cemetery was where I got bit by the genealogy bug,” Filipiak said with a laugh.

Turning more serious, she recalled a gravestone that left an indelible impression on the teenage girl. The grave marker listed the deaths of three children from the same family—Ann, Eliza and Patrick Crenien—who all died within a 2 ½ year span from 1861 to 1864. In fact, five of the eight children in the Crenien/Crinion family died before reaching adulthood. That tombstone gave her a glimpse of the tough lives and extreme hardship suffered by their parents, who were her 2nd great grandparents.

Filipiak said the most significant takeaway from researching genealogy is that, “What you’re told about your family, isn’t always the truth. I was always told the wrong year for my maternal grandparents’ wedding—1926.”

Her detective work revealed that they were really married in 1929, two years after her mother was born, which meant her mother was illegitimate. Her “grandfather” raised her mother as his own child and gave her his surname. When Filipiak’s mother applied for college at 18, and a birth certificate was required, her step-father officially adopted her to spare her any embarrassment. Filipiak’s mom and grandparents took the secret to their graves.

“I had a gaping hole in my family tree, but a DNA test solved the mystery,” she said. It took three years to find out the truth that her mother’s biological father was a married man whose own wife was pregnant at the time.

The discovery didn’t make Filipiak think any less of her grandparents. It only increased her respect for them. She admired the courage it took for her grandmother, who was only 19, to keep her baby and endure the public shame showered on out-of-wedlock mothers in the 1920s. It would have been far easier to give the baby up for adoption.

Filipiak says everyone researches genealogy for different reasons such as ethnicity, health tendencies, or to write a history. “Not everything is found online. That’s why the Lake Havasu Genealogy Research Library is such a good asset for our remote community.”

She enjoys helping people find their official documents, which is an important aspect of developing a family history. “Genealogy without documentation is mythology,” she noted.

“We’re not a group of professional genealogists. We’re just everyday people. We’ll help you, but we won’t do your research for you.” She added, “The library is open to the public and run by volunteers through fundraisers and donations.”

Filipiak shared one final piece of good advice for would-be genealogical gumshoes: “Before getting their DNA tested, they should keep in mind, they might find out something they didn’t want to know.”

Kathleen “Kate” Alonzo, however, is pleased with the results of her DNA testing that exploded a family myth she had heard since childhood, that she came from a family of “Scottish sheep stealers.”

She was relieved to learn that 98% of her ancestors were actually Irish peasants on both sides of her family. “My father’s side was completely different from what we were told,” Alonzo said, grinning from ear to ear. “Things passed down aren’t necessarily the truth.”

Inspired by her sister-in-law who is also a society member, Alonzo is one of the newbies, joining in January of 2017, nevertheless, her sleuthing skills would even make fellow Brit Sherlock Holmes proud.

“I’ve always been interested in history. Thirty years ago, my uncle asked me to look up the grave of his grandmother in Surrey, England,” she explained. She found it, although it took a lot of time going through church records and two visits to a graveyard.

She spent two hours looking for her grandfather’s death certificate because a lot of Irish have the same name. “Research takes a long time. Don’t expect miracles overnight. It’s not going to happen,” Alonzo said. “It can get very frustrating. You can sit there for hours and you don’t get anything. Then all at once you find a long-lost relative!”

One of those long-lost relatives was her 2nd great grandfather who founded a Quaker school in Ireland.

Speaking of long-lost relatives, Larry Hayduk (pronounced HAY-Duke) traced his family genealogy back to one of the 101 passengers on the Mayflower. Those brave souls risked a dangerous transatlantic voyage in 1620 to flee the religious persecution of King James of England. Hayduk is the 13th generation since the Mayflower’s landing and had to verify the birth, marriage and death of every person in his family line in order to be admitted into the prestigious Mayflower Society. It took him 2 ½ years to gather the necessary documentation.

What excites Hayduk about genealogical research is the challenge: “It’s like solving a crossword puzzle. It’s frustrating when you run into a block wall, and when you get a breakthrough, it’s euphoric.”

His advice is to talk to grandparents and older relatives about the family history before you do anything else. Get as much documentation as you can, including birth and death certificates.

“I started researching my genealogy late in life. Too late to be able to ask parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents the many questions that I had,” he said. “I decided to document my life so future generations’ questions would be answered.”

Hayduk’s daughter is also interested in the family history and he has helped her submit her information to the Mayflower Society. His son, on the other hand, doesn’t share their passion. He once asked, “Why do you want to deal with all those dead people?”

Jane Bowen is the current president of the society, a position she has held on and off for 10 years. She manages the research library and organizes the information it has collected.

Getting Bowen to talk about herself is harder than trying to find a third cousin twice removed. Nonetheless, her attention to details and penchant for accuracy—which she calls “the English grad in me”—have left their mark on everything from the library to the meetings to the newsletters.

She’s remained a member for 17 years because “it’s a fun thing to do.” Bowen elaborates on her definition of fun by saying, “Work is what you’re doing when you’d rather be doing something else. This is what I’d rather be doing.”

Grove “Buzz” Bancroft is the current second vice president of the society and will be installed as the president for the coming year. The president-elect hopes to encourage growth in the society and its 91 members, so they can continue to provide assistance to Lake Havasu residents in their search for their roots.

The six-foot seven-inch Bancroft spent over 30 years in various uniforms—probably good-sized ones—as a Navy man, state trooper and sheriff before retiring to Lake Havasu and taking up genealogical research. He compares it to golf, “It’s rewarding and exasperating at the same time. That’s what makes it so much fun.”

For Charlene Filipiak, Kate Alonzo, Larry Hayduk, Jane Bowen and Buzz Bancroft, it’s their dedication to unlock the mysteries of the past that drives them, not a desire to prove connections to famous people. Besides, they couldn’t be descended from the likes of Susan B. Anthony, Louisa May Alcott, Francis Bacon or even Ludwig van Beethoven—those folks never had children.

***
#52Ancestors