At 02:38 PM 6/22/02 EDT, you wrote: >Carolyn: You are correct that Ancestry does not make research easy for >researchers.... Beej: I agree with all your comments. Isabel

I second what you had to say about Ancestry. Won't be renewing my subscription anymore. I think they are going to find that they will start losing a lot of customers by charging for everything the way they do. Marilyn K.

In a message dated 6/22/02 6:00:18 AM US Mountain Standard Time, AMXROADS-D-request@rootsweb.com writes: << However, Ancestry has re-formatted most of their most useful databases, adding a "I am related" and "Comments," after each entry, which makes it impossible to simply copy by outlining the information from the page with the mouse and pasting it into your word processor so that it can be compared with other regional entries, for instance the other land owners along a watercourse. Had I enough time, I would be adding plenty of comments to these entries, but there are simply too many to tell Ancestry what I think of this practice. Computer and internet genealogy is supposed to make research easier rather than complicate it, especially when you're paying for the services, which is the case at Ancestry. Also annoying at Ancestry, while I'm ranting, is the offensive advertising which now permeates their pages -- doubly annoying for a subscription service. >> Carolyn: You are correct that Ancestry does not make research easy for researchers. I pd. the yr. several yrs. ago I could get in all the free stuff great but the pd databases was something else. I wrote and wrote about my problems and nothing they said helped me as my son could not phathom what they were saying. Then when my yr had two monthss to go they came back and said that I needed cookies in order to research in ancestry.com correctly. My son had felt I did not need cookies cluttering up my machine so he cut accepting them. We live and learn. Ancestry also gets on the long list of links for free pages and you click on a title and here is ancestry saying that the database if for paid subscription. This burnes me to a crisp to say it mildly. I have a pd sub to the census on ancesty and I forget which yr. it was but for the state of IN, Henry Co., the township of Wayne is not there. This is the township Knightstown, IN is in and where I am supposted to find my mother's mother as a child living with family friends. No answer as to why this twp. has been left out. Where do they get off if advertising complete, 'COMPLETE, census of a state when one missing twp. can mess up genealogy research. I pd. good money to sit home to do my census and not limp around a busy library to get the microfilm, run it on the viewer, undo it limp many yds. to the copy alcove, wait inline to get it copied, then retarce my limping steps to the viewer and go on from there and when I find someone else do the same proceedure again. This makes me want to invest in my own viewer for my home with a printer attached. Yes, they have microviewers with printers attached, as New Castle, IN has one in their Public Library. They are neat, and microfilm research is enjoyable there. You know why ancestry wants notes when you find someone of your family and you leave a note? This gives them more info on that person you are researching and they can add you to thier database and charge others for what you just gave them freely, this is not right. I know there are those that swear by Ancestry to be excellant bar none. Me I will no longer be a sheep to follow them around and give them info on my family that takes me time plus money to find and get. When I got the Census thru Ancestry.com it was the free 14 day trial. Guess what on the thirteenth day (13th) they subed me into the census subscription and it was three days before I found out and they would do nothing about my not wanting the 'service'? Oh, well we peons live, learn and lose money. These are my personal views, I force it on no one but the fact is I do not believe that Ancestry.com is totally honest with the world. Carolyn: I want to thank you for the web URL, I have not been there yet as wanted to reply to your post. I have been to seminars and they have all said to copy names 10 before and 10 after your ancestor in order to get a concensus of possible inlaws, and family members that might be living close by. Indexs I don't do this as an index is just that alpha listing and does not mean any relationship to each name in order at all. I am looking forward to getting into the Census Study and sure I will find much info to learn from. You took time from your regular business at hand to be of help to me and I trully appreciate it. Carolyn you are the BESTEST friend, cousin and teacher any on this list could ask for. GOD BLESS YOU AND YOURS. Send me your mothers address and I will send her some picture postcards from my state that at this moment is buring up and not sun temperature either. I am sure that you have all seen this in the news. I am not close to the area as it is, what we call, above the 'rim' so far. It is gets to Payson it will be below the 'rim' area and it would not surprise me that it is (the rim) 2000 ft above the vallely were Payson happens to be. It is a sad time for those people, I have sat and watched and wondered how many were doing genealogy and lost it ALL. I have note books, file cabinet, sm. plastic crates with hanging files I have researched the past 5 yrs. , CDs and research books that I have emassed in the past yr or two that I would be devistated if I were to loose them. These people probably never thought this would happen to them. A once in a livetime happening. Was in the 1800s since the last devistating fire hit AZ. Like earth quakes, they do happen, even rarely, and we have no idea when or where. I was ready to close a long time ago but as I told my new cousin I get started and it is hard for me to quit my brain from functioning. Also Carolyn, thank you for agreeing with me on the copy/paste post I made. Thank you all for reading to the end of my dissertation or exertation how ever you see it. Beej

Dear Cousins, I have added an 1820 Jefferson County Census Study to the website, using Beej's ancestor George Burton as the focus. http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads/INJeff/beej.html It has produced some interesting insights into indexing and name changes. Although it is almost impossible to find ancestors in populous areas without indexes, they are notoriously inaccurate portrayals of who is actually on the census. You will be amazed to discover so many errors and omissions on just the 1820 census page for George Burton. I am sure it is illustrative of your own census difficulties. Relying on indexes of one surname is certainly the reason many researchers believe they have come to a dead end in their ancestral quests. The ancestors are there, we just don't realize how the census taker identified them, and then, recently, how the transcribers and indexers identified them. Some surnames have so many variants, if you are using internet databases as a resource for the census, it is simply impossibly to search by surname. The search engines will not accommodate the variants. I have given an example here for the listing I found for Burnham, in which 15 more spellings were turned up in just one township. This brings up another aspect of census analysis. It has long seemed almost useless to merely copy one surname and make a list of it, although I did this religiously as a beginning researcher, and I'm sure all of you did too if you have done any census work at all. When the first census indexes began coming out, I copied pages of single surnames and avidly copied down the census information as I was able to look them up on the census. Now years and years later, I am sorry to look back on them and find I would have learned so much more about my family if I had understood the importance of kinship families all around them. I lived in Maryland then and would drive into Washington D. C. to the National Archives to examine the census. Now I am going back over many lost backcountry routes and re-examining census images online at Ancestry.com. For Beej's ancestor, I incorporated these online census images from Ancestry.com, still one of the best databases there, along with the AIS (Accelerated Indexing System), which is a heads of household index for the 1790 census as well as most of the 19th century census listings. The AIS is a wonderful tool, although for some reason Ancestry is no longer making it as readily available as they formerly did. Also, the Burtons migrated from Kentucky to Indiana, and the formerly excellent Ancestry database from Williard Rouse Jillson's "Kentucky Land Grants" should be able to be utilized with terrific results in Beej's search. However, Ancestry has re-formatted most of their most useful databases, adding a "I am related" and "Comments," after each entry, which makes it impossible to simply copy by outlining the information from the page with the mouse and pasting it into your word processor so that it can be compared with other regional entries, for instance the other land owners along a watercourse. Had I enough time, I would be adding plenty of comments to these entries, but there are simply too many to tell Ancestry what I think of this practice. Computer and internet genealogy is supposed to make research easier rather than complicate it, especially when you're paying for the services, which is the case at Ancestry. Also annoying at Ancestry, while I'm ranting, is the offensive advertising which now permeates their pages -- doubly annoying for a subscription service. On the other hand, the US GenWeb pages are adding great features all the time. Now there are biographies from the old 19th century County Histories at many more County pages. And local libraries and archives are getting on the bandwagon too and improving their regional offerings. A wonderful example of this is the Historic Pittsburgh site which has a grand collection of e-texts reflecting the role western Pennsylvania played in the expansion all along the frontier. These are searchable and have many maps and illustrations included in each. http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/pitttext-idx.pl?type=browse I have reformatted the Potomac Perimeter page, and hope you find it more readable and useful. I'm working over many of the pages to correct poor links and page sizes, and am still plugging away with the Master Index. Bear with me -- we'll get there! http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads/Potomac/potomac.html Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn

Carolyn and Cousins, I will now attempt to share my reasons for involving myself (and wife) in several studies that utilized professional laboratories to analyze our DNA - my Y-DNA (which I passed off to my 3 sons but not my daughter), and my mother's Mitochondrial-DNA (mtDNA)which I have a perfect copy of in my cells but can not pass off to my children! My daughter got her mtDNA from my wife and gave a copy of her mtDNA to her son - our grandson! He will not pass that on! My wife had Foukes. Chaplines, Formans, Swearingens and etc. from present day Jefferson County, WV. We have not been able to go back to the parents of Michael Fouke bn. about 1738. We are unsure as to the country of the Foukes origin. There are a number of Foukes around the country all of whom we believe came from "Old Michael". How to find out if all the Foukes are related to a common Fouke? We talked with Darrin Fouke of Illinois and asked him if he would have his Y-DNA tested and also find a distant cousin in MD(Hagerstown) or in Ohio and check if there is substantial similarity ( exact match or near match[one step off] ). A close match would allow us to feel better about the direction of our combined research goals (belief that all Foukes are likely to have a common ancestor within the last 10 generations or so). After I began to see what the testing might do I decided to do this myself and my wife's mother's mother (a Miller) had a mother who was born of a couple named Carpenter and the wife is unknown to us at this time. We thought that if my wife's mtDNA were to be tested we might see if others in the ever enlarging mtDNA pool match and if so, then we might see if there are common countries of origin of these matches - thus offering us a clue for our research. Likewise my Y-DNA might show a "profile" of my father and his distant fathers who I have found to be Swedes from north Sweden as long back as the first Swedish records. Same with my Grandmother from Sweden but her mtDNA did not go past my father and I can not now get her mtDNA! So, Both my wife and I had done basic genealogical research and had gone as far in the search for fathers father, etc ; and my wife's mothers mother, etc. as we can. So I had my Y-DNA and mtDNA tested and my wife had her mtDNA tested. We chose FamilyTreeDNA to do the work as other people had said they were dependable and helped them to understand the findings when they came back. The fee was $219 for each of us. She would only get her mtDNA whereas I would get my Y-DNA and my mother's mtDNA. However, we were glad we decided to do this which might tell us who -if anyone- matches with us. And these matches are likely to show us where in the world our straight line ancestors (mothers from mothers for perhaps hundreds of generations for my wife Ann; and fathers from fathers for perhaps Hundreds of generations for me!! END OF INSTALLMENT ONE .... more tomorrow where I will attempt to show the findings and some basic analysis Dick Matteson College Park, MD

Dear Dick, and Cousins, Fascinating! as I knew it would be. I look forward to the next installment. Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn

Cousins and list members. Since we have much leeway here I will make a complaint that is on every list that I have been on. Please when you refer to another post to remark on take out what you are refering to and go on from there. We don't need the whole post that takes up valuable room as there are those that, for one reason or another, can get only so much e-mail in their mail box in their computer. I have head wailing and nashing of teeth over this unnessary use of space on lists. We need to take in to concideration our other list members and their lack of space for e-mail. I do not have that problem, however other ISP's seem to have limited space due to servers that sustain them. I do hate scrolling thru a long former post of the list when to cut/paste the few discriptive lines is just as easy as putting the entire post in. This is just a case of 'care giving' to our other list members. Now if someone has harsh words for me on this issue do not air it onlist do it privately, however if you wish to discuss this onlist I am sure the rest of the list would like to read your reasoning for your pros and cons. I will be leaving on gen research and reunion trip the 25th of June so do it before then. Cus, Beej

<< Go to bottom of page and click on 1930 Census Aid and there is all kinds of info here. This may be what you are looking for in way of 1930 census help. I have spent almost 2 hrs. here and still have not see it all. I hope this will be of help to list members. In my surfing the net yesterday and looking for the IN Marriage data online found this tucked away in the IN page. Anyone needing the IN Marriage Records thru 1850 let me know and I will send it out. In the subject line of your email and send it to me personally and private put 'IN Marriage Records' and I wll see it and send it right out. I will be leaving about the 25 of June. If you want to take the time to look in each of the links on this page you might run across the Marriage Records. Have fun. Beej PS I printed out a lot of this as my memory is so limited these days. <A HREF="http://www.statelib.lib.in.us/WWW/INDIANA/GENEALOGY/genmenu.HTML"> genmenu.htmlIndiana State Library Genealogy Division</A> http://www.statelib.lib.in.us/WWW/INDIANA/GENEALOGY/genmenu.HTML >>

In a message dated 6/17/02 6:00:26 AM US Mountain Standard Time, AMXROADS-D-request@rootsweb.com writes: << There are indications from the names of people around your George Burton on the Jefferson County census suggesting that the SW Virginia/NW North Carolina locale is probably correct. I still mean to put this up on a page at the website so that people can see the need for accurate census interpretation is very great. Many of the names are misinterepreted, and one nearby your George is a Robert Livington which I think could be Pennington. I have more work to do to put it at the website, but I want you to have this information before your trip. >> Carolyn: I have heard from another researcher to my ggg grandfather and some of his info seems schetchy to me and some could be correct. As per Myrtle and George Morgan I will double check his info. I thought that when Geo. B. traveled west with the Greshom Lee family, and I am assuming that was a fact as he married Gershom's daughter in First Shelby Co. KY. This new researcher that has found me has several of the children born in KY. So this means that he did not live in Jefferson Co., IN soon after his marriage. He also has a son that is reported to be born in NJ, Madison Co., in 1810. Well, I have Jefferson Co., Special Journals that was printed out with records of varing yrs. One mentions a George Burton in Jefferson Co., helping others organize a Methodist Church in 1811. That is some fast traveling with a youngsters and a baby. Also reported that several of the older children were born in KY. So now I will check out those leads to see what I gain in records or not. He had some other very interesting info my my gg grandfather that will bear checking out. I have info on George B. that he does not have so we have much to share and discuss long distance as he lives north of Chicago. He has done nothing, the way his info reads, in the way of finding parentage. It has been several wks. since I contacted DAR a second time with more precise info and nothing from them as yet. The discussions on DNA are so interesting that I am going to wait till the last thing before I unsub from this list. My son just got laidoff his job so I told him he was accompaning me and I would not take NO for an answer. So he is going. Said he might get gurmpy at not looking for a job as he should be and I told him I would unceromoniously punch him in the face. What a look I got. But he is going and talks of our trip with a smile on his face now. Oh, for got to mention, new cousin said that Geo. B's Rev War Pension was paid out of PA for a while. That would seem strange if he was from VA or NC don't you think? Would that mean that he was living in PA prior to enlisting? I do love this list and enjoy all the posting from everyone. List members you are all great, even those that just sit and read. Some lists I still do that but they are lists that do just genealogy with the names, dates, places and very little history to speak of. To me that is what makes genealogy interesting to me. History that I can learn. History that is real and not printed by someone with his own slanted view of what history should be and glossing it up to make it intersting for the reader. Our list Lady is great also. Carolyn is just a dear person from the inside out. May the Great Spirit guide you and keep you in health and happiness. Beej

Dear Beej and Cousins, This is a very good point about conserving server space. Also, I was unaware until a couple of years ago that I was needlessly storing copies of my e-mail at the server. I thought once I had retrieved my e-mail it was taken off the server. However, this is not always so. When you are setting up your service with your local server, make sure you check off the boxes that allow you to do this or not. Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn

Hi all! I have just returned from a wonderful 50th event in Shepherdstown, WV While there we discovered a long rifle in the Entler Hotel Museum engraved with the name "William A. Chapline" - wife Ann's great to the 5th Grandfather. One always seems to find important things when one is not really seeking!! I will write to my DNA experience tomorrow! Dick Matteson College Park, MD On Tue, 18 Jun 2002 21:27:20 -0700 Carolyn McDaniel <cmacdee@centurytel.net> writes: > Dear Tom, Jim, Barb and Cousins, > No mea culpas or apologies are necessary from either of you. > Very > interesting information, Tom, and Jim, there's no topic that can't > be > discussed here, so while your comment came from left field, it > doesn't > really matter, and you certainly don't need to apologize. We are a > > community, trying to reconnect with one another and revitalize our > American > heritage. Although our primary approach to that is through > genealogy and > history, there's plenty of other ways all around us that bears > commentary > as well. I believe our nation and culture is very much in a state > of > crisis, although we have made a great recovery from the September 11 > > attacks. Reconnection, community, unity, kinship, heritage, > sharing, > feeling, caring and respect for the other guy are all vital parts of > the > ongoing recovery, and the foremost purpose of American Crossroads. > Jim, I will write you privately about a couple of > personal insights on > POTL, though, also IMHO. > Barb, I have had a physically tiring day and will try and > catch up > tomorrow. You summed up the DNA issues in a very good way. I'm > still > trying to get some things off to you, also. > Thanks too, Tom for your kind comments and compliments, but > with such > lavish praise, it's hard to stay humble! > > Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn > > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy > records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 > >

Dear Tom, Jim, Barb and Cousins, No mea culpas or apologies are necessary from either of you. Very interesting information, Tom, and Jim, there's no topic that can't be discussed here, so while your comment came from left field, it doesn't really matter, and you certainly don't need to apologize. We are a community, trying to reconnect with one another and revitalize our American heritage. Although our primary approach to that is through genealogy and history, there's plenty of other ways all around us that bears commentary as well. I believe our nation and culture is very much in a state of crisis, although we have made a great recovery from the September 11 attacks. Reconnection, community, unity, kinship, heritage, sharing, feeling, caring and respect for the other guy are all vital parts of the ongoing recovery, and the foremost purpose of American Crossroads. Jim, I will write you privately about a couple of personal insights on POTL, though, also IMHO. Barb, I have had a physically tiring day and will try and catch up tomorrow. You summed up the DNA issues in a very good way. I'm still trying to get some things off to you, also. Thanks too, Tom for your kind comments and compliments, but with such lavish praise, it's hard to stay humble! Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn

Sorry for replying off-topic. If anyone cares to know why Scott Peck is not on my favorites list, write me personally. Jim

Dear Jim, No need to apologize. You aren't out of line. Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn

Dear Carolyn and Cousins: Mia Culpa, Gomenesai, Perdona Me and forgive me for my inexcusable error. After writing about Jesse James DNA episodes, I realized I had listed the name of the man who had assumed Jesse's identity as Robert Biglow. His was actually "Charlie Bigelow" from the small town of Bigelow, Missouri. I did not want to be a part of name distortion that could be repeated and maybe cause embarrassment to someone at a later time. Carolyn in response to your question about Mr.Howard in the Saga of Jesse James. Some five years before the murder, in 1882, by Bob and Charlie Ford. Jessie had assumed and lived by the Sir name of Howard, at the same time Bigelow had assumed Jesse James identity, thinking he was already dead. After the shooting and after singing at his own funeral, Jessie is said to have gone the very next day to New Orleans and shipped out to Argentina, where he lived for between three and five years. Zerelda, Jesse's mother had the body buried in the corner of her yard, visible from her kitchen window. She is said to have wanted to prevent someone digging up the corpse and discovering that Jesse had not actually been murdered, and prevent him from living a normal life as an unwanted man. After all, he had a $10,000 bounty on himself, dead or alive at the time Bigelow was killed. As for Mr. Howard, who was living in Nashville at the time of the murder, not in Missouri as the history books state. Most of that history was taken from a book written by the son of Governor Tom Crittenden, the Governor of Missouri at he time, and is said to have been involved in the ruse and ended up with most of the reward money. J. Frank Dalton, the name later assumed by Jesse is credited with writing the last 12 chapters of Young Crittenden's book. At the time many many people, both in Missouri and Tennessee, knew the true identity of Mr. Howard, including a huge family, numerous friends and people he had helped and befriended. In addition the many in and connected to law enforcement, except the Pinkerton Detective Agency, who had known Jesse and his family, since Jesse was born. It is said that that large circle of people (there are many many affidavits) permitted and contributed to stories that produced the song of "The dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard and laid poor Jesse in his grave"), and allowed Jesse to live to the age of 104 years as J. Frank Dalton, and finally be buried in Granbury, Texas in the early 1950s. Maybe with the help of DNA, that you are becoming so well versed on, and a new Court order to exhume the remains of J. Frank Dalton, will, or will not, write a new chapter in the history of the Great Outlaws of the Nineteenth Century. I am much more interested in the great genealogy work you are doing at AMXroads and wealth of ancestral Gems that you are consistently uncovering and sharing. Congratulations on the accilades and awards for your truly great work. I promise not to clutter your priceless endeavors with more Outlaw Stories, if you will forgive my long winded epic on the subject. Regards to all, Cousin Tom

IMHO, M. Scott Peck is a truly strange and dangerous man. "Road..." seemed to strike a chord in the culture at the time of its publication. But he went WAY off the deep end with "People of the Lie." Pure claptrap, and quite dangerous stuff for the undiscerning/gullible among us. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carolyn McDaniel" <cmacdee@centurytel.net> To: <AMXROADS-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2002 11:34 AM Subject: Re: [AMXROADS] Sorry, new address > Erin, > The only constancy in life is change! Wish it was mine, but M. Scott > Peck said it in the "Road Less Travelled." Just re-subscribe with the new > address or let me know and I'll do it for you. > > Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn > > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 > >

People change e-mail addresses like underwear. Please note this account is done at the end of the week. NEW: erinoconnell@att.net Erin

Erin, The only constancy in life is change! Wish it was mine, but M. Scott Peck said it in the "Road Less Travelled." Just re-subscribe with the new address or let me know and I'll do it for you. Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn

Hi Carolyn, I checked my FTM for JJ. Watts out of curiosity. He was born 1839 in Lincoln (now Knox) Co. Maine and married Mary Jane Woolsey Sept. 1872 in Missouri somewhere. She was the dau of William Woolsey and Matilda Hudgens. Wm is in my FTM because he first married one of my Martin's, Annie, dau of John and Rachel Martin in Pulaski Co.KY Wm's second wife was Nancy Turpin. Matilda Hudgens was his third. The Rev. JJ Watts Journal listed a lot of Missouri names as he traveled from county to county as a traveling minister, he recorded lots of events, and it is a great source of data on some families in those counties. I had ordered it a couple years ago on interlibrary loan thru U of L Library. I finally got it and made some copies. Then I had two bad health days and on the next day, I returned to make more copies but they had sent it back to Rolla. The library folks said they figured I was finished with the films when I missed two days. I was supposed to have it for two weeks. The man promised to get them back. When I called to see what was holding them up, the man said that U of M at Rolla said I'd had them and now they had been sent to the next person waiting for them. Lesson: When using interlibrary loan material...don't get sick. Or chain yourself to the microfilm. Does anyone know of any transcriptions done of the J.J. Watts Journal? Barb T

Hi James and all, Your question was well put. I was talking to the leader of a particular surname org's DNA study and I asked the same question in almost the same words. He said that very, very old DNA tends to break down and become unstable, so is not reliable. We can best compare one person's DNA to someone who is well evidenced to be a descendant of the ancestor in question. I think this would be great, but only if the evidence is not...hmm...full of holes. My concern is mainly that some of the surname org's do not use good gen standards so their evidence is sometimes shaky. I'd hate to see someone pay the fee and get false results. They would not know the results were false. They might be a descendant in fact but the "proven descendant" might not be. It all comes back to doing good source work to back up what we think is fact. Barb T