Find A Grave Glitch, or was it?

My husband and I were on a mission to clean the gravestones of his paternal aunts and uncles. When I could not find a Find A Grave memorial for his aunt (in-law), I asked where she was buried. I knew when she died, a week after my first child’s birth and thus I didn’t go to the cemetery, but vaguely remember what cemetery it was. My husband, who has a terrible memory could not verify that was the correct cemetery.

Therefore, I went to the library where I knew there were cemetery indexes that were done by the local genealogical society. I found his aunt’s name and made note of the section and location of the grave.

My husband and I went to the cemetery, cleaned the stone and I photographed it so that I could create a Find A Grave memorial.  I added her memorial and did a little research and found out who her parents were from the 1930 US Census.  I added them to her memorial along with the link to her husband, my husband’s uncle.

Then I noticed that her parents had five children listed, besides my husband’s aunt-in-law. I reviewed the 1930 US Census to see if they were the same children. They were not, so I click on her father, and reviewed the 1920 US Census and saw more children.

My mission, was to find the children that were not linked to their parents and add the parents to their memorial pages. After I was done, I realized that one child, John was showing on the parents memorial pages but not on the siblings pages.

I went to a Facebook group for Find A Grave, there is more than one. I asked if they every seen this. One member quickly responded that on John’s memorial the parents were in the wrong position. WOW, I didn’t catch that. 

It should have the father on top and the mother listed below as follows:

Remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy!

Is your Family Tree Maker tree well-trimmed?

Do you have a well-trimmed tree? What do I mean by this? Does your tree just have your relatives or do you have a lot of extra people?

My tree is a little of both and perhaps your tree is too. One thing I like to do is keep track of in-law spouses' parents. If my cousin is married, I want to know who their spouse’s parents are. Why? I have found that my tree, and perhaps yours is similar is like a spider web, where they connect in more than one spot. For example, there is a family who had 10 children, and about 6 of those children have married into my family on various branches. Some have married siblings of one branch, others have married their first cousins or even another branch that isn’t related to the sibling’s branch, and so on.

Therefore, I have changed the way I am keeping these people in my tree. As in the case of the Biel family who had six of their ten children marry into my family, I have that family’s parents and all twelve of their children in my tree. Those branches that connect back to the six children who married into my family is easier to identify because when looking at my tree, I can see the spouse’s parents are entered.

What about the spouse who doesn’t connect to anyone else in my tree? I have decided instead of entering them as additional people in my tree, I use the birth description to enter the following sentence “He/She is/was the son/daughter of father’s name and mother’s name (using the mother’s maiden name). Thus, is might read as follows: He was the son of John J Smith and Jane S Doe.

I am doing this to keep my tree a little better trimmed and visually pleasing, I can see that spouse doesn’t tie back into my tree on another branch, in the tree view above and by the birth description.  Plus, I have been generating books using Family Book Creator, and for the spouse, it will print that birth description as a separate sentence after listing their birth information.

When I enter a spouse, I always check the Index and see if I already that surname in my tree and I quickly check out who their parents are. If I find two siblings in my tree, then I add their parents into my tree and attach each existing child to the parent and clear out the birth description field. If as I am checking for who their parents are and nothing is filled in, then I do a quick search to see if I can figure out who their parents are and determine if they are related to each other.

What do you do to keep your tree well-trimmed?

Remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy!