Setting up a new computer for Genealogy

Even though I like the idea of getting a new computer, I don’t like the idea of setting up a new computer. My desktop computer is over ten years old. So, for the last six or so months, I have been half-heartly looking for a new computer.

First of all, I have some requirements and it makes purchasing a computer difficult. I also want to see the computer in person before buying. This really limits a person’s choices. Anyway, I know I what lots of RAM 12-16 GB. I also want a large hard drive, 1TB really looks good. I would also like a smaller CPU, the huge one under my desk is way too big.  I know I am old school, but I just thought I wanted a CD drive, however my son said “Good luck with that one”. Sadly, he is correctly, many computers just don’t offer CD drives.

So fast forward to Black Friday weekend, it’s Saturday and I find myself in a BestBuy store. I am nonchalantly walking around the laptops and desktops and I see an ALL-IN-ONE desktop.  The keyboard and mouse are wireless. Love the idea of less wires. Plus, since it is an All-In-One, no CPU, another bonus. The RAM is 12 GB and it comes with a Solid-State Drive of 1 TB, yahoo! Okay, now to my wish list, I want three monitors, my current set up is two, but I will have an extra monitor from my old desktop. My brilliant son looks at the back of the Monitor of the All-in-One and sees two HDMI ports. Okay, it’s on sale and it’s discounted $270 and thus will be shy of $800. I like that because I am also stingy, my dad would say it’s being thrifty but I know better.

Anyway, now comes the part I really, really hate, I have to get my stuff off my old computer and put it on my new computer. Yuck! Oh wait, that is really YUCK!

I set up my new computer on my desk next to my old computer. The first thing I do, after doing all the setup stuff that a new computer requires, I create an “Install” folder in my Download folder. This is where I store all my install programs and thus it is really easy to look at the folder on my old computer to know what one’s I need on my new computer.

I install my Dropbox drive onto the new computer which copies all the files within Dropbox to my computer. Yeah, that is done. Next, I install my iDrive on my new computer and sync the Cloud Drive formerly known as sync drive to my computer. Therefore, all those folders and files get copied onto my new computer. This was a very long process because I have a lot of folders in that drive. It is documents I want to access on both my Desktop and Laptop. This is where I store all my genealogy related files.

Next, I install my programs, my genealogy program (Family Tree Maker 2019), two plug-ins for that program (Charting Companion and Family Book Creator), my Office 2021 suite of programs. I install Google Chrome, my browser of choice. I install Zoom because several genealogy related groups use this for some of their meetings. I have some other programs that I needed to install too.

Next, I need to move my files from my old computer to my new computer. I use the folders labelled download, documents and pictures. I back them up onto an external hard drive. Then I create a folder on my new computer titled Old Computer Files located in my Documents folder. Then I copy the folders and files to my new computer. I don’t want to mess up my new computer with all my old folders and files, however I want those on my new computer. I hope to slowly go through these old folders and only move over those that I really need.

I think of my old folders like the contents of all the junk drawers from my old house, that I toss into a large box. The box is in my house, but I will need to sort through and remove each item individually and place them into neater, organized junk drawers in my new home. I will be honest, this will probably never happen, but a person can hope. Anyway, it will keep my new computer downloads, documents and pictures a lot more organized.  I have found several files that I didn’t need and I already deleted those. If I think I will need them, they are on that external hard drive.

After I am confident that I have everything off my old computer, I decided to reset it to factory defaults so that it will erase my old hard drive. Now if I want to donate it or even recycle it at the local BestBuy, my personal data is off the computer. Plus, since I have iDrive, everything that was on my old computer is backed up to cloud with iDrive, so I should be okay, incase some file is missing for some strange reason.

I unplug all the devices hooked up to my old CPU, the keyboard, mouse, two monitors, a different external hard drive. I move the CPU out of the way, I move one of my monitors to the right and slide my new All-in-One monitor to fit between the two monitors. I look at the back of  the All-in-one and YIKES, I really don’t have two HDMI ports, because one is an IN and another an OUT. The IN is for hooking a game console up to the All-In-One, so I really only have one port. Thus, I only have a two-monitor setup, just like my old computer setup. After stomping my feet like a two-year old I call my brilliant son. I am now using this term very sarcastically; in case you can’t tell. He says I need an adapter for my USB-Type C port.

Long story short, all USB-Type C ports are not created equally. Even the clerk at BestBuy lead me down the wrong path. If you have a USB Type-C SuperSpeed port and DisplayPort connector then their suggestion would have worked. I had the first one shown below, I needed either, the third or fourth one, perhaps even the last one would had worked.

My solution: I purchased from Amazon, an USB 3.0 to HDMI Adapter that came with a software driver that I installed and was able to use with one of my USB-Type A ports to extend to my third monitor. Now I am a very happy customer.

Lessons learned; 1) I love having an All-In-One computer because under my desk is free for me to stretch out my feet, plus, my heating vent is located there too. 2) Understand what the ports on your computer are and what can be done with them.(see image below for the ports on my new computer) 3) Not all store clerks at BestBuy appear to know or care to know what they are doing. I was able to return the two items I purchased that didn’t work. 4) Don’t sweat the small stuff. If I hadn’t been able to get the third monitor to work, I still had a wonderful new computer.

Remember to have fun and Just do Genealogy!

DNA may not lie, But it sure is confusing

Example 1: I was watching a TV program about a woman who was going to give up her child to her sister who is unable to bear children. This got me thinking about the child’s DNA and how we might end up interpreting them.

Let’s say the Child has their DNA tested and they are the oldest generation living. Thus, what assumptions might we come up with from his test. If the child didn’t know they were adopted, would they figure out they were adopted.

His legal/adopted mother is the sister of his biological mother. Thus, his DNA results on his mother’s side would appear to be the same and no real unexpected results because his maternal side is the same with either mother. However, it may appear that his legal/adopted mother had an affair because his legal/adopted father’s family would not be showing in his DNA results. Also, what if his biological mother did not have any more children, thus we would not know that his legal/adopted mother is not his biological mother since neither woman had any additional children to find half siblings or descendants of those half siblings. Even if his biological father had additional children, this would not make his maternal DNA any clearer.

Moral of the story, even though DNA doesn’t lie, it might not be so straight forward. We need to always remember these outlying relationships and not judge our ancestors so quickly.

Example 2: I had a former co-worker who adopted her 1^st cousin’s child. Again, I was thinking about the Child’s DNA and how we might end up interpreting them. Her 1^st cousin’s mother and her mother are sisters. Again, let’s say the Child has their DNA tested and they are the oldest generation living and they don’t know they were adopted.

Let’s look at his legal/adopted mother’s DNA compared to his biological mother’s DNA. Both women share one set of grandparents through their maternal side of their family. Thus using the Leeds Method, we may find that the tester’s maternal grandmother’s side of the family matches correctly, however he has three grandparents that are not matching any known relatives, his father’s side (his father's parents), and his maternal grandfather’s side.

Thus, why might this happen? Did his mother have him with another man than his father? Did his grandmother have his mother with another man? The test might show that one branch, his maternal grandfather’s side appears to be matching his grandmother’s brother-in-law’s family. Did grandmother have an affair with her brother-in-law? See how easy it is to jump to the wrong conclusions. We need to test our theories.

This is where testing closer known relatives come in handy. Did his legal/adopted mother have any siblings who had children? If so, do these matches appear further away than expected. Did his biological mother have any other children and did they happen to test and are showing up as half-siblings. Did his biological mother have siblings who have children. If these people didn't test, we may need to seek out these types of relatives and ask them to test.

Moral of this story, again, DNA isn’t always straight forward. We need to let the DNA tell the story. Testing as many close relatives as we can helps us develop a clearer picture. Not only our maternal first cousins (in this case), but maybe his mother’s first cousins or their children (his 2^nd cousins).

A wonderful website to help with our confusing DNA matches is DNAPainter. Their Shared cM Project 4.0 tool has a handy chart to show where matches should fall into. In my 2^nd example, who we think should be his first cousins (children of his adopted mother's siblings) are really his 2^nd cousins and the shared DNA between 1C’s and 2C’s is very different.

Good luck in your DNA research and explore all the relationship possiblites to help in your DNA research!

Ancestry – Ethnicity Inheritance

Ancestry has created a new feature called Ethnicity Inheritance.  Based on your matches DNA and your DNA, it has been able to separate your DNA into two groups, one for each of your parents. Even though, Ancestry doesn’t know which parent each group belongs too, if your parent’s have any unique ethnicity that the other parent doesn’t have you might be able to figure it out.

Here are examples of my DNA along with four siblings. One sibling is my full sister and the other three are my older half siblings. My mother was a widow and remarried my dad and had three more children, with me being the youngest.

My Dad has a strong Irish background, while my mother has a strong English background, my half siblings have Indigenous American ethnicity. Thus, based on these facts, I am comfortable that I was able to determine who Parent 1 and Parent 2 were for all of us.

This first example is for my father’s side, he was a Crinion. Crinion is an Irish name. His paternal grandmother was from Germany. My sister’s ethnicity seems to reflect this with her Eastern Eurpoe & Russia slice of DNA. Being of Irish descent, I am not surprise to see the Sweden & Denmark or Norway in our DNA.

The second example is for my half sibling’s father’s side, he was a McAbee whose ancestors immigrated from France in the Early days of Canada and finally settled in Wisconsin and were some of the early French-American Fur Traders. Because of this, I knew there were Indigenous Americans in their ancestry. Their grandfather’s birth certificate which is pre-1900 states “half-bred” as his race. Since they had ancestors who were in the America’s since the beginning, seeing English and Irish ancestry was not a surprise. I have been able to trace many branches back and found both English and Irish Ancestors.

Finally, my mother’s side. My mother’s father’s ancestry has strong English roots. Her mother’s side has Irish; however, I see some strong Scottish ancestry showing up, which could be from either of her parents, however I feel as if it was from her father whose ancestors came to America much later than her mothers ancestors.  Even though my grandmother’s maiden name is originally German, they settled in America in 1710 and thus started to marry the English who were already here. Thus, the German DNA appears to have dispersed out before reaching my siblings and me. 

If these charts show anything, it shows how random DNA really is. For my mother, My eldest brother, the last one on the right is the only sibling who received any Norway DNA from our mother. My other brother and sister, the third and fourth from left, never received any Sweden & Denmark DNA.  That same sister, doesn’t appear to received any French DNA from her father, while both of my brothers did. My one brother received the most Irish and a little bit of everything else from his father while my oldest brother didn’t receive and Sweden & Denmark DNA.

I am sure these circles might change over time as they refine their process and as more people test. If you have taken a test with Ancestry, check out this feature, it can be interesting especially if you have relatives that you can compare it against. Both of my parents are deceased and thus this might be the only way to see what their DNA might have looked like. 

Find A Grave – Suggested Edits Approved Email Update

Usually, we hear a lot about the cons of a product. People naturally complain and I am no exception. However, I thought I praise an update I came across today.

I am no stranger to making edit suggestions on Find A Grave, I will add full birth dates and death dates if I have found a birth or baptism record to prove the full birth date or a death record that proves the full death dates, I will make those suggestions on Find a Grave. I will attach children to their parents, spouses to their spouses, only if I am 99.99% certain that my facts are accurate. I am never 100% sure about anything, plus it gives me an out (wink wink).

Anyway, usually when Find A Grave responds to your suggested edits, it an email with the person’s name, memorial number and a link that says, “view memorial”.

 

 Imagine my surprise at receiving the following email. WOW

 

Now I can see what my suggestions were. Sometimes I can’t remember what I suggested, so this is really a nice feature. Just in case the image throws you off, her maiden name is “Irish” has in Patricia Irish not that her maiden name is of Irish origin. 

Thank you Find A Grave for the update and to anyone out in the genealogy world who might have made this suggestion, Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Everyone keep doing Genealogy!

 

Creating a Tree for RootsTech Relatives

I have about 1,102 relatives through my RootsTech Relatives page. When it was under 300, I decided to start a tree of my relatives. I went to the end of my list, because people with much more than me, were reporting that you only see the first 300, so I wanted some of the more distanced branches. Currently, my closest match is a 4^th cousin and my farthest is a 8^th cousin.

In my tree, I want to keep it simple and quick. Thus I started a Family Tree Maker tree,  I created a custom fact, FSID that I will manually input, I customized the input screen and placed the new field directly beneath the name.  I only input their name, FSID, birth and death year. I can find more about them by clicking on their name, however, this is a simple and quick tree, that I can reference later and with the FSID, I will be able to find them again, unless between now and when I research someone has merged this ID with another. Then I have the birth and death date, the child and parent info, to find the link again. I am not too worried about not finding this “hint” again.

I could entered them as they appear in my list or I can entered them based on a common ancestor.

Thus to record my new relative, I clicked the down arrow on the far right of my match, to bring up the relationship link. I click on that link to bring up our relationship. Thus I started my new tree with me, my father, and paternal grandmother up my common ancestor. Then back down to my match. For the unknown Deceased and Living, I kept the male surname of Provot, thus it became Deceased Provot and Living Provot, both with unknown gender. Finally with my match, I keyed in their actual user name, a lot of times, it is a real name, as in this case and their gender is known as female. However, I am unsure if this is a maiden or married name at this time. I type in the word “Match” into the FSID field. Then I created a special filter for all those who are my matches and I color coded them Green. This way I can quickly just view how many matches I have inputted and when in normal view I can see them by their color code.

If the last know person in my relative’s line was a female, I will click on their name to bring up the FamilySearch page for this individual. I will see who they married and input the Deceased and/or Living and then their spouses last name. However, I have run across multiple marriages and in those cases, I leave it just Deceased or just Living. These are just hints and holding places for when I am ready to research this line in the future, after RootsTech and after this feature is no longer enable. My goal is to input as many relatives as I can, as long as the feature is turned on.

I have found some problems in these lineages. For example, my 3^rd great grandmother was married to the wrong man. Even though, my 2^nd great mother was showing up as her child, her siblings were not showing up under this bogus marriage.  This family unit was originally created by FamilySearch. Many errors I find are created by FamilySearch who are using records found and most likely are not relatives who know the family or have done extensive research on the family. I did fix the problem, and this cleared the match out of my list.

Another problem I found are lines going through step parents. My mother was raised by her step-father and in fact didn’t know until she was 18 that this man wasn’t her biological father. Even though my tree shows who her biological father is, her step-father is married to her mother and also shows on her tree. She has two half-sisters and I want to keep that family tie. RootsTech Relatives have many branches to my step-grandfather’s ancestors. I was able to detach my mother from her step-father who legally adopted her, so that I would not see these matches. I also found some remote relatives who descend through these various step parent relationships and for these I have skipped. It can get complicated trying to fix these relationships. They show up because they are listed a child of the step-parent along with their biological parent. I am not against step relationships, however with the limit of 300 relatives, I want to display those who are biologically my relatives first. I want to use this file to help me sort through my DNA matches.

I have found children born after their mother’s death and some born 9 months after their father’s death. I would not easily have seen these, if I didn’t actually key them into my software. I have kept those for now, only because the date I am seeing might not actually be a death date but rather a date after an event, such as death: after 1900, however it will just show 1900 on the relationship screen.

Overall, with all the con’s, I think the pro’s outweigh them, and I will continue inputting all this information, because any “hint” is better than no hint at all. I have entered 221 relative lines thus far, and look forward to developing a research plan on how to handle this tree once RootsTech is over.

Good luck in your research.

Reviewing my Genealogy Projects or Goals for 2022

Well it’s been a full month into 2022 and I decided to review my goals. I realized that I need to put myself on a schedule to accomplish my goals. I don’t want my goals to overwhelm me and prevent me from getting anything done.

In the past, I found that scheduling genealogy was the easiest way for me to accomplish my goals.

My goals consists of writing for my genealogy blogs, I also want to clean up my paper files, especially those I inherited from my aunt, I am creating some trees from a couple of genealogy family history books that I hope will help with my DNA matches and with my own family tree, plus I need to sort through numerous slide boxes that I inherited from my parents. I also started a new project helping my sister-in-law with her mother’s maiden name family history. Someone started this back in the 1980’s and it hasn’t been updated since. She is planning on a family reunion and wants to present a book for family members.

I have a lot of projects and limited time to achieve them. Like all of us, time in finite but my projects seem infinite. So instead of be crippled by the thought of all these projects, I have decided to come up with a plan or guide to get these items done.

For my blog writing, I have decided to participate in Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks. In the past I have made a feeble attempt at this, however, this year I have decided to do better. Notice I say DO not Try, I am going to DO IT! Anyway, since the prompts come out on Monday, I am going to dedicate Monday to writing the blog.

Next, I have created two trees based on printed family histories. One is for my maternal grandmother’s maiden name, Hiltz or Hilts. This branch seems to fall apart after my 3rd great grandfather. I am speculating that the primary couple of this book is really my ancestor, so I want to create the tree and then see if I can place my matches onto this tree.  I also started a tree on the Boone Family, you know the Daniel Boone family. I have many matches with Daniel Boone’s ancestors and I have two book sources to create this tree. Because I don’t really want to work on both at the same time, I have decided to start with the Hiltz/Hilts family because I have already done 232 of the 319 pages in the book. Thus I will work on this project on Tuesday. I will then work on the Boone family, once I am done with the Hiltz/Hilts book.

My Sister-in-law has been helping me with her family tree. We are working off the printed pages from the previous person and researching for more complete information, expanding branches. She is my other set of eyes and helps me avoid some silly input mistakes. I have decided to designate Wednesday for her Steffes Family. 

Thursday will be my going through my Aunt’s binders. A lot of this is from a project we worked on for her maiden name. While looking at my tree, I realized that I really didn’t do any source citations on where I found this information. So I am reviewing what we had, updating my citations, adding new information, scanning what I need to get rid of all this paper. I am keeping some paper stuff, such as pictures and some obituaries that I am not finding online. This is slow going. I had originally thought I could get through one binder a month; she has about twelve fat binders. However, I am only on the first binder and I realize this is unrealistic. I need to get through this project, so I am not going to allow this to get me off track. Any binders that I get through will be good. 

Finally, those darn slides, 48 boxes of those darn slides. I plan on reviewing one box at a time. I purchased a slide projector to see the slides. I want to keep those with family in them. Being the youngest, I don’t have a lot of pictures of my family. I was hoping to create stacks to designate those I could send out to a third party to scan for me. However, I do have a personal scanner and could do it myself. I am no fence on which way to proceed. I might have to see how long it will take me to get through a box. I thought I would do one per week, but I think I was being ambitious. I won’t know until I do at least one box of slides. For now, I have decided Friday can be my slide day. 

This leaves me Saturday and Sunday as my free days. I don’t really do Genealogy every day of the week. My retired hubby would not let me get away with that. However, when I get a day or two, I can let the day of the week help me guide me into which project I want to work on. My mood might be a bigger contributing factor in my decision.

How do you work on your genealogy? Do you need a schedule like me or do you just do whatever? It doesn't matter how you do it, just DO IT! 

Is your tree built out enough for your DNA Matches.

 Do you have that strange match that seems to match relatives on both your parents’ sides of the family?

You know your parents aren’t related but there is another reason.

Here is an example:

My maternal 1^st cousin twice removed, Fred married Ella Gorr. My paternal first cousin also married a Gorr. Ella’s parents are Albert Gorr and Emily Damp. They had a son Alvin Gorr. Alvin had a son Richard Gorr. Richard’s son married my paternal first cousin.

Thus my first cousin’s children with the son of Richard are also related to the descendants of Fred and Ella Gorr.  Ella is my first cousin’s son 2^nd Great Aunt. Her children are first cousins twice removed to said son. Ella’s grandchildren are 2^nd cousins once removed, while her great grandchildren are 3^rd cousins with my first cousin’s son.

I am third cousins of Ella’s grandchildren and 3^rd cousins once removed to her great grandchildren. Thus when looking at shared matches with my Paternal first cousin’s son, some of Fred and Ella’s descendants could end up on our shared matches list along with my expected matches from my Paternal side.

Moral of story, even though people say “DNA never lies” it can be confusing. Keep in mind that if all your 3^rd cousins did test, you might only match 90 percent of them. It is how DNA is passed down, very random.

I figured this all out because I had entered the spouses’ parents of people who married into my family. I recognized this name, however, even if I didn’t, I do all my entering in Family Tree maker, and whenever I enter a new surname, I can quickly see if that surname already exists in my Index. From there, I can do some quick research to see if those people are related to each other. This also helps with duplicate people. If I notice the same name already in my file, I do some extra research and see if in fact these are two different individuals or the same person and thus they need to be merged.