Cradle to the Grave

I'm not a professional genealogist.  I believe I've said it before but I'll say it again and I'll continue to say it; I'm a family historian.  I am, however, a professional librarian with decades of library experience and decades of family history research experience.  I've made many of the mistakes that most people make when they start researching their family history.

It's good to begin with a goal in mind.  Maybe there's a family illness that you want to get more information about.  Maybe there was some change in the way your family lived and you want to understand what changed.  Maybe, as in my case, there's a family legend that you've grown up with and you suddenly realize that you have no idea if it's true or not.  And, maybe you just want to know more about the people who came before you.  It's good to begin with a goal in mind to aim for.

But, sometimes the desire to reach that goal makes us impatient and sloppy and we leap on the first new clue that seems to move us closer to that goal.  Sometimes, too intense a focus on that goal leads us to overlook information that initially seems unimportant and trivial because it doesn't tell us anything about what we're so intent on finding.  That can be a mistake that will cost months and years of time in backtracking to recover information we bypassed and ignored.

I began with a very specific goal and spent quite a few years moving along fruitfully toward that goal, in a straight line and up against a brick wall in my matrilineal family.  Along the way, I noticed other interesting things about other branches of the family and learned some things about my paternal families.  I decided to research ALL my families, maternal and paternal.  After years of research, having reached brick walls on every line, I realized I need more living relatives to tell me what they know and, since I'm not getting any younger, neither are they and time is a-wasting.

There are too many gaps in too many family branches; decades are empty when I can't find a particular family group.  Why?  Where were they?

So, I began a Cradle to the Grave research on each and every individual in my database, to fill in holes, not just for that individual but for their parents, spouses and children; because you never now where a bit of information has been documented.

Each of the individuals in my families database was born, lived a life, some had a family, and they died.  Each of those lives was filled with many activities and other people.  Tracking each of those individuals tells me something about that person and about the people around them.  It also places them in the context of geography and history.

It's very interesting following them through their lives.  They were born there and lived there how long?  Then, the family moved there.  Why?  What did they do for a living?  Sometimes they lived near other family members.  Sometimes they ventured off on their own.  Sometimes work or the military took them to new places.  Sometimes family tragedy changed the make up of a particular family.  Sometimes other family members merged branches of the family together.

You begin to see a pattern in the life of each individual, in their family group. You get a sense of the path they took.  Sometimes this helps when suddenly they disappear for a decade or more.  Sometimes you get a feeling where they might have gone, who they might have gone to.  Not always, but sometimes.

We're fortunately, me and my families, that so many were in New York State where, in addition to the federal censuses, taken every 10 years on the decade, there was, for many years, a state census, also taken every 10 years on the 5th year.  It's possible to get a snapshot of a family group nearly every 5 years for quite a few decades.  The missing gaps are always a mystery but part of the picture.  In following their lives, other members of the family come into view from time to time, revealing more information about the family as a whole and about those individuals as well.

It's a time consuming but rewarding practice.

Copyright, FamilyTracker, Lorraine I. O'Dell, 2013.  All rights reserved.

In Memoriam

Harold Clinton Beismer
April 2, 1928 - November 5, 2013

With siblings

Sitting on Aunt Vivian's lap

                       

Scowling front left

   

With sister, Mary

With brothers, Roy and Sim, Jr.

Looks like most of the family - Uncle Harold on right.


At various Wormuth/Hulse reunions

Uncle Harold in back, left - Dad on right - and me, back to camera

He got the prize for the oldest, I think, that year.

Uncle Harold with his guitar and Delilah Wormuth Babcock

Miscellaneous Photos

Clearly on Tripp Avenue

Retirement Photo

Happy Catch

Rest in Peace, Uncle Harold.  I wish I could have seen you one more time before you left.

Clarinda Oliver

Clarinda Oliver was the daughter of Ezra Oliver and Hester Crandall.  I last find her on the 1860 Census, in Windham, Greene County, NY, with her sister, Francis Victoria and her mother.  Francis was 18, Clarinda 14 and Hester 55.  I don't find Hester again and assume she died before the next census in 1870.  None of us has verified her last resting place.

Francis married a Charles Dougherty but I have no documentation for that marriage and there are many Charles Dougherty's in NY at the time.

What happened to Clarinda?

I do find a Clarinda Every or Evey in Middletown, Delaware County, age 26, on the 1870 census.  Could that be Clarinda Oliver?  I don't know.  If it is, she and her family disappear again as of the 1880 census.

Let me know if you find her anywhere.

My task now, as I've set it, is to trace each individual in my database from birth to death with as much concrete documentation as I can find, beginning with direct line ancestors but working through the entire database.  Quite an undertaking with over 3,200 individuals in the database.

Documentation:  I prefer to have 3 corroborating sources, particularly if there is anything iffy about any particular document.  Over the years, I've found so many oddities in documents, so many nearly identical individuals (names, places, ages, dates, etc.) that I begin with skepticism and work toward trust.

Clearly, many, many people were either completely disinterested in leaving evidence of their existence or worked to conceal it.

Clearly, many, many people are very poor spellers, have very poor penmanship (including myself) and seem shy about asking how to spell a name.

In any case, I highly recommend not jumping to conclusions in searching for relatives and ancestors.  You will be very surprised at the number of individuals with the identical name, born the same year, living in nearly the same place.  Do a web or Facebook search -- you'll be surprised.

  Keep in touch.