Norway makes an appearance....

 I have Norwegian in me. Have I mentioned that? It might have been easy to miss with all the SWEDISH SWEDISH SWEDISH dispersed through out this blog, but, I am!

   In fact, I found that my SWEDISH great grandfather's own grandfather was Norwegian! (Gasp!) ... But that is for another time....  ; )

      The maternal side of my mother is Smith and Olsen. (Can you guess which is Norwegian?). The Smiths, I've had a ball with, finding treasures and stories and photos.... The Olsens? Well, I have found that there are a lot of Hannahs. And that my great grandmother's father was Ole Olsen. Beyond that, sadly, I've not had much luck.

       Lo and behold Ancestry.com has made some connections, yet again. I received an email from a kind woman who told me that one of her (great) grandfathers came over from Norway with his best friend, Ole Olsen. MY Ole. What a surprise to receive in your mailbox! 

       To confirm, she sent me photos from her aunt's album, of my great grandmother, Ole's daughter.

      She had more information and stories on Ole than I did! I was so happy to hear and see whatever she had to share. We began to pass photos around in hopes of identifying some from her albums that had never been labeled. I had high hopes of finally laying eyes on my great great grandfather. We haven't been able to confirm him yet, but I still have hope!

     One day, she sent me a photo of a house. In the email, she said she had been told that this was Ole's house, but it wasn't confirmed. She wanted to know if I had any opinion on it. I sent the photo to my mother, not telling her what it was, but only asking if she recognized this house. She replied,

     "Yes. This was where your grandma lived, It was your great grandmother's house. I was born in this  house." 

      .... Not what I expected!!!

    I wrote back that I had received this from someone who was told this was Ole's house. He is believed to have built it. My mother was surprised. She had no idea that house belonged in the family beyond her grandmother.

   And I wonder, how do things like this get lost? It wasn't that long ago, how did we not know this already? How am I receiving this from the family of my great great grandfather's best friend?

   My answer? Because some families talk, and some families don't. Some families cherish where they came from, and some might prefer to forget. Whether by dysfunction, or general disinterest, some families just DON'T TALK.

   This side... They didn't talk. And how sad this is to me. But how happy I was to receive this information from someone who was searching through their own family, and kindly reached out. 

   We have shared a lot of tidbits and stories through our emails, this kind woman and me. In the future, with her permission, I will have to share some of those stories on this blog, and give my Norwegian roots a little air time. Lord knows they've been stuffed away for far too long.

Lost in Translation

    Not as, say, being misunderstood. More like lost in joy. Or something close. Let me explain....

         My husband's father is Mexican, with a rich family history. Not in pesos, but in stories. I was graciously given a pedigree from the family and continued working from there, adding everything I found. But I was missing out. Big time.

         I secretly yearned to meet with his grandmother, who lived far from us, down along the US/Mexico border. But I was scared. Mexican woman can be intimidating in their element. And a big part of that was they spoke a language around me that I didn't understand. So I would talk with my father in law about whatever family history he could remember. But like I said. I was missing out.

     There was a generation of information sitting inside my husband's guela, and she did not speak English. And I was chicken. Anytime she came north to Chicago to visit her kids, the opportunity just never came up. Or, you could say, I skated around it and never even tried to make it happen.

        We went down to Chicago for a Labor Day picnic with my husband's family. My FIL had previously asked me to put something together of everything I had compiled of his family, so, I packed it with us before we left. I had generated very detailed reports, and brought a disc with all the documents I had found in my searching. He was happy. I was happy he was happy. I was so happy, I bit the bullet.

    "Do you think I could bring this with to the picnic, and maybe your mom could go over some of this with me, or share some stories?"

     The request was received well from my FIL, but I waited until it was nearly time to leave to approach his mother about it.  And, well, I didn't really approach her. I asked one of her daughters. ....baby steps!

     And she said sure! We went inside and I laid all the reports on the table, opened my laptop and got out my notebook. My husband's Tia sat next to his grandma, and went piece by piece over every document I gave them, but in spanish. Making confirmations and filling in the blanks by translating her responses back to me in English. It was a great experience. I could see on her face when something was missing, or spelled wrong, and would listen very closely to the two of them, trying to understand what was going on. And there were moments when she could not understand me, and i could not understand her, and there would be three people talking two different languages all at the same time, but then suddenly her head would nod, and she'd smile, and I'd smile, feeling like we had accomplished something, even if it was just the correct spelling of someone's name. Before I knew it, I had three pages of notes.

Our family and my husband's Guela, Aug. 2013

     More than anything (and I think this is something that is built into the typical genealogist, one of the very things that wells up from within us and drives us) I relished the time spent at that table with her. I took to heart every memory that was brought up, and every piece of information I was given. I may not have been able to tell what she was saying without the help of her daughter,  but she had that sparkle in her eye that everyone gets when they begin to answer the questions from the unlikely person so interested in their life, in their parent's lives. There was a lightness about her that I enjoyed watching as she conversed back and forth with her daughter over the papers I had laid before them. Those moments to me are the treasure. They are the prize.

    All of us have older generations that are leaving us daily. The wealth of knowledge they carry passes away along with them unless we take the time to tap into that. When we don't we are left guessing. We are left just wishing we could ask them this, or that. And to miss out on the happiness or emotion one exudes while telling their family history is to miss out on one of the great joys of living. Of knowing our roots. This, I feel strongly about.

   I feel blessed to have had the opportunity. Time ran short, and I wasn't able to get into details of the actual lives of her family members, but I hope to maybe next time.

   My advice to you, who may be beginning in genealogy... don't miss out on the opportunity to simply sit and listen with your older generations. They lived the sort of lives that we could not have imagined, and lives that will never be duplicated through history. Learn about them. Learn FROM them. Document it all. And when you are finished, be thankful that you did. Granted, I did this with my own grandparents, but don't neglect your inlaws. The generations that came before your spouse are now also a part of your own history that you will pass on to your children. Take the time to do it while you can. You will not regret it.

Genealogy Apps

I've been MIA for a bit. I was in the middle of refinishing my son's 50 year old Maple Harmony House dresser and nightstand and painting his room to try to give him a "big boy" room for his birthday. Between that and school, and ministry stuff,  my time allotted to digging for dead people has shrunk a bit. I'm happy to say I am finished! At least with the dresser. What was old is now new again! (Kind of like genealogy right?? Right?)

Tada! This is where I've been instead of digging around my family tree......

         







 ANYWAY

 I got a new phone. iphone. My very FIRST iphone.


Yeah, Who cares. I know.


 BUT



 In my in between time I've searched for a few genealogy apps to add to my new toy. And since I've had nothing to share lately, I'd like to share what I've found with you.

                                                            

  Billion Graves App.  

                        This is the one I have used the most so far. I have to say I love it. It's linked up to it's website Billiongraves.com . With the app, using your GPS it locates cemeteries close to your vicinity. And it shows how many graves from that cemetery have been contributed, if any, and where they are. Below is a snapshot of the app.  The app keeps all your photos separated by which cemetery they were taken at.

                           
         So pick your cemetery (or add one if it isn't listed yet) and when you begin taking photos of the graves there, it automatically uploads them to the Billion Graves website where they await transcription, either by you, or a volunteer. (you can help transcribe others' photos too). And the GPS in your smart phone maps each picture so when someone comes across a relative, they can see exactly where they are resting. It also gives you the option to link pictures together when taking them, which is useful for family (grave)sites or when you have a large tombstone to photograph, and you want to keep it with a close up that has the inscriptions on it clearly.
                          It's so easy. You just take the picture and it basically takes care of itself. You also have the option of saving these pictures to your camera roll on your phone, so you can upload them to other grave sites (ok, that sounds weird....) grave WEB sites, like findagrave. The more the merrier! :) ...or if you don't want all the pictures hogging space on your phone, you can choose to have them automatically deleted after they've been uploaded to the website.

      From the Billiongraves.com, (Which you can reach from your smartphone) you can find photos waiting for transcription. Sitting in the Dr.'s waiting room? Hey, contribute a few transcriptions! Waiting in the car for your child to finish football practice? Oh look, free time, let's transcribe some stones for someone! Got caught by the red light on your way to work? ..... ok, just kidding. :)  But it's the whole goodwill/pay it forward that makes the genealogy community so special, RIGHT at your finger tips. Yay! I dig this app.

       And speaking of the whole goodwill/ pay it forwardness the community embraces, Familysearch.org has an indexing app. 

               

Sign in to your familysearch.org account (or create one... it's free) through the app.

Choose the indexing icon on the bottom, and a little snippet will pop up for you to transcribe. You have the option of viewing only the little snippet, or viewing the entire document by the two icons at the top of the screen.

     The app keeps track of all you've transcribed under the "history" section. (although it doesn't currently link up to what you may have already indexed through the main website.) 

      In the settings section, you get to choose the difficulty level of the pieces you are indexing. This gives the app an almost game or puzzle like quality, as you get to challenge yourself here a bit if you'd like. Kind of a neat aspect. (I'm sticking with the Easy level. I get anxiety trying to figure out messes of names, thinking I'm going to get it wrong and it will be filed in a place where an ancestor of the messy named person will never be able to find them in their searching, as I have sent it into some indexing abyss they'll never locate..... )

       Another tiny cool-factor to this, is you can control how many snippets wait in your offline queue. So if you are going to be in an unconnected place for a while and you need your fix, you can change it from 25 to a nice and hefty 500. That'll keep you busy for a while.  :)

    I'm really happy with this app. I feel like it keeps me connected into the genealogy world even if the busy life has kept me from digging up my own roots. I'm still "doing something". And I like that.

Another app I have added is called the Shoebox, from 1000memories. It quickly scans photos from your iphone to add to your album which you can access from your app or the website. You can link it up with facebook, or have people "follow" your shoebox. You have the option to add dates, tags, descriptions or stories/memories that may go along with the picture or the person in the picture. And the site offers unlimited storage. More detail can be found here.

   I have used photobucket to store a lot of family photos, but I like the way the  items on 1000Memories are displayed much more.
    A down side I have found with this is that it's difficult to accurately label a document that's uploaded as a photo. (Like a birth certificate saved as a Jpeg.). It gives you the ready made fields of information to fill in like Who, When, Where, which doesn't really work when you've got a document. And then it looks goofy when you try to just put the document info into those slots. Not very nice and tidy. BUT it does keep all your stuff available online in an appealing way, making it easy to share with who you choose. (or everyone... you can fix that up in your settings.)

   I would explain more, but someone who should be napping is crying so mommy must go see which one it is. :)

     If you've tried any of the apps, let me know what you thought of them. Do you have any other genealogy Apps you have found useful? I'd love to hear about them!