Saturday Genealogy Fun: Random Research....Sally Beasley

Well it's Saturday which means Randy Seaver posts Saturday (Night) Genealogy Fun at his blog.
Here is the reference to today's: http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/09/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-do-some.html

1)  We're going to do a little bit of Semi-Random Research tonight...what is your first name? [This is the easy part!]

2)  Go to your family tree database of choice (you know, like RootsMagic, Reunion, Ancestry Member Tree), and determine who the first person in your alphabetical name index is with a surname starting with the first two letters of your first name (e.g., my first name is RAndall, so I'm looking for the first person with a surname starting with RA).  [If there are no surnames with those first two letters, take the surname after that letter combination.]

3)  What do you know about this person based on your research?  It's OK to do more if you need to - in fact, it's encouraged!

4)  How are you related to this person, and why is s/he in your family tree?

5)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook Status post or Google+ Stream post.

1) My first name is Beth (no, it's not Elizabeth)

2) I use TMG (The Master Genealogist) although I am thinking of changing programs or at least trying a new one or two or three out. 

The first (and only) person with a surname starting with BE is.....

  Sally Beasley

3-4) Sally Beasley died in about 1869 probably in Brown County, Ohio. She was the wife of Rev. Matthew Gardner, and the mother of Lucinda E. Gardner who married William Johnson Lindsey. So I am her 4th-great-granddaughter. 

I have that she was born in Virginia but not sure of the year. Her husband was born in 1790 so probably she was born around 1800 give-or-take a few years. 

So yet again this leads me to another person I probably need to do more research on. Her husband is somewhat notable so maybe there would be something more written on her. 

Day 2 of Midwest Family History Expos

Day 2 of the Midwest Family History Expos:

First I attended James Tanner's "Family Tree has replaced the New Family Search. Are You Ready?". I wasn't quite sure what Family Tree was so this was good and I learned quite a bit. Family Tree is a "program" on FamilySearch's web site where there can be unified individual data, photos and stories, and sources from web sites. So Family Tree is a wiki. It is NOT YOUR family tree; it is EVERYONE's family tree. Everyone can make changes, but you get notified about people who makes changes on your people. You need a login and email to use this, but otherwise it is free. This was introduced in February 2012.

After that I attended two sessions on New York Research by Arlene Eakle. Since I am stuck on my client's New York ancestors, I thought I might get some help. Apparently New York is the hardest state to research as they appear not to have much online. And apparently Irish is the second hardest demographic to research (after African-American), and guess what? There are A LOT of Irish who immigrated to New York, including my client's! The first session focused on early 1700's Western New York research which didn't help me at all. The second session helped slightly more as she gave a couple of web sites that might help, as well as some Family History Center microfilms that might help. No revelations, and no huge New York web site I've been missing so that was a bit of a bummer. But maybe that means I'm thorough.

The last session I attended was James Tanner's Family Search Wiki. Those of us on #genchat had talked about the Family Search Wiki some time ago so I was already somewhat familiar with it. At that time, I had even made some small contributions to it. So I didn't learn as much at this one, but again this was not the presenter's fault. This was a packed room, so maybe I was the only one who didn't learn much. I did learn that Mr. Tanner is a moderator of the Wiki so if you make changes to Arizona and Utah, he is probably going to look at them. Of course, he says almost no one does research in Arizona, which makes sense when you think of the population that retire there.

So overall it was a good conference. I may not have always made the best choices in sessions I attended. There were 5 or 6 choices each time. Family History Expos gives you a CD of the syllabus for EVERY class when you register, which is worth it. About 300 pages of genealogy information on a CD is worth the registration fee, and if you want a printed copy then you pay extra. And I didn't win any prizes but maybe next time! It sounds like they are coming back to central Nebraska next year! Contact me if you have questions about this.

Review of Midwest Family History Expos

This last weekend I went to the Midwest Family History Expos. It seemed like a smaller crowd this year, and maybe a few less presenters, and a few less displays. No one was selling shirts or bags. I wore my "I seek dead people; I'm a genealogist" shirt on Friday and several people commented on it. I could've ordered these from the company and sold several! Note to Fun Stuff for Genealogists (.com), please come next year.

Okay so here is what I picked and attended. At least my genealogy friend from my town who also attended only picked one of the same ones I did!

1. Friday afternoon: Since I have a Flip-Pal Scanner, I started with Philipp Mayer's presentation "How to use the Flip-Pal Scanner to Document your family in 5 easy steps". This course was marked "all levels" but should've been marked as beginner. Anyone who has owned and used their Flip-Pal pretty much knew what was in this presentation. So I didn't learn much, other than I need to update my software and what one accessory does. I don't think this is the fault of the presenter; he did a fine job.

2. Next was James Tanner's "Exploring the Resources of MyHeritage and WorldVitalRecords.com". I went to many of James' presentations as I liked them and I usually learned a lot or at least something. Last year I went to his library presentation which was very informative so I thought I would learn a lot from this one. I was right, as I didn't know much about MyHeritage. MyHeritage has family trees from all over the world in 40 languages, and it has things like smart match, super search and record matches. It sounded like full access costs about $200 a year but it might be worth it if it finds ALL your Findagrave matches in your tree, etc. I think it could be better than Ancestry. I'm going to have to check out MyHeritage. I did download the app while in the class but need to use it.

3. After supper, I took in another of James Tanner's presentations "Setting Goals to Focus Your Research". This was marked as "Experienced" and I'm nearly positive I was the youngest one there, so the others probably wondered HOW I could be "experienced". Well I never got lost, so I think I was in the right place. Some of these tips were familiar, but some were new. The main one I have trouble with is "work on one family at a time". I tend to bounce around, but sometimes I work on one family line one day and another the next so I think that's what he meant.

4. Last on Friday I went to Arlene Eakle's "Basic Sources 1775-1815" class. She mentioned how this is the toughest time period and gave some helpful hints on the order to find records and strategies. For the most part I agreed, other than she says try marriage records first and census records second. I nearly always start with census records as access to them is usually easier (less expensive too). Maybe she can find a lot of marriage records online but states I research usually require ordering them. I enjoyed her class too, although some of this was probably familiar to me.

That was day one. Hopefully I will blog about day two tomorrow. If you want to know more about the presenters, Arlene Eakle has a web site arleneeakle.com with her blogs, and James Tanner blogs and is on Twitter (@genealogysstar).