Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with Names

Okay well I'm way behind (as usual) in my blog, but I found this Saturday Night Genealogy Fun as posted by Randy Seaver last week that looked interesting:


Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1)  Go to the Popular Baby Name page on the Find the Best website at http://popular-baby-names.findthebest.com/.

2)  Enter your given name into the search box, click the appropriate gender button, and click on the "All" Decade button.  Note the results for your given name.

3)  Tell us about how the popularity of your name has changed over the decades.  Were you named during the buildup, the height, or the drawdown of the popularity of your given name?

4)  Share your results in a blog post of your own, in comments to this blog post, or in a Facebook status or Google+ Stream post.


Mine: 


1. My given name is Beth
            1880s: rank 770, percent with name 0.0055%, # of babies: 77
            1890s: rank 595, percent with name 0.0102%, # of babies: 240
            1900s: rank 612, percent with name 0.0108%, # of babies: 334
            1910s: rank 389, percent with name 0.0238%, # of babies: 2,027
            1920s: rank 386, percent with name 0.025%, # of babies: 3,100
            1930s: rank 354, percent with name 0.03%,   # of babies: 3,313
            1940s: rank 239, percent with name 0.0581%, # of babies: 8,653
            1950s: rank 125, percent with name 0.1723%, # of babies: 33,980
            1960s: rank 66, percent with name 0.309%, # of babies: 58,378
            1970s: rank 110, percent with name 0.1754%, # of babies: 28,867
            1980s: rank 183, percent with name 0.0833%, # of babies: 15,368
            1990s: rank 689, percent with name 0.0157%, # of babies: 3,087


So Beth peaked in the 1960s with a rank of 66, which is before I was born in the 1970s. 


Of course I could've also looked at Elizabeth, Bethany, Bethel, Elisabeth and Lizbeth. By far Elizabeth is the most popular name of all the previous ones mentioned. Elizabeth comes in 4th in the 1880s, 5th in the 1890s, 12th in the 1970s, etc. Elizabeth was lowest in the 1940s and 1950s at 21st place and 25th place, which is still WAY above my name Beth in any decade. I'm sure most of you reading this have an ancestor named Elizabeth. 


This was interesting, although a somewhat time consuming process. 

Timelines in Genealogy

About 10 days ago, I attended the Nebraska State Genealogy Conference in Grand Island. It's my chance to get away from the kids for a couple days and listen to speakers on my favorite topic, and talk to people whose eyes don't glaze over. If you're reading this, you may know what I mean.
Our speaker, Laura Prescott from New Hampshire, talked about several things but her first topic was timelines. I love charts and graphs; I do have a degree in mathematics so it comes naturally to me. This was very interesting to me.
Timelines are outlines of our ancestors' lives. There are different types of timelines: text, graph, Excel (spreadsheet), or geographic. You can make timelines for an individual, a family, or perhaps a certain set of events (like the Civil War).
Timelines can show us where we have gaps in our research, or possibly where we have something that doesn't make sense (like great-grandma giving birth to grandpa at age 9, possible but not likely).
I really want to explore this further, but I did a quick timeline with my family tree on Ancestry.com and took one example of my paternal grandmother's page:

To do this on Ancestry.com, go to "publish" and then to "family history books", then I clicked on "standard". You then have to enter a few things about what you want; it will generate your book. This is one page out of about 60 it generated. You could then order the book through Ancestry.

Now my Grandma moved A LOT! Those 60+ years between 1935 and 1998 were busy ones for her. What it doesn't show is her 3 children, that she lost both her parents and her husband in the same year (1951) and all her moves. My father was the youngest of three boys, and he was not quite 8 years old when his father died. So my grandma had to finish raising three boys (age 8, 11, and 13) and do the farming when her husband died. My grandmother never remarried, and I never knew my paternal grandfather (something my kids will have in common with me, as my dad died before they were born).

This probably means I need to add more information to my tree, and then it would show up on the timeline. It is interesting to see what went on in the world when my Grandma was alive.

There are several other sites that will do timelines, as well as several genealogy programs. Do a search or play around and see what you get.
One person at the convention mentioned they send personal timelines out with birthday cards at certain "milestone" birthdays. That sounded like a neat idea to me; one I may have to try when I can remember.

Hopefully I can play around with these some more. Maybe you learned something or got an idea and you can get some experience with timelines too.

The name Atalissa

Using Randy Seaver's genealogy fun, I wanted to do some research on my daughter's name: Atalissa. It is an unusual name, and we got it from the town in Iowa. So I researched people in Iowa with the name Atalissa on Ancestry.com. Thankfully Ancestry does not MAKE you put in a surname; Findagrave does make you put in at least a few letters of a surname.

http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/04/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-do-some.html

I found some census results, but then I thought I should concentrate on one person. So then I searched for girls named Atalissa born or lived in Atalissa, Muscatine county, Iowa. 

The most interesting result: Atalissa M. (Davis) Worrall born in November 1856 in Muscatine county, Iowa. According to some of the history of Muscatine county, Iowa, a Mr. William Lundy came to the county in 1847. While mining in California, Mr. Lundy was near a small village named Atalissa, named for an Indian queen of one of the tribes. Being pleased with the name he adopted it for the town in Muscatine county, Iowa. He also remarked that the first female child being born there and named Atalissa should be presented with a corner lot. That recipient was this Miss Atalissa Davis.

We find Atalissa (Davis) Worrall in the 1900 census in Muscatine County, Iowa, a divorced woman living as a boarder. From Iowa birth index and marriage index, I can tell Atalissa Davis married Jerome Worrall on April 21, 1881 in Muscatine county, Iowa, and they had a couple children: a John Lee Worrall born in May 1882, and an unnamed baby born in June 1884. In the 1885 Iowa state census we find Jerome and Atalissa Worrall living in Muscatine county, Iowa with a baby (unnamed) of approximately 1 year old.   

I can't find much else on what happens to Ms. Atalissa (Davis) Worrall after 1900, with what time I spent on it researching on Ancestry.com and Findagrave.com (my 2 favorite sites). Maybe I'll keep searching for fun. It's good experience for me. I know there are several sites I didn't try. Not really wanting to spend any money on this since it's not my relative and no one else is reimbursing me. Just not certain how much other time I want to spend on it. What I found was interesting to me and maybe some day my daughter will be interested, too. 

Saturday Genealogy Fun

Well it's Saturday and that's time for Randy Seaver's Saturday fun. See here for more info on today's "assignment": http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/04/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-do-some.html

First name I was given: Cary House
First census result: 1930 census in Brookfield, Linn, Missouri
Cary W. House, male born about 1861 (age 69) in Maryland, Widower, Roomer
Alonso Dickinson, head of house, 38 years old
Elda Dickinson, wife, 35
Five kids: Gilbert, Alberta, Alonso Jr., Eldon, and Nelda.

Can't really find any other results on this person. Maybe this is a transcription error. It looks like the name could also be Cory Hause, or similar names.

Second name I was given: Donna Watts
First census result: 1930 census in Havre, Hill, Montana on Kennedy Avenue
Donna E. Watts, age 42 (born about 1888), in Illinois, Single, Lodger
Ruth Robertson, age 39, head of "house"
Twenty other "lodgers" listed, and one 8-year old listed as a boarder

I also find Ms. Donna E. Watts in the Washington death index. She died 25 July 1975 in Des Moines, Washington, at the age of 87.
In 1920, I find her as a roomer in Cascade County, Montana.
In the SSDI, she is listed with birth date 19 January 1888 and death July 1975 with last residence in Seattle, King, Washington.
That's about it on Ms. Donna Watts.

This was a fun exercise and gave me a chance to use my research skills. It seems like good practice for someone like me, who would like to be a "professional genealogist" one day, maybe sooner than later.

1940 Census: Take 1

As many (or all) of you know, the 1940 Census was released Monday April 2 on archives.com. Monday was a busy day for me with a fussy baby and other things going on, so I found the site but didn't have time to search. As busy as the site was, that's probably okay.
So Tuesday afternoon (yesterday) I had some time and I found some family! Yippee! With no index, it takes some time to look through the images and the images take time to load. I found it easiest to download each page, look at it, then go to the next and download it. I'm not sure that these are true "downloads" as I don't see the 20+ files I went through in the download folder on my computer.
I tried my mom's side of the family first: I went to the 1930 census and found which enumeration district (ED) my grandma and grandpa were listed in. I went to the ED for my grandpa in Jefferson County, Nebraska and didn't find them. I did find my great-uncle, great-aunt and distant cousins in Jefferson County, Nebraska. No surprise to me at not finding my grandparents as they probably moved in 1940 since they were married in March 1940. So still need to do some digging on that side, or wait for an index.
Next I tried my dad's side: I thought his side might be easier because my grandparents on his side got married in March 1935. So I went to the 1930 census and found in which ED my grandparents were. Then I went to that ED in Cheyenne County, Nebraska to look for them. SCORE! On image (page) 1 (ONE!!) of this ED I find my great-grandparents and my great-aunt.
Hurray! I was so excited. I didn't capture a screen shot of that one but I should probably go back and do that.
I started scrolling to look for my grandparents and I find them with my uncle on page (image) 3!

There they are: Alfred and Mable Jorgensen in Cheyenne County, Nebraska! My uncle was lucky enough to be on one of the "token" lines so I'm sure Grandma (or Grandpa) had to answer more questions about him. But those questions about a child are not so interesting.

Can't wait for the index for Nebraska (and a few other states like Illinois for my husband's family). But till then in my free time, I will continue to research and browse. Feel free to share your stories and experiences with the 1940 census. We are all learning as we start from square one!

Top 10 Surnames

Okay, I'm not David Letterman but here is my Top 10 List (of surnames in my genealogy database). I saw someone else do this and track it year after year, which would be interesting to see how much progress one does.

10. (a 3-way tie) DORMAN, SICKMON & JUNKER all with 10
8-9. (a 2-way tie) ALLISON & KIRKPATRICK with 13
7. SEGGERMAN = 18
6. HOWLAND = 19
5. FLORA = 22
4. ____ (empty/blank) = 31 (I hope this number can go down)
3. REGNIER = 33
2. JORGENSEN = 44
1. FOSTER = 51

Okay and now my husband's side of the family (including his step-relatives):
10-9. (a 2-way tie) RICHART & RAMSEY = 17
8. CAPRON = 20
7-6. (a 2-way tie) PATTERSON & WHITACRE = 23
5. SMITH = 25
4. ____ (empty/blank) = 26 (again, hope this number goes down)
3. FORESMAN = 42
2. SPARROW = 52
1. THOMPSON = 66

Now I didn't take into consideration name variations (ie: Seggerman/Seggermann) in my genealogy program. I just ran the report. Most of these numbers one would hope would increase, so one would find new family members. However the empty/blank surname I would like to decrease, to put a surname with those people.

Very interesting. Please feel free to comment if you wish.

Genealogy Goals for 2012

Happy New Year! A new year means a good time to turn over a new leaf, set goals, organize, get finances in order, exercise or lose weight.

Yesterday I summed up how I did in 2011 with my genealogy goals. Today I hope to set some goals for 2012. I've always heard goals should be attainable and measurable. Some people like to set short-term goals and long-term goals, and some people like a few goals or a lot of goals. I guess the main thing is find what works for you; I'm still trying to figure out what works for me.

Personal genealogy: 1) Finish my husband's Mayflower application and get it mailed in. 2) If I get time, start our SAR and DAR applications. 3) Continue working on my brick wall lines and lines where I have received more info, specifically my Irish DACY and CRAHAN family has been a huge brick wall. My SICKMON and HANKS families I have received more info this year. I recently found my g-g-grandfather Charles W. HANKS immigrated with his mother with the last name of EICHBERG (his mother's second married name).

Volunteer genealogy: 1) Finish photographing the Osceola Cemetery and putting it on Findagrave and update the city's database. 2) Get a directory and signs up at the Stromsburg Cemetery. (This is my local cemetery where I am on the cemetery board; this is dependent on funds and time.) 3) Update my Kearney County Nebraska GenWeb site quarterly, and continue to work on the cemetery listing I have.

Writing, Research and Re-organization: 1) Write 2 blog posts a month (or 24 for the year). 2) Take one day and go somewhere not too far (i.e. Tilden or Fairbury) to find more records on one of my family lines (this is dependent on a Daddy Day Care day or Grandma Day Care day). 3) Keep my genealogy papers and computer files organized and back-up my files preferably monthly but no less than quarterly.

Education and Socialization: 1) Go to at least one genealogy conference (hopefully the annual Nebraska conference in May). 2) Take at least one webinar. 3) Continue to read other genealogy blogs and follow #genealogy on Facebook and Twitter. 4) Continue to meet almost monthly with my local genealogy peeps. 5) Look into some education toward becoming a "professional genealogist".

That's 14 goals, probably too many, but I don't want to be bored. All of this and still take care of my family (of currently 3, soon to be 4) and household chores. Stay tuned to see how I do. There is hope for several of these, but I doubt I get all 14 done.