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Weekend Reading: The Optimist’s Guide to Letting Go

I’ve spent my summer reading contemporary women’s fiction and thrillers, the type of books that are fun and easy and take your mind off everything else that’s happening. One of these books is The Optimist’s Guide to Letting Go by Amy E. Reicher. A decent read that follows 3 generations over the course of a week as a huge family secret is revealed. I really enjoyed Amy’s book The Coincidence of the Coconut Cake and was happy to check out another of her books.

Why on earth am I talking about this book on a genealogy blog? Well, when Gina, whom the story revolves around, learns the big secret, she comes up with a list of questions she wants to ask her mother and they are fantastic.

One of the things a beginner genealogist always hears in genealogy is to talk to your relatives while you can. Talk to them early and talk to them often. Whether a formal recorded interview or just conversational questioning around the holiday table, our ancestors and relatives can teach us to much about our family. There are a lot of interview questions available online and in books to use, but I thought these would be great additions. It can be easy to forget that we don’t just want to find those names and dates, but, as much as possible, the things people believed, how they lived their lives, how they truly were. A well-rounded profile of an ancestor is always more enjoyable to read then a pedigree chart. If you parents, grandparents, cousins, etc. are still able to be interviewed, the questions below might be a good starting point in truly getting to know them and to open them up for questions on the rest of your family tree. I know I’ll be asking them to my family.

“1. What is one fact you know to be true?

2. Have I lived up to your expectations?

3. How did you meet my father?

4. How are we alike? Different?

5. What’s been your greatest joy?

6. Have you ever felt overwhelmed and wanted to give up?

7. What is your greatest heartbreak?

8. What is your biggest regret?

9. What is the best part of being my mom?

10. What do you need me to know?”

Have you interviewed any relatives? What was the most interesting or most surprising thing you learned?

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Tombstone Tuesday: Frankfort Center Cemetery

My family began taking Sunday drives in April of this year to compensate for otherwise being in our house (I get itchy feet if I can’t travel). It has been a wonderful way to explore parts of Central New York that we previously said we would visit “someday.” This past Sunday we went to the Frankfort Center Cemetery to look for a genea-friend’s family there.

Frankfort is a small town located in Herkimer County, located about 8 miles from Utica. The cemetery is small and overlooks the valley, which is lovely at this time of the year. Like many smaller cemeteries, you can see the family connections over the generations. The oldest graves were from the late 1700s and it is still in active use.

If you have ancestors from this area, there is a transcription of the cemetery here and photos at Find A Grave and New York Gravestones.

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Weekend Reading: Unpuzzling Your Past

My original copy and the updated edition of Unpuzzling Your Past

It appears that I was always meant to be a librarian. When I first started researching my family as a young teen, one of the first things I did was borrow books from Lancaster Public Library on how to research correctly. Soon after I decided Unpuzzling Your Past by Emily Anne Croom was so helpful I had to buy it (well, likely ask my mom to buy, though I did have a paper route around that time.)

I am still thankful that this is the first genealogy book I picked up and continue to recommend it to new genealogists (or genealogists who went right into researching and now want to expand their skills) for a few reasons:

The focus on cluster research (now also known as the FAN Club)

In my experience, people frequently learn about, and start practicing, cluster research when they hit a brick wall and need ways to break through. Thanks to this book, I learned right away to research not just my answers but their relatives, friends, and neighbors. The appendix also includes a relationship chart, so you can figure out who all of these cousins are and what the often confusing “once removed” means.

The focus on citations

Those of us who have been researching our family for a while will often come upon a mention of a document that we took a note on when we were first researching and realize we need to look the document again, except we have no idea where we found that item or how to find it now. Luckily, due to this book, I have rarely had that occur as Croom states early to document your sources and so I did. The citations weren’t pretty and definitely didn’t follow the prescribed Evidence Explained format, but they were good enough for a beginner and then to find things again as my skills grew.

Your 8 Greats

Anyone who has talked to me about starting their family history research or has taken on on my intro classes has heard me say that a good first step is figuring out who all of your 8 great-grandparents are and to document the facts you have. This idea comes straight from this book and is still one of the best I’ve heard for beginner genealogists. Filling in your first full 4-generation pedigree chart is such an accomplishment! Additionally, Croom talks about not just getting the info needed for the chart, but to really figure out who your ancestors were, which blends in with cluster research and means you start out as more than just a name collector.

Caveats

I had the 3rd edition, which came out in 2005 but there is an updated 2010 edition. I will say a new edition, with more information on online sources and DNA is definitely needed. Despite these missing items, there is still a lot to learn from Unpuzzling Your Past and I’ll be writing about other intro books in further posts.

What books did you use as a beginning genealogist? What books did you wish you had used?

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Tombstone Tuesday: Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo

Joseph and Sophia Gresz Tombstone
A tombstone in Forest Lawn Cemetery

Forest Lawn Cemetery, located in the city of Buffalo, Erie County, New York, was found in 1850. According to their website, they now have “more than 161,000 permanent residents” in 269 acres. If you have ancestors from Buffalo, it’s likely at least one was buried here.

When I first started tracing my family tree, Forest Lawn was the first cemetery I went to specifically to research. I remember going to the cemetery office with my Gramma (I was too young to drive) and a list of relatives I had learned were buried there, such as Joseph and Sophia Gresz, above. The workers in the office would give me a map and off we would go, walking up and down the rows.

Sophia Gresz Burial Permit
Sophia Gresz Burial Permit

Over the past few years, research has gotten easier at Forest Lawn, as they have opened the Margaret L. Wendt Archive and Resource Center and not only digitized their records, but posted them online in a free database. Using the Locate a Loved One database you can find plot registers, burial permits, and more. Even if your ancestor doesn’t have a tombstone, you will be able to find birth and death dates and potential relatives. I even found paperwork for two ancestors who were exhumed from their location in Eden and moved to Forest Lawn. Once you have this information you can look for a tombstone, hire someone to search for a tombstone, or ask a volunteer to do so on Find A Grave or Billion Graves.

Even if you do not have ancestors here, I highly recommend visiting the cemetery if you’re in the area. There are normally walking and trolley tours of the grounds. Many famous people, such as Millard Fillmore, Red Jacket, and Rick James, are buried here. It is also a nice spot to just walk or drive around; they even have an app for self-guided tours.

Have you ever visited Forest Lawn? Do you have ancestors located there? Comment below.

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New York Minute Monday

New York State
Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

The first time I went to New York City I was 16. My Mom, Gramma, and I took a train from Buffalo all the way across the state and I had two big realizations: first, New York was really green. I remember being shocked at how many forests and trees there were in the state. Second, NYC was grey. I was anticipating a technicolor Wizard of Oz entry as we came out of the tunnel, but it turned out to be the opposite.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that the color in New York was best found in small pops, such as in the way the sidewalks sparkle in Times Square, and in things well beyond literal color that have colored my experiences there, such as standing in the spot on Ellis Island where my ancestor stood over a century ago. I’ve gone back many, many times over the years and agree 100% that it’s the “greatest city in the world!“

When most people hear New York, they automatically jump to NYC, but I come from Western New York on the opposite side of the state. This weekly series will introduce you to the towns, villages, and cities in the rest of New York which often get overlooked by the casual observer of the state. Regions such as Western and Central New York, the North Country, the Southern Tier, the Finger Lakes, Catskills, Capital District, and more. The so-called “Upstate” portion. Come back every Monday to learn about these little pockets.