You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

 My Dollen Family Tree has many branches. My focus of late has been on my British ancestors. Jumping the pond proves challenging and fills me with ideas and many questions.

Information gathered from the Family Search Somerset, England Wiki has possibly advanced my trees to the early 1700s. While the indexes provide names, dates, towns, parishes etc., they do not give me scans/copies of the original documents. Naturally, I want to see the documents.

This is the point where I must use a favorite quote; “You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know!” for it aptly applies to my Family Search strategies. When using Family Search, my preferred method of search has been to begin by browsing by location near the bottom of the home page. It worked well until I decided to jump the pond, as I was unable to located records for Somerset, England.

Now my cousin, Sharon, is always sharing scans of British baptismal, marriage and burial records located through Family Search. She would tell me what parish she located them in, but I was unable to find the records. I was doing something wrong!

Tired of bumping into Family Search brick wall, I decided to try a novel approach. Why not try the Family Search Catalog? I chose to search by place names.

• I entered Curry Mallet, Somerset, England. No Luck!
• I entered Somerset, England. No Luck!
• I entered England. I got lucky with an abundance of search opportunities. I needed to define my parameters.
• I entered England, Somerset, Curry Mallet. BINGO! There they were: census, church, poorhouse, taxation, and land and property records! Microfilm was ordered and I am now waiting to receive them.

 It took me awhile to understand the search parameters for Family Search, but making mistakes still proves to be the best learning experience.

• When adding information to my personal trees, I always record U.S. data as city, county, state, country.
•  For my British ancestors, I record town, county, country.

The logic used in my personal trees did not work with Family Search’s catalog. As I said earlier, you just don’t know what you don’t know! But now I know!

Lessoned learned: It is time to explore Family Search more thoroughly.

Happy Hunting!

Linda

Wedding Bells

Church of St. James, Curry Mallet

The Church of St. James, originally called All Saints, is located in Curry Mallet and dates back to the 13^th century. I wonder if wedding bells rang in the tower for my great, great, great grandparents, John Dollen and Nancy House Paul. John and Nancy were wed here on 19 March 1818.

The photo was found in a Wikipedia article on Church of St. James. Marriage information comes from an index of Curry Mallet Marriages, 1734-1837 from the Hundred of ABDeCK and Bulstone group.

Family Search Wikis

It seems like ages, since my last post. Self-imposed decisions were weighing heavily on my mind resulting in the drying up of my genealogical juices. Writing and problem solving stem from creative thinking and my creativity just up and went. I decided to put all my trees in my Ancestral Waiting Room for a while. Boy, was it crowded in there!

My mind has quieted and allowed me ponder the thought that I must search longer and harder for small bits of information needed to complete my ancestors stories. Had I exhausted all the vast resources of Ancestry.com or Family Search?

Rather than searching for documents, I paid a visit to the Family Search Research Wikis. With my Dollen tree in mind, I searched for Somerset, England. The Somerset Wiki offered a description of the area. It explained Civil Registration Districts, Parishes, Probate Jurisdictions and then there were the websites.

I found a yahoo group dedicated to Somerset Family History. The site allows for discussion and research; which includes full transcripts of parish registers and poor laws. I quickly registered for free and was accepted into the group. I also joined the Abdick and Bullstone Group. Britain divides land up between civil jurisdictions, parishes, and hundreds. Abdick and Bullstone is a Hundred. I don’t know what that means, but I do know that Curry Mallet is part of that Hundred. Keep you posted!

By the way . . . if you haven’t used Family Search Wikis, you might want to give them a try.

Linda

A Pearl of Wisdom

Saturday I attended the Du Page County Genealogical Society 38th Annual Conference. I was fortunate to sit on two presentations given by Jean Lazalere Bloom, my favorite being her “Excel 101: The Genealogist’s Underutilized Tool” presentation. I knew nothing about the power of a spreadsheet.

Her biggest selling point being that Excel spreadsheets aid in breaking down brick walls. Ms. Bloom was absolutely correct. My first venture into researching with Excel yielded positive results.

Here is an example: Ms. Bloom suggested recording evidence on a spreadsheet for all individuals with a common surname. With that in mind, I ventured off to Calvary Cemetery in Evanston, Illinois. I made a date with the kiosk in the office and began my research of the surnames Dooley and Egan.

My time and attention span wore out before I was able to record all Dooley and Egan burials in Calvary. By the time I reached George Dooley, I had sixty Dooley names with gravesite locations.  I bored of recording Dooley records and moved to Egan.

It was time to narrow my search parameters for the Egan’s. I looked for two names: Margaret and Patrick Egan. There were nineteen interment records for Margaret Egan and eight for Patrick. As Ms. Bloom predicted, I found a common gravesite.

Margaret and Patrick Egan share a common gravesite location of Lot N6, Block D, Section X. They rest in peace with the following family members:

                      Elizabeth Scanlon, daughter

                      Baby Morrissey,grandchild

                      Daniel Egan, A newcomer! What is his connection to the Egan Family?

                      William Morrissey, son-in-law
                      Celia Morrissey, daughter

                      Patrick Morrissey, Another newcomer to consider!

                      Margaret Morrissey, granddaughter Elizabeth

Dates of Interment were included in the gravesite information.  The date of burial for Patrick Egan and Daniel Egan were identical, as was their age at death. This suggests one of two things: Patrick and Daniel were twins who died on the same date OR an error in recording had occurred. More sleuthing is needed to answer the questions of Patrick and Daniel death dates always with the hope of discovering their relationship.  

Shoot for the moon and I just might reach the stars!

Linda

Apprentice Seaman, Richard William Dollen

Marilou has been very generous with her photographs. 

Here is a photo of  Dick Dollen most likely taken in San Diego.

 

The military loves well-polished shoes!

Dick and his sweetheart

I am presently working on my Uncle Dick Dollen’s life story. It’s a short one, but I do wish it to be a complete story. I am so fortunate that Marilou shared a few photographs of my uncle. Here she is with her beau.

Speaking of Sweethearts

Here's a whole lot of love & a big hug and KISS!

PURR-lease, BE MY VALENTINE!

I was perusing through my recently discovered baby book and found two valentines from my childhood. I received the larger valentine from my parental grandma and grandpa.  Joyce and John, mom’s cousin & husband, gave the smaller one to me many, many years ago.

Sweetest wishes to you this Valentine’s Day!

Linda