Genealogy Journey

Welcome

I’m Jane and I started this blog to publish tidbits of research on the families of North Carolina and beyond that I am researching. My hope is that others will read the tidbits and match it with one of their tidbits to complete their puzzle and inturn help me complete mine.

For over 20 years I have researched the Conner Family. My Conner roots stalemated in the North Carolina Mountain counties of McDowell, Polk and Rutherford. Connecting to the Conner family are the Davis and Skipper families. Check out the Conner tab above to learn more.

Then there are the other parts to my blog:

Second, the Gouge family is my husband’s family. They have their roots in Mitchell County and have a very rich, colorful history. The Gouge’s are connected to the Webb, Aiken and McCanless Families. Check those out under the Gouge tab.

Thirdly, I love to write and every-once-in-a-while I like to believe that God blessed me with a tiny insight that I share under the Snippets of Life tab.

Check out all my research on all the families by clicking on the link to the right.

Enjoy rambling through this site, I would love to hear your positive thoughts, ideas and comments about this site.

Jane

Renewed Interest

Repost of June 22, 2022 from prior site

Over the past few years, life has taken over my interest in researching my family roots. Then on Saturday April 30th of this year, I made a intentional decision to start over - literally.

I had explored my ancestors for over 37 years, collecting thousands of pieces of information, surfing dozens of times on dozens of websites, then revisiting them twice over, driving miles with my mother and her sisters, visiting cemeteries, taking tombstone pictures, studying information – all of this time to put it aside for the last 8-10 years.

Now I was feeling overwhelmed when I tried to pick it back up. Since I have retired, I want to organize the information and print a family book to share the information with others.

Looking at the Statics of my current family tree, I have found that I have collected - 141 Sources on 7,158 people that include 876 surnames with 1,950 marriages over 12 generations. Some of that information had sources, most did not, so I didn't know how much was accurate. I just could not print a document that I didn't know for sure was accurate.

I was struggling with two things. First, how to restart. Restart with the current 7,000+ file and verify it all or restart with what I knew to build on. Use what I have, organize it and move on. Second, I have always struggled with sources, citations and repositories! I just could not grasp the definitions listed in Family Tree Maker or how to enter them in the software. How to use source templates, how to do citations and where does the repository fit into all of the documentation that I have and want to verify.

So, after much thought, worry and fear of loosing all those 7,000+ entries, I choose to start over. Here is my working plan:

Begin a new tree in Family Tree Maker - 2022_Conner
1. Go Slow! Starting with me, enter immediate family and the supporting evidence for each fact as the fact is entered.
2. Provide supporting evidence at a minimum of two difference sources for each fact entered into FTM
Begin review of each notebook in which I have a collection of information about the Surnames in my family.
1. With information in the notebooks do one of three things:
  1. Enter the fact into FTM, cite the source correctly.
  2. Write a story about the information, when the content is too big to enter into FTM
  3. If unsure what to do with it or where it goes - Flag for future sourcing or trash it.

It is now June 19, 2022, seven (7) weeks, that is forty-nine (49) days since my restart. Here is a list of what I have accomplished:

I had accumulated
1. Two large plastic bins of census records, email correspondence, family trees that “maybe” connected to my family tree documents, genealogy reports with incorrect information of my family, etc. Those two large bins are now sorted and comfortably stored in one medium upright hanging folder file bin!
  1. I decided that it was time to get rid of any documentation that would confuse me. If it was not connected (and verified) directly to the immediate lineage that I was working on and I couldn’t connect it – I decided the paper made great fire pit burning paper! Plus, now I know what it where and it is labeled.
2. Five, three-to-four inch three-ring notebooks (this is in addition to the two large plastic bins) of genealogy information on the families I am researching. Again, I pitched anything not directly related to that family and sorted it into nine (9) notebooks. Notebooks specific to each family that contained documentation that was only related to that family and that I knew was verified as a fact for that family.
3. In addition to the large bins and large notebooks, there were various stacks of documents pushed between notebooks or lying on shelves of the book case – those piles are gone. The documents went one of two places, in a notebook or in the firepit!

What I couldn’t believe was how much duplicate files I had. Duplicate genealogy reports, census record extracts, completed family group sheets, birth certificates, death certificates, military records, etc.

Now I have 536 people, 163 marriages, 9 generations, 132 surnames, 1655 facts, 12 sources, 49 citations, 2 repositories and I feel great that the facts are correct and verified with citations. I am ready to tackle with an renewed energy my genealogy research. It was well worth my time to restart.