My 2023 Research Year In Review

January
The Best of ESM series at LegacyFamilyTree Webinars began.  It was offered as a members-only series and it is worth every bit of the price of membership and more.  I have learned so much from this series.
Breakthru in my Cook research
Continued with to grow my collection of books for my personal library focusing on the sicknesses my ancestors faced--Tuberculosis, Influenza etc.

February
Did a LOT of cluster research:  Harrisons, Lightfoot/Deberry, Hights
Discovered more documents about George Solifelt's time in the State Penitentiaries of PA

Wm & Elvira Cooper Harrison's Rev War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant File
https://mariegen.blogspot.com/2023/02/elvira-harrisons-bounty-land-warrant.html

March
RootsTech 2023
Did a lot of reading thru records at FamilySearch.org with great success.
Was able to find my maternal Great Aunt's divorce records.
Studied my Grandparent's neighbors from their Charlotte Street years.

April
Celebrated 19 years of writing this blog!
Found another mention of George Solifelt in a newspaper.


May
Worked in Fold3 records a good bit and was busy with life outside of genealogy much of May.

About two times a month for the past several years, one of my fellow researchers has been hosting a Zoom Genealogy Chat. I try to attend as many as possible.

June
I transcribed the affidavit of Wm Harrison which detailed his Revolutionary War service.  I really need to work on an outline of his Pension file.

Purchased more genealogy books and worked on organizing and cataloging my library at LibraryThing
Ordered and Received the Court Martial File of George Solifelt from Gopher Records

July
Apparently the theme for July was LAND as I worked on land records for each of the Adcock, Frizzell, Harrison, and Putman families.
Found a pre-nuptial for the widow of a Great Grand Uncle.
Transcribed George Solifelt's Court Martial File

August
More Land records research. This time the focus was on the Jakes Coffee Co TN land.
Tinkered with MyHeritage's PhotoDater tool using a few photos from my collection.
Found a Wm P Cook listed as a witness in 1817 Rutherford Co TN.
Found Wm C Cook in District 10 of Bedford Co TN 1846

August was a tough month health-wise as I had multiple scans which determined that my breast cancer had metastasized.

September
I focused mainly on research in the newspapers in September.
It was the month I was receiving radiation treatments so that played a big part in my productivity.

October
Revolutionary War Records was the them for this month's research. I finally made the time to go thru Nathan Frizzell's file and found a few other pension files which helped with collateral research.

Looked at a Mystery DNA Group of matches using DNAPainter

November
Had some really great research time in the Franklin Co NC Probate & Deed records at FamilySearch.org which was cut short when a "system change at FamilySearch restricted access to images in several United States historical collections." They hope to have that issue resolved soon.

I tested out ChatGPT 3.5

Ordered and Received a copy of my 2nd Great Grandfather's Federal Court Records
from NARA-ATL

December
Found a cancelled Land Transaction that could potentially be that of my 2nd Gr Grandfather. I ordered it from Gopher Records and had a great turn around on the order. Still working with analysis of the documents to try and determine if it is my Wm C Cook and if not, the identity . I see a blog post on this coming in the new year.  

Reviewed George Solifelt and all the records I have on him.
https://mariegen.blogspot.com/2023/12/george-and-his-amazing-paper-trail.html

Test Driving Ancestry's Pro Tools to see if they add enough value to my research to justify the the extra $120 a year.  So far I've tested:  Tree Checker,  Charts & Reports and Map View,


Even with the health challenges I have had a pretty good research year.  I look forward to 2024 and hope that it will bring many more research discoveries for us all.

Image by DALL E 3   on Bing

Trying Ancestry's Pro Tools Suite: Map View

I'm continuing my test drive of Ancestry's Pro Tools Suite.  This post is focusing on the Map View tool.  You can find this tool in a number of places: in the Tree menu, or from the LifeStory tab of a Profile page .  I believe if you are not subscribed to the add-on you will still see the option but with a locked icon to the right of it.  As of this writing the Maps feature is still showing as in BETA testing.  

Map View from Tree View Menu

If you have the add-on subscription to the Tools clicking on map will bring up the map for the current tree.  From what I have noticed, the Direct Line Ancestors and Any Events seem to be on by default when you open the Map tool each time.  I wish the filters would hold until cleared in this tool which is something I also think would help the filters in the other tools as well.  You may notice that there are issues with non standardized place names especially if you see any locations marked that are not locations where anyone in your tree has ever had a life event.  I saw several of these in mine.  Some where because I had failed to put a country name and the software was trying to figure out what I meant.  Also, some of the military files just had USA and created a cluster of those in the middle of the US.

Using filters, I modified the map to show anyone in my tree with any events from 1700-1775 so I could see anyone who was in the US before the Revolutionary War.  I do not have any direct ancestors who arrived after 1775.

Filter For Map Tool
Name:
Location:
Time (range or exact year)

Events:
    Birth
    Marriage
    Death
    Burial
    Lived In
    Any Event

Family Line:
    Direct Line Ancestors
    Paternal Line
    Maternal Line

Direct Line is selected by Default. You can turn off Direct Line and focus further by specifying Paternal or Maternal Ancestors . It will show both sides if you do not specifically select one of them.

You can also choose filtering by MyTreeTags™ and can use your custom tags as well as the standard ones offered by Ancestry.

To find the map tool from a profile you will need to look under the LifeStory tab of  your person of interest.

Once you select the LifeStory tab and click on the map you can zoom in and see events on the map. You can toggle the Location content(preview) off on the map by selecting the Location Content tab and unchecking that option. That way you only see the location events in the side panel and not on both the panel and the map.  The circle of events at a specific location can be expanded as shown in the screenshot below which also has the Location Content enabled.

I wondered if this too would be changing the View DNA matches by location map, but didn't see any obvious change there.  I also checked from the Match pages for the Ancestor Birth Locations and found nothing to imply that there would be a change there either.

The map view was the tool that I had been looking forward to using the most.  While it does have some cool features I am somewhat  disappointed with the zoom feature and it was more than a bit hard to tell how to find the filters once you had clicked on a zoomed in location.  It's still in BETA so it's not overly user friendly.  I'm sure there will be changes which will hopefully improve how this works. 

I don't feel like it is something I HAVE to have.  It would be a nice addition to what they currently offer but only in bringing it more up to what it should have had in the first place.  That's purely my opinion and it may be more valuable to others who don't have access to software outside of the site that will do the same thing and more.  

Trying Ancestry's Pro Tools Suite: Charts and Reports

I'm continuing my test drive of Ancestry's Pro Tools Suite.  This post is focusing on the Charts and Reports tool.  You can find this tool in a number of places:  in the Tree menu, on a Profile page and from the view menu while viewing a tree.  I believe if you are not subscribed to the add-on you will still see the option but with a locked icon to the right of it.

From Tree Menu

  

From Family Tree Chart View

From a Profile

I believe I may have included some of the Insights or Filters in my blog post about the Tree Checker .  If you missed it you might want to check that out.  

Reports

The Reports Tool looks something like this.

Customization of Report

• Document Type: Descendancy, Ahnentafel, Register, or Family Group Sheet
• Document Style: Pine or Birch(I guess in sticking with the tree theme)
• Total of Generations: 2-7
• Focus Person (select/change)
• Output: Download or Print

I selected Print and then Print to PDF out of habit rather than downloading the report. Selecting download would accomplish the same thing.

4 Generation Descendancy Report of Wm Clifford Cook
Using the Pine Style

I was not overly impressed with the Reports part of Pro tools.  I can see how it might have value for someone who doesn't use desktop tree software.  However, FamilyTreeMaker, RootsMagic, Legacy and most other tree building programs all have  a charts and reports option.  I would love to see sources added to the reports and also a stand alone source report or listing.

Charts

I am including a bit about the fan chart features which are for the most part new and are likely what they are referring to as Charts. Ancestry lowered the mount of generations we could include in a fan chart  to 5 generations unless you have the Pro Tools add-on.  If you have the add-on then you can view 7 generations and some cool features.  There is a heatmap view of Hints, Photos, and Sources which is pretty cool but not something I'd consider purchasing an add-on to use.

Fan Tree Views

Sources Heatmap View

Of course more is not always better in terms of sources.  The quality of the sources mean so much more.  For all you know, my sources could all be  Ancestry Trees.  Thankfully that is not the case.

Trying Ancestry's Pro Tools Suite: Tree Checker

Ancestry recently introduced their new Pro Tools which is an add-on subscription. As a current subscriber to Ancestry with a US Discovery Membership, I was given the option to add the tools which I did for a monthly fee of $9.99. My plan is to cancel the Pro Tool add-on before next month's charge.  This will allow me to test drive the tools and see if they are an option for which I can justify spending money. 

I have a good number of trees with my main tree containing 18000+ people.  It took it awhile to index my main tree.  

Tree Checker--I am all for anything that allows us to make corrections more easily.  Possible Errors had only two tabs on mine:  Possible Duplicates, and Other Possible Issues.  You can further filter the list by clicking on More Filters 

Family Line
    Direct Line
    Paternal Line
    Maternal Line
    End of Line

Events & Places

    Birth 
    Marriage 
    Death 
    Lived In
    Any Event

Possible Errors

    Possible Duplicates
    Other Possible Issues
Hints
    Has Hints

I noticed that once I corrected or merged I was given the option to View All Errors.  This was not helpful.  It had opened the selected issue up in a new tab(I'm on Chrome.) An option to close this window and refresh the previous screen would have been more helpful for the process. 

Beyond the duplicates, the error that I noticed the most in my tree was caused when I'd added the 1940 census.  Some of the children who were under 5 in 1940 had gotten a residence fact associated with their profile.  I believe this was corrected at a certain point and it's no longer necessary to remember to uncheck that box when adding those under 5 from the census record.  It would be nice if there was a way to work on specific errors other than have them all lumped in the "other possible issues" category.

It discovered a "floater" in my tree and displaced this error when I clicked on the  "!"

Sometimes my floaters are intentional--other times they are from me sloppily deleting a parent, spouse or child of that person and losing them within the database.

We can expect to see changes in how the tool works these next few weeks errors and bugs in how it works are reported and modified.  It is hard to get a workflow going for the error connection process. I don't feel that the Tree Checker should be part of a paid tool suite, mainly because of the value it brings to Ancestry's tree database when people use it and make corrections. It should be available to anyone who is building trees at Ancestry because the accuracy of those trees help to improve the Hints, Thrulines and Suggested Records etc.

The Tree Checker is just one of the tools in the Pro Tools suite.  I will be trying out some of the others in the next few days and share my thoughts on those.  I am excited about the Map Views but that's a topic for another day.

Holiday Traditions and Memories of Days of Our Lives

Image Generated using DALL-E-3 on Bing

The holidays are upon us and I am reminded of family traditions. I have always fixed a pan of roast beef hash on Christmas morning(and Thanksgiving) and my daughter gets to open one present(preselected by me) on Christmas Eve.  What Holiday traditions do you have? 

In the late 70s and for many years after that my Aunt watched Days of Our Lives(DOOL), a soap opera which at that time aired on NBC. I began following the stories on it and a few other soaps as a teen. Each generation had it's favorite super couples.  My fav will always be Patch and Kayla.  Each year at Christmas I always think of Tom & Alice Horton from Days of Our Lives and their Christmas tradition.  They would hang ornaments with their family member's names on their Christmas tree during the episode of the soap that aired nearest to Christmas.  MacDonald Carey and Frances Reid played the Hortons and were on the soap opera for many years. So as a genealogist I couldn't help but look for Frances Reid in a census record.  I got her details from FindaGrave and used that to do a search in the 1940 US Federal Census where I found her living in a boarding house with other actors and actresses.  The man she married that same year is also living in the same boarding house.  The entry was even more amusing to me because the person listed just before them had the given name of Horton.  

1940 US Federal Census of New York City, NY, Enum District 31-906 Manhattan Borough Dist. 10 Sheet 1B Line 72.

Link is to the FamilySearch 1940 US Federal Census while the image below is from Ancestry.

I also found a picture of her as a teenager in the 1930 yearbook of Berkley's Anna Head High School.  In looking at some of the Ancestry Indexing there is an error.  The error is probably generated because AI was used to make the index.   She and Phillip divorced in the 1970s but the name it indexed was Tom, the husband of the character she portrayed on Days.

George and His Amazing Paper Trail

I have written about and studied the life of George Solifelt for several years.  Below I've listed the page counts from a number of his most memorable "footprints,"  the majority of which were from the National Archives(US) and ordered thru document retrieval services.  I didn't include his birth, marriage, death and census records in this listing although statements in his pension and book mark files give further details on all but the census records.  A list of previous residences is included and somewhat helpful in locating census records although certain timeframes are vague and questionable.  My blog posts about the records can be found by clicking on the link for each in the listing.  Just when I think I have found all of the documents I could possibly find that deal with George, he proves me wrong.  George Solifelt is the ancestor we all wish we had.  He left an amazing paper trail. 

Carded Service Records 

George Sullivan____Co C 2nd PA Inf Apr 1861 - Jul 1861     3 pages

Theodore Sullivan__Co N 126th PA Inf Aug 1862 - May 1863  9 pages

George H Solifelt___Co C 1st PA Prov Cav Jan 1864 - Jul 1865       3 pages

George H Solifelt___Co E 20th PA Cav         Jul 1865     20 pages

Carded Medical Records NIL result for George & his aliases (0 pages) he never sought medical attention for any injuries he incurred during his service.  I do have the images of the front of the boxes

that would contain the CMR for George or any of his aliases.  

Court Martial Case Files, MM-2557   19 pages

Eastern & Western State Penitentiary Mentions  9 pages(so far)

George Solifelt Pension  application no. 580,089 359 pages

George Solifelt Book Mark Document 1387-C-1885      17 pages

Sources:  

Compiled service record, George Sullivan, Pvt., Co. C, 2nd Regt Pennsylvania Inf.; Carded Records, Volunteer Organizations, Civil War; Record Group 94: Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1780s–1917;  National Archives, Washington, DC. Digital images were delivered via Dropbox without citations of source; the citation is made using the information shown on the images as well as the collection series and RG data from the catalog listing for the Civil War compiled service records.

Compiled service record, Theodore Sullivan, Pvt., Co. MH126th Pennsylvania Inf.; Carded Records, Volunteer Organizations, Civil War; Record Group 94: Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1780s–1917;  National Archives, Washington, DC. A Digital image showing the front of  via Dropbox without citations of source; the citation is made using the information shown on the images as well as the collection series and RG data from the catalog listing for the Civil War compiled service records.

Compiled service record, George H Solifelt, Pvt., Co. C, 1st Regt Pennsylvania Prov. Cav.; Carded Records, Volunteer Organizations, Civil War; Record Group 94: Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1780s–1917; National Archives, Washington, DC. Digital images were delivered via Dropbox without citations of source; the citation is made using the information shown on the images as well as the collection series and RG data from the catalog listing for the Civil War compiled service records.

Compiled service record, George H Solifelt, Pvt., Co. E, 20th Regt Pennsylvania Cav.; Carded Records, Volunteer Organizations, Civil War; Record Group 94: Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1780s–1917; National Archives, Washington, DC. Digital images were delivered via Dropbox without citations of source; the citation is made using the information shown on the images as well as the collection series and RG data from the catalog listing for the Civil War compiled service records.

Carded Medical Record, George Sullivan, Pvt., Co. C, 2nd Regt Pennsylvania Inf.; Carded Records, Volunteer Organizations, Civil War; Record Group 94: Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1780s–1917;  National Archives, Washington, DC. Digital images of Digital image of 2nd Pennsylvania: Smith, John -- to Sweetwood,  J.,  Box 2981 was delivered via Dropbox without citations of source to show a result of NIL; the citation is made using the information shown on the images as well as the collection series and RG data from the catalog listing for the Civil War carded medical records.

Carded Medical Record, Theodore Sullivan, Pvt., Co. H, 126th Pennsylvania Inf.; Carded Records, Volunteer Organizations, Civil War; Record Group 94: Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1780s–1917;  National Archives, Washington, DC. Digital image of 126th Pennsylvania:  Alexander, George W  to 127th Pennsylvania:  Zimmerman, Joseph,  Box 3324 was delivered via Dropbox without citations of source to show a result of NIL; the citation is made using the information shown on the images as well as the collection series and RG data from the catalog listing for the Civil War carded medical records.

Carded Medical Record, George H Solifelt, Pvt., Co. C, 1st Regt Pennsylvania Prov. Cav.; Carded Records, Volunteer Organizations, Civil War; Record Group 94: Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1780s–1917; National Archives, Washington, DC. Digital image of 1st Pennsylvania:  Smair to Waldermire, H., Box 2965 was delivered via Dropbox without citations of source to show a result of NIL; the citation is made using the information shown on the images as well as the collection series and RG data from the catalog listing for the Civil War carded medical records.

Carded Medical Record, George H Solifelt, Pvt., Co. E, 20th Regt Pennsylvania Cav.; Carded Records, Volunteer Organizations, Civil War; Record Group 94: Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1780s–1917; National Archives, Washington, DC. Digital images of 20th Pennsylvania: Hubbard, John to Thompson, Nathan J. Box 3075 was delivered via Dropbox without citations of source to show a result of NIL; the citation is made using the information shown on the images as well as the collection series and RG data from the catalog listing for the Civil War carded medical records.

Court Martial Case Files, MM-2557; Record Group 153; Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General(Army); National Archives, Washington, DC. [Case of Sgt Garrett & four others Co. "E" 20th Pa Cav.]

George Solifelt(Pvt., Co. E, 20th PA Cav., Civil War), pension application no. 580,089,

certificate no. 950,395, Case Files of Approved Pension Applications, 1861-1934; Civil
War and Later Pension Files; Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15; National
Archives, Washington, D.C [George used the aliases George Sullivan & Theodore Sullivan both of which are noted the Pension Index Cards. He also served in  Co. C 2nd PA Inf., Co. H 126th PA Inf., and Co. C 1st PA Prov. Cav.]  

Book Mark File, George Solifelt(Alias Theodore Sullivan),  1387-C-1885, Box 3190, Enlisted Branch Letters Received, NAID 607910, RG 94, National Archives, Washington DC.

Eastern State Penitentiary of Pennsylvania,. “Eastern State Penitentiary Warden's Daily Journals_Image00001”. Eastern State Penitentiary: Wardens’ Daily Journals (Roll 6608), Warden's Daily Journals (PA) 1829-1961, 01856.  https://digitalarchives.powerlibrary.org/psa/islandora/object/psa%3Awdjpa_2630.

State Penitentiary for the Western District of Pennsylvania,. “Western State Penitentiary: Warden’S Daily Journals (Roll 7788)”, Wardens Daily Journals (PA) 1869-1875, 1875. https://digitalarchives.powerlibrary.org/psa/islandora/object/psa%3Awdjpa1860_521.

State Penitentiary for the Western District of Pennsylvania. “Western State Penitentiary: Descriptive Register (Roll 412)”, Descriptive Register (PA) 1826-1876, 1826. https://digitalarchives.powerlibrary.org/psa/islandora/object/psa%3A537669.

A Cancelled Land Transaction in an Arkansas Tract Book

Over Thanksgiving break, I found an entry in the US Bureau of Land Management Tract Books for a William C Cook. The transaction is noted as cancelled on Oct 14th 1881. This makes sense as Wm C Cook passed in January of 1882 and his wife Elizabeth died from a fall in September of 1880. William & Elizabeth's older sons traveled to Arkansas in the early 1880s. Cass B Cook, youngest son of William Clifford Cook received the family bible which contained several clippings that seemed to suggest that might have been planned to travel to Arkansas during the 1870s.  I was able to come up with that date by finding digitized papers which contained the ads using my Newspapers.com subscription.

"United States Bureau of Land Management Tract Books, 1800-c. 1955," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G9W3-7QR8?cc=2074276&wc=M7W3-VM9%3A356162401%2C356168701 : 12 June 2023), Arkansas > Vol 10 > image 161 of 313; Records Improvement, Bureau of Land Management, Washington D.C.

At Newspapers.com

I've placed an order with a document retrieval company for the Case Entry File of the cancelled transaction of William C Cook.  Hopefully, the file can be found.  While I'm waiting I took the time to look at the transactions surrounding the cancelled one of Cook as well as to note the names and locations of those on adjacent land.   I did this using the search at Bureau of Land Management's General Land Office Records search.

HistoryGeo,com makes it easier to see the earliest land owners.

Section 12
Township 18N Range 3W

One interesting find so far is the Benj. F Austin.  I am familiar with him.  In 1850, the ancestors of several of my DNA matches were living in Dickson Co TN.  These matches have ancestry in common with the Hall, Estes, Cathey, Marsh and Goodwin lines of that area.  I've yet to determine the exact connection but can tell my connection to those matches comes from my PGF's ancestors. At this point I feel like they are more likely in the King / Manire line judging by the shared matches rather than in the Cook line. but with tangled roots it's hard to say for sure.  😀

I would recommend the book Land and Property Research in the United States by E. Wade Hone for anyone who is researching ancestry in the US.  It was very helpful in finding answers about where to look and what documents to expect.  You should be able to find it at several of the online bookstores and maybe even at your local library. Consult WorldCat, Bookfinder, Thriftbooks or your favorite search engine.  If you use the Chrome Browser, you might also find the Library Extension useful when searching for books.