Just a quick blog today. I arrived in Salt Lake City yesterday to spend a few days at the Family History Library before the start of RootsTech. The 28° weather and snow was a shock to my Florida system which was basking in 87° a few days ago.
You may have noticed that sometimes when you attempt to access an image at FamilySearch.org you get a message stating that it can only be accessed at the Family History Library or at one of the Family History Centers around the country. Well, that’s what I did today. I began at one of the computers and accessed a number of records, and saved them to my USB drive.
Another item on my list was to access the “Rental book from the Johnston estate, Rossinver parish, County Leitrim” that was on microfilm 1279295, item 8. I went to check the catalog entry on my laptop, and discovered I could access the digital files because I was sitting in the Library. Yeah! I was able to download the files directly to my laptop.
I was also able to resolve another problem I was having with Family Tree on FamilySearch. As you probably know, the Family Tree is a collaborative tree. The idea is that when multiple people work on the tree and connect in their ancestors with sources, the tree will get better. In theory, that’s great, but unfortunately, people sometimes connect the wrong people. That’s the problem that I had. I have an English line, Beighton in Derbyshire. I had a brick wall with my great great grandfather, Francis, baptized in 1833 in Ticknall. He was the son of John and Mary Beighton. Of course, no maiden name for Mary. Various trees had Mary as Mason and Raven, but I couldn’t find a record that definitively named the mother. Looking at the entire family, I realized that some of the children had been born after civil registration which began in England in 1837, so I wrote to the General Register Office in England and obtained the birth certificate for one of Francis’ brothers.
The mother is listed as Mary Beighton, late Mason, formerly Getliff. So the marriage I was looking for was to Mary Mason, a widow, whose maiden name was Getliff. I found the church marriage record which spelled her husband as John “Beeton” adding to the confusion. This points out again, how important whole family research is. If your Irish ancestor was born just before civil registration in Ireland (1864) look for a sibling that was born later.
So my problem was that someone kept adding Mary Raven who also married a John Beighton, into my tree and combining the children of her marriage with mine. Ugh! I had added a discussion last year that outlined everything above, gave all of the sources, to no avail. The kind person who assisted me, showed me how to edit Mary Raven out of my tree without losing her children and recommended that I put the information from my “discussion” right up front in the Life Sketch. She indicated that sometimes people don’t know to go and read the “discussions.”
Another day at the Library tomorrow working on my son-in-law’s John Alden Mayflower line.
Don’t forget if you’re at RootsTech this week, to introduce yourself. I’ll be at the Library on Tuesday and part of Wednesday, then here’s my schedule.
Thursday - March 1st 9:45 Strategies for Finding Your Irish Ancestors GenealogyGems Booth #1203
1:30 There’s an App for That (GS9180) Rm 155D
Friday - March 2nd 10:15 Irish Research Secrets GenealogyGems Booth #1203
12:15 Putting the Pieces Together for Your Irish Research FindMyPast Booth
3:00 Social Networking for Genealogists (RT8880) Room 250D