Posts Tagged ‘ancestry’

Don’t Forget Dad!

Posted: August 17, 2026 in Family
Tags: , , , , , ,
0

Hello everyone, this is my dad, Billy Edward Cornett, born March 15, 1944. He passed away in April 2001 and lived to be 57 years of age. From what I can recall, he lived with his mother, Lucia Rose Cornett in the family home that I remember from when I was maybe 6 years old, in Whitehall, Maryland. He lived in this house for about 28 years (since April 1998).

Just last week, I submitted a request for a copy of his birth certificate online through the Virginia Vital Records office. Easy process and it only costed me $15, cheaper than I thought it would be, to be honest. I am waiting to receive this document via snail mail. I’m kind of excited to see what kind of information I can glean from his birth certificate! Then just this morning, I found that I misplaced his death certificate, somehow. I had placed the copy of it in an Evernote app, in a note I created several years ago. So once I decided to no longer use the app, I emailed it to myself and must have accidentally deleted it. (YIKES!) So I had to try and remember the funeral name from the death certificate so I could request a new working copy, not certified but just a copy, at least for now.

I contacted the funeral home via their website, and I must say within less than 5 minutes I was contacted by phone, they searched and sent a copy to my personal email address. How’s that for customer service?? In a past post, I believe the title was “Who’s My Daddy”, I mentioned that my father was a brick wall of sorts. Since I am a child of parents who divorced when my sister and I were very young, we do not have very much information on him. Maybe a handful of memories, a couple of photographs, I want to know so much more!

I plan on trying to have a conversation with my mother this afternoon, after work to see if her memory will cooperate with us both. She has early signs of dementia starting, so there are a few questions I would like to ask to see if I can maybe learn where he went to school, when they met, what he did for work while they were dating…you know the early years kind of stuff! Based on his death certificate, I know he only had an 8th grade education and his occupation was listed as a carpenter, but that’s really all I know the details of, sadly. Why did he not graduate high school like my mother had? Did he have to quit school to help support the family? Did he just not like school? SO many questions that I hope to enlighten you all with, in a future post!

The reason I wrote this post, is sometimes dads get overlooked and they can be an important building block to your future research as you travel through the many avenues or traveling down the long, winding dirt roads of our ancestral roots.

HAPPY HUNTING! May your adventures lead you to thrilling discoveries and unforgettable experiences, whether you’re exploring the great outdoors, searching for hidden treasures, or simply embracing the joy of pursuit. Remember to take in the beauty around you and cherish each moment as you embark on this exciting journey filled with new opportunities and challenges along the way!

Mobile Monday ~ Saving Memories Forever

Posted: August 6, 2012 in Genealogy, memories, research
Tags: , , , ,
0

“Hawaiian Jasmine”
Photo Credit: Kelly Vial via kellyvial.wordpress.com
Photo Taken: July 2012, in Honolulu, Hawaii

It seems that I am always on my laptop researching my ancestry, sending emails, and connecting with family members trying to obtain a little bit of history on my ancestral roots. If I’m not on my laptop, I always have my handy dandy iPhone with me everywhere I go. Sharing memories in the form of photographs on social networking sites helps me stay connected to my family being that I live so far away from them all. I live approximately 4000 miles away on an island in the middle of the Pacific, so staying connected is very important to me. Thank God for all this technology!

I recently found an app for my iPhone that I have been trying out and I really like it! The app is called “Saving Memories Forever”. And it’s FREE!! Even better right? You can create your “family memories” through audio recordings! HA! Love it 🙂 Having many stories to share with family and future generations, this app lets you record your stories and share them. Whether you have stories and memories of your grandparents, aunts and uncles, or just want to talk about the vacation you just took or the day you were married, this app allows you to do this. You can record as many stories as you would like to and share them with whomever you wish. The recordings you make are uploaded to the Saving Memories Forever web site and can always be accessed through the app or web site. If you get their premium service, then your stories can be “tagged” which makes the stories easier to find. All your stories are safely stored on this web site and you can even add your family’s favorite recipes and add photos to boot! Yay!

I think my favorite feature of this app is that you can share with your family and add them as storytellers! What better way to share your stories and those of your family? How convenient! What a great idea for an audio scrapbook; you will have your story in your own words and you can have access to your extended family’s memories too. To hear them talk about their own memories and be able to one day share them with your own children, grandchildren, or great grandchildren, is phenomenal!

This app is perfect for me! Always on the go, some memory may just pop in my head, but I don’t have time to write it down to remember later. If I remember everything, that is 🙂 I can then record the memory! Easy peasy right? I just wish I had known about this app sooner, like 10 years ago! I wish it had existed then. I would have loved to have recorded my deceased fathers stories and memories of his childhood, or hear him talk about the day he met my mother, how he felt on the days when my sister, Amy and I were born and so on. Now these memories are lost and died with him.

The only downfall with the free version of this app is:

  • Only 6 storytellers can be used within the app
  • There is a limit on the number of listeners (only 10!)
  • You can only listen to 5 stories per day
  • No use of tags
  • No photographs can be uploaded
  • You can’t attach Word Documents to your stories

The premium version is only $3.99 a month- definitely worth all the extra features I think. Especially at that price 🙂

If you go to the website, check out the tab, “How It Works” where you can view the PDF document of the users manual.

Let me know what you think about this app; I absolutely think this is a great genealogy tool in which to use. The link to the web page is below, if you would like to check it out 🙂

 

https://www.savingmemoriesforever.com/default.aspx

 

 

Tuesday’s Tip ~ Genealogy 101

Posted: July 23, 2012 in Family
Tags: , , , , , , ,
1

Nourishing Your Family Roots
Photo Credit: Kelly Vial via kellyvial.wordpress.com

Are you a “newbie” to the subject of Genealogy? I have been doing my own genealogy research as a hobby for several years now and over the years I have acquired some knowledge from fellow researchers and what works and what doesn’t. I hope to share with you some of that knowledge and help get you on the right path to tracing your own ancestry. It’s time to nurture the roots of your tree!

Some of the Basics

1. Start from the very beginning; use what you know and then proceed into the unknown. Document all your facts as this will be your flesh and bone foundation. It will help your overall strategy and try to also document family traditions, memories and the like. It’s all relative! No pun intended 🙂

2. Take notes! Interview family members, writing down the date, who was interviewed and create a list of questions for them to answer. You can videotape each interview or you can buy a voice recorder for all your communications.

3. Next, you should definitely create a research plan! I won’t say it is mandatory, but it will help you stay more organized; you can enter all the data on the research plan that you know on any particular person in your tree. You should create a research plan for every generation or person and include fields such as: names, birth and death dates, places, and sources where you can probably find the information you don’t have. Don’t forget to cite the source information that you have found also! This is very important as you probably won’t remember where you seen the data last. It could have been NARA (National Archives), FamilySearch, Ancestry, etc.

4. Research logs are also important- keep it accurate and up to date. On a research log you can document what you have searched such as the ancestor’s name, type of record, the date of your search, trips to the library and what was found, online resources and any side notes. Keeping in mind to record your findings for each ancestor and your results is an important part of your research. You will want to note what era your ancestor lived in and so on. You can find sample research logs through Cyndislist.com to help you create your own. It’s important that your fields have enough space in which to write your information in. Small field boxes that are too small will cause you to cram what you can into these areas which in turn, may cause you some confusion.

5. Your research notes should be able to be read and understood by anyone and should also indicate the reason behind your search.

6. Filing Systems are a great way to keep you organized as well. You should order them alphabetically by surname, color coded, then create sub folders that have ancestors and the years searched. If you don’t want to go that far, you can always just file them alphabetically by surname so they are easier to locate in the future.

7. Stay organized and keep your files in order from the start of your search for your family roots. It will save you a ton of time having to go through hundreds of pieces of documentation, notes, logs, plans, calendars, deeds and BMD records that you have accumulated over time. There are many different types of documents that you will accumulate over any given period of time, so keep it organized or you will be forever hunting for it later!

Treasure Chest Thursday ~ James H. Curnutt Petition

Posted: June 20, 2012 in Ancestry
Tags: , , , , ,
1

Treasure chest and moss terrarium

Treasure chest and moss terrarium (Photo credit: elias_daniel)

As I open my little treasure box today, what do you think I will find? Let’s open it up and see what treasure awaits me! As the lid opens on the old, wooden box, it creaks open eerily, I look inside and am astonished by what lays before me. My hazel eyes are as big and round as the golden doubloons inside and worth more to me than I ever imagined. I am in awe of the beauty that lays before me. More than the doubloons worth, more than the shiny baubles winking at me with its’ rainbow prism of colors. I see something. But wait. Do I dare? Tempting me to touch, but I don’t. Instead I delicately pick up an old, printed document. Carefully looking at the text and just skimming the pages.. Why it looks like the petition I was seeking not so long ago! I am still on the hunt for the judge’s final decision, but this is a great start!


Many thanks to fellow researcher, Doris, for all the legwork and emails sent to connect the Cornett family with this document. 













Happy Aloha Friday!

Posted: July 15, 2011 in Aloha Friday, Ancestry.com, brick wall, contacts, cousins, forums, Genealogy.com, Kailua HI, writers block
Tags: , , , ,
0

It’s such a beautiful day here in Kailua! The birds are chirping, the sun is shining brightly, and how I love the ocean breeze. Such a perfect beginning to a wonderful weekend ahead! As I sit here, I am debating on the content of today’s blog post. To all my fellow blogger’s out there: Do you ever get “Blank Screen Syndrome”? For me, it’s almost like writer’s block! 


But anyway, I want to tell you about my most recent ‘jump for joy’ feeling that I had last night! As you know, I have been doing all this research, and in the process I have made a few contacts through Ancestry.com and other sources. By discussing my searches on these forums, forums such as Ancestry.com.com and Genealogy.com, I have made three different contacts, who turned out to be distant cousins!! I never knew I had these cousins, and I never met them in my whole life! To be able to connect with family, is truly a treasure and worth its’ weight in gold, especially when we are all trying to attain the same goals in regards to our past lineage. So going on… last night I received a message through Ancestry’s web site, from a cousin that I have been going back and forth in correspondence with. My initial question to her was about my search for Alexander Sutherland, who is one of my current brick walls and also one of hers too. She didn’t have much information on Alexander but we still send messages to one another just in case we manage to break through the mortar. Anyway, her message was about her brother, a “Sutherland” cousin of mine. Where does he live? Oh! Only about 30 minutes away from me!
So you can imagine, I was just about ecstatic when I read and re-read the message. I had to read it at least twice to make sure it wasn’t my imagination! This was great news for me, I was so excited to learn this. What a small world it is! I mean really, what are the odds? I only moved here to the Hawaiian islands a mere 5 months ago! 


Ever since then, I have been digging deeper than ever to find the base of my ancestral roots, some roots which don’t want to be found and have turned into such a congested knot, never to be untangled! But I have news for you, Sir Root, as you are about to become untangled and care free! I don’t give up so easily. It’s only a matter of time before you unravel.


Yesterday, I was searching high and low, in every nook and cranny on the world wide web, changing up keyword searches and all; looking for information on my Sutherland link to the Cornett line. I didn’t find too much, but I am in the process of trying to retrieve birth documents and death records to prove my lineage along the way! I hope I have better success today. 


Good luck to you in your searches as well! 


Have a happy Aloha Friday everyone!



Family Stories That May Be Lost Forever

Posted: July 13, 2011 in data, discovering family, facts, Family, family stories, heirlooms, knowledge, share information
Tags: , , , , , , ,
0
Thank you Ancestry.com! I have made contact with family members I didn’t even know existed. By researching the Cornett/ Sutherland heritage on the web site, I have connected with others who are researching the same family as I am and what do you know? They’re actually family. This is very exciting! The branches of my tree have become so tangled and intertwined, but in such a good way. What a great way to share data gathered through web sites such as Ancestry, and being able to share that knowledge with your own family, is priceless.

Image Source: Family Stories
Photo Credit: Andrew Bret Wallis



I was just talking to my oldest son, John, who was recently asking about our ancestry. He has become somewhat curious about who his relations were back in the “old days”. I was so excited that he even asked, that I think I may have bored him with my rantings of our family tree and what I had found so far. When I was his age, I “tuned out” my family when I heard the stories of ancestors past. Now I’m kicking myself for not paying attention! I went into my own little world of music and television so I didn’t have to listen to boring stories that related to history of people I never even knew. Today, I really wished I had recorded their stories in some way. Now that the older generations in my family have passed on to a better place, there is no way I can get that history, or even the stories back. The stories seem to have died with them. 



Family stories casually chatted about at the dinner table, or told again and again at family gatherings can parallel great epics or notable short stories. The memorable stories of our lives and of others in our family take on special importance because they are true, even if everyone tells different versions of the same event. These tales are family heirlooms held in the heart not in the hand.


So knowing that I lost those memories forever, how do I continue my research into a quest for family stories that relate to my family? Any suggestions?

Lessons Learned

Posted: June 16, 2011 in DNA, DNA Testing, documents, family tree, heritage, immigration list, library, obituary, online family tree sites
Tags: ,
0

Animation of the structure of a section of DNA...

Animation of the structure of a section of DNA. The bases lie horizontally between the two spiraling strands. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Since I started researching my heritage, I’ve learned a few lessons. The first and most important being, not to trust or make assumptions about the quality of research done by others. You will see family trees posted on the web, names that may be familiar to you, but check it out on your own. You will need to search for the documents yourself. I was always told by my husband, Michael to check, double check, and triple check! Okay. I get it, finally. People are bound to make mistakes. So how do you find these documents? Check out the links on my page, that should lead you in the right direction, at least for starters. Vital records offices are located around the globe, so I would most likely start with what you already know; i.e., full name, date of birth, place of birth and who the person’s parents are. You may even have this information saved somewhere, funeral notices such as the “In Remembrance” cards you receive for a family member who had passed away. This will give you a lot of information as well.
It is possible that while researching a family member, that you may never find information on them, for whatever reason. Say for instance, I was searching for one particular person recently, and I came up with nothing, no matter where I searched. It was like this person ceased to exist! 
Sometimes you just hit a brick wall and cannot go any further, at least on that particular branch. But your family tree has many ancestors, some with unique names and others that are so similar that even the parents have the same name as their own child! This makes your search even more difficult. When you start creating your family tree, the possibility of finding more ancestors to add becomes endless, or so it seems. As you keep going farther back, you have double the ancestors to search. Parents, grandparents, great great grandparents times how ever many! I think I have 13th Great Grandparents and that goes back to probably mid 1600’s or so. I will never cease to find more relatives to add, my family is huge and you end up with cousins upon cousins and their marriages, and their parents and so on. I’m sure you get my point already. 

If you are seeking true source documents to back up your research, try Social Security Indexes, archives, military draft cards, census records, obituaries, libraries that offer microfilmed documents, passenger lists, or even immigration lists etc. This should help get you going in the right direction, so don’t take one persons family tree website as confirmation that the data is set in stone! 

Has anyone ever tried the DNA testing that the Ancestry web site has been offering? If so, what do you think of it?