Catching Up On Research

My right hand is recovering from that peculiar hand cramp that comes from writing the word “Pennsylvania” about 20 times in a row — under “Place of birth of this person,” “Place of birth of Father of this person,” and “Place of birth of Mother of this person” for a family of eight in the 1900 U.S. Census. I could use ditto marks or arrows, sure, but that would make me a lax researcher, and we can’t have that.

I’m just now really digging into the data we received from a distant cousin of Aaron’s, back in January. If I thought that researching a relatively common name like Cook was bad (which it really isn’t, until people disappear and elope), I had no idea how challenging Schnuth research could be. Schnuth is such an uncommon name that there’s a good side and a bad side to researching it. The good: If two Schnuth families are living close to each other, you can bet dollars to doughnuts that they’re related. The bad: “Schnuth” gets misinterpreted as “Smith” (or misspelled as “Snuth”) so often that it totally offsets the awesome digital advances of the last 20 years of genealogy research (i.e. sitting at home, searching census indices in my jammies, versus spending an afternoon at the county library).

I’ve only just started double-checking the connection between Peter SCHNUTH (b. 1861) and Aaron’s great-grandfather James (b. ca. 1890/91), and I’ve found other branches of the family living in Pennsylvania that I just couldn’t resist documenting right away, before I forgot about them.

I get so caught up in research — connecting the dots, fitting the pieces together, drawing correlations — that it’s easy to let time slip by. Alas, I have training to attend at work tomorrow, so I need to get to bed so I can be fresh-faced and ready to go tomorrow morning. No marathon internet genealogy sessions like I used to do in my dorm room, years ago. Sigh.

October is Family History Month

I’d forgotten that, since I moved my blog over to the same web host as my portfolio site, I’d never reinstalled Retrospect, the GEDCOM database reader. So, although I haven’t done much research lately, or even added the data from the last time I did research, my genealogy database is once again available.

Expect to see my research updated in the relatively near future. I have some data from my husband’s side of the family yet to add, as well as some of my own.

(By the way, all you living family members, I’ve intentionally left out your information for privacy’s sake. No one needs to know that you’re umpty-ump years old…)

The Old General Store

The Old General Store

My first major project since getting my new scanner has been to digitize the photos from our honeymoon, back in May 2003. (The process went surprisingly smoothly, which bodes well for future scanning projects.)

This is where we stayed for a good part of our trip: Aaron’s grandmother’s house in Cummington, Massachusetts. The house had long since been parceled out into apartments, and Grammie kept one in reserve for herself, in case she had need to go visit her rental property. She graciously let us stay in her apartment for the week, using it as a home base of sorts.

As far as the honeymoon photos go, I still need to properly date and geotag them all… but that’s a follow-up project for another day.

Pictures of Mom

Sue Cook, early 1970s

My Mom asked me to scan in some pictures of her over the years, since the family photo albums are all at my place now. I posted over a dozen of them over on my Facebook… but this is one of my favorites. She’s probably about 18 years old here, and I’d like to think that the family resemblance is obvious, even though I was never quite that thin.

Hanging With the Fam

Yesterday, my step-brother Phil graduated from OSU with honors and a double-major. Mom and Gary made the trip from Texas to see him walk, and turned the drive into Road Trip 2009: they stopped at my grandparents’ in Centerville, spent a few days in Columbus, and arrived here in Toledo yesterday evening.

We got them checked into a nearby hotel, had dinner at Olive Garden, and talked for a while at our house before they headed back to their hotel for the night. I’m not sure what all is on today’s agenda, but I know that lunch at Zoup! will be a starter, probably followed by looking through some old photo albums they brought, and probably taking some photos of our own. Apart from that, I’m not sure what they’ll be up for — walking around the park, or just hanging out for a few hours before Aaron goes to work and we remaining three go to dinner somewhere. We’ll see.

At any rate, it’s nice to see the two of them. It’s been a couple years since I saw Mom, and considerably longer since I last saw Gary. I’m glad they were able to make the trip.