Treasure Chest Thursday

When I started my family history research, libraries were my treasure chest.  They still are to a certain extent.  I love packing up my notebooks, and driving into the Genealogy library of Montgomery or Clayton Library of Houston.  I know that there are so many pages of books that I haven't even scraped the edges of.  My favorite thing to do is to walk down the aisle of the State I am interested in and let a book reach out an grab my attention.  So many times, in an obscure place of the book, will be a clue or even an answer about my ancestor.

Today, I have a new treasure chest that I love and have to watch out that it doesn't become instead a Pandora's box and overcome my senses and time.  It is the internet, twitter, Google search, Ancestry,
and Family Search to name a few.   Tonight, I received a treasure from The Olive Tree Genealogy .  Well technically it was Twitter, Lorine had twittered a piece about finding ships lists.  When I went to look, I was brought to remeberance of Stephen P Morse's One-Step-Webpages for searching the ship arrivals and lists.  I love that site! It had been bookmarked on my computer that crashed (a good reason for back up [Wiggling of eyebrows and a big smile]) and I had forgotten it because my focus has not been on immigration.  I have been caught up in the Mexican War.  Thanks Lorine! And a great big thanks to those that have developed such a wealth on information links for genealogy.

Vance Family Research Online

I spent years writing back and forth to a wonderful lady named Kathleen Corley Mason who finally stopped writing because she lost her sight.  She authored a book on Vance Family History, 'The Vance and Taylor Families'.  She and a few others authored a news letter and held regular meetings and trips through the Vance Family Association.  You can order films of archived news letters which are informative through Family Search.org 

I was privileged to work with a few of them in determining the McAnulty line that married into the Vance Family in South Carolina.   I loved pouring through books, censuses, and periodicals to find the information.  It is amazing how much research has grown in the last 5 years. 
The Vance line has an archive now on Rootsweb.com   This is a link to one of them. 
There is also the beginning of a new Vance Association Online.
This is not the same people that I wrote back and forth with.  I imagine some of the older researchers are still working diligently, but many had not made the transition to computers, they still wrote letters.  I still write, if the need is there.
Ruth, I hope this helps some on the Vance lines you are working on. If you would like give me some dates, I will look in my book for you.

First You Have to Look to Find The Treasure

This week has been an awesome week for treasure hunting and finds beyond what was sought.  A sweet friend of mine who was intimidated by reaching out to try and find the real ancestor, sat down with me and we went on a hunt together.  At the end of two days of looking at all the possibilities, and offerings, we pinpointed her ancestor as well as back 3 generations.  She sat back and sighed and said "you just have to stand back and look at the big picture."  Ancestry was invaluable for comparing census, and family trees as well as Family Search.

 Now she is taking the next step.  She is emailing the

 people who have posted their trees and is filled with hope she will quickly get feed back and find the biggest treasure in the ancestor hunt...extended family.  Many time it is just a small clue or feeling "impressed" to pick up a book, that sends you down the path to the hidden treasures.

My personal experience was enhanced by finding proof of an ancestor in the land records when looking for a different ancestor.  All long term researchers have their moments of A HA!

Just When We Think We Are Done

I felt like the sewer who had thought she was able to lean back after her afghan was crocheted and relax. I thought most of the work on my Hughes family was done. I was down to figuring out when and from where they came from the United States. Not so, today as I was trying to find a living Hughes from that line, I came across research that conflicts with mine. That tells me I need to review and reconsider as well as research any new material that has come to light since I last worked on this line. I will have to make time to go the Clayton Genealogy Library in Houston to do some serious book reading and researching. (Not that I have to have my arm twisted or anything.) I love going there, now I have to.