Genealogy Course

Taken by Genevieve Vaundell De Haan 2015

Finally Spring is in the air!! I just Love the bright yellow daffodils. Sorry my other passion is gardening.

I should of mentioned this earlier, but like everyone else I have had my "hands in to many pots" like my mother use to say. I am taking a free course on genealogy at RootsMOOC which can be found at https://learn.canvas.net//courses/369. It is An Introduction to Genealogy and Family History Research. The course started on March 23, 2015 and there is an Introduction Module plus 4 other Modules. Module 1 is Getting Started which introduces all the forms and things you need to know to get started. We are on Module 2 US Census and I found this module very helpful even though I have been doing my family history and genealogy or about 20 years. It never hurts to back to the basics and start all over. I think you can still sign up if you are interested.

From this course a new group was started up by MaryAlice Kane Depew on Facebook called Find Your Ancestors without Spending a DIME;. We all know that no hobby or life passion is completely free but this Group is dedicated to helping other Genealogists and Family Historians to finding resources that are free or things that charge a minimal fee. I'm not a big Facebook user but I have found some very useful information being shared on this group. They appear to stick to the subject matter.
DISCLOSURE I'm one of the Admins.
If you are interested check us out on Facebook and you can let them know I sent you.

Using Tablet at NERGC

I am back from the NERGC genealogy conference held last week April 15-18, 2015 in Providence, Rhode Island. I promised I would write about my adventures with my Android tablet (first time using  one, and no computer). I have an Asus Nexus that my daughter gave me a couple of Christmas's ago.
At home I  made sure all my updates were current and that my tablet was fully charged. I also downloaded the sections of the syllabus that I was interested in; then made sure I had packed my cord to recharge the tablet each night. I was ready to go to the conference. I was finally ready to use my tablet for something more than playing games. I was quite excited.

Wednesday night in our Hotel room my roommates and I were discussing if we could download the syllabus as an editable document. I had enough trouble figuring out how to download all the parts of the syllabus that were important to me. That is my first learning lesson, but no problem I know I can take notes, on the tablet and need the experience.

Picture taken by Genevieve De Haan of Tablet taken to NERGC

Thursday afternoon my first class T-104 is most appropriately "There's an app for That!"   presenter is Donna Moughty sponsored by The Connecticut Professional Genealogists Council. How lucky can one person get. If you ever get a chance to hear Donna Moughty speak do it. She is a terrific and knowledgeable presenter. Her website is http://www.moughty.com/ and she is also on Facebook and gives tours to Ireland. She talked about having the convenience of being able to have your genealogy with you (all the time) with a smart phone or tablet. Most of us want to travel lighter but still access our information instantly. Donna went over many of the common genealogy apps and stated that an added advantage is that computer programs cost up to $100.00 where apps usually run less than $10.00 with many of them being free. At the end of her presentation she gave many tips about short cuts with the I-phone. She worked for Apple for 21 years and appears to know her stuff. I wish I wrote more of them down as a man in the audience stated at the end of the talk that everything  she covered worked on the android devises also.

Yes, I did say I wrote down as you see I had printed the syllabus at home on the lectures I felt were really important, as I didn't know how my experiment was going to work out (Backup plan). Also since this was my first class my screen kept going black. I soon was able to rectify that problem by going to settings and changing my Display time to 30 minutes instead of the 2 minutes it was set at.

I will not bore you with my everyday experience with my tablet, but will tell you I believe that the tablet or smart phone is the way to go. Please Believe me that is saying a lot coming from a person that likes the feel of books and paper (hard copy) in her hand instead of reading things electronically. If I had to rate my experience I would give it 4 stars out 5 with 5 being excellent. So please don't be afraid to try it, because if I can do it, you can do it. I will definitely do it again and not be so fearful.

DNA, genealogy confernces

I really wanted to blog about my new experiences with my DNA results and what I have discovered through meeting" living cousins," but I ran out of time. So I will have to do it next time. You see I'm going to the NERGC conference in Providence, Rhode Island April 15-18. For more information use the following link:
http://www.nergc.org/E-zine_11_2015.pdf
I have been busier than usual as I went to the New England Family History Conference last Saturday April 11, 2015 held in Franklin, Massachusetts. This is a free genealogy conference put on by the  Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which just celebrated 40 years of conferences this year. For further information please go to the following link: 
www.nefamilyhistory.com
D. Joshua Taylor was the Keynote Speaker this year, and was excellent as always. There were a few local people presenting-Sandra Goodwin, Seema Kenney, Michael Brophy, and Marjorie Turner Hollman to name a few.

I also was getting my tablet ready for use at the conference for the first time. It will be an experiment for me and hopefully a wonderful experience as I'm not taking my computer this year. I will let you know how this works out on a future blog. Wish me a lot of luck. Thanks for following me and I will be in touch soon.

DNA-Jonathan Treadway family

The beginning of March 2015 I received an e-mail from David and Marcia Treadway stating that David and I are 1st or 2nd cousins through DNA testing (FamilyTreeDNA). I was quite excited because all the other matches had not been close at all, and when I looked into their trees (if they had published their trees) there were no surnames that I could relate to.
With the information Marcia & David had given me in the e-mail plus going to their posted  public tree on Ancestry.com, I knew right away we are 1st cousins once removed. My mother's biological father  (my grandfather) and David's father are brothers. We exchanged information on our family through e-mails, snail mail and via phone.
This is very exciting as they were able to provide me with pictures of my great grandfather (William Henry Treadway) and great grandmother (Katherine Mellisa Bennett) and some of my grandfather's siblings.
I would naturally love to give back to them. David wants to become a member of The Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) through Jonathan Treadway, but we need more primary resources. They have documentation going back to William Miller Treadway (1817- 1875) born in Crown Point, Essex Co., New York, married to Caroline  C. Moore (1817-1846). They need first source documents going from William Miller to his father William Darwin Treadway (1795-1861), born Shoreham, Addison Co., Vermont, married to Elizabeth Miller (1797-1882). Also need documentation from William Darwin to his father Jonathan Treadway (1755-1832) the Revolutionary Drummer boy, who was married to Hannah Rood (1756-1832).

Pedigree Chart From David and Marcia Treadway

I know all the William Treadways can be very confusing, but some of the tree is even more confusing in that there are 3 William Henry's in a row. This family just loves the name William Henry.

I am hoping that someone out there is reading this and can help us with the information we need to make David's dream of becoming a SAR member a reality. Please get in touch with me if you have anything that will help us make this happen.