The Tortoise Approach

 

Perhaps change is in the air. Along with the shifting seasons, I'm spotting signs of more than just beta tests at Ancestry.com. In fact, there's quite a buzz about the banner heading AncestryDNA's landing page—something I've unwittingly bypassed since I sign in directly to the option to view my matches or latest ThruLines update. Superimposed upon what appears to be a map of the world's reference panels, the banner heralds: "Coming soon: AncestryDNA results will be updated with even more precision in the coming weeks."

Coming weeks? How long will I have to wait to see this? I fervently hope I've missed seeing that banner for quite some time. I'm not sure I can wait that much longer. Sometimes, I feel more like the hare in the fable, chafing at the starting line to be off and running, rather than the plodding tortoise, sure to never win the race to find my ancestral answers.

While several genea-bloggers are surmising the latest heralded changes at Ancestry will relate to ethnicity estimates, I'm frankly not all that concerned about those data points. As I work, match by match, to pinpoint the place on my family tree where each DNA cousin belongs, I'm hoping for far more useful data for such a task. Remember, I'm stuck with this extra member of my father-in-law's family—Irish immigrant Dennis Tully, who is the apparent ancestor of more than eight of my husband's DNA matches. If there was any way, through DNA technology, to speedily determine whether he was the actual, bona fide son of our Denis Tully and Margaret Flannery, rather than being another relationship, that is the stuff of which I'd be most appreciative. As far as I can see, there is no other way to find documentation showing the correct relationship.

Between the latest beta tests and banners promising good things to come, the news certainly is being heralded on social media. Anticipation is fun, yes, but the end results will fully tell the tale. Yet, looking back over the last nine and a half years since buying my first DNA test kit, the ease with which I can determine where to place each cousin in my tree has greatly increased. I'm in awe over how much I've learned about family connections through this tool of genetic genealogy.

At this point, I've completely connected each of the eight ThruLines matches for this Tully line—the largest DNA test-taking set of all the descendants of Dennis Tully's supposed parents, Denis and Margaret Flannery Tully. Within the remainder of the DNA matches at Ancestry.com, I've also spotted three or four additional candidates for this line and placed two of them in the tree, as well. Next task will be to move on to the other DNA companies where my family has tested, to spot matches descending from this same Dennis in those companies' matches, as well. And matches who may not show up in my husband's test might be part of the test results for either of my two sisters-in-law.

More discoveries await, I'm certain. All it takes is more work—plodding work to examine matches not yet aligned with Side View wizardry or through other tools. A tortoise approach for sure. New tools may redirect those efforts into slam-dunk answers with the new and improved hare approach, but I know I can figure out many of these puzzles with old-fashioned sheer effort, as well.

Still, I'm glad for those speedy short-cut tools. The more we can accomplish in less time, the more liberty we'll have to move on to even more amazing discoveries. In a few weeks. With the next update. In the meantime, perhaps I can make it to the finish line before the hare makes its next appearance. You know the old saying about slow and steady....

Beta Bait

 

It was the indefatigable Debbie Kennett who first brought my attention to it: beta tests are Ancestry.com's way of gauging customer response to their changes. On her, ahem, not-Twitter account, she shared a link to an article describing the technology behind the inquiries behind the beta tests.

Yes, I know that's a mouthful. But here are a few takeaways I gleaned from the linked article. Posted on the website of Statsig, a feature management and experimentation platform now being used by Ancestry, the article explained, "Ancestry's roadmap includes a mandate that every new feature has to be delivered via experimentation."

Thus, perhaps, the explanation regarding the multiple beta offerings appearing in the last several months, as the article itself indicated. The Statsig tools help the Ancestry team analyze how each beta offering functions and, bottom line, is received, even by sub-segments of their customer base.

Perhaps hidden within all that analysis is the reason why some beta offerings seem to simply disappear. That was apparent when I first read articles about the latest offering I've mentioned—that of the Fan View options—where the array of features shrunk from several to just one in a matter of days.

Then, too, bloggers have shown signs that multiple beta offerings are swirling about at the same time. Just when I spotted Marian Wood's recent post—and thinking it was yet another dissection of the Fan View beta—I realized Ancestry's beta world is operating on multiple planes of digital existence: you may receive one beta while I get to check out another.

Just as quickly as the Fan View beta morphed from one multi-faceted version to a single option—choose it or don't—I realized I better not bank on having that option around for the long term. Though it isn't anytime near my year-end reverie on my Twelve Most Wanted for next year's research plans, I figured I better jump on the chance to capture the visuals I think will help me in planning, in case that chance disappears entirely.

Today, I took a snapshot of the Fan View for each of my sixteen second great-grandparents. The idea is to spot at a glance where I need to focus future research efforts. Of those sixteen, some pictures produced painfully obvious diagrams, like this one for Sarah Catherine Laws, from my maternal grandfather's family.

Each of the sixteen snapshots show the work I have cut out for future research projects. Each diagram looks different. Take, for instance, this Fan View for Mary Elizabeth Rainey, from my grandmother's heritage, pointing out a quite lopsided research path.

Now that I have each of the sixteen views laid out—and preserved on my own system, just in case this beta test doesn't seem to resonate with Ancestry subscribers or the company's management—I have a clearer picture of just where I need to apply future work. My next step will be to employ this same routine to capture similar views for each of my husband's second great-grandparents, as well.

Then, hopefully, I'll be better equipped to decide where to apply my research efforts for the upcoming year. And if any further beta tests come my way with complementary tools and resources, I'll be thrilled to explore just how they might amplify my efforts.

Looking Forward

 

Fall is in the air—and in those delicious promos for pumpkin spiced lattes. Around here, daytime temperatures are still reaching into the nineties, but people are ready for a change.

I can't say I'm in any rush to dispense with the seasonable weather, but the coolness in the morning—and a few other signs—have put me in the mood to look forward to a new year.

Yesterday's message from Ancestry.com which gifted me with the beta version of their new "fan view" has certainly been part of the reason I'm looking forward to the upcoming year. Frankly, work on my father-in-law's Irish roots, mired in the murky midst of a century lacking existent records, has put a damper on my research enthusiasm. And looking forward to the last quarter of the year, when I devote time to puzzling through my own father's unfathomable Polish roots, comes with that same dread of unsuccessful forays. I need something new to look forward to, and the fan view beta has given me that first glimpse of something—hopefully—yet to come.

Here's the main reason I'm looking forward to using the fan view: it will help me find some fresh candidates for my Twelve Most Wanted for 2024. Yes, I warned you: I'm already looking forward to a new year. My approach—and quickly, just in case Ancestry yanks its beta version of this fan chart option—is to take all of my most distant known ancestors and draw up charts using each of them as the home person.

I could take, for instance, my second great-grandparents and create that fan view chart for each one of them. Then, looking at who is missing in the generations beyond, formulate my plan for filling in those blanks. For the family lines in which the blanks don't appear until generations after that point, I simply use that later great-grandparent as the home person for the fan chart. In some cases—for instance, in my mother's and my mother-in-law's family lines—that home person could be someone born in colonial times.

Wherever those ancestors fall on the timeline of generations, the visual of who's there and who's missing is quite helpful—and is somehow more obvious to me than looking at a horizontal pedigree chart. I'm having quite a bit of fun with this already, but I think it will offer up some viable alternatives for me to research next year. It will certainly pinpoint some of the lines I've neglected over the past years.

I may not be much for pumpkin spiced lattes, myself, but that encouraging feeling of looking forward to a new challenge does provide inspiration—and energy. And to think it was all thanks to a simple experiment in a beta version of an idea that really isn't anything new. Just different. Like changing seasons. And different coffee flavors. 

Seeing Things Differently

 

A well-trained eye has become accustomed to gleaning minute details from maps or other diagrams. In our case as family historians, pedigree charts become our familiar domain. We know how to read them and what to look for. And yet, I find it refreshing to be able to rearrange the order of a chart, because it provides a new way to view research progress. When the diagram is rearranged, it allows us to see things differently. And sometimes, that leads to helpful discoveries.

Yesterday, when I opened up my Ancestry.com tree to make additions to my father-in-law's new Tully line, up popped an announcement about a different type of family tree: a fan chart.

Ancestry is adding an additional option of seeing your pedigree chart in what they call "fan view." Of course, this is a beta offering, so not everyone will see this immediately in their account. In fact, I'm apparently the new kid on the beta block, as others have already written about this beta offering. It was only a few days ago when Ancestry's fan view test included even more options than what I can access now—options which I hope Ancestry will eventually include in their final version, such as extending the view from five generations to seven, and setting the chart so that it can be easily printable at a size which is legible. After all, I'd love to share my work—without having to bring along a magnifying glass when I show it off.

Granted, there are other genealogy programs, both online and in desktop-resident options, which already offer the option of viewing our work in fan chart arrangement. For some of those, I am already a subscriber. However, since Ancestry is where I do the bulk of my family history research, I am glad for this latest development.

New toys demand time for play, and I did experiment with printing the charts—both my parents' tree and that of my in-laws. I was surprised to see, in working with my own parents' lines, that there were no blanks among the generations. I've had so much trouble researching my paternal side, especially the Polish ancestry, that I was sure I would find gaps. That was an encouraging discovery—even though I could have seen the same thing, looking at the traditional pedigree chart (I prefer using the horizontal version). I guess looking at things differently can also be encouraging.

What I found most useful in this new fan chart offering is the option of going to a specific individual—say, an ancestor outside the five-generation parameter currently offered in this beta version—then, on the person's profile page, selecting "view in tree." From that vantage point of the specific individual, I can then select "fan view" and see that individual at the central position in their own fan display.

Here, for example, is the fan view visually demonstrating what I currently have added to the line of my second great-grandfather, Thomas Taliaferro Broyles. You can see, even in this chart, Ancestry has automatically added suggestions for the ancestors I haven't yet confirmed, including clickable green tabs with hints. The other uncolored slots show me at a glance where I need to focus my research in the upcoming year. 

If Ancestry decides to include this fan view option in their ongoing offerings, I hope the several iterations of the idea that were originally developed will be included in the end product. Color coding to show which ancestral lines need the most work—greater need for work represented by more intense shade of the color code for larger number of hints—could help pinpoint where to direct research efforts. So would the ability to expand the chart to include more generations.

At a glance, the fan view option gives us another way to not only see what work is still needed, but aesthetically reward us for what we've already accomplished. I certainly appreciate the opportunity to print and share what I've been working on. And who knows? Maybe the family and friends who see it might be encouraged to try their own hand at finding their ancestors, too. 

When Parts of the Story are Missing

 

Researching a less-familiar family line can feel somewhat like finding your way down a dark hallway, blindfolded. That's the feeling I'm left with, once I entered the line of Dennis Tully's grandson, Frederick Hugh Kane. It's been that thin line of hockey connecting each of Frederick's children—and, eventually, leading me to them.

The key to finding each of these children was taking a leap into the dark and locating an obituary for at least one potential child. Then, using the names of that person's siblings listed in the obituary, branching out to locate more documentation on the next sibling. Once again, step by step, comparing names to move to another sibling, until I complete the family constellation. 

It hasn't been easy. The last sign I could find of Frederick Hugh Kane—other than his own Find a Grave entry—was his appearance in a few census records. In 1911, he appeared in his parents' home in Perth County, Ontario. At that point, he was twenty one and single. Ten years later—though with no sign of any marriage record—he was not only married to Lillian, but was father of three: baby Frederick and daughters Mary Ethel and her mama's namesake, eldest child Lillian Ruth.

From that point, the elder Frederick's next appearance in 1931 was as a married man, yet in the household of his sister Ethel and her husband, Frank Harkin. No mention of Frederick's wife or children, at least in that household. Frederick's burial in 1954 was the next record I could find for him, buried alone, but in the same cemetery as that of his sister Ethel.

Meanwhile, from the obituary of one of Frederick's children, John, I learned that their mother had moved them to Toronto when John was about twelve. Since he was born in 1925, that meant his mother moved the family in 1937—several years after her husband appeared in his brother-in-law's household for the 1931 census.

There is a story missing here, of course, but likely not one I'll be able to access. While there is always a need to be discreet with family details—although some governmental entities divulge more documents with the public than others—it is the continuing story of the DNA connection which I'm seeking.

I could likely fill in the blanks in my own mind as to what became of that family. But now that I've found the obituaries for far more children than those whose names appeared in that most recent publicly shared census enumeration, I've begun piecing together the family constellation. And that's really all I had been seeking: a way to confirm where DNA matches belong in our family tree.

Genealogy, for me, has always functioned somewhat like an algebra equation. When I find myself missing a key detail—the "x" of the equation—I simply have found ways to re-arrange the known facts to isolate the variable. When the known facts are readily accessible—and we all know which states or provinces share more than the others—we can pencil in that algebraic genealogy calculation quite handily.

There are other realms, however, where even if we are missing the documentation, we can read between the lines and guess what might have occurred. And that is where discretion comes in. Perhaps there are parts of the story which are better laid to rest, for the peace of mind of those who remain, if for no other reason. 

Running in the Family

 

From time to time, when I hear people discussing members of a family, I'll hear the phrase, "It must have run in the family." Perhaps it is in comparing pictures of siblings, or meeting someone's parent or child, that the similarities can jump out unexpectedly.

In piecing together a family tree, researching collateral lines can be just as helpful. Though we may not see those ancestors face to face—or even in photographs—learning something about their siblings can help guide us in our search to fully understand the family. Once we learn about an ancestor's siblings, we start to get those "aha" moments when we realize there are traits which run in that family.

Take the ice hockey player, "Red" Kane, I mentioned yesterday. I've been working on that family's tree longer than I had expected, simply because I haven't been able to locate adequate documentation. And yet, stepping forward into the unknown anyhow, I began to spot some similarities popping up in the possible members of that family.

It actually wasn't Red Kane himself whom I first found in my search, but a brother. Thanks to a hint at Ancestry as I stumbled about online, I found a border crossing for Red's brother John. Though whoever filled out the border crossing paperwork in 1945 got his name partially wrong—John Birchman Kane instead of John Bertram Kane—his birthdate and the name of his mother Lillian confirmed this was the right sibling.

The place he was destined for in 1945 was what caught my eye: the San Francisco Hockey Club at the Winterland Arena. I got the feeling he wasn't traveling across the continent from his native Stratford, Ontario, for the mere purpose of visiting a tourist attraction. He was going on business.

It wasn't until the other end of his life when I found the rest of the story. In his obituary, I picked up a few of the missing details from the earlier portion of his life. For one thing, John B. Kane went by the nickname Jeff (though the only mention of a hockey player by that name was for one season with the San Francisco team during the 1945-1946 season).

John was one of eight siblings who survived to adulthood. According to his obituary, John, like his brothers, "excelled in hockey." His obit noted that he played semi-pro in both San Francisco and Indianapolis, before returning home to Canada to play for the Toronto Winged Wheelers. Now that I've found that information for both John and his brother Francis, perhaps that trait, running in the family, may help guide me to the rest of the brothers.

It was the obituary which also helped fill in some of the blanks in John's own life, especially the many places where he lived, and the family members who remained—and may potentially be among my husband's DNA matches whom I've yet to place correctly in the family tree.

But following these traits and personal history turn out to be helpful in yet another way. Like piecing together colored slivers into a mosaic to make sense of the bigger picture, it is such glimpses of each family member's lifetime which helps me paint the picture of the larger family descended from our Dennis Tully, the immigrant from County Tipperary who settled in Canada. And this family in particular presents me with a challenge: there are several pieces of their picture which are still missing.

Prime among the missing puzzle pieces is what became of Dennis Tully's own grandson, the man who supposedly was father of these Kane brothers who lived and breathed hockey. Until I began finding obituaries for any of John's siblings, I had no idea what became of Frederick Hugh Kane. But now, at least I know he was out of the picture, according to this obituary, when his mother moved her children to Toronto when John was about twelve.

I'll do the math, of course, and keep looking for more documentation, but I'll also take my cue from the fact that hockey runs in this family's blood. Detail by detail, across all eight of the siblings who survived to adulthood, what I can find hidden between the lines may, in the aggregate, be what leads me to the answers I'm seeking on this family line. 

Looking for the Stories Behind the Ancestors

 

Granted, not many of us know our own third cousins, personally. But this month, in researching the descendants of a newly-discovered branch of my father-in-law's Tully family, I found one I wish I had gotten to know. 

Dennis Tully, that Irish-born Canadian immigrant whose descendants showed up in my husband's DNA matches, unexplained, had a large family which included several daughters. One of them, named Johanna but preferring to go by Hannah for short, married a man by the name of Hugh Kane. They, in turn, settled in Stratford, Ontario, where they had a somewhat smaller family than the Tullys' own, the oldest of which Hugh and Hannah named Frederick Hugh Kane.

Frederick eventually married a Stratford gal named Lillian, from which followed at least eight children that I could find, with the last two being twins. While I have yet to determine part of their family story—Lillian seemed to be the strong influence in this household—I noticed a theme developing in the siblings' stories. They were all active—and one skill that they liked in particular was ice skating.

No surprise, here; they're Canadian. Plenty of opportunities to practice their hobby, eh?

I began seeing this trend as I read through the siblings' obituaries. When I got to one in particular, I found myself wishing I had had the opportunity to meet him in person. The memorial styled him as someone with roots in Canada, but there was so much more to say about the man. He was apparently a great storyteller, "never met a stranger" and "could learn everything about a person in the course of an elevator ride." Credited with "silent generosity," he served on his adopted city's parks and recreation board for eighteen years, after which the city named a park in his honor. At the close of the obituary, where typical "in lieu of flowers" statements are inserted, this one was different: "that you would do one spontaneous, unsolicited act of kindness for someone."

This Tully descendant alone, of all his siblings in the Kane family, had left Canada and settled in Texas, which might have explained the border crossing documents I was able to find. As it turns out, there was a reason for that, and it had to do with his love of skating. Actually, that love of skating brought him to cities across the North American continent, places like Detroit, Saint Louis, Tulsa, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, and Vancouver--as well as the Fort Worth area, where he eventually settled. As a professional ice hockey player, Francis J. Kane—or Red Kane, as he came to be called—played in 447 games from 1943 through 1951. While most of his games were played in the minor leagues, he did play for the major league Detroit Red Wings.

It was fun to find so many details about the life of this third cousin. More than just building out a family tree with bland names, places, and dates, I've always wanted to include the stories that seem to bring these people back to life again. Newspapers are one way to attempt getting the bigger picture, but sometimes that resource is as limited as the editorial policy in place in an ancestor's hometown paper. Granted, it is not every day that we find write-ups in Wikipedia under our relative's name—but sometimes, that rare occurrence can provide information as well as links to other resources about that family member. Sometimes, just googling the family member's name, or looking through old history books at Internet Archive can also provide resources for those stories we crave.

When we do find those unexpected stories, what a treasure they are. At the slightest hint that they might be out there, it's worth taking the time to go take a look.