An Unexpected Gift

I've already mentioned that, in my quest to locate a descendant of the family who dispatched that mystery photo album from Ireland in 1936, I finally made contact with one of Harry and Alice Reid's grandchildren the morning after Saint Patrick's Day. I had been running that morning, trying to get out the door and catch a flight to Florida, so I didn't actually bother to check my messages until I settled in at the airport. But yes, for me, it was still morning when I read the news.

The message came in on Facebook Messenger, the same medium which I had used to send the plea to the Cork Genealogical Society Facebook group—the request that made its stellar debut on Saint Patrick's Day.

This time, the answer wasn't as mundane as the mere granting of permissions to access a website. But it was a definite answer in the affirmative. After a polite "good morning"—remember, Irish time and California time differ by eight hours—my correspondent went on to confirm, "Yes, you've found the right family!"

The woman messaging me confirmed some details about the family of Harry and Alice Reid we've already noticed from the photo album. The Reids were her grandparents, and yes, they did live at a place called Bride Park. She confirmed the location in Ovens, County Cork. Wrapping up, she thanked me for being "so tenacious" and welcomed our continued correspondence.

You can be sure, airport setting or not, I was ecstatic—and lost no time in answering the message. Of course, I had to explain that we were en route to the other side of the continent, and that I wouldn't be able to say much more for the remainder of the day, but that—oh, believe me!—I certainly wanted to talk her ear off. There were so many more questions I still had to figure out.

As it turned out, what seemed like the unfortunate timing of having to be out of touch at the very moment in which a cascade of questions had erupted worked out for the best—and in the most charming way. While the success of my connection with the Reids' granddaughter was eclipsed by the necessities of air travel, my newfound friend in County Cork had her own schedule complexities to navigate.

You see, the same day she received my message, she was celebrating a special day of her own: that very day just happened to be her birthday. Bet she had no idea our connection would make its debut during her birthday festivities.

Above: "When the Boats Come In," oil on canvas by Irish Impressionist landscape artist, Walter Frederick Osborne (1859 - 1903); courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

From Forums to Facebook

Once genealogists discovered the power of the Internet, researching our family history changed—for the better, in my opinion. My quest to connect with a living descendant of the Irish couple whose 1936 family album ended up in an antique store near my home provides a case in point.

Used to be, in the early days of online access, a researcher could post a "query" on a forum geared to readers who shared the same interests. There were a number of such communities online, of which the old Rootsweb forums are still in existence as one example, thanks to the fact that they are now hosted by Ancestry.com.

Anyone wishing to ask anything from simple requests for obituaries to more complex questions on a wide variety of topics could pose their question to a ready-made audience of other genealogy fans on these forums. Free, easy, with ready access, forums were an obvious go-to place for researchers in the 1990s and early years post-Y2K.

The buzz has migrated away from those old forums to new digs, now. With "everybody" on Facebook lately, it was a logical jump to ditch the old fashioned forums for a perkier place for instant access to genealogical answers.

Don't think that is a lightweight choice. The same social media which bring us mind-numbing digital drivel ("and this is a photo of what I had for lunch today") prove to be quite effective at dishing up instant answers to our research questions.

In fact, so many people have voted with the click of their mouse to head to Facebook that there are apparently over ten thousand Facebook pages and groups in the English language alone dedicated to talk about genealogical pursuits.

That fact was not lost on me when I puzzled over the best strategy for sending my mystery photo album back home to Ireland. I knew that many of the Facebook genealogy groups were organized by geographic location. If there was a group dedicated to researching genealogy for County Cork, Ireland, I wanted to find it.

It's easy to find organizations on Facebook: just enter the terms you are seeking in the search bar at the top of any Facebook page. The only drawback is that there are two types of entries on Facebook. One is for "groups" and one is for "pages." If an organization chooses the "groups" format when they set up their Facebook entity, they may choose to make that group open or closed.

Unfortunately, the County Cork entry on Facebook was a closed group. The bright side, though, is that most closed groups are quite willing to grant admission, just upon the mere request to be allowed to join. So I asked.

And waited.

It was then that I noticed the Cork Genealogical Society also has an open page, so I followed the links. Eventually, I noticed a sidebar mentioning the group's Facebook Messenger link and, next to a link with the words, "Message now," the promise, "typically replies within a day."

That was the spot where I jumped at the opportunity and sent my query. Even if the Society didn't permit me access to their closed group, I could still send my message. Hopefully, someone there wouldn't mind seeing if my target Hawkes and Reid families had descendants who still lived in the area.

Just before heading to bed the night before Saint Patrick's Day, I sent my official query via Facebook Messenger to the Cork Genealogical Society. By 1:51 the next afternoon (my time), the group's contact person informed me that I had been admitted to the closed group, and added, "Would you like me to cross post [my query from the open page messenger system onto the closed group] on your behalf?"

As soon as I could, I sent back a resounding, "Yes!" About fifteen minutes after that point, she responded, "I'll tag you so you can see the comments."

By that time—in the matter of one hour and eleven minutes of members' comments on that Saint Patrick's Day—the discussion thread was thirty responses deep. I had clippings of newspaper articles regarding the family, hints from other Society members, and a claim to have obtained the address of a specific, named, living descendant. It was at that spot in the sequence that someone mentioned recalling that the descendant may have been on Facebook, herself.

That was when I held my breath and tapped out a quick note to a total stranger, asking forgiveness for my intrusion on her privacy but...would she possibly be the granddaughter of one Harry and Alice Reid?

Facebook is wonderful in that it brings researchers together to crowdsource the answers to our research problems, but in no way can it actually guarantee that one participant will answer the question posed by another Facebook user. While this Saint Patrick's Day did indeed bring me some exciting news, the day closed without my actually achieving my goal of contacting the Reid family descendant I was seeking.

No Longer a Mystery

While Ireland was sleeping, I had sent the twenty-first century's equivalent of a message in a bottle. By the time I retired for the night—and while Ireland was just starting to awaken—someone five thousand miles from me was sending a message back.

It's been two weeks since I've mentioned anything about the family photograph album I had found in a northern California antique shop. Just because there's been no report doesn't mean I haven't had anything to report. On the contrary: a lot has transpired behind the scenes. This week, I'd like to share some updates.

As a recap, here's what led up to my last post on the subject on the nineteenth of March. From the time of my original entry introducing the photo album back at the end of December, I had posted the day-by-day journal of my suppositions about just who might have created the album and who the pictured family members might have been. My goal had been to determine the full identity of those included in the album, and then, using that information, to try and return the album to a living descendant of the family.

Since I had started out with only the first names of a handful of players, plus some other vague hints, it took me almost daily postings to talk through the problem. This went on from the beginning of January through the third week of February. By that point, with no further clues—or nibbles from any members of the mystery family, themselves—I decided to set the project aside.

If you know me, you know that had to be a difficult decision. I so wanted to see that project through to the end. I wasn't going to be satisfied until I could send that little photo album home to Ireland, to the family of the couple who originated it.

Of course, I couldn't even stand to abide my own decision. With Saint Patrick's Day coming up, my mind wandered back to that Irish album, and I decided to give the quest one more attempt. Only this time, I tried a different approach: crowdsource the solution.

I sent out a request for Facebook friends and Twitter followers to pass the word along, linking back to a post I wrote explaining this one last plea. Two days later, I already had a suggestion for a possible contact—someone who was likely a direct descendant of the couple who created the album. The very next day, after sending a message to that person online, I received confirmation that that was the right connection.

Since that time, we've exchanged a lot of emails. The real treat, though, was getting to talk with this descendant over the phone. Both of us are now working to piece together a fuller picture of the family tree. And that question of just how the album from the Reid family of County Cork, Ireland, showed up in California is a puzzle we are better suited to unravel as we work on this together.

Best yet is this descendant's willingness to share more of the Hawkes and Reid families' story, including some marvelous photographs. She's granted me permission to share with you some of the details from our conversations, and we'll begin with that in tomorrow's post.

I am still in awe over how modern social media, as well as online research capabilities, have facilitated allowing two total strangers to connect. In the past, this might have been as likely as finding a message in a cast-off bottle—and then being able to trace the message back to its originator. While the exercise, despite its twenty-first-century boost, is still not what you could call effortless, it is vastly more possible with today's connectivity than ever before.

Above: "Lost on the Grand Banks," 1885 oil on canvas by American landscape artist Winslow Homer; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Now Indexing : U.S. Naturalization Records

I like to spend some time, regularly, indexing digitized records so that they may be searchable in online genealogical websites. My go-to place for this is the indexing project at FamilySearch.org. That's a natural choice, because I put that site through its paces so regularly, it's a nice feeling to know I'm giving back for all the benefits I'm freely receiving.

There are so many collections still awaiting that indexing step before they are readily searchable online. Once you have the indexing program installed on your computer, when you click on the "download a batch" button, you can get an idea of the wide variety of projects awaiting your help.

I like to focus on collections which match my research goals. Since I am researching family in Illinois, New York and Tennessee in the United States, I often select available projects from those states. It helps me feel like I'm not only helping others, but possibly adding to records I might find myself using in my own research some day.

This week, I decided to work on Illinois records, and to continue with the record set I've worked on before: the Naturalization Records 1837-1988 for the state of Illinois. Many of those records were typewritten to start with, so I don't anticipate encountering impossible-to-read handwriting. Besides, even if they were handwritten, many court records from that earlier era often were composed by clerks who likely were hired partly for their excellent penmanship. Hundred-year-later perk for me: no more eye strain and mental contortions over anguished attempts at deciphering chicken scratch.

True to expectations, this week's effort was relatively painless. Despite enduring the usual flourishes found in some court records, processing the records was a straightforward process. It hardly took much time at all to complete my goal for the day.

While the time and effort taken to perform this little opportunity to give back was minuscule, it is in the aggregate that the volunteer contribution takes on its impressive effect. Working together, volunteers around the clock and around the world have assembled the product that enables so many documents to become searchable online. Our collective effort puts original records at the fingertips of researchers from archives and repositories of many countries. Without this boost, to have assembled these verifications for our own research, piece by piece in person, would have taken ages—if that were even possible at all.

Though assembling those documents, in the first place, was an impressive accomplishment, if it weren't for that other step—translating the words captured in images so computers could search for those terms in rapid response—we would still be "browsing" through those collections, image by image, not much faster than we did, back when we were cranking through old microfilm.

Above: "An Orchard in Springtime," oil on canvas by German landscape artist Hugo Baar (1873 - 1912); courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

. . . And All Because of a DNA Test

What I have to say today may be a premature assumption. I'm too filled with the wonder of it, though, to wait any longer to say something.

It's amazing what turns up when a random person sees those DNA commercials yet another time. Over and over, these genealogy companies repeat their sales pitches. You'd think at some point, people would become immune to the constant sales babble and turn a deaf ear. Apparently, though, the message is getting across to some of the people we'd never dream would take a shine to genealogical pursuits.

One of those people turned out to be one of my nieces. Now a mom, herself, she called me a while back to ask about DNA testing. Turns out, her seven year old has been pestering her with questions about where he came from. (No, not the low-down on the stork story; he really wanted to know his ethnic heritage.) She decided—why not?—to try those DNA tests she had been hearing about from all those commercials.

So now, we mount the steep learning curve. After the fact.

But this is fine. There is nothing so wonderful—at least to someone passionate about her family history—as to discover someone else in the family has fallen in love with the same pursuit.

The other day, another call from my niece. She had just received her test results. What do they mean? And...and...why the surprises? What about those unexpected ethnic traces?

The more we talked, the more another story came into focus. Yes, her son is asking so many questions. But she has questions, too. And they aren't simply about that DNA test.

Listening sometimes is the best antidote to not knowing what to say next. In this season of listening, I discovered something about my niece: she's been fascinated with family stories, it seems, ever since she was a child. She told me how she used to get together with her grandma and ask her so many questions about the family—stories about people her grandmother remembered from her own childhood.

"I just love this stuff." I remember saying that so many times, myself, but this time, it wasn't me talking. It wasn't any of my friends from our genealogical society. It was my niece. Someone in my own family. I'm in awe.

Like any other researcher, after a lifetime of work on these family mysteries, I sometimes wonder if anyone else will value all that I've compiled after I'm gone. Will the discoveries mean something to anyone else? I'm sure you've heard fellow genealogy enthusiasts voice the same concerns. Maybe you've thought the same thing, yourself.

It was quite an eye-opener last week, in visiting with my cousins, to realize that perhaps I was even—unwittingly—the one carrying the research baton to the next goal in this research relay race, for an uncle who had worked on the project before me.

And now, perhaps there will be someone who will eventually see herself as the one to carry our family's story forward to the next generation. Perhaps.

All I know is, first off, before anyone in the next generation picks up that baton and carries it forward, he or she has got to have that spark that propels you forward, that calls you deeper into the project. That curiosity to find out more. When it comes to genealogy, you just gotta love it. Once you've been smitten with that spark, the rest will soon follow after.

I believe someone else in the family has just realized she has that spark.

My Dream App for Genealogy Conferences

So, it's the season for genealogy conferences. I go, I learn, I have a blast getting to meet other genealogy enthusiasts. But there's just one thing I'm missing—one problem that irks me: out of all those thousands of fellow conference attendees, sure at least one of them shares a distant cousin with me.

But how to find that someone...

I've long pondered that quandary. You may have remembered—since my style is not to print up a custom T-shirt listing family surnames—I toyed with the possibility of using QR codes on business cards to invite people to scan my list of surnames.

With all the promotional material now coming out on various national, state and regional genealogical events, I think I've found the prototype for my dream cousin-finding conference app. It's the Ontario Genealogical Society's Wall of Ancestors, recently launched in preparation for the OGS conference coming in mid-June.

I say prototype, because while it offers the very utility I envision for use in large genealogical gatherings, I see a possible pitfall in the way OGS has set up their program. Before we get to that, though, let's take a look at what the OGS Wall of Ancestors offers.

Basically, it's a way for conference attendees—and, presumably, even OGS members who won't be able to attend the event—to list their surnames. It provides a place for people to enter their ancestors' given name, family name, the ancestor's dates of birth and death, and location. There is also a column in which to enter a tick mark indicating the submitter's intention to be at the conference—presumably so distant cousins may meet, face to face.

But it's much more than just a surname list. The list is there for a purpose: for participants to find others attending the conference who are researching the same family lines. So, naturally, the Wall also asks each submitter to provide his or her own name. This is an obvious request—else how would one cousin be able to reach out and connect with the other? Yet the way the conference organizers set up this part of the program has its down side. It asks not only for submitter's name, but provides a column in which that person must enter a personal email address.

Now, including an email address seems like a reasonable step. After all, how else would Cousin A find Cousin B in the sea of faces swarming through the convention center? This does provide an easy way to connect two people who, though related, are heretofore nothing more than total strangers.

Take a moment to think about that little detail. In this age of spam, violations of personal privacy, and unscrupulous shadowy figures lurking in the digital ether, that doesn't sound like the safest option. Yes, the genealogical community is a wonderful, caring and supporting network of people. However, it is not just genealogical contacts who are viewing that email address. Anyone on the Internet who finds their way to the OGS website may stumble upon this freely-accessible list of email addresses. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable with that—nor might several others who otherwise would be interested in participating in this wonderful opportunity to connect with fellow researchers.

There is likely a reason why genealogical forums of the past—and even Ancestry.com's current message boards—facilitated members getting in touch with each other without divulging the actual email address of the contact person. Initial messages were blind copied to recipients. It was not until the contact was made—and the trustworthiness of the contact person vetted—that members could voluntarily, exercising their own discretion, offer their personal email address.

I certainly hope that someday my favorite conference venues will offer a similar app to allow attendees to make cousin connections with others at the same event. That's always been my dream for well-attended events like genealogy conferences and institutes. But that dream app also includes a healthy respect for the privacy of each participant, allowing the control for such details as contact information to rest in the hands of the attendee, not the organization running the conference.

Granted, I'm by no means a computer guru. There may be extenuating circumstances that would make such a provision prohibitively expensive for societies to offer. But when I see how privacy is appropriately guarded in surname lists offered on some societies' websites, it seems that such programming possibility could be adapted for conferences without much difficulty or expense.

While the tech angle seems possible, spreading the vision may be more of a challenge. I'm so glad to see OGS seizing the opportunity to convert such a dream into reality—it gives other societies an example to emulate. It would certainly be a valuable step for other societies to take in benefiting those attending their events.

If we can view conferences as not only a place where societies facilitate learning experiences, but networking opportunities as well, we allow them to expand their usefulness to their members and potential members—safely—in the process.

A Season for Learning

I've heard it said that people simply are no longer interested in attending genealogy conferences. There are so many other learning opportunities which they can avail themselves of, they say, that there isn't much reason to take all the time and expense to travel to a distant conference venue.

True. But then, why plan on taking any vacation trips at all? After all, hotels, restaurant meals (not to mention expensive conference banquets), airfare or gasoline prices add up to some prohibitive sticker shock—no matter what the reason for your travels. But no one can argue against the benefits of a chance to get away for a while.

After the NGS conference in Fort Lauderdale last year—and all the comments about perceived attendance drops—in-person registration numbers are also doubtless on organizers' minds. There's something reinforcing about knowing that people just like me like to do the activity I'm about to participate in. Dwindling crowds can instigate a trend of more dwindling numbers, just on their own.

Yet, I still find value in attending conferences. Mostly, the reasons center around learning, of course—after all, what is the virtue of a conference, if not to have the collective resources to assemble a great lineup of experts? But attending a conference in person yields genealogists much more than the learning opportunities.

For those having more questions about a specific subject than can adequately be addressed from the audience at the end of a one-hour session, there is often the opportunity to catch a few moments to discuss details with a particular speaker. When I was planning our family's research trip to Ireland a few years ago, having the chance to sit down and chat with DNA Day keynoter Maurice Gleeson was an invaluable opportunity I'd never have had, if I had chosen to save the big bucks and merely watch the live streamed session from the comfort of home.

For those wanting to be on top of the latest offerings, a robust exhibit hall affords conference-goers one-stop shopping, whether for low-tech books or high-tech gadgets. Since my go-to conference of choice, the Southern California Genealogical Society's Jamboree, happens to be held close to my brother's home, one year I was able to persuade him to stop in at the exhibit hall and take a DNA test right there on the spur of the moment. Tell me that isn't easier than waiting two weeks for the test kit order to arrive at my house, then taking the six hour drive to personally deliver the kit to my brother's home to insure he'd actually do the test correctly and return the kit to the lab.

But the highlight, for me, of breaking the couch-potato comfort-of-home habit is to get out and actually meet people in real life, rather than satisfy myself with videos of strangers. These are not strangers; these are people who are obsessed with the very pursuits that intrigue me—the discoveries of family history research—and are not going to slink away the moment I launch into rapturous ecstasies while explaining the blow-by-blow on my latest research coup. If we are going to be out and about with any people at all, wouldn't fellow genealogy enthusiasts be the best ones with whom to spend quality time?

Admittedly, my conference of choice—the SCGS Jamboree I mentioned yesterday—is on the far west side of a fairly wide continent. Maybe you like conferences, but aren't inclined to like them enough to travel that far.

Relax. There may be a genealogy conference that comes closer to you. Perhaps your chance for a season of learning could hinge on the annual offerings of the National Genealogical Society or the Federation of Genealogical Societies, both of which host conferences in different locations each year. This May, the NGS will hold their event in Raleigh, North Carolina. The FGS follows up with their August event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Just as our Jamboree is organized by a California entity, your state genealogical society may also host its own conference, giving you yet another opportunity to learn from some excellent speakers in this field. One glance at ConferenceKeeper.org's calendar gives you an idea of meetings from several U.S. locations, as well as Canadian, Irish and even Australian societies.

Whether your locality's season for learning comes with the spring, or stretches into the summer or lingers into the fall, I hope you avail yourself of some invigorating in-person learning experiences at a conference near you.