Turtle Lady Genealogy: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 3 Prompt

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 3

Prompt - Organization

The past several months I have done very little research for my genealogy. I have information and I need to get it organized so that I have it together in one place. I have a software program called Legacy. This program has all the bells and whistles that most genealogists could want for their family trees. The only problem it has, is that it does not input itself!

Late last fall I started with myself and worked down, sideways and up my family tree. Does that make sense? The facts such as birth, christening, marriage, death and burial are the easy part. What has become a mammoth task, has been putting in events for each individual. An event is that thing that can put a person in a time and place. For example, lets take The Canada Census which is available on line up to 1930 and in the United States up to 1940. The 1921 census for Bill's grandfather, Arthur Jahnke, was enumerated on 21 Jun 1921. At that specific time I am able to say that Arthur is a 27 year old male who was born in the USA around 1894. He is married to Ida. Arthur's mother and father were both born in Germany. He immigrated to Canada about 1904 (actually it was 1903). He resides in The Saltcoats area of Saskatchewan and to be specific;

Section Number 10

Township Number 21

Range Number 7

Meridian Number 2W

His occupation is farmer. He owns his own land. His household members include himself, wife, Ida and two year old Elsie Jahnke. They are Lutheran. Arthur can speak English but not French.

Thus from that one census I have events to include such as residence, occupation, religion etc. I also remember that the census could be very unreliable for its information. The enumerator often just guessed at the name as he heard it through heavily accented voice. The person who gives the information may not be a reliable informant.

I have 70 plus events entered for Arthur Jahnke. They span his entire life time. They include things like the censuses, voters lists, confirmation, baptismal certificates, border crossings, school entries, gun registration, WWII registration cards etc.

Above is a partial page that shows me the events that I have for him. The next step is to click on the individual event. It brings up the next screen where I add a short sentence about the event. The reason for this step is that when I make up the individual reports for him, the events are in bullet form and readable for the report.

All events should show it's source. In Legacy I am able to enter it by following its templates for different types of sources. All events have been individually entered into the source writer as above.

Further I try to include a scanned copy of that source. Things like the actual census page or a marriage certificate.

It is at this point that I share the events with his family. The census above was shared with his wife and daughter, Elsie creating an event in each of their pages. By sharing the event I do not have to rewrite the event, source and photograph on their page.

It is seemingly complicated. I have spent many months figuring Legacy out. Well actually I have had it for several years but it has just been the past several months that I have added my information into some kind of organized chaos.

I started inputting entries with myself, then my siblings and parents,then my husband, his mother and father and now his maternal grandparents. With each addition of a person or an expansion of a generation, the events become more intricate and it gets very convoluted to start sharing the events down, up and across the tree. Also along the way I have discovered better ways to write the sentences or I change my mind on how to write a source for the information causing me to go back and rework the individuals and those who have shared the event that I have already worked on. Round and round I go trying to get the information together.

I spend 4 to 6 hours each day on my laptop working on this genealogy. And most of the time I find it enjoyable and rewarding.

I do this because I eventually want it to be a readable piece of family history and information for everyone to have. Legacy is making that possible.

Here are a few examples of the reports I have produced for Arthur Jahnke.