FINALLY Get Organized! 21st-27th Feb Checklist

DearREADERS,
We've been working very hard so far this month in our FINALLY Get Organized! Checklists, so this week Ol' Myrt here is going to make this a little easier for you. We're going to take on the concept of siblings.

Some folks say they only compile information on their direct line parents, grand-parents and great-grandparents. Indeed we've only been working on the male lines, with a smattering on the female side of the family.

The very best genealogy break-throughs Ol' Myrt here has had have come from someone who descends from the brother or sister of my direct-line ancestors.

CASE IN POINT
It was the youngest sister of Lowell Simpson Froman, a dear woman named Lillian Louise Froman, who provided me a copy of this photo of her father, William Gist Froman, his wife Louisa Mae Higgins and eldest son Lowell. Now just look at that photo. At first glance doesn't she look to young to be a wife. Yet, I have this couple's younger child Lillian's word that this is indeed a portrait of a husband, wife and eldest child. Lillian knew her mother married quite young, and that the soldier was much older. It was well known in the family. I was able to corroborate the age difference with original documents.

 

It was also Lillian who explained the old soldier's middle initial "G" was for Gist, after the soldier's mother's maiden name, Cecil Cernan Gist. This was my first photograph of my grandfather Lowell, whom I met only once, when I was about five years of age. Somehow I didn't think to ask him what his father's middle name was. How silly of me!

Lillian also gave me a copy of this photo taken a few years later. In the upper left is a slightly older Lowell Froman. Ada Marie, Alonzo Leland and Helen Froman in the middle row. Little Lillian Louise Froman is in the front row, center.

Lillian also provided me this view of a Froman Christmas tree apparently with electric lights. I recognize that bowl cut on little Herbert Mitchell Froman. Wish we still had the Tiffany lamp.

  1. Add the names and compiled dates of birth, marriage and death for the SIBLINGS of your 4 generations on your surname (if male) or maiden name (if female) in your genealogy management program This will make it easier to also attach group images you've already scanned to the other people in the photo. The same goes for obituaries where siblings are listed with their spouses.

For paper-centric genealogists, you'll now need to reprint the 4 family group sheets where:

• You and your siblings now show up with your parents.
• Your father and his siblings now show up with their parents.
• Your grandfather and his siblings now show up with their parents.
• Your great-grandfather and his siblings now show up with their parents, if known.

 2. If it takes more than one document to prove a point of fact about an ancestor's life, then attach the relevant documents, and under "notes" for the event or fact place a "written conclusion" about those multiple sources for one fact in your genealogy software. What's a written conclusion? It could be a simply proof statement, proof summary or more complex proof argument explaining why you believe your conclusion about this one fact accurately reflects your current thinking" about that facet of your ancestors life.

EXTRA CREDIT - Watch DearMYRTLE's The Written Conclusion Study Group (2015) based on Chapter 7 of Thomas W. Jones' Mastering Genealogical Proof  (Arlington, Virginia: National Genealogical Society, 2013). [Book available from the publisher at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/mastering_genealogical_proof , also available in Kindle format, described here.]

Want to Hangout?
We will be discussing this week's checklist during our Mondays with Myrt hangout. Here's the link to register using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or Google+. http://hangouts.dearmyrtle.com/next-hangout.html Now everyone can view and comment. With my new hangout interface, you only need a Google account if you want to appear as a filmstrip panelist.

Here's the link to the calendar of other upcoming DearMYRTLE genealogy hangouts: http://hangouts.dearmyrtle.com/calendar.html


Check out all previous DearMYRTLE's Finally Get Organized! Checklists.

Happy family tree climbing!
Myrt     :)
DearMYRTLE,
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