Restarting direct line descendant research and Rootsmagic TreeShare

I have finished my work on the John Washington Varner line for now.  It is not nearly complete but I will turn it over to cousin Kim for further documentation.

I am ready to spend a little time on a mini genealogy redo project.  Working my Varner line I will start at the end of the line and begin cleaning up my source documentation on direct line descendants.  At the same time I will work through all of the webhints I have in RootsMagic.  These will be from Ancestry, FamilySearch and MyHeritage.  At this time I have turned off the webhints for FindMyPast.  In addition to webhints I also plan to check on Fold3 for any military records.  I have found that the webhints fairly well cover, census records, SSDI, social security applications, most vital records and Find A Grave.

Now that RootsMagic has the new Treeshare option for Ancestry it is fairly easy to keep my Ancestry tree up to date and make better use of their shaky leaves.  That along with the integration with FamilySearch makes catching the low hanging fruit so much easier.

John Washington Varner - new branch added to family tree

I've finally completed adding another branch to the tree.  It was for John Washington Varner.  He is my 2nd cousin once removed.

I've updated my RootsMagic database and worked on a few people in FamilySearch.  Have not yet shared the family to my Ancestry tree.  Ran into a real mess with the FamilySearch Family Tree.  There were several duplicates for each person.  It took many hours of merging and relinking to clean everything up.

I haven't yet decided what to do with Ancestry.  I can use the treeshare feature or I can continue to build and source my tree only on RootsMagic and then eventually load a new tree to Ancestry.  The intent of the tree on Ancestry is to make use of their web hint feature but I am finding them a little overwhelming.  Since I loaded a new RootsMagic tree to Ancestry, I'm receiving hints for everything, even though I have the record attached to the tree.  I have turned off the hints for other member trees but I still have over 3100 hints.

I'm thinking of taking one family unit at a time and working through the various hints for each member of the family.  This will mean possibly visiting the same source documents multiple times but I think it will prove to be a more efficient process.  This should keep me from chasing down the rabbit holes and losing focus.

Peter L Varner on FamilySearch Family Tree

I have spent the last few days trying to fix the Peter L Varner family on the FamilySearch Family Tree.  Peter was married three times. Peter and his first wife Rebecca Righter had seven children.  Peter and his second wife Hannah Razer had two children.  Peter and his third wife Louise Lair had two children.

There were three records to be merged for Peter, two for Rebecca and two for Louise.  Some of the children had duplicates as well.  Many were assigned to the wrong parents.  Overall it was a complete disaster.

I spent an entire afternoon just trying to put together everything that was already in FamilySearch. The next day after reviewing everything again and determining what was there I then set about trying  to merge all of the children's records first.  Then I merged the duplicate parents.  Once I was down to a single record for each person I could then change the parental linkages to match the children to the correct set of parents.

Because of the complexity of the cleanup process I worked only in FamilySearch, it was simply too confusing to try to work it through RootsMagic.  I still have to go back and rematch my RootsMagic person to the merged FamilySearch person.  Once that is done I can begin sharing the data and sources between the two.

This was an interesting project but I don't think I want to tackle another family for awhile.  I need to get back to working on the source documentation.

A genealogy mystery - Louisa A Bell Kreider (1856-1911)

I have spent several days trying to work out the mystery of Louisa Bell Kreider.  Louisa A Bell Kreider (1856-1911), according to her death certificate her parents were James Bell and Sarah Ann Varner.  I'm not able to verify this biological relationship with any other source documents.  The issues are:

•  Louisa is 14 years older than her nearest age sibling.  
• Her mother (Sarah Ann Varner) was shown in the 1860 census in her parents home living under her maiden name.  Her age was 20, she would have been 16 at Louisa's birth.  
• Her father (James D Bell) was shown in the 1860 census in his parents home.  His age was 22, he would have been 18 at Lousia's birth.
• James D Bell was a Union soldier in 1862.

In summary there is not enough evidence to support that Louisa is the biological daughter of James and Sarah Ann Bell.  Obviously much more investigation is needed here.

New branch added to family tree - Joseph Varner Bell & Ellen Meloy Bell

For the last few days I have been working on adding the Joseph Varner Bell family to my tree.  Joseph is the son of James Bell and Sarah Ann Varner.  He is my second cousin once removed.  Sarah is the daughter of my great granduncle John Peter Varner, the brother of my great grandfather Daniel Grant Varner.

I am still working on finding original documentation on the family.  I have much work left to do and many other people to add to the tree.  So far I have been able to find census records and find a grave records for most.  I have spent several days trying to work out the mystery of Louisa Bell Kreider, which is the subject of another post.

Work on this line was prompted by an email I received from a reader of this blog.  Thanks, Kim.  I have much work left to do and many other people still to add to the tree.

Page added to blog for family photos

I have added a page to this blog to add various family photos that I have that I think is interesting.  There is a new link on the left hand side of the page under the "About Me" section.  Just click on the link and you will be taken to the page of photos.

New cousin contact from Stuffel Werner of Pennsylvania line

I received an email a couple of days ago from a cousin that found me because of this blog.  This was my first contact because of the blog.  It has renewed my interest in writing here.

Kim has provided some needed insight and most of all the desire to resume my research efforts on the Pennsylvania Varner lines.  I have not documented or researched the majority of my Varner line except for my direct ancestors,  I believe it is now time to go back and fill in all the branches of the tree.