CMJ Office Blog

One of the best tips around for digging up those pesky ancestors is to talk to your living relatives.

Think about it for a moment.

Can you remember your grandparents or information concerning them?

Most of us can.

So, your parents should remember facts about their grandparents. Guess what? You just uncovered your great grandparents.

Now, you are really blessed if you still have your grandparents. Ask them questions. You will discover your great-great grandparents.

Wow! Do you see how this works? It’s brilliant.

What are you waiting for? Don’t lose those ancestors. Digging them up once the living relatives are gone is more difficult. Get their lives written down from those that still vividly remember and treasure them.

Colleen M. Johnson, CMJ Office

I’m assuming this picture is dated around 1925.

L to R: Nellie Reeder Boyer, Leona Boyer Gragg, and Chester Edward Boyer

Colleen Johnson, CMJ Office

CMJ Office is a certified and licensed virtual administrative business supporting business owners, genealogy and history authors, speakers and researchers.

If your family is like mine, a pedigree chart was never available. When teachers did an exercise that involved family history, my chart was always half empty. Teachers always seemed shocked.

My family always felt that we knew where we were from and still had contact with relatives living abroad. However, my parents didn’t know anything about their grandparents. My parents were here in America and their grandparents were either dead or living elsewhere.

I’m truly not shocked by this situation or others any longer. There is an abundance of people that cannot trace their lineage backwards to place on a chart. Great grandparents are forgotten. When you think about this fact, the time frame is just over 100 years. It’s a shame for your family history to disappear within such a short span of time.

How can you fix this problem? The first obstacle to conquer when trying to discover your past is to ask the living. Sound simple? It can be. However, it can also feel like you need to carry a sledge hammer when dealing with the living relatives. This feeling is later placed onto your dead relatives that continue to hide.

Living relatives do have the knowledge that you are seeking even if they say anything to the contrary. Sometimes you may need to invoke memories to gain insights and important facts.

You can ask specific questions surrounding important family events.

Examples:

• Weddings/funerals
• Births/events surrounding newborns (christenings, etc.)
• Family reunions
• Sports
• School/church
• Holidays/vacations
• Military involvement

I promise you’ll be amazed what you will uncover with these event geared questions. Once you start to uncover the past, you will be able to build your family tree.

I speak from experience when I say that it’s an accomplishment filled with many surprises. Have you been surprised by a discovery?

Colleen M. Johnson, CMJ Office

CMJ Office is a certified and licensed virtual administrative business supporting business owners, genealogy and history authors, speakers and researchers.

Michael Joseph Finnegan (1907-1983)

This photo of my maternal grandfather was taken in the 1930s in Rhode Island. He definitely had quite a head of hair on him!

Colleen M. Johnson, CMJ Office

CMJ Office is a certified and licensed virtual administrative business supporting business owners, genealogy and history authors, speakers and researchers.

The Irish Family History Foundation has done it again. They now have the Index to Griffith’s Valuation available as part of its Online Research Service (ORS).The Griffith’s Valuation established the value of land and buildings in Ireland as a basis for levying a local system of taxation under the Irish Poor Law Act of 1838. Richard Griffith, a Dublin geologist, was appointed as the Commissioner of Valuation. The Valuation lists county, barony, poor law union, civil parish, townland, lists every landholder and every householder in Ireland, description of property and acreage.

This survey wasn’t intended as a census; however, it is a great resource and guide to locate people living in Ireland during this timeframe.“The Index to the Surnames in Griffith’s/Primary Valuation of Tenements has been compiled showing the occurrence of surnames in each county on a barony/townland basis and the names of every occupier of land and property in Ireland between 1848 and 1864. This can be a useful indicator of the possible location of a particular family especially if the surname is an uncommon one. The original Valuation manuscripts are held in the National Archives of Ireland, Dublin, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland and the Valuation Office.”

Colleen M. Johnson, CMJ Office CMJ Office is a certified and licensed virtual administrative business supporting business owners, genealogy and history authors, speakers and researchers.