Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Madness Monday - Guess Who Is Mad?

I am still irked at myself over some information I found - or should I say I am "lacking" - during Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun (SNGF) this past weekend.

With the exercise being Locating My Ancestors in 1909 and on the 1910 census, I realized that I had some gaps in the information for several of my ancestors. Namely, I had not located Sarah Ann Christiana, my 2nd great grandmother, in the 1910 census. Nor had I located Catherine Sullivan, my 3rd great grandmother, in the 1910 census or the 1920 census!

This is what happens when you don't have an organized method of research or a resarch journal. It turns out that I did have a copy of Catherine Sullivan's 1920 census but the information was not entered into my database.

So, lesson learned. And another lesson: Randy's SNGF challenges are just that - challenges and exercises despite also being fun. Sometimes I think there is a misconception that geneabloggers are all about socializing with lots of silly memes, carnivals and fun and games. But there is purpose to our fun: we get to see how other approach (or should approach!) their research and we also offer advice and suggestions. I'm just glad we have Randy as part of our team to keep us challenged (and to make it fun!)

copyright 2009, Thomas MacEntee

4 comments:

Gini said...

I agree Thomas, Randy is great and I have learned so much from both of you. A research journal, what form would you recommend, I think I need one!

Jennifer said...

I found some gaps too. I hadn't found my fourth great-grandfather, Jean William DOMINGUE, or my fourth great-grandmother, Lucy (NEWTON) REYNOLDS. So I think this was definitely one of my favorite SNGF exercises. I am currently reforming my research methods and organization to catch things like this.

Randy Seaver said...

See, there's method to my madness!

I learn a lot by reading what others do, and am glad that others do too.

The challenge is to find something new each week that is fun enough, and useful enough, to entice 20 to 30 geneabloggers to try it and learn something new about themselves or their ancestors.

Once a week is enough, I think!

Cheers -- Randy

Julie said...

So very true. While doing this exercise I came across a family that hadn't been source properly in my database (yet I had been through them when I fixed everything since all other sources where correct...go figure). Randy's challenges also present a new way of looking at some things that may even lead to a new discovery. :)