Shannon M. Thomas | Mostly Genealogy

This is not the best photo but it is a favorite of mine.  My grandparents with my son a few weeks ago when we doing his senior pictures.  Time sure does fly!! Gram (Alice) and Pop (Bill) with Hunter at Canyon Vista at Worlds End State Park -- September 2016

You never know what you are going to find when "googleing" for something or someone.   Image from clipartbest.com According to Urban Dictionary the definition of  googleing is "the act of looking something up on an internet search engine to include any people or background search to find out anything significant not previously known." A few days ago I was searching for some information on Peter C. Hunter who is my 4th great-grandfather on my mom's dad's side.  I found a few links from a Google search that looked promising; one being a link to a Google book.  The book was  Commemorative biographical record of northeastern Pennsylvania : including the counties of Susquehanna, Wayne, Pike and Monroe, containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens, and many of the early settled families .  So far the research I have done has not shown any Siegfried's in any of those counties but I figured it was worth a look. Wha...

I found George's second wife {my 2nd great grandmother}.  She is already in my database and now I need to link him to her.  Click on the first icon, shown in red circle above, to add another spouse.  {You would follow the same process for adding another husband as well.} Click on the add new wife button in the next window.  Clicking on this brings up another box where you can add a new person or link to an existing person.  {image below} This time I am going to link to an existing person because Florence is already in my database.  Clicking on add a new person will open the individual information screen where you can all of her information then clicking on save will add her to the spouse list. When you choose to link to an existing person you are taken to the name list window to select the person to add as George's wife.  I found Florence and selected her. Here are George and Florence. The letter X is next up on t...

Hunter is not only my mother's maiden name but also the name of my son.  He was going to be named Noah until about a week before I had him.  Something mad me want a family name; something that had meaning.   Some information on the Hunter surname : Recorded as Huntar, Hunter, and the female Huntress and Huntriss, this ancient surname is of Anglo-Scottish origins. The derivation is from the Olde English pre 7th Century word "hunta", from "huntian", meaning to hunt, with the agent suffix "-er", meaning one who does or works with.   One of the earliest settlers in the New World was Francis Hunter who sailed from the port of London aboard the ship "Thomas and John" bound for Virginia, in June 1635.   Read more:  http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Hunter#ixzz3WkfksCKs In my Legacy database there are currently 87 people with the Hunter Surname.  I am currently at a brick wall with my 4th great grandfather Peter C. Hunter (b. abt. 1785 in Luzer...

Find A Grave {findagrave.com} is a great resource for burial information and sometimes, if you are one of the lucky ones, you will find information on other family members.  On occasion you will also find a picture of your ancestor {those are my favorite kind of finds.} This Ray Arthur Hunter's Individual Information screen showing his vital information and his Event/Facts.  Highlighted in yellow and marked with a green arrow is the Find A Grave Event/Fact. The Find A Grave Event/Fact includes the Memorial#, the date the memorial was added to Find A Grave, and the place of burial. The Notes section includes the information from the memorial.  I also take a screen shot of the page and save that to the Event/Fact.  The memorials can be updated at any time by the person who maintains the memorial and for this reason at the bottom of the information in the Notes section I have an update date and I record the last time I visited the memorial h...

For each person in my database I add every census that they appear in.  The census information is put in a Census Event/Fact in the head of household's Event/Fact area and then is shared to each person in that Census.  The image of the Census page is downloaded to my computer and saved, for example, as         George Washington Hunter(1260) -- 1910 Census and it is in the Hunter surname folder; it is also attached to the Census event in Legacy. This image shows the Census' in George Washington Hunter's Individual Information screen marked with a green arrow.  The icons in the green circle show that the Event/Fact is shared, sourced, and has an image attached. The Census information was transcribed in the notes section of the Census Event/Fact for each person in the household listed on the Census. In Florence Lewis Hunter's Individual Information screen you can see the Census Event/Fact, marked with the green arrow, in her Even...

I accidentally added Raymond Hunter as a child of Ray Arthur Hunter but they are the same person. I could delete Ray but then I would have to add all of his information to Raymond {I don't like typing that much}.   Legacy has a merge feature built in that will allow you to combine duplicate people in your database.  Since they are father and son Legacy will not let me merge the two.  First, I have to unlink Raymond from his parents and then I can merge them. After I unlinked Raymond I went to Ray {the father} and then clicked on the Tools tab in the top menu bar in Legacy and then clicked on Merge Duplicates. {See image below}. You are given 3 options 1 Manual Merge, 2 Find Duplicates, and 3 Not-Dup list {this gives you a list of individuals marked as not duplicates}.  I chose the first one, Manual Merge which you can see in the image above.  {If you choose Find duplicates Legacy will look in your database for duplicate entries and let you dec...

I'm finally getting around to doing this. On Saturday March 22, 2014 Randy Seaver from Genea-Musings posted Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- How Many Surnames in Your Database. Randy's mission: 1)  Go into your Genealogy Management Program (GMP; either software on your computer, or an online family tree) and figure out how to Count how many surnames you have in your family tree database. 2)  Tell us which GMP you're using and how you did this task. 3)  Tell us how many surnames are in your database and, if possible, which Surname has the most entries.  If this excites you, tell us which surnames are in the top 5!  Or 10!!  Or 20!!! 4)  Write about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, in a status or comment on Facebook, or in Google Plus Stream post. This is one of my favorites; I like looking at statistics about my database.  I use Legacy 8 and there is a new button that says statistics and gives you a lot of gre...

Edward C. Lewis 1824 - 1891   Edward Lewis is my 3rd great grandfather; he is the father of  Florence M. Lewis Myers Hunter  that I wrote about last week.  When I was trying to figure out who I wanted to write about this week I was working on some research on ancestry and came across the above picture posted by a "cousin."  I don't know anything about the picture..I wish I did!   Edward was born 1 October 1824 in Sussex County, New Jersey to unknown parents, at least to me at this time.  From census records I have been able to tell that he spent his married life in Union Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Some next steps in my research on Edward are: Who are Edward's parents? When did they move to Pennsylvania? Why did they move to Pennsylvania? Edward was a farmer and it looks like he owned land so I want to look for that as well. Edward married Ellen (aka Eleanor) Bonham on 27 March 1842, at least according a cousin....

I've had a really hard time deciding who to write about for this week.  I do not have a lot of information about Florence but since I wrote about her husband George Washington Hunter last week I thought why not continue the story…or lack thereof. Florence was born 5 Sep 1863 in Muhlenburg, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, USA to Edward C. and Ellen (Elenore) Bonham Lewis.  Florence was the oldest of three children; Boaz Lewis was born about 1870 and Clemmence Lewis was born about 1872 [I have not done any research on her siblings yet]. I have not found the family on the 1870 census yet but I am expecting to find them in Luzerne County.  In 1880 the family was living in Union Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, USA.  In 1883 she married her first husband, Orel Kizer Myers.  The 1900 census has them living in Hunlock Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, USA. They had the following children: 1.      ...

There is a lot I don't know but here is what I know about my 2nd great-grandfather. George Washington Hunter is the son of William Wallace and Priscilla Cragle Hunter. George was born in 1854 and died in 1927 George married Mary McMelon abt 1880 and they had Jonah, Sarah, Iva Pearl, and Theron. Mary died in 1903 and in Jan 1904 he married my 2nd great-grandmother Florence M. Lewis Myers.  Together, George and Florence had my great-grandfather Willard Milton Hunter. In 1870 George was 16 years old and he was a farm laborer according to the 1870 census; he was living in Union, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania with his parents. In 1880 George was 26 years old and he was married to Mary (she was only 17 years old).  George's occupation is a teamster and they are living in Hunlock Township. Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. In 1900 George was 46 years old and he was married to Mary who is 36 years old.  George is listed as a farmer owning his own farm. Geor...

It is now warm enough here in PA to go and check out a few cemeteries! I'm hopeful that one particular headstone will help with some conflicting dates.  It looks like I am going to journey to Oakdale Cemetery in Hunlock Creek in Luzerne County, PA. There is a major discrepancy with the birth year and death year for Florence Lewis Myers Hunter.  She was first married to Orel Myers and then George Washington Hunter.  Florence and Orel had at least 7 children and Florence and George Washington Hunter had one son, Willard Milton Hunter (my great-grandfather).  Florence is buried with Orel and not George...I wonder why??  More mysteries to solve!  Stay tuned to see what I find.