Are You Making Full Use of Find A Grave?

Mary Casey and
William D Kelly
Calvary Cemetery
Lincoln, Nebraska

Next to Ancestry.com, the online resource I probably use the most is FindAGrave.com. Are you sure that you are using FindAGrave to the fullest extent possible?

Obituaries

Every time I locate an obituary that includes the name of the cemetery where the deceased was buried, I check FindAGrave. Is there a memorial established for the person? If not, I create one based on the information in the obituary. I summarize any family history information from the obituary into the biography section.

Request a Photo

Once I've created a memorial, I click on the button, Request a Photo. This step generates an automated message to all FindAGrave photo volunteers who are willing to take a photo of the gravestone. I usually include a message that indicates my relationship to the person, if any. If I think that other family members might be buried nearby, I include the information I have and request the photo volunteer to look in the immediate vicinity to see if other family member graves are present.

This technique has been quite helpful and on several occasions, the photo volunteer has set up a memorial for the additional family member and added the photo(s) taken when at the grave site.

Review Memorials Regularly

Sometimes, I have forgotten to Request a Photo. The FindAGrave community is constantly adding information and photographs to the site. Today, I received an email notification that a volunteer had fulfilled my request for a gravestone photo. I started looking through the list of memorials I had entered and noticed that the headstone icon appeared on several of my memorials. As the cemeteries are across the country, I knew that I had not added the photographs.

What did I discover? I found that a volunteer had added a photograph of the headstone of my third great grandmother, Margaret Schultz Landon, in Union Cemetery, Liberty, Tioga County, Pennsylvania. What a discovery! The gravestone provided an additional source for her dates of birth and death. I always get excited when I find information on my direct lineage. And I had not requested this photo!

So I browsed through all of my memorials and discovered that several FindAGrave photo volunteers had added photographs of gravestones of family members!

Portraits

FindAGrave also allows other people to add photographs to your memorials. If I happen to have a photograph of a person who already has a memorial on the site, I add it. So do other people. You will not receive automatic notification from FindAGrave when this occurs. So make a habit of browsing through your memorials - or the memorials created by other people who you have included in your virtual cemeteries. Information is constantly being added to the site, so you never know what kind of gems you will discover.

Virtual Cemeteries

If you have not been using the Virtual Cemetery feature on the site, you should. This is a way where you can organize memorials by family or by cemetery (or any other combination you may choose). This way, I can include memorials of my family members that have been created by other contributors. I can easily locate the memorial by going to the Virtual Cemetery based on Surnames.

Make a habit of checking in on your memorials on a regular basis. You never know what you're going to find - and it may provide the next clue that you needed for your research.

Giving Back to the Community

If you are able to take photographs of gravestones in your area, sign up to be a photo volunteer. This community spirit is what the FindAGrave site is based on. And always remember to post a thank-you message when a volunteer fulfills your photo request.

Join Me at the Family History Expo in Overland Park Kansas July 29-30 2011

The agenda for the Midwest Family History Expo to be held in Overland Park, Kansas is quickly coming together. The event will be held July 29 - 30, 2011 at:


Overland Park Convention Center
6000 College Blvd
Overland Park, Kansas - 66211

Keynote speakers include Lisa Louise Cooke of the Genealogy Gems podcast and M. Bridget Cook, transformational author and speaker.

I will be presenting two sessions at the Family History Expo:

Extra! Extra! Read All About It! - using newspapers in your genealogy research

Sharing Family History By Blogging - an introduction to blogging about your family history and sharing ancestor stories.

I look forward to seeing many of my fellow genealogists and bloggers at this conference!

For more information:
Midwest Family History Expo

Amanuensis Monday: Soda Water Free

SODA WATER FREE.

Ode Rector has made some substantial improvements in his drug store at Twelfth and N Sts. His soda water fountain particularly is one of the finest equipped in the city. To make the people thoroughly acquainted with his facilities for serving all kinds of drinks, he will, on Tuesday serve soda water and all other drinks free of charge to all visitors to his store; the ladies especially are invited to make their wishes known at the soda fountain. Any kind of drink will be served free. Some of Rector's favorites are Delmonico Flip, Henrietta, Mignonette and pineapple float; if you have never tried any of those do not fail to call for one of them. Mignonette is a very popular drink. Free soda water is a novelty and Mr. Rector's liberality is sure to crowd his store all day Tuesday. The public is cordially invited.

Source: The Courier, Lincoln, Nebraska, May 26, 1894


Relationship to me: husband of great grand aunt (brother-in-law of my great grandfather Dan Kelly)

Around the Blogosphere: May 15 2011

The bloggers among my readers already know that Blogger had a big hiccup this week and was down for a couple days. If anything good came from that, it was the fact that the outage allowed me to get caught up on my blog reading. The following are some of the genealogy blog posts that I enjoyed this week:

Jenna Mills of Desperately Seeking Surnames wrote an excellent piece with advice for genealogy trade show exhibitors in My Response to Genealogy Conferences - Selling the Goods.

Mel Wolfgang also joined in the discussion about genealogy conferences with a discussion of the genealogy conference model and some thoughts on the 'money thing' on Mnemosyne's Magic Mirror.

Joan Miller of Luxegen Genealogy and Family History talked about social media in Lessons Learned from Social Media Unplugged.

On the fun side, Travis LeMaster of TJL Genes gave us a quiz: Are You Smarter Than a 60 Year Old? Apparently I'm 60 because I whizzed through this quiz in seconds!

Dan Curtis - Professional Personal Historian always has a great list of weekly picks on his blog.

I've become a fan of Michael Hait through his excellent online webinars. This week he shared What blogs does a professional genealogist read? I discovered some new blogs from his list and signed up to follow several of them.

Cheri Hopkins shared Another Take on Local Museums with a look at the Knight Museum in Alliance, Nebraska on Those Old Memories.

Cheri and her sister-in-law, Ruby Coleman, are off on their annual two-week research trip to Salt Lake City. I enjoyed following them on last year's trip, and you can keep up with them on the You Go Genealogy Girls blog. This week, I got my my copy of Ruby's new book, Genealogical Research in Nebraska. If you are doing any kind of research in the state, this is an excellent resource.

Other recommended reading

Other bloggers also offer their recommendations and weekly highlights. Check their recommended reading lists:

Randy Seaver's Best of the Geneablogs on Geneamusings.

Greta's Follow Friday on Greta's Genealogy Blog.

Elizabeth O'Neal's Best Bytes on Little Bytes of Life.

Jennifer's Climbing My Family Tree.

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History: Fame

Week 20 Challenge. Fame. Tell us about any local brushes with fame. Were you ever in the newspaper? Why? You may also describe any press mentions of your family members.

This week's challenge for 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History presents an intriguing perspective for me. I can view this challenge from a couple different perspectives: my own 15 minutes of fame as well as my rubbing shoulders with celebrities.

From the time I was able to write, I always fancied myself a writer. To this day, some of my writing is better than others. In elementary school, I was writing my own short stories based on Winnie the Pooh characters and songs based on Alvin and the Chipmunks. It was no surprise that I was drawn to journalism by the time I got into junior high and high school.

I always used to get a kick out of radio announcer Jimmy O'Neill (he was the Ryan Seacrest of his day) who shot to TV stardom at age 24 by landing the job of host on the popular ABC-TV music series, Shindig. In later years, he was a disc jockey/announcer at KOIL in Omaha. He always said that his resume read upside down - meaning most broadcasters start out in local radio then work themselves up to a bigger job over time.

I've often thought the same about myself because the first article I ever wrote was an interview with Peter, Paul and Mary when I was 15 years old. It was published in the national teen magazine, Datebook, and I was paid $25. There was a bit of notoriety about me being published in this particular magazine because this was the magazine that published the famous interview of John Lennon by Maureen Cleave in which he made his controversial comment "the Beatles are more popular than Jesus". 

Mary Travers
Peter, Paul and Mary
Lincoln, 1965

A small article was published in the Lincoln Journal about my article being published in a national magazine. Since the article identified the high school I attended, I received a couple "fan letters" at school. I think I may have become pen pals with those people. I also received a nice letter from Bob Magee of Magee's department store in Lincoln, congratulating me and commenting that it was nice to see a youngster doing something so positive (or something to that effect!). He sent me a gift certificate for $25 to Magee's and I got a long sleeved white sweater with that. As coincidences go in genealogy, the Magee building is where my great grandfather's brother-in-law had his pharmacy business in the 'olden days.'

So - who wouldn't get hooked on fame and celebrity after that sort of attention at age 15? This all happened at the same time as the British Invasion of pop music groups, which is what really impacted my teen years. Armed with my Kodak Instamatic camera, my notepad and pen as well as press passes from Datebook and Teen Screen, I did my best to get backstage at every rock and roll concert that came to town. If I wasn't going to be a celebrity myself, I was definitely going to hang out with them. And what better access than by being a reporter/photographer. It was probably that combination that drew me into journalism school.

With Beach Boy Bruce Johnston, 1968
Instamatic in hand

I think that I met just about every band that came to town. Let me make it perfectly clear, I was not a groupie - I just was not "one of those girls." I probably wanted to be, but it just wasn't in my nature. I've got to say, however, I really felt an emotional connection to the films Almost Famous and The Banger Sisters and Pamela Des Barres' book I'm with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie. Fantasy. Besides, I was a reporter.

Actors Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
circa 1971

I submitted articles to the Lincoln Journal during my high school years and they published my pieces about The Who, Herman's Hermits, The Blues Magoos, and The Rumbles, the Omaha/Council Bluffs band who had quite a bit of regional success and a national hit with Jezebel. The band is still active today, albeit with only one original member. I even became president of their Lincoln fan club, which didn't mean much other than that their manager, Eddy Haddad, always paid for my friends and me to get into their shows and I think he made the guys be nice to me. Mostly, they just tolerated this kid, I think.

Peter Noone
Herman's Hermits
Omaha, 1967

Once in journalism school, I continued to follow the bands, but expanded my interests to journalists and politicians. By the time the 1980s rolled around, I had migrated from pop music to country and entered what I still refer to as The Nashville Years. My annual pilgrimage to Fan Fair in Nashville provided a lot of interaction with famous people. Within my first hour of arriving at my first Fan Fair, I was being interviewed by Ralph Emery on WSM Radio. Why and how? I managed to get next to him while he was interviewing attendees and he asked me what I thought about Fan Fair. Once his TV show, Nashville Now, debuted on The Nashville Network (TNN), I was on as a phone-in caller several times.

Susan with Danny Davis
Lincoln Community Concerts

I parlayed my Nashville contacts into a short stint at writing a newspaper column on country music. My hopes were to syndicate the column throughout Nebraska, but only one newspaper picked it up. But it got me some street cred, published bylines and clippings for my portfolio. Among my more enjoyable interviews were with Ranger Doug Green of Riders in the Sky (I even attended a few parties at his home) and a breakfast interview in Omaha with Danny Davis of the Nashville Brass. He had been a producer for MGM Records in the 60s and was responsible for bringing Herman's Hermits to the label. So not only did we talk about country music, we also talked about the Sixties. He also told me that he and Merv Griffin performed together in the big band days.

with Riders in the Sky
Nashville, 1984

During this same time, I became the volunteer publicity director for the Lincoln Community Concerts Association - another opportunity for me to brush shoulders with entertainers. We produced four or five concerts each year and I was instrumental in securing Louise Mandrell for our 50th anniversary concert/party.

With former Nebraska Governor and Senator Bob Kerrey
the night he announced he was running for President
Omaha, 1991

Things have slowed down quite a bit in recent years. Now I attend lectures and book signings and have been fortunate to meet Doris Kearns Goodwin, historian and author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln and Lincoln's own Ted Sorensen, who was JFK's speech writer and author of Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History. And, of course, there are the genealogists I've met like John Philip Colletta, author of They Came in Ships. 

My thoughts about fame

Even after a life where I've been around a lot of famous people, I am concerned about the celebrity-obsessed society we seem to have become. I totally do not get 1) people who are famous for being famous (Paris Hilton, the Kardashians), 2) why anyone would want to be on a reality TV show or 3) why anyone is interested in celebrity couples. I certainly never sought to be famous myself and up until the time that I started blogging about family history, my internet presence had been under a pseudonym - 17 years of not being me.

I also am distressed about what the journalism field has turned into. I no longer see journalism (particularly broadcast journalism) as having the high standards of obtaining the truth that I was taught. I believe there were two significant events that contributed to the deterioration of journalism. The first was the excellent film, All the President's Men, the story of the two Washington Post reporters who were attributed with exposing Watergate. The second was the introduction of 24-hour cable news channels.

After Watergate, enrollment in journalism schools around the country skyrocketed. Every reporter who had missed out on the story of the century wanted their own Watergate-type legacy. I believe that is what triggered reporters into trying to turn every story into a sensational story. I felt my theory was validated when Robert Redford expressed similar thoughts during a recent interview with Piers Morgan on CNN. (Just because I'm not keen on 24-hour news channels doesn't mean that I don't watch them).

Shortly after Watergate, I sent my resume to The Washington Post. Sorry, not interested. At least I can say that I was turned down by the best in the business. Oh yes, I even met former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee at a speaking engagement many years ago. He signed his book, Conversations with Kennedy, for me. We share the same birthday, but fortunately, I didn't know it at the time or I would have made some stupid comment about that.

This reminiscence is definitely more about personal history than about genealogy, but it is these experiences that made me who I am - and what brought me into the blogging world. It's been a fun ride.

About 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History: Amy Coffin of We Tree Genealogy has created a third year of blogging prompts for genealogy bloggers. The theme for 2011 is 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History. 

Read all articles in this series

Disclaimer: links to DVDs and books in this post are via my Amazon Associates agreement.