Thursday, October 17, 2013

I'm Related to Johnny Appleseed

October 16th's Post

ANNOUNCEMENT! Posts for the next two weeks will be brief with genealogy tips only. When the blogger returns (Oct 28) we will go back to our standard format. As they say: “Don’t go away. We’ll be right back!”

 

 

Genealogy tip for today: I’m Related to Johnny Appleseed!

I had a patron come in the other day and asked me a question: We’ve always been told we are related to so-and-so. How can I prove that?

Believe it or not – that’s a very big question. Or at least the answer is. I think we all have some famous person to whom we are supposed to be kin. How do you prove that? Well the best way to do your genealogy regardless of what the family stories have said, is to start out with what you do know-yourself! You start with yourself and start working backwards. And gather copies of those vital records as you go. You might as well start out the right way. It’s a bugger to have to go back and redo research you thought you already had done.

Don’t be too concerned yet about proving a connection to Miss Famous. Kinda set that aside in your mind for the time being and work on your family line. Granted every generation you go back, the number of people you need to work on, doubles!

Work on one line for a while but keep the others in mind. Quite often you may find records or information in the same area for both the father and mother. After all, they had something in common or they would never have met. Then work on another line. If there is a particular line, like Mom’s grandmother’s line start here. The one where great-grandma said she was related to Teddy Roosevelt. He and Grampa used to go hunting together, and Ma said he was a cousin…

Eventually you will get back far enough that you will have proven to yourself whether the famous person is your ancestor or not. Or even related.

Now I will admit when I first started, I didn’t know anything and had no one to guide me so I started with the famous person and worked forward. I did disprove the connection, though.

Now that brings up something else. There usually is a little kernel of truth in the family legends. The catch is to figure out what. It could be that you are not a descendant of… but related to… which is what I think is the case in my family.

So don’t give. Keep that tucked back in your head. But you need to prove whether it is true or not, what great-granny said.

Happy Hunting.

 


MANGO  ONLINE  LANGUAGE  LEARNING

Ever want to someday learn a foreign language? Well, someday is here. The Rogers Public Library has signed up with Mango! – an online language learning system.

You can learn Spanish, French, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Mandarin Chinese, Greek, Italian and more. Go to our website: rogerspubliclibrary.org and scroll to the bottom of the page. There you will see an icon that says Mango! Click on it and it will take you to the sign in/sign up page.

It is easy to sign up; no cost i.e. it is FREE! Just need your library card number, email address and a password.

Then pick out what languages you want to get started on and go for it!

This program has many, many languages; even has Koine Greek and Biblical Hebrew and also – Pirate! So next time Pirate Day comes around you can be ready to talk like a pirate. Argh!

Mango makes learning fun!

 

 

 

If any of these posts are helpful drop us a line in the comments section below. We just want to know if the information we provide to you is helpful in anyway.
 
 



ENJOY!

 Now You Know!

 

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