Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Goals for 2026

 Time once again for Randy Seaver's  Saturday Night Genealogy Fun in which we are encouraged to state our genealogy goals for 2026.  My list is rather short. 

1.  Finish my revision of my family history on my father's side, Richards Packard, His Ancestors and Descendants in Direct Line to Arden Packard (1911-1954), Together with Some Notes on Selected Collateral Relatives.  Yes, that's a mouthful.  I am revising it, as I have found a good deal of additional information, and I need to correct some errors in the earlier edition.  I plan to send copies to the Georgeville, Quebec, Historical Society, the Library of Congress, the New England Historic and Genealogical Society, the Southern California Genealogical Society, and to provide a copy to my local genealogical and historical societies. 

2.  Continue filling out my contributions to WikiTree.  

3.  Finish with success the Profile Improvement Project on WikiTree.

4.  Do more in filling out my genealogy on my computer, using Legacy Family Tree.

5.  I bought a copy of Planning a Future for Your Family's Past, by Marian Burk Wood.  As I'm 78 in a family not generally known for long lives, I need to start preparing for preservation of my family history.  WikiTree is part of this planning, for me.  

That about does it, because another goal for 2026, covering my life in general, is to practice the practical art of saying, "No."  I don't have the time or the energy to be overcommitted, as I have had a habit of doing in the past.  

 

GeniAus's Accentuate the Positive for 2025

 I like Jill Ball's (GeniAus) yearly Accentuate the Positive meme.  This year, it revolves around words.  The instructions:  "For the 2025 challenge, I have decided to move away from prompts that relate to particular situations and resources to a list focusing on our reactions to particular verbs as we reflect on our family history journey."  We are free to eliminate those words that don't relate to us, if any.  I have bolded the words so they stand out. The list:

Remember to Accentuate the Positive

2025 Prompts

1.  I treasured all the wonderful documents I found scanned online -- land records, more censuses, BMD documents, and more.

2. I shared lots of information with other members of WikiTree in building the best biographies we can produce with the best sources to back it all up. 

3. I travelled virtually.  I am no spring chicken, and I can't fly anymore due to my tendency these days to form blood clots in my legs.  I've already experienced having the clots travel to my lungs, and almost didn't survive it.  I really would rather not have a repeat performance of that. 

4. I learnt a whale of a lot about using WikiTree.  There is a lot to learn there, a rather steep learning curve.  Of course, these days, there's no printed manual, so I'm creating my own by printing out the various portions of instructions on this or that aspect of WikiTree, and putting it all in a binder.  It is so much easier for me to have instructions printed out and in my hand than it is to switch from an input screen where I'm trying to post data, to another screen where the instructions for doing this particular action are located, and then switching back again.  By the time I switch back to the input screen, I've totally forgotten what I've just read! 

5. I changed my mind about a few things when I found documentation that proved my assumptions or beliefs about an ancestor wrong.  That's why WikiTree demands and insists that we provide citations to reliable sources! 

6. I received wonderful support from the WikiTree Profile Improvement Project (PIP), which provides guidance to new WikiTree participants.  It's a self-paced way, with expert help, of learning how to use WikiTree most effectively. 

7. I conquered many of the details of WikiTree through the PIP.  It has certainly made learning all this complicated stuff not easy, but less stressful.

8. I found that I'm related to all sorts of well-known people, and have been able to document these relationships:  the actor Leslie Nielsen, one of my favorites; Thomas Jefferson (I already knew I'm related to John Adams); Maybelle Addington Carter and Alvin Pleasant Dulaney (A. P.) Carter of the Carter Family Singers. 

9. I was proud to discover, through the relationship to the Carters, above, that I am also related to a very dear friend of mine.  That was the best discovery of all, and I'm tickled pink!  When I told this friend that we are 22nd cousins, once removed, she said, "I guess that's why we have hit it off so well from the start!"  I guess so.

10.I  read Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone: The Carter Family and their Legacy in American Music, by Mark Zwonitzer and Charles Hirshberg.  I was about halfway into this collective biography of the Carter family that I found out I am distantly related to them.  That made the reading of the book that much more intriguing to me.Thank you, Jill, for a great meme! 

WikiTree: Poking About with a Purpose

 I've had an account at Ancestry.com for years.  I have also had a tree on FamilySearch.  But I recently got curious about WikiTree and decided to poke about in it.

Yeah, that poking about got me hooked.

I find a lot to like about Ancestry.com.  My tree there is MY tree there.  I decide what gets posted to it.  I demand and exercise the use of reliable sources.  I've had a good deal of training in genealogy, a lot of it emphasizing the need for good source citations.  I don't have to worry about someone lacking any training in genealogy putting misinformation on my Ancestry tree.

I love FamilySearch for its documents and records and its research information and instructive articles.  I don't love constantly having to correct misinformation, usually unsourced, again and again and again, concerning my ancestors.  So I will use the immense number and variety of original and derivative sources on FamilySearch.  I will take advantage of their marvelous research guides and their wonderful wiki.  But I'm not wasting my time anymore on that tree.

Enter WikiTree.  It is also a collaborative tree.  However, it is a lot more likely to be accurate.  For one thing, to use WikiTree, one must sign their Honor Pledge, which states that we will back up every fact with a reliable source or sources.  For another, WikiTree is mainly by genealogists for genealogists, people who have had some training in the field and who understand its requirements.  And finally, the idea behind WikiTree is that we all help grow the best, most reliable, and most accurate tree we can make, so people in the future have a highly useful body of information about their ancestors there on the Web. 

I've wondered how I was going to preserve and pass on my family history.  My daughters and grandson don't have the passion, though my grandson does enjoy hearing family stories.  But they have other concerns taking their attention.  I do plan to leave a lot of documents and research to a genealogy society or societies.  WikiTree now also figures into my plan of how to preserve and pass on my family history.

WikiTree also has a great deal of mentoring.  One of these mentorships is their Profile Improvement Project (PIP).  The profile is the individual entry of information (well-sourced, of course) about an ancestor.  A good profile has as much information as one can gather, representing a "reasonably exhaustive" body of research, and analysis of what it all means.  To show you the results my participation in the Profile Improvement Project has rendered, you are invited to see my profile of my granduncle and adoptive grandfather, Perry W. Reed.  WikiTree has a hugely long learning curve, and the PIP helps a lot in getting through it.

Another handy learning tool is their G2G (Genealogist to Genealogist) communication facility.  There, a user can ask questions about genealogy, about the technology of WikiTree, and about WikiTree's policies.  The policies are set by various functions in WikiTree, and those functions are staffed by members of WikiTree.  WikiTree is very FUBU (For Us, By Us). 

A to Z Blogging Challenge 2025 - Whatever! H is for HELP!!

 Still catching up with the A to Z blogging challenge.  

HELP!

How many times have you hesitated to use that word?  I don't want to be a bother . . .   I don't want to seem dumb . . .   I know y'all will think this is silly . . .

Sometimes we just can't bring ourselves to holler for help.  Our "rugged individualism" gets insulted. 

Well, boo-hoo for our "rugged individualism."  Sometimes ya just gotta bite that old bullet and yell, "HELP!"  

Here is an example.

I am in that situation of needing help on WikiTree.  WikiTree is terrific in its insistence, and I mean insistence, on providing sources for every statement we present as fact.  They insist that you sign their "Honor Code," in which you swear on your mama's grave to provide sources.  That makes this a reliable collaborative tree, and one in which we aren't having to go back constantly correcting errors, usually with no sources, put in by someone else.

But WikiTree is complex.  Hoo-hah, is it complex.  It has its own markup language for entering your sources in an ancestor's biography, for instance.  And there is this neat little way of creating a table of census data.  I want to learn how to do that, but that desire has to get in line behind several others regarding entering information on the tree.

Fortunately, help is at hand.  They have a project in which I have enrolled, called the Profile Improvement Project.  Each ancestor we work with has a Profile.  That is where all the facts are entered, where photos are mounted, where we write the biographies of our ancestors.  Collaboration in family trees can take some getting used to.  We can feel proprietary about our family.  WikiTree recognizes that in its insistence on sources, and in providing a feature called Trusted Lists, where a profile manager can vet others who wish to contribute to profiles we manage.  So there are safeguards against Joe or Jane Blow hopping in and putting up erroneous, unsourced "facts" about our ancestors.

In the Profile Improvement Project, we learn the markup language and the way to create those cunning little census tables, write interesting biographies, and more.  I have some advantage in the biography-writing department, as I am a very good writer, with two published books to my credit.  So I concentrate more on learning the technical aspects of WikiTree.

In the Profile Improvement Project, referred to as a Voyage (and as a former Coast Guard member, I like the nautical theme), each of us has a Guide, a WikiTree volunteer who knows the technology of WikiTree and helps us improve how we maintain the profiles we manage.  We learn, with the Guide's help, how to present a most attractive ancestral profile that will be good "cousin bait."

In this case, I'm glad I hollered for help. 

So, next time you're stuck, forget "dignity."  Ask for help.  Getting help, and doing a better job at something because you asked for help, will restore your dignity.  And, when someone else hollers for help, if you have the knowledge to help them, please do so.

 

Accentuate the Positive 2024

Jill Ball, who blogs as GeniAus, has a blog prompt she posts in the new year, urging us to look back on the old year's genealogical research and blog about the positive experiences we had in that endeavor.  She calls it "Accentuate the Positive."  She has a series of questions we are to answer.  We can leave out the questions that don't apply to us; I have done so, and renumbered the questions I list and answer here.

" 1.  I was the recipient of  genearosity from Catherine Johnson, Director of the Nimitz Library at the U.S. Naval Academy.  My father died in 1954, and he was memorialized by my mother's essay on him which appeared in a "mug book" published by members of the Naval Academy Class of 1934, of which my father was a member.  The book was a treasure to me.  In about 1964, my mom and I moved into rooms in a house owned by a co-worker of my mom's.  Another woman had the garage apartment, which was a ground-floor addition.  On the outside of the garage (a carport, really) were storage compartments.  Mom had stored some of our belongings, including this book and other objects that had been my father's, in one of these storage compartments, secured with a padlock.  One day, I discovered that the woman occupying the garage apartment had broken the lock and thrown away all of our belongings in that compartment, because she wanted the space.  Did she ask us?  No.  I would have been glad to have put all our stuff from the compartment in my room, as I had plenty of space.  I had been looking for a copy of that book ever since -- for nearly 60 years.  I found a copy in the Nimitz Library and asked if I could get photocopies of the pages I wanted.  I could be content with that.  Ms. Johnson was kind enough to supply the photocopies.  I have since found and obtained a copy of the book!

 2. A useful record I discovered was . . . Actually, it is a collection of land records from eastern Tennessee, where my mother's maternal line settled early in this country's history.  If I can find among these records some dating from the late 1700s, I might be able to apply as a member of the First Families of Franklin lineage society, to which my friend Amanda belongs.  This society recognizes descendants of residents of an area in Tennessee that applied for statehood as the State of Franklin.  The application was not successful.

 3. A geneasurprise I received was finding out that a family that is related my mother's paternal line is also related to my father's paternal line!  I'm so southern, I'm related to myself!

  4. My 2024 post that I was particularly proud of was How I Recovered a Stolen Car.  It was a funny and great thing that happened on my way, as a college freshman, to my high school's homecoming game in the fall of 1965.

 5. Although Face to Face events have returned Zoom has allowed me to attend events I would otherwise not be able to participate in.  I am limited budgetarily by a serious illness in the family, generating a pile of medical bills.  I also cannot fly, for medical reasons.  So I can use Zoom and other computer facilities to attend conferences and webinars, and I am so grateful for that.

 6. I dipped my toes into WikiTree, and find it better, as far as a collaborative family tree goes, in that we are urged, encouraged, and even required to sign a pledge to provide good and usable source citations to what we post.  That should help lower the incidences of bad information being allowed to creep into our contributions to the tree.

 7. I connected with a historical society in one of the locations where my ancestral line spent time.

8. By dipping my toes into AI I was able to discover that it is not yet ready for prime time.  I am an AI skeptic.  I hold to an old advertising slogan:  "Mother, please!  I'd rather do it myself!"  Besides, I'm a much better writer than any AI or computer program, and as a degreed historian as well as a trained and well-educated genealogist, I'm a stickler for precise source citations.

 9. I found this presentation most useful: a three-day presentation by the New England Historic Genealogical Society on verifying your research.

 10. I got the most value from this book:  The Mayflower Migration, by Robert Charles Anderson.  I'm a Mayflower descendant, and member of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants.

 11. Another positive I would like:  To be able to continue finding surprises, enchantment, and fascination in my genealogy research.

 Good luck to you in your genealogy researches!