finally finished my family tree pages

here are my family tree pages - i tried to get it all on one page and didn't like how cramped it looked. so i split it to fraternal and maternal ancestry. i am now working on legacy pages for all my aunts and uncles so that they will have something that i made to show all their descendants. i will probably post those as extras on here at some point. i hope that you enjoy looking at these as much as i am enjoying making them.
until next time,
peace and luv,
laura

weekly extra

hi everyone,
this is a copy of a poem i wrote several years ago. it is called summer at the cabin. in the background is a photo of the hammock up at the cabin - my favorite place to be found!! i am running a little behind on last weeks assignment - creating your scrapbook page of your family tree - just not sure quite yet in my head what i want it to look like. but will get working on it today probably.
hope everyone is having a great week,
peace and luv,
laura

learning is a never ending thing

so, in my quest to become a certified genealogist, i realized that there was a lot more i needed to know besides how to use ancestry.com. i needed to know how to properly document things as well as cite where they came from. i needed to know other places to look for information besides birth, marriage, death records and censuses. and if i am going to do this for others (eventually) i need to know how to properly write the reports. so i have taken time this last week to start doing some free online "classes" they are actually just small self study classes that were done in the 90's and therefore a lot of what they have is outdated, but the fundamentals are solid. and the paper/book/leg work is still the same no matter when the year is. so i have been doing this and applying it to my redone johnson family tree. luckily i was only 45 people into it - not like my huge tree that is over 3000 people. so here is what i have learned so far:
1. i like family tree maker much better for adding my sources over myheritage family tree builder
2. i was not adding sources correctly but am now
3. it is very important to keep records of where you have searched and what you found or you really do repeat a lot of work
4. i still want to get certified and try to make a living at this

the site i have been using for my classes is http://www.genealogy.com/university.html and other sites that have some kind of learning tools that i have found but not tried yet are:
http://www.bcgcertification.org/skillbuilders/index.html
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rwguide/
and this has a list of several sites to check out
http://www.ancestrylessons.com/

i am so glad that i found all this so that i can be sure i am learning to do this correctly, instead of just doing this for myself so it didnt matter. i have found out a lot about my family by working on this, as well as finding out that i love history and love knowing how, not only my family but others families as well, fit into it all.

i hope this helps someone in their quest as well,
until next time,
peace and luv,
laura

johnson family tree

I have been working hard on the johnson family tree this week. i am slowly - methodically - adding people one at a time, making sure i have copies of all the documentation i have on ancestry downloaded to my computer, adding the documents to the correct file on office live so that i can file share with my family members, and then going on to the next person. i would guess it is taking me about an hour per person - some longer some shorter but on average an hour. it dawned on me in the predawn hours of the morning today that a) i should still be sleeping and b) i need to add photos to each folder on my office live if i have them for that individual. as always, this is a learning experience and as i learn i can make my tree that much better. hopefully by writing this down, others can learn as well. i also took some time out yesterday to work on my best friends tree. she has a huge brick wall when it comes to her maternal grandfather's line. he was put into a paupers home with his brother as a child and shipped to canada and eventually settled in america and married her grandmother. we have his birth information but i am having a hard time locating his parents in england - but i am persistant, i will find them and be able to give her that much more information. so just to throw names out there just in case - i am looking for henry varley m. eliza ann britton had children herbert and james from nottingham england around 1850-1900. herbert was born 1893 and james 1894. if anyone has info on this family i would love to share info with them.
thanks and as always,
peace and luv
laura

2nd assignment baby birth page

our second installment for our scrapbook was our baby page - it suggests that you can also do baby pages for your siblings and parents. but so far i have only done two pages for me. one with my baby photos and one with my information. i am feeling very creative today so might do ones for my brother and parents but have a couple other projects i need to work on first. i hope you enjoy watching this come together as much as i am enjoying making it.
peace and luv,
laura

just to hold you over

until i get this weeks "assignment" for the all about me scrapbook - i have been creative this week and am doing some pages for quotes that i really like as well as pages of my writing. so when i think you might need something to hold you over i will add them one by one. i hope you enjoy this adventure as much as i am hoping i will.
peace and luv
laura

starting over -- again

ok this time i am starting over with very specific goals in mind. i am breaking down my tree into sub trees. the people in my johnson family are not really interested in seeing all the people that are my extended family from my mother's (whitehouse) second marriage even though i think of all of them as family. the whitehouse line is not interested in the johnson line per se. so while i will still have my huge combined tree that shows how we are all interconnected, i will also have these main family name trees as well. so since i am doing this all manually i am verifying my documentation as i go and asking for what i cannot find from family members that are interested in helping out. i think this is going to be the best solution to my getting my tree better organized. sometimes you just have to start over like it or not. so all that being said - i am off on my johnson family quest this week. starting with my grandparents as the main couple and working forward first - as those people are all still living and i can ask questions of them - then working back and sidways (siblings). hopefully this will give me a much better idea of what i truly have and what i need.
hope everyone is having a great weekend,
peace and luv,
laura

welcome to the new year

today i will let you know my goals for my family tree this year.
1. get my tree information organized better
2. have the same information for each person/family line
3. get my books going - each book will be five generations from a single person including all documentation i have at this point
4. talk to the family about copies of all older photos
5. talk to any family about their lines if they are still living
6. request any family stories that anyone is willing to share

so as you all can see, i have a busy family tree year ahead. but knowing my goals helps a lot.
i hope you are all willing to help out when i ask,
peace and luv,
laura

figured out ...

what i am going to do with this blog this year. faith sisters is doing a my life story thing this year weekly. so that is what i am gonna do on here. post my weekly page(s) for this. so this is my title page. i did a double page so that i could fit everything i wanted on it. it has photos of me from birth to now as well as my title "Drama Queen in the Making" which is the working title of my autobiography as well. i also added buttons - mostly twilight themed but a few others too. anyway it should be fun to see how this all plays out this year.
peace and luv
laura