Follow Friday - October 7, 2011

I've been very slack in participating in the Follow Friday meme, mostly because I really just don't get the chance to 1) read many genealogy blogs and 2) write on my own blog; but as I was driving in to work today I thought of some sites I had read and stuff I had read about in the past couple of weeks that had an impact on my research or piqued my general genealogy interest and I thought I would share with my readers.

Journey Through the Hallowed Ground

First of all, I followed along with blogger Liz Tapley of My Tapley Tree during her trip Through the Hallowed Ground, a 180-mile traverse of scenic highway through history and time from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to Frederick County, Maryland. Liz is a big Civil War buff and this trip was an opportunity for her to see all the places where significant battles and events took place; there was also some Colonial period history mixed in there as well. I was totally jealous I did not get to go along, but felt like I was there through her words and pictures.

Indirect Evidence


If you want to know what all the hype is about Indirect Evidence, then check out some of the these blog posts: From Michael Hait's Planting the Seeds Blog, My First Encounter with Indirect Evidence; Claudia Breland's In Which I First Encounter Indirect Evidence; and Harold Henderson's post on Archives.com Indirect Evidence to the Rescue. My own take home from all of this is that a document should not be discounted or thrown out just because it does not explicitly state that someone was a direct relationship to someone else.

Family Tree Maker 2012 and TreeSync


Back in August I started reading Randy Seaver's posts here and here about Family Tree Maker 2012 and its new TreeSync feature (These were posts about his experience syncing with the Beta version). Click here to start reading about his experience with the released version). Tamura Jones also kept on top of the news with his posts on What's New in Family Tree Maker 2012? FTM's Beta Experience,  and TreeSync's Limitations, I learned that Russ Worthington was blogging on the Family Tree Maker User Blog and found some interesting posts there on how to use FTM 2012 and how to access new features.

Direct Lineage Reports


In her post No Lineage Charts on Family Tree Maker 2012? Heather Wilkinson Rojo presented a direct lineage report that she used to be able to create in FTM 2006, but has been unable to create in later versions of FTM. She stressed the importance of this report when filing applications to lineage societies like Mayflower, DAR, or Colonial Dames which require a report of each generation, BMD data and spouse data (along with spouse BMD data). The closest available reports in both FTM and similar genealogy software are outline reports, however they include sibling data which is not required for lineage societies. Russ Worthington offered a way to do this with FTM which entails creating a new database, deleting the siblings, then creating the Outline Descendant Report. Midge Frazel offered a similar suggestion for using Rootsmagic and their Direct Descendant Report.

This was enough to keep me busy and entertained. I will look forward to reading all the posts about how people will find their way around FTM 2012 and the new TreeSync feature. There is also a lot of discussion about how to manage trees online, but that's in Google+ and can't exactly be shared here. You have to be in certain "circles" to be privy to that information!

Photo Credits:
1. Photo of ff from ibevymay
2. Photo of Liz Tapley from her blog, My Tapley Tree

My Most Important Encounter with Indirect Evidence

I recently read a couple of blogs in which the authors illustrated their first encounters with indirect evidence. In his post, My First Encounter with Indirect Evidence, Michael Hait talked about a Deed-in-Partition that a researcher told him about in which his ancestor was found selling a piece of land along with another person who was presumed to be his brother. Claudia C. Breland also discussed her experience with indirect evidence in her post, In Which I First Encounter Indirect Evidence. I would like to contribute my own experience with indirect evidence, albeit I’m sure it’s not my first experience, although I would say it was probably my most important one.

I have been looking for the parents of my ancestor, Elijah Godwin for years. He was born in Randolph County, North Carolina in 1801. He entered 200 acres of land in Randolph County, North Carolina in 1822, married Nancy Lewis in Randolph County, North Carolina in 1826, and was enumerated in Putnam County, Indiana in 1830.

Two likely candidates for parents of Elijah Godwin were Dred Godwin and Nathan Godwin who lived in Randolph County, North Carolina from 1800 - 1828 and who also removed to Clay County, Indiana in 1830 (Clay neighbors Putnam County).

Nathan Godwin disappeared after the 1830 census in Clay County, Indiana. Dred Godwin died and his children appeared selling off each of their 1/7th parts of his land in 1852 in Putnam County, Indiana. (See my previous posts on Determining the heirs of Netheldred Godwin via Land Records). I learned that 3 of Elijah Godwin’s children were born in Illinois between 1830 and 1833, so I started looking for Godwins in Illinois and I learned that Nathan had actually died in 1833 in Perry County, Illinois and his widow Sarah was living there in 1840.  

A nice researcher pulled the estate records of Nathan Godwin for me and made copies and sent them to me. In the estate records I learned that Elijah Godwin had purchased several items from Nathan’s estate and that he had signed an affidavit saying that Nathan Godwin had died September 17, 1833 in Perry County, Illinois! 

Although no relationship was indicated in this sworn affidavit, I believe Elijah Godwin to have been the son of Nathan Godwin. There is a lot more information and indirect evidence to support this statement which I have not included in this post for brevity; However this is the only piece of evidence that actually links these two men besides them simply living in the same county at the same time.