Doing Honor to Family

There are many different ways that we as genealogists and family historians find to honor the memories of our ancestors. Many of us write stories taken from the bits of information we glean from research, others of us love the joy of making beautiful scrap book pages, and still others are content to gather all available information in our software programs and make printed family trees to hand down. All are worthy endeavors to keep the memories of the past alive.

The two of us, The You Go Genealogy Girls, find many different ways to honor our loved ones. Girl #1 has made purses and bags with photos on them and Christmas tree ornaments. I love to do scrapbooking pages and wall art of various types, all with photos and trinkets of our ancestors added. I am running out of wall space to display everything and have even helped Number 1 fill up her wall space too.

We are lucky to be the proud owners of a beautiful family photo of our Great Great Grandparents and their family, The George Albert Copsey family which was taken in Custer County, Nebraska in about 1886-87. Not only do we have this treasured photo of their family and their sod house but it is also an important photo in the collection taken by the famous early photographer, Solomon D. Butcher. He made many early glass plate negative prints of the Plains, mostly in Nebraska during the later part of the 1800's and often centering around Custer County, Nebraska. This collection of glass plate negatives is at the Nebraska State Historical Society. Ours is a photograph and the original glass plate negative from the Butcher collection can be seen HERE and the plate details are available HERE. We invite you to take a look at the original glass plate, it is quite interesting and has a somewhat different look from our photo.

Many of the Solomon D.  Butcher photographs can be seen on the Library of Congress American Memory website. If you are a student of history and especially that of the early Plains and  American west those photos offer very poignant views of sod houses and the families who lived during those early years.

Cropped closeup taken from our original photograph of the George Albert Copsey family.

As many of you may already know, Ruby recently wrote a helpful new book about doing "Genealogy Research in Nebraska". Of course she had many hundreds of family photos that she could have chosen from to use on her book cover but our Copsey family is the one she wanted to use and when she suggested that to me in the pre-production stages, I was in total agreement that she had chosen well. What better way of doing honor to one of our dearest families? We are both so proud and so thankful that the Copsey's chose so many years ago to have their photo taken for posterity. Little did they know that thanks to Mr. Butcher, their Great Great Granddaughters would "make them famous" 130 years later! To us they were already a great family in our knowledge of their history and accomplishments...and were it not for them just where would we be? It is they who deserve our love and we honor them each time we look at those faces.

One of my other postings on my photo blog Taken Somewhere in Time has more early photos and information about Effie Mae Copsey, our G Grandma, the little girl with the doll in the sod house picture. "Great Grandma Gardner's Photo Timeline"

Ruby's book cover!

Ruby's book can be ordered from Roots Family Publishing: HERE.


Thanks for stopping by our blog!  ~Cheri, You Go Genealogy Girl #2

Not Worthy of a Title

It was Saturday morning and a beautiful winter day in western Nebraska, Hubby was home and we  made plans to just relax, watch a little TV, read a bit and maybe even get some much needed time to work on the computer. I had been doing some work for our local museum so have not had much time just to myself for several days. Yesterday was the day-Yeh!

Three o’clock rolled around and it was time to open up Legacy and get to work, I’d be adding some more information which I had found and maybe a few new photos. I even have a little table by my easy chair in the living room with all the comforts that any genealogist would want at my finger tips. Computing and researching is so much fun.

Where is that “John” that I had been working on? He isn’t there, is he hiding with his wife possibly? Oops, his wife is gone too and all their kids. Can a family just disappear or were they kidnapped? The dilemma of the day had started. So far, the situation had been calm but panic had started to set in. Losing a whole family is not fun and soon I discovered that not only was the family gone but also many of their friends and other relatives had also jumped ship. Those darn ancestors just didn’t want to live at my house any more. I was so sad, the tears almost started to flow, then the real anger set in...I even tried to blame poor hubby for my family running away. Supper wasn’t to be had at my house until they were returned. Hubby was mad at me and said he was going to leave too and didn’t blame “the relatives” for leaving. Him I could send out the door with his luggage but those other relatives didn’t even bother to take some of their baggage, a little of it had been left behind i.e. a few photos and miscellaneous papers. What was the deal, did they just come to get acquainted, visit for awhile, waste my precious time and then have the nerve to just get up and leave while only leaving behind a few photos to make me think that they loved me? I was just so sad.

For over two months I had been gathering all those great new ancestors, inviting them into my life and even let them bring all their records and luggage along with them. January 29^th seemed to be the day that they had chosen to begin to leave even though I had given them a new place to live that was called Legacy “7.5”. Since I was busy with other things in life for awhile, they just got up and left and when I decided to spend some time with them yesterday on Feb 5^th, nearly half of them who had resided in ONE family file had all vanished. My Legacy program which has always been so good to me, even to the point of me loving it, had failed to make those darned relatives stay. The latest and greatest upgrade that was supposed to make their life easier and mine too coincidentally, well it had failed miserably. It just told my relatives and many ancestors to get out as they were no longer welcome or loved. I cried.

Hubby finally took pity on me and said he’d try to help IF I would please fix supper. I love sharing! He thought those relatives just had to be somewhere as when they live in a computer, they just don’t disappear. He insisted they were just playing a cruel game of hide and seek. I thought he was trying to make me feel better but maybe he was just lying, after all he had not wanted to go hungry. "People and files just don’t disappear", he said, and being a man I had trouble explaining to him that a Legacy file isn’t your plain old standard file that just any program could find and read. He asked "have you tried the Legacy help area"? Well yes, I had been there many times and nothing was there to help find my loved ones. Now I was stupid. 

One last thing I thought of, check out the Legacy Home tab in my software and where sometimes a new update will appear. There was an off chance that my loved ones may be hiding there anyway. No relatives, just a small update and “bug” fix, I was excited so I downloaded that and had the latest and greatest. Our new address was now “7.5.0.55”. A pretty impressive address, surely those great people would want to come back to live with me now. YEH, WOW, GLORY!...up they popped at the door, showed their faces and wanted back in. I loved my ancestors. Supper would be served.

Hubby and I felt some better after our meal and I even told him that he could stay too since the family appeared to be moving back in. He wasn’t sure that HE wanted to stay as supper wasn’t up to its usual standards. Those damn relatives had spoiled it all.

Now it was time to get busy and introduce all my  relatives who had come back to some new friends and loved ones. I opened the door to let them in again so they could unpack and lo and behold those same “damn” relatives had left again, hats in hand and baggage in tow. You just can’t trust anyone these days.

Sadly, their clones had been living on my external hard drive and on my desktop computer too. The external died a couple weeks ago and the new one isn’t due here until this coming Wednesday. I figured the clones on my desktop loved it here but discovered that they also had flown the coop. I  forgot to mention that ALL my backup files from the last two years had been packed up by those relatives and had been taken along with them. The file for restoration purposes was empty. Now... just who needs two years worth of backup files?  I guess that Legacy 7.5.0.55 had lured those files along with the clones away too. I am also slow, my iPad had not yet been updated with my  latest files as there is so little time and so much to do. I wrote a nasty letter of disgust and will contact Legacy on Monday. I really want the rest of my ancestors and relatives back, I just hope I don’t have to wait until fall and go looking for them again all by myself. Today I am not sure I love them enough to go find them all again. Life was good here—once.

The day was nearly over anyway so why not get on the desktop and do a little work before bedtime as that was always fun and relaxing. I adjusted the font size that my printer was using as my poor old eyes aren’t what they used to be. Hubby went to take a nap and my favorite Chelada drink was settling my nerves from the trying day of fighting with relatives and Legacy 7.5. My partner and loving relative, You Go Girl #1,  had tried to console me over my family’s defection and she sent me an email about some classes she is giving. That email looked interesting so I  decided to print it and see my new larger font on paper. It was awesome when the HP printed it out- only one problem: now the printer language on the display of the printer itself showed up in “Pig Latin” or “ChinoJapaRus”!  I can’t read anything the printer is showing me and can’t change a thing.  It now prints gorgeous “school” lined paper too—who knew? I downloaded the HP printer manual and found the solution as follows:

To set your language and country/region

1. Press Setup.

2. Press to highlight Preferences, and then press OK.

3. Press to highlight Set Language, and then press OK.

4. Press to scroll through the languages. When the language you want to use

appears, press OK.

5. When prompted, press to highlight Yes or No, and then press OK.

6. Press to highlight Set Country/Region, and then press OK.

7. Press to scroll through the countries/regions. When the country/region you want

to use appears, press OK.

8. When prompted, press to highlight Yes or No, and then press OK.

Well, wasn’t that just great and simple! Does anybody know what the word for setup or preferences is in “Pig-ChinoJapanRus” so I can change the language on my printer? Oh my! You Go Genealogy Girl #1  has just emailed me, she is asking if I know how to swear in computer language as “Quicken” deleted all her tax information for seven years. YES I DO!!!!!!!  If in question, use the “Pig-ChinoJapanRus” dictionary. It is a wonderful tool.

What a great Saturday yesterday was. The perfect day in the life of a genealogist. Now it is Sunday---what shall I do today? I wonder if my Kitchen Aid mixer still works? Hubby gave up and left me last night, work sounded more like fun even at 10 O'clock pm. Maybe a grand chocolate cake would be good peace offering. I might need his advice again someday and I certainly will need some sweetening before I tackle Legacy and HP tomorrow!

A Day in the Life of a Genealogist!

You Go Genealogy Girl #2-  Cheri

P.S. Ruby and I, The Girls, laughed until we were silly over all this "stuff" last night. What else can two silly old Grandma's do? We are getting to old to organize a protest or to hit the nightspots  and drown our sorrows....even if we did, we'd be the ones to get arrested on the way home!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The year of 2010 has been a great and fun year for The You Go Genealogy Girls. During this past year we have been able to pursue our love of genealogy in many different ways and were privileged to get to meet so many new friends along our well traveled roads. We got to meet and make lots of new friends this year while we attended some great Family History Expos and during our annual research trip to Salt Lake. Every museum, library and even some of the cemeteries we visited brought wonderful new discoveries and we even made new friends in each of these places too! Thanks to everyone who helped make our year such great fun and for adding to our list of "new best friends". We love you one and all and thank you for being our friends and faithful readers. We hope to see you all again soon and to have the opportunity to meet many new friends too.

The Lord willing, us sisters-in-law (also known as the You Go Genealogy Girls) will be on the road again in 2011 to pursue finding even more treasures and knowledge. We feel so lucky to be able to do what we really love and being able to do it as a team surely does make it even more enjoyable. Those newly discovered ancestors should appreciate the excitement and love that two of us at a time exhibit when we manage to bring them into the light. Two silly old Grannies jumping for joy in the dark recesses of a court house or library must be quite a site as we have been known to celebrate and exhibit unruly behavior. We may have to tone it down a bit in 2011 and act more our age......or maybe not!

Our wishes are that each and every one of you will have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year with your loved ones. This is such a special time to make new memories and also to remember those awesome people who went before us and provided us all with the opportunities we have in this world.

We will resume writing in 2011 and see you all very soon!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from The You Go Genealogy Girls; Ruby and Cheri



You Go Girl #2- Cheri

Expo Photo Collection

The last of my photos to share from the Kansas City Family History Expo that was recently held the end of July. The next Expo is coming up soon in Salt Lake City. You can read more about it here.

"Go Hubby" and I are heading down the road on a bike trip soon. I look forward to sharing some sights from our trip and hopefully we will locate an interesting historical site or library to share!

Burnin' up the pavement again.....want to come along You Go Girl #1? Nothing like the wind in your hair, rain in your face and bugs in your teeth! I will take along a few of those ancestors to keep me busy in the evenings around the fire. Maybe they will share some tales of their own.

You Go Genealogy Girl #2--Cheri

The Ancestor Tree

My ancestors and relatives mean a lot to me. I wouldn't be here without my ancestors! Christmas is a perfect time to focus on Christmas-past and our ancestors. A year ago my granddaughter suggested I needed to make ornaments for my tree with photographs of ancestors. She said, "After all, Grandma, you have oodles of old photographs." Indeed I do and I discovered I probably have enough for more than one large tree.

This year I occasionally thought about her request for ancestor ornaments. How was I going to create them? I found ideas and suggestions on Internet, but nothing seemed to be what I wanted. In October, You Go Girl #2 came for a visit. I told her she could not return home until we had solved the problem of putting ancestors on the tree.

She is artistic and talented in crafts, so it didn't take her long to figure how to do the ornaments. We found some thin, wood pieces of small circles and tear drops at the craft store. Later when they were out, my daughter brought me some light weight cardboard from work. That works, too! Raiding my quilting stash, I found odds and ends of fabric and scraps that looked old-fashioned. We purchased glue, ribbon, glitter and a tiny strand of garland with red berries on it. Covering one side of the wood piece, we then added a small loop of ribbons to the other side before gluing on the fabric. The ribbon serves as a hanger for the ornament. After all dried, they were trimmed.

The fun part was going through my collection of photographs that I scanned to my genealogy program. I manipulated each to get the proper size and then adjusted the color to sepia. After printing them, we either burned the edges or trimmed them. #2 is good at burning the edges. I would probably burn the house down! Those were glued to the fabric covered wood piece. Once dried, a small piece of greenery (garland) and bow was added. On the back side I glued a small name tag with the ancestor's name and dates. The final touch was putting glue around the edges and adding glitter.

I had no idea how many ornaments I would need, but made about 24 of them. They deserved a tree of their own (Ancestor Tree), so I purchased a four foot artificial tree with lights already on it. Once the ornaments were placed on it, I created a garland of twine and old-fashioned ribbon bows. Just the touch it needed. A small ornament was placed on the tree which reads, "Generations of Our Ancestors." The last photograph my husband and I had taken together was turned into sepia tones and placed on a small wooden tree which serves at the tree top ornament.

The best part of the tree is that I can look at it every time I am in the living room, study the photographs and remember who they are. I like to ponder about their lives and in particular their Christmases. I am sure they were quite different than mine.

The tree could easily handle more ornaments. I have plenty of ancestors who want to adorn it. But I also have months to work on them before Christmas 2010!

You Go Genealogy Girl #1 --- Ruby

We Have Arrived

The girls have arrived in Sheridan, WY.  It was a fun trip here, as usual.  Girl #2's granddaughter came with us so she could visit her other grandmother here in Wyoming.  She is 11 years old and kept us entertained with questions and comments.  Going through little towns she would say that she blinked and we were past it.  Then giggle!  Brings back memories of when my own kids were little.  

Which brings to mind that genealogy is the game of memories.  Those memories may be your own (which you should write down) or those of relatives.  They unfold in stories, traditions and written accounts.  In course of collecting those memories, we add form and structure to the ancestors that appear as names on charts.  

It's early to bed and up early to get signed in for the Family History Expo.  A big day ahead of us and what fun it will be!  We'll chat with all of you tomorrow.