Moving on to Dad's Side of the Family

Now I’m going to flip to my father’s side of the family for awhile. The surnames that I know of so far are Henn, Wilcox, O'Brian, McClean, McGregor, Currier, Sharp, Bennett, Grigor/Gregor, McFarlane. (It would appear that I have far more Scottish roots than I was aware of. I thought I was mostly of German extraction until I started all this, lol.)  As in Mom's side, I will not be naming anyone who is alive, or posting recognizable pictures of anyone who is alive, absent explicit permission (baby pictures may show up).

I believe I got the family history gene from this side of the family because there are several family trees in existence for several branches of the family on this side. They will be a great help in my attempts to “fill in the dash” on my ancestors lives and tell their stories, even though mostly (not entirely) they simply map out connections and give birth-marriage-death dates without a much citation. 

I remember Dad talking about what all Grandpa did in his family research, so I believe the research was done and was solid, but the citations were not put on the trees and so I don’t have them, and I’ll be attempting to verify the information by finding a source to support it, while researching for information to "fill in the dashes" in their lives between the dates. Additionally, I am blessed with a copy of Great-Aunt Lucille Henn Robson’s book, "Members of the Flock", in which she rounds up memories of her parents and grandparents, and those of her husband, and of the town she & they all grew up in. It is a delight! And I will use it as a source for stories herein as I figure that the next generation (my nieces and nephew) may not have read it.

I only have a very few pictures for this side of the family (perhaps even fewer than I originally had for Mom’s side, before Mom’s cousin found the blog and scanned hers and made copies and sent me pictures!).  So I will be illustrating the stories with other sorts of pictures as I have all along when portrait photos were in short supply. Hopefully, they will be interesting too. 

I know more photos of the families exist because in some of the family trees Dad has loaned me there are photocopies of old photos. But they appear to have been done in 1972, or before, when photocopiers weren't as good quality as we have today, and some are appear to be photocopies of photocopies. I tried to scan some into my computer to use but it didn't work at all well.  If anyone wants to send scan and send me family photos by email or disk, or make scanned copies of photos to send me (but I know photo paper is expensive), I’d be happy to receive and use them. If you are willing to risk them to the U.S. Mail, you can send them to me and I’ll scan them and then mail them back to you. See the “Contact Me” page for my email address, and I’ll be happy to send you a mailing address if you need it. (You can send me family stories too if you want to. )

My first post on this side will be on Owen James Henn, my great grandfather, and it will either go up later tonight or tomorrow evening , depending on when it gets finished.

Plans

For those relatives just finding out that I've caught the genealogy bug (after being passed the link to this blog by someone else in the family - probably my parents), I thought I would set out my current plan of attack for the family research and for the blog. I say "current" because I expect both will evolve over time.

My current plan of attack for the Family Tree (from me up) is to approach it from right to left, as it were, or starting with the maternal side (and the maternal side of the maternal side [thus far: Hartman, Wonsetler/Whonsetler, Diehl, Meyers, Zimmerman, Speicher; Erwin, Conley, Craig --I'm back to the early 1700's- late 1600's with a couple of the branches], then moving to the paternal side of the maternal side [thus far: Snyder, Bailey, Pink. At one point a Snyder marries a Snyder -- different families but both tending to John(s), & Phillip(s)] - yikes!) and going to the paternal side (with the maternal side of the paternal side first [thus far: Bennett, & Gregor] and then to the paternal side of my paternal side (thus far: Henn, Wilcox,Currier]. I intend to do four basic passes through the whole thing (1) fill in as much as I have in the  tree type documents Mom & Dad gave me - mostly Dad's side; (2) explore all of the little hint leaves that pop up on Ancestry.com after the first pass through and add all the documentation I can (which makes sense) from those hints; (2.5) take anyone I don't have documentation for off the tree [I might get them back later but they only get to stay at any given point if I can support them being there]; (3) next go outside Ancestry seeking additional sources of documentation on just about every aspect of life specific to each person on the tree, and see if I can get further back in the family tree as well*; (4) go through and research cultural context for each generation an person: what's going on in the world then, in that state, that county, that city; how much are milk, fuel, clothes, etc.; and attach contextual essays for each person (or at least each generation).

I've done step 1, largely (I have more stuff I got from Mom & Dad that aren't trees that I intend to use to spark research inquiries and verify research with, in later steps). I've started step 2, although I'm still on the maternal maternal side. While I'm doing this I'm also reading up on and watching YouTube videos on how to conduct genealogical research, because I really don't know how yet. I just like research (I always have) and I have a wide ranging curiosity and lots of patience (as far as research goes). In amongst my research into doing genealogical research, I've discovered that my plan of attack is "wrong" if I were to aspire to doing it like a professional. Evidently I should be doing each person and each branch until its done (while realizing that there's always the potential for more, as more historical documents come to light in the world). I have no desire to be a professional and I'm not going to do it that way. I have too many readers who are looking forward to seeing what I turn up when I get to their side of the family, so doing it in layers seems fairer. Although there will be overlap, likely; particularly if I get interested in a person and extra info is easy to find -- see my first Ancestor Highlight post coming tomorrow, well, later today. This will all take time. I've got at least 9 years to go before I can retire, so I can't afford to do this more than weekends because I have a tendency to stay up too late doing it. And, frankly, this is looking like a rest of my life project if I do everything I want to with it. Then someone can inherit it and see if they can improve on it!

As for the blog, I intend to post at least one (1) post general a week updating folks into what I've been researching this week, and one (1) highlighting some ancestor -- some of those will be more detailed than others, some may not be very detailed at all, and there may be repeats as I find more stuff for a person. There may also be occasional posts on something I found to be quirky, cool, or neat. I might do some posts just for fun as I figure out how to do it  - some of the other genealogical blogs I follow do a themed puzzle on weekends If I can figure out how to do it I might join in. Also, if someone sends me a question, I'll try to address it if I can. I don't expect most posts to be as long as the ones I have been writing. These are just setting the foundations.

I'm doing the blog to (1) keep family informed of what I'm doing, (2) let others who might be researching the same surnames know what I'm finding - the blog is google-able and searchable if I set it up as I intended, and (3) to maybe get pointers from others who read it. And to make friends interested in the same sort of stuff.

Oh, and if anyone has anything that they think might be helpful for my research, but they don't want to give it up (understandable!), please take a picture of it and email me the picture (this includes documents & pictures), and give me an explanation of where/how you got it & what it is. Thanks!