Intro

I have a blog where I talk about my knitting, my garden, and my GSDs, but I thought I would start a blog specifically for the genealogical work I'm doing. It always helps me order my thoughts to write them down, and perhaps, if I get enough readers, I can help someone and someone might be able to help me.

First things first. Here's a list of the main surnames I'm investigating (there are, of course, a lot of other families who come into it):

Agee (and related families: Ayres, Bondurant, Bransford, Brooks, Chastain, Faure/Ford, Garrett/Garrott, Guerrant, Mask, Maxey, Moseley, Renault/Reno, Sallee) - The Agees were a French Huguenot family who immigrated with a group of other Huguenots to Virginia in the late 17th or early 18th century, settled in what eventually became today's Buckingham Co., then spread out mostly across the South. My branch moved through Kentucky into Missouri.

Boston - one of my brick walls--the farthest I've been able to trace this family back is to 1825 Fairfield Co., OH, though it's possible they came from Virginia. My Bostons moved from Ohio to Indiana, with my direct ancestor moving on to Missouri.

Brown (related family: Alexander) - a direct line to Scotland; immigrated to Virginia in the 18th century, passed through Kentucky on their way to Missouri.

Hardin (related families: Ensor, Ragsdale) - Probably English, immigrated to Virginia ca. 1700, went through Kentucky on their way to Missouri. There seem to be a lot of Hardin Counties, but I haven't tied any of my family in to whichever Hardins these counties were named after.

McGowan/Megown (related families: McCready, McCoy, Coulter, Edie, Lemon) - "plantation Scots" - Protestants forced off their land in Scotland and moved into Northern Ireland, who arrived in Pennsylvania a generation later. There seems to still be a concentration of McGowans in Beaver Co., PA. My branch came on out to Missouri and, so the story goes, changed the spelling to Megown because the paterfamilias didn't want to be called "Mac."

Meyer (related families: Feaker/var., Filser/var., Gross, Kuechler/Keechler, Mortimeyer, Sasse) - The core family is a father, the surviving 10 of his 13 children, and their families, who arrived in New Orleans in the 1840s and made their way up the Mississippi to Missouri where they settled in Chariton County.

Musick - Probably English, arrived in Virginia sometime in the 17th century, and started moving west, through Kentucky into Missouri.

As you can see, much of my research is concentrated in Missouri, specifically the north-central counties of Carroll, Chariton, Lafayette, Monroe, Ralls, and Randolph. Early research is largely in Kentucky, Ohio, and Virginia. After 1900, families really started to spread out and using the censuses of 1920 and 1930, the SSDI, and online records I've found cousins in Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, Montana, California, and Oregon.

I started out using the free program AFT, and in the beginning was pretty sloppy about keeping records and acknowledging sources. Currently I'm using Family Tree Maker--largely because I also have a subscription to Ancestry.com, with which I have a love/hate relationship, and FTM does automatic searches of Ancestry databases.

I do a lot of my research on-line. Over the past ten years, sources have gotten much closer to the original records--that is, I no longer rely so much on the (sometimes incorrect) research others have done because now I have sources such as the Missouri state death certificate online database between 1910 and 1956, and from which you can print copies of the death certificates for most years (they're still scanning), and of course Ancestry's complete collection of printable images of the American census through 1930, as well as those of other countries, and the US Park Service's Civil War Soldier and Sailor site which enables you to search for a soldier by name. If your Civil War ancestor was a Union soldier, you can then go to the NARA site and request to have a copy of his records and/or pension file sent to you. It is, I'm thankful to say, much easier to find sources, access copies of original documents, and to request copies of documents than it was 15 or even 10 years ago.

Other on-line sources I use are Rootsweb, FamilySearch (LDS), and USGenWeb. Since this is all run by volunteers and information is submitted by users, some sites on USGenWeb are more useful than others, but almost all have links to the county historical and/or genealogical society, the county courthouse, and the local library. I've found the volunteers who work at county historical/genealogical societies to be very helpful, friendly, and prompt, and the charge for researching and photocopying to be very affordable.

I need to do something about my paper organization, which is totally out of control, but that's a subject for another post.

I haven't posted my family tree anywhere on line. Yet. I feel quite guilty about this, since other people's family trees have helped me so much. I'm currently constructing a website for my genealogical data, and plan to also feature various families here.

I hope this blog will be informative, interesting, and/or helpful. Please feel free to comment!