Write an Ancestral Resume
One way to keep interesting facts on an ancestor is to prepare a resume as if the person were alive and looking for a job. Look at some forms and find one or two that have slots for various types of information that a potential employer might be impressed to find. Even though your ancestor may be woman who did not have outside jobs, you can try to find out volunteering, church activities, travels, hobbies, and various good works.
Marilyn Walker
Naming Pattern
When I learned of naming patterns I found it very helpful to find the ancestors of the family. There are other patterns, but here’s one pattern I’ve noted:
1st son for the father’s father
2nd son for the wife’s father
3rd son for the father’s oldest brother
4th son for the father
1st daughter for the father’s mother
2nd daughter for the wife’s mother
3rd daughter for the wife’s oldest sister
4th daughter for the mother
Kathy Strine
Recording Your Home History
Since my husband and I are both doing family research we recently visited all the nearby homes we had lived in through the years. We took photos of them and in one case the present owner came out and we had a chat. Now, we can add these photos to our genealogy programs and it is yet another piece of our story.
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Maureen Taylor
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Is there a predominant naming pattern for using family names? In other words, if a first son is John Smith Jones, is there some pattern which suggests where the Smith comes from?
For both of my grandfather and father, I created a timeline outline on each one them. Both my grandfather and father were MD’s, and we lived in a small town in Mass. Consequently, all social activities on both of them were often published in the local daily news. This was a tremdous help for me to create the timeline. My father served in the Army Air Corps as a Flight Surgeon, during WWII. The Town Clerk of the town where we lived took great pains to cut out of the daily news all clippings relating to all local serving in military during WWII. This information also provided me with more material for the timeline. After I finished the timeline, I then put together a book with all the records, newspaper clippings, photos, etc. The book now reads like a personal history of my grandfather and father.