Carnival of Genealogy - technology?

March's Carnival of Genealogy wonders what technology we rely on most to assist with genealogy and family history research.

• one piece of hardware (besides your computer)
• one piece of software (besides your internet browser),
  
• one web site/blog
  

Since I won't be able to wax poetic about my new MacBook (it is the center, after all, of my tech universe), I think the scanner would be my pick for the piece of hardware I depend on the most. It allows me to digitize borrowed family photos and to make copies of relevant printed materials such as journal articles, pages from books, newspaper clippings and correspondence. (postcard from Lake Wallenpaupack above)

Software is an even harder question to answer, but since I can pick only one, it will have to be the 9th upgrade of Reunion. I've been using this program since it's inception and every upgrade has brought something new and useful. My favorite features in the latest upgrade are "tree tops", which show from each family card, the names of the earliest ancestors and "pod cards" which export the family cards you choose to your ipod for perusal anywhere.

My web site pick on the other hand is easy - ancestry.com First, I was pleasantly surprised to find all the census information available there. On snowy days over this winter, I was able from home, to find, view and download census records for numerous ancestry lines. In addition, I found marriage, birth and death records and digitized copies of county and family histories that proved useful. So far I've been kept busy using US ancestry, and will be renewing for another three months. Perhaps at the end of the next three months, I will be ready to try the World version and begin learning how to read both British, Irish and German records!

I've had fun and found satisfaction doing genealogy research since I first began over 30 years ago, but I have to say that the ever increasing range and reach of technology has helped to make it ever more gratifying.

Taking a break.....

Taking a break from family research this afternoon to walk down the block and see the dogs run by.

What can I learn about Charles D Sanders?

My interest in researching family history started when my mother's sister Clare returned from a trip to the National Archives with copies of the civil war records of two of our ancestors. One of those ancestors was Charles D. Sanders and today I looked again at the census forms that I've collected for his family.

In 1850, ten year old Charles was living in Pittston, PA with his parents Jesse and Nancy (Knapp) Sanders along with 13 year old Emaline, 12 year old William, 5 year old Franklin, 3 year old Harriet and 2 year old Phebe. The census tells me that like almost 85% of the US population, Jesse's occupation was "farmer" and that Charles, Emaline and William all attended school within the year.

The next census shows Emaline (23) helping her mother keep house; William (22), Charles (19), and Franklin (15) are listed as laborers, Charles, Franklin and Phebe now 11 years old all attended school within the year. I wonder what happened to Harriet; did she perish from illness or accident before she reached age 13?

Two years after the 1860 census, my great grandfather Charles and his old brother William enlisted with the 112th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers and spent the next 3 years involved in the Civil War. Both were mustered out at the end of the war and Charles married my grandmother Mary McNally 18 month later.

With each further piece of information that is uncovered, more of the puzzle is completed while the overall picture expands as more questions are raised.

Where were you during the census?

Gen Lady poises the question-where were you during the US census? It's an interesting one and I wonder how many are like my family and were in different locales during each 10 year enumeration?

I was born in 1944 in Miami Beach, Florida. By the time the 1950 census was taken, my folks had returned to their home state of Pennsylvania and we were living in Sunbury, Northumberland county. In 1956, my dad's job took our family to St. Louis, Missouri, where we remained until he retired in 1964, so we would have been in Missouri during the 1960 count. My parents and sisters were back in Pennsylvania for the 1970 census, and I had moved to the west coast and was living in San Francisco, California. During the 1980 census I lived in Alaska, and in 1990 I lived in San Diego, CA. The 2000 census found me back in Pennsylvania. Who knows were I'll be in 2010!

One of my favorite pictures

Taken, probably in 1938, in New Cumberland, PA. This photo shows my grandparents Bill & Flossie Sanders, surrounded by their off-spring: Jane, Marjorie (my mom), Clare, Marie, Bob and Jane's twin Jean. I liked it so much I had it made into a poster so I could see it every day.

100 year timeline.....

Just a few major events in the lives of some of my direct ancestors:

1840----Charles D Sanders (great grandfather)---born---Broome Co, NJ
1840----Catherine Langan(g-great grandmother)---born---Ireland
1840----Margaret Hunter(g-great grandmother)---born---NY
1845----US-Mexico War
1848----California Gold Rush
1849----Mary T McNally(great grandmother)---born---Carbondale, PA
1850----Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter
1851----Herman Melville’s Moby Dick
1852----Margaret Knapp (Dikkenson)(gg-great grandmother)---died
1852----Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin
1854----Henry David Thoreau’s Walden
1855----Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass
1860----Christopher Kirkhuff(ggg-great grandfather)---died---Monroe Co. PA
1861----US Civil War begins
1863----Charles Kirkhuff(gg-great grandfather)---died---Falls, PA
1863----Emancipation of Slaves
1865----Jesse Saunders(g great grandfather)---died
1865----Lincoln assasinated
1867----Charles D Sanders/Mary McNally---marriage---Marcy, PA
1867----Alaska purchased from Russia
1868----Anna E Kirkhuff(great grandmother)---born---Falls, PA
1868----William H Berge(great grandfather)---born---Scranton, PA
1876----Battle of Little Big Horn
1882----James Hunter(gg great grandfather)---died---PA
1884----Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn
1888----William H Berge/Anna Kirkhuff ---marriage
1890----Florence Ann Berge(grandmother)---born---Scranton, PA
1890----William Lawrence Sanders(grandfather)---born---Avoca, PA
1890----Massacre at Wounded Knee
1893----William H Berge---graduated---College of Physicians & Surgeons--Baltimore, MD
1895---- Eliza Kirkhuff (Weller)(gg great grandmother)---died---Falls, PA
1895----Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage
1896----Catherine Berge (Langan)(g great grandmother)---died---Scranton, PA
1899----William Allen Fulmer(father)---born---Philadelphia, PA
1901----McKinley assassinated
1902----Reuben Kirkhuff(great grandfather)---died---Retreat, PA
1903----Jack London’s Call of the Wild
1903----“The Great Train Robbery”-1st film to tell a story
1912----William L Sanders/Florence Sanders---marriage---Avoca, PA
1913----Marjorie Rose Sanders(mother)---born---Scranton, PA
1914----Charles D Sanders(great grandfather)---died---Avoca, PA
1917----US declares war on Germany
1920----Prohibition begins
1925----F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
1926----Mary T Sanders (McNally)(great grandmother)---died---Avoca, PA
1927----“The Jazz Singer”-first talkie
1929----Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms
1929----Great Depression
1933----Roosevelt’s New Deal
1933----Prohibition ends
1939----John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath
1940----William H Berge(great grandfather)---died---Scranton, PA