Grandpa's 80th birthday!

Back on February 11th we celebrated my grandfather's 80th birthday with our immediate family.  Just my grandparents, aunts & uncles and cousins.  I decided that since it's a big birthday for him I really wanted to do something special and unique.  I've been keeping him up to date as much as possible on all the ancestry stuff I've found, but it can be hard to really see how many people you're connected to when it's on tons of pieces of paper.  I came up with the idea of making my grandfather a family tree display.  Something that would have all of the people that he is related to in one place where he could see it.  Little did I realize when I started what a massive undertaking this would be.  In hindsight I wish I would have taken photos along the way, but I've got photos of the end result to share.

I started by pulling out my Meeks binder and getting on to +Ancestry.com  to fill in the blanks.  It had been a while since I intensively sat down and worked on my trees, so I made it my mission to connect as many dot as I possibly could on my grandfather's tree before I made this display.  Well let me tell you, I bit off a lot more than I could chew.  I spent weeks working on the tree and researching every single leaf hint that +Ancestry.com had to show me.  Finally after I did all of that I tried to print out small versions of the trees that I was looking at.  All in all I had 4 last names; Meeks, Tjardes, Keilhack & Riordan.  The trees varied in size based on the information I had available to me.  The Riordan tree for instance was pretty small, while the Tjardes & Meeks trees were pretty extensive.

The next battle came in trying to figure out how to put it all together.  I used 2 of those large tri-fold display boards to get this all together.  I put 2 trees on each board and split them based on which side of my grandfather's family there were on.  Keilhack & Riordan were on one and Meeks & Tjardes were on the other.  I next enlisted the help of my mother, and I'm pretty damn thankful I did.  Word to the wise, if you plan a project like this it is a MUST to have someone who has never done genealogy look over your rough draft.  It may make sense to you, but you look at this all the time.  Having my mom look at what I had laid out was really really helpful.  She took one look at my rough draft & went, "I don't get it".  She gave me the bright idea of staggering the generations to make it easier to see and understand.  After I got all of the little names cut out and glued on to the display board I really wanted to make it more personal.  I titled each tree with the surname and flanked it with the flag of the country of origin if I knew it.  I then went back through all my census records and gathered up any interesting information I could about the people on the trees.  I added occupation, salary, rent/house worth, as well as any military information I had available.

The end result was pretty awesome.  I gave my grandfather a tree that he could get right up to and connect the dots and really be able to visualize the magnitude of the amount of people we're related to.  I also have myself the realization that I've come across a lot of really cool information and I've had a ton of fun doing this research.

My Grandfather & I

Keilhack & Riordan tree display

Meeks & Tjardes tree display

Keeping it all straight

I've been sticking to one of my resolutions this year and have actually been attempting to keep up with my genealogy research better this year.  I've spent a lot of time in the last few days combing the massive amount of hints I've got waiting for me at Ancestry.com.  It's unbelievable how quickly those things can add up.  One minute you're looking at information about your great-great grandparents and the next you have information popping up about their parents, their brothers and sisters and all the people that descended from those brothers and sisters.  Here in lies the problem; how do you keep it all straight?  How do you make sure you're adding the right hints to the right people and that those people are in face the people who you are related to?

It's no secret that a lot of people in the US are descendants of people who came here from European countries.  Unfortunately back in the day, surnames weren't always so creative.  Even if you thought it sounded original to you, once you start looking up documents online you realize "holy s**t! there's 4 other people named William Meek who were born around 1835 in Ohio!".  That my friends is the moment panic sets in.  Oh my gosh, how am I going to figure out which one is mine?!  I can tell you from experience it's all about the note taking.  I personally think that to be a successful genealogist you have to be super organized.

This is my shelf of goodness.  I have 1 big colored binder per surname of my 4 grandparents; Panfil, Moseley, Larson, & Meeks.  The pink binder is full of empty pages and some documents and odds and ends that my grandmother (Moseley) had collected on her family.  The smaller light blue Ohio University (GO BOBCATS!) is for a sub-surname of the Panfil binder, the Opalinski family.  The white binder contains lists of documents that I still need to find from family members, some really helpful documents from Ancestry.com about the 1940s census, newspaper/magazine clippings on genealogy as well as notes I have taken during some of the video seminars Ancestry.com conducts.

In each of these binders I have dividers and I many times split each surname into sub-surnames of their respective parents.  I also have 1 large family tree with the main ancestors in each line, as well as smaller family trees for those split off surnames.  I find that the more OCD you are about keeping all your records organized, the easier it is for you to verify facts and eliminate accidental issues like adding hints to the wrong people.  I also find that the more information you have readily available about a person you are researching, the less likely you are to get people confused.

Take for instance the problem I've just come across.  While researching the Keilhack branch of my Meeks family tree I am looking into the family of my great-great grandparents Jacob Keilhack & Catherine (Riordan) Keilhack.  Last night during my research I discovered that his parents; Joseph & Theresa (Gamel) Keilhack had to boys right before Jacob.  Their names; Joseph C & John C Keilhack.  What makes matters even worse is that BOTH of those boys also married women names K/Catherine!  So I know have Joseph & Catherine, John & Katherine, and Jacob & Catherine.  Talk about utter confusion!!

I'm hoping that my work tonight will lead me to some more information to differentiate all 3 of these brothers and their respective K/Catherines.  Wish me luck!!

How far do you go?

So now that the holidays are over and life has calmed down a bit I have finally found some time to work on my genealogy research again.  This has brought up it's own set of problems and questions.  How far do you go?  I'm currently working on the Meeks family tree, my maternal grandfather.  Of course you always want to trace your ancestry as far back as possible, but how far sideways & forward do you go?  For example, my family tree on Ancestry has exploded with hints for the descendants of my great-great grandfather's sister.  My great-great grandfather only had 2 siblings, a younger brother and a younger sister, only one of whom had children.  But it still begs the question, how far do you go?  Do you trace her lineage down as far as you can, or do you just include her, her children, and her grandchildren?

Part of me wants to stop at her children, so I don't add any more to my already full genealogical plate.  The other part of me, the part that needs to join Genealogists Anonymous, just wants to know everything out there that I can possibly get my fingers on.  I feel like the further down I trace her lineage the better chance I have of going back.  Tracing her life down to her grand-kids might actually give me the ability to find out some really cool stuff.  Or at the very least maybe uncover some family photos.

So that my friends, is the question of the night on my genealogical quest.  How far do you go?  How far have you all taken your family trees?  Do you think you shouldn't have gone as far as you did, or do you wish you had gone further?

Why I do what I do

I realized today that I haven't written in my blog in quite some time.  I apologize for being absent for so long; as I'm sure is the case for many of you, this time of year seems to fly by before you even realize it's over.  I haven't been keeping up with my genealogy research as much as I would like to lately.  Once October hits I am kind of in decorating mode.  First it's Halloween, which I must admit is my all time favorite holiday and I take a ton of pride in my decorations so I spent the whole darn month wrapped up in that, and before I knew it Halloween was over.  Then you move on to Thanksgiving and everything that goes with that. Now it's Christmas. I know it's only the 11th, but this month is packed.  First I have my parents annual Holiday Party this Friday, which I must say I look forward to every year.  Since I still live at home I try to help as  much as possible to make the prep load less for my parents.  So all that being said I'm going to write a brief blog entry to night about why I do genealogy research and hopefully as 2013 rolls around I will have more time for research and keep this thing better updated.  Bear with me, as it may get a little emotional.

Believe it or not I don't necessarily do all this genealogy research for me.  This all started long before I can even remember with my paternal grandfather, Robert Panfil.  My grandfather unfortunately passed away when I was 9.5 years old so I've never gotten to share all this with him.  I think though, that I do it for him.  He's the reason I got interested in my family history.  He was interested in it an had spent time writing to family members and compiling what he could into a family tree, and now I've taken up his hobby.  I think part of the reason I push so much with my research is because it gives me a connection to a man I didn't get to know as much as I would have liked.  Through my research I can see what his life might have been like when he was a child and learn things about his parents and grandparents that I don't have the ability to ask him.  As amazing as all of that it, it's so hard at the same time.  It brings up so many unanswered questions and so many things I'd love to be able to sit down and talk to my grandfather about.

Lately I've grown to realize what an amazing gift my grandfather has given me.  He's opened my eyes to a hobby and a passion I never knew I had and I only wish I could tell him how grateful I am.  Not only that but he has given me the opportunity to create a stronger bond with my maternal grandfather, Carl Meeks.  For whatever reason, as a child I felt much closer to my father's parents, especially my grandfather.  My grandpa Meeks and I never had the kind of relationship I had with my grandpa Panfil.  But now, thanks to genealogy research, we've gotten closer.  Being able to see the look in your grandfather's eyes when you can tell him names of people he never knew he was related to is so amazing.

So in short, that's why I do what I do.  Not just because I'm innately curious about where my ancestors have come from, but because it's given my a connection to both my grandfather's that I never had before.

Happy Holidays Genealogists!

My grandfather, Robert Panfil, and I.  Around 1989