Corsets and Costumes

I'm on a bit of a costume kick and this year I'm feeling a little 18th century obsessed! I've gone to a couple rennesance fairs and of course made my own costumes and I must say I was very happy with them. My first costuming adventure began after falling in love with the Lord of the Rings, I began drafting my own patterns and hand sewing my elven dresses which all things considered I think came out very well. But when I made my first corset/stays for the renn fair, that was a game changer. I love the weight and the layers and the shapes created by the clothing of yesteryear, if I could wear them all the time I probably would.

Well anyways, a few years ago ... Okay about 5, I bought an actual stays pattern packet rather then drafting my own. I found that half done corset in a bag last month and decided to finish it, it was only then that I realized it was an 18th century design ( not rennesance). But I liked it, and I was determined to finish so I started researching 18th century clothing and oh is it lovely! I am so excited to finish the stays and beggin the rest of the costume!

I've almost decided to go ahead and wear it to the renn fair anyways, I mean really half the costumes there aren't historically accurate and lots of people don't even wear costumes! I think only a handful of people will notice and probably most of them wouldn't even bother saying anything.

So here is some inspiration from my Pinterest board on costumes! And yes, I do plan to make my husband wear a kilt. I'll be sure to post costume updates along the way and I'll tell you why I love corsets so much.

Find your Ancestors for Free part 4

Sorry it's been a few days since posts 1,2 and 3, but as I said last time, today I'm going to talk about names.

Remember when searching that the exactness of a name is not all that important. Be open to different spellings, wrong spellings, nick names, middle names, wrong initials etc. If more then one person has the name in a family, one may use a middle name or a nickname, also very often census takers would guess on the spelling of names particularly odd names. For example my  3rd great grandmother was named Calista Yager Jones, however in the censuses it spelled Calista, calsta, cista, calistia and more. With that in mind you may be wondering how you can ever be sure, and that's where the rest of the family and dates come in to play. Remember I told you too write down everyone in the family and their ages, this is where you use that information. If you aren't sure it's them, use the other names and dates to compare and see if it is actually the same family.

That's first names, but let's look at family names. Those also get written wrong or sometimes even changed. My great grandmothers family was from Germany and there last name was Wiese, it has however been misspelled as Weise or Wise. On the other hand simple names such as Johnson could actually have started out as Johnston or Johanson. One interesting thing to note about family names is that within countries certain family names or more common in particular areas. For instance, here is a web-sight for German family names and when you search a name it tells you what the population density in each region is of people who bear that name. And here is a map of Ireland that tells the general areas that go with each family name. There are many other such resources as before mentioned, Google is your friend.

Now for a note on ships records and passenger lists. The best sight I have found for this is Olive Tree Genealogy, it's not particularly user friendly but it does have a lot of ships lists an they are free. Now remember one thing, even if you are sure your ancestors came from say Germany and landed in Philadelphia that doesn't mean they will definitely be on a list that say such and such ship arriving in Philadelphia from Germany on such and such date. They may have or they might have taken a ship to England and then on to America or they might have gone through France and then boarded a ship. So when looking for these records I advise you to be very open. my advice is if you have a year or year range and what city they arrived in that is where I would start. Another example generic random tidbit, always read the actual document if you can. I'll give you an example of why this is important, my great grandmothers two sisters on one census when asked where they were from answered, Neümunster rather than Germany, later on the census taker wrote Germany beside it but when the information was entered into the database it was only put in as Germany. So you see if I hadn't actually looked at the document I might never have discovered what area of Germany they came from.

One other thing to remember is that borders change with time, and it can be worth the effort to look up old maps no mater if you are looking in the US or abroad. On my fathers side for example the family was from West Virginia, but as we went farther back we noticed that it had changed to just Virginia. We began to wonder why they moved and as we examined the map we realized that the family hadn't moved at all, it was the state lines that had been moved. Another example in Europe, on my mothers said in the Wellman family it was said that they came from Wales, however people argued that there are no Wellmans. Later on someone else pointed out a that the Wales of the 15-1600's is not the Wales we know today, and that at that time it covered most of the southwestern end of the Island. Making it perfectly possible for him to have come from what was at that time known as Wales.

Happy Hunting! And remember don't hesitate to ask me any questions.

Find your Ancestors for Free part 3

If you haven't read part 1 or 2 please check them out here and here. For today's post I'm going to focus on smaller more localized help.

A great resource within your community is of course you local library, some libraries offer free use of ancestry.com through libraries personal computer. If you have a DE library card you can go on the Delaware library catalog (online) and use Heritage Quest. Check with your local libraries for any similar programs or materials they might have. 

Historical societies are also good places to get questions answered. If you know where your ancestory lived you can check with that areas local historical society and see if they can provide you with any information, documents, or even tips on other places to check! Preservation Directory is a great place to look for historical and preservation societies and as always don't forget, Google is your friend.

And last but not least for today, some blank forms you can print and use to better organize the information that you find. First we have blank census forms, and this web-sight has lots of free printable family tree templates.

I'll be back tomorrow to talk about ships lists names and origins. Remember feel free to ask me any questions! I'll do my best to get them answered.

Find your Ancestors for Free part 2

Yesterday I posted Finding your Ancestors for Free part 1, today I'll share three of my top tips!
   
   My number 1 tip as you begin to research is to keep a notebook with you and always write down any information you find and the source of that information. For example say you have just found a census with your great grandfather, you want to write down all the information on the census (some have more then others); name, spouse, children, ages, age at marriage, occupation, education etc it can even be good to look at their neighbors on the census. Next to this information write down your source i.e. Federal census 1880 or New York State census 1895. State, county, the date the census was taken. I also recommend keeping a document on your computer where you can save any links to information you find, it may not be as easy to find things later on as you might think. Also sometimes you will find a document and when you go to look for it again, it's gone or claimed by someone (like ancestry.com) who will make you pay to see it. This is one of the many reasons it's so important to write down all the information you find.

Now if you are using the ancestry app you'll probably start getting hints almost immediately, but remember they are hints nothing more they might be the person in your tree or they might not. So go through those carefully and even though it's on the app I still recommend writing down the info, also if you want to look at it later take a screen capture. Sometimes the app will only let you view the document 2 or 3 times and then they will ask you to purchase it, which as you know is something we are trying to avoid.

My 2ond tip actually comes via my great aunt who got this tip from a professional many years ago. He said "you don't look for their birth records first, you look for their death records". The reason as you may be able to guess is that there is a lot more information at the time of death. This is where social security death index comes in handy, also findagrave.com. Some states have there own ancestry websights where you can search birth, marriage and death records. For instance I was able to google Missouri death records and find a state websight with that information. 

Tip 3 Google is your friend, it's always a good idea if you have someone with an unusual name to try simply googling their name with their birth and death year, you never know what you might be able to find. For example as I was doing family research on my maternal grandfathers family I ran across a Helen Elizabeth Wellman Wellman Banner 1838-1930 (my 3rd great grandmother) and we decided to google her, and we were able to find a google book entitled The Descendants of Thomas Wellman of Lynn Massachusetts which was published in 1918. Chances are someone somewhere along the line, somewhere out there has done research on at least part of your family tree, don't be afraid to use the work they've already done just be aware that they might be wrong and always double check it.

Now my last bit of advice for today is to use familysearch.org, it is basically ancestry.com but free. Now feel better equipped and get to work, send me any questions and I'll do my best to answer them!

Find your Ancestors for Free part 1

Finding your family ancestry has become the new big thing over the past few years and one of the biggest groups leading the way is Ancestry.com. I'm sure we've all seen the commercials, whether it's people expressing surprise and amazement at what they found or how easilly it was to search, from the websight, to the app or even DNA testing. An all encompassing subscription costs $50 a month or nearly $200 for a half a year, and the DNA test although very cool is is priced at $100 dollars and can't actually tell you everything about where your family came from.

    Researching your family tree can be an amazing adventure, not to mention really fun and potentially semi-addictive, but it doesn't have to be an expensive hobby in fact it can be free. So I am going to do my best to show you how you can find your family without spending a ton of money that could be put to better use doing something else!

     The first thing you should do is write down all the information you have, and I mean everything starting with your parents and working your way back. You want to write full names any and every importent date, births, marriage, births of children, deaths. You want to write where they lived where they were born, what kind of work they did. After you've done what you can ask your parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents etc for any information that you might not have known about and write it all down. Then after you've done all you can do, it's time to really get started!

      If you have an iPad, iPhone or any other devise with access to the APP store, you want to go on and download the ancestry app from ancestry.com. You will be able to make an account and use their family tree device for free, if you only have a desktop I believe you can also do this through ancestry.com if however it doesn't work Familysearch.com also has a similar application for building your family tree, although it is not quite as user friendly. Now that you have a digital family tree, it's time to add all your information into it. And that should have you off to a good start, next time I'll tell you about free websights available and how you can use them, I may even give you some examples.

Please leave any questions in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them!

    

Road Trip to New York

Last week we drove to upstate New York to visit my Great Aunt Ruth, she is 92 years old and though she sends me birthday cards and other letters every year this was the first time I had ever met her. She is my mothers, fathers, baby sister and we had such a lovely time visiting with her.

While we were there we did a lot of talking about our family history, visited some interesting places and a couple of cemeteries. She is the family member who has all the pictures, knows all the names and remembers all the stories. 

The vacant building to the right use to be a hardware store that was owned by my great great uncle Howard Jones, the sign is long gone, but the building still stand on the Main Street in Fly Creek, NY. Below are the grave stones of what we are pretty sure are 3 generations of Jones family, the one in the middle though probable isn't definite as the writing has faded from the stones.

This past year or two of genealogical research has turned up so many interesting things and though there are still a lot of shady branches that need further researching the Jones family line at least has been traced back as far as can be traced. Which for the record is about 1640, but I think that all is a post for a different day.