Category Archives: Research

Has Twitter Declared You Dead?

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Has Twitter declared you dead?

I’ve several ancestors with stories that reports of their death was not just greatly exaggerated but definitely premature. Have you?

The above linked article from 2019 on Lexology warned of death hoaxes on social media. Just are rumors start in the real world and quickly get out of control, rumors on social media move even faster. There have been many celebrities and politicians reported dead long before their death dates.

This idea interests me from a genealogical perspective in a couple ways.

First, this isn’t new. So why should we be so surprised to find out that it is not just true in social media today, but true in the past.

When was the last time you doubted an obituary, newspaper article, or letter reporting the death of an ancestor and took it as truth? Seriously.

I have and found out that they hadn’t died, though most died a few days later according to the death records.

Still, after a couple experiences, I learned not to trust the newspapers and non-official resources until I could corroborate the facts with official, verified sources.

Second, what does it say about us as a society that we would hook into such misinformation and run with it?

Just as we shouldn’t trust information from the past to be the absolute truth as we rummage through records covering the life of our ancestors and reveal the stories they told, the little white lies and the big red ones, we shouldn’t trust the information coming to us through social media, newspapers, and other sources, including our government, especially if their…shall I say “reliability” and “motives” are suspect to begin with?

The concept of Yellow Journalism focused on sensationalism and exaggeration to sell papers. The famous sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor from a mysterious explosion became fodder for Hearst in 1898 to declare this was an enemy attack, allowing Hearst to sell more newspapers that pushed public opinion to believe the US was justified in starting the Spanish-American War. It worked, helping to make Hearst very rich as he continued to twist innocent events into sinister plots.

War propaganda fills history with lies and exaggerations that didn’t stop at newspapers but reveled in the world of cinema and political theater. The Red Scare promoted by Senator Joseph McCarthy with a passion for anti-Communist hysteria and intrigue, pitting friends, families, and co-workers against each other with suspicion. The Vietnam War. Nixon and the Watergate Scandal. Clinton and the intern. Brexit. Pizzagate. And today. Well, every day seems to be a new conspiracy theory that is dividing up the United States and leaking into other countries, sowing seeds of doubt and mistrust everywhere. Just last week, Trump made at least 50 false claims, lies, about the whistleblower reporting on his phone call with the president of Ukraine asking him to rewrite history and find evidence of on Hunter Biden to damage his father running for US president. According to the article, his 50 false claims were “the fourth-lowest total for the 17 weeks” CNN fact-checked, like that is a badge of honor.

This isn’t about politics, but about understanding the nature of humans to embrace falsehoods due to their sensationalism or because they sound better than the truth. As we dig through history, we encounter many ancestors who lied or exaggerated their wealth and status, marriage(s), children, occupations, etc. Our family trees are filled with lies about dates of birth and ages to allow many to marry, join the military, or gain something by being older or younger than they really were. We need to embrace those lies and work to prove them wrong, or admit that we might never know the reasons behind them, and recognize them as questionable evidence and proof.

We need to teach ourselves, our families, friends, and others to be discerning when it comes to misinformation and outrageous stories. It’s not just about someone falsely being reported as dead. We need to develop a habit of checking the facts.

Luckily, today we have the tools to test the information before we share it. Read reputable news sources. Stay away from news sources that exaggerate or take sides. Use these sites to verify the facts before you share tweets, emails, etc. with others. Some of these sites also check historical data.

Also check out Wikipedia’s listing of fact-checking websites covering global sites.

As you write/rewrite your own history, think twice about whatever misinformation you might be slipping into your own history or family tree.

Here are some other articles that might be of interest on this subject.

Best DNA Kits in 2019

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CNet’s Best DNA Tests for 2019 highlights some recommendations with good testing criteria to help you decide.

As with all DNA tests, check the regions and coverage they specialize in. After taking 5 tests, I found five answers, though most of the tests overlapped. Still, there were differences. When I dove into the regions and comparison tests they took to evaluate your DNA history, that explained the differences. So check.

Remember, this isn’t a one-test-final-answer process. At great expense we did my father’s DNA test in 2006. All these years later, the information has updated and the evaluations have improved, providing more pin-point information and improved regional findings. Same applies to my own DNA tests. They keep working on it and we keep finding new discoveries.

News continues to come out about privacy concerns and solving crimes based upon DNA and the fears associated with that, but in truth, DNA opens up one of the most fascinating doors to your family tree and heritage, answering questions and introducing new ones at the same time. Don’t hold back. Go for it.

FBI Records Vault Reveals Bigfoot

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The FBI looked into Bigfoot legend, and the documents are now online. What does this have to do with Life in the Past Lane and genealogy?

This is one of the many documents from the FBI Records Vault now available to the general public, and your ancestors, or maybe recent family, may be included in the thousands of scanned documents covering wild theories, investigations, and reports on everything from the Roswell UFO incident to investigations of top business people.

The documents on Bigfoot’s investigation covers 1976 and 1977, involving many agents and time to resolve this long-standing mystery. They even went so far as to analyze hairs and tissues, making me wonder if they have done DNA tests on them since then. Likely not as the hairs and tissues were found to be deer, but we remain hopeful.

The Vault covers a wide range of FBI information released in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, and are worth exploring to see if you find relatives in there. Check out the Foreign Counterintelligence, Gangster Era, Fugitives, or maybe Public Corruption.

My father always said it was more fun to find the bad guys in our family tree than it was to find the normal people. Good luck with your search for the bad guys.

FamilySearch Adds New Map and Time Line Features

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FamilySearch recently launched a events details feature that allows you to see contextually the history of your ancestor in new ways.

The new features include a Time Line that includes historical events (if enabled), along with the details of your ancestor’s life.

Howard West Sr FamilySearch Timeline feature

It also features a map option that you may switch on that adds pins to a map of the life events of your ancestor along with where historical events near the area and time frame were located.

Howard West Sr FamilySearch Timeline feature

Any time you can view your family’s history in a few perspective, fresh discoveries are likely to be found. Play with it. There is room for improvement, but it’s a start in the right direction. Let me know what you think.

What First Graders Can Teach Us About Genealogy

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In 2014, Else Doerflinger wrote “What Teaching First Graders Has Taught Me About Genealogy.” It’s one of those posts that continues to haunt me.

She talked about working with her first grade class on family history and learning some invaluable lessons. Here are some of her conclusions and my thoughts about them:

  • Family are the people that love you. I love this. The traditional family isn’t Ozzie and Harriett. It is the Kardashians. Traditional family trees won’t work when there are half and step children and multiple marriages, two mothers, two fathers, and children raised by their aunts and uncles or grandparents, or even great-grandparents, or non-family, friends, neighbors, employers even. This is no different than it has ever been. I’ve ancestors raised by grand or great grandparents along with many half and step children, it’s still hard to tell which belongs to which birth-parent combination. The “traditional” family tree structure myth should have been broken a long time ago. It’s time for the genealogy industry to learn from these first graders, and time to reformat our family structure forms and concepts.
  • Kids have zero concept of time, space, or geography. As I research, I sometimes find myself searching too narrowly, focusing only on the records of one town or state. I have to remember that our ancestors were mobile, not confined to any space or geography, and more mobile than we may think. I have one ancestor who crossed the Atlantic Ocean multiple times in his lifetime in the 1600-1700s, traveling alone and with family and employees, who also traveled throughout Europe. So many times I’ve thought of him as an aberration, the exception to the rule. I need to start thinking like a kid again and open up my mind to new possibilities. As for the children’s inability to consider a visit from President Lincoln, I feel it is our job as family historians to make sure that my family living today feel like they know our ancestors like they were sitting down in the same room having tea and a good chat. Let’s do a Doctor Who and defy time and space with our family history.
  • They L-O-V-E to be helpers. One of the complaints I hear from many family historians is that no one is interested in their research. I think they didn’t ask right. I believe that people want to help with family history, it’s just that it looks so overwhelming. Start bragging about the 64 great-x grandparents you’re searching, or the thousand in your genealogy software program tree, or even digging through the net or archives, people are going to cringe and look for the fastest escape route. If you make your request manageable, “can we sit down and have some tea and talk about what you remember about your grandparents,” or “do you have mom and dad’s marriage certificate,” or “I’d love to look at the old family photos from 1965 with you, is that okay?” Encourage them to get a DNA test as the least they can do to help, or even offer to gift them one. Tiny steps. Little requests. Help them feel like they can help you in little, manageable ways, and they might loosen up and realize that this isn’t such a complicated and intimidating process after all. At the very least, share your family finds with your family through Facebook, a blog, or just by email. Keep them involved and a part of the process.
  • First graders argue the way the same people do in genealogy groups on Facebook. This one made me laugh. Nothing changes. Whiners at five and six years old, whiners at 50 or 90. Yes, we shouldn’t have to pay so much for access to the records of our ancestors. Yes, we shouldn’t have to join eight different services to get twelve different answers. Yes, this should be easier. But come on! Family history research is easier than it has ever been. It is the money we paid that made businesses and archives sit up and say, “Hey, these records are worth money. We should digitize them and make them available online, and make money in the process.” While we can wish they were doing this out of the goodness of their compassion for preservation of historical records and documents, if greed gets them making our genealogy research easier, make your own coffee, pack your own lunches, walk or ride public transportation more than drive, turn down the thermostat and wear more layers, turn out all the lights and electricity vampires, and unsubscribe from those 1,400 cable channels. All you need is the Internet, a lamp or two, and all that savings going into family history access subscriptions. And feel blessed. Genealogy is one of the hottest and fastest growing industries around, and the better they get, the easier it is for us.

You can see why Elyse’s post was so memorable to me. It is a good reminder that sometimes we need to reach inside and reconnect with our inner child. He or she still has much to teach us.