Overwhelming number of shaking leaves

Have you ever been overwhelmed with your genealogy stuff that you don't know what to do next? I mean sure, most of the time I'm searching for more stuff. The missing links. Those times when you have hit every other brick wall and are forced to spend time working on siblings of your direct ancestor. And then boom. You're at your 15th cousin five times removed's wife's uncle's second wife's great grandfather. Usually that only happens to me on geni. Just keep adding and adding and adding....

- if you have a tree on ancestry... And I think most genea-nerds do... You know about the hints. Those shaking leaves everyone gets excited about in the commercials. There may come a time when the number of hints is... Overwhelming.

- you think that would be awesome right? So many hints how can that be bad!?!?

- lets just say that I have 9095 hints as we speak. And no I didn't make up that number. How did it happen you ask? I just kept adding to my tree. Those lovely family tree hints? Yea those are like the gateway drug or something. Before you know it you're in deep. Oh it has five siblings and the parents?! Cool! You think so. But then boom. Those 7 new people all get 2 hints each and that's 14 leaves. One hint led to 14. Hypothetically.

- think of it this way. You have 4 grandparents. Say each has the family tree hint, an in each of those you have parents and 2 siblings. 16 people. If those 16 people have a family tree hint thats 16 hints. But they should all have at least 1 census hint right? 32 hints. All of your male ancestors so far have military records? Add 6 more (minimum... You could have draft and pension records ) so we're up to 38 hints. If all of those people are dead? Add a record each for SS, Obit, and findagrave.  So now we could have 86 records for 16 people! Imagine if you have thousands of people in your tree! It just gets worse from there too.

- the further back you go you have more records, for the obvious reasons of the tree growing. But back in the day people may have had 8 kids or more. Adds to the hints you get. And of course anyone can have those headstone pictures. Do you have a Revolutionary war vet? Even if they're not a direct ancestor you get the war record, a pension file, a dar or sar record. Then if you're lucky enough to get to back in the day Europe, maybe some nobility or royalty, you get those family crests and flag pictures. You know what I mean. Then there are the wicked awesome castle pictures. Before you know it you have hundreds or thousands of hints and you ask yourself how did this happen?

- in not saying I don't like the hints. They're wonderful. But what do you do at this point? Start with photo and story hints? I have less of those so it could be a start. Family tree hints? Nooo that's how we got into this mess. Just walk away from it? Sounds like a plan for now at least.

-anyone else have this problem? What do you do?

Extra Extra!

Ok I'll warn you, I am very excited right now. Like that one person in the SNL skit "Surprise Party". Haven't seen it? Well you should. But right now I'm just so FRIGGIN EXCITED.

No, its not a huge genealogical discovery. I haven't found the long lost Polish relatives. I haven't found any new documents. I haven't seen new pictures of my relatives.


BUT

My ancestors are in the news.

From the itty bitty towns of Elysburg and Shamokin.... The Bieda and Persing families are in the news. The coal miners that came from Poland and left a brother behind. My nana in a tree. Even a picture of my pap's dad in a video.

Not just the news mind you. The Wall Street Journal.

Not just a local paper. THEEE Wall Street Journal. Excuse me whilst I squeal in excitement.

Theres the article, an interactive graphic, and a video!

Here is the link

1 year Bloggerversary!!

Wow! One year since my first genealogy blog post! I currently have 7 lovely followers and for this month so far I have 119 page views. Do you know how many I had last year for October? 19. Thank you all so much!

In the past I've discovered so much thanks to geni and ancestry.com. Love those sites. (I'd love them even more if they were free but hey.) I was introduced to findagrave.com and have contributed to it. Here is a list of my most exciting genealogy moments.

-My grandma sent me a photo album full of pictures taken in Poland <3
-And finding out the location where they were taken (since the writing on the back was Polish)
-Finally finding out the owner of the civil war sword.
-My first genealogical cemetery visits.
-Learning so much more when I was on vacation.
-Finding albums and photos of relatives. Along with old old documents.
-My aunt sent me an old broach... there will be a blog post devoted to it I'm sure

And of course, finding people I'm distantly related to (gen_freak and chickgonebad on twitter). Also also... finding awesome peeps on twitter who are as crazy about this as me. Maybe even more so.

So what's in store for my blog? My mind isn't completely made up but here's a few things I'd like to include:

-My sword pictures. My uncle pointed something out for me
-The broach.
-Perhaps the Polish documents I have. For whatever reason I haven't included those yet.

That all I can think of for now.

Thank you all for visiting! Now have some cake :)

Pictures in Boxes- Part 2

Here I sit on a Friday night watching Criminal Minds and writing another genealogy post. I recently realized, via twitter, that many of the genealogy peeps I follow watch the show. So glad I'm not the only one. Kind of sad I'm doing this on a Friday night though. I really need a social life.

Ok time for more pictures. They're not really organized by which side of the family. It kind of goes in spurts. Some of my Polish peeps, some from my grandpas side.

Don't forget, info on these peeps can be found in my earlier posts. If you recognize anyone or think there might be a connection don't hesitate to comment :)

My Busia and Cioci Ernie (Cioci=Aunt in Polish)

My mom's the cute one

No idea... Possibly a cousin of my Busia's or something...

Ditto

Marion Hauck and "Grandma Carrie" Apparently Marion was married twice?

Pretty dress. no idea who they are. Really need to write down my stuff

Mildred

Yeah thats pretty much how I remember her.

my pap!

Well, those potato chips will be a little burned...

Marion Hauck's parents (Wilfred Hauck & Mary Swank)

Man I really hate this sideways stuff.  Ok on the bottom row we have Russel, Walter and Earl Persing. Behind Earl is Florence

Aunt Harriet (Pitner)

Wilferd (Eleanor's brother) Apparently they called him uncle wimp? No idea why...

Busia at first communion. 

My Busia is on the right. 

Mildred & Louis Bieda

Pictures in Boxes- Part 1

While I look at the pictures in the folder I created, I realized I took 500+ photos of.. well... photos. Don't worry. I won't post all 500. Some are the backs of pictures letting me know who they are, some are doubles, etc.

That reminds me of my first tip. When you are not near a scanner (my grandparents don't even have a computer) and are forced to photograph pictures, make sure you photograph the back too. Not all will have writing on the back. or even legible writing, but its a good idea to take a picture if you see something.

Ok ok. less talk. More pictures.

Yay newspaper articles! Photo taken 1924

Girl in middle with glasses is Eleanor Hauck Persing. Approx. 11 years old. She had all the cool stuff in the garage.

so THATS why I love potato chips... it's genetic!

They all look so happy! *sarcasm*

Myrtle? Don't blame her for using Eleanor instead...

Look at the size of the class! My H.S graduation had 400+ people!

Right side is my Busia

2nd row, 2nd in is Busia again

Aunt Harriet (Pitner) is in the outfit. Some kind of parade or something. My aunt and uncle are the little ones. Mom is the tallest. Scary thing? I looked like that. Minus those clothes. And I know you can't see the face b/c of the hair but I KNOW I  looked like her at that age.... *shudder*

 All the above were my Busia...

Mildred and Louis. I called her Shasha instead of Busia. No idea why. Did distinguish between the two though. In this picture you can see her knee highs. 

Terrified of the headpiece...

Busia, Uncle Emil and Shasha. Guessing my mom is in the blankets?

Love this one.

* Busia is Polish for grandmother in case you didn't know :)

Old Trunk in the Garage- Part 2

More photos and documents from my nana's garage. Some pictures, some army documents, and a deed. Still haven't figured out why some are turning sideways. Whoops. Any advice on them military stuff would be appreciated.

1921 Class photo

Back row, third from the left is Walter Persing (about 15yrs old?)

John F Pitner. 1871

John F Pitner 1873

Deed. 1828! The paper was really weird... waxy like.

needed help to photograph this one. didn't want to stay put.

Look at the handwriting!!

I don't really understand the military records or the deed. Actually I haven't read the deed all the way through. The handwriting just got to me. My next posts will contain old photos I found at my grandparents house. woo! Those are more fun.