I made an amazing discovery just a week or so ago.

In my blog Winter Works 01/24/2013, I discussed the family line that I had tracked to the USA.  I found a 3rd cousin, H. Louise Westergard (nee Werner).

I decided to transfer my Card Family database to Legacy and see what could be done with it.  This is my wife's maternal family line with strong Mormon roots, and a lineage going back to the 1600s with Richard Card.  The database has approximately 30,000 entries and was the first database I worked on many years ago before there was anything like Ancestry or FamilySearch.  I think Rootsweb was around and the Family Tree Maker website.  I don't ever remember there being discussions about citations and sources.

There were some familiar surnames in the lineage of Louise that also appeared in the Card database, but there did not seem to be any real link.  I worked with FamilySearch and some other online sources and gradually added some family lines that were missing.

Voila!!  Suddenly the connection was there!

Not only is Louise my 3rd cousin......SHE IS MY WIFE'S 6TH COUSIN!!

I emailed her, posted it on Facebook and told my family.   The reaction?   Like a wet rag.

Makes me wonder why I do this at all.  I guess it is for my own amusement; and to keep me off the streets, out of the bars and other activities that cost money.  It satisfies my interest in history and my roots.  I am a bit of a packrat and this allows me to collect without taking up real space.

This space does not produce the desired relationship chart so it will be posted on my data website.

 

It has been awhile since my last post, but since no one seems to visit here it doesn't really matter.

In May I decided to give Legacy a try as my genealogy database manager.  One of the reasons was that it creates webpages from the data it contains.  I loaded in one of my db's, I think it was the Cranachid, and began to learn my way through the basics.  It worked out well and I liked the webpage output.

Shortly after, FamilySearch opened their access to non-church members.  Legacy interfaces with FamilySearch and I was able to obtain, and provide, more information on this database.

Gradually I opened new databases for the Hornung and Heldt families,  cleaned up the locations, added (and provided) information to FamilySearch.  I also made the FamilyTree which gets updated as you make the links between your database and FamilySearch.

I learned how to make citations and try to have as many pieces of information verified as possible. 

One thing that I like in FTM over Legacy, is the ability to drag-and-drop images.  This ability made it so much easier to add the images of documents to individual events in FTM.  The upside of this is that I have to organize my document images more rationally in appropriate folders and subfolders.  This way I can like them to events in Legacy easier.

Then came an upgrade to Legacy when they were certified to FamilySearch.  Now we just have to wait for Legacy 8, promised to be available this year.