52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 37 Mistake

All of us make mistakes on a regular basis. I made a whopper when I first began doing genealogy. It was based on an assumption and proved that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing!

Grandfather Adolph H Hansen

I was researching my father’s Norwegian line and knew about the patronymic naming system so I made the assumption that the father of my great-grandfather Adolf Hansen was Hans [  ] and entered it as such in my family tree. Several years later as I became a more experienced genealogist and learned to evaluate records more critically, I discovered that my ancestors no longer used the patronymic system when my great-grandfather was born in Oslo in 1852. The actual name of his father was Martin Hansen!

By now others had copied my tree with Hans as the father and it was that way on ancestry.com, familysearch.org and wikitree among others. How could I fix it? It was my original error and now it had multiplied over and over. 

Great-grandfather Adolf Hansen b 1852
Christened Johannes Adolf Waldemer Hansen
son of Martin Hansen b 1827

After hearing Cyndi Ingle's talk on “Copy and Paste Genealogy”, I decided to implement one of the suggested solutions! I wrote and published a blog post detailing the records that led to the correct answer to Adolf’s correct parentage.

After publishing the blog post, I have attached a link to it in my tree at ancestry.com and just hope for the best! Here is the link. http://hangingwithdonna.blogspot.com/search?q=Martin+Hansen

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 36 School Days

Labor Day weekend often marks the “Back to School” season with sales on pens, pencils, tablets, markers and other supplies. Like other genealogists, I often take advantage of those sales to load up on supplies. Yesterday I picked up a white board at the dollar store to practice and experiment with mind mapping. But “Back to School” means more than stocking up on supplies!

In this case I am the one going back to school! I have discovered the wonderful world of “Virtual Education”.  For many years I have tried to educate myself in the best practices in genealogy research by attending national conferences like the Southern California Genealogy Society’s annual Jamboree, Roots Tech, the Federation of Genealogical Society’s annual conference and on various genealogy cruises. They are all wonderful ways to learn and network with other genealogists. Cruising is really fun because you are also traveling and seeing other parts of the world.

As travel becomes more difficult and expensive, I have begun to find alternate means of education and communication. Last winter I discovered the website Future Learn. There I took a beginning genealogy class through Scotland's University of Strathclyde for free from the comfort of my home. It was an interactive class and lasted six weeks giving a thorough exposure to beginning genealogy. I had previously taken a class with Future Learn on Irish History around the time of the “troubles” (1914-1925). Then I wanted to understand what was happening in Ireland at that time as my grandparents were frequently returning to their homeland.

In the spring, I took a virtual class in “Intermediate Research” through the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy. It was a ten-week college level class with two 75 minute lectures every week and about ten hours of homework. It included intense emphasis on creating source citations, and exposure to research in many areas including law research.

Recently I took a class in Genetic Genealogy in Practice to prepare me for the Genetic Genealogy class I will take at Salt Lake City when I travel there for a week in January 2020.

I haven’t given up traveling altogether, but the virtual classes will help me stay current in the meantime.