Genealogy and Social Media | Our Prairie Nest

by Wendy, August 14, 2020

As the internet offers us more and more places to connect, it can be tricky to determine who you “ought” to follow on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms. There are many recommendations out there – some that are considered staples of social media/the online community in genealogy.

It’s well worth checking out the suggestions on “Top 100” lists and the like, but sometimes finding the right folks or blogs to follow on social media is as simple as a few search terms.

What do you want to get out of making these connections online? Do you want to find potential distant cousins and other people with similar research interests? Do you want to keep up to date on more general genealogical news or the latest scientific advances with DNA? Would you like to find people local to you or communicate with genealogists in other countries?

And, once you find these people, what next? What should you do with these connections? What is the point of a widespread network if you don’t make use of it, or participate in it?

Sometimes, it is nice to sit back and watch news, ideas, and more scroll by in your Twitter feed. But it won’t necessarily help break through that brick wall or bring you closer to uncovering what happened to an ancestor who apparently dropped off the face of the earth.

Take time to reach out to the people with shared research interests, or even who live in the area where your family resided decades or centuries ago. Before the internet, we sent each other letters – even long-distance relatives! Email makes it even easier to say, “Dear John Smith, I noticed your post on the Genealogy.com Smith forum, and I do believe we may have an ancestral connection via Robert Smith.”

We tend to be a friendly lot, so most of us will respond courteously – probably even excited to hear from you. So use that social media to be social and have some fun with it! You might make an unexpected discovery along the way. 🙂

Waning Days

by Wendy, August 12, 2020

The late summer days are here. In the South and Midwest, school has started. My kids go back next week.

Usually, this is a liminal time – of winding up and winding down, simultaneously. Of excitement and sadness. We’re at the height of the dog days of summer, but they’re tempered by the return of the school bus. I feel the pull in both directions, to busier and more active days, but also to slow down and take in what’s left of the season. Even though I’m not a “summer person,” I try to savor it. The expiration date makes it that much sweeter. I like to watch the sunset, appreciate the golden light of the sun as the day fades and the edge dulls on the heat.

This year there’s a fear around the return to school. My daughter’s favorite peers are staying home to start the year with remote schooling. It’s an option I prefer for our family, too, but isn’t feasible unless it becomes a requirement. In fact, I’m not-so-secretly hoping the school has to flip to their remote plan from August to October. If I was the stay-at-home parent, I’d have already made the decision and taken responsibility for guiding my children’s education.

The elephant in the room is, of course, Covid-19. Coronavirus. And people who aren’t qualified to speak authoritatively on the pandemic would have us think it doesn’t affect children or doesn’t affect them as badly. This is flat-out wrong. No one is immune and no one knows the extent to which they will be affected.

I do believe the school district has our kids’ interests at heart, but I have zero faith in the governor, let alone the person currently referred to as the president. We’re lucky in one respect: we live in a rural town and our case count has been low. That doesn’t mean we’re immune, though. Far from it, especially with Omaha so close!

So I’m going to hold my kids close, make sure their masks fit properly, and keep them in our little bubble as much as possible while making the attempt to live a somewhat normal life. We’ll go out and watch the sunsets together and hope that next year’s golden August days will come with less uncertainty and more contentment.

Our Meal Plan

by Wendy, August 10, 2020

Right? RIGHT?!

This has been me for my entire adulthood. At least, until last year when my husband and I finally decided to get a handle on meal-planning. If you’re the same way, flailing at the grocery store or home about what to eat, here is one way to make it much easier.

Create a Spreadsheet

We created a spreadsheet with two tabs – Month One and Month Two. The plan has four weeks per month, and we don’t fret too much about a week five.

Each week has meals planned for Monday through Sunday, with a hyperlink to the recipe. When it’s time to place my grocery order for the week, I work off a handwritten shopping list where we write things that are low or we’ve run out of, and then the recipes that are linked for the week. It makes placing my grocery order so much easier!

That’s all there is to it! We started small, with the things we normally like to make, and slowly filled in the weeks as we found recipes we liked. It took time, so I want to emphasize that you don’t need to feel like you have to fill in the entire two months, or one month, or even every single week!

Start with what you’re accustomed to cooking. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. If your first week is hot dogs, hamburgers, fried chicken, and spaghetti, so what? Just put the information in there.

Then think about how you might want to space out your meals. Are you looking to add more vegetarian dishes? More seafood? Lighter meals?

Google is your best friend. Enter the search terms you want and get started. For example, I find myself looking for new recipes often and my searches are always driven by the season. Summertime usually means I’m looking for “light summer meals” and winter puts me in the mood for “comfort food” or soups or stews.

It’s also important to think about who is doing the cooking. My husband cooks five nights a week. I only cook on Saturdays and Sundays. So I like to make sure he has a balance of “easy” days with the more complicated meals. There’s also the option for frozen pizza at all times. Not as delicious as homemade, but sometimes the primary cook needs a break!

I like to have soup as a weekly option, because it usually makes plenty of leftovers for me to bring to work throughout the week. I also have tried to group certain foods together, so some weeks might include more sweet potatoes, for example, or more beans. It makes the shopping even easier.

But there’s no need to get that complicated or detailed from the get-go. Start with what you know, figure out what you want to eat, and then start adding recipes little by little.

For me, it’s just nice to open the spreadsheet on Friday night, and do my grocery shopping off it from the comfort of my own home. And I never have to ask, “What are we having for dinner this week?” 🙂

Climbing Your Family Tree

by Wendy, May 15, 2020

Everyone has different techniques when it comes to genealogical research. My techniques have ranged from setting aside regular time to research to nonexistent (especially after having a baby). Most genealogists utilize a combination of methods to delve into their family history. I’m not referring to using the internet or tracking down certain records, but how we actually decide to go about our research with regard to the family tree itself. Here are three different approaches to get you started:

One Branch at a Time

This is probably where you will begin as you build your family tree. Roughly four times a year, I revisit this technique of climbing my entire family tree, from me, up through each and every single ancestor. It leads me to “brick wall ancestors,” to whom I must devote extra time and energy, and to other loose ends.

Tying up Loose Ends

These are the people who just need the smallest amount of research to verify dates and places. Usually I find them in my immigrant ancestors in the 1600’s. Then there is the ongoing battle, the never-ending endeavor of…

Tackling the Brick Wall

I think all of us have to do this with a handful of ancestors, if not more. When it comes to these ancestors, it feels like they were dropped on the planet with nothing but a name! They might have come from an obscure childhood or traveled from one country or state to another, but no one seems to know their actual place of origin. We focus on our brick wall ancestors and sometimes devote hours, days, weeks, even months and years to them.

I have a few, most of whom are immigrant ancestors. When I work specifically on them, they are the sole focus of my research. However, I always take a break, so I can come back with fresh eyes a few times a year.

Occasionally, I also like to go through every name in my genealogy software. That’s a huge task, because I have over 12,000 names (which is conservative compared to many other genealogists!). However, doing this once a year allows me to find people I’ve forgotten and review what might be missing from their profile. That’s manageable with 12,000 people, but I imagine it wouldn’t be after a point.

Figuring out your process (or processes) of going through your family tree may take time, but there is no wrong way to do it.

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