WHY SOURCES MATTER AND WHAT'S NEW ON ANCESTRY

In this episode Colette discusses her latest trip to the Allen County Library where she had some breakthrough miracles in finding lost ancestors. She discusses why sources are important and gives a hint of what's new on Ancestry. All of these new technologies have relevance when participating in family history research, and makes the work of the Gathering a little more easier and doable.

YouTube: Why Sources Matter and What's New on Ancestry Video: https://youtu.be/xAD5YcPUi7s

FamilySearch: https://www.familysearch.org/

Newspaperfinder.com: https://newspaperfinder.com/

YouTube Thinning of the Veil Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@thinningoftheveil

SUPPORT THE SHOW:

Website: Thinning of the Veil: https://www.thinningoftheveil.com/

Venmo:  https://account.venmo.com/u/thinningoftheveil

PayPal: https://paypal.me/thinningoftheveil?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

Book: "Patterns of Revelation":  https://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Revelation-Spiritual-Foundations-Hearing-ebook/dp/B0BWGLZ8VX

Email: tia@thinningoftheveil.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinning.of.the.veil/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/18gHg4Bgv9/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Gathering of the Gatherers Facebook Group:  https://www.facebook.com/share/g/18tYyPohgq/?mibextid=wwXIfr

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thinning.of.the.veil/ 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Hello and welcome to the Gathering Academy. I'm so glad to be back. I've been traveling, um, as you know, in a lot of different places, and um I'm finally back, and I want to tell you all about some things that will help you um in your research. So we're gonna talk about some fun things, some miracles that happened in the last week. Um, you know, as you listen to Tia and as I've shared some of my experiences, you can expect that God is in this with you, that um that you can expect miracles. Um, does do miracles happen all the time? No, generally it's we're in the work, we're we're digging around, we're hitting our head against the wall sometimes, or sometimes we're just praying for inspiration and and nothing's coming, and then something comes out of the blue. So, for those of you that are listening on the podcast, there's actually quite a bit that I'm going to be sharing that you don't need to be on YouTube for today to see, but um, the things that I do show you may want to go on YouTube to watch. So um let me just tell you a little bit about where I've been. So I went to a National Genealogical Society conference in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Um, if any of you have heard of Fort Wayne, Indiana, they are actually very famous for the Allen County Public Library, which has um a lot of family history books. They have a whole genealogy center that is excellent. Um, I would go back there in a heartbeat. And the town is so cute and so safe. And we actually ate at a restaurant called Proximal. So if you're going there, um three times because it was so good. Um, it's kind of a Latin-influenced uh food. Um, so I was there for the conference and my husband decided to tag along. And um I was in classes, but I also was going to have some time in the library. And so um the first experience I want to share and just testify to you of is as you're doing this work, even if you're just starting, the power of prayer. So make sure you're always starting with prayer. Sister Wendy Nelson um talked about that. Whenever she sits down to um work on her family history, she says a prayer because we can be guided and directed in finding our family. So um I said a prayer on Tuesday, and I just said, I said, if there's anybody that we need to find with the help of these, the books that are here at this library, um, help us to help me to know. And so I went to a class, and in the class I got a text from my husband, and he just said, I'm at the library. So he was working and then he was doing some family history. It was kind of his plan. Well, a little bit later, all of a sudden the name Presley comes into my head, Presley Pressler. And that's one line of his family that I was doing a little work on a little while ago, and it popped into my head, just out of the blue. And that's one way that you can know that um that it's the spirit. If it comes just at random times, act on it and see what the results are. So I went into the Allen County Public Library website and I typed in Presley and up came some family history books. And there were actually three of them. So I sent the call numbers to my husband and then I went back to my class. Well, over the next three days or four, three or four, whenever I'd go over to the library, my husband's in the same spot with the same books. And he, with the use of that book, there were a lot of people that were in family search. There were some things that needed corrected. Um, but he was able to add or find people that were just sitting in the tree of over 400 ordinances, 400 people, actually, because ordinances are a little bit different, but he just kept finding and finding and finding. And I was just in awe. I was like, that is so incredible that I could get that little impression because I'd worked on the Presley's. Um, it wasn't probably not on the fresh on his mind, but for me, I knew exactly, exactly what it was. Um so that was that was just beautiful. It was it was mind-blowing. He said I I had to, because there's a limit on your reservations in Family Search, um, we had to, he had to keep re he would share them with the temple. Um, so one of the other things that I said, I asked him this morning on our walk. I said, okay, so what about sources? Because this is another thing that I want to impress upon you is the importance of using those family history books uh as a secondary source, as a jumping off spot for you to find the original source. Um, if at all possible, find the original source. And he actually told me he was. He said that's something that he's learned. The importance of original sources. See if you can prove what's in that book. Because I'll tell you an experience that I had. I pulled off some books for my Houtz family. They were from Pennsylvania, they were German. And um, I went in and I was like, oh, there's a missing child. And I went in to add them. Well, it turned out that this child was listed and they were actually a sibling, but they were listed as the child in this family history book. So it was incorrect. Um, so I was able to fix that and put her in the right spot. Um, another thing that these family history books can do for you, and we've got four stacks, four rows, they're called stacks, full of family histories here at the library. And you know, you may go back into the 1700s, a lot of those, the work has been done. But if you come down on descendancy and look at those, a lot of those have not been done. Um, so I want to encourage you to remember that not everything is on um online and the power of books. You may have a book sitting on your shelf that may have people that when it was created were not able to have their work done. And now you have in your hands a book that has their information and you can add them and do their work. Um, go to your local library and see if they have a local history or a genealogy section. Um, or when you're traveling, if you go to an area where your family was, go and look at the local library and see if there are any family histories. On family search, there are also um ways you can search in the catalog for family histories, you can search in the digitized books. Um, archive.org is another one. Um, Google Books. These are all good places if you're just like, I don't know where to look. So what I recommend is you go to the very end of your tree, uh, depending on how big your tree is, I would say maybe of the end of your fan chart, I would say, to explain that better. Go to somebody in the 1700s and then click on them and then start looking at descendants. And you can even choose a family name and Google it and see what you can find. Um, so the next thing that I want to share is so while I was there, I felt a poll. Let me see if I can share screen with you. Uh, let's share screen. Share entire screen. Okay, so I hope I can do this. Let's see if I can find it. Um, I have some pictures. Open downloads. Let's see if this will work. All right, so here I'm gonna show my first thing. Let's make it full screen. So these were the books that I pulled. These were all from Pennsylvania. These are, you can see on the bottom is the Houtz family. It's a whole history of the family. And I started going through it. Um, I have a book that was on um the old order German sex. I wasn't sure what their religion was, but um I decided I would learn a little bit more about that. So I started going through these. I felt this pull to go look, um, look at this family. And then let's see if I can close that out. I'll go to the next one. So as I'm going through, I find this. Here's Philip Lawrence Houtz. He lived in Bethel. This is my family member, and then this is part of his will. So it says to son Wendell, the plantation where I now dwell together with the 42 acres of mountain land, paying 750 pounds, therefore, um, to be divided among all children. To son Baltzar, my plantation in Pine Grove where he lives, 460 pounds. So this is a good clue about this son, that his son was actually living there in Pine Grove. And look at his poor son, Christian. To son Christian, five pounds for his birthright. And then it says it mentions the son-in-law Leonard Gunkel and his granddaughter Katharina Gunkel. And then there's the executors and the witnesses. So for some reason, which the some reason is the spirit, um, as I'm reading this, this gunkle stands out in my head. And so I thought, well, maybe I'll go pull the books on the gunkels. So I went and pulled the books on the gunkles, and I just started going through, and none of them were showing up as related to me. And so um I kept thinking, well, why am I spending all this time on this family? They're not even connected to me. So I kept going and going. And um let's see, I don't know if I have a picture of that. Let's see, let me close this part out. Let me stop sharing screen for a second. And see if we can get back to close out some things. Um, all right, so I'm going to so I had that gunkle. I'll just I'll just share with you. You're probably just seeing my screen right now. Uh, let me get back to the internet. Here we go. Okay, so I think I stopped sharing the screen. Um, so I was just working on this gunkle family, and I got up for a little walking break, and um I took this little video, so I guess I'm gonna share screen again with you here. Let's see if I can share screen. Oh, here we go. Share screen. All right, so um took this little video so you could get an idea of what happens in the library. Let me see where it went right here. Here we go. So this is the Allen County Public Library. You can see all of these stacks of books, and this is just one section. I mean, it's huge, it's the second largest to the to our library as far as what they have in collections. They probably have more physically than we have now because we have so much digitized, but I just want to show you all this for me. This is a testament of all of the people. Most of them are non-members that come to search out their family, and every book represents at least one person searched. So, watch this. So, this was on I think Friday. So, you can see all of these carts are full of books that people have pulled, they're all there for the conference. It just was amazing. So, I walk past this, take this video, and then I go to the bathroom, and as I'm walking towards, I end up um having Germantown, Pennsylvania come into my mind. And it was the second time that not Pennsylvania, Ohio, Germantown, Ohio. It was the second time that this had come into my mind, and I thought, okay, I should probably go pull the books for German child in Pennsylvania. So I went over there and the book that I wanted was gone. Um, but there were four other books. So let me close this out, and there were four other books, and so I pulled out the four books, and I opened up the first one, and I opened up to this page. Look at her name. Mary E. Gunkel Apt. I was like, you gotta be kidding me. The first page I open up to is a gunkle, and I had just been on the gunkles, and so it gives us the whole history. I'll show you the let me see if I can go back to this. I hope you're seeing this. I think at sharing screen. Um all right, so look at this. There's this whole history about her benevolence and everything. She only had one child. Um, and her little girl, when I found her in the 1880 census, um, she let me stop sharing here. Um, in the 1880 census, she, the little girl had measles, and within a couple years she died. So the rest of her life, she didn't have any other children. I started to do some digging, and I want to show you what I found. So I guess I'm sharing screen again. Hello to share screen, share entire screen. So I went to Ancestry, one of my favorite places, and here is the will of Mary E. Amped. So remember, she's a gunkle, and here's her will, and it starts right here. The last will and testament, Mary E. Amped, deceased. So here it goes into, and it says, um, she wants her debts paid, and then on the next page, and by this time her husband had died, I had discovered that. Um, so she said a headstone similar to that of my dear husband. So that's what she wanted to be placed at the head of my grave, which shall be between and by the side of the graves of my said husband and child in our family lot at the cemetery of Spring Grove in Cincinnati, Ohio. Do you see how cool this is? Like these wills on ancestry are so amazing. And then she gives and bequeaths to her brother, John E. Gunkel, $5,000, which was a lot of money back then, and then a bunch of furniture. And then um, and then she says, in the event of my death, I do devise a bequeath um to Alice Gunkel, the wife of my said brother, John, and to William H. Gunkle, the son. So you can see she's giving stuff to no children, but to a brother and their children. And then there's Alice, she gets some things, and then it says to my dear nephew, William H. Gunkel of Toledo, Ohio, $5,000. So he got a lot. He got as much as uh her brother. And then to my niece, Anna E. Klingman, I'm like, I've never heard this Klingman, and she got $5,000. So she was very significant. And then to Palmer Klingman, my grandnephew, the sum of $200. So I got all these clues, and I was like, how does this um how does this family fit in? Where's the niece? Well, let me go back to my downloads and see if I can find a picture. So I went in and we'll see if this is the right one. Nope, that was somebody, that was one person that I ended up finding um because of this gunkle family. And you can see they were green. That means that they were related to me. So that was the amazing thing is this Mary E. Gunkle was connected to me. Um, so I'm just gonna go, we're gonna just go live on to family search really quick. So I had these little clues and I'll show you what I did. So let me make sure I'm not sharing. I'm still, yep, I'm still sharing screen. All right, we're gonna go to family search. And under my let me go out of here. Um, I'm gonna go to my we'll see if it's under my recents. I've been on a lot recently, so you can click on recents and I'm going to type in omp. Oh, she doesn't come up. So we're gonna do a search. So I'm going to click on find and I'm going to do Mary E. Gunkel. And just so you know, Gunkel was also Kunkel. It was also Gunkel C K L E L C K K L E. And I'm going to say she was married to an aunt. I can't remember his last name. So this is one of the ways that I start looking for somebody. And she died in Cincinnati, Ohio. So you don't even have to have everything in there when you first do a search. Just do what you know and don't be intimidated by not having it all. All right, so here she is, Mary E. Gunkle. I want to show you what happened. Because of this search, she did not have any parents when I went into family search. Um, she must be connected. So you can see her ordinances were done. If I view relationship, she's my 13th cousin, three times removed. Now, do you think because she's so far removed that she doesn't matter? No. If she is that far distantly related, she's still related, and I still have a responsibility in the gathering. So you can see she it was actually through the gunkle line that she connected, and William might be related to me. Let's look on him. It might just be sometimes it pulls up just if you click on them, it's it's through the spouse. So let's view relationships. Sometimes it'll show. So it's husband of. Okay, so there's her husband. He died in 1909. She didn't die, I think, until 1919. So there's Mary Elizabeth Gunkel. I've got her death information. What I did is um, if you come down here, there was somebody that I thought was probably a relative, Anna Elizabeth Schaefer. If you have somebody that's in a record that um you're not sure how they're connected, that they're likely a relative or a neighbor, you can click add other relationship. We've talked about this before, and you can choose which of these things, if they were just living in the household, what it will do for you is then that it will give you some clues. So this Anna Elizabeth Schaefer was the niece. So I typed that in, put her in down here as a relative, had no idea how she was connected. And you see those blue? She was green. Once I got her in there, she was green, but her ceiling to spouse had been done. Let's see, it was done in 1981. I can't wait to go. I think I want to go and do the baptisms this week for her. So is this not incredible that I felt this pull to go to the houses, wasn't finding a ton, found this gunkle, felt this thought to go get the book for the gunkles, was working on it, kind of feeling like, oh, this is fruitless because they're not even connected. And guess what? I ended up connecting because I kept going, I kept listening to that feeling to not stop. And then I have the additional prompting that I already had before about going to the Germantown um records. And why you're you might say, well, why did you even think of Germantown? What's the significance? I knew Germantown was a place where a lot of the Houses had gone. Um, a lot of the German settlers um from Pennsylvania had gone there. So I think that was at the back of my mind. So don't discount the things that you're learning now, even if you're not making a breakthrough. All of those things um can be brought back um to our remembrance by the Holy Ghost. So I added Anne Elizabeth Schaefer. I started adding information, and it turns out, look at her husband's name, Edward Nathan Klingman. And I believe, yep, I added, was able to add him as well. He's ready to have his work done, so I was able to reserve him. He may have been sitting in there, and then I was able to reserve that. And look at this there's Palmer Klingman, and again, oh, and Celine Despells has been shared. So Palmer was sitting in there, they just were not connected to um to Mrs. Mary E. So Mary Elizabeth. Well, look what I noticed when I went in here. The mother of Anna Elizabeth Schaefer is Emiline Gunkel. And look at her death date. Her death date, so she was in Germantown, was in 1886. Remember the will? The will that lists Anna Elizabeth Schaefer and Palmer Klingman, which is right back here. Palmer Klingman and Anna E. Klingman, who was also a Schaefer because she was married to the Klingman. This was done in 1919. So when I came back here, all of a sudden, Emiline Gunkle, I knew that because based on the date, she's 1836. Let's go to Emmeline now, because I've now added her and I've connected her and I found actually records for her. She was a missing sister. When I started, all I had was Mary Elizabeth Gunkle, Mary E. Gunkle Aunt, and John Elster. And John E. Remember, he got 5,000 pounds. So I was able to add Emiline, and look at that. I was able to reserve her work. And so I think I'm going to go do some baptisms very soon so I can do this for her. So I was able to connect them and let's see what's going on with the parents. Look at the parents. William F. I always love to see this. 2022, his endowment was done. Elizabeth, hers was done in 2017. So they're fairly recent, but now Emiline's going to be able to be sealed to her parents. Let's see Mary Elizabeth if she's sealed. She's already sealed. John Elstner, um, he's sealed to his parents, but I've got a sealing to spouse that I can do. So all of that came from listening to those little promptings. Um so I just want to testify to you that um the importance of books. Um, don't be afraid to look in books, look at family histories, but always remember to source. Find the original source. And that's what I did. I had the information and then I went in and I created sources. So here's Emmeline Gunkel. I found some marriages. Um and uh I find a grave and I found some other records that I actually realized I still have not added. All right, I need to get going, but I've got one more thing I want to show you. So if you go into Ancestry and you go to trees, and I'm gonna choose my family tree, they have a feature now, and we're gonna talk more about some of the fun stuff that Ancestry has next week. Um, I've run out of time to be able to share with you. So if you go over here on this right hand side, you can click on temple status. Now, if you have not been in your tree recently, you'll need to sign into Family Search again. So we'll see what happens. I click on Table Status and it takes me to my tree. Oh, I've got to sign in. And thank. Goodness, I have it saved. Sign in. And now I get a list of my tree that I've got on Ancestry. I can see if it's complete, unknown, or if work needs to be done like this person needs connected. But if it's not, then now you have a really quick way to be able to find work that needs to be done. So we'll talk more about that next time. Thanks for joining me. And um I'm just I'm I'm grateful that you go along with my clunkiness. I um I tr usually I'll I'll I'll film my podcast on Sunday, but because I was traveling, um I just I ran out of time. I do want to put one more plug in for another library. If you ever get the chance to go to Chicago, um, there is the Newberry Library. And it is incredible. It's different than any other library. You can't just go pull books off the shelf. You want to get online, and we can talk about that, um, how to do that, um, how to find those things, what kind of my mind frame is and how I do it on another another episode. But um so you make your requests for your items, and then they bring them to you. Even books, they will bring them to you. But I was able to find two records of histories of a little town called Hordville in Nebraska, where my great great-grandfather and his brothers settled, some of them dead, and their involvement in the church, things that I never knew, um, and some pictures that I had never seen. That was at that library. What another really cool thing at that library is they have actually an original letter from Michelangelo from the 1500s that he signed. Um, they have a little piece of the Iliad. Um, I'm trying to think of some of the other things. They have a whole bunch, they had a whole card catalog full of um, because they still keep the cold, old card catalog of George Washington items, and they allow you to hold them. They said, we are not one of those archives or libraries that requires you to wear gloves. We want you to be able to handle these. And if it's something really fragile, they have it um in some kind of a protective covering, like it's not my library, but something like that. Um, so the Newberry Library had books that I had no idea were about my family. I also just to test it out, I um requ I wanted to see some original um documents, some letters, maybe journals, diaries. So I typed in um, I think I typed in letters plus a certain place. And the first one that popped up, I thought, huh, I'll look at that one. That looks interesting. And then I thought, I'll just type that name into Family Search. And it turned out that they were seventh cousins. I think when you're in the US, um, and especially in the East, um, there's a greater chance that you're gonna connect. So I thought this will be really fun. So I was able to see some letters from the 1860s, was so incredible and take pictures. So hopefully I can share that with you at another time. So my challenge to you is to go on a family search and go either in the catalog and look up um under a keyword search for your family name, or go into the books and do a keyword search for a family name and start to look. Um, you will absolutely um be blessed as you do this and as you go forward um with prayer in asking Father for your help. And I can't wait to see you next week. Thanks so much.