I have an add on for my blog that tells me when there are broken links.
Suddenly I had 13 broken links, all to Rootsweb.com. The issue is that there were all RSL entries. Clicking them took me to Ancestry.com. Ancestry acquired Rootsweb many years ago.
Somehow I missed the notification that the World Connect feature at Rootsweb that allowed one to upload GEDCOMs would be changing to read-only and accounts would be eliminated. This means that no more GEDCOMs may be uploaded to this website.
Screenshot taken 09 October 2021
The good news is that information that is there can still be searched. The bad news is that links to my RSL entries are broken on the Rootsweb site. Thankfully, I was able to find archives at the Internet Archive‘s Wayback Machine for all but one surname.
Sadly, one cannot modify those GEDCOMs with corrections. This leads to the issue of does one request that their tree be deleted, or leave it in hopes it is helpful to others?
At the moment, I am not aware of any errors in that data, so I will leave it for now.
On a social media platform for a non-genealogy interest, someone asked if I was related to William Rowan Hamilton. Below is my answer.
Probably not. I know who he is. My parents got back to Isaac Hamilton born about 1830 in Ohio, and we can’t get past that. My Dad participated in the Hamilton DNA study and we only matched distant cousins from the lines of Isaac’s grandchildren. That is, my paternal grandfather’s cousins.
I’m thinking there is either a name change or a non-paternal event (AKA bastard) that has no paper trail we have not yet found.
I’ve got some DNA matches to the English/Inglis surname DNA study, so that leads me to believe maybe the mother was a Hamilton and the father an English. But I had so little success with that line of reasoning, that until I can travel to courthouses and research primary documents, I may never make the connection.
What About Alexander Hamilton?
People also ask about Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the U.S. Treasury. Most people who think they are related to him is in name only.
Only two of his children lived long enough to have children who themselves had children.
He has about 250-300 living descendants and they have participated in the Hamilton DNA study. So if you have a living male relative named Hamilton, you can participate and possibly find out who you are related to.
Scottish clans gave their name to the lords and all their subjects, so while some Hamiltons are related to each other, not all Hamilton’s are related to all other Hamiltons.
My Y Chromosome DNA looks like my male ancestors were either Vikings or ancestors of the vikings.
Nearly every other surname in my tree my parents got to the boat or back to Europe.
Today, I saw a post on my sister’s FB wall that our maternal grandmother’s cousin, Blaine Gibson, died.
Many don’t know his name, but he is a credited artist in several Disney cartoons: Fantasia, Bambi, Song of the South, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, and One Hundred and One Dalmatians, and others.
His desire was to always be an animator, but when Walt Disney found out that his hobby was sculpting, Walt made Blaine the chief sculptor.
Blaine always sent hand made Christmas cards to my dad and others, with sketches of him walking his dog in the snow. He also sent a nice color sketch to my parent’s for their 40th Anniversary.
As a sculptor, his first famous work was the head of Abraham Lincoln for the audioanimatronic exhibit at the 1964 World’s Fair. He went on to do the heads of all the presidents, except Obama, and came out of retirement to add H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and G.W. Bush. His apprentice did Obama. My mom’s favorite story from Blaine about creating all the audioanimatronic heads was the response from a glass eye manufacturer when asked for pairs of glass eyes. The mere idea was absurd and took some convincing that it was a serious request.
He also did the sculpture, Partners, that has Walt and Mickey holding hands.
The Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and other figures also relied on his sculpting talent.
I wonder how many more of the rides and attractions with your sculpted heads will be made into movies?
Hall of Presidents? Partners?
Way back in fourth grade we had to write a letter to someone and have them write us back. Getting a letter back from a real Disney artist with a sketch of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck on official Imagineer paper was a big hit. I wish I still had his letter. I do still have the sketches.
Cousin Blaine will be missed. He was the last of his generation on that side of the family.
As the keeper of the family tree started by my parents, it is with sadness that I enter the last piece of information about Blaine. He is survived by his son and grandson, who will miss him most of all.
Most fee-based genealogy sites have free weeks or weekends around different holidays throughout the year.
Memorial Day many sites give free access to their military related records.
It depends on the site which holidays, if any, and which records they grant free access to.
Some sites may require a sign up for their limited free offerings, such as Ancestry.com. This is the one I am most familiar with, but I have received emails from several other services.
I am not paying for access to genealogy data until I can have both the time and the money to make it worthwhile.
If you are not busy with activities with family and friends and have the weekend off, you may find some things that will help you expand your search.
One can become quite the zealot about family information. Try to temper your zeal and present your need for information to family in a way the encourages their support and sharing. Always be as eager to help distant cousins you connect with with what you know.
You. Start with all that you know about you, your parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, places, dates, etc. When you have exhausted all you know, including all the documentation you have to back up what you know, ask your parents, grandparents, anyone who might know something to help you go farther.
X-rays are usually only needed in forensic genealogy or archaeology.
I am not aware of any standard genealogical use for X-rays.
Forensic genealogy is usually the process of finding living relatives for an inheritance. It could also play into police cases, usually missing persons, or murder victims, in an effort to locate next of kin.
The only other topic I could think of was eXamine your data and sources, but I have covered those topics adequately elsewhere.
