Genealogy Do-over Week 2 - Cycle 2

As I explained in my last post which was Part I of the geneameme When I Was Young, I have not had much time for blogging since the NHL playoffs started, although I have been keeping up with the do-over.

1. Setting Research Goals

My immediate research goals are to start at the beginning with my parents and so I have been using OneNote to track my goals and progress, and I am also taking Thomas' advice and being very specific and not too broad: Prove Dad's date of birth, place of birth, date of baptism, place of baptism, etc.

Funny that though I had no idea where to start to find my father's baptismal information, I found a clue in organizing my papers in Week #1!

Also, I will be jumping ahead a bit to my paternal grandmother's family when I visit her hometown next weekend.  My mother and I used to take a day-trip or weekend trip to Connecticut every spring.  For one reason and another this hasn't happened in a few years, but I decided I really wanted to visit Manchester this year because I don't remember visiting the cemetery where my great-grandparents are buried.  After I started following the Manchester Historical Society on Facebook, I found that the Manchester Town Hall is having a Family History Day on Saturday, May 2nd. They are opening the vaults to Birth, Marriage and Death records from 9am-1pm (apparently in Connecticut you have to go right to the town for vital records) and offering a free half hour with a professional genealogist which I have already booked.  Unfortunately this is not a day my mother can come with me but I am going. So I have made a list of the dates of births, marriages and deaths in this family so that I can try to find any vital records they have.

2. I conducted a self-interview.

Using tools provided by generous members of the Do-Over group on Facebook as well as the geneameme I started blogging yesterday.

3. I have started conducting family interviews

This will be an ongoing process. My mother is ridiculously difficult to pin down and I have no near relatives, so the rest of my process cannot wait on this.

In the meantime, I have a list of questions for her and sneak them in when we speak on the phone or go grocery shopping.  I also have some stories I would like her to actually write or type out for me. Those things are mostly second-hand stories like the stories my grandmother told her about my great-grandmother's illness.  Eva Bean had what was then known as creeping paralysis (possibly ALS from the symptoms Grandma described) and was taken to a mesmerist at one point because it was thought to be a mental condition.  Things like that I would love for her to write out for me because it helps jog the memory and maybe we'll get some additional detail.

So, to sum up, some Week 2 goals have been reached and others are a work in progress but we're on to Week Three!