Family History Outing: U.S.S. Midway

If you have a U.S. Navy or U.S. Marine Corps ancestor, the chances are he or she may have spent some time on an aircraft carrier. They might have been stationed on, landed on, refueled, resupplied or protected a carrier.

 

 

Touring the U.S.S. Midway Museum in San Diego, CA, brought some of our family’s history to life.
Our family has some carrier history. In addition to having an uncle and cousin who served on carriers, my husband landed on one.

 

 

My husband was a Naval Aviator in the USMC, flying A-4s. His service included qualifying to land on carriers. My son had seen videos, pictures and models of the A-4. Seeing a real one on the deck of the Midway was much more real. It was a chance for my husband to show him around the plane and put context to the stories of getting into the airplane without a ladder.

 

 

The experience included standing on a flight deck and climbing up to stand on vulture’s row, and sitting in the chairs occupied by the air boss and commanding officer.

 

 

The launch officer signals when to fire the catapult to send an accelerating aircraft from the deck.

 

 

The hangar deck was full of airplanes; airplane cockpits and ejection seats to sit in; and exhibits to explore.

The carrier is a city at sea. In addition to the sleeping accommodations from the lowest ranked seaman to the captain, the walking tour takes you through the chapel, medical offices, laundry, galley, eating messes and gedunk (ship store).

My cousin died on July 29, 1967 in the fire on the U.S.S. Forrestal (CV-59). He was one of the fifty men who died in the berthing space immediately below the flight deck. They had participated in night operations and had been given permission to sleep in. He was assigned to VF-11. He died in the berthing spaces, while he slept. You can view a Virtual Wall: A Memorial to the men who died in the Forrestal fire .
As part of my systems engineer certificate training, the video of the fire on the carrier’s deck was required viewing.

 

 

This berthing can be contrasted with where the Captain sleeps.

 

 

 

Strategy to make the most of your trip:

• Research your U.S. Navy ancestors
• Know their ranks
• Learn their jobs on the carrier
• Visit all the locations, but be sure to identify and photograph typical berthing, where they ate and worked
• Share what you learned with your family in pictures, a pdf document or web page

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Sales on DNA Tests and Our Books

Happy Thanksgiving!

If you have been waiting to do your Autosomal DNA, now may be the time! The atDNA tests are on sale. (I have not seen a Black Friday price for 23andMe, and although the database is large, it may be that the other people in it may be more focused on the health aspect of the testing rather than genealogy.)

Family Tree DNA Holiday Sale

The annual Family Tree DNA Holiday Sale is offering the Family Finder/Ethnic Percentages for $59. They are also offering  bundles that combine Family Finder and Y-DNA and mitochondrial tests.
https://www.familytreedna.com/products.aspx

Ancestry.com Holiday Sale

The Ancestry Insider Blog (http://www.ancestryinsider.org/2016/11/ancestrydna-30-sale.html) gives details about the Ancestry.com test being on sale for $69 from 25 November to 28 November 2016. From 29 November to 14 December 2016 they are offering it for $89.
http://www.Ancestry.com/DNAgift

When Choosing A Company

Here are some things to consider when choosing a company for autosomal DNA testing

Testing at Ancestry.com:

• The database has over 2,000,000 people (23andMe has 1,000,000 and FTDNA has almost 830,000)
• You can attach your results to your tree
• You can see your matches, but you cannot examine the details of the individual matching chromosomes
• While you can transfer your results from Ancestry.com to FTDNA, there is a fee to see the matches

Testing at Family Tree DNA:

• The tools at FTDNA to see chromosomes are good
• You can upload your family tree to the website

No matter where you test:

• Consider transferring your results to GEDMatch.com to match with people who have tested elsewhere
• GEDMatch has good tools for chromosome data

Our Books are on Sale for Black Friday / Cyber Monday

Our books “A Week of Genealogy” and “A Weekend of Genealogy” are on sale for Black Friday/Cyber Monday. To receive a 25% discount, use the links at https://aweekofgenealogy.com/sale-on-books and remember to use code 44RZVNZD when you check out.

A Week of Genealogy on Facebook

To get more frequent updates, please like our Facebook Page. Check it out at: https://www.facebook.com/AWeekofGenealogy.

Genealogy Fair at Odenton Regional Library

This is breaking news!

The Odenton Regional Branch of the Anne Arundel County Public Library will be hosting a Genealogy Fair on Saturday, October 28, 2017 from 10am-3pm.

They hope to have three parts to this event: speakers throughout the day, resource tables available for the whole event, and an open workshop in our computer lab for participants to get some hands-on experience with our resources.

Put this on your calendar!

6 Great Websites for Autosomal Tools and Techniques

Are you excited about your autosomal DNA results? Have you been wondering what to do next? The half dozen websites in this blog post will keep you busy with these tools and techniques to make the most of your autosomal DNA test results.

A great list of third party tools and apps from Blaine Bettinger, the Genetic Genealogist

If you have tested your autosomal DNA at FamilyTreeDNA, or transferred your results there, you will want Nine Autosomal Tools at Family Tree DNA

Downloads of tools and presentations from Kitty Cooper’s Blog

In segment-ology, Jim Bartlett shows us 3 steps to triangulate.

This document contains A Methodology: Identifying your Relatives through your atDNA Results.

The Genealogy Junkie’s blog by Sue Griffith has collected links for tips, tools and managing your matches.

Enjoy digging deep into your autosomal DNA!

Get Your Irish Civil Records Online!

If you have Irish ancestors, you need to be using the Civil Records at IrishGenealogy.ie This website will be a major boon to your research. Using this website, I was able to look up and download records that would have cost quite a bit to order from overseas.

The Civil Records that are online are:

• Births: 1864 to 1915
• Marriages: 1882 to 1940
• Deaths: 1891 to 1965

A good place to start is the page about the Civil Records:

https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/civil-records/help/what-are-the-civil-records

 

 

To search, go to https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/civil-search.jsp

 

 

Give the simple search form a try. In fact, I found this form to be the most useful.

The first thing I did was to download the images for my Grandfather’s and his siblings birth records. I knew the Civil Registration District/Office, and their dates of birth. The children were born between 1882 and 1902.

When you begin to type into that field a drop down menu appears. You can always leave that field blank to search all the counties.

 

 

After pressing the Search button, I had to check a box to prove that I was not a robot.

Then I had to give my name to search the archives.

 

 

When I used 1894 with no end to the range, the results ranged from 1894 through to the last year of the database.

 

 

The records before 1900 did not have the Mother’s Birth Surname indexed. From 1900 on, the search results show the Mother’s Birth Surname.

You can select “More search options” to use additional search options.

The additional search options restrict the search.

 

 

I clicked on the result that was my Grandfather’s.

 

 

I clicked on the image button to see the whole page of the register.

 

 

My Grandfather was listed as entry number 59. The section on the right was used for comments in other entries.

 

 

For one of his siblings there was an image of the record, and the certified record.

Then I downloaded his Mother’s birth record.

Next came his parent’s marriage record. For the end of the session, I downloaded the death record for his Father and Sister.

 

A Broader Search

For some ancestors, their county of birth is not yet known. I left the District/Registration field blank. I can now search each record to see if I could find the ancestor.

 

 

I knew the ancestor’s mother’s name from her death certificate, so I searched a timeframe around her birth year. There were two birth records that matched the mother’s name. One of those two had a father’s name that matched the name of one of her sons. However, he son’s father had the same name, so it is not firm evidence.

 

 

There is more work to be done, but this is a good lead. I am going to review my atDNA test results to see if any clues are hiding in the matches.

An interesting article by John Grenham can be found here: https://www.johngrenham.com/blog/2016/10/03/roadmap-of-the-promised-land/

Give this a try, and let me know how you do!

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