So this morning I got up, ate my breakfast, and grabbed my computer so I could start sorting things out with my Ritchey family as I’ve decided they are going to be my focus of the “Discover Your Ancestors Workshop” I am beginning Tuesday. I’m excited, I did one in the fall where I attempted to find Suzanna Akers before 1850. Shocker, I was unsuccessful – but all in good time. So this time I’m focusing on a different part of my family, the Ritchey’s, who I do know something about, mostly my 2nd-great-grandmother, Mary Ann Ritchey, but haven’t really delved in to them much further.
The rabbit hole I found myself in was when I looked at Ancestry and had 1 death date for my 3rd-great-grandfather, George Ritchey, and I had another in my software. So I decided to go over to FamilySearch to see what it had to say, the tiebreaker if you will (insert your laugh or eye roll here).
But I didn’t even make it to George right away because of the “tasks” or I guess they are now called “Record Hints” on the front page that I saw FamilySearch had waiting there for me. Have you ever worked on these? I often will click on these people and help “clean them up”. Most of the time it’s just a “hint” that FamilySearch has found, a document that needs to be attached to the person as a source. This can be done in about 30 seconds (my direct line people I can do it this quickly, either it’s them or it’s not). Others I will stay away from, as they will be people whose names I don’t immediately recognize and I don’t want to screw anything up on the big tree. But then I fix one person and see their wife’s name and down the rabbit hole I go, only to realize I need to probably spend way more time than I want to because I’m finding duplicate people so I need to merge people and move things around and that’s a project for another day (which is probably why the big tree is as messed up as it is because people really do have intentions of going back in and then they never do). Now I’m feeling guilty.
But see how easy it was to go down that rabbit hole?
For the record, it was my software that was correct, the year was wrong on my Ancestry tree and has now been corrected to 1898 (there was a newspaper article that supported the date of 19 November 1898 which coincides with Probate starting in 1899). However, when I went to FamilySearch I was excited to see someone had apparently posted a photo of George Ritchey on his profile that I hadn’t seen (see what happens when you get so tied up with one set of grandparents, you ignore the others and miss fascinating finds). I was so excited to see this!
Anyhow – I’m sure I’ll share the photo in the near future as I learn more about my Ritchey roots. I hope everyone has a nice weekend – it’s quite blustery here this weekend as a polar vortex is hitting the area. I hear that the Buffalo Bills are willing to pay fans to help shovel out their stadium (here in Ohio we aren’t getting as much snow as we are just getting cold). I don’t blame Buffalo, though, you work hard for a playoff game with home-field advantage, and you don’t want to lose it.
Helping History Come Alive 