Fishing Friday #52Ancestors Clarence Norton Brainard

What I learned from Clarence or how I am going to do these #52Ancestors posts. 

I cannot write a biography for a different ancestor every week. There are too many steps I feel I need to do to in order to prepare to write a biography and yes, I get bogged down in the details. Particularly in the case of Clarence. He had a lot going on in his life and I want to be sure I treat him correctly.

The good news is that I am getting reorganized and I have renewed my commitment to printing everything out for genealogy coffee table books (ala DearMyrtle). I love me my coffee table books! More on that next week! 

This week I have completed a nice scrapbook page for my ancestor Clarence Norton Brainard. It was what I felt able to do for him for now. You will find it at the end of this post. I am so happy that I have already made four new pages for my ancestry scrapbook this year. It's a good feeling knowing that I have created something that others will enjoy!

Before I show you my new scrapbook page, I would like to share my process for getting ready to either write a short ancestor biography or create even a scrapbook page in their memory. 

Getting My Stuff Together

1. Review computer folder.

• Label all documents in the following format: Year-Month-Date Last Name First Name Item (i.e. 1883-08-12BrainardClarenceBirthRegp1)
• Attach source citation to all documents

2. Review online tree.

• Download/label documents not showing in computer folder. Attach citations.
• Do another quick search and look for any obvious holes in ancestor's timeline.
• Print ancestor timeline page.

3. Update ancestor binder.

• Print all documents in folder along with citation forms.
• File pages by date in ancestor's binder.

4. Review documentation.

• Check citations. Redo if necessary.
• Review timeline and look for any holes in research. Are there new sources or newly discovered sources to check? 

5. Write biography.

• Review each source in date order.
• From each source document, write the facts (just the facts for this purpose) together with a link to the citation (end notes for this). 
• Review, review, review. 

6. Scrapbook my ancestor.

• Print a photo of my ancestor.
• Combine photo with heritage papers and embellishments. 
• Add full name and pertinent facts; birth, death, marriages, children.
• Photograph page, edit in Lightroom and upload. 

7. Upload and publish.

• Still struggling with best way to get from my computer program to Blogger and keep my formatting. For now I am copying and pasting. 
• Publish!

This is a lengthy process! Even if I could devote 100% of my time and energy to writing these posts, I would still struggle to create a new biography every week. How do you do it? 

Here is Clarence!

Happy Fishing Friday!

Scrappy Gen

Let’s Remember!

This challenge 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is provided by Amy Johnson Crow of No Story Too Small  (Don't you just love that title?). I am jumping in on week three, which will be my week one, but I am omitting the number count in my title so as not to confuse anyone...or me. Thank you, Amy, for this challenge. Weekly recaps by Amy can be read here. 

As a bonus, because I am the Scrappy Genealogist, each of my posts will include a heritage page featuring my ancestor. Hope you enjoy them! Wondering about the Fishing Friday title? That's fishing for family Friday.

Mailbox Goodness and How to Save a Search on Ebay

We did not check the mail yesterday. Today we had a large bundle, which included two goodies.

The first was the Full Civil War Pension File for my great, great, great grandfather, Charles Everett Burr:



The second was a recent ebay purchase, the Stonington CT High School yearbook for the class of 1927. Inside? My grandfather, Stanley Lamb Brainard.


How much would you pay for your grandfather’s high school yearbook? I paid $9.99 plus shipping. More than worth it for a family heirloom, don’t you think?

How to Save a Search on Ebay

Have you set up searches on ebay for your family artifacts? It’s super easy. Just go to ebay and enter a search for either an ancestral surname (if unusual) or an ancestral location.



I found this yearbook in the search results for Stonington CT. You will get more results if you search for items originating in your ancestors’ towns, instead of searching for specific surnames with towns. On your results page, look for the Save Search bookmark.

The Save Search dialogue box will open and you will have the opportunity to rename your search and choose whether or not you would like to be emailed daily when new items are listed.


After you have discovered how easy it is to set up searches on ebay, try alterations on your subject. You might try Stonington alone, although you will get more results from the same named towns in Illinois and Maine. You can try Stonington Conn or Stonington Connecticut. Another possibility would be a street name with town as in Stonington Main Street.

Now it’s your turn. Received any mailbox goodness lately? Have you had success with saved searches on ebay? Tell us about it in the comments below. Every family historian should be taking advantage of this method of finding lost family heirlooms.

Happy Hunting!

Scrappy Gen
Let’s Remember!

Technorati Tags: Genealogy,Family History,Civil War,Yearbooks,Pension Files,Service Records,Ancestry

Not Who We Thought We Were!

It appears that we may NOT be from the Brainard family.

It happens and you should expect that when you delve into your family's genealogy, the beliefs you hold will be challenged. My time for challenge is now. My assumptions have been called into question, by just a couple of sentences in a compiled family genealogy. These sentences, a mere postscript, if proved correct, will change the historical path of our family history.

William Henry Brainard or William Henry Shailer? 

The Genealogy of the Brainerd-Brainard Family in America 1649-1908 by Lucy Abigail Brainard reports "William Henry Brainerd of Mystic, Conn., had his name changed to Brainerd from Shailer. He m. Harriet E. Lamb, of Groton, Conn. He was son of Henry and Elizabeth (Cushman) Shailer, 2ch.[1]

We thought his name was William Henry Brainard. We thought our family traced back through William to Daniel Brainerd in the early seventeenth century in today's Haddam, Connecticut. What you think is very different from what you know in genealogy. William, my great, great grandfather was a man of mystery, his records having reported several different places of origin. His birth record has to date remained elusive. And now, this...a few sentences adding to the confusion of his parentage.

Luckily in genealogy, when you lose one, you gain one. We may lose our Brainard pedigree, but we will gain a whole new family. It's time to start hunting the Shailers (Shaylor, Shailor).

Has one of your core family stories been challenged? Have you lost one family and gained a new one? Tell us your story.

Scrappy Gen

Let's Remember!

  [1] Lucy Abigail Brainard, The Genealogy of the Brainerd-Brainard Family in America   
       1649-1908 (Hartford, Connecticut: Hartford Press, 1908), 150; digital images, Internet 
       Archive (http://archive.org/ : accessed 3 March 2012). 

Microfiling & the Genealogical Jump Start - Part 2.1

Welcome back to the Genealogical Jump Start series. Last week in part 2, we worked on organizing all of our loose genealogy papers by surname. Sounds tedious, but easy, right? Tedious and time consuming, yes! Easy? Not always.

Take a look at this newspaper clipping and count how many surnames are mentioned. In all four surnames; Gremley, Lamb, Brainard and Bailey are mentioned. Additionally seven towns are mentioned. Where should the clipping be filed? The answer is that copies should be filed in multiple locations for later ease of retrieval and further study:

1. Surname Folder: Bailey
2. Surname Folder: Brainard
3. Surname Folder: Gremley
4. Surname Folder: Lamb
5. Place Folder: Connecticut, Norwich

These headings represent temporary paper files for genealogy papers I might not be ready to process and also correspond to permanent digital folders in Dropbox on my computer. Eventually there should be a digital copy of this item for each family member mentioned in this article, not just for each surname. Although seven towns are mentioned, I chose to file a copy just in the location where the event occurred. My place name files are used mostly for research about a locality. The original clipping will be preserved and saved with my closest relative in this case, my grandfather. Be sure when filing away both the original and the copies to note of the item's provenance and also for the copies the original item's location.

Now that we've got some filing done, be sure to reward yourself. Have coffee, take a nap or read the description of the Christmas dinner enjoyed by the group. Wonder what the "mystery" dessert was?

Happy Tuesday and Happy Filing!

Scrappy Gen

Let's Remember!

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Here are two great blog posts about getting your genealogy stuff organized: 

Progress on the Archival Closet on Sorting Saturday

by Michelle Goodrum

Branching Out Through The Years: Organizing My Genealogy Files

by Hummer

Procrastination Pays Off....Again?!

Really! I don't believe that my procrastination is a good thing! Actually it is my biggest shortcoming. But, then...along comes this Report of Death, sent to me from Ancestry by one of my Brainard cousins. Clarence is our shared great grandfather, who left his wife and two young children and went to Canada. Coincidentally or serendipitously, I shared a bit about our great grandmother Irene just five days ago as part of the Fearless Females series.  

Report of Death of American Citizen Abroad

The big surprises were that he was married to someone named Dorothy, that he is buried in Mystic, Connecticut and that he was registered with the Veteran's Administration. More clues to follow. Could he have had children? When did he serve in the military? 

For our twentieth wedding anniversary, MJ and I spent a week in Montreal. Before our trip I had researched the Montreal City Directories and recorded the addresses of the places Clarence had lived. There were no less than eight. The final address was listed on this report as his place of death.

Please don't think that procrastinating is a good thing and certainly Ancestry will not have everything we need, it just worked out for me this time. Yes, it payed off. I didn't have to spend money to order the death certificate, but I could also be sitting here waiting another 50 years. So, don't wait, order or go and obtain those vital records you need to validate your family's genealogy. 

Thank you to my cousin for sending this important document! I love cousins! Remember? Like siblings, without the rivalry. 

Happy Saturday!

Scrappy Gen

Let's Remember!

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History - Week 4 - Home - Brewster Avenue

Brewster Avenue, Braintree, Massachusetts

There is a special home I would like to share with you for this week's challenge from Amy Coffin at the We Tree Genealogy blog. The goal is to talk about the home in which you spent your childhood, but when you are attached to the military, you live in an awful lot of homes. One year for school, I gathered the names of all of the places my father had lived while he was growing up. Because his father was a career army officer, he lived in twenty-five homes before he was sixteen. (Oh, how I wish I had saved that school report!) 

We were a military family for only part of my growing years and so lived in far fewer than twenty-five homes, but there were still quite a few. My very first home in Butzbach, Germany, is described in a post here. When we arrived back in the United States in January of 1968, we lived temporarily with my father's parents on Brewster Avenue in Braintree, Massachusetts. Brewster Avenue was my father's last childhood home and the place where he attended high school and made some life long friendships. It is also the last home that my grandparents shared as my grandfather, Stanley, passed away just a year after we lived with them. We were very lucky to have that time with him. Yes, this is an important home to share. 

Barbara & Stanley on the steps of 132 Brewster Avenue

We lived in Braintree for only a couple of months, while my parents looked for a place to live in Springfield, Massachusetts. The house was small, but elegant; each room carefully decorated with pretty vignettes.

My favorite room was the cozy den in the back of the house next to the flagstone patio area. One of these years I am going to build a patio like it in our backyard. The den was filled with all of my favorite things; books, pictures, papers and antiques. Often while visiting my grandmother when I was a teenager, we would take our dinner on t.v. trays in this room and watch Mary Tyler Moore on the small black and white television. 

cozy den is the room to the left

Back when we lived in Braintree though, things were much more formal than t.v. trays. My kids probably don't even know from t.v. trays. They seem to think any flat surface in the house is a dinner table. Why would they even need a t.v. tray? I am sure you can sense the sarcasm. Anyway, according to my mother, each evening while living in Braintree, we were expected to dress for dinner, which was not a casual affair. I can just imagine my kids' faces if I asked them to go upstairs and change before dinner.

Mary, Grandma and Me

Even though we don't dress for dinner today at our house, there are little vignettes, as well as books, pictures, papers and antiques in almost every room. Many of the treasures from Brewster Ave have found new places here, as well as with my sister and with my parents, little reminders of a home we loved.


Thank you for reading!


Scrappy Gen

Military Monday - Grandfather - Army Man

Bubba was a sailor man, but my Dad's father was a career army man. He entered my thoughts frequently in Germany. He was stationed there several times. The first time was just after World War II when my Dad was very young, not even yet school age. This is Stanley: 

He passed away when I was just four years old. I wish I had had a chance to get to know him, but he made sure of one important thing....he wanted to be the first man to give me roses. 

Yes, two dozen red and yellow roses brought to two year old me by my grandfather, the first man to give me roses. How sweet was he? 

Scrappy Gen