Our Family Tree

Having a lot of trouble with Find A Grave lately? You’re not alone. Though I don’t bother to read the forums any more, it’s pretty clear that they need some help. I don’t think I’ve spent any time on the site the past few months without experiencing server problems. As a matter of fact, I’m waiting for a server fix right now.

I don’t think people realize they can help support the site by sponsoring memorials. The sponsorships are very reasonable, just $5.00, and that can add up! Not only do you help support a site that’s become such a great resource, and is now so popular, but at the same time you remove the banner ads from the memorials of your loved ones.

For the cost of one obit from some libraries in California, you can sponsor four memorials.

My money has been returned. What a relief! I really did not want to post that it hadn’t been. And it wouldn’t have been a nice post, either, since I have zero respect for people who don’t do what they say they will do.

In the end, it worked out, I think. I ended up paying for a month — which I think is fair since I had the subscription just about a month when I asked that the account be canceled. If I had been smart, I would have only signed up for the one month trial, which would have saved me $10.00. So it cost me $10.00 to learn this lesson. It was worth it — but my opinion remains the same.

I just got off the phone with customer service at GenealogyBank.com. My account is finally canceled, so I can’t access the links I could last week, like the one to cancel the account. Therefore, I cannot tell you what it said. All I know is I thought I was canceling my account and I would be issued an appropriate, pro rata refund.

Um — no.

The procedure is, apparently, to put the account on non-renewal. So, since I had paid for a year, that meant they wouldn’t automatically charge me next year. I asked when this was done, and she couldn’t tell me — only that their policy is to handle incoming emails within 24-48 hours, and it must have gotten lost in the spam filter.

But, since the account was marked not to be renewed, it would seem they received the cancellation notice. I think I filled out a form on the website for the transaction, but I could be wrong about that. I do know I don’t have an outgoing message to them in my email program regarding canceling the account.

When I asked why I wasn’t sent an email informing me of the action, she said she couldn’t answer that — only that it is their policy to send an email and it must have gotten lost in the spam filter. Except I’ve been checking the spam folder for a response from them since last Thursday, and I’m using Gmail, so all the incoming and outgoing messages are still on the server.

She seemed surprised that I expected any kind of refund since I had used the service, which is most certainly true. She didn’t want to be bothered with my complaints, however, and this is understandable, also, since she works in billing, not the complaint department. So when she said she could issue some kind of refund, I asked her how much, she told me, and I asked her to please do so right away. As I type this, I have received the credit confirmation for the amount we agreed upon.

And this is the “Almost Final Update” because it takes three to five business days for the credit to appear on my card. So, we’ll all have to wait just a little bit longer for this to be over and done!

If you want to find out if anyone ever reads your blog, get a little drama going! Then, don’t post an update for a week or so. You’ll find out real quick if you’re just talking to yourself!

Good GRIEF people! LOL!

Okay — here goes:

I sent an email to Mr. Kemp with my telephone number. He was at a conference so I asked him not to interrupt that to call me. We haven’t talked yet, but I’m sure when things settle down for him, he will call. (And, to the lady who wrote just to say she would be over the moon to talk to him herself, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you with that! )

I requested a refund on my GenealogyBank.com account last Thursday. I haven’t heard back from them yet, but I just checked and the account isn’t disabled yet, either. I don’t know what their policies or procedures are, and I hate those menu telephone things — which you just can’t get away from these days — so I have not called customer service to follow up on it.

Yes, I did say “that a positive resolution to this problem will be noted as publicly as these problems were.” I received quite a few emails telling me I hadn’t kept my word. Well — nothing has happened yet. You’ll just have to wait.

So I don’t appear to be completely negative, I thought I would tell you about a totally cool experience I had a couple of weeks ago.

I received a copy of Louise Burkley Lunte’s obituary a while back. On a Sunday night I decided to actually read it and much to my surprise, she was survived by a brother, living in Seymour, Jackson County, Indiana in 1940! Now, this, in itself, was huge, because I hadn’t been able to find her in the census before she married and I didn’t know if she had any brothers or sisters — I hadn’t even been able to independently determine who her parents were.

So, I got busy trying to find him. He was easy to track down and, because I was able to find him, I was also able to find her.

But, I digress . . .

I had no death date for him, but he was in Seymour in the 1930 census, and I had Louise’s obituary putting him there in 1940. Because of the census work I had done, I knew he was in his 80s in 1940, so I guess he probably died between 1940 and 1950.

I found the website for the library in Seymour and sent them an email telling them what I was looking for (William’s obituary) and asking what resources they might have — microfilm available through ILL or an obituary index — that might help me. Then, I settled in to wait. I mean, really, this was going to take awhile, right? I mean, even if I did hear back from them, in probably a week, or maybe two, (I understand how busy they are and this type of request is usually handled by volunteers who aren’t there everyday — so don’t write to tell me how cynical and nasty I am!) there would be letters to send, etc., etc. I figured I’d probably have something in a month or two.

No. Nothing like that.

First thing Monday morning, not even 24 hours later, what did I have in my hot little hand? That’s right! William’s obituary was scanned and emailed to me! At no charge! WOW!

“No charge for the service but donations to the Jackson County Public Library Genealogy Gift Fund always are welcome.”

I wish I could say I was as quick to send in my donation — which I most assuredly did! — as they were to send me the obit. I was, and still am, flabbergasted.

There are many obituaries that I will never have because the library I have to go through is charging $20.00 a pop — can you say “California?” I am convinced that these places have priced themselves out of the market because they don’t want to be bothered — so I won’t be bothering them. I will say, though, that the Jackson County Library will, over the years, receive quite a bit more than $20.00 from me, and it will be well-spent.

I so wanted to tell Charlotte — that’s the name of the nice lady at the library — how much this obit meant to me, but to my credit, I was able to restrain myself.

I don’t have to do that here!

Not only did she find William’s obituary, but it was an absolute gold mine! It mentioned his father, his mother, his sister, Louise, and two other sisters that I suspected — they weren’t with William and Louise in the 1870 census, so I wasn’t sure they were connected.

This hobby can get pretty expensive. I’m just not willing to throw all kinds of money at it. I want to make sure I squeeze every penny until it squeals, and I also want to make sure that the person or company that ends up with my hard-earned nickles and dimes deserves them.

The Jackson County Library certainly does!

Yeah, well, I couldn’t think of a nice way to say that.

After taking a bit of a break, I’ve been working pretty steadily on my family history for a few months now, so I purchased a subscription to GenealogyBank.com. What a mistake.

I have found several instances where the website has nothing more than a funeral notice posted, and yet if you go to Legacy.com, you can purchase the complete obituary for $2.95.

I’ve contacted GenealogyBank.com customer support about the discrepancy, but have received no reply.

Want to guess where my money will be going from now on? C’mon — you can win the teddy bear. It’s not that hard to figure out.

I can’t believe it’s been almost a year. But, as I told my Dad the other day, this is supposed to be a hobby, not a job, so sometimes real life gets in the way. We can’t get so involved with the dead people that we forget about the ones that are still with us — though I think my Sweetie would argue that I don’t follow that line of reasoning as often as I should.

Well, I’ve finally figured out — I think! — how to set things up, so I’ve finally uploaded Our Family Tree. I had been just linking to first Rootsweb and then GenCircles, but I had issues with both of them. I think I’ve finally figured out how to generate the web pages with Legacy the way I want them and link to the documents I’m wanting to share.

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As I mentioned before, I use binders to store most of my work thanks to the suggestions of the Genealogy Research Group. But I organize them just a tad differently.

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In our previous episode, we tamed the paper monster by making it easy to find research documents by numbering them and keeping them sequentially in binders. Today I’ll tell you how I organize my computer files.

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Now that your research is organized, it’s time to get a handle on the piles of documents you will be collecting.

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