The RootsTech 2025 schedule is live, and the three-day online schedule is free. Whether you have genealogical questions or are curious about lineage, you should check out the schedule of over 150 online sessions from Thursday to Saturday, March 6 to 8.
My interests are twofold. I’m trying to find the parents of my great-grandfather, Samuel Walker. I know he was born in Orange County, VA, in 1873 and died in Binghamton, NY, in 1963, but I’m stuck beyond that. I hope Renate Yarborough Sanders’s workshop Til Death or Distance Do We Part: Documenting Marriages of Enslaved and Emancipated Persons will help.
I’m also working on my wife’s family line in a project called the John Olin Origin Project. I’ve written about John Olin before. Assuming he came over on a British ship in the latter part of the 17th century, what was his origin? Was he English, French, Welsh, Irish, or something else? Some of his male descendants have done some DNA testing, but the question has not been answered sufficiently. Perhaps one of the more general sessions at RootsTech will help.
My wife is on the John>Joseph>Joseph>Reuben>John>Earl>Orva>George line. I will check out Tell Your Story Like a True Reporter by Rachel Trotter at Roots Tech because I find the topic fascinating. I wish to share my enthusiasm with others.
Worry
I’m concerned about the future of the Census and the critical data it collects for future genealogists. “Director Robert Santos, the renowned data expert who has led the Bureau for years, abruptly announced his resignation.” This paves the way for a partisan hack replacement.
“Next, the bureau’s website started going dark for periods of time. The New York Times reported that ‘more than 3,000 pages from the Census Bureau, the vast majority of which are articles filed under research and methodology, were affected. Other missing pages include data stewardship policies and documentation for several data sets and surveys.'” It’s another breach of competency to address.
Here’s a factoid: 1890 Census Substitutes: “In January of 1921, a fire broke out in the basement of the Commerce Building in Washington D.C., where the 1890 U.S. Census records were being stored…”
I get bit by the genealogy bug often and then I lose daaayyyysssss researching and going down bunny trails. It’s hard because so many of my ancestors evidently didn’t know how to spell their names so I’ve found three or four variations of surnames in my research. Some of my trees date back to the 1200s, which is kind of exciting. But sometimes I hit a brick wall in the 1800s and can’t get any further.
We received a form last week asking us to answer the Census questions and I did! I’ve loved learning about different numbers/categories from past census reports in some of my classes.
I am a Census junkie!