Kathy Wait Myers Genealogy» organization http://www.kathywaitmyers.com Surnames: Wait, Fleming, Kunz, Hartsock Mon, 05 Jul 2010 03:36:01 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Wait Family Heritage Group & Nonprofit http://www.kathywaitmyers.com/2009/10/11/wait-family-heritage-group-and-nonprofit/ http://www.kathywaitmyers.com/2009/10/11/wait-family-heritage-group-and-nonprofit/#comments Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:29:01 +0000 Kathy Wait Myers http://blog.kathywaitmyers.com/?p=411 I thought I’d let you all know about a genealogy group that I started.

http://waitheritage.ning.com/

Over the last few months that I’ve been researching my WAIT roots, I’ve “met” probably a dozen people online who have also researched my line.  Through a series of emails and messages on Ancestry.com, I’ve learned a lot about where I come [...]]]>

I thought I’d let you all know about a genealogy group that I started.

http://waitheritage.ning.com/

Over the last few months that I’ve been researching my WAIT roots, I’ve “met” probably a dozen people online who have also researched my line.  Through a series of emails and messages on Ancestry.com, I’ve learned a lot about where I come from (and where I don’t)!  One of the things that bugged me about using this method was that all of that info was now tucked away in a private message, and I wondered who else I might meet if these discussions were out in the public eye.

So I had this idea to start a group where everyone could contribute what they know and we could get to know each other.   I searched around a bit and ended up modeling it after the Parker Heritage Group.

I started interest groups for each of the families in my line:

Frederick Hiram WAIT (1876-1955)

William H WAITS (1845-1927)

James G WAITS (1816-1880)

Charles Waits (1790-1868)

James WAITS (1760-1855)

John WAITS (1730-1791) (my brick wall WAITS)

I also started interest groups for each of the states they lived in:

NEBRASKA Genealogy

OHIO Genealogy

Along with that, there is a group for the DNA project:

Waite DNA Surname Project

I highly recommend that you take a look and join the groups that call to you.  You can add to discussions, start new ones, upload some photos, even have a blog!  Then keep checking back every week as new content is added and the site really starts to pick up momentum!  The more eyes we have on our history, the more we stand to learn!

My vision is to start a Wait Family Association that’s dedicated to preserving the heritage of the Wait family through education and genealogy.  I want to run it as a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization.  I’ve been doing some initial research for a couple of weeks and just this morning, I found another family to model the group after!

Towne Family Association

The Next Generation of Genealogy Software has been on my radar as an excellent way to share our trees, census forms, documents, and photos, so it’s pretty cool that they use that platform as well!

For those of you who were at the reunion this July, you’ll remember that in the land of Hunters and Farmers, I’m a Hunter.  I have a vision.  I have ideas.  I have passion.  i have social skills.  What I need are some more Hunters to collaborate with. And most importantly, some Farmers who are good at things like business practices, the law, accounting, and general stick-to-it-iveness.  People who are dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.

If you think you’d be interested in helping with this project or know someone else who would be, please get in contact with me!

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]]> http://www.kathywaitmyers.com/2009/10/11/wait-family-heritage-group-and-nonprofit/feed/ 0 Madness Monday – Turning Over a New Leaf http://www.kathywaitmyers.com/2009/09/28/madness-monday-turning-new-leaf/ http://www.kathywaitmyers.com/2009/09/28/madness-monday-turning-new-leaf/#comments Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:29:53 +0000 Kathy Wait Myers http://blog.kathywaitmyers.com/?p=377 I had a bit of a panic attack on Friday!  I decided to clean up the categories that I use in my blog entries… delete any subcategories… use just surnames instead of full names… centuries instead of decades… you can see my handiwork by clicking the dropdown arrow for “Categories” over there on the right [...]]]>

I had a bit of a panic attack on Friday!  I decided to clean up the categories that I use in my blog entries… delete any subcategories… use just surnames instead of full names… centuries instead of decades… you can see my handiwork by clicking the dropdown arrow for “Categories” over there on the right margin.  —>

So after I switched my categories and got them the way I wanted them, I went through each post and reassigned categories to them.  I was moving right along until I got to the entries that I wrote about my Dad… in particular, this post: http://blog.kathywaitmyers.com/2009/07/30/taking-thursday-off-kinda/

It took me right back to the week that I wrote my first Tombstone Tuesday post about my Dad.  It took me a week to come up with that entry because it dug up all of the emotions I felt when he died.  It was an emotional rollercoaster!  So I took a big breath and went to the post right before that one:  http://blog.kathywaitmyers.com/2009/07/29/wordless-wednesday-dad-and-shipmates-during-korean-war/

I sat there for a minute admiring the photo, wishing that he didn’t have such a weird look on his face and that his eyes were open.  He was probably trying to give the guy in front of him “rabbit ears” right before they snapped the photo.  haha…  Then I went to the previous entry, which I knew would be this one: http://blog.kathywaitmyers.com/2009/07/29/tombstone-tuesday-roy-frederick-sonny-wait-jr-1931-2004/

…………….. and it wasn’t there ……………..

The whole world stopped.  I stared at my screen for what seemed like an hour.  Then I started talking to myself….

oh my gosh. oh my gosh. where is it? where is Dad’s post? oh my gosh. oh my gosh. oh my gosh. okay…. breathe… okay… THINK!!!  where is it? what happened to it?  oh my gosh. Check your old blog!  Okay…. crap!!!!  It’s not there!!!  Where are the rest of my entries?????  There’s like a whole week missing!!!  THINK!!  THINK!!  Ok!!  Check the blogger blog that you posted last week when you freaked out about wordpress.com!!  Okay!!!  It’s there!!!  They’re all there!!!  Now how do you get it back over to your new blog. Oh!  That’s right!  I exported the old blog, so that file is here somewhere.  Where is it… where is it…  OK!  Found it!  Now, IMPORT!!!  Whew… okay… it’s there… they’re all there now… I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT WORDPRESS DELETED TWELVE OF MY BLOG ENTRIES!!!!!  Now I know why I freaked out about them last Friday and was compelled to move my blog somewhere else!  My Dad was probably pushing me to export it so his information wouldn’t be lost.  Thank you Dad!!  Thank you Universe!!  Thank you, whatever made me freak out and move my blog twice in a week!!   

Suddenly, all of my “what if’s” have come to the forefront of my mind.  What if my hard drive crashes? What if I accidentally delete something I’m not supposed to?  What if I scan all of these pictures and then something happens and I lose the files?  What if, what if, what if??

So I’m turning over a new leaf!  I’ve decided that I need to export my blog WAY more often. Weekly during Monday Madness?  After every post?  I haven’t decided.  What do you think?  I remember seeing something that Thomas MacEntee from Geneabloggers posted a while ago about keeping backups of your blog.  I’ll have to dig that up and see what he said about it (my brain was full when I read it the first time)!

I also spent the weekend researching portable external hard drives so I can back up my hard drive regularly.  After looking at a bunch of them, I decided the Western Digital Elements 500 GB Portable External Hard Drive.  According to the techy guys at Amazon, it’s probably my best bet.  Enough memory to last me a while and I guess the NTFS format is what I need so I can copy folders and files that are over 4GB.  That’ll come in handy the next time AnceStories hosts Scanfest!!  It’s a little more expensive than the desktop version, but it’s only 6oz instead of 3lbs so I’ll be more likely to pack it up to take it to my next family reunion.  I even followed through and bought it!!  I’ll let you know how my first backup goes!  Can’t wait!!

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]]> http://www.kathywaitmyers.com/2009/09/28/madness-monday-turning-new-leaf/feed/ 0 My blog-dentity crisis http://www.kathywaitmyers.com/2009/09/25/my-blog-dentity-crisis/ http://www.kathywaitmyers.com/2009/09/25/my-blog-dentity-crisis/#comments Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:47:00 +0000 Kathy Wait Myers http://blog.kathywaitmyers.com/?p=322 Hey!  I’m back!  I don’t know if anyone noticed, but it’s been over a week since I last posted a blog.  It’s not that I haven’t wanted to write, but that I was having a blog-dentity crisis!  I was blogging through wordpress.com on one of their little starter accounts, but every time I tried to add [...]]]>

Hey!  I’m back!  I don’t know if anyone noticed, but it’s been over a week since I last posted a blog.  It’s not that I haven’t wanted to write, but that I was having a blog-dentity crisis!  I was blogging through wordpress.com on one of their little starter accounts, but every time I tried to add a new widget (those little buttons on the right), it would error out and break the code. 

I grew envious of my blogging friends pretty blogs on blogger.com, so I started moving over there.  But then I couldn’t find a design that I liked. Hm.

Then my friend Kevin V in New York  suggested that I just get my own domain and host wordpress.ORG on it.  Ok!  Now we’re talking!

The I saw that Doteasy was having a domain name sale, so I bought my own domain name! $2.95 later, and  WWW.KATHYWAITMYERS.COM was born!!

Then I had to figure out where to host it.  Doteasy has free hosting, BUT not if you need these things called “php” and “MySQL” whatever that is.

See… I’m NOT the webmaster type.  I can usually figure things out, but when it comes to programming and moving files from here to there, I’m absolutely lost. 

So I went on to Wordpress.org and they suggested six different companies that you can use to do your hosting with.  I checked them all out… thought about it… tried to work it into my budget… and then checked them all out again!

I wound up going with Dream Host  because they had the best price.  lol!  They offer everything that I could possibly use now, plus I’ll have room to grow my website as my needs change.  AND!  They also have an AWESOME anniversary sale going on right now, where you pay $9.24 for the WHOLE YEAR (a savings of $110… it’s normally $8.95/month).  When you go to their website, the message is right there taking up the whole screen.  Plus, you get the first two weeks free.  Yay!

My biggest sigh of relief came when I used their “one click installer” for Wordpress blogs.  Amazingly, it actually worked the first time.  Before lunch, I had my blog up and running and on the web again and imported the posts from my old blog and everything!  I can’t tell you how impressed I was at that.  Over the past week, I found a template that I liked, but couldn’t figure out for the life of me how to get it uploaded on another webhosting company’s site.  Sooooo frustrating. 

Now I think I’ve got it!  I have a pretty new face to my blog… I’m in love with green and brown right now!  I have all of my little widgets lined up over there on the right margin!  Including the badge for my new WAIT HERITAGE group to share information and get to know my genealogy loving cousins!  My website name is MY name!!  I have to tell you… I was a little afraid that when I switched my website address, no one would be able to find me again. 

So!!!  Bookmark my new site!!  Add it to your favorites!!  Subscribe to it via email!!  Follow me on Facebook!!  Follow me on Twitter!!

(no pressure)  ;-)

www.kathywaitmyers.com

WHEW!!!  Can I get back to researching and blogging now?  Thanks!!!  =)

Kathy

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]]> http://www.kathywaitmyers.com/2009/09/25/my-blog-dentity-crisis/feed/ 2 New ties to Coos Bay, Oregon http://www.kathywaitmyers.com/2009/08/05/new-ties-to-coos-bay-oregon/ http://www.kathywaitmyers.com/2009/08/05/new-ties-to-coos-bay-oregon/#comments Wed, 05 Aug 2009 21:52:39 +0000 Kathy Wait Myers http://waitfamily.wordpress.com/?p=175

Uella with Freddie, Willard, Gladys, and Vernie (4 smallest kids) - Coos Bay Oregon? - 1915?

Whoa.  Okay.  So I’ve been taking a little time off of researching my roots so that I can study up on [...]]]>

Uella with kids - Coos Bay area? - Oregon

Uella with Freddie, Willard, Gladys, and Vernie (4 smallest kids) - Coos Bay Oregon? - 1915?

Whoa.  Okay.  So I’ve been taking a little time off of researching my roots so that I can study up on how to organize my paper files.  It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to go out and find evidence when it’ll just end up in a pile in my office, right?  Paper and I don’t really get along, so if I don’t have a definite system then it’ll just end up being one big mess in no time flat.  I finally found a winner in the Family Roots Organizer system, so today I’ve been diligently following the steps to get my system in place.  I’m color coding hanging files, printing off 5-Generation Pedigree Charts, highlighting surnames, and filing them.

 I just finished up with the 5-degree charts and names and decided that I may as well fill it in with all of the surnames I have!  So I’m going down my list… Wait… Baker… Long… Haskins.  As I went to pick up the Haskins chart, my heart stopped.  Coos, Coos County, Oregon, USA.  The printable version of the tree that I’ve been studying actually has places on it and not just dates?  Who is this??  Abigail Sutton and Benoni Haskins??  How do they fit into the tree??  Ok!  They’re Uella’s grandparents?  Wait!  Does that even make sense?  They died in 1884 and 1895, respectfully, a good 20 years before Fred & Uella made the big trek out to Oregon!

Ever since I found pictures of Fred & Uella (farmers from Nebraska) on a beach of all things, I’ve been curious about where they were and why they were there.  By putting birth records together with pictures of the Oregon coast, I was able to deduce that the photos were most likely taken around Coos County, Oregon sometime between 1913 and 1917.  That’s where Alice Viola was born in 1917 and also where the twins Harriet & Elvie were born in 1919 and where Elvie died 18 months later.  Finding Elvie’s grave and retracing Fred & Uella’s footsteps are probably the main reasons that we’re having the Wait Reunion in the Coos Bay area next summer! 

One of the big questions in my mind has been “Why Coos Bay?”  Why would Fred and Uella pick up and go to Oregon with 4 kids?  Freddie was the youngest who made the trek and in this photo couldn’t have been more than two years old.  That would make Willard 3, Gladys 5, and Vernie 8.  I’m not sure if Roy (13) and Ray (15) were there or not since they’re not in the photo.  That’s a whole lot of kids to drag across country, though.  Especially in those times!  Not to mention that today it would take 28 hours to drive it.  Back then, they probably took the Lincoln Highway most of the way, which pretty much followed I-80.  I have no idea how long it would take to get there, but my guess is that it probably took two weeks.

I checked the information that I have on Uella’s parents, thinking that maybe they were in the area at the time, but they fell off my radar starting in 1900 when they were still in Iowa. I haven’t done too much digging on them so far, though.  Uella’s mom Hattie’s brother Benoni Horace Haskins died in Coos Bay in 1918, and her sister Lydia J Haskins died there in 1919.  Maybe Hattie was there as well?  Maybe Uella went to see her Aunt and Uncle?  Only time will tell. 

In the meantime, I’m making excellent progress in my filing duties!  Now that I’m over my initial Coos Bay shocker, I can finish up my extended generational files.  Can’t wait to fill up my new filing box with some more goodies!

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]]> http://www.kathywaitmyers.com/2009/08/05/new-ties-to-coos-bay-oregon/feed/ 0 Out with the old… http://www.kathywaitmyers.com/2009/08/02/out-with-the-old/ http://www.kathywaitmyers.com/2009/08/02/out-with-the-old/#comments Sun, 02 Aug 2009 15:49:56 +0000 Kathy Wait Myers http://waitfamily.wordpress.com/?p=155 I haven’t been doing much research during the past few days.  Instead, I’ve been clearing the decks in my home office!  I’m  to the point with my genealogy findings where I feel like I’m ready to start trekking out to look for “real” paper documents and newspaper clippings.  It’s a whole other story when I [...]]]>

I haven’t been doing much research during the past few days.  Instead, I’ve been clearing the decks in my home office!  I’m  to the point with my genealogy findings where I feel like I’m ready to start trekking out to look for “real” paper documents and newspaper clippings.  It’s a whole other story when I looked around at the systems I have in place for storing those things, or rather… my lack of a system.

So I pulled out all of the boxes and books and papers and files that were stacked up in this big closet/bookshelf in here and have been systematically going through it ala Peter Walsh.  I haven’t touched this stuff since I moved back home to Nebraska last summer.  Paper, paper, and more paper.  Yikes!!  So it’s taking a while to sort through everything so I have room to grow into my new genealogy hobby/obsession.  I really want to start out on the right foot and keep everything organized, safe, and visually appealing.  Nothing drains me more than clutter!

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