Software is driving me nuts

So I've done three updates to the website since my last blog post - one on the 14th, one on the 18th, and the last one just a little while ago.  Check out Recent Updates, General Updates and New Persons Added for all the details.  If you've been keeping an eye on the website, you'll know that I've been busy ironing out some issues I discovered.

Computers and software are wonderful ... except when they're not working right!  It's easy enough to make errors on my own without getting any assistance from my software.  First discovery was that a software glitch seemed to have changed the marriage roles for some couples from being brides and grooms to being ushers.  Seemed odd, but there weren't too many so I fixed them and moved on.  Until ...

Second discovery was that another glitch messed with marriage roles, affecting all people with more than one marriage. Long story short is that roles determine the sentence structures used in the narratives for people.  When the roles got changed, many folks had blank areas in their narratives followed by a citation footnote number.  This one took a lot longer to fix, but I think I've caught them all.  However, if you run across people with blank gaps where there should be info ... please shoot me an email with their name.

In addition to those bumps in the road, when I fired up my laptop on Monday morning, it gave me a message to the effect that Windows couldn't start. Talk about panic!

I didn't want to do a system restore, which was the first choice I was given.  Second choice was to let Windows try to repair itself, but that was unsuccessful.  Fortunately, when I tried booting up a second time, Windows did start slowly and eventually gave me a message that it had repaired itself.  Whew - what a relief!  

So I updated some of my backups just in case ... and I ran all kind of scans but found no issues ... and I crossed my fingers when I shut down the next time.  All seems to be ok now, but like I said at the beginning ...

Software is driving me nuts!

Oy vey

Irony ... it just hit me that my last post, entitled ,"Errors, errors, errors, was nine days ago on the 5th.  With that kind of a title, you may be thinking that I'm hiding my head in shame!

Actually, it was a good thing I did post on the 5th - the same day I had a physical and received a tetanus shot.  No big deal ... I've had one before with no issues ... but this time my slightly older body decided to react the next day.  Long story short is that I slept a lot (101° does that to me) and ended up missing the annual Church Family reunion on Saturday. 

Maybe I should have just kept sleeping though ... 'cause Sunday afternoon I pulled a back muscle.  I should know better than to do something so strenuous as bending over slightly to reach into a drawer for my blow dryer! 

For some reason, my creative genius doesn't seem to work when my back hurts so I've been silent here on the blog front.  Although there is one plus to being down with my back - extra time for genealogy! 

My search for more errors and inconsistencies has continued and sure enough, I found more things to fix.  I'll be updating the website either later tonight or sometime tomorrow.  Keep your eyes open!

Errors, errors, errors

Sometimes I think everyone from Marshall County is related to everyone else in Marshall County.  OK, that's a slight exaggeration, but it never ceases to amaze me when I find lines that connect in places where I never expected to see them connect.

Anyway, yesterday's post listed the new people I added to my website, including Allie (Briggs) Lydick.  I'm a member of a Lydick group on facebook - and reading through some of the comments I found that one of Allie's sisters was Emma (Briggs) Parks.

A light bulb went off as I knew I already had Emma in my database.  Emma married Judson Rossell "J. R." Parks, whose sister Mary Elizabeth "Maida" Parks married Uriah Sheridan Harris (commonly known by variations of his middle name).  Sheridan's parents were Uriah Harris and Mary Ann Lydick.  It's like running around in circles!!

So where does the title of this post fit in?  As I began researching Allie's sister Emma, I looked up her death certificate online and discovered that the death and burial info I had found some time ago from a couple other sources was incorrect. She died in March, not May, and was buried in the Fork Ridge Christian Cemetery, not the Fork Ridge Baptist Cemetery.  Sure enough, J. R.'s burial location was also wrong once I found his death certificate.

I have now corrected my database to reflect the info taken from online images of the death certificates for J. R. and Emma Parks.  Just goes to prove that you always have to confirm info that someone else has collected by tracking down original source documents and seeing them yourself ... an important lesson to always remember in the world of genealogy!

New Folks and Old Photos

New folks ... just added 14 more people to my website:

• Briggs, Alcinda Ellen "Allie"
• Dobbs, Anna Diora
• Dobbs, Wanda L.
• Leek, Belinda
• Leek, Leroy
• Lydick, Effie Mae
• Lydick, Jacob S.
• Lydick, John B.
• Lydick, Mary
• Lydick, Samuel
• Lydick, Samuel McClellan "Clell"
• Lydick, Skelton Roger "S. R."
• Reynolds, Phebe
• Standiford, Nancy

It all started as research of Dessie Blake Dobbs.  I have this old photo from Mom's collection that identifies Dessie, except that I don't know which of the two women is Dessie.

Another name is written on the back that looks like it might be Diora Pyles.  As you can see above, I found Anna Diora Dobbs, but she married Clell Lydick - so that leaves me scratching my head right now.  Did she marry more than once, or am I simply barking up the wrong tree?

And then there is the WWI soldier that I have no clue about.  Could be a husband, a brother, or just a friend.

When I look at the same three people in a second photo, it looks like the woman with glasses is older than the soldier and the other woman ... could she be a mother?

If you can help identify the folks in the photos above - I'd love to hear from you! 

One last note:  As for website progress, I made some adjustments in the photo galleries on my website in an effort to get them a little closer to alphabetical order by surname and to make sure photos showed up where I wanted them.  Just another phase in my cleanup efforts.