Robert Charles Anderson, FASG, Director of the Great Migration Study Project and author of Elements of Genealogical Analysis says a person is Genealogically Defined when “we have at least one piece of evidence that will lead to the identification of his or her parents, one piece of evidence for each spouse(s), and one piece of evidence for each child.”

1. Do you have a source that will identify the PARENTS?

2. Do you have a source for each SPOUSE?

3. Do you have a source for each CHILD?

If so, your profile is Genealogically Defined and has a great start on sourcing.

Notice that each of these sources is reciprocal with the person it connects. You can then put that same source on the connected person’s profile and begin the process again.

If every profile had this minimum standard, they become like puzzle pieces and can be linked to other profiles.  

It doesn’t happen too often, but the Surname database under the GEDCOM link was corrupted somehow, and continuously gave false links to people other than who you were searching for. I have done some work in my personal database, and had enough new information to make it worthwhile to create a new Surname list. Enjoy…… and be sure to let me know if problems arise again.

Now containing over 26,100 names, the surname list has been updated for the first time in several years. Expansion of the number of names in my personal database allowed the increase. At the same time, the .ged file that drives https://itsallinthepast.net was also updated and expanded.

I’m done…..that’s right….I’m done….offering apologies each time I slack off and don’t publish anything for a while. “A while” may turn into months, as it has this time, but I know how I’ve been spending my time and I can tell you I’ve been working on genealogy, just not on this site.

I have officially crossed over 26,000 ancestors in my database. I’ve also added hundreds of Murray “cousins” to a one-name study on Wikitree, created a 500-plus name genealogy for a banner we display in our tent, and attended several festivals since Tartan Days last April (photo below), including one out-of-state festival in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and the Murray Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Denver last August. The Thomas family itself, all five of us, was responsible for a large part of the planning, setup, and operation of the AGM.

I have also written and recorded several short podcasts that will become part of this site soon. Aptly named “AllinthPast,” it will feature a lot of history and genealogy topics we have worked with before and haven’t necessarily posted on this site, or our companion site: https://itsallinthepast.net , as well as new material.

At the same time, I’m trying to update this site and make it more user-friendly as a research site that goes beyond the “family genealogy” theme most online genealogy sites have.

So, again, no more apologies. Follow the site if you like, check back often, let me know what you think of the information I’m presenting, but know that I am working even if it doesn’t show up here. I just get distracted at times by all the exciting things that occur with close, and extended, families over several centuries all over the world.

Long active, but removed several months ago due to technical issues, my database is back online for everyone to wade through at their leisure. Without the new software and website, the database, done in Legacy 9 (TM) software was strictly offline. The best I could hope for was the listing of individuals found by surname in the GEDCOM link on the front page.

A new website, running parallel to this one, was created (http://itsallinthepast.net) to house TNG – The Next Generation (TM) genealogy software. Besides activating the database, I also have the ability to easily add photos and other media, places, timelines, repositories, and more.