Greetings,
John thinks I’m “amazing” because of my six family trees. The truth is it was simply easier for me to organize my time.
I originally told him I spent 2 years researching my Purinton family tree. That’s partly true. That included the Goddard and Day family trees. I did quite a lot of the Gamache and Byras family trees during that time as well. As he knows, the Elcik family tree has been difficult with some roadblocks.
I share John’s frustrations with poor spelling and shared family names. I’ve had to deal with Puddington, Purrington, and Purington. Then, Purinton, which is how my great grandfather, grandfather, and father spelled it. I didn’t think about that when I first joined Ancestry. Now I check everything on gravestones, birth certificates, etc., and trace the changes.
Poor spelling and shared family names make it effortless to introduce duplicates into a family tree. I experienced the same thing with my Purinton family. There were 3 generations of Humphrey Purinton’s marrying women named Thankful. That was a complete nightmare for me because each generation had 11 and 12 children, and I had to connect the right Humphrey and Thankful to my family. No wonder I don’t sleep at night!!!!
Fortunately, there are tools to help find and fix them. John has helped with some of this, but mostly it is a lot of hard work.
Most of my Purinton ancestors are buried in a cemetery in West Bowdoin and some in Hillside. My Purinton ancestors established the Baptist church in West Bowdoin, and some were deacons and reverends. I never knew any of that until I read many articles about them in my Ancestry search. It was a huge eye-opener for me. My mother was from Durham, my dad, from Lisbon Falls. Most of the Goddard and Day families (my mother’s maiden name was Goddard, my dad’s mother’s maiden name was Day) are buried in Durham, and some at Hillside in Lisbon Falls. Yup, I’ve taken lots of Day and Goddard gravestone pictures. I have spent considerable time in cemeteries getting pictures for us. John says they are much better than what he could get at the FindAGrave website. Larger file sizes make for better visibility of the writing on gravestones.
The biggest disadvantage I had with multiple family trees is keeping them straight for others. Just the other day, John asked me what the sixth tree was. He was missing my Goddard family tree. My mother’s maiden name was Goddard. It also includes Croteau and Dearnley’s families, which is my grandmother Goddard’s family. Her maiden name was Croteau, and my great grandmother’s family is Dearnley. The Dearnley tree goes back to the 1700s, and they were from England. The Croteau family tree goes back to the 1800s, and they were from Canada. I traced the Goddard family back to the 1600s. I have a lot of pictures in the Goddard family tree.
John likes working with technology, and I like the outreach work. I’ve worked to involve others in our research. Among those who have become interested through outreach are Bob Elcik, Dan Gamache, Charlie Hall, Eugene Elcik (the Maine writer), George Karkos, Marilyn (Karkos) Keamy, Pam (Karkos) Lizotte, and William Cizmar.
Currently, I’m very anxious to talk to Eugene Elcik again. We have gotten together once. He also has corresponded with John. The Karkos family has intrigued me too. It’s a never-ending search for more information!!! ….
John has me wondering if I can sync the trees and have one Purinton Tree, including everyone. If so, then I can delete the Goddard- Day and Purinton Tree, including Cox trees. He thinks that there is value in my approach, given that human nature focuses our attention on our grandparent’s surnames. He thinks that researchers are quite willing to travel down the paths of additional trees. There must, however, be enough detail to send them in the right direction. We also found and contributed to the One World Tree sponsored by the Church-of-Latter-Day Saints. The latter may someday help us find Elcik’s in Europe.
Beth (Purinton) Gamache
Email: beth@mycousins.org
