Another network example

 

Ancestry Network. April 2025.

Following yesterday's post testing Ancestry's new Networks tool on my Thornhill case, I have started to build out a network based on Irish immigrants in La Salle County, Illinois in the 1850 US Census. My hope is this will identify research leads on the family of my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget. Last June I looked at Timothy Hanley, a neighbor of Bridget in the 1850 Census entry. Using the Networks tool, I've added him and his brother Thomas Hanley, and am continuing to build out the network with other Irish immigrant neighbors. I suspect several of them will be from Roscommon and Longford in Ireland.

In addition, I created a custom tag "Irish in La Salle Network" on each entry so that anyone who stumbles on these people in my tree will see that I've put them in a network. Networks are still in Beta and not visible to others.

This is still work in progress.

Testing Ancestry's new Networks tool

One of the big features announced at RootsTech last month was Ancestry's Networks. This feature is currently in Beta and available to those with Ancestry's Pro Tools membership. Networks allows you to create a private workspace to collect and organize information on groups of people who may be connected through a particular event, such as military service, passengers on a voyage, a community enumerated in a census record, a religious group or sports team, among others. There are many possible uses for the Networks tool. At RootsTech, some of the examples mentioned were to collect in one space members of the same World War II company and build out their stories, or to follow a group of immigrants from the same ship as they settled in other locations in the United States. Crista Cowan from Ancestry has shared a Tips and Tricks Virtual Event (YouTube) highlighting ways to use the new Networks feature.

For my first test drive with the Networks tool, I've created a network to gather information on all the witnesses and defendants in the 1865 murder of Captain John A. Thornhill of the 9th Tennessee Cavalry. This is a case I've long thought about compiling into a book, and more recently wish it could be made into a limited series for a streaming service. I think this is the perfect example to put the Networks tool to work. There's a large number of people involved, with hundreds of pages of documents scattered across various county court cases, military courts and service records, a Tennessee Supreme Court case and a US Supreme Court case, newspaper articles, witness testimony, census records, diary entries, even a letter from the desk of President Andrew Johnson. There's a real cast of characters involved in this complex story, and I am hoping the Networks tool will help sort them out.

Ancestry Networks example, Apr 2025.

A cool feature is the ability to create Stickie notes. This enables a quick at a glance view of important notes for the Network. A nice addition would be the ability to allow users to drag and drop or reorder the Stickies dynamically on the page.

Example from Ancestry Networks.

Clicking into a Stickie, one can tag or link stickies to people in the network. For example, below is a screen shot from the Rankin v State stickie, and I've added Samuel E. Rankin as a person of interest with this case. Currently Stickies can only be viewed by the network owner, but maybe in the future Ancestry will make these searchable or shareable. The Stickie note feature is really great and I hope that Ancestry enables that for regular users outside of Pro Tools. Within the Stickie note feature, you can use it to create "To Do" lists. My use will definitely evolve as I work more with it.

I've shared some initial feedback to Ancestry through a survey link they have at the top of the networks page. I am hoping they add the ability to create sub-networks within the main network. In my current example, this would allow me to separate the men of the 9th Tennessee Cavalry involved in the case from those who were just part of the regiment, or group the witnesses and family members of Thornhill and separate them from the defendants.

Some other uses that I see for this tool is to use it with groups of DNA mystery matches, potentially in place of a floating tree. I might try to create a Network in LaSalle County, Illinois connecting the Irish immigrants enumerated in the 1850 US Census to find potential links to my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget.

Murder was the case...

 

FamilySearch. Grainger County, TN. 12 Dec 1865.

This is the companion case to State v Riggs, filed in Grainger County, Tennessee in December 1865, from an earlier action filed in Jefferson County. The screenshot above shows State vs James Berry, which was combined with the Riggs case on appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1866. I'm posting here for later research.

I am currently working with Ancestry's new Networks feature with the John Thornhill case as my first network. This will be the subject of a longer post on Friday, but so far, this is the perfect example of the value of the new Networks. I'll walk through this step by step with how I'm utilizing the tool so far, and where it can be improved with some additions.

State v Berry. Jefferson County, TN. 1865.

Assigning a DNA beneficiary

Ahead of World DNA Day later this month, DNA Study Group has a daily series of challenges to encourage participation. Today's challenge is to assign a DNA beneficiary to the kits one might administer on the various DNA company sites or to communicate with your loved ones on your final wishes for your DNA results. While both are good, the first one, assigning a beneficiary to the DNA results I administer, may be easier.

At RootsTech last month, Ancestry had an Exhibit Hall talk at their booth to walk through the process of assigning a Legacy contact to your Ancestry account. This is fairly easy, and can be found on the Account Settings on Ancestry, then scroll down the page to "Legacy contact", appearing in a box under Region and Language. Once you've added the name and email for the person you want to name as your Legacy contact, Ancestry then sends a confirmation to you like the one below, and presumably an email to the person who has been named as the Legacy contact.

Notification email from Ancestry.

Although I'm hoping to be around for quite some time, I've reached the age where unfortunately friends and colleagues have died too soon. It doesn't hurt to plan ahead and think about who you may want to manage DNA data and those DNA connections after one passes. I want this information preserved so that future generations in the family can build from my own DNA discoveries. New technology and advancements may come along after me which allow us to break through mysteries unimaginable today.

Research Progress April 2025

A new cycle of DNA Study Group starts today with Your DNA Guide. It's been a month since my last DNA research progress post. With the start of the new cycle, I'm updating my research questions. All of these are DNA-related, so it doesn't make sense to break them down by type of course.

1 - Identifying the Irish parents of Bridget, my 3rd-great-grandmother. I am hoping some fresh approaches with Study Group will shake loose new ideas for using DNA to identify mystery matches to her line.

2 - Determining the generation of connection with the Pennsylvania O'Briens. I'm going to try again with the WATO course to see if another attempt makes it easier to work with.

3 - Verify the father of Cora Belle Medcalf using DNA matches.

4 - Identify possible siblings of my 3rd-great-grandfather Gabriel Vasquez, allowing for further research in Chilean records.

5 - Identifying living descendants of Jose Jesus Amado and Gertrudis Palomino (my 5th-great-grandparents), and explore a potential connection to the Amado family of Los Angeles, founders of the Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel.

6 - Determining the connection to the cluster of Amado matches on FamilyTreeDNA.

7 - Locating another Jones cousin for YDNA testing.

8 - Working with a Campuzano cousin to potentially take a mtDNA test, giving us a MitoTree haplogroup for some of the maternal branches on the Mexican side of the tree.

9 - Exploring the Campuzano side of the YDNA results to see if we can make a connection back to Spain.

10 - Working forward on the McIntosh line for cousins to encourage to YDNA test. I am going to Scotland in June and will be viewing records on John McIntosh at the University of Edinburgh.

11 - Identifying the connection with the mystery Guerrero-Leyva group of matches. I think the common ancestor is on the Portillo side of the tree.

12 - Working with mtDNA matches and trying to identify connections.

Again, these are DNA questions I'm using for Study Group. I am still pursuing other research, such as:

• Awaiting the copy of the marriage record and certificate for Agnes Atherton O'Brien in Indianapolis from 1881. 
• Awaiting the addition of Sonoran records to FamilySearch Labs' Full Text Search.
• Picking up the trail on the Havens family in Monmouth County, New Jersey.
• Using Ancestry's new Networks tool.
• Planning a possible RootsTech 2026 talk idea.