Roots Tech Conference 2012

The 2012 "Roots Tech" conference was just held in Salt Lake City, Utah on February 2, 3, and 4.  It was another marvelous experience.  It fries the brain, but gives new energy to the work of Family History.  Here I go again with more goals than time to accomplish.  The idea for this blog came about last year from this conference and has been much, much more successful and appreciated than I had envisioned.  It is feeling good to get my treasure chest in "The Cloud" for every one to see and use.    I have plans to start another blog to use as a research log (another idea gained from this year's conference).

One of the main topics for this year's conference was "Cloud Computing."  It seems as if everything is going in the direction of online server companies for data collections and programs. The software companies are busy getting their programs ready for online servers so we can have our data and everything else backed up in a place (cloud) which isn't subject to so much human error and mechanical mistakes.   This is the accepted direction in the computer world so us old folks just need to "get used to it."  I heard one person comment that maybe if we get everything in "the clouds", our ancestors can find it more easily and help us more.  Good thought!

Advantages:    Our online data can be easily synced to other computers with just a click. I have two computers and the data I select to be on both computers is automatically synced when saved to my cloud.  (My cloud company happens to be Dropbox.com).   The links on my blog posts are another example of this.  These links to pictures and documents are in the cloud (Dropbox) and are there for you with just a click.  There is nothing to send back and forth or to get lost on a CD of thumb drive.  I have recently shared many recent photos with my children via "the cloud".  I just put multiple pictures in a shared folder, share the folder with them, instantly they had the pictures.  This only took a few minutes to accomplish.  This is all amazing!!! Love it!!  If you want to learn more about "dropbox" look at "favorite websites" in the heading of this blog.

Marriage of John Lee and Sarah Ann Lever Tysoe

Here's where the tricky part of this line comes along. (This could be a little more tricky than Thomas Henry Lee changing his name to Henry Lee-Thomas).   This concerns the marriage of Sarah Ann to John Lee.  The link here is to their marriage certificate. 

You will notice that the name for Sarah Ann is, "Sarah Ann Tysoe."  It appears that Sarah Ann's mother (Sarah Thornton) was married twice:  first to George Lever, and second to Joseph Tysoe.  Most of Sarah Thornton's children were born of the marriage to Joseph Tysoe.  Sarah Thornton had two children (Sarah Ann and Joseph) with George Lever and seven children with Joseph Tysoe.  There is no proof that Joseph Tysoe actually adopted Sarah Ann and Joseph, but Sarah Ann gives Tysoe as her name when she married John Lee.  This two marriage idea on Sarah Thornton is the consensus of the family (in Australia too) with the documents which we have currently.  This could all change if future different proof comes to light.  Anyone who would like to take this on?

In the future I will post many certificates from the John Lee/Sarah Ann Lever/Tysoe family and the Joseph Tysoe/Sarah Thornton family.  For now just enjoy this certificate, study the Lee pedigree chart so that you can follow this along.  Here is the link to the marriage certificate.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10071252/Marriage%20Sarah%20Lever%20Tysoe%2C%20John%20Lee.pdf

Sarah Ann Lever; Birth Certificate (Mother of Thomas Henry Lee)

The following link is to the birth certificate of Sarah Ann Lever (mother of Thomas Henry Lee), and wife of John Lee. She was born as Sarah Ann Lever, daughter of George Lever and Sarah Thornton. Notice on the birth certificate that the parents were married "At Sea". Could be on the way to Australia???  Also, that there were two other children listed as living at the time of this birth. It is believed that George Lever had been married before and these children were his by a previous marriage.  I have no certificates to back this up.    There is also a link to a picture of Sarah Ann which she sent to her grandson, Maurice.  Also, there is a picture of John Lee and Sarah Ann.  The young man in the picture with John and Sarah is Clarence Leslie Lee.  He is the brother of Thomas Henry Lee and the father of Margaret Lee Haag (the relative from Australia who found Steve and I a few years back).  Here are the links.  

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10071252/Sarah%20Ann%20Lever%20-%20Birth%20Certificate.pdf

 http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10071252/John%20Lee%2C%20Sarah%20Ann%20Lever.pdf

John Lee: Moving Back One Generation

New Year's Resolution:  Family History goes to the top of the list.  It's only December 31st, but a good time to start the 2012 resolution.
It might be a good idea to go back now and look at the "Lee Line Pedigree Chart" found on the top of blog in a heading.  It is time to move back one generation to John Lee who is the father of Thomas Henry Lee (Henry Lee-Thomas). 
There's some opportunity for confusion with this line so I'm going to move slowly through it and explain things as I go.  The link below is the birth certificate for John Lee.  It is interesting, as you will see,  how much information my grandma Ruby had gathered on this family.  She had limited income and had to do all of this via letters going and coming by boat.  It appears by some of her correspondence that she actually paid for some of the research.  Amazing!!

Link to Birth Certificate:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10071252/Birth%20Certificate%2C%20John%20Lee.pdf

Australia War Memorial: Roll of Honor Project

I did contact the Australia War Memorial and heard back from a very nice man who wishes to have a photo of Corporal Henry Lee-Thomas to add to their Roll of Honor Project.  I sent him some examples of the photos in my possession and he wishes to have the family portrait of Henry, Ruby, and my dad. (It is in one of the earlier posts).   He says it is a beautiful portrait. The photo is in very good condition considering that it has to be near 95 years old.   It does have Henry in his uniform.  This is a great way to memorialize and honor Henry, Ruby, and Maurice.  The Australia project does have some guidelines for me to follow in scanning the pictures and they must be sent to them on a DVD.  It may take a few weeks before this picture actually appears in their collection.  I will let you all know when it is there.

Yes, it is very interesting where this Family History journal takes you.  I would have never thought that I would be contributing to such a collection.  I wonder what lies ahead???  I need to get busy so that some more of the photos and documents I have can be shared with all of you great family and other interested persons.

Henry Lee-Thomas: More Information

About the time I think it's time to move on to another family, I learn a bit more to share about the current people.  I had a response from my previous post telling me that the Australian War Memorial might be interested in the photos that Henry Lee-Thomas sent home from WW1.  I've been to that Web Site just now and they do have records of Henry and I went on to find a picture of the cemetery in Belgium where he is buried and some more war records.  The two web sites are:  Simply search on his name.
http://www.awm.gov.au (war memorial)
http://www.cwgc.org/ (grave information)
I have sent an e-mail to the Australian War Memorial to see if they would like copies of the photo albums.  Amazing where this Family History journey takes you.

P.S.  One of my daughters asked me when I was going to post more of the tape recorded history of Maurice Lee-Thomas.  That which I have posted is all there is to that recording.  Sad, isn't it?  So now let's all get busy on keeping a journal or some record of our lives.

Henry Lee-Thomas: World War 1 Photos

Henry Lee-Thomas sent home two small photo albums and a post card from World War 1.  These have  fallen in to my hands and are in unusually good shape considering their age.    These are the original albums which were mailed home in 1915 and 1916.  That makes them almost 100 years old.  I have just scanned them today and want to share with everyone.  The first album was sent to Myrtle Moore  (Myrtle Thredgold) who was Henry's sister-in-law and Ruby Thredgold's sister.  The second album was to a "Miss Pickering."  I have no idea who this person was.  The last two photos are of a post card which Henry sent to his wife and baby.  (Ruby and Maurice).  The post card caption says, "The Strafer Strafed."  I looked up "Strafer" on "google" and found the following definition:

Verb:  To attack (ground troops for example) with gun or cannon from a low flying aircraft.
Noun:  An atttack of machine gun or cannon fire from low flying aircraft.
Common World War 1 slogan. 

This will make sense when you see the last photo.  Here is the link to this group of photos:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10071252/Wold%20War%201%20Henry%20Lee-Thomas.pdf