Saturday Night Genealgy Fun - Semi-Random Research

Courtesy of Randy Seaver at Geneamusings,

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to:

1)  We're going to do a little bit of Semi-Random Research tonight...what is your first name? [This is the easy part!]

2)  Go to your family tree database of choice (you know, like RootsMagic, Reunion, Ancestry Member Tree), and determine who the first person in your alphabetical name index is with a surname starting with the first two letters of your first name (e.g., my first name is RAndall, so I'm looking for the first person with a surname starting with RA).  [If there are no surnames with those first two letters, take the surname after that letter combination.]

3)  What do you know about this person based on your research?  It's OK to do more if you need to - in fact, it's encouraged!

4)  How are you related to this person, and why is s/he in your family tree?

5)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook Status post or Google+ Stream post.

Here's mine:

1)  Easy enough.  My name is Daniel.

2)  My database of choice tonight is Rootsmagic 5, as I'm on my laptop away from home and my other databases.  Hobson's choice.  The first person in my tree with the surname starting with DA is Albert Dakins.  This will be interesting, as I have almost nothing on Albert right now.  Looks like I get to do the research portion of this SNGF!

3)  Albert Dakins is the son of Edgar Dakins and Amelda Thurston.  That's it, all I have when I started this assignment.  Let's see what I can find.  In my MyHeritage database, I find that Albert Dakins also has a brother, Alonzo Rolland Dakins, and a sister, Nettie Dakins.  Albert's mother, Amelda Thurston, was born in 1867, which means Albert was probably born about 1890, give or take a few years.  Research is made more difficult as Albert had an uncle also named Albert Dakins.  Alas, everything I can find on short notice appears to refer to the elder Albert H. Dakins, born about 1862, and not the younger Albert Dakins who is the subject of this post.  I did find that Edgar Dakins had a second marriage in 1899 to Mary Worden, which union brought Albert a half-brother whose name I do not yet have, and a new sister, Violet.

4)  I am related to this person through his grandfather, Joseph B. Thurston, b. 1832 in Wellington, Piscataquis County, Maine.  Joseph is the brother of Alfred Mellin Thurston, one of my paternal great-great-grandfathers.  This makes him my second cousin, twice removed.  It's actually Joseph's father John that is our common ancestor.  My grandmother Alta May Day was very connected to her Thurston side, and left me considerable data on that family.  Thus, Albert is in my tree.

5) This is it!  Have you done one yet?

This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2013 by Daniel G. Dillman