My Family
Tree
International Academy West
2012 Length:2064
Jaimee Stull
Table of Contents
Criterion B…. 3
Criterion C…. 4
Criterion D….6
Criterion E….7
Criterion F….7
Bibliography….8
Appendix….11
Personal Project essay
Criterion B
I had a wide variety of ideas for my personal project and it took me a while to decide
which idea I wanted to use for my personal project. The idea I decided to use for my personal
project was the idea to research my family’s history and origins, and put them into a book about
my family tree. I chose this topic because I have always wondered about where my family came
from and what my ethnic background was. I have asked my parents about their family history
before but they never really knew much about it, so this project was a great excuse to do my own
research into my family’s past. I decided to put all of the information I collected into a book
because it seem like a more creative way to display my research than a poster or PowerPoint. I
also chose to make a book because it is a more durable and smaller way to keep my project
together and I can keep my project for a long time.
The area of interaction that my project falls under is approaches to learning. My project
falls under this area of interaction because I will be learning how to us a website to create a book
online. For my book I will have to learn how to use the different editing features on the website
and how to make my book look visually appealing. I will also have to learn how to create and fill
out a pedigree chart. The pedigree chart will allow me to organize my family tree in the proper
format that is used by professionals.
My goal for my project is to research my family’s history back to the early 19th century
or late 18th century. I originally wanted to research back to when the people in my family arrived
in America. I changed it to around 1800 because I discovered that it is very difficult to find
records dating back to when some of the people in my family arrived in the Country. This goal
will still be challenging because when I started my research I knew almost nothing about the
people on my mom’s side of the family. I think my goal is reasonable because I will still be
going back pretty far in my family history but not back far enough that I would not be able to
find anything and that I would not be able to finish my project in time. I think I will be able to
achieve this goal because the records for people in the country at the different time periods were
kept better and are easier to find.
I think that there are many different specifications that could be used to grade my
personal project. One of the specifications that could be used is accuracy because my book could
be very neat and pretty but if all of my information was wrong than the project would not matter.
Another specification that could be used to grade my project is neatness because if my project is
not neat then it may seem like I did not put any effort into the final product. Creativity could be
another specification because the project could have accurate information and be very neat and
organized but if the project is not creative and visually appealing no one will want to be
interested in it. A final specification could be how well the project fits into the area of interaction
because if the project does not fit into one of the areas, the person did not follow directions and
the project may not follow guidelines.
Criterion C
I used a variety of sources for my personal project. Some of the sources I used were
online websites that gave me information about how to document my research on my family
history. I choose these sources because I have never done anything like this before and I needed
to learn the different ways to format and record my research. I also used books that other
members of my family had that contained information about my family. I used these sources
because they are primary sources for people directly in my family and may have been able to tell
me more information about my family members than websites could have. I found that the books
tended to work better when getting information for multiple reasons. One reason was that the
books would have the correct spelling of people’s names when websites that contain documents,
such as immigration records, could have the name misspelled. Another reason why the books
tended to be more helpful than websites is that the books will automatically tell the correct
information about the correct person, while if I typed a person’s name into a people search
website I could find fifty people with the same name and it would be very hard to know who the
correct person was. I did not have very many difficulties finding my resources because I already
had most the resources that I was using, I just needed to use them.
I used two different print sources to gain information to use for my personal project. One
of the print resources I used was a book that my uncle had made with a large collection of my
family members in it. I used this source because it contained a lot of basic information about a
lot of different family and it gave me something to go off of when I was researching more about
the people. This source was very easy to obtain and it was valuable because it contain a lot of
information about my family that I would have never been able to find or it would’ve taken me a
very long time to find. Another print source that I used for my personal project was a small book
that belonged to my great grandmother. I used this book because it contains the names and
birthdays of many different people in my family and it was a very trustworthy primary source.
The book was given to me from my aunt who had gotten it from my great grandmother when she
passed away. I also used a variety of electronic resources when I was doing research for my
personal project. Two of the resources that I used were people search websites. I used these
websites because they allowed me to find more information about the people in my family that
was not available to me in my print resources. The websites that I used were very easy to access
and were very user friendly. These websites were very valuable because they allowed me to find
various government documents about the people in my family, such as military records and
census records from various decades. I did not use very many human resources because all of the
information that I learned for these resources I already knew from the print and electronic
resources.
I was very particular when I was deciding which information to discard and which
information to include in my final project. When I was deciding which information to discard I
went and I looked at what the source of the information was, if the source wasn’t credible or
seemed to be lacking than I discarded that piece of information. I also discard information if it
seemed not have a lot of pieces to it because than the information does not seem to be as reliable.
Criterion D
I did a lot of work to complete my personal project that required a lot of time. The first
thing that I did when I was trying to complete my personal project was I did my research on my
ancestors. After I was done gathering my information I took all of my findings and started to
organize it. I needed to decide what information was valuable and would be beneficial to my
project and what information was unnecessary and was a waste of space. Once I had narrowed
down my information to what I thought was useful, I started to put my information into a book
that I was creating online about my family history. Once I had all of the information put into my
book I went and found pictures of as many of my family members as possible. Once I had found
as many pictures as I could I went and put them next to the information that I had on that person.
I did not really develop any specific techniques when I was working on my project, I just kind of
went with whatever happened.
Criterion E
I never really needed to adjust my goal throughout the process of completing my personal
project. I never really needed to change my goal because when I was determining my goal for
my project originally I thought about it very carefully and decided on a very realistic but still
challenging goal. I feel like I achieved my original goal for my project because I put a good
amount of information into my project and it answered a lot of the questions that I had about my
family history that I had at the beginning of this process. I did have to alter some of the
specifications that I had set for my personal project. The major specification that I had to change
was how much information I was going to include about each of my family members. Before I
had specified that I wanted to include a bunch of information about each of the people in my
family. Later on in the process of completing my project I realized that I should probably narrow
down what specific information I wanted to include. I would award myself a high level of
achievement because my project is very neat and is completed. My project also shows that I
spent a lot of time and put a lot of effort into it.
Criterion F
I learned a lot about myself from my investigation of my family history, I also learned a
lot about documenting family trees from this process. My response to my inquiry question is that
a book is a very good way to learn about my family history because it allows me to be able to
view my work very quickly and easily and it will also be around for a long time so I can look at
it in the future if I have any questions. The research aspect of my project really helped me to get
a better understanding of my topic because it was at this point when I started to really see who
my family was. I have a new understanding for the approaches to learning area of interaction
because I had never really realized how many different ways there are to learn new things. The
area of interaction didn’t really give me a better understanding of my topic because I knew that I
would be learning many new skills and other things, so I was already expecting to learn a lot. I
think I did my project very well because it had a lot of time and effort put into it and it is a very
neat and organized final product. I feel like I displayed my information very well in my personal
project. If I had to change things about my project I think that I would do more research to try
and find more of my family members. One major skill that I needed to develop for this project
was organization because if my work was not organized all of my research could have been
messed up and my final product may have not turned out as neat. I gained the new skill of not
procrastinating because this was a project that really could not be procrastinated on and could not
be done at the last minute, so it really required me to focus and concentrate on finishing the
project. I saved my journals digitally on the internet. This was my preferred method because then
I didn’t have to worry about losing papers because everything was organized in one place. I think
I exhibited the learner profile trait of inquirers because I had to ask myself a lot of questions and
had to figure out a lot of different things in order to find my information.
Bibliography
"United States Census, 1930," index and images, FamilySearch
(https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/X9SF-JBM : accessed 19 Sep 2012), Richard Dettman in
household of Walter Dettman, Burlington, Racine, Wisconsin; citing enumeration district (ED)
0002, sheet 8B, family 211, NARA microfilm publication T626, roll 2606.
"United States Census, 1930," index and images, FamilySearch
(https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/X9SF-JYB : accessed 19 Sep 2012), Walter Dettman,
Burlington, Racine, Wisconsin; citing enumeration district (ED) 0002, sheet 8B, family 211,
NARA microfilm publication T626, roll 2606.
"United States Census, 1930," index and images, FamilySearch
(https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/X9SF-JY1 : accessed 19 Sep 2012), Dorothy Dettman in
household of Walter Dettman, Burlington, Racine, Wisconsin; citing enumeration district (ED)
0002, sheet 8B, family 211, NARA microfilm publication T626, roll 2606.
"United States Census, 1930," index and images, FamilySearch
(https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/X9SF-JB9 : accessed 19 Sep 2012), Lorraine Dettman in
household of Walter Dettman, Burlington, Racine, Wisconsin; citing enumeration district (ED)
0002, sheet 8B, family 211, NARA microfilm publication T626, roll 2606.
"United States Census, 1940," index and images, FamilySearch
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household of Wallace Swanson, Roscoe Borough, Washington, Pennsylvania, United States;
citing enumeration district (ED) 63-116, sheet 10A, family 206, NARA digital publication T627,
roll 3625.
"United States Census, 1940," index and images, FamilySearch
(https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/KQCR-JPV : accessed 19 Sep 2012), Anna M Swanson
in household of Wallace Swanson, Roscoe Borough, Washington, Pennsylvania, United States;
citing enumeration district (ED) 63-116, sheet 10A, family 206, NARA digital publication T627,
roll 3625.
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Ward 3, Burlington, Burlington City, Racine, Wisconsin, United States; citing enumeration
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household of Simon Grevena, , Washington, Pennsylvania; citing enumeration district (ED) ,
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in household of Henry Henning, , Racine, Wisconsin; citing enumeration district (ED) , sheet
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Dettmann, Burlington city, Racine, Wisconsin.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "Discover Your Family History."
FamilySearch.org a Free Family History and Genealogy Records. The Church of Jesus Christ of
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Appendix
Sample Process Journal Entries
Sample Book Pages
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my parents for their help throughout the process of completing my
Personal Project. If I had not had their help I do not think that my project would have turned out
as well as it did. I would also like to thank Ms. Halabi for her encouragement throughout the
entire process of working on my Personal Project.