Debby Hutton – Girl of Month

Today, Jan 2, 2013 I got a message through Ancestry.com from Donna an owner of a family tree thanking me for the information. I didn’t remember what she was referring since I send out so many messages but I did have the message date Sept 2012 and my original message which contained the newspaper link. I copied the link to the newspaper item (which I always include in the messages I send out) and brought up the newspaper.

It turns out that the item had a picture along with a nice write up, so I captured and cropped out the item with the picture of “Debby Hutton Girl of the Month”. I put that cropped screen print into the fake tree that I had created for that item back in September. I then replied to Donna, sending her, the link to my tree where she could grab the picture of Debby and the screen print of the write up. I then went back to my “Found” files, located the Debby Hutton file and opened up the original message. I then sent out a message to all the family trees that were listed giving them the link to my tree and telling them that there was a picture of Debby on it.

I tell you all this to illustrate how one simple act, letter or message can impact many people.

Back in September 2012 I followed my usual procedure for the item “Debby Hutton Girl of the Month” and sent out the link to the newspaper item along with a text file to seven (7) family tree owners. In September I did not know how to capture the screen so sending the link to the newspaper item was the best that I could do.

Almost right away I received a beautiful letter from Sharon, one of the owners which justified all the hard work I was putting into my newspaper project. The letter started off like this:

“After my husband woke me from a sound sleep and a wonderful dream, I reached for my first cup of coffee this morning and have now forgiven him! …now that I’m awake, what a wonderful way to start my day!!! I can’t wait to get into my tree again and connect the dots…”

That letter kept me going on with my newspaper project which at that time seemed a formidable task. I had only completed identifying 605 newspapers out of 2440.

As readers of my Blog know, I did complete the task on Dec 10 and went on to do other things.

Well, today I received the message from Donna and that message allowed me to go back to the September item and capture the screen with the story and write up. Since my Blogs have been focused on “Not Found” items or new stories it would have been months before I got to the September “Found” file and even then I may have missed doing the “Debby” item. As it turns out Donnas’ message got me to look at that September item and in turn I was able to add a picture to a tree and inform seven (7) other tree owners about the new picture available for their trees.

Thus, one simple act, letter or message can impact peoples’ lives or just their family trees.

The “Debby” item is of particular interest because the information in the item is so limited.
The following is the information I had to work with to find a family tree or to create a fake family tree.

“The Leader”, Frederick, Oklahoma, Jan 3, 1968
Miss Debby Hutton daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Buster Hutton has been chosen as AAUW Girl of the Month for January…
A senior student at Frederick High School…”

As you will note there are no dates or ages for the two people (Mr. Buster Hutton and Debby Hutton) mentioned so I had very little to work with.
I was not able to find a family tree doing a simple search “Debby with father Buster Hutton”, so I created a fake tree for Debby.

These are the clues I used to create the tree. Since the newspaper was dated 1968 and she was a senior in high school I could guess at her age. Since I could get an approximate birth date for her I could guess at her fathers’ age and birth date. Putting those names and approximate dates into Ancestry.com allowed Ancestry.com to give me possible matches. As I reviewed the matches and included the good ones into the tree I got more hints and I was able to build a family tree for “Debby Hutton Girl of the Month”. It took several generations of family members before I got the hint of an existing family tree but when that hint came it gave me seven (7) family trees which had a connection to Debby.

Here is what the fake tree looks like once I stopped adding information on it because I found family trees.

It all sounds so simple but it is not, it takes time and effort to put the pieces together. What makes it easier is Ancestry.com which is working in the background trying to match all the information you type in to other documents they have in their data base. They can only suggest possible matches it is up to you to make the decision to use the information they give you. You also have to use FamilySearch.org because there you can find marriages (if they have them) by just typing in the two last names. They also have a good data base for children’s births and marriages when all you know are the names of the parents.

You may think I work for Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org, because of all the glowing remarks about them but I do not; I just think their products work great for creating family trees.

Now you see it is possible to build a tree from very little information (two names and a date). As I’ve stated before in other blogs you too can build a tree or a branch to your tree with information you have in that “TO DO” box in the attic. It does not matter if all you have is a picture of Uncle Ralph in his uniform dated 1942, you can build upon those little clues and perhaps create his branch of the family.

You also now know that one simple act, letter or message does affect other people even if those other people are strangers.

Thank You

To View the Original Select Frederick Daily Leader in this box: