Favorite "Ancestor" You've Lost

FnDuck, always nice to meet a cousin, especially one doesn't mind ruffling a few feathers. There's definitely something fishy about that recipe, and it isn't just the (red) herring.. If you didn't squander all your Muscatel boozing that crab, finish it off with a toast to Beantown:

"And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God."

Marilyn
I think OneNote or EverNote would serve your scratch pad/todo list requirements. There's a howto video on the net the link of which I forget but I'm sure you'll find it with Google. Apparently OneNote is the better of the two.
Hope that helps.

Marilyn Jean Horn - oh Marilyn I love your ideas - and why not dream? I am still dreaming of the GENI as it was before the crash for for the non-pros I sure miss there input and I sure dislike all the multiple trees they have started and abandoned even today someone sees a connection joins and finds that they are unable to do anything or go anywhere with their tree and dropp out.... as for ruffling feathers it can be some what fun but can put you on the outs with alot of people on GENI I am learnign to bit my tongue and keep alot of my thoughts to myself anymore and just work on getting my alot research entered into GENI there is a longway to go and it may never ever get done before I pass on to that big Genealogy graveyard with my former coherts from 1976 to present thus far I don't think I have lost anyone the past couple fo years but with computer malfunctions who knows and some have gotten weary of working on genealogy for many reasons

I'm new here and extremely new to genealogy! I've only been using Geni for about a month and have made some progress. I did have James Madison, 4th president of the United States, but he's disappeared! Still shows his father and when I search his name it says he is my first cousin six times removed. What could have happened to him?

Teri it's a lot of fun - and weird - to see the relationships change. That's partly in response to new lines being added to Geni, partly that the relationship path is different based on the "focus" person, and partly from documenting efforts. Old myths get dispelled.:)

I can assure you are still likely to maintain a relationship to the oh so prolific Harrison family - and it looks like if you're related to one president, you're related to all of them except Martin van Buren (Dutch ancestry).

When I first started Geni, I was related to Martin Van Buren through his wife being my cousin, later through changes in the tree, Martin Van Buren was my 4th Cousin 7x through my 8th grandmother Marritje Van Buren Schermerhorn. One may not pan out, but there may be other options.

Erica...looks like you are my 16th cousin once removed!! LOL It's almost like when you go so far back you are related to everyone!!

Curious, what makes you say if I'm related to one president, @James Madison, that I'm related to all, except van Buren.

Right now I'm trying to just do my mother's mother's side, but I'm running into a lot of road bumps. It becomes so overwhelming. I mean, how does one "find" a relative without any clues? For instance, almost all the branch I've found is off my great-grandfather (mother's mother's father), but can't find diddly about his wife. Have her name, have searched it...nothing! Frustrating!

Teri - a 12 year old proved that all Presidents except Van Buren share common ancestry: http://www.quora.com/Are-all-the-US-Presidents-related-to-each-other

Candace - as a Schermerhorn you "own" New Netherlands! And Brooklyn Heights!:) We need to fix your connection to prez Martin.

Erica,
How old is that 12 year old now? Or is there a Hawaiian branch to the Harrison family? :)

Pocahontas is one I'm constantly losing and reconnecting to. I don't know that side well enough and haven't tried researching it yet to see if she truly is my 13th or whatever great grandmother, but I check every now and then to see if she's still connected or if she's been reconnected.

People who watch too much Walt Disney keep trying to re marry her to John Rolfe when in fact she was married to John Smith, as in "Tobacco."

It takes a lot of work to lose Smith in a family tree! Still the most common surname I think ...

and after they were married they moved to Salt Lake City. I don't believe they were lost though. ..... ttfn

I know how you feel about incorrect data on a tree. This morning I came across a query about a wife entered. I searched my records and wikipedia and found that this was not a wife but a mother in law incorrectly placed. Now, if I can remember who it was, I will point this out, but when it is corrected, someone is going to have the wrong pathway. However, in this instance, it is not too far off. Until a person is "locked" on geni, the data is at the mercy of people who enter half truths and probably with purely innocent intent. However, it does send readers onto a journey which may create a load of hard work correcting once the error is found.

Marilyn, I too, love your ideas!! There has to be a way to do it!!
Any creative people out there?

Justin and Brendan --

Thanks for your suggestions for note-keeping software. I had never heard of EverNote, let along NoteFuser, but I'll take them for a spin on my home computers. I won't be able to use them from the library because Chrome isn't installed (and they don't let you install your own software). EverNote looks like something I might be able to use for a lot of things. I'm not so sure about NoteFuser. From my quick look at it, it's meant for attaching notes to particular profiles. It seems like you might as well type directly into Geni.

I have been using OneNote on my home computer, and it's less than ideal. It's cumbersome and I really dislike the fact that everything you paste onto a page becomes its own textbox.