Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen

A Chat with the Brick Hitter

January 07, 2023 Kathleen Brandt Season 1 Episode 0
Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen
A Chat with the Brick Hitter
Show Notes Transcript

Kathleen and John talk about the podcast and how it got started.  

A "brick-wall"  DIY genealogy podcast that features your questions and Kathleen Brandt's answers. She wants your stories, questions, and “brick walls”.   But be ready to add to your "to-do" list.  As Kathleen always says, this is a Do it yourself (DIY) genealogy podcast. “I'll show you where the shovel is, but I'm not digging up your family.”  
Maybe, you have no idea where to start searching for an ancestor. Or, perhaps you want to know more about your family folklore. Host Kathleen has 20 years in the industry and is the founder of a3genealogy. She's able to dispense genealogy research advice and encouragement in understandable terms that won't get you lost in genealogy jargon. 

Along with her husband and co-host, John, she helps you accomplish "do-it-yourself" research goals, learn some history, and have a bit of fun along the way. Light-hearted and full of detailed info, Hittin' the Bricks is your solution for your brick-wall research problems.



Be sure to bookmark linktr.ee/hittinthebricks for your one stop access to Kathleen Brandt, the host of Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen. And, visit us on YouTube: Off the Wall with Kathleen John and Chewey video recorded specials.

Hittin' the Bricks is produced through the not-for-profit, 501c3 TracingAncestors.org.
Thanks to MyHeritage for their generous support to Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen! Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to HTB with Kathleen in order to enter your name in our monthly MyHeritage Complete Package giveaway starting Jan 2024!

00:00

John Brandt

Ladies and gentlemen, from the depths of fly-over country in the heartland of America, the Kansas City, on the other side of the mighty MO. Welcome to Hitting the Bricks with Kathleen, The genealogy show that features your questions and her answers. I am John, your humble hobby host. And on this first episode, we'll be getting to know a bit about the brick-hitter herself Kathleen Brandt. And so now, let's start Hittin’ the Bricks

 John Brandt

It's December 26, 2022, a blustery day in Kansas City, Missouri. And yes, that makes a difference to the people who live here, whether it's Missouri or Kansas. We hit a new high this week, I think 23 degrees. How was your commute, Kathleen?

 Kathleen Brandt

Everything was wonderful because my path was just open and it was just wonderful.

 John Brandt

So you're talking about from the bedroom to the office?

 Kathleen Brandt

Yes, that's exactly that's the path I'm referring to. But thanks for asking.

 John Brandt

Well, okay. So I thought what we do is with our inaugural episode, we’d get to know who's behind Hittin’ the Bricks and get to know a bit about Kathleen Brandt.

 Kathleen Brandt

That’s me.

 John Brandt

It is you. Let's see where to start, because I know the answer to a lot of questions, but I think people would be interested. And so, for example, what was your first experience? What got you into genealogy and family history?

 Kathleen Brandt

Actually, my family, when I was a little girl, my grandfather would talk about it, my maternal grandfather, we would have these epic car rides across Kansas to Oklahoma and Northern the panhandle of Oklahoma. And he would talk about each little town and what cousins lived there and aunts. And for some reason, he talked about three that I did not know of and had never met.  And he would talk about other experiences and people he met and he made it sound like that was all of the family he had. Now, later through research, I realized that that family actually had 11 children and over half of them were boys. But he didn't mention them, only his father and his three aunts.

 John Brandt

So it's interesting because my family is so small, as you know, and I knew my dad had his two sisters and that was it. He talked about Dot and Aunt Helen, but I really didn't know much about anybody else.

 Kathleen Brandt

Yeah, my family's pretty small. I have three first cousins, my mother has three first cousins, and my father has three first cousins.

 John Brandt

But your father was an only child, right?

 Kathleen Brandt

Yes, he was an only child. And his mother was an only child. So, our family's pretty small. Up to a point. But the generation before that, on my mother's side, there was two brothers, the Morris Brothers. One had 13 children and one had an 11.

 John Brandt

That's that that grew rapidly. And you didn't you didn't have an idea about that when you were a kid?

 Kathleen Brandt

No one did. I dug them up and they all came.

John Brandt

You mean that figuratively through research, right? You didn't physically dig them up. I don't want you admitting to any felonies.

 Kathleen Brandt

No felonies Here. You. You went with me to the big city of Coffeyville and the cemetery.

 John Brandt

Where was that, where was that one where we went to, where we. We walked through that graveyard, and we were so filthy.

 Kathleen Brandt

Just the dust South Coffeyville, Kansas.

 John Brandt

I would not remember a time being that dirty other than being a kid.

 Kathleen Brandt

Yeah, it was pretty gross. Yeah, it was. Because it was so dusty, so hot, and it was so miserable under rattlesnake holes everywhere.

 John Brandt

That's right. You kept on warning me about the rattlesnakes. Great introduction to.

 Kathleen Brandt

It was pretty miserable, but I needed to see it, and it was for that side of the family.

 John Brandt

So eventually you end up getting into family research. How did you end up with a three genealogy, which is your international company that does all sorts of cool research?

 Kathleen Brandt

Well, I didn't necessarily have a real name for it at that point, but I started writing on a blog at that point. It was “AAA” genealogy and for accurate, assessable, answers. And when I was writing on this blog, I was just writing more like journaling my experience and things that I was learning and records that I found.  And so it was so much fun just writing for me. And people started seeing it. And I don't really know in my head how Google does that, but they actually populated my, articles and people started calling me and asking me for assistance.

 John Brandt

So it just kind of took off on its own really organically.

 Kathleen Brandt

It really did. Well, I started off with military, so my favorite research was really military records. I loved military records. And what you can find in these records, I mean, I found everything from, you know, slave owners to the Irish side of my family from Rutherford, North Carolina. And all of these people were just so exciting. But I was learning most of them through military records.

 5:17

John Brandt

Tied that to the blog. That was back in 2008.

 Kathleen Brandt

That was in 2008. And I spent a lot of time driving back between Kansas City and Saint Louis to the National Archives to pull military records, as well as going to D.C. a lot, which was fun because, you know, we lived there. So I got to see my friends while I was working.

 John Brandt

Yeah, that that always qualified as a boondoggle to me. For some reason, I was working and you were going back and doing work that included visiting friends that we left back east.

 Kathleen Brandt

Yeah. Let's not be jealous, Mr.

 John Brandt

Too late. Well, let me let me ask you this. What is it that you like about research? Not family research, but there's something that really, really makes you tick with with researching something.

 Kathleen Brandt

It's just untangling the mysteries. I mean, it's like doing a crossword puzzle or doing Wordle. Something has to fit in. There has to be the right answer. I think it's getting one piece at a time. As you know, I've been working on a great project lately and.

 John Brandt

Well, if I heard you cheering last night, we were we were going to we were going to watch we were going to watch a movie last night. And I was having an and unfortunately, I was thinking it could be rented through prime. There's a whole thing there where I had rented the wrong movie. And so we were going to watch a movie last night, but when I found out I couldn't rent the movie, we wanted Kathleen's down in the office and I'm hearing a kind of whoop and holler like there's a football game on.  But it's just her doing research. And so she kind of cheers herself on with, you know, you think there's a touchdown and no, she just found somebody that she was looking for something.

 Kathleen Brandt

It was quite exciting. Yeah. So. So and records were me. Everything I needed to know. And then they would give me more names to research. And as I'm research and of course, I tell everyone, even in my presentations, every document, you should have at least three questions from them. And last night I was getting like a six and seven and eight names each document.  So that made me six, seven, eight. Were people sooner or later I pulled the entire family together for three generations, so it was really exciting. You had to be there.

 John Brandt

Your true Christmas present was breakthroughs in research, actually.

 Kathleen Brandt

Well, yes, and the Chiefs won.

 John Brandt

That was a lot of fun.

 Kathleen Brandt

The game.

 John Brandt

The Chiefs game? Yeah. We spent that over at Brother's house, and that was a lot of fun, too. Yeah. We can't go into it too much without violating confidences, but I don't. I don't want to give away I don't want to give away the FBI issue and things like that.

 Kathleen Brandt

Oh, my.

 John Brandt

What's a common myth about genealogy that you're constantly having to dispel with people who just started or have just met you and are talking about it like one of your presentations?

 Kathleen Brandt

The biggest thing is everything is not online, everything is not digitized. You have to get off that database that you love so much and go into courthouses and call genealogy societies and search cemeteries, maybe walk them in record them.

 John Brandt

So, with all this research that you do, that you do and that you enjoy, what was your favorite subject in school and whether it's elementary, high school, college, whatever, what was it? What was your favorite story?

 Kathleen Brandt

Definitely not History.  I was much more into the math and engineering type stuff in in college, I was in foreign languages.

 John Brandt

Okay, So this is that seems really off because you're completely immersed in history. I'm just like, how was history? Not one of those favorite courses?

 Kathleen Brandt

My father is probably just flipping right now in his grave because he was a historian, was a history teacher, and he loved history. And every vacation we had to stop at every marker and read them and well, kind of like I'm like, you do now. But we had to read the markers and follow the, the different historical information and the triple books on each town.

 John Brandt

Wait a minute, but this is coming from a person. When we when we were first married, we took a vacation. And I remember we rented a car and we drove to the end of the driveway, and we flipped a coin, and we said east or west. The coin landed on west, and we started driving west. But on your side of the car, there were like five of those Triple A map books.

 And you read absolutely everything that would have been happening at a certain year and all the contents of them. So, I’m not getting that. You were you had a thing against history. That and ring baloney that had to be in the car when we went on any trip room baloney.

 10:00

Kathleen Brandt

Of course it did. So the first 17 years of our lives of my life, I was in the car with my parents, my mother and a librarian who was an archivist. And she would get the Triple A books and that determined where we were going and where we were stopping. And as she would read and teach and then Dad would fill in the information, I had gone to 48 states before I was 17 and couple of trips, just me and my mother.

 But in general, it was all six of us. And so, when we got married it was impressed in my automatic habit, if you're going on vacation, get the Triple A books. Don't forget to read on it. Teach John a little something while you're at it. How's that? Yeah.

 John Brandt

Yeah, I didn't almost fall asleep ever.

 Kathleen Brandt

This terrible.

 John Brandt

That never almost happened. Where I fell asleep While you were reading me out of the the triple A book?

 Kathleen Brandt

Yeah, and I still like doing it. We used to take a tour in every town. I guess I've made you take quite a few tours for quite a few cities now.

 John Brandt

But I see now you've. You got to convert on that because. Yeah. Now, now if I were, it wouldn't matter where I was traveling, if I were by myself, if I ended up in a city, I don't know. I'm going to take a hop on, hop off because you've got me. You completely converted me on that.  That's where you should start. Any first day in any new city.

 Kathleen Brandt

Yeah, we did. Those kids too. So I guess I really did have a lot of history in my background, but more so because of my family vacations than school.

 John Brandt

But what was your favorite subject in school?

 Kathleen Brandt

I would say foreign languages because language is easy and like I said, math sciences. But when I say sciences, I meant the engineering sciences, not biology. Even though I did like biology, I still don't understand the biological anything, but I did like it.

 John Brandt

It wouldn't don't divulge too much. No, no, we don't have kids, but that has nothing to do with their lack of understanding of biology.  Let's talk a bit about your day to day. You have a stable of clients that you work with, and often they're in for deep, deep research and it's not basic stuff. So how do you handle that? What is your what does your day look like?

 Kathleen Brandt

So, I am a brick wall researcher. a3genealogy is a brick wall research company. Very seldom are we doing “Ancestry” type work. I mean, every once in a while, we get those requests.

 John Brandt

Hey, is is that why this is called Hittin’ the Bricks?

 Kathleen Brandt

Yes, Hittin’ the Bricks. That's why it’s called Hittin’ the Bricks.  Because we’re hittin’ those brick walls.

 John Brandt

All this time - I've been so confused.

 Kathleen Brandt

So the brick walls is what I like the most. I like the hard jobs. Now, of course, they can last long. I mean, I've had one client for four years, have had several for three because they have already done a lot of their research. But now they're stuck and they're turning to a3genealogy to help them get past this brick wall, which most of the time I find that it's not a real brick wall, it's just that people don't know where to go.

 John Brandt

So, it's knowing the resources that you have and some and that's kind of your area where you understand all the different resources.

 Kathleen Brandt

Well, I wouldn't say all the different resources, even though I did like the sound of that. What I have figured out is in all of research, you know, you might not be able to find the documents you need to corroborate what you're looking for, but you still might find the answers to your questions by finding other documents.

 So, we're always looking for alternatives. Let's say you might not find a marriage record in a deed book. You might find it where it's recorded for one reason or another, through a dowry, through some other reason. It might be recorded through a passing of an estate or probate. All of this stuff might be found in the strangest of places.  So the key is not to leave any stone unturned.

 John Brandt

And in a lot of those records, I assume are not digitized. So what do you what do you do in those cases?

 Kathleen Brandt

Well, sometimes they're not. But the client I was working on last night, we really looking for a father of a person with a very common name, a Thompson. And there's so many Samuel Thompson's in their area. We're working in Virginia and Kentucky. So what we're looking for is his father or which one is it? The answers were in land deeds and those were digitized.  It is just that most people wouldn't think to read probably about 25 land deeds to find out and then another 15 or so to prove that that is the right family line, and you have the right family group.

 John Brandt

And if you can't prove that, how do you write that up? I mean, is somebody paying you to not be successful?

 Kathleen Brandt

Very interesting. Thanks. Thanks for the question. My business, John.

 John Brandt

How how do you how do you charge for failure?

 15:00

Kathleen Brandt

Oh, wow.  So, you know, we have the tool of DNA. DNA can definitely be a tool to help us prove or disprove something. But we also normally, people don't live in a vacuum. So sometimes we work with a community group or we work with a religious group. The last night I found this same family on the fourth generation back in the early 1700s.

 They were all Quakers, so I found them again and Quaker books. So this allowed me to follow this family across the country all the way to Missouri, even though they started off in Virginia and probably before then that was Pennsylvania. But I haven't gone that far back. But Virginia, Kentucky, they moved to Indiana and came back to Missouri.

 So with this, following the migratory trails, you normally don't come out empty handed. I mean, let's say I'm working, I'm an indentured servant and I can see the papers where he was an indentured servant, but I still can't find where in England he was from. So there is when I would turn to DNA.

 John Brandt

So there DNA can maybe help you over. Some say tumbled bricks on a brick wall. Has DNA ever proven that you were on the wrong trail?

 Kathleen Brandt

Absolutely. Absolutely. It has. This past week, the week right before Christmas.

 John Brandt

So, I'm going to just say these are two, two or three examples you've given that have happened in the last week. This is Christmas week, holiday week, and you are working way too much.

 Kathleen Brandt

I'm sorry, honey? But the movie didn't come up.

 John Brandt

You blame me. I couldn't pull that movie off. Oh, well, that's okay. That's okay.

 Kathleen Brandt

And there were lots of football games.

John Brandt

Of it's my fault.

 Kathleen Brandt

And there are a lot of football games.

 John Brandt

But this week you I'm sorry you. I interrupted So you were saying this week you you proved what is that called you say you proved a negative.

 Kathleen Brandt

I put yes, it is a negative finding. When we're working on a project and we realize we're on the wrong track, that is just as valuable because it keeps us from going down that wrong track, right? We go back and we write this, go back and write another research plan and ask the right questions again based on what our findings were. And then you're starting all over with, maybe getting on that right track.

 John Brandt

It sounds really trying and maybe annoying.

Kathleen Brandt

No, it's neither. The ancestors are having fun with me and I'm and I'm enjoying it. And these are my client’s ancestors. So, the problem with it is that everyone thinks they're doing something wrong in this case. But sometimes we just have to find, Well, okay, it's not this one. You know, as John's father wasn't Isaac or John's father wasn't Stephen.  So let's keep going. So.

 John Brandt

So the way I kind of framed that is that the ancestors are kind of having fun with you. Do you feel that way in that there's you you build a relationship with these, these long dead people who are no relation to you?

 Kathleen Brandt

You absolutely do. And that's why I always say genealogy is not about who begat who, because they came from a community. They're here in America with someone or they came alone, and they settled somewhere. So that who, what, when, where and how is so important. And they have the answer you don't. So, I talked to them, and they normally reveal the truth.

 John Brandt

What are you hoping Hittin’ the Bricks will give to its listeners?

 Kathleen Brandt

As far as Hittin’ the Bricks, I am moving the blog off the blog because the blog, as you know, is an educational blog and it's not just for me is for everybody is for the a3genealogy interns, their researchers, and anyone who wants to use it as a reference. It's a how to guide every presentation. I give, there's always this line where people are asking where to go, where, what should they do next?  Those kind of questions. What I like to do now is to share on this podcast so other people can hear the answers to some of these questions that I know more than one person has.

 John Brandt

Well, okay, so that that that's a perfect place to bring this up. This is our inaugural episode where we're learning a little bit about you, but who's going to be our first person that you're going to talk to?

 Kathleen Brandt

The first person will be Angela Rodesky.

 John Brandt

Angela Rodesky

 Kathleen Brandt

Yes. Out of Delaware.

 John Brandt

Now, everybody should understand that. We know Angie. I think she and I bonded over my hatred for the Honey Nut Cheerio Bee, If I remember right.

 Kathleen Brandt

That's funny.

 John Brandt

Yeah, I remember getting mercilessly teased because I had issues with Bees. It goes a long way back from childhood, but anyway.

 Kathleen Brandt

So you're really sharing a little too much there. John is kind of interesting.

20:00

John Brandt

All I'm doing is increasing the amount of time I have to edit. But okay. So, Angela Rodesky from Delaware, this is going to be a call in, right? She's going to call.

 Kathleen Brandt

Is going to call in.

 John Brandt

We're going to all chat.

Kathleen Brandt

Actually. What I'm looking forward to is people calling in and asking their specific questions. And I think with this kind of a format of the podcast, the answers can be widespread in that in that to help more than one person, the information can be applied across genealogical projects.

 John Brandt

So, it does sound like there's a lot of value in that. Okay. So well, congratulations to everyone. You made it to the end of the episode. Thanks so much for staying. We'd love to hear what you think about the podcast. So stop by our Facebook page at a3genealogy and let us know what you think. Is there anything else Kathleen?

 Kathleen Brandt

Kathleen I'm looking forward to joining everybody and the first episode with Angie Rodesky and we'll see what her question is and walk through it.

 John Brandt

Our thanks to Chewie, Chewbacca Brandt, our part time audio technician and full-time bed-warmer for his unwavering lack of interest in anything we're doing. The theme song for Hitting the Brakes was written and performed by Tony Fist Knuckle and the Aphids. Watch for them performing or what Security insists on calling, “loitering” at your local Costco parking lot.

 End of Transcript

Running time: 21:21

Posted to Buzzsprout, January 07, 2023