Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen

Amy Johnson Crow: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

• Kathleen Brandt • Episode 35

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Prepare to be inspired as we feature the illustrious genealogist Amy Johnson Crowe on "Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen." Discover how Amy's knack for uncovering family histories has influenced countless enthusiasts, including our host Kathleen herself. 

Embark on a journey through the innovative "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" program that champions genealogical exploration through weekly prompts. 

Website: https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/52-ancestors-in-52-weeks-new/

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.

John:

Ladies and gentlemen, from the depths of pre-solstice winter, the Kansas City, with the team everyone loves to hate. Welcome to another episode of Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen, the do-it-yourself genealogy podcast that features your questions and her answers. I am John, your humble hubby host, and today we'll be talking to Amy Johnson Crow, certified genealogist, founder of Generations Connection, author of 31 Days to Better Genealogy. And well, she's got so much going on it's easier if we just talk to her, so let's start hitting the bricks. Hey, baby, yes, we're here with Amy Johnson Crow and Kathleen. You have known Amy for quite some time, I believe.

Kathleen:

About 2008.

John:

Yeah, so you guys have a little bit of history together.

Kathleen:

Amy was one of the reasons that I'm in genealogy. Actually, I don't even know if she knows that it was her.

John:

It was her. Wait a minute. Okay, now the interview is going to take a completely different turn. Okay, go ahead.

Kathleen:

I'm sorry she was one of those real positive influences when I began Remember I started my company in 2008, a3 Genealogy Amy was already doing stuff. What were you doing about that time frame, amy? Were you with Ancestry?

Amy Johnson Crow:

Oh my gosh, I was doing my own thing In 2008, I was, oh my gosh, that's like a lifetime and a half ago. I would have been completing my history degree, getting ready to start library school, and then it was after that that I joined Archivescom and then they got bought out by Ancestry. So it was a little bit after that. I had no idea that I was a positive influence on you.

Kathleen:

Absolutely, absolutely. And when you were with archivescom I thought it was really interesting because I wrote articles with them yes, you did, but again, I kind of would look to you to see what was a safe environment for me. So those kind of things helped me make a lot of my decisions in genealogy. And I was really impressed because, if I remember right, you went to kent state for library science or I did, yeah, and so did my mother. So that was like but she took classes there interesting in her library science.

John:

Well, that's a theme, isn't it?

Amy Johnson Crow:

It is, it's a theme, it is a theme it's a theme yes, yeah, and in fact when I started library school, what I thought my dream job would be would be the head of genealogy, local history in like a small to medium-sized public library that was. I thought that that would be just the bee's knees and life, you know, kind of had other plans for me. I got my library degree, ended up working at a company called archivescom and I was working on their content acquisition team. Then archivescom got bought out by Ancestry and in part of that acquisition I made the move from archives over to Ancestry and I was still on the archivescom team for a few months and then they moved me over into social media.

John:

Yeah, that's a transition.

Amy Johnson Crow:

Yeah, it was really more where my heart was was because at the time the social media angle at Ancestry was very much educational and at heart I'm a teacher, so being able to educate through social media, that was a really good experience in my career.

John:

Kathleen, did you want to tie into that?

Kathleen:

Like I said to me, you're also really into the social media part, if I remember right.

Amy Johnson Crow:

Yeah, I mean I've always been in social media. Now my genealogy career started long before I was in library school. I mean I started with just doing my own genealogy would have been 1990 or 91. And then the mid-90s I became certified, I was doing research professionally and was doing a lot of that, was doing blogging. I was really involved in a lot of different societies, doing speaking engagements and whatnot, and it was then when my kids got a little bit older it's like you know what I'm going to go back to school and that's when I decided to do the library route and that's how I ended up where I am.

Kathleen:

So John Amy has a program that I totally support and I was so excited to see it up on LinkedIn because I really Okay, wait a minute Before we get into that, though, before we get into that.

John:

So, amy, can you tell us about your YouTube channel? Yes, okay, is that something you currently do?

Amy Johnson Crow:

Yes.

John:

Okay.

Amy Johnson Crow:

Not as often as I would like, but I'm getting revamped into it.

John:

And what is that?

Amy Johnson Crow:

for the youtube channel is and it took me ages to come up with this name genealogy with amy johnson crow what?

John:

yeah, I know how would you expect anyone to follow that?

Amy Johnson Crow:

right, I mean it was just. It took ages and ages to come up with that title. You're too funny.

Kathleen:

Too funny.

John:

Okay, so now, kathleen, I will let you. I will let you, amy. This is the only time I can ever do anything like this. The rest of the time I'm yes ma'am, no ma'am, but when we get into the studio, I actually get a little bit of power, and I hardly know how to deal with it.

Amy Johnson Crow:

Just like a straight to the head. Yeah.

John:

I'm just complete and complete.

Kathleen:

And what's bad about this? Amy Go ahead. What's bad about this is he has no shame in saying things like that. Now, John, Amy also has a book. Why don't we first talk about the book and then, before we get to the other project?

Amy Johnson Crow:

Yeah, so my book is 31 Days to Better Genealogy. It started a long time ago, originally as just a email challenge, and people were like, hey, can you put this all together in one place? And I'm like, okay, so I did. And just like the title implies, it is 31 individual tips or tricks or resources that people can put into place right away in their genealogy, because my whole thing with genealogy and research and helping people is to break it down. Definitely we want to have good scholarship, we want to do things correctly, but I think we can also break it down into more manageable pieces. So that was what I did with the original 31 Days to Better Genealogy.

John:

And is that book available?

Amy Johnson Crow:

It is. It's available on Amazon both as an e-book and in paperback.

John:

Fantastic and 31 Days to Better Genealogy. I'm looking, I think I'm looking at a copy of it right behind you Back there, yeah, and it's like you know, go research your family.

Amy Johnson Crow:

Well, okay, you know what does that look like. You know we can do really good research from home at two in the morning wearing our pajamas and our pink bunny slippers, right, I've?

John:

got mine on right now.

Amy Johnson Crow:

And it's almost like an embarrassment of riches. It's like where do you even start? You know, we still have people coming into genealogy as an interest. Unfortunately, when a loved one dies and they inherit all of you know the stuff it's like okay, what am I going to do with this? And we see people coming into it when they have a child or they have a grandchild. But we're also seeing a lot of people coming in because they saw an ad on TV for Ancestry DNA and they take that DNA test and they get the results and they're like okay, now what Exactly? So there is so much out there that you really don't know where you need to be diving in first.

John:

And so I think that's a really good lead-in to the 52 ancestors in 52 weeks.

Kathleen:

Oh, sure, take my weeks, oh sure, take my line. Sure, take my line, the one line I had prepared.

John:

Baby, you want to turn that around. You can say it no too late, Is it too late?

Kathleen:

My bubble is busted or bursted.

John:

I'll be dining for one yet again.

Kathleen:

I'm sorry, go ahead, john.

John:

But yeah, I think it is a good lead into the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, I think. Kathleen did you want to? Did you have a specific question? Or Amy do you want to? Just Kathleen looks like she has a question.

Kathleen:

Well, with the 52 Weeks before you had the book, the 31 Days, is it the same kind of a format and tell us a little bit more about your 52 weeks, I guess, and how people can sign up for it?

Amy Johnson Crow:

The whole idea with 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks was again a way to make something more manageable and a little bit more accessible. Because when we think about writing and genealogy you know we've been doing genealogy for a while and we think, oh, I need to write about my ancestors, I need to write the genealogy, and too often our minds go to the book. You know, I should write that book about my ancestors. Writing an entire book is a really overwhelming thought for a lot of people, myself included.

John:

Absolutely.

Amy Johnson Crow:

So realizing that writing is a really important part of genealogy, not just for the preservation aspect of it, because you're taking what you have compiled, you know what you have found in your research, and you're putting it into something besides just having it in your genealogy software, but you're making it more accessible to others. So that really is kind of an act of preservation. But writing is also a good research tool because a lot of times when you go to write something, you realize what you don't actually know. It's like wait a minute, how do I know that these two people were married? And you don't think of those questions until you start to write. So several years ago and I think this was back in either 2013 or 2014, that I did the first version of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, and I did it mainly as a blogging challenge for myself. I said that I was going to do this and it was one of those. Hey, if I announce it publicly, then I will feel more accountable. Yeah, you know it's like hey, everybody, I'm going to go to the gym every week. If you ever hear me saying that, just just ignore me, right? But what I figured was OK. If I write about one ancestor a week. That's 52 things. It's like, okay, that sounds manageable.

Amy Johnson Crow:

So when I announced that I was going to do this, the response that I had from people was just overwhelming. They're like, wow, that's a great idea. Can I do that too? And I'm like, sure, come along, let's all great idea. Can I do that too? And I'm like sure, come along, let's all do this?

Amy Johnson Crow:

The first year I did it. It was very much just pick your own ancestor, pick whatever you want to write about. And it was everybody just sort of supporting each other in this writing journey. Well, at the end of that year there were people who said you know, it would be nice if there were some sort of prompt, if you would tell us what to write about. And I got to thinking about it because back in school I was that kid who I was happy doing term papers about anything as long as I had a subject.

Amy Johnson Crow:

It was when the teacher would say, oh yeah, you need to write a three-page paper on whatever you want. That's when I would freak out. I don't know what to write about. It was just way too many decisions to make. So I started issuing a weekly prompt and the prompts I have always made them very vague and open to interpretation Because I want the prompts to really be more of just sort of a tickle. So instead I'll have a prompt like homestead. You know, maybe the word homestead makes you think about your ancestors who went out west and they actually had a homestead from the US government. Or maybe you think about the house where it just seems like everybody in the family would congregate maybe a grandparent's house or an aunt's house. But that was, or maybe Homestead is thinking about. Well, where did my ancestors come from? From another country.

John:

So it really is, you're generating. You're kind of generating the space to reflect. Yes yes, so the individuals turn the prompts into what really services them.

Amy Johnson Crow:

Exactly. I've also been very, very cautious about not calling this a blogging challenge, because you know a lot of people have absolutely zero interest in starting a blog, so I've always made this, even though I call it a writing challenge. I've had people participate in this who make videos, some people make scrapbook pages, some people will just do an audio recording. So the goal of it really is to either take our memories that we have or to take what we have found in our research and get it out of that genealogy software, get it out of that family tree and do something with it.

Amy Johnson Crow:

Because, let's face it, a lot of us talk about wanting our family members to be interested in the family history. So what do we do? We give them a chart with a bunch of names on it. I don't know about you, but that doesn't seem like the most effective marketing ever. Like hey, get excited about your family. Here's a whole list of people that you have no idea who they are. Have fun. So if we can take what we have found and write about it or make a video about it or make a scrapbook page about it and get it into some kind of format and maybe tell it more like a story than a high school term paper, then maybe that will help other people in the family feel more connected with what it is that we're finding in our research.

Kathleen:

And John, that's one of the things I saw recently about someone who did a video. Is it something you posted?

Amy Johnson Crow:

recently.

Amy Johnson Crow:

Yeah, it was a lot of, and there's no requirement to do this, but I do have a free Facebook group and a lot of people do post links to what they're doing there and it's always fun to see what people are doing and getting getting inspired from other people.

Amy Johnson Crow:

But this one woman a few weeks ago she made and it was only like three minutes but she put together this this short video interviewing I can't recall if it was her mom or her aunt, but they were talking about Christmas decorations and how the woman who she was interviewing she was talking about how her mother.

Amy Johnson Crow:

When it came time for Christmas, it was like the entire house was transformed into this Christmas wonderland. You know, she would just decorate the house just to the nth degree and she talked about a couple of special ornaments and I just thought that that was so cool because things like that are so easily lost. But she took two and a half three minutes and recorded somebody's memories of this, and so that's what I really like about the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is making it flexible. It can be more current people, it can be yourself, and even though it's called 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, it doesn't even have to be an ancestor, it could be a cousin, it could be a neighbor, it could be a business partner, all those other people who fit into our family history in some way.

Kathleen:

So Amy.

Amy Johnson Crow:

I'm assuming since this 2013 launch last couple of years, but I am ready to say this in a public forum, to be held accountable I am going to do it next year, okay, oh, great.

John:

I would imagine you know the administration. It's one thing to do them, but it's another thing to actually help other people do them.

Amy Johnson Crow:

I would imagine a great deal of your time because it's not your only endeavor, yeah it's not my only endeavor, but I tell you this, this project, and, in all honesty, when November rolls around, it's like, oh, am I going to do it again next year? And then I'll go into the Facebook group and I'll see everybody posting different things. It's like, yeah, I need to do this again next year. So it just it gets gets me really excited. But one thing that I'm doing a little differently in 2025.

Amy Johnson Crow:

Now, I don't think we've mentioned that the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks program is completely free. No, we didn't. Yes, it is completely free, that's very cool. No, we didn't. Yes, it is completely free, that's very cool. What happens is you get an email each week that has the prompt. I usually give a couple of sentences of you know, maybe some ideas of how you might want to approach the prompt.

Amy Johnson Crow:

Sometimes I'll tell what I was thinking when I wrote the prompt, but, of course, you're free to interpret it. However, but you know just a little bit of a little bit of extra assistance there if you need it. And then I also share the links for people who have posted publicly, and usually when they've posted in the Facebook group, I will include links to a couple of posts that people might really enjoy from the previous week. So that's all free.

Amy Johnson Crow:

What I'm adding in 2025 is I was having requests from people like let's go back to our prompt of homestead. Like, oh yeah, I've heard about my ancestors had a homestead, but I don't know how to find homestead records, I don't know what might be in them, I don't know how to approach them and all of that. So what I'm doing in 2025 is I've added an optional program called 52 Ancestors Plus, which is a paid program, but along with all of the prompts and the inspiration and all of that, I'll actually be sharing some research tips and some resources that tie in with that particular prompt, so it'll give a little bit more assistance on the research side of things.

John:

On where they can dig in, and that's, I'm sure, particularly helpful for people who are once again just getting into it, finding out that there's resources that are actually available.

Amy Johnson Crow:

Yeah, fantastic. Yes, I'm excited about that Sure. Yeah, that's fun.

John:

Well, I want to make sure that we point out that the website is actually very easy to remember with amyjohnsoncrowcom. Amyjohnsoncrowcom.

Amy Johnson Crow:

Amy Johnson Crow dot com. Crow dot com. And you can get directly to 52 ancestors by going to Amy Johnson Crow dot com, slash 52 ancestors.

John:

And there you are.

Kathleen:

What happens if I decide I can only do maybe four or five, and then I have to take a long break? Am I kicked out of the group, amy you, know what?

Amy Johnson Crow:

This is the most low stress challenge you will ever sign up for. There is no 52 Ancestors Police. I'm not taking attendance, I'm not grading anybody. How you interpret the prompt, and even if you do that week's prompt, that's totally up to you. I'm just here to give the inspiration.

John:

You really could participate by even reflection and talking and making a phone call, and that, even though there's no output from that, is that the beginning steps a lot of times are connection and so if you make the phone call and connect with that uncle or aunt or whoever you haven't spoken with, then maybe the next year, maybe in 2026, maybe one of the nice things is you generate connection.

Amy Johnson Crow:

And I've heard from a lot of people who they're like Amy. I know the way my brain works. You know 52 ancestors in 52 weeks sounds like a lot, but a lot of people have done 12 ancestors in 12 months. A lot of people have done 12 ancestors in 12 months that they will that they will take one of the prompts for that month and run with that.

Amy Johnson Crow:

My my whole thing and people who are in my Facebook group probably get tired of hearing me say this, but Literally anything you write, anything you record is more than what you had before, so I look at it as progress.

Kathleen:

So, amy, your Facebook group? Yes, I'm sure it doesn't say Amy Johnson Crow in it. So what does it say?

Amy Johnson Crow:

The Facebook group is actually called Generations Cafe.

Kathleen:

Oh, it is.

Amy Johnson Crow:

Generations Cafe. Yes, generations Cafe, which was the name of my old podcast, yeah, okay, and that Facebook group is open to everybody. You don't have to be in 52 Ancestors to be in the Facebook group.

Kathleen:

So tell me this your weekly emails. You mentioned that you give a little prompt. I don't know how you do a weekly email. I'm struggling doing a monthly which has now moved to a bimonthly newsletter. So give me some pointers here, amy.

Amy Johnson Crow:

So because I actually have two weekly emails that go out every week. So I've got the 52 Ancestors email that goes out. And it's pretty straightforward with the 52 Ancestors email because I already have the prompt written. I have all of the 2025 prompts already written. I'm finalizing where they're going to go on the calendar, but the prompts are already written. My other email that I send every week is a more generalized newsletter and that is a combination of things that I've posted on social media, maybe a new blog post that I've done or new YouTube video that I've done talking about that. Or sometimes I'll talk about something that I've seen in genealogy news, of course, announcing new products and things like that. But that's my other weekly email is just my general newsletter.

John:

Now, amy, I have my own theories every once in a while and I like to test these out. But I have this theory uh, genealogists have an aversion to sleep and that's why you're all either insomniacs or you just don't like the act of sleeping, and so that's why you spend, are able to spend so much time doing newsletters and blogs and and research and that sort of stuff. Am I? Am I right that? Do you bother sleeping at all?

Amy Johnson Crow:

Sleep. You know it's highly overrated.

John:

Yeah, I'm from the dog side, so Chewy and I are sleep advocates, so we're like any chance you get if you can nod off. It's been a good day.

Amy Johnson Crow:

Now I will say that, even though I joke about, you know, sleep being overrated, my superpower is the 20-minute power nap.

John:

Yeah, you know, I did that, especially when I was working.

Kathleen:

Was that at work or at home, john Boy?

John:

yeah, why would I waste my time after lunch at work working? I'd take my power nap, I'd be wide awake for the drive home and then ready to play, so it was a safety measure. Absolutely.

Kathleen:

It was a safety measure. I'm sure your students like that.

Amy Johnson Crow:

John.

Kathleen:

So can I stalk you which I've always done anyway, at least as long as I've known you, I've stalked. I can just go in and peek around and look. And the other question I have it's like what have you done with your own write-ups and videos and so forth?

Amy Johnson Crow:

The first few years I was posting them all on my blog. I have sent some to family members, them all on my blog. I have sent some to family members. For a while my cousins and I had a private Facebook group that we've kind of let go by the wayside. Yeah, when I was doing a lot of my own writing for 52 Ancestors, I posted it mostly on my blog.

Kathleen:

So it's still a permanent resource for you, it is still a permanent resource.

Amy Johnson Crow:

I will say this for anybody who's thinking about blogging Make sure that you have a copy someplace other than your blog, so know something happens to you and your administrator or whoever can't get into it. Yeah, just having it in a different format someplace else is a really good backup strategy.

John:

Yeah, you don't want to lose that.

Amy Johnson Crow:

And something else that I did. With just a couple of things that I wrote, I actually changed a little bit, made them a little bit more robust in terms of source citations and whatnot, and sent them on to a couple of genealogy societies so that they could be published in their newsletter. Oh, I am really into that. Yeah, so it's another way of preservation.

Kathleen:

I remember me starting off.

John:

Well, you started your blog actually started because of writing about your own. Yeah, you're basically doing prompts.

Kathleen:

Yeah, and I would write about my own family, but someone you know. Monday was funeral cemeteries and Tuesday was something else, but it was only a five-day and it was the same thing every week. So now, amy, you're also still presenting. Tell us a little bit more about that.

Amy Johnson Crow:

I've actually cut back quite a bit on presenting. I've actually cut back quite a bit on presenting. Most of my events here in the last couple of years have been virtual, which has actually been kind of nice because it's allowed me to present to organizations where I never would have been able to go in person because I'm based in Ohio and to speak to an organization in California for just their regular monthly meeting on a Tuesday night. You know that's not going to happen in person, but now that you know more and more societies are used to using Zoom or you know whatever streaming software they're using, they're still oftentimes bringing in a virtual speaker, which I think is really kind of cool. It gives more societies more options to bring in speakers economically and get different topics and different speakers than what they would be able to get if they had to have somebody there in person.

Amy Johnson Crow:

So most of my topics now are very methodology based, thinking about finding female ancestors or getting more out of the records that you have. One of my most popular talks lately has been on using a research framework that I developed called the WANDER method, so WANDER is an acronym. I developed called the WANDER method, so WANDER is an acronym. So the W is what do you want to find? Analyze what you already have, note what is missing, discover new records, evaluate everything and repeat as necessary.

Kathleen:

Oh don't tell me this, that's just stillable, that's just stillable.

John:

Soon to be a blog on S3Genealogycom.

Kathleen:

And Amy Johnson Crow does this.

Amy Johnson Crow:

Oh, you know I love a good acronym. What can I say? So I've been. That's actually been. My most popular presentation over the last couple of years has been on using the WANDER method and seeing how it fits in. Because we get in that mindset of I find a record fill in the blanks, move on, and that's not really how research works. And when we get in that mindset of find the record, fill in the blanks and move on, that's when we start getting really frustrated start getting really frustrated.

John:

Well, it's interesting because Kathleen always talks about the curiosity that's necessary to do good research. We just use the word, the wander, the wander, the wander method, yeah, the wander method.

Kathleen:

So, John, first of all, I want to thank you for listening to me once or twice in our marriage of 30 years.

Kathleen:

I was just so proud when you said when Kathleen says, I'm like, oh my, he does listen. But it is true that we can't implant a curiosity bug or a DNA marker called curiosity into people. So it is a tendency in general to just say dates and places and then keeps going to the next person. But as you started this podcast with Amy, that's not interesting to anyone. They want the stories, they want more.

Amy Johnson Crow:

If we're just saying oh, I'm having a hard time finding them in the 1870 census, they're like an 1870 what, You've already lost them. But if you can say hey, I was doing some research the other day and I discovered that your great grandfather he was growing hemp, I tell you that will be an icebreaker at your holiday party.

Kathleen:

That is an excellent way to yeah, it's a great way to end the podcast, John, unless you have more questions.

John:

I don't. I want to thank Amy very much. It was a pleasure meeting you and thank you so much for spending the time with us. We really appreciate it.

Kathleen:

Well, thank you for having me. You're wonderful, amy, so I want to bring up some other topics. John loves it when I say that that's not going to happen?

Amy Johnson Crow:

happen, he just clicks me off. Yeah, she, john, just cuts the mic. I can't hear you.

John:

For some reason these podcasts always end with kathleen abruptly leaving the call. Just, I don't understand it. Mid-word, yeah, I don't understand it. She usually just whoop thereop, there she goes, there she goes.

Amy Johnson Crow:

Okay, I would love to be in the room as John is editing.

John:

Well, congratulations, you made it to the end of another episode. Thanks so much for staying. Thanks to MyHeritage and Legacy Family Tree Webinars. Thanks to Amy Johnson Crow for spending a little time with us. Thanks to Chewy Chewbacca Brand, our part-time best boy in the whole wide world and full-time sourdough bread-eating reason. We have to have pet insurance for his unwavering lack of interest in anything we're doing. The theme song for Hittin' the Bricks was written and performed by Tony Fistknuckle and the Marmot Tomes. Watch for the next appearance in the parking lot wherever you recycle glass bottles. Our thanks to you, our wonderful listeners, for sending in your questions, tuning in, downloading and otherwise giving us a reason to do what we do. From all of us at Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen to all of you, we wish you a gentle and kind holiday season. You know you can find us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Do you have a genealogy question for Kathleen? Drop us a line at Hittinhebricks at gmailcom and let us know.

People on this episode

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Kathleen Brandt

Host
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John Brandt

Co-host