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Patti - Genealogist
68 Plays1 year ago
This is a fascinating interview with Patti who is a certified genealogist. She does an incredible deep dive into the research and DNA side of all thats involved in genealogy. She discusses how the research is conducted, adoption lineage cases, criminal aspects of genealogy and so much more.
If you enjoyed this interview and would like to support the show, you can do so HERE. Thanks!
Music by: SnoozyBeats - Song Title - "Keep It Calm". Please check out SnoozyBeats on PixaBay for a ton of awesome content! - LINK ...
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Transcript
Intro
Patty's Background and Connection to Missouri
00:00:21
The Jobs Podcast
Hey, good morning, Patty. How are you doing today?
00:00:24
Patti Hobbs
Thanks Tim, thanks for having me.
00:00:26
The Jobs Podcast
You bet. I'm excited to talk with you today because you're a genealogist. um And that's what we're talking about today. And I do not have much knowledge on that subject. So let's let's go ahead and get right to it.
00:00:39
The Jobs Podcast
Give me a little bit of history about, tell me your genealogy, basically, where you were born, siblings, family members, that kind of a thing.
00:00:47
Patti Hobbs
um Well, i I was actually born in California. I was a first-generation California and I'm 66 almost 67 now So that'll tell you about what time period that is but I both my parents had moved my dad had moved from Pennsylvania with his family and then after He and my mom got married in Tennessee in Memphis or near Memphis um they he ended up back in California and then of course my mom's parents followed and I and stuff so i grew up in california but i don't have a long history there on the other hand my grandfather my mom's dad was born in missouri and i had a ah very long line of missouri genealogy which has been really great and i just feel like missouri is my home
00:01:34
Patti Hobbs
ah because of that.
Family Dynamics and Genealogy Beginnings
00:01:36
Patti Hobbs
Anyway, so I was born in California. um we I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and homeschool my kids, and we felt like that we could not do that kind of thing in the Bay Area. I went to Humboldt State University, which is in far northern California.
00:01:55
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:01:55
Patti Hobbs
it's more It's more rural and it is also um less expensive to live but mainly we'd gone up there to to go to college and i got I got my bachelor's degree in biology and and then we had kids and and stuff. We were there for 10 years and in 1990 we moved to Missouri and and have been here so it's been you know, over 34 years now that we've been here longer than I ever lived in California.
00:02:25
Patti Hobbs
So i i I like that. I like that. I feel like this is a home state for me.
00:02:31
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:02:31
Patti Hobbs
So my parents divorced actually when I was three and we grew up with my grandparents. um I didn't hear a lot of family stories, but I did hear a few things.
00:02:42
Patti Hobbs
um I just have one sister, one full sister, my dad and remarried and had two kids with his second wife. and um and so and you know they My dad came here and lived with us the last few months of his life.
From Enthusiast to Professional Genealogist
00:02:59
Patti Hobbs
So um my my parents came from very different genealogical backgrounds with my dad coming from Pennsylvania and my mom being born in Tennessee and her dad in Missouri. And that has been very fun for me because it means that I have a lot of exposure and experience in researching in many different places.
00:03:21
Patti Hobbs
And I feel like that has been a real benefit to me. So as I say, we moved here in 90, I continued to homeschool my kids. um And then in about 1999, I got interested in genealogy and ah could only do it part time because of my other responsibilities. And then about 2007 or eight, when things were freeing up for me a little bit with my kids growing up, and I was able to Spend more time with it. I started doing educational events. There are institutes and conferences that you can attend as a genealogist and I started doing those things. Fortunately, my dad had left a little bit of money and I decided I would use my inheritance to learn about my heritage.
00:04:10
Patti Hobbs
So that enabled me to do that where the funds maybe wouldn't have been there. And I completely understand um people who feel they don't have the monetary assets to be able to do so things like that. You can learn on your own. So it's not that you have to, and there's plenty of free things out on the internet and inexpensive things out there on the internet to learn more.
00:04:33
Patti Hobbs
So then in 2009, the library, ah the Springfield Green County Library District contacted me about a part time position in their local history and genealogy department.
00:04:46
Patti Hobbs
And they knew that I had done a lot of these educational things and was an experienced genealogist by that time.
00:04:52
The Jobs Podcast
Mm hmm.
00:04:53
Patti Hobbs
So I worked there for about, I don't know, six years or or something and I really enjoyed that. And then as time went on, I was asked to do more teaching and presenting and I was getting more client work. And so I quit the library and I've been doing that type of thing ever since.
Influences and Skills in Genealogy
00:05:13
Patti Hobbs
I do have some writings, ah things that I've written that have been published that I'm proud of.
00:05:18
Patti Hobbs
So anyway, so that um that that's that.
00:05:21
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:05:22
Patti Hobbs
I guess I don't mean to take over your podcast here.
00:05:25
The Jobs Podcast
No, that's why i'm I'm just a guide.
00:05:26
Patti Hobbs
I'm sorry.
00:05:29
The Jobs Podcast
You're the expert. So please talk as much as you want.
00:05:30
Patti Hobbs
ah Okay. Well, i I think one of the things that I really, um I look back on in in my childhood and my high school and college years, and I do see how there were things that directed me down the path that I've gone.
00:05:45
Patti Hobbs
And those were part of the questions that you gave to me. um And one of them was I always loved detective stories and historical fiction. Those were my two favorite types of books to read.
00:05:55
The Jobs Podcast
Okay. Right.
00:05:57
Patti Hobbs
And I was a reader from the time, I mean, I don't even remember learning to read. Nobody else in my family read. Nobody else read books. I i really was the only one. And I just feel like that it sort of saved me. You know, it saved me from ah being isolated in the way I thought life was. It broadened my horizons. um It gave me exposure to history. And I love, as I say, I like the detective kind of kind of thing, I love problem solving.
00:06:27
The Jobs Podcast
and Okay.
00:06:27
Patti Hobbs
And I think that the problem solving that you use in genealogy that, you know, that those those detective novels and and things like that, like, you know, of course, when you're young, it's like Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys stuff.
00:06:39
The Jobs Podcast
Right. I read those.
00:06:42
Patti Hobbs
Yeah, yeah. And Agatha Christie and, you know, and, and so.
00:06:43
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:06:47
Patti Hobbs
And then when I was in high school, um I was exposed to a really, really good chemistry teacher. and And this is just goes to the ah the importance of how those people in educational positions can really be an influence on people.
00:07:05
Patti Hobbs
And he was such a good teacher.
00:07:05
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:07:08
Patti Hobbs
And I loved chemistry. And um i had taken I took total of five years of science in high school.
00:07:16
The Jobs Podcast
Wow.
00:07:16
Patti Hobbs
and But the there's there's sort of a corollary to the detective thing in that in that science is you want to you want to learn how things work, how they operate, what makes this happen, you know, and that kind of thing.
00:07:28
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:07:31
Patti Hobbs
And then that's what drew me to it, and that's why I decided to major in biology in college.
00:07:36
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:07:37
Patti Hobbs
So, and of course, so that leads up, the reason I emphasize that is that I am a specialist in the genealogy world and that I have a specialty in DNA analysis and its use in in genealogy.
00:07:47
The Jobs Podcast
and Okay.
00:07:50
Patti Hobbs
So, you know, and and so I never would have suspected that those kinds of things would have been important to me later. um Also, in college, my last um semester of college history, I had a wonderful, wonderful teacher um and who had us read books rather than textbooks memorizing facts, you know dates and places and battles and all this kind of stuff.
00:08:17
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:08:18
Patti Hobbs
And these books were more about cause and effect. um So you learned that this event happened. and then those, the ramifications of the those events caused this to happen. And, you know, and that kind of thing. And that fascinated me. And I learned that history was more about people and decisions and things like that rather than just ah names and dates and places.
00:08:44
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:08:45
Patti Hobbs
So I just, you know, i unfortunately that was my last history class in college, but it did lead me down a path of reading a lot of history. So I moved from doing um historical fiction to reading actual history books, you know.
00:08:59
Patti Hobbs
ah so and And so the I feel that genealogy is the natural dovetailing of the detective type skills ah combined with history.
00:09:00
The Jobs Podcast
yeah
00:09:11
Patti Hobbs
And it really does help in genealogy to have a good, broad, historical background knowledge.
00:09:18
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
The Role of DNA in Genealogy
00:09:19
The Jobs Podcast
One question I had about something as you were speaking. you talked about the job that you had at the library in Springfield and you, did you just come into a room that was just full of boxes and documents and you had to start somewhere and just, or can you walk me through how that, how does that start?
00:09:38
The Jobs Podcast
Like, what is the day like of a person in that line of work?
00:09:41
Patti Hobbs
oh Well, ah for the most part, and what I was hired for was um as a reference associate. So my main job was helping the patrons with their genealogy.
00:09:48
The Jobs Podcast
Okay. Okay.
00:09:53
Patti Hobbs
So the local history and genealogy department has a lot of published books. They don't have so much ah documents. you know do I mean, some libraries do have documents, and even even some counties have transferred documents to public libraries.
00:10:03
The Jobs Podcast
Okay. and okay
00:10:10
Patti Hobbs
But for the most part, Their documents are donated materials which can be important and helpful um but they aren't like the regular documents that we a lot of times we use in genealogy but i mean the library center does have some so one important um set of records that they have to actually one of the frisco.
00:10:31
Patti Hobbs
employee records that they have ah original documents of. And then the other are the Turnbow manuscripts.
00:10:35
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:10:39
Patti Hobbs
And the Turnbow manuscript, ah Turnbow, Silas Turnbow was a man who interviewed a lot of people in the Ozarks and wrote down their stories. And, you know, so and he lived in, you know, the latter part of the 1800s.
00:10:53
Patti Hobbs
And so there were people alive who whose parents and grandparents they knew and knew things that had happened with them. And so that's an important resource too. So I'm not saying that there aren't any, it's just usually documents and things are in archives.
00:11:09
Patti Hobbs
So we have the Green County Archives, which, and the Springfield History Museum, and you know those places um have um have thee um have records um of of you know the government records, which are the most important in genealogy, the government records are.
00:11:09
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:11:28
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:11:29
Patti Hobbs
So, which I can explain, but I won't go into now unless you wanna know.
00:11:34
The Jobs Podcast
Well, you talked you've mentioned a couple of times and I've picked up on it, you really have a passion for reading mystery novels and whodunit type stuff, detective things. um Have you ever been requested to work with law enforcement or someone on a case that where your expertise in DNA or genealogy or whatever would would play a part?
00:11:57
Patti Hobbs
um you know i haven't um i mean I have once. I did work on a case with the FBI once, um but it turned out that my work was moot at that point because a very large DNA match came in that helped them to identify the killer right away.
00:12:12
The Jobs Podcast
Ah.
00:12:13
Patti Hobbs
um And so I have not Other than that one, I have not been involved with that at all. I wouldn't mind doing that because certainly, especially for Jane Does, Jane and John Does, it's a really important thing and stuff.
00:12:24
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:12:29
Patti Hobbs
I have done a lot of work with adoptees and people otherwise with unknown parentage. you know like Sometimes people don't know who the father is. they They know who their mother is, but not the father.
00:12:37
The Jobs Podcast
Sure.
00:12:40
Patti Hobbs
so And that can be back you know two or three or four generations and stuff. So I've done quite a few of those.
00:12:47
The Jobs Podcast
That was one of the questions I had is that who are your typical clients or people that come to you looking for assistance and I wondered about people that have been adopted.
00:12:55
Patti Hobbs
Yeah, so there are two sort of two categories of people.
00:12:56
The Jobs Podcast
ah Does that happen very often?
00:13:00
Patti Hobbs
um A lot of times, you know, there are the, you know, amateur genealogist who gets stuck, and they want a professional to try to solve a problem.
00:13:11
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:13:11
Patti Hobbs
And then there are then there are these other and that those don't have necessarily have anything to do with DNA. and And then, of course, there are the closer relatives, unknown parentage cases that do do that.
00:13:26
Patti Hobbs
I'm actually trying to cut back on my client work so because I want to focus my efforts in other places.
00:13:29
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:13:34
Patti Hobbs
um so it's ah it you know I think it all depends a lot on what people you know what what what people do as far as what their areas of expertise but yes for me it's it's been more the client work has been that i also you know i also get paid for teaching and and and things like that although teaching doesn't really pay so it doesn't it doesn't really recompense you for the time you spend preparing.
Importance of Traditional Research Skills
00:14:01
Patti Hobbs
ah
00:14:02
The Jobs Podcast
Right. Yeah, there's a lot of work that goes into teaching. They're definitely underpaid. Do you do or in the past, have you done a lot of teaching at different universities or?
00:14:11
Patti Hobbs
ah No, universities don't generally have an outlet for this kind of thing. um There are a couple, like there's a Brigham Young University in Utah that has a genealogy program and I think there ah there there is.
00:14:26
Patti Hobbs
ah Most of my, I i teach at institutes um and those are week-long courses and there are
00:14:31
The Jobs Podcast
and Okay.
00:14:35
Patti Hobbs
There are three major institutes in the US. And so I coordinate a course on using DNA with ah genetics um in it's for the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research, IGHR. And so I do that. And then I do ah ah conferences. I did two presentations.
00:15:02
Patti Hobbs
in ah York County, South Carolina last month. And then I'm doing a couple of things um in the spring and early summer this next year.
00:15:12
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:15:15
Patti Hobbs
So again, I'm actually trying um trying to limit some of that um just because i don't I'm busy all the time and don't seem to have time to do everything I want to do.
00:15:19
The Jobs Podcast
Right. Right.
00:15:25
Patti Hobbs
so
00:15:26
The Jobs Podcast
You mentioned a minute ago about the, was it the Mormons and their record keeping?
00:15:31
Patti Hobbs
Yeah, yes.
00:15:33
The Jobs Podcast
One of the other interviews that I did was with a college friend of mine. he He does cancer research. He's a doctor. And he had said that oftentimes in their research for disease history, they would turn to the LDS community because of their um extensive record keeping.
00:15:50
The Jobs Podcast
Do you ever deal with them in that and that line of work as far as disease or or any kind of a
00:15:56
Patti Hobbs
No, not not generally. um they're One of the DNA companies, direct to consumer DNA testing companies is 23andMe, and they focus on um health issues.
00:15:58
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:16:09
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:16:10
Patti Hobbs
ah So there you know there is that, but genealogists use it also. And I, you know, if you have, if you're working on the genealogy of an LDS person, then certainly the records of the LDS church are valuable.
00:16:25
Patti Hobbs
And that is because they, um they have, you know, it's a spiritual thing for them. I'm not LDS, so I'm not speaking from that, but it's a spiritual thing for them to baptize their ancestors into the church, or maybe they call it sealing, not baptizing.
00:16:34
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:16:37
The Jobs Podcast
here
00:16:40
Patti Hobbs
Maybe it's the same thing, I don't know.
00:16:42
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:16:42
Patti Hobbs
But they they do that, so genealogy has always been important to them. So they have a lot of things documented ah for their families. ah The other thing that they have, they have a website, familysearch dot.org, and um and the genealogy can be very all over the place as far as the quality of it. A lot of times the the genealogy outside of the like records that LDS members have um through the 150 years, 180 years that they've been around. um Those, of course, would be really good for the LDS families. But um the genealogy of other people um and their trees are not always very good. And they're not well-documented. And so a lot of times, um
00:17:33
Patti Hobbs
you might You might look at those just for a hint or a clue, but the most valuable thing that the that they have done is to go into courthouses and archives and ah digitize image, the records, the original records.
00:17:50
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:17:50
Patti Hobbs
And so they make those, those used to just be on microfilm. So you had to you know you had to either order microfilm or go to Salt Lake City to to to look at the film.
00:18:03
Patti Hobbs
and now everything is digitized. Now, it's not all available. um Some of it, they have contractual ah they have contracts with these different entities, and sometimes they make them ah they they say, yes, it's fine to let the public access them, and sometimes it's not.
00:18:21
Patti Hobbs
so ah So those are really having those original records um on their website that are digitized and accessible, um not necessarily indexed. And that's the thing. um There's kind of that other aspect to genealogy that I hope we get into.
00:18:38
Patti Hobbs
But they're not um um a lot of the records are not digitally indexed, so you can't just put a name into a search box. You have to know how to use the internal indexes for the records themselves.
00:18:52
Patti Hobbs
and and so
00:18:52
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:18:54
Patti Hobbs
And that's kind of what makes them a little bit that makes them a little bit more challenging to use. And yet, on the other hand, my contention is that it makes you a better researcher if you understand and know how to do that.
00:19:07
The Jobs Podcast
Well, that makes sense. And you just said there's something you wanted to get into. um Let's do it. Dive right in.
00:19:13
Patti Hobbs
Okay. Okay. um So um one of the things that I think we're seeing more of is that people get on Ancestry dot.com and you can find all kinds of things on Ancestry.
00:19:27
Patti Hobbs
And of course, like even just compared to five years ago and 10 years ago, there's so much more available. And so a lot of times people think
00:19:35
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:19:38
Patti Hobbs
that they're doing, they think that they're doing like genealogists work because they can build a tree. you know they can They can find somebody else's tree that already has their ancestors in it and they can add on to their tree. Ancestry makes that super easy. You ah documents, a lot of times people have found documents and I would say,
00:20:01
Patti Hobbs
A lot of times when people have found these, it's because some really good researcher originally found them.
00:20:07
The Jobs Podcast
ah
00:20:07
Patti Hobbs
And and then um and then, of course, people are piggybacking on that. So I sort of have this love-hate relationship with Ancestry in that you know they they they charge, and it certainly is worthwhile to me for the subscription cost.
00:20:21
Patti Hobbs
um But for some people, it's you know it's a lot. um And really what they're doing is they're leveraging the research that other people have done. you know, that their members have done.
00:20:31
The Jobs Podcast
Okay, right.
00:20:32
Patti Hobbs
And so, so it is quite often now I have to say that I feel like as long as you understand the limitations of what you're doing, and that you may not really know how to research if that's all you're doing, if all you're doing is plugging a name into databases, and you're finding
00:20:46
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:20:50
Patti Hobbs
ah records that pop up and you're finding relatives that pop up um and you're not going about it in some sort of methodical fashion um and certainly indexes electronic indexes can be used that way well you're not really doing research you know um and as long as you understand that and realize that you may be limited when it comes down the line to where Oh, now I don't know what to do.
00:21:17
Patti Hobbs
like Nobody has this parent in their tree and I have no idea what to do.
00:21:20
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:21:22
Patti Hobbs
And the other thing is, is being able to recognize that something isn't right or that there's no evidence for it. So you know there are people that are connected in trees and I know that I've extensively researched that family And there's absolutely nothing in any of those records that indicate that relationship.
00:21:42
Patti Hobbs
Then I'm suspect, you know, I'm suspicious of that.
00:21:44
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:21:46
Patti Hobbs
And you don't know to be suspicious of that, unless you've done the real research yourself. And I call it kind of like
00:21:51
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:21:52
Patti Hobbs
boots on the ground, which used to mean that you needed to go to a courthouse and things.
00:21:53
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:21:58
Patti Hobbs
And now, because a lot of those courthouse records are digitized, you can look at them on FamilySearch. And you know the other thing is, is a lot of people don't realize that some of the more recent additions to Ancestry are actually coming from FamilySearch.
00:22:14
Patti Hobbs
FamilySearch has allowed Ancestry to use the digitized images in exchange for Ancestry's employees did you know indexing them.
00:22:24
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:22:24
Patti Hobbs
And then they have a proprietary use of that of that index for a certain length of time. And then after that, that index can ah be, you can use it on FamilySearch also.
00:22:36
Patti Hobbs
So you can almost always find more on FamilySearch if you know how to research.
00:22:36
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:22:40
Patti Hobbs
than you do on ancestry.
00:22:43
The Jobs Podcast
Is it difficult to learn how to research if you wanted to use that family website or is it something that really only I mean, you got to do it for a long time like yourself to be able to use that effectively?
00:22:53
Patti Hobbs
Well, it does come with practice. But actually, for i'm I'm a very active member of Ozark's Genealogical Society.
00:22:56
The Jobs Podcast
and Okay.
00:23:02
Patti Hobbs
And I am teaching two sessions on using FamilySearch in the upcoming months. So our our programs are the first Monday evening of the month and the third Wednesday morning of the month.
00:23:08
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:23:14
Patti Hobbs
So we have two we have two programs a month. And i I can't tell you the dates offhand. I have my web browser shut down as instructed. it's so and so
00:23:24
The Jobs Podcast
Thank you.
00:23:25
Patti Hobbs
and ah and And so, but it's ah it's so Ozarksgs dot.org is our website and then you can see the events in the right-hand side. And so I'm doing two presentations on using FamilySearch, FamilySearch Part 1, FamilySearch Part 2.
00:23:42
Patti Hobbs
But there is also like just learning how to use the records. And as I mentioned earlier, um a lot of our ancestors may have been illiterate.
00:23:52
Patti Hobbs
ah They didn't leave diaries and letters that are hanging around places.
00:23:57
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:23:57
Patti Hobbs
um But they were required by law to um to submit certain paperwork so if they wanted to get a pension for serving in the civil war they had to submit paperwork somebody else may have written it for them um or you know if they wanted to buy a piece of land they had to you know execute a deed or you know by the original land from the federal government so certain aspects of things we can almost always find or tax um people were taxed and so we can find tax list to find our ancestors in certain areas.
00:24:30
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:24:33
Patti Hobbs
And a lot of times, those are the records that are not indexed, electronically indexed. So the the most fundamental ah records that genealogists should use, what I would call the meat and potatoes of genealogy, um are probate records, land records,
00:24:53
Patti Hobbs
court records and tax records. and so you And there are books, of course, to teach you about that. um There's ah one book by Christine Rose that's called Courthouse Research. There's another book by Val Greenwood that's called Something with American Genealogy in it in the title. And those ah those are two of you know books that explain those types of records and how they're indexed and things. And that is how I learned originally.
00:25:22
Patti Hobbs
You know, because I didn't take any classes for a few years, but I had a really good head start because I read books, um which, of course, I think, you know, is, you know, a lot of people just don't read books anymore.
00:25:36
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:25:36
Patti Hobbs
And, you know, it's a shame because you learn things in much greater depth
DNA Testing and Family Trees
00:25:40
Patti Hobbs
than you do in superficial sound bites of things.
00:25:40
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:25:43
Patti Hobbs
So I would hope that if the podcast does nothing else, that i'll get people to doing that type of thing.
00:25:49
The Jobs Podcast
I will say if you, I know people that read pretty regularly and what you'll notice about a conversation with someone who's an avid reader, is that their vocabulary is much wider than just their everyday folks.
00:26:02
Patti Hobbs
Yes, absolutely.
00:26:04
The Jobs Podcast
um They can communicate more effectively. I'm not a huge book reader, as far as sitting down and reading a long book cover to cover, but I read articles constantly, and ah because I'm just jumping around on topics all the time, but I do like to read.
00:26:18
The Jobs Podcast
um But I guess my attention span might be that of a gnat, so it goes from one one subject matter to another. but
00:26:25
Patti Hobbs
Yeah well and you know of course this is getting off topic a little bit but you know the more you practice that the the easier it gets you know so and you know if you if that if that's something that you want to do
00:26:29
The Jobs Podcast
me Right. Right.
00:26:37
Patti Hobbs
then, you know, it is and I understand having time limitations. You probably have a family as well as trying to keep up with topics for the podcast and things.
00:26:42
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. Mm hmm.
00:26:46
Patti Hobbs
But, you know, if you can, you know, decide I'm going to read this long book and, you know, and and just, you know, said kind of set your mind to it, um given given whatever time constraints that you have.
00:26:59
Patti Hobbs
but like And I agree with you.
00:27:00
The Jobs Podcast
We.
00:27:01
Patti Hobbs
So when I was a kid, because I was a voracious reader, ah people would actually other kids made fun of me for my vocabulary and um I I sort of dumb my language down for a little while and then after a while I just thought you know I'm just not gonna do that anymore so yeah yeah anyway
00:27:09
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:27:20
The Jobs Podcast
Well, think of what they were making fun of you for being intelligent and communicating effectively, and that makes no sense at all, so. the The website that you mentioned a little bit ago was family, I forgot the whole ah whole web address.
00:27:33
Patti Hobbs
family search FamilySearch dot.org is the lds is the LDS site, yeah.
00:27:35
The Jobs Podcast
Okay. Okay. All right. See, I remember a number of years ago, my mother-in-law for, I think it was a Christmas present, got ah myself and my brother-in-law one of those ancestry dot.com things where you take some saliva and send it off to him and then you get an email, you know, a few weeks later.
00:27:51
Patti Hobbs
Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:27:54
The Jobs Podcast
And I'd never done anything like that before other than just hearing what my parents and grandparents said their relatives were from. And you know, the ancestry, I don't know if it's even effective at a bird's eye view of your genealogy, and then you have to take it from there and dive deep.
00:28:10
The Jobs Podcast
It basically just said I was aggressively white like Scotland and Ireland and Germanic and you know,
00:28:14
Patti Hobbs
Yeah, right, right.
00:28:17
The Jobs Podcast
um I'm like a sheet of paper without the lines kind of white. So I don't know if that's now accurate. You kind of have me questioning whether that's even close to realistic or if I need to go down a different rabbit hole to see where I'm actually from lineage wise.
00:28:33
Patti Hobbs
Okay, well, actually, that's a great question and is something that is really common for people, especially those who aren't genealogists to not really know what those DNA results are telling them and what value they can receive from them.
00:28:49
The Jobs Podcast
okay
00:28:49
Patti Hobbs
And and so and ah of course, a lot of people are interested in those what they're really technically called biogeographical estimates. and And so they have those are something that is the least accurate part of DNA testing.
00:29:06
Patti Hobbs
and and But they've gotten better. They've gotten better over the years. And as more people test and they have more representation from a broader population base, they become more accurate.
00:29:11
The Jobs Podcast
Okay. Yeah.
00:29:19
The Jobs Podcast
and Okay.
00:29:19
Patti Hobbs
And so, and certainly the, it is sort of a broad brush kind of thing. um There, there are, you know, it it involves statistics and how much of certain stretches of your DNA that you have is comparable to which population group.
00:29:37
Patti Hobbs
And sometimes it's like, okay, well, it's more like this one than like this one. So we're going to plug you into this category, um which which makes it, you know, a little bit iffy. So just sort of as an example,
00:29:49
Patti Hobbs
my aunt I'm one-eighth Swedish, my aunt is one-quarter Swedish, and I show no Swedish ancestry at all. um And my my sister does, and my aunt does.
00:29:56
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:29:59
Patti Hobbs
My aunt shows ah you know what would be expected 25%. So, but it's changed. you know I used to have some and now it's gone.
00:30:06
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:30:07
Patti Hobbs
And you know because they adjust them, they adjust them. there's You don't have to do any further testing. ah They just go through and reapply the the algorithms that that have been updated to the tests that are already in their database, and then you get new results.
00:30:24
Patti Hobbs
So you can log in and see how it's changed um or how it might be different. but that is the least accurate part. um the The main reason for using DNA and the most accurate part is how much you match other people. So they compare your chromosomes with the chromosomes of everybody else in the database and they find matching segments of DNA on those chromosomes and um and and those then they total them up.
00:30:56
Patti Hobbs
They total up the amount um in what what are called centimorgans. It's sort of like feet or inches, you know, a length of DNA.
00:31:04
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:31:04
Patti Hobbs
And they total those up. And the closer the relationship, the more DNA that you will share with someone. So your closer relatives, you know, will share hundreds of centimorgans of DNA, whereas more distant relatives may, ah you know, like may only share 10 or 20 or 30 centimorgans.
00:31:24
Patti Hobbs
So, the the thing that we do, especially with unknown or adoptee cases, is you're looking at all of those large matches, then you're ah doing what the tool, the most important tool is called shared matches. and And when you do shared matches, all of those people that are shared matches with you and the selected match are likely related all in the same way.
00:31:48
Patti Hobbs
And when you look at the trees of those people, which is why it's important to have a family tree on ancestry, um then what you see is what do they have in common? What family do they have in common? And that is likely the way that the adoptee or person with unknown parentage is related.
00:32:06
Patti Hobbs
so
00:32:06
The Jobs Podcast
Hey.
00:32:07
Patti Hobbs
it This does apply for more distant ancestry too, but it's much more difficult to figure out. So you can use and that's actually what I like to do. um And one of the reasons why I'm limiting my client research is because I want to work more on my own things.
00:32:25
Patti Hobbs
And so I wanna be able to break down brick walls by looking at the DNA and ah discovering a distant ancestor using those same kinds of techniques.
00:32:37
Patti Hobbs
so And when I say have a tree on ancestry, you don't have to have a full blown like do all your genealogy there. But if you just put out like like four generations and not even that much, it's even helpful just to have it out to your grandparents if that's all if that's all you know.
00:32:45
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:32:54
Patti Hobbs
and then And then somebody who's knowledgeable will know how to take your tree when they're a match to you and they look at your tree, they'll know how to build that tree out to try to figure out how you're related to them. The more you have, the better it is. But I don't put a lot of information in my tree on Ancestry. I have it in a database, a separate database, and it's not it's not in one of the online database providers. So um i just I call it a skeletal tree.
00:33:23
Patti Hobbs
ah So just my ancestors, but I do give names and dates and places. So the names, dates, and places are super important. You can see that you have a John Smith who lives in New York in 1830, and you can knowing the date and the place can help you differentiate John Smith, who lives in South Carolina, who was born about 1809.
00:33:47
Patti Hobbs
So, you know, those those kinds of things, so those are identifiers.
00:33:47
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:33:50
Patti Hobbs
They help you to specifically identify that ancestor. So those, go ahead.
00:33:54
The Jobs Podcast
What you What you just mentioned there, like the John Smith, I can see the waters getting pretty muddy when you're talking about things, what a last name that thousands and thousands of people had like Smith or Johnson or something along those lines.
00:34:09
The Jobs Podcast
How do you deviate between, well, this John Smith was over here and this John Smith was over here. And so they go down different paths. I can see that being difficult to, or maybe tedious is a better word to use.
00:34:18
Patti Hobbs
Yes. Yeah, it's always nice if you have somebody with kind of an unusual name, but the but the ah the the thing is, is that you want to uniquely identify a person and yeah there are, you know, the the the vital records go into that.
00:34:23
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:34:36
Patti Hobbs
Oh, let me back up a little bit first. If you work from, you ah sort of a bedrock principle of genealogical research is to work from the known to the unknown.
Tools and Resources in Modern Genealogy
00:34:46
Patti Hobbs
So you never try to jump back like if you heard oh, I'm related to Abraham Lincoln um Well, you don't jump back trying to find the connection What you do is you work on your genealogy step by step and methodically and you'll run into it if you are
00:34:53
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:35:02
Patti Hobbs
So, you know, it's, but the thing is, is that the later records give you clues to earlier locations and things.
00:35:03
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:35:11
Patti Hobbs
So you look at somebody in the 1850 census and he's X amount of years old and it says he was born in this state. And then you know, okay, well,
00:35:23
Patti Hobbs
I need to, you know and you also are doing that research, i that that meat and potatoes research that I was talking about earlier with land and with probate and with land and with court and with tax records. um And those are the kinds of things, using those things. So for example, there was a man, I'm trying to think of what the name was,
00:35:43
Patti Hobbs
there were two groups There were two groups of same name people in a county, and I want to say it was in the Carolinas, um where he distinguished between the two of them um because of where they lived using land records. So you know this John Smith lived in this area of the county and this John Smith lived in that area of the county. And that's why it's super important to know how to do research in those types of records.
00:36:11
The Jobs Podcast
Right. You may have answered this question a little bit ago as I was listening to you talk. I was thinking in my head, I wonder how far back you have to realistically go before if someone comes to you and says, Well, I only know back to my great grandparents.
00:36:27
The Jobs Podcast
Is that typically enough to get a running start or?
00:36:29
Patti Hobbs
Yes. Yes.
00:36:30
The Jobs Podcast
Okay. All right.
00:36:32
Patti Hobbs
Yeah. Yeah. That's um actually, you I mean, you could do it earlier. I mean, grandparents and of course, so funny story at the library. One of the, um ah there was a young girl who came in and wanted help.
00:36:47
Patti Hobbs
And um I asked her who her um who her grandparents were to help get her started. And her grandparents were still living. And usually where you get a really good start in genealogy is by looking at the last census available.
00:37:06
Patti Hobbs
And so I think at that time, it was probably 1930. And so and her grandmother had wasn't born ah by 1930. So her grandparents weren't in the 1930 census.
00:37:15
The Jobs Podcast
Hm.
00:37:17
Patti Hobbs
So I said, okay, well, you're going to need to go talk to... and And it turned out that she was the niece of a friend of mine.
00:37:21
The Jobs Podcast
Huh.
00:37:25
Patti Hobbs
And so i said and so i knew I knew she could talk to her grandparents. So I said, you need to go talk to your grandma.
00:37:30
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:37:31
Patti Hobbs
i think and find out who her parents were and then i can then I can help you. So a lot of times it's just really hard with more recent stuff. Now it's getting, it's a little bit easier now than it was ah back then because i would I would say that was probably about 2009, 10, you know, just when I was starting at the library.
00:37:50
Patti Hobbs
But the the now we have a lot of online newspapers. And and a lot of them, they end at 1923 because that's the copyright date you know where they can put anything on.
00:37:56
The Jobs Podcast
Oh sure.
00:38:04
Patti Hobbs
But you can pay, like on newspapers dot.com, you can pay an extra subscription price to get more recent newspapers. and And so a lot of times that's especially helpful with adoptee and unknown parentage cases um because you're trying to find these relationships that you can't find in records because they're still in a time where they're trying to keep them private.
00:38:28
Patti Hobbs
you know Like usually you can't get, only family can get death certificates for ah for deaths occurring in the last 50 years.
00:38:32
The Jobs Podcast
Mm hmm.
00:38:36
Patti Hobbs
And you know so there are limitations on some of the records that you can get And then, of course, sometimes you have to know where to find them to even to even be able to get them. So, you know it's it it newspapers have made that a lot easier to be able to find some of those things. But typically, you need to have somebody that is in, and now the one, their censuses are released 72 years later.
00:39:04
Patti Hobbs
So, we have the 1950 census, which we got two years ago. And um and then, of course, in 2032, the 1960 census will be released.
00:39:16
Patti Hobbs
so But you see, i I was born in the 1950s, and so I'm not in any of the censuses that are
Careers and Economics in Genealogy
00:39:22
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm. I didn't realize they'd released them like that.
00:39:22
Patti Hobbs
available yet.
00:39:23
Patti Hobbs
so but
00:39:25
The Jobs Podcast
I thought it was just, you know, you could just get it after a few years. So.
00:39:28
Patti Hobbs
No, no, it's it's ah privatized for 72 years.
00:39:30
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:39:32
Patti Hobbs
So so anyway, so so it's really helpful if you if you you can get started if you have a name and an approximate age and a location um and to be able to find somebody in the 1950 or 19, better 40 census, ah mainly because the 1950 didn't ask as many questions as the 1940 and 30 did.
00:39:32
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm. Interesting.
00:39:55
Patti Hobbs
So you have a little bit more information um on those censuses. but
00:40:03
The Jobs Podcast
i have This is really interesting. um Do you have any knowledge? I'm sure you do. If someone wanted to to get into this field, but they're wondering where they could apply that to a specific career, I can see some use in disease research or the health field. I can see some in working for a county office.
00:40:27
The Jobs Podcast
or something along those lines, but what types of occupations would use your work as ah the bulk of their day? Do you have any suggestions on that?
00:40:35
Patti Hobbs
Yeah. Well, yeah um you know there I would say the most people the people that I know who have the most work in a particular given field maybe fall into these categories. And one are people who are called forensic genealogists, and they research for air for estates and do air research.
00:40:58
The Jobs Podcast
Oh yeah.
00:40:58
Patti Hobbs
And so they work for attorneys and they make court appearances and things like that. I've never done that, ah but I know several people who do. And then there are the um ah there are libraries.
00:41:16
Patti Hobbs
um Generally, courthouses and ah government facilities do not um have people who are experienced with genealogy.
00:41:24
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:41:24
Patti Hobbs
If you run ah if you want to run a across one, it's wonderful. if you you know And a lot of times they're interested. When you go in and you research in a courthouse and you tell them what you're looking for, you know a lot of times the the staff will be interested.
00:41:39
Patti Hobbs
so it's um you know But
00:41:39
The Jobs Podcast
Sure.
00:41:41
Patti Hobbs
ah you know like there's There's a man that's ah that works over in Cape Girardeau who's a genealogist and then ah John Dugan who is the state Missouri State Archivist up at Jefferson City. um He is also a genealogist and he formerly had been in Memphis, Tennessee before he became the Missouri State Archivist.
00:42:03
Patti Hobbs
And so I had actually met him before when I was in Memphis. That's where my mom's family was for 30 years or so after they had come from Missouri.
00:42:11
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:42:13
Patti Hobbs
But they um ah but he his mother was a title researcher. And so he she he got dragged along to courthouses to do research and land records.
00:42:25
Patti Hobbs
And so anyway, so he's, his you know, so it is a great resource when you have people in those positions who really are genealogists and have that background. So I would say archives are a good place and and historical societies.
00:42:38
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:42:41
Patti Hobbs
I would say probably the problem with those are that they are not as well paying as you know I mean they they may not pay very well um The I bet the forensic Stuff probably makes the most amount of money as far as that there are also people who do Repatriation which is where they do genealogy on um military men who are lost and
00:42:50
The Jobs Podcast
yeah
00:43:07
The Jobs Podcast
Oh,
00:43:10
Patti Hobbs
their remains might possibly be found.
00:43:13
The Jobs Podcast
oh sure.
00:43:13
Patti Hobbs
um And so then when they find remains, they're able to ah do this. So what they do, what the repatriation genealogists do is they search for family members They don't seek them out. I mean, they don't contact them. They do the research and finding family members, and then they submit that to the the ah government. um And then the government, then if they find remains that match with someone, then or I'm sorry, if they if they suspect, then they will go to these people
00:43:48
Patti Hobbs
Well, I'm not sure how it goes. Maybe they go to these people and ask them to test first so that they're their DNA is in the database as a basis of comparison. um So actually, I'm not sure of the process of what happens later, whether they go ahead and try to get the, but the genealogist doesn't contact the family at all.
00:44:06
Patti Hobbs
They're just doing the genealogy work.
00:44:06
The Jobs Podcast
right
00:44:08
Patti Hobbs
So I know quite a few people who do that and and so then the other way is um is if you work as a staff genealogist somewhere like the DAR or the DUV or the War of 1812, you know these these ah ah lineage societies, when people when people submit their lineage applications, then they're evaluated by these staff genealogists.
00:44:29
The Jobs Podcast
Right. Sure.
00:44:39
Patti Hobbs
So.
00:44:40
The Jobs Podcast
the two examples The first two examples you gave, the one with ah inheritance or heirs and making sure that someone is you know of that lineage, I can see that being, ah if you're you you're usually dealing with an awful lot of money or a large inheritance if someone is gonna go to that trouble.
00:44:57
Patti Hobbs
Yes. Yeah.
00:44:59
The Jobs Podcast
um So that's certainly a niche.
00:45:00
Patti Hobbs
And you're dealing, and you're dealing with the legal system and lawyers.
00:45:03
The Jobs Podcast
Oh yeah, yeah, fun, that sounds fun.
00:45:07
Patti Hobbs
Oh, well I'm just saying that, you know, that we always think of that as garnering a lot of money, but anyway.
00:45:08
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:45:12
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then the, the, uh, I'm thinking POWs and MIAs that, that whole thing that you were talking about there, finding, um, have you ever, you've never dealt with any of that as far as with, uh, the government from Vietnam, for example, or something along those lines?
00:45:26
Patti Hobbs
No.
00:45:27
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:45:27
Patti Hobbs
No, but i I know, you know, I know several people who do do that.
00:45:31
The Jobs Podcast
Sure.
00:45:31
Patti Hobbs
And, you know, part part of it is, is that um the people, ah individual genealogists will contract with the government to perform a certain number of cases over the course of a year.
00:45:45
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:45:45
Patti Hobbs
And so then they hire genealogists to work under them. And these people those people usually have to be like certified genealogists. um you know They have to have a credential like that. And um i actually, so the only the other credential that might work is an AG, and so AG or CG. and then ah But the people under them, as long as they're being you know so ah ah CG is overseeing it, then they have people that are not CGs working with them.
00:46:17
Patti Hobbs
um So, you know, genealogist, right?
00:46:18
The Jobs Podcast
A CG would be a certified genealogist. OK.
00:46:22
Patti Hobbs
Right.
00:46:24
The Jobs Podcast
Sorry, interrupted you.
00:46:24
Patti Hobbs
Yeah.
00:46:25
The Jobs Podcast
You were saying.
00:46:25
Patti Hobbs
No, no so no i i um I'm just saying there is that work. It's just that to be the to be sort of the the top person in that pyramid or hierarchy, um you know there aren't as many of those as there are of the people who work under them.
00:46:44
Patti Hobbs
so um
00:46:44
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:46:46
Patti Hobbs
you know so And I think their work is evaluated. I'm sure it is. It's evaluated by them. So I would say that most you know ah most of the other people just do freelance like I do, ah freelance ah genealogy.
00:46:53
The Jobs Podcast
Sure.
00:47:01
Patti Hobbs
And of course, the problem with it in um yeah is that it's sort of a rich man's... um you know wouldn you call you know is ah Poor people can't afford to pay a genealogist normally.
00:47:15
The Jobs Podcast
Sure. Right.
00:47:16
Patti Hobbs
So and you know my husband is a welder and he has his own welding business.
00:47:19
The Jobs Podcast
Uh huh.
00:47:21
Patti Hobbs
And um and and you know you can always use a welder no matter whether the times are good or whether they're bad.
The Impact of Technology on Genealogy
00:47:27
Patti Hobbs
If they're good, you're building new stuff.
00:47:28
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:47:29
Patti Hobbs
If they're bad, you're repairing old stuff.
00:47:31
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:47:32
Patti Hobbs
And you know genealogy isn't like that. you know it's like ah So So that's why and a lot of times people and I understand like, because we were poor at one time, I understand the fact that like, oh, you want to hire a genealogist, but you just can't.
00:47:47
Patti Hobbs
ah But that's what that's what forces you to learn to do it better and more yourself, you know, so.
00:47:52
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. Well, the internet probably helps quite a bit. If you know where to look and where to do the research, it's a lot better than having to go look at microfilm in a library somewhere.
00:47:57
Patti Hobbs
Yeah.
00:48:00
Patti Hobbs
Yes, yes, that's right.
00:48:00
The Jobs Podcast
So I, these next two questions, I'm curious about your answer.
00:48:02
Patti Hobbs
That's right.
00:48:07
The Jobs Podcast
Um, I think it may be difficult for you to answer because the first one is what do you like most about your job? But it seems like you love everything about your job.
00:48:16
Patti Hobbs
Well, I have to know there are some there are some downsides. um But um yeah, I do, I love doing the genealogy and, and such. And so I, the research, of course, is is what I like. The downside to doing research for hire is that a lot of times, um you know, you you have to accommodate for report writing you have to write up a good report that documents everything you did and a lot of times clients don't understand the amount of time that it takes you know you may spend like if you're gonna do ten hours.
00:48:46
The Jobs Podcast
Oh.
00:48:57
Patti Hobbs
And you know like my minimum for adoptees and unknown parentage cases is 10 hours. But usually, if it's a difficult research problem, my minimum is 20 hours. um But i have I had a client a couple of years ago that it was hundreds, like about 400 hours.
00:49:13
The Jobs Podcast
Get a grief.
00:49:14
Patti Hobbs
so But she understood that, she knew that going in, that it would be that.
00:49:18
The Jobs Podcast
but okay
00:49:19
Patti Hobbs
and so um But generally speaking, people just don't realize, especially with when they're trying to solve some unknown problem some unknown ancestor, you know back five, six, seven generations that they haven't been able to figure out themselves, they just don't realize, um they should realize if they know they haven't been able to find it, but they they
00:49:37
The Jobs Podcast
Okay. Mhm.
00:49:43
Patti Hobbs
They think, oh, I'm going to get this expert. And yes, the expert is more efficient. they The expert knows where to look, which records to look at, what's important, what's not important, things like that. The expert knows that. And so the research is more efficient. It's just that it still takes a lot of time. So I would say that the frustrating part for me is a lot of times not getting to a point where you have a good resolution.
00:50:06
Patti Hobbs
so
00:50:08
The Jobs Podcast
I hadn't thought about the report writing of that is a typical report. Are we talking 10, 15, 20 pages long or.
00:50:15
Patti Hobbs
Yeah, I would say that um I'm trying to think of, um um you know i I would say for a short research project, it might only be 10 to 20 pages, um and you know but for something that is more extensive.
00:50:30
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:50:34
Patti Hobbs
um The person that I did the hundreds of hours of research for, I was actually entering stuff into a database, and then I was writing because she wanted it published. um So I was writing i was writing the the the narrative version that was going to be um submitted for publication.
00:50:53
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm. Do you have people that come to you and say, I'm pretty sure I'm related to King Henry. Um, can you make that happen? That kind of people looking for fame, but rent inheritance, I guess.
00:51:05
Patti Hobbs
Yeah, right. Right. Right. And, you know, and and I don't know whether, you know, I used to be willing when I didn't have very much client research to take almost anything, but I probably wouldn't take something like that.
00:51:18
Patti Hobbs
And, um you know, just because it doesn't interest me.
00:51:18
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:51:22
Patti Hobbs
Um, and there are specialists in those Royal line kind of things, you know, and a lot of times the Royal lines have been researched by other people and then descendant lines have been published.
00:51:22
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:51:34
Patti Hobbs
So, uh, you know, for example, the, the Mayflower this, I mean, I don't consider the Mayflower to be quite the same thing, but as a hint, as, you know, Henry.
00:51:41
The Jobs Podcast
right
00:51:43
Patti Hobbs
um But the ah the um the the Mayflower Society has published a lot of descendant lineages, so you find you know you can find your ancestor in one of those and then it gives you the lineage back to that Mayflower ancestor.
00:52:03
Patti Hobbs
So a lot of times the famous, there's there's a lot known already about the famous people.
00:52:05
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:52:08
Patti Hobbs
And a lot of times it's doing that connecting from what you're what you know.
00:52:09
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:52:14
Patti Hobbs
And that's where I say you just work your way back in your genealogy to to to do that. And so like if I knew that somebody wanted to, oh I did, I helped somebody with that, I forgot.
00:52:25
Patti Hobbs
ah There was somebody who wanted to, who who felt like that she ah but was ah descended from this particular Mayflower ancestor and I was going to Pennsylvania and so I did research in a couple of counties where her ancestors lived and I was able to find the evidence to connect to make that link.
00:52:46
Patti Hobbs
So a lot of times that people have
00:52:47
The Jobs Podcast
Wow.
00:52:49
Patti Hobbs
problems with and this this comes into play with Patriot ancestors with the DAR, the Daughters of American Revolution, is that a lot of times you know that Patriot and you might even know his children.
00:52:57
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:53:02
Patti Hobbs
um But then your ancestry comes tantalizingly close to it, but you can't quite make that connection. And a lot of times there's a generation that's kind of right in the middle. Well, right in the middle, maybe closer, farther back, you know, because of migration. And a lot of times those, you know, those patriot ancestors who lived in the colonies, their ancestors migrated west.
00:53:28
Patti Hobbs
And they ended up in these places where the connection to that um that Patriot family is not so obvious. and And so quite often there's a generation where there's a gap that it takes a little bit more work, or it may even be impossible. There may not be any evidence for the relationship.
00:53:46
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm. As you've been doing this for a number of years now, I think on the surface, it's pretty obvious when you see what has changed in your industry as far as now everything or most things are on computers or you can access more on computers. But have you seen any big seismic shifts in this industry, I guess, for lack of a better word that has made your job easier or better or more frustrating?
00:54:14
Patti Hobbs
um Well, A, there so I definitely wouldn't say most. um There's definitely more, but not most online.
00:54:22
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:54:22
Patti Hobbs
um and But the DNA is one, you know, that's a total game changer from, ah you know, when I was first doing genealogy, there was no DNA testing.
00:54:34
Patti Hobbs
Why DNA testing? ah you know, testing the Y chromosome of males was the starting point, and that was about in 2004 or so.
00:54:43
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:54:43
Patti Hobbs
and then And then they started testing the autosomal DNA chromosomes um in, you know, about 2012. And so, you know, things have really just taken off from there.
00:54:55
Patti Hobbs
And there have been a lot of tools to help genealogists use DNA and to get more out of their DNA test results. so And I'll give another plug for, I am actually doing a, and I don't know how widespread your audience is, because this is only helpful if you're local.
00:55:14
Patti Hobbs
Well, not. We do it on Zoom too. But Ozark's geneie ozzark's Genealogical Society on April I'm going to be doing like a presentation on what to do, you know, how to work with your ah um ancestry DNA test results.
00:55:16
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:55:31
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:55:31
Patti Hobbs
So it'll be sort of a basic sub-beginner type orientation to using your test results. Normally we meet at the library center, but because of like a room got reserved by somebody else, we're actually having it at Boulevard Baptist Church, um which may be familiar to you.
00:55:47
The Jobs Podcast
Okay. It is.
00:55:53
Patti Hobbs
and ah and And so yeah, Boulevard has graciously allowed us to have that meeting. So it's April 16th at 10 in the morning and people can, you know, it's free to the public.
00:56:04
Patti Hobbs
If you want to join by Zoom, you have to become a member to get the Zoom link. but ah So i will be I will be doing that introduction to Ancestry DNA for that.
00:56:09
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
00:56:14
Patti Hobbs
So that was another game changer and then we have all these other tools that have become available to make it easier to use them and then the more recent thing is something I mentioned earlier before we were recording which is artificial intelligence and um And a family search has been a leader in this where it is a you can do um full text searching um on
00:56:29
The Jobs Podcast
Oh yeah.
00:56:41
Patti Hobbs
handwritten documents that are land and probate records.
00:56:45
Patti Hobbs
um on their So they don't have to be indexed by someone. And you can find people in unexpected places. So so there is that. there's ah you know AI has opened up this this for that, and then it transcribes the documents.
00:56:45
The Jobs Podcast
Wow.
00:57:02
Patti Hobbs
Of course, they always have to be double-checked. um One of the things I saw and one that I was doing the other night was that it was it was a two-page, ah it was showing the portion of the either left-hand or right-hand page of the book of land records, and it was including a transcription of what was in the left-hand page
00:57:06
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:57:25
Patti Hobbs
on the same line with the right-hand page. So you know there's there's lots of problems with it still, but it it certainly can make things very quick and easy. The other thing it does is you can ask it to do a summary of what was there. And um and so and then, of course, there's you know the other artificial intelligence tools like you know chat GPT andlaude and Claude and yeah You know other things that genealogists are using um to make sort of compiling research information um I'm trying to think of what the The two there's two guys who do a podcast on using artificial intelligence with genealogy ah Mark Thompson and Steve Little are their names and it's something like artificial intelligence for genealogists or something like that and it's a podcast and
00:58:17
Patti Hobbs
and And so they keep you up to date on things that you can do with um AI and genealogy. So of course, and it's a burgeoning field. So you know there's lots of new information always coming out and things like that.
00:58:28
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:58:31
Patti Hobbs
But you know I have actually you know copied and pasted what has been transcribed. ah You can upload documents um into those interfaces and it will transcribe them for you.
00:58:44
Patti Hobbs
It will also summarize them for you or extract particular information that you want from them. ah So for example, Mark Thompson on that podcast, ah he talks about one of the prompts that he uses extracts the, you know, he takes an obituary from a newspaper and says, you know, and tells the interface to extract the the names and the relationships.
00:59:14
Patti Hobbs
And it does that.
00:59:15
The Jobs Podcast
Good grief.
00:59:16
Patti Hobbs
So I mean, it's only as good as what's in the original, of course, you know, but um and and stuff.
00:59:19
The Jobs Podcast
Right, right.
00:59:22
Patti Hobbs
So anyway, so yeah, I, I would say that the DNA and the AI have been real game changers and have made things easier. So One of the things that I think about with using um all the advantages that we have, like I just think back of all the hard work I had to find some things that are now easily found indexed, like on Ancestry and things like that.
00:59:46
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:59:47
Patti Hobbs
and you know And it's just that i I like people to know that there's more to it underneath the surface than just doing that. And you will understand what you're seeing better. But those tools, like genealogists before the early 2000s when they started putting censuses online,
01:00:07
Patti Hobbs
Um, before that, uh, and I would say like my hair, no, not my hair ah heritage quest. That was the name of the database that had census images online and then ancestry of course. Um, but the.
01:00:23
Patti Hobbs
The thing about it is that before that people had to actually order microfilm so you could go to your local library So the Springfield Green County Library it had all this, Missouri microfilm for censuses But it didn't have censuses for other locations.
01:00:39
Patti Hobbs
So if you wanted to find your ancestor in an Indiana location and Well, you had to order that microfilm and have it you know sent in like through interlibrary loan or something.
01:00:49
Patti Hobbs
So it actually, I think, came from the National Archives.
01:00:50
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:00:52
Patti Hobbs
but you know so um And some libraries have more. So Midwest Genealogy Center up in Independence, ah they had a lot more of those kinds of
Skills and Certification in Genealogy
01:01:02
Patti Hobbs
things. But but the thing is is that what that does is it it frees us up.
01:01:07
Patti Hobbs
to spend more time on analyzing what we're seeing so that we'll you know hopefully put more thought into what is the background context for these records?
01:01:11
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
01:01:18
Patti Hobbs
um you know What do I see by looking at the records before and the records after and what patterns are there? and You know, there's there's lots of factors too, and and who are the people that they're associated with and stuff. So i to I found a land record in Pennsylvania County, Virginia that had a line at the very end of the deed that tell it was a sale by siblings. um Their brother had died, and so they inherited his land.
01:01:49
Patti Hobbs
And so they were selling the land. Well, one of the siblings was not included and they put her name down at the bottom of that deed. So if anybody had looked for her in the index, they wouldn't have found her um because she wasn't one of ah the internal indexes that I was talking about before. So by looking through that, I found her and then when I tracked her,
01:02:11
Patti Hobbs
to where she had moved from Virginia to North Carolina, there was a deed that she and her husband executed that had as a witness one of her uncles. And so then I knew what happened to the uncle.
01:02:23
Patti Hobbs
I had no idea what happened to that uncle.
01:02:26
The Jobs Podcast
huh
01:02:26
Patti Hobbs
And so, you know, so there are just things like that. You've got to really pay attention to the details and, you know, have some way of recording those details so that you can better analyze them and correlate them.
01:02:39
Patti Hobbs
So analysis and correlation is a big part of the genealogy standards. So that's, you know, being a certified genealogist means that you work ah to the the standards that have been developed and those they're they're published in a book called Genealogy Standards, but they are the work of people who over decades and decades of work have sort of ah formulated methodologies and things that make for good practices for genealogy.
01:03:07
The Jobs Podcast
you know
01:03:07
Patti Hobbs
So and analysis and correlation are two of those, are part are part of that.
01:03:13
The Jobs Podcast
You didn't know it, but you were just answering. One of the questions that I always am sure to ask when I speak to someone is what type of skills, um personalities or soft skills that um someone would benefit from getting into the line of work of whoever I'm speaking with.
01:03:32
The Jobs Podcast
And you're talking about the detail orientation and the natural curiosity that just keep digging and paying attention. Those, those are standing out to me as two key factors in someone's skillset or personality that would make them enjoy this line of work.
01:03:48
Patti Hobbs
Yes, absolutely.
01:03:49
Patti Hobbs
That's true.
01:03:49
The Jobs Podcast
Are there any other ones that you would add to that list?
01:03:52
Patti Hobbs
um You know, some things just grow on you. So one of the things that, you know, I've never considered myself to be much of a writer.
01:03:56
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:04:01
Patti Hobbs
I always felt that I could be a good technical writer. You know, my vocabulary is good and my syntax is good and ah grammatically i so I speak correctly.
01:04:11
The Jobs Podcast
Mm hmm.
01:04:11
Patti Hobbs
um But as far as ah writing in a way that is, you know, is not being overly verbose. That was one of my problems to begin with.
01:04:22
Patti Hobbs
um And, um and so, you know, and also, um you know, people like to have sentences that are more direct and shorter. i I'm not sure I agree with that theory, because so many of the great writers of the past didn't do that.
01:04:39
Patti Hobbs
So, um but, but the thing that I think that has happened is, and this is something that I sort of came into, is that
01:04:39
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
01:04:48
Patti Hobbs
When I'm writing up a narrative about a family, there is so much that you get out of it that until you actually experience that, you don't realize. And part of it is the synthesis. um you know You start putting things together that you write and you see things that you didn't see before.
01:05:07
Patti Hobbs
And you um you also um notice holes like, oh, how do I know that? And I better figure out, you know, why I think that and if there's any documentation for that. um And so it it has been like I just coming to an end product of something written ah like that has been such has been so rewarding for me.
01:05:35
Patti Hobbs
And it's it's really hard work. like Writing is hard work for many people. Some people just sit down and they just want to write all the time and they write, right write, write.
01:05:44
The Jobs Podcast
Mhm.
01:05:44
Patti Hobbs
um When you're having to do this kind of writing you have to be really careful that you're not saying anything that you don't know from that you can't document and um And so, you know that makes it a little bit harder and um But I feel like that the rewards are great and that's why so, you know, I became a certified genealogist in 2014 and then I just a few months ago became a certified genetic genealogist
01:05:54
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:06:11
Patti Hobbs
And um i've had um I've had things published um ah in in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly. I've had two articles published in there, and I've been published in the New York Record.
01:06:26
Patti Hobbs
And um I wrote a chapter for a book called Advanced Genetic Genealogy, and it was a case study of how I identified my great-great-grandmother, whose name was totally unknown to me.
01:06:37
Patti Hobbs
No first name, no last name.
01:06:38
The Jobs Podcast
Hm. Really?
01:06:39
Patti Hobbs
and using DNA um and then using documentary evidence of closeness of your relationship, you know, families moving together in the same places and and that kind of thing.
01:06:54
Patti Hobbs
so ah So those have been really rewarding to me to to be able to do. So I think that you know probably depending on what your ultimate goal is in doing genealogy, I think sometimes the report writing is onerous.
01:07:10
Patti Hobbs
and hard, you know, onerous and hard. I'm being redundant, but you know, it's it's it's hard um and and stuff, but you can take a great deal of pride of having produced something.
01:07:14
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm, yeah.
01:07:22
Patti Hobbs
And I think that's one thing that's sort of lacking in our society as a whole, that every everybody is expecting that things will be easy and they don't realize that you get so much enjoyment and satisfaction from attacking something that is difficult and challenging and Creating a product from it that is like the carrot You know the carrot at the end of the stick that that leads me on so that's why I I'm trying to do I want to do less client research because I want to and teaching I've also cut back on my teaching because I want to research and write more ah because you know and I have a couple of people that I know who have
01:07:49
The Jobs Podcast
Sure.
01:08:08
Patti Hobbs
They have prioritized that in their lives and they're sort of my, um they're sort of my um you know, the people I look to as like, that's what I want to do.
01:08:18
Patti Hobbs
I want to do what they're doing.
01:08:19
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
01:08:20
Patti Hobbs
so
01:08:21
The Jobs Podcast
You mentioned a minute ago about you got certifications. Um, what, what were the two categories that you got certified in? One of them was in 2009, I believe. And then one was, okay.
01:08:31
Patti Hobbs
No, 2014 is when I became a certified genealogist.
01:08:36
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
01:08:36
Patti Hobbs
and And that's with the the board for certification of genealogists. So it's, um I think, oh, I should know this, BCGcertification dot.org. And um and then, and and it's the same entity that does the genetic genealogy. It's actually a new credential.
01:08:54
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
01:08:55
Patti Hobbs
um So the there are some there are some law enforcement, there are some agencies that are requiring, if you're doing a case that has legal ramifications to it, that it be done by a certified, just like my husband is a certified welder and there are some jobs that he does that you have to be certified to to do it.
01:09:07
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. ah Okay.
01:09:15
Patti Hobbs
so So there are some cases where they are requiring that you have some sort of certification And so the board for certification of genealogists developed this new credential certification of genetic
International Genealogy Challenges
01:09:28
Patti Hobbs
genealogists.
01:09:29
Patti Hobbs
And I think I'm number five and four. Maybe I'm four, four. You know, we we only have I think we have six now. We have six certified genetic genealogists.
01:09:39
Patti Hobbs
But so I think I think I was four.
01:09:40
The Jobs Podcast
Wow.
01:09:42
Patti Hobbs
Yeah. So.
01:09:43
The Jobs Podcast
What's the, is that online training or do you have to submit a certain number of case studies or examples of your work or both?
01:09:47
Patti Hobbs
Yeah, so yeah, so yeah, so the you know, the two main sort of accrediting or certifying bodies are BCG, the board for certification of genealogists. And what you do is you submit work products.
01:10:03
Patti Hobbs
And there are um different aspects of what you submit, um and those are to demonstrate skills in different areas. um You know, like one thing is like transcribing, abstracting, analysis, and research recommendation.
01:10:13
The Jobs Podcast
and Okay.
01:10:20
Patti Hobbs
One is doing research for another person. so that you demonstrate that you can actually jump into research for somebody else and not just your own family. And then one is where you solve a complex evidence case where you have to, there's certain criteria that define it as a complex evidence case. And then a KDP, which is kinship determination, where you do three generations of a family.
01:10:43
Patti Hobbs
And you write two proof arguments or summaries ah to within that um to to do that. there's There's sort of a hierarchy of what you need to do as far as developing proof for relationships.
01:10:59
Patti Hobbs
Sometimes relationships are very easy to prove, and then sometimes they're more difficult and require a more complex um solution to demonstrating that. So so those's so there's that.
01:11:09
The Jobs Podcast
out How long does that? How long does that process typically take? Is that kind of at your own pace or it usually takes about a year?
01:11:15
Patti Hobbs
Yes, yeah.
01:11:17
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
01:11:17
Patti Hobbs
No, so you can they they actually give you a year to, once you submit a preliminary application, they give you a year to complete it, to submit it, but you actually don't, you could you could do the preliminary application and turn around the next day and submit.
01:11:27
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
01:11:34
Patti Hobbs
um and so um the the and that's actually what i mean I recommend that people practice a lot. Some people want to become certified because they want to be able to say, hey, I'm a certified genealogist and be able to get more clients. um But they're not ready because they haven't done enough research.
01:11:54
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
01:11:54
Patti Hobbs
And that's where practicing, you just really need to practice. And then also, you know, research for other people, practicing that research for other people. So the the other accrediting body, I don't want to leave that one out, is the ICAPGen. And they give an AG credential, um which is accredited genealogist. And that's sort of based out of Utah. um And what they what they do is more of a,
01:12:22
Patti Hobbs
demonstration of regional expertise. so Certified genealogists are people who know the research skills and the methodologies ah to apply to good quality research.
01:12:35
Patti Hobbs
Whereas the AG, I mean, I'm sure it emphasizes good quality research too, but its emphasis is more on regional expertise. So you apply to become accredited in a certain region um of, you know, ah of the world or of the country.
01:12:44
The Jobs Podcast
and Okay.
01:12:51
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
01:12:51
Patti Hobbs
and and stuff and they have they do have a testing component.
01:12:53
The Jobs Podcast
Well, that is a question.
01:12:55
Patti Hobbs
ah They have one part that's...
01:12:57
The Jobs Podcast
That is a question though. You just mentioned something that I didn't even think to ask. Is most of your work done in the United States or do you do global or is it a mix of anything and everything?
01:13:07
Patti Hobbs
yeah Well, I've done, the only areas that I really have expertise in outside of the US are England and Sweden.
01:13:18
Patti Hobbs
and um and and my and you know And actually my expertise is not as good in those two locations.
01:13:19
The Jobs Podcast
and Okay.
01:13:26
Patti Hobbs
So I did have a client, um a local man that I did some research for and ah one of and one of his ancestors did come from England and I was able to find um you know the the marriage record and the birth record and things like that in England.
01:13:41
Patti Hobbs
so I am certainly aware of the most common resources for ah English research, um but not as much for other countries. And some countries like Ireland is horrible.
01:13:55
Patti Hobbs
i It's horrible in that if, well, if your ancestors came from Ireland before about, I've forgotten what the date is, before about 1850, there's like almost no records, because all the records were lost, all the, you know, census, most of the censuses and vital records and things like that.
01:14:16
Patti Hobbs
So if there are church records that are still left, then you know, and there's probably some other things, but it's it's very, very difficult to do some of those countries like that.
01:14:25
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
01:14:26
Patti Hobbs
So anyway,
01:14:29
The Jobs Podcast
If you I'll shift gears here for a second, because I'm really curious about this next question. If you didn't end up doing the line of work that you're in now, was there another occupation or area of work that you always thought, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't mind doing that. Maybe I should have done that or not necessarily regret, but just wondering if you would have excelled in something else.
01:14:52
Patti Hobbs
Um, well, because of my, um, I, I did, I did have something else that I thought I wanted to do when I was a kid. I thought I wanted to be a nurse and then I decided I didn't want to be a nurse.
01:15:01
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:15:03
Patti Hobbs
Um, but then with my, I did, so my husband and I, my husband was a biology major also. That's how we met. And he knows a lot about animals and plants and, you know, all this kind of stuff.
01:15:10
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
01:15:14
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:15:15
Patti Hobbs
And I don't. I mean, it's like I was kind of in one ear and out the other as far as, you know, but what I really liked were all the functional physiological chemical and to see like principles of physics that apply to chemistry and principles of chemistry that apply to biology.
01:15:34
Patti Hobbs
um And, you know, and those things were so um and And basically, because I did really well in chemistry, the chemistry classes you know that I took in my biology, um i I actually thought that i would be I wanted to be a lab technician.
01:15:51
Patti Hobbs
So I ah wanted to work in a laboratory, like a hospital laboratory or something. So anyway, ah so so yeah, there was that.
01:15:56
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
01:16:00
The Jobs Podcast
Have you ever, you know, I'm thinking about the folks that have come to you that were adopted. um Have you ever had anyone that came to you and when you found something, it was just like the best thing, the best bit of news that they've ever gotten as they were trying to find their mom that, you know, they never did know or something along those lines where it really was satisfying for you as the researcher to give them something that just kind of completed them as a person.
01:16:29
Patti Hobbs
um Yeah, that's an interesting way to look at it. I would say that the the the part that is like more or less satisfying, usually to me, is how the relatives react, how the newfound relatives react.
01:16:42
The Jobs Podcast
Oh.
01:16:44
Patti Hobbs
And so sometimes it's bad and sometimes it's good.
01:16:47
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
01:16:47
Patti Hobbs
And and so so that's part of it. There's one man that I helped where um you know he i I've forgotten, but he he's in contact with many members of the family who have been very welcoming to him. And they've basically told him that it's better off that his mother doesn't want to have anything to do with him. And so there's that aspect where his mother doesn't want to have anything to do with him, but then he's got these other relatives that do.
Impactful Genealogy Stories and Reflections
01:17:15
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
01:17:15
Patti Hobbs
So, you know, and sometimes it just takes people time. um There was a um someone, you know, and this, this is like just genealogists have a good memory, generally, um I would say that that's something else that is very helpful in genealogy if you have a good memory for details.
01:17:35
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
01:17:35
Patti Hobbs
um Certainly, things should be recorded and written down somewhere, but a lot of times things won't strike you unless you actually remember them. So I had a man, an adopted man contact me because we matched on GEDmatch, which is one of those third-party tools that I was talking about that has helped us to be able to analyze DNA better.
01:17:54
The Jobs Podcast
Okay.
01:17:57
Patti Hobbs
And um I looked to see where he matched me. He matched me at the beginning of chromosome 9. And blah blah blah well then about two weeks later um I was just developing my evidence for the case that was the chapter in that book that was published and um And so I had already identified the family and I mean I identified the family that I thought it was I just didn't know maybe exactly who it was or maybe I was trying to um add more evidence um And a man came up with my came up and matched me on on ancestry
01:18:33
Patti Hobbs
And so I contacted him and asked if he would move his DNA to GEDmatch. And so he called me up and I talked him through it on the phone and and he transferred his DNA to GEDmatch. And I saw he matched in that same area of chromosome 9.
01:18:49
The Jobs Podcast
Hm.
01:18:49
Patti Hobbs
and then And then I looked and I saw that he shared a lot of DNA with this adoptee. and um And then the other thing that I looked at was I saw that he matched on the X chromosome. And males only get X DNA from their mothers. So that meant that this man who matched him as an X chromosome had to be related on his mother's side. And so we were able to figure it out pretty easily.
01:19:18
Patti Hobbs
um And, but the mother was didn't, it wasn't, she was very, we don't know what happened. We don't know how she became pregnant with this child. um it But the relative said that she was very, very shy. And so to me, it seemed more likely that someone took advantage of her.
01:19:40
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
01:19:40
Patti Hobbs
And and so and of course she just thought that it would never come out in the open, you know Nobody else would ever know which is the kind of shocking things to people who did give up children for adoption um There is a local person here who helps people um deal with those kinds of things um but the um but anyway um he was the adoptee was very understanding and he didn't want to push himself on her and um and such and so eventually though she showed up as a match to me in my test results and I Contacted him and I said hey your mom tested
01:20:17
Patti Hobbs
and To me and so then he tested with ancestry.
01:20:18
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
01:20:20
Patti Hobbs
So see he hadn't tested with ancestry. He was on the other databases He was on family tree DNA and and on GED match, of course, but um So he went ahead and tested on ancestry and maybe she wanted confirmation, you know, like okay because as I said earlier the closer you are related to someone the more DNA you will share and And so a parent-child relationship is very, very obvious with the amount of DNA that's shared.
01:20:36
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:20:49
Patti Hobbs
So, you know, these people come around, you know, ah eventually sometimes. And so I do tell people that, like, you know, they they may not be accepting of it right now, give them time two give them time to to deal with it, you know, and then eventually they they may.
01:21:06
Patti Hobbs
So I had another instance of somebody that I was helping And this wasn't a play paid client. This was because it was somebody who was related to me that this person matched on, this person who was an adoptee. and um And so she asked me for help, like, can you help this guy? And so I figured out who his relative was. And there was another, there was a gal who also matched to a large degree. And I just told her, I said, I i don't know how to
01:21:36
Patti Hobbs
um I don't know how you fit in here. You're gonna have to find out more about your father's family ah Because we knew a lot about her mother and she had not been she knew who her father was but she hadn't been in contact with him so she ah And I said but they should have this surname or that surname and so she told her mom and her mom said oh I
01:22:01
The Jobs Podcast
Uh oh.
01:22:02
Patti Hobbs
The man, the man that they thought was her father all this time was not. And it was this, it was this other guy who was a brother to the adoptee that you know, and, and so is I, the other adoptee that I started out helping with.
01:22:06
The Jobs Podcast
Oh boy.
01:22:17
Patti Hobbs
And so um the thing is, is that his relatives didn't want to have, and they didn't respond to any messages to, you know, communicate with him to meet up with him or not.
01:22:28
Patti Hobbs
But this gal who had miss ah who had a misidentified father, his family ah welcomed her with open arms.
01:22:37
Patti Hobbs
She spent Christmas with them. shes you know and And so then the other family, once they found out about this good thing that had happened with them embracing their newfound relatives, they then embraced their newfound half-brother.
01:22:37
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
01:22:38
The Jobs Podcast
Oh my goodness.
01:22:53
Patti Hobbs
So it did turn out, but it took a long time to come to resolution.
01:22:53
The Jobs Podcast
Wow.
01:22:57
Patti Hobbs
So yes, those things are very rewarding. But it's not it's not so much the identifying, although I do take satisfaction from that, um as the the family responsiveness.
01:23:05
The Jobs Podcast
Sure.
01:23:08
Patti Hobbs
you know
01:23:08
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:23:09
Patti Hobbs
so
01:23:10
The Jobs Podcast
Boy, that's an emotional roller coaster that you just took us up.
01:23:13
Patti Hobbs
Absolutely, absolutely.
01:23:14
The Jobs Podcast
up That's got to be exciting, though, to see, you know, a conclusion in all of your efforts and all of your research and your work, and then you finally see everything come to fruition. That's got to be satisfying to see a start a middle and an end.
01:23:27
Patti Hobbs
Yes, yes, yes.
01:23:29
The Jobs Podcast
Patty, this has been, I mean, I didn't really know going into this what what we were going to talk about, but I've learned so much. This has been unbelievably fascinating, and I really appreciate you taking the time.
01:23:42
The Jobs Podcast
It's almost an hour and a half, so I hope I didn't feel like that to me, but my goodness, this has been awesome.
01:23:46
Patti Hobbs
No. well and Well, I hope I don't bore your listeners, you know, but I've enjoyed it a lot.
01:23:49
The Jobs Podcast
No, no. No.
01:23:52
Patti Hobbs
um I enjoy talking about it. I think, as you can tell, and I'm enthusiastic about genealogy and and all of that.
01:23:55
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. Sure. Sure.
01:23:59
Patti Hobbs
So i i ah it was a pleasure and an honor to to do this for you. so
01:24:05
The Jobs Podcast
It's always nice to talk to somebody who's passionate like you are about their line of work and their career and their interests. So it just it's contagious and people even if they don't know anything about genealogy like man, this lady is on it. I need to listen to her. So great job, Patty. Thank you so much.
01:24:22
Patti Hobbs
Okay. Thank you, Tim. but Bye-bye.
01:24:24
The Jobs Podcast
Bye.