Joyce (Bjorkgren) Rivette

Categories: Bjorkgren-1 | Metairie, Louisiana | Profile Improvement Project | Louisiana Families Project | Acadians Project | Houston, Texas | WikiTree Leaders.

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Biography

I've been a member of WikiTree since 2016, but not really active until 2017's Source-A-Thon. I've been working on genealogy for over 40 years. I love WikiTree's mission of an accurate and sourced shared World tree, and try to help wherever I can. A major focus of my personal genealogical work has been on all descendants of Etienne Rivet, my husband's Acadian progenitor. I can't promise that all of this work will end up on WikiTree, but I will try to add certain families as I can. In the meantime, please feel free to visit my website, Rivette Family Genealogy, for more information! If you decide to use anything you find there on a WikiTree profile (or elsewhere), I would appreciate an acknowledgement.

I have been in the process of uploading our direct ancestors to WikiTree, using gedcom files and manual edits, and am slowly getting closer to done. This has been a tedious process at times, since WikiTree doesn't allow for instant imports from gedcoms, but has been very rewarding as well. In adding profiles one at a time, I've been prompted to re-look at some of the folks that I haven't researched in years -- back in the dinosaur days of having to go to the library to research from books and microfilm, and wade through courthouse records and tromp through graveyards. No internet then. I kept family group sheets and pedigree charts on paper, then graduated to word processing software. When genealogy software first came into existence, there was usually no place to maintain sources, and if there was, it was crude at best. Add on top of that my initial ignorance of the importance of proper sourcing (I thought I would remember where it came from LOL)... As a result, a lot of the older work didn't include sources for everything. Nowadays, in many cases, quality sources can be found online that weren't readily available in the past, and all in the comfort of my jammies! So it's been good to revisit the old work!

Current Projects

LOUISIANA FAMILIES PROJECT. I've recently agreed to be a Co-Leader with Jackie Girouard for this project, which I'm looking forward to! There are lots of Louisiana relatives on both sides of our family, including Acadians, Germans, English, and Irish who immigrated in the 1700s-1800s. I have a mini-project in progress to verify the Louisiana RITTER families who settled in South Louisiana in the mid-to-late 1700s. Most of my notes for that little project are here: Ritter of 1700s Louisiana, in case anyone is interested.

ACADIANS PROJECT. My husband's line is half Acadian, including the descendants of Etienne Rivet. His paternal grandparents each descended through two of Etienne's grandchildren, although they didn't know it and always told people they were unrelated. Surprise!

I signed up to be co-captain with Stephanie Ward for Équipe Acadie - Team Acadia for the 2018 Source-A-Thon. It was a challenge to get everything organized before the event started -- a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun!

I also enjoyed participating on Team Acadia for the 2017 Source-A-Thon. That was also fun, and really was the catalyst that inspired me to participate more on WikiTree!

BIOGRAPHY BUILDERS (part of the Profile Improvement Project). I'm a huge fan! They make it a fun process by creating a different theme every month. Monthly themes that I've participated in so far, and number of profiles improved:

Year	Date	Total	Cum	Description
2017	Oct/Nov	1	1	Unsourced profiles
2017	Nov/Dec	9	10	Pick a town - Where my Dad grew up: Ponchatoula, LA

2017	Dec/Jan18	8	18	Given Name starting with C - Honoring Christmas/Chanukah.
2018	Jan/Feb	10	28	Name that's a profession - I still don't know what a Ritter is.
2018	Feb/Mar	16	44	Have a Big Heart (honoring Valentine's Day) - adopt an orphan
2018	Mar/Apr	13	57	Brickwalls/Unknown Parents - It was fun and rewarding revisiting some lines I haven't looked at in many years!

2018	Apr/May	2	59	Immigrants - Was out of town a lot and only had time for two... but it was worth it to squeeze them in. Was able to break through a brick wall with the help of other WTers!
2018	May/Jun	11	70	People born in the 1600’s
2018	Jun/Jul	8	78	People born in same city as me
2018	Jul/Aug	7	85	People born in July
2018	Aug/Sep	10	95	GGG-Grandparents
2018	Sep/Oct	9	104	Surnames starting with 'B'

2018

Oct/Nov

1

105

Catholic Popes - a little out of my comfort zone!

DATA DOCTORS. One thing I've always enjoyed doing is finding errors and correcting them, so participating in the Data Doctors' weekly challenges is a lot of fun for me! Unfortunately it can also be a bit of a black hole regarding my time, so starting in January 2018 I've had to cut back dramatically on time spent there so I could focus on my personal genealogy. So I guess you could call me a recovering addict.

I was able to satisfy my data doctoring addiction during the 2018 Spring Clean-A-Thon on 21-23 April. This was a 3-day weekend of cleaning errors on profiles.

Other Projects of Interest

There are plenty of other projects that I'm interested in, but haven't found the time for yet. I hope to some day get involved in these:

• FRENCH ROOTS PROJECT - husband's paternal Acadian branch, but I also have ONE known French ancestor, 3GGM
• IRISH ROOTS PROJECT - my paternal grandmother's branch
• SWEDEN PROJECT - my paternal grandfather's branch
• TEXAS PROJECT - my husband's maternal great-grandfather participated in the Battle of San Jacinto during the Texas War for Independence
• ONE NAME STUDIES project - maybe start one for Rivet/Rivett/Rivette. I have information for about 1000 people with that surname, mostly Acadian descendants.