Brick Walls – Page 4 – GenealogyAtHeart.com

Tips for Attending a Family History Day and What I Learned from Attendees

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 9 Oct 2016.

October is Family History Month and if you’re a newbie planning on attending a local event to get some genealogical assistance, I’ve got some recommendations to make your experience a happy one:

Bring what you know written down. Even better – bring how you know what you know! (Was it your parents who told you or did you find a record? It’s important to record where you got the information as you build your tree because trust me, before you know it you’ll have a lot of info and won’t remember where you got most of it!)
Have a specific question you’d like answered in mind. Specific is not, “I want to know everything about my mom’s family.” Specific is, “I’d like to find out when my great grandmother Elizabeth Smithson died.”
You probably have a lot of questions but rank them in order of your interest; it’s only fair as other people have questions, too, and are patiently waiting!
Prepare yourself for not immediately finding an answer – very little is online so it might take a phone call, email, letter or a visit to discover the answer you seek. You might not ever find what your looking for, either. Today an attendee demanded of one of my colleagues that he find an obituary from 1877 in a rural area of Pennsylvania. Checked the largest town newspapers online but couldn’t find one. He had checked several databases (Chronicling America, Newspapers.com, GenealogyBank, Ancestry) so I recommended calling the local history center and asking what papers were in existence then. The woman was not happy and demanded that someone find the obituary immediately. We couldn’t give her what she wanted so she left in a huff.
Remember to thank the researcher – they are volunteering their time and could be doing their own research instead of helping you with yours.

We had a nice turn out today at our county day and I met some incredibly wonderful folks with some very good questions and a few brick walls we were able to start tearing down. My three most memorable of the day involved:

A woman in her 70’s who’s parents in their 90’s were still alive and all of them decided it was time to write the family history. They were having trouble starting because they wanted “to do it right.” HINT: There is no one way to do genealogy and that’s one of the major pluses for me! I showed several formats – Case Studies, Proof Arguments, Kinship Determinations, and several lineage forms. If you’re putting off writing because you don’t know where to begin just begin with whoever your favorite individual is. You can ascend or descend from there. I understand that footnotes/endnotes are a pain but citations are critical. How is anyone going to know where you found that document unless you write it down?! The lady today didn’t like the look of footnotes; I explained why they are often used over endnotes – people tend to not think the citation is important so they save paper by not copying them. I recommended that she use page numbers that say 1 of X so if someone does make a copy in the future they’d know they might be missing the endnotes. I think the family just needed reassurance that their work was not going to be up for a Pulitzer Prize. It’s okay if you aren’t an author; it’s not ok to let all that research go to waste by not communicating in the best way you are able to for the next generation.
A lovely lady who wanted to know why her step-grandmother who she had never met was mean. What I loved about this woman was her matter of factness; she wasn’t emotional about the situation. Instead, she just wanted an explanation for why the older lady had been reportedly so miserable. I thought this was extremely interesting as most people don’t even fully research their blood relatives and here was someone who wanted to know about a step relative. I was able to find the woman’s death date in California and showed her the familysearch.org wiki so she can get further information about the many places out west the woman had lived. I also recommended she check out GoogleBooks and Hathi Trust for more information about events that were occurring at the time the grandma was residing in an area – like the dust bowl, for instance. I think that would have made me miserable! We were unable to find a marriage record or a death date for her grandfather but we did narrow down some cemeteries that she can contact to see if he is buried there. (Not on Find-a-grave, Billion Graves, etc.)
A woman who brought in the earliest photoshopped photo I’ve ever seen! Seriously, don’t know who or when it was done but some family member took a photo taken circa 1872 of a couple seated holding a baby and cut a photo of another baby out and pasted it over the woman’s lap. It was done fairly well, too. Weirdest thing I’ve ever seen! The family was afraid to remove the glued on kid, understandably, so I recommended taking it to a professional photographic restorer. For someone who just deleted all of her photos from her phone in error, I’m clearly the wrong person for the job! But the photoshopping brings up lots of interesting questions – why did someone do this? What’s underneath? Who did that? Who’s the baby? I have a tentative hypothesis that the family will have to pursue but my theory is this: Eleven months after the immigrant couple wed in Newark, New Jersey a male unnamed baby was born. The baby died 2 weeks later; he had been named Henry in the death records. The couple had another baby the following year. I suspect they had the first picture taken holding the dead baby as they looked miserable. Not having the money to sit for another photograph they had a picture of their second child taken and then wishing they had taken a photo when she was younger, cut it out and placed it over the original photo. The couple had 5 children, one every year, and then the father died. The mother died 2 years after him. The youngest two children were raised in an orphanage. Using GenWeb I was able to find where the orphanage records are housed. There was a memorial on find-a-grave for the couple but not for the baby. I recommended calling the cemetery to see if he was buried in plot 1 as the father was buried in plot 2 and the mom in plot 3. Hmm…who else could have been in plot 1 but the baby with no stone because they couldn’t afford one? Only way to find the answer is to make a call!

Happy Hunting!

Photographs Unveil Information in a New Light

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 16 Jun 2016.

I’ve had a very strange week – genealogywise! It started with this recent family photo tree purchase:

tree

I always wanted to place family photos on the wall in my office but I couldn’t decide which pictures to use or how to group them. I saw the photo tree concept online but the reviews weren’t good; some said it was difficult to put together and others complained it wouldn’t stay up on the wall. The trees were pricy, too, and I didn’t want to waste time and money on a product that would frustrate me.

A few weeks ago I found the tree pictured above offered through Books R Fun locally. The reasonable price and the easy directions worked for me! Within minutes I had the tree up and then it hit me – why not use couple photos. I could display more people that way and since my husband and I share an office, it would serve as a nice reminder of our many grandparents.

I didn’t think it was going to take me long to finish the project as I sort of knew which photos I would select. First problem I encountered was my photos were missing from Google Photos. I’ve blogged previously about how Google Picassa has morphed into Google Photos and I thought that I had successfully transferred all of them from one program to the other a few months ago. Evidently, most did not take. Please check if you did that, too, as it’s better to know now then when you need them.

No worries, I thought, I have them saved elsewhere. That’s when I realized the computer where I had saved them had bit the dust. I checked Dropbox; they weren’t there, either. I must have removed them when I reached the max allowable on my plan. They were on Ancestry.com but to have to go through the gallery to locate them would be time consuming. I have backups on cd but those were saved by family surnames and I would have had to keep flipping through the various cds to find what I wanted. I then remembered that I had installed Picassa on the desktop of an old laptop. Sure enough, there they all were! Since I had taken the time to place all the photos in albums it was a breeze to find what I was looking for quickly. I’m glad this happened now as I have since backed up the laptop pictures to 2 hard drives and again, to Google Photos. The $8.00 tree purchase saved me future grief!

Being a thrifty genealogist, I decided I wouldn’t print the photos to photographic paper until I had them perfect as most of the photos I selected didn’t fit easily into the frame size. I plan to make them real photos this weekend and add children of the couples to frames that will surround the tree.

As I was arranging and rearranging the photos on the tree itself I was startled to discover how much of a strong family resemblance my father-in-law had to his mother and grandmother! My husband bears a remarkable resemblance to his maternal grandfather who he never knew. I have seen these photos for most of my adult life; none were new to me. It wasn’t until I placed them in the tree that I noticed the similarities between individuals.

I’m not sure if it was because they were now almost all the same size, shape, and color, the angle on the wall or the proximity to each other. Looking at them from this perspective was nothing short of startling. I highly recommend trying this! You may discover things about your family in a completely different way.

When I looked at myself, however, I was stunned. I don’t look like anyone! I blurted out that I must have been adopted but hubby pointed out that I have the original birth certificate and that there are photos of me in my mother’s arms in the hospital shortly after I was born. Mom clearly looked like she had been through labor! I knew I had my mom’s eyes and figured my hair was just a blend of both of my parents – my dad’s blonde and my mom’s dark brown. Looking at the photos I realized I had my paternal grandmother’s hair, my maternal grandmother and great grandmother’s nose and my paternal grandfather’s chin. Okay, so my dna is all mixed up – I am a true red blooded American mutt!

The photos didn’t just unveil family similarities; they also showed up some commonalities uniting all sides. I always thought my preference for pearls was a result of watching Leave It To Beaver as a child and channeling June Cleaver! Nope, in just about every photo a female is wearing pearls. I shared this insight with my daughter who just happened to be wearing pearls. Nice to know that trait got passed along to another generation.

I also discovered that one of the great great grandpas was wearing some type of insignia. I never noticed it before and it’s another mystery to solve. Taking a look back at your old photos may just lead you to more amazing family discoveries.

The Passionate Genealogist – Using Creativity to Climb Your Brickwalls!

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 10 Apr 2016.

Just back from a Learning and the Brain Conference in Orlando on imagination, curiosity and creativity. As genealogists we have passion which is the basis for all three, the drive that’s needed for success. After hearing the wonderful speakers from around the world I began to think that the application for genealogy can knock down our brick walls. Here’s how-

The beginning of imagination is dreaming. Our dream may be to discover who our several times great grandpa married or the reason our family moved to an area. It could be how our grandparents met or why we always have banana birthday cake. These thought provoking questions for people with passion to learn more about their ancestors lead to pursuing and seeking ways to find the answer to the question.

The posed research question you act upon is how you demonstrate your curiosity. One of the sessions had an interesting photo at the beginning – it showed square trees. The research question presented was where could you find square trees. I figured it was a trick question and immediately replied Lowes or Home Depot. Hint: That’s not the answer the presenter was looking for! How I formulated my response was by enlisting my background knowledge. My do-it-yourselfer hubby has had me assist with so many projects involving square wood if I lived in a large city my frame of reference may have been to expect that most trees grew in a square shape because that’s what I would be familiar with in the big box lumber department. I know that the trees in my neighborhood grown in somewhat of a round shape and that what we find in the store is processed lumber. Think how this applies to your research. Do you always rely on your same go to websites – the big names on the web to answer your research question? That’s not bad or wrong to do but there’s so much more that you’re missing. Those that want to REALLY know the answer would have their curiosity take them to some out of the box, unconventional places. I have found the answer to some of my research questions in odd places – on a microfilm in Salt Lake City of a book that exists in no library today, at a research facility in Boston that had a text that isn’t anywhere in the state the record was compiled from, on a CD created by a rural former church historian of the denomination’s newsletters, in a deed moved from the recorder’s office to an archive, in a letter stuck in a book on the shelf in our study. Those are just a few examples that pop into my brain that have happened to me in the last six months. None of those had anything to do with the major genealogical websites. Please do not think that I don’t value the information that’s now available on the web. I DO! I certainly don’t want to go back to those dark ages when information was difficult to obtain. I highly value and appreciate the big box genealogy sites. My point is that we need to remember it’s not the be all and end all. There is more – lots more – and your curiosity will propel you to find the more.

If you’re thinking, easy for her to say! I can’t afford, find the time, etc. etc. to go seek this information you’re wrong and doing your research a disservice. You don’t have to go to Salt Lake or Boston or even clean your house to find the letter in a book. You can use the technology that’s available to minimize the miles and bring the research to you. Use Worldcat if it’s available to have your library cooperative bring the material to you. Same with the microfilm – search Familysearch and order the film to be delivered to a closer site to your home. Yes, there is a fee but it’s minimal compared to cost involved if you don’t live in the Salt Lake City area. Aren’t sure how to find what you need? Call or visit your local library and they will help you. If they don’t, go to another. Don’t give up and don’t let negative people stand in your way.

How interesting is this! I’ve even mentioned big box sites to help you find the information you’re needing. You are bringing the knowledge closer to you. That’s why I believe genealogy is a study in patience. In this info overload world we so often expect the answer to arrive instantly on our phone, tablet or laptop. As the song says, “Waiting is the hardest part” but could also be the most important and relevant piece of your genealogical puzzle. While you’re waiting – go make yourself a nice cup of tea and dream some more, then act on that dream and the cycle continues.

See, when you’ve acted on your curiosity you’ve become creative. It was quite easy! We all have this ability we just have to practice it.

We did a cute little exercise at one of the breakout sessions you can take part in. Go to Answer Garden and answer the question “What is creativity.” Your answer is right because there is no one right answer so don’t be afraid. You don’t have to sign in, give your email address, nada! Once you submit your answer you will get an interesting “art” piece. I printed it and have it on my workspace as a reminder to be creative.

Creativity is the quality of human existence that allows us to modify the environment to our needs to make something new and useful. It’s a mix of intuitive and rational factors. That’s why we use the Genealogical Proof Standard. We use our gut and our brain to analyze the findings and reach a conclusion. We may be right and we may be wrong but until a direct or negative piece of evidence is discovered to make us revisit our findings, our analysis stands.

Creativity is a process and like all processes, has several steps. Preparation is primary! If the problem is worth studying you need to have background information and that’s pulling together what you know. Your answer may be right there in front of you but was overlooked the first time you saw it. Here’s one of my “Oh, Duh!” moments – wanted to know where an adult child had moved and found it listed on a death certificate for the parent. Was there all the time but I failed to “see” it. Don’t reinvent the wheel! Collaborate with others who may have already discovered what you’re looking for. Email the person who posted that family tree and ask where they got their info. Sure they might have just copied someone else but they might not have. If you don’t ask you won’t know. Asking is free!

Now you’ve found some tidbit of a record and you don’t know how it fits. No worries, time for another cup of tea. You just need to reflect on the finding. It will allow your brain to storm! Hmm, maybe I should check this resource or that facility or ask that second cousin. Research shows brainstorming is best done alone; we are social creatures for the most part and even if we don’t want to believe it, social inhibitions often prevail in group think. There is a time for collaboration and a time for going solo. When you’ve got some brainstormed ideas it’s time to put it out there to the genealogical community and step back into collaboration. How can technology help you in preparation?! Use Google Docs to share your findings with the other researchers that are working on your same line. One of the presenters recommended Padlet which I haven’t tried yet but plan to. It looks like a thinking Pinterest and it’s free. I like free! You collaborate with whoever you select to be in your group. Wish I had known about this a few years back when I was working with several distant relatives to beat the clock to find a Revolutionary War participant so an elderly relative could join the DAR before she passed. We made it happen but this would have been so much better. Another awesome idea is to use a Web Whiteboard. A whiteboard has taken the place of blackboards in the classroom – no squeaky chalk and no dust. You don’t even need one in your office, you can draw, write or scribble on a virtual whiteboard to help you sort out the connection between those found documents. Symbaloo may be the answer you need to bookmark your favorite go to web sites. It’s a free social bookmarking cloud based service that allows you to surf your favorite website with an easy click AND download an ap so you can keep being productive when you’re waiting in line at the checkout or for an appointment.

Now that you’ve got many ideas to help you with your preparation you’re ready to move to the next stages of creativity: Incubation and Inspiration. I love incubation – it’s easy but we don’t do it enough. We just need to STOP and let our brain process what we’ve found. Go outside and smell the roses. Take a walk. Swim. Lay on the sofa. Wherever you love to hang, go there! Your brain is still working on solving but it needs to be left to do it without the pressure of hurry. It’ll come. Just wait. Patience again! My brain works in a weird way. My best solutions for my job as an educator comes when I’m stuck in traffic on the interstate after my 2^nd cup of coffee and old hard rock is playing on the radio. I see my destination off in the distance, Oz beckons me and Voila! The answer is there. So if you’re like me, you may have your incubation moment in an odd location but if it works, who cares because you’ve reached inspiration. The unconscious mind (incubation) has brought the solution to be recognized in your conscious mind (inspiration).

If you’re stuck in incubation here’s some ideas that might help you. Vocaroo is an online way to share voice messages over the web. For those of you who are auditory this may really be helpful. Say what you know into Vocaroo and then listen to what you said. That’s it. If you’re a visual learner you may want to Mindmap. Unfortunately, most mindmap sites are not free but you don’t need to purchase it – take a look at images on google and you’ll get the idea. Mindmap on paper or on the virtual whiteboard. Poplet is a free sight designed for schools that can help you with a downloadable ap so you can take it anywhere. Since you’re reading this blog you might be a blogger yourself. Blogging can also help your inspiration. You can keep your blog to yourself, include just a few or make it public. There are lots of blog sites but I like Google’s Blogger. I don’t want you to think you have to spend a lot of time on becoming creative. Use your smart phone clock timer to keep yourself in check. Don’t beat yourself up if the timer goes off and you’re not where you hoped to be. It’s okay, really.

The last parts of creativity are Verification – Implementation – Production. Test the ideas that inspired you. You’re that much closer to scaling your brick wall. Happy Hunting!

Empty Envelopes Provide a Wealth of Genealogical Data

A FABULOUS FIND of 22 March 2016

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 5 March 2016.

A colleague of mine brought in a pile of old envelopes recently and asked me if they were important genealogically. The reason for the question is that the addressed envelopes contained no content. She assumed family had saved them because they were stamp collectors who hadn’t gotten around to removing the stamps.

My answer to her was a resounding YES! Those envelopes tell a story even though they are empty. I suggested she first put them in chronological order based on the postmark date, if any. Next she should try to match the envelopes to letters that she had found and store them together. Any remaining envelopes should be examined closely for information regarding:

Addressee
Sender
Postmark
Possible notations
Envelope condition
Handwriting
Type of writing utensil used
Cost of postage

Examining the addressee and sender aids in identifying relationships, although the type of relationship is still unknown. Definitely don’t assume the relationship was family! I have some old letters addressed to a grandfather that had the contents. He did not know the sender; the writer was inquiring about a device the grandfather was selling.

Carefully analyze who the envelope was addressed to. Was it to a Miss or Mrs.? Was a nickname used, such as Nelia for Cornelia? How was the last name spelled? That is extremely important if your family changed spelling. How I wish I had envelopes for my Koss family from the mid 1920’s. The name changed from Kos (in 1920) to Koss (in 1930) but when the change occurred I don’t know. An envelope could assist in narrowing down the date.

Look at the addressee’s residence – was it a rural route? a city? a county? If the postmark is illegible or missing that information could help identify the time period. Although the Rural Free Delivery (RFD) began in the late 1800’s it was not widespread. Prior to that, letters may have been addressed, for example, as Columbia County, New York. That’s a clue the resident lived outside of a town or city. If the envelope was dated, check the census to see if that address was also used for the individual. The 1940 census may show the person’s home address but the envelope could provide a clue as to where the individual was staying temporarily if they don’t match. My colleague recognized an address as belonging to her grandmother but the envelope was addressed to an unknown person at that address 20 years before her grandmother’s birth. Perhaps the home belonged to a family member that she was not aware of or perhaps the envelope was found after the grandmother moved in. I doubt the second explanation as that would not be a reason to keep an envelope with family records but who knows?! She was the stamp collector so maybe she saved it for the stamp. I recommended that a title search on the property be done to gain more information about the occupants.

I love postmarks because they often tell an interesting story. If the sender’s address was Connecticut and the addressee’s was New York but the postmark was California either the U.S. Post Office really messed up (which unfortunately happens frequently) or the sender was in California for business or pleasure when the letter was mailed. This could open up a whole new area to check for records!

My mom, a product of the Great Depression, always reused envelopes as scratch paper. Grocery lists, things to do, phone messages – check the envelope for any notations. Although you won’t for certain know who wrote the notes unless they’re signed or had such a unique handwriting that you can identify without a signature, you can gain insight on the day to day lives of the family that received the letter. One envelope my colleague had this notation printed in caps “BURN THIS AFTER READING.” Guess the receiver followed directions but we were dying to know what the contents had been.

Now look at the envelope itself. Is it stained? Is it brittle? Has the color aged? This lets you know the conditions that affected it since it was written. Perhaps the stain was from water – was it delivered in a rainstorm? Did it survive a sea voyage? Maybe a cup of tea was spilled on it as the contents were being read! You might never discover what really happened but it sure is fun to try.

I love handwriting, mainly because mine was always criticized while growing up. The style can give you much more information about the time period and the sender. Was it printed, cursive, Palmer, D’Nealian, or calligraphy? Is it legible or not? Perhaps the writer was in a hurry to mail the contents! Handwriting can also help you match the envelope to an individual if the sender did not include his/her name in the return address.

Writing utensils can also help you identify a time period. A ballpoint pen came into use in the late 1800’s. Prior to that fountain pens and dip pens were used. The color of the ink can give you even more clues – the dye or pigment used could be a regional product.

The postage price can help you determine the time period. Although we’re not talking about post cards I always think of them as “penny postcards” even though they now cost 35 cents to send. I don’t think they could be sent for a penny when I was a kid but that’s what my family called them and that’s how I still think of them. The art on the stamp also “may” disclose information about what was important to the sender – or not! A few years ago I became known as the “stamp girl” in my office as I would make several trips to the post office a week to mail packages my husband had sold on ebay because I was closer to the post office then he was. I would purchase stamps for coworkers on those trips. Some coworkers would request a certain type of stamp and others could care less. Although you might not find out for sure if the stamp conveyed a message from the sender it might. Remember the 1973 LOVE stamp? If the sender was breaking up with addressee I doubt that stamp would have been used.

Let me know if your envelope analysis unveils a genealogical gem!

Unique Picture Find To Try!

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 18 Feb 2016.

Ever long for a picture of your great great grandparents? You’ve dug through your grandparents attic, asked your great aunts and uncles, scowered the internet and came up with nothing! Frustrating, certainly, but where there’s a will, there’s a way.

I was able to find a picture this week by simply contacting the church that was named in the ancestor’s obituary and asking if they had a record of her. Within 3 days I had received a note from the pastor who had asked the church historian to scan a copy of the couple’s church registration card and several group photos for church organizations the wife had been a member of. How cool is that!

I had the obituary for some time and just rereading it sent off a light bulb to see if the church where she was a member for 60 years was still in existence. I wasn’t counting on a response, as you know from previous blogs, I’ve been unsuccessful before with obtaining church records but this time was different.

Now that I know what she looks like I’m looking through old family photos that I have with many unidentified people as I suspect she is in there. That may lead me to a picture of her husband who was camera shy at church!

Help! Need Ideas to Obtain Baptismal Records

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 30 Jan 2016.

I’ll be traveling for my primary job over the next few days so I decided to save my Kinship Determination Project (KDP) in several places – the cloud (I use Dropbox), a thumb drive, my desktop, my husband’s computer’s desktop, and a hard copy. Yes, I’m a little paranoid that my hard work will disappear!

This trip could not have come at a worse time as far as the KDP is concerned. I was really on a roll with it and then company arrived last Sunday so I wasn’t able to spend as much time as I wanted to do. Had a very busy week of classroom visits and meetings, took a webinar, and was fighting off a cold so the KDP was put on the back burner. I really don’t want another week to go by without progress on it so I thought maybe I could edit the hard copy on the plane and make an update via the cloud when I land.

I resolved a few confusions – the first had to do with a death certificate not matching a tombstone; the second was too many people with the same name in the same place at the same time but they were all of vastly different ages so that was a quick analysis, too.

I’ve gotten a lot of the first and second generation written but I’ve identified two areas I need to do more exhaustive research in – I need to find a deed and a will. Other than that, I’m feeling good about the records I’ve uncovered.

So after awhile of analyzing records I decided I needed a break and I took a look at a different line that I’ve hit a brick wall with. Last month I found the obituary and it wasn’t very helpful. I’m trying to identify parents but it didn’t mention them; neither did the death certificate or the cemetery records. The obit did say the individual was a lifelong member of a church so I decided to contact the church to see if they had a baptism record that might list the parents. It’s been 6 weeks and I’m getting a little frustrated. I’ve emailed, called (several times), written a letter, and posted on their Facebook page. I’m feeling like a pest but persistence pays so I’m not giving up yet. How hard can it be to look this up, especially since I gave them the date of birth, too! I offered to pay. I sent a stamped return receipt envelope. Still received nothing. I know no one that lives in the area that could go in person on my behalf. I contacted the library, museum and the local genealogy society to see if they had any ins with the church. Nada! If anyone has any brilliant ideas for me I’d appreciate hearing!

A New FAN Idea

Originally published on genealogyatheart.com on 17 Jan 2016.

FAN – Friends and Neighbors – of your ancestors is a tried and true way to help uncover brick walls. It didn’t dawn on me that checking out your current Friends and Neighbors can also help you connect with the past. In December, I was talking to my office mate about my genealogical plans for the holidays. She has no interest in genealogy but inherited from her grandmother all of the family heirlooms which she keeps in her garage. GASP! I almost had a heart attack when she told me she has an indentured servant record of an ancestor from the 1700’s in her garage, along with civil war letters and tintype photos. The look on my face must have said it all as she immediately told me I shouldn’t worry as she had “all that stuff in acid free folders and binders” in rubber totes. I mentioned no air conditioning, high humidity, bugs and rodents (hey, this is Florida and that is in everyone’s neighborhood!), not to mention dust, mold and temperature extremes. She decided she would spend a few minutes over the holidays cleaning out a closet to store these family treasures.

That evening, I got a text from her with several pictures of documents and a question about how she could find out the name of a man in a photo and how he was related to her. Since I didn’t get her a Christmas gift I told her I’d check it out. Three hours later I had discovered the man’s name, occupation, place of birth and sad tale of his daughter who had been the clue in identifying him. Still working on how she’s related to him and I suspect she isn’t. My present hypothesis is that she is related to the man’s daughter’s husband. They had no living children so the photo may have passed to the husband’s surviving family members.

Oddly, my husband’s got family with the same name in the same location at the same time with the same occupation and I bet I can tie everyone together. If so, this means that my husband is distantly related to my office mate. If not, their families were definitely neighbors.

We live in the Florida. The family I’m researching lived in New York in the 1800’s. My husband was born in Indiana and my office mate in Massachusetts. If she hadn’t mentioned the stash of heirlooms in her garage I would have never discovered a connection. Yes, the FAN method works but not the way I expected!

Finding Old Time Medical Records Can Be A Challenge

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 30 Dec 2015.

Don’t you hate it when you discover wrong info on the internet and have no way to correct it?! I’m sure the information was accurate once but it isn’t any longer. Now that Ancestry.com owns rootsweb they permit “view only” so no updates can be made. It’s nice that the old posts are still viewable but it wastes a lot of time if you follow the directions that are wrong.

In August I tried to obtain records from a state hospital in Florida. I found the following links:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~chattahoochee/

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~chattahoochee/index12.html

Following directions from those sites, I wrote a letter in late August to the Health Information Manager as I figured the name given on the above link probably wasn’t accurate any longer. I included a copy of my driver’s license, the client’s driver’s license, and birth and death records to prove lineage to the individual I was trying to obtain information about.

On September 3rd I was contacted by an individual who said she was a volunteer and that she had the file on her desk but couldn’t send the contents until I submitted the following notarized statement from the client:

“I am the oldest living relative and heir-at-law and am giving permission to send the copy of my Great Grandmother, (insert the individual’s name here as I don’t have permission to use it in this blog), to: (My Name, My Address)”

Note: If you are requesting the information for your own use you can omit the giving permission portion. Client had to attest that I had permission to receive the records which is why the statement had to be included.

We were supposed to fax the notarized statement to a number given to me but the fax didn’t work so I called the number I had been contacted from but that number wasn’t working either so I mailed the notarized statement with a note explaining why I was unable to fax it.

I made a follow up call the following week to verify that the notarized copy was received because we have terrible mail service here. The phone number was working and the same volunteer told me it had been received and was pending approval by the Health Information Manager. This was new! Last time we spoke she never told me it had to be approved; I was led to believe that the file was found and as soon as the notarized permission was received it would be copied and sent.

A month passed and nothing was received so I called again. This time the phone was the fax and the fax was the phone! I spoke with the same volunteer who now said, “As an employee, this is my side job so I can only look for files when I’m caught up with my other duties.” I didn’t want to question her as to when she was hired as she had presented herself as a volunteer in our two previous phone calls, plus she had told me she had the file on her desk. She could give me no time frame as to when I might receive the information.

Another month passed so I wrote a letter asking if additional information was needed and this time, the fax worked (Yay!) I got a phone call back a few days later from the volunteer/employee saying how weird it was that the file had just been approved to send to me. She said she would mail it the following day.

On November 25 I received the “file.” Actually, it was a letter from the Health Information Manager apologizing for the delay in responding and mentioning that most of the records had been destroyed (how convenient) and that all they had was attached. It was a copy of an admission card and a ledger page on the day the patient arrived. The letter directed me to check the Florida State Archives as some records had been transferred there but there was no telling if this patient’s file was one of those records saved.

I contacted the state archivist by phone. What a delightful person! She told me that most records had been destroyed and that older records were “samplings” only. She said researching is “hit or miss” but she would see what she could find. Luckily for us, she was able to find, scan and email 10 pages of the initial admission document within an hour. (Cost is .25 per page).

A diligent genealogist uses reasonably exhaustive searches so I would recommend pursuing the path that I followed but be aware that it was MONTHS before I received the scant information. I think one of the genealogy standards ought to address patience! What I received was extremely valuable, though, and actually changed the direction of the research plan.

Due to the holiday, I’m again blogging early. Hope to resume my regular Sunday and Thursday blogs next week. Wishing a Happy New Year to you and your family!

Another Find Where It Shouldn’t Have Been!

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 26 Dec 2015.

Okay – here we go again! I found the missing information in a place that that was not anywhere close to where the ancestor had lived but ironically, was only 5 minutes from where I work.

Earlier this month I blogged about the importance of revisiting places previously checked as sometimes the needed information becomes available due to persistence. You can read that blog here – Why Persistence Pays in Hunting Records.

That blog was about my difficulty in obtaining a death records for my husband’s maternal great grandmother, Louise Carlson Johnson. I had a death year (1937) given to me by his mother but no proof of death. Previously, I had written to Lake County, Indiana where I assumed she had died, for a death certificate. They told me they didn’t have one. I then contacted the Gary Health Department thinking they may have some record but they said they had nothing on Louise. I contacted both hospitals in existence in Gary at the time of her death – Methodist Hospital (the Protestant hospital) and Mary Mercy (the Roman Catholic Hospital) but they couldn’t help me. I checked both hospitals because many of our Protestant relatives used Mercy Hospital as they had a very good staff back in the day. And seriously, when you’re in pain who cares who helps you!

After discovering that Louise was buried in Ridgelawn Cemetery in Lake County, Indiana I decided to write to Indianapolis (for my non US readers – that’s the capitol of Indiana) to see if they had the death record. Maybe it had been sent from the local to the state level. I received the response via snail mail on December 22– no record found. Geez!

The cemetery didn’t seem to be the kind of place that makes any exception to rules (see Ashes on the Doorstep for those places that do!) so I believe the death certificate was presented for burial. With that thought in mind I decided there was only two reasons that there was no death certificate in Lake County: 1) she had remarried and her name was no longer Johnson or 2) she died somewhere besides Lake County.

I checked Ancestry.com for City Directory information for Gary for 1937 and found her residing with one of her married daughters. Her name was still Johnson and she was listed as a widow. I wasn’t exactly sure when the City Directory was published but the chance of her marrying in the few months after it was published and before her death was remote as she had been a widow for 31 years. That meant she must have died out of the county.

Louise had 3 children – all married in 1937. She resided with daughter Elsie in Gary. Daughter Ruth lived nearby. Daughter Helen, however, was living in Porter County – the county next to Lake. Louise also had 10 step children and although I’ve been unable to trace many of them, some were also living in Porter County. From letters that I have it didn’t appear that Louise was close to most of the step children but the possibility existed that she may have been visiting one when she passed away. Porter County seemed the most viable place to look.

Searching online I could find no database for Porter County deaths. I had previously checked newspaper archives for the Vidette Messenger, the Valparaiso (Porter County seat) newspaper but found no obituary. I had also checked for an obituary in the Gary paper, The Post Tribune, previously but was unable to find a paper from that year as the paper had been sold a number of times and some years are missing in the archives. Of course, 1937 was one of those years!

I went to familysearch.org to check their catalog and discovered a book that might be helpful – Index to death records, Porter County, Indiana, 1931-1959. Right place, right years – could be helpful.

Checked Worldcat and found a copy locally so Wednesday morning I called the Genealogy Department at the Tampa Public Library and David not only found the book on the shelf, he did a lookup for me. Happy Holiday to me! Sure enough, Louise Johnson was listed in May 1937. Now I know where I can write for the death certificate!

Louise is the only recent relative that I don’t have parent information for so hopefully, the death certificate will give me a clue or two. Also, her dna is very interesting so I’d really like to find out more about her line.

Due to holiday closures David volunteered to scan and email the page to me. I attached it to the death certificate request to expedite it. Like the song says, “waiting is the hardest part!”

After I put the death certificate request in the mail I decided to just recheck newspaper archives and what wonders did I behold! Some kind folks have entered the obituary information for the Gary Post Tribune and now 1937 is available! I immediately requested a librarian to look it up. Keeping my fingers crossed that my youngest brick wall is about to be scaled.

Playing With Names – Wildcard Searching and Other Methods to Discover Your Family

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 13 Dec 2015

Just read a helpful blog about how to use wildcards when researching online. You can read it here. I have to admit that I’m not very good at using wildcards or identifying the many, varied and unusual ways my ancestors spelled their names. I think that many of my brick walls could could tumbling down if I took the time to use the wildcard search approach.

Another method I’ve used was just plain dumb luck but it taught me a very simple way that I’ve used since. I once had a dead end on my paternal grandmother’s line. A distant family member thought my 2nd great grandmother’s name was Maria Dure. I searched and searched for years and found nada! It never dawned on me that I had two of the letters reversed in the last name. Duh, DURE should have been DUER. I would love to take credit for that discovery but alas, wasn’t me who figured this out. I’m not sure how the gentleman found me but I received an email asking me about by DUER connection. I responded I didn’t see any Duer’s in my tree. The writer than let me know he suspected my Maria Dure was a long lost line he was pursuing. He knew his missing Maria had married an immigrant named Kuhn and sure enough, once I began looking for Maria under Duer the whole line fell into place! He was kind enough to send me his years of Duer research and they are just a fun family to learn about. (Well, probably getting kicked out of England wasn’t exactly fun, nor later being shunned or having to payoff an indenture in the Caribbean but you understand what I mean)

Last technique I’ve used is adding or removing an ending. My Koss’ are really Kos. Have found documents with both names so it pays to play with the last name.

Sorry this is so short but I’m recuperating from jet lag! Once my head clears I’m going to take my own advice and play with my Bird or is it Byrd?! or Berd or Burd line. Happy Hunting!