Making the Most of Your Research Trip – Cemeteries – Part 4

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 21 Aug 2016.

Last time I wrote about my meeting with the Cemetery Director on a recent research trip I took.  His records did not direct me to the grave stone I was seeking but gave me an area in which to look.  That was due to the re-internments of the stones from an older cemetery, Union, that had been exhumed when the land was sold.

I drove by the building that housed the re-internments.  I thought it was a large shed to contain the tools to maintain the cemetery.  Hmm.  Nothing noted it to be a mass grave.

When the road started turning I knew I had somehow passed where I needed to be so I turned around and looked again.  I parked and decided I might do better on foot.  Very quickly I saw the older stones laying flat on the ground.

The grass had recently been cut and the stones were covered with debris.  Having flown and then taken a rental car, I did not have my cemetery tools with me.  It was about 8:45 AM and already starting to get hot.  I hated to get all dirty and then have to be in that condition the rest of the day as I had two historical museums and a return trip to the library.  It looked like rain so I decided to go for it.

Let’s give a cheer for fast food!  I returned to the car and grabbed a knapkin I had from the Dunkin Donut stop earlier that morning.  This is what I was dealing with:

Underneath all that brown stuff in the picture was tombstones.  One lone Dunkin Donut knapkin and a bunch of dirty tombstones from the early to mid 1800’s.  Oh, joy!

After taking the pic, I started at the bottom right hand corner and walked hunched over using the knapkin as a fan to blow the grass and dirt off the flat stones.  It didn’t work very well but I kept at it.

By the time I got to the 3rd row (that’s the one the tall stone is in) and the 6th from the right (not visible above), I had found my man!  There was Bart Bear’s stone (not his real name) in far worse condition than when it was first photographed for Find-A-Grave.  To the immediate right was a smaller marble stone that was completely unreadable.  It sort of looked like there had been a lamb shape in the center at one point but maybe it was just my mind trying to make sense of the senseless.  I had assumed that per the cemetery and church records, that this stone listed as “Unknown” would have been Bart’s maternal grandfather’s marker as the church records stated they were buried next to each other.  These were the only two stones that were made of the same marble but why the grandfather’s stone would have been so small didn’t make sense to me.  Perhaps this was the marker for Bart’s missing sister, Barbara, who had not been recorded in church or cemetery records.  She had also been missed in census records having died between census years.  The only reason I knew of her was that one of her siblings had given her name to a family member who had written a genealogy of the family years later.

I cleaned the two stones the best I could and verified that the stone to the left was not a family member.  It, too, was difficult to read and I wasn’t sure at first.  After taking pictures, I then walked quickly through the remaining stones using the same fanning technique but with the knapkin a mess at this point.  I found nothing else.

I stopped back at the cemetery office to let the Director know I much I appreciated his help.  I guess I looked disarrayed as he asked if the stones were clean.  I told him they were not and had tried to blow off the grass and dirt with a knapkin.  He shook his head and told me the people who maintained the cemetery were not responsible workers and he would report them to their parole officer.  Yikes!  Wish he had warned me before I was out there alone wandering around. Would I have done something differently?  Probably would have kept my phone in my hand and not in my pocket.  Please keep this in mind when you’re out stone hunting.  I’ll soon write about some other unsafe really dumb things I did on this trip that I would not do again (well, I probably would but I shouldn’t)- stay tuned!

Making the Most of Your Research Trip – Cemeteries – Part 3

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 17 Aug 2016.

Today’s blog is all about cemeteries!   Actually, I’ll have to split the blog as I have too much info!

I like to get an early start when I visit cemeteries in the summer as it gets HOT during the day.

My first stop of my recent research trip was Green Hill Cemetery in Waynesboro, PA.  Opened in the late 1800’s, by 1923 it had accepted re-internments from Union Cemetery when the church who owned Union sold the property and the new owners didn’t want the bodies.

What saddens me about that decision is the property was sold from one church to another.  Union meant what it said – it was the “Union” of all of the burials of the 3 churches in the town – at that time it was Evangelical Lutheran, German Baptist and Presbyterian.  From histories of the area I read on GoogleBooks, I learned that in the mid 1800’s there was only one church in town and that all 3 denominations used it on a rotating basis.  Due to structural problems and it needing repairs, one of the churches decided to rebuild on their own.  The other two continued together.  By the 1920’s, the two combined churches had split and the property was sold to the church who had first separated. How weird is that?!  That church’s former parishioners had been buried in that space for years but the church didn’t want the bodies of the other denominations so part of the real estate deal was to have the seller get all the bodies moved.  (I’ve seen this happen so many times – I’m glad I selected a City Cemetery for my own final resting place.  I want a public referendum for a change!)

The selling church tried, but as was the case with the families I was researching, no local family members would have seen the newspaper notice that they needed to claim the bodies.  Any body not claimed was dug up and re-interred at Green Hill in a combined location.  The stones were placed on a hill, laying flat, supposedly in the same order in which they were originally placed.  They are in horrible condition!

I met with the Cemetery Director and he provided me a map of the location where the old stones were kept.  My dilemma was twofold.  I had the names from church records that two family members were buried at Union but on Find-A-Grave, Billion Graves and the cemetery itself (I had called twice before) only one of the family members names were recorded as re-interred there.

Since I was using these people in my Kinship Determination Paper for my Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG), I’m hesitant to use the real names I was researching so I’ll be using some assumed names to make this understandable.

Adam Apple was in the church records as buried next to his grandson, Bart Bear.  Find-A-Grave has a photo on the memorial for Bart Bear but no mention of Adam Apple.  Neither are on Billion Graves.  The cemetery records have only Bart Bear listed.  I was told twice by cemetery personnel that they believe their database is complete as it was based on the original Union Cemetery records they had received from the church.  Those records were supposedly housed in the Alexander Hamilton Free Library and the cemetery had a copy of those records since 1923.

To complicate the story, Bart Bear had a sister, Barbara Bear.  The only way I knew about Barbara was from a family genealogy text that had gotten the info from a sibling of Bart and Barbara. Barbara supposedly had died as an infant, in between census years.  The text has no year of birth or death.  The church has no record of her.  Neither does the online resources or the cemetery.  Where was she buried and when?

Bart and Barbara’s paternal grandfather – I’m calling him Alex Bear, and his wife Amanda Bear, are also missing from every source I’ve consulted.  Alex’s will was indexed but is missing so all I know is that it was probated in 1874 in Franklin County.  I suspect he died towards the end of 1874 as the probate was in late November but I don’t know that for sure.  He may have been buried in Union as they still accepted internments at that time.

My mission was to answer the following:

  1. Why was Adam Apple not listed in the cemetery records but was in the church records?
  2. Why was Barbara Bear not listed in the cemetery records or church records?
  3. Was Alex and Amanda Bear buried in Union or Green Hill?
  4. BONUS QUESTION:  Was Adam Apple’s wife (name unknown) buried next to Adam?

I also wanted to see Bart Bear’s tombstone.

When I met with the Cemetery Director I explained why this information was important to me.  I also explained that I had visited the Alexander Hamilton Free Public Library the evening before and they couldn’t find any records for Union Cemetery.  Of course, the Cemetery Director was basing his information on what he had been told as he wasn’t even born when the reinternments occurred.  He did admit that he had original records from Union Cemetery but due to their delicate nature, they were not be copied.  I understand and asked if I could simply view them.  This took quite some negotiation. I was given all the standard reasons I could not see them – the transcriptions that were placed on the cemetery database were complete, the paper the original was on was so thin it was too delicate to handle, the writing was very difficult to read and I wouldn’t be able to read it, and he wasn’t supposed to share the information as it contained family information for others that had not given permission to view the records.

Of course, I had an answer for each point.  I acknowledged that whoever transcribed from the original most likely did their best but that it was always advisable to have someone check your work as humans inadvertently make mistakes.  I would not handle the paper – he could and it could be placed on the desk with the minimum amount of handling.  I have taken classes in reading old handwriting and told him one of my most recent client transcriptions was extremely difficult as the writer had turned the paper 90 degrees and written in cursive from the middle of the 1800’s, on a boat, during the Civil War, over what had previously been written.  Not only had I transcribed it successfully the article was published in the Florida Genealogist in June and I could show him a sample of that work.

The sticking point became the appropriateness of my viewing the records of other internments.  My rebuttal was that the gravestones had been photographed and were online.  I brought up Find-A-Grave on my phone and showed him Bart Bear’s information. I reminded him that the Union reintenrments consisted of families that had NO KNOWN LIVING RELATIVES in 1923 and that HIPPA and confidentiality were not the law at the time the bodies were moved.  He reluctantly agreed.

Bringing back a small business envelope he removed several folded pages.  I was so disappointed.  All were written in the same handwriting – this was not original records.  This was a derivative from another source, uncited.  Geez.  Now I understood why  Adam Apple wasn’t in the cemetery records. Whoever copied the current cemetery record from the original most likely had overlooked him and who knows how many others, probably Barbara Bear, too.  I explained that to the Director.  He had no idea where the original records were housed.  He assumed, if the library did not have them, that the church did.  REMEMBER:  When researching, staff you will meet with may not have the knowledge of records that genealogists do.  They don’t understand the difference between original and derivative.  Educate briefly while you’re there – it’ll save time for another researcher who comes along later.

Personally, I believe that the church has the originals somewhere in their archives and that the current office staff has no knowledge of that.  If the cemetery book was donated to the Alexander Hamilton Library it most likely would have been listed as one of their holdings, which it is not.  Now that library was not organized so the possibility remains that they do have holdings that aren’t catalogued.  I know they don’t know the valuable resources that they have as I had planned to see at the Library of Congress a rare book written by one of the individuals I was researching and it was just sitting in the stacks – same edition – like it was just a regular old book for check out.  I didn’t say anything as I figured it’s safer on the shelf than letting the staff know and having someone pilfer it and sell it on Ebay.  (I’m not saying the library staff has no scruples, I just don’t want that scenario to occur. Someone had already ripped out indexes of several books that were in the stacks so I think it’s better to keep my lips sealed).  But, back to the cemetery…

Interestingly, next to Bart Bear on the “original” derivative cemetery records it was clearly written as “unknown.”  I first suspected that the unknown individual may have been Adam Apple as that would confirm the church records that stated Adam was buried next to Bart.  I gave the Cemetery Director a copy of the church records I had received (which he didn’t have – go figure!) and wrote a note on it that I believed that space had been Adam’s.

The records did not list the other individuals I was seeking.  They could have been accidentally omitted or they may never have been buried there.  Who knows?!  I was on to visiting the gravesite.

Next time, I’ll blog more about being in the cemetery.

Making the Most of Your Research Trip Part 2

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 11 Aug 2016

By the second day of my research trip in Pennsylvania I was much more familiar with the area and had a better sense of how long it would take me to get from point A to point B, thus I could organize my day efficiently.

Before any trip I plan extensively from home so I don’t waste time and miss resources while I’m on the road.  Sometime I get lucky and connect with “boots on the ground” folks who are willing to provide me needed information immediately.  In those situations, I like to take a minute to visit in person when I arrive to personally thank them for their help.  That was on top of my agenda for the day.

I rose early and didn’t want to wait around for repositories to open so I drove to nearby Greencastle where a Dunkin Donuts had just opened.  I bought a box of donut holes with the intention of bringing them back to Waynesboro and giving them to the office staff of a church who had so graciously emailed me copies of original records.  Those records took me back a generation and I was very greatful!

Not a lot of traffic so I arrived back in Waynesboro 30 minutes before the church office opened.  That was fine, though, as I had previously identified on a map the location of where 3 of the people I was researching owned a business in the mid 1800’s on Main Street.  I had a copy of the map in my phone download so I could bring it up and orient myself to what the present area looks like.  Since the business day hadn’t begun I was able to park easily and snap photos of the lots.  All of these lots had been verified by deeds (remember, I had first gone to the Court House and had from home, rented Family History Library films).

I also like to take photos of the view from the lot.  Why?  This gives me a sense of what the ancestor may have seen from their land.

Of the 3 lots, one still viewed mountains off in the distance.  I could imagine the Rebel Army swarming down on the night of 3 July 1863.  How did I know that had happened?  Before the trip I had read several histories of the area available on GoogleBooks.  I also had the Civil War claim of one of the individuals and two newspaper articles by eyewitnesses of the events of that evening.  The day I visited, thank goodness, the view was not threatening!

I still had time before the church opened so I drove by two other churches .  I took pictures of those places, along with closeups of the visible cornerstone.  This told me that one of the churches was indeed built at the time the ancestor lived in the area.  The other church cornerstone clearly showed a later date.  This was important because it confirmed that the church bought the lot from another church that had previously used the space for a cemetery.  The bodies had been removed to another cemetery in the 1920’s.  Two known people I was researching had been reinterred due to that real estate sale.

Stopped by the church office, dropped off the donuts conveyed my appreciation and was off to visit cemeteries.  Check back for more!

Making the Most of Your Research Trip Part 1

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 7 Aug 2016.

I’ve been blogging about my recent genealogical hunt in Pennsylvania.  After packing essential research tools and visiting the County Courthouse I was off to the Franklin County Historical Museum.  Problem was, due to my rental car delay, I arrived later than I anticipated and with only a half hour until closing, I didn’t want to spend the $5.00 research fee and have to return the following day and pay again.  I opted instead to drive about 20 minutes to nearby Waynesboro where the Alexander Hamilton Free Library was open until 7 p.m.

Lucky for me, there was a parking space right in front of the library and I had coins for the meter in my research bag.  Whenever I enter a new library I always ask where the genealogy section is housed if there was no map online.  The sweet librarian pointed to stairs and told me there were “a few rooms.”  More than one, seriously?!  I like that!  The room at the foot of the stairs was awesome, too:

After climbing the stairs I discovered the Civil War room was to the left and the church/cemetery/county histories and genealogies were to the right.  A third, smaller room held file cabinets of clippings and donated genealogy records.

What I found strange was that there was NO staff member or computer to access the holdings upstairs.  It was also extremely HOT.  If there was air conditioning it wasn’t working. (And I’m from Florida so when I say it was hot, it was really hot!)

I quickly walked through the Civil War room.  Although the family I was researching lived in the town during that time and had been affected by the War, the materials were not specific to the area. Several series of volumes were placed on the shelf in mixed up order and my OCD tendencies kicked in – I just wanted to put them in sequence.  Time was a wasting so I moved on to the next room.

I would love to tell you that this room was in better shape but it wasn’t:

Messy libraries make me nuts!  I decided I would just start at the northwest corner of the room and read the shelves.  By reading, I mean I don’t just read the books that have their names on the spine.  I pull out books that don’t and sure enough, within minutes I found the following:

It’s hard to see in the pic due to the small size but the book was once owned and signed by Clarence Harbaugh.  I was researching the Harbaugh family.  Although I wasn’t focused on Clarence I did have him in my tree so I took the book to a nearby table and took a picture with my phone.  Now I had Clarence’s signature so I could add it to media in my tree.  If I ever extend the project I’m working on then I have a good start for another generation!

I had a list of areas I wanted to check – city directories, town records, historical maps and the cemetery and church records I was told were housed there.  I was disappointed to find the oldest City Directory was only from 1905, much too late for my family.  The church records were missing the index.  It was a derivative and I already had the original from the church emailed to me earlier so no loss for me but sad for anyone else who needed that. Since I couldn’t find a burial location for the father of my Generation 1 individual, I really was hoping to locate a cemetery record from a cemetery that no longer exists.  I had been told on the phone twice that the library had the Union Cemetery records but I couldn’t find them.  I did find an 1843 tax list and the folks I was researching were listed so that was a happy dance.

I moved on to the file cabinet room but there was nothing on the family I was researching.  I still had an hour before closing so I went downstairs and asked the librarian where I could find the Union Cemetery records.  She looked on the library holding database but couldn’t find it.  There is a volunteer genealogist but he wasn’t available and staff didn’t know his schedule.  I decided I’d try again the following day as I had emailed twice and left two voice messages but had never gotten in contact with him.  The librarian signed me on to a public computer as a guest since I didn’t have a library card and I happily spent the next hour checking out the remaining newspapers that had been digitized.  Due to the fragile nature of the originals I was only able to view the digitized copies.  Better than nothing!  They aren’t available at Newspapers.com, Chronicling America or Genealogy Bank so it was very important for me to see.  I did find two references to the family I was interested in – jury duty and an advertisement for a sale.  Very nice finds!

The library was supposed to close at 7 but the computers shut down at 6:45.  I was almost done with the newspapers but would have to finish the next day.

Soon after I had eaten dinner and checked into my hotel I checked my laptop to see if my phone’s pictures had synched.  I don’t carry the clunky laptop when I research anymore but I do take it with me on extended trips as it’s easier to manipulate the photos on the laptop then my Kindle, especially when my old eyes are tired after a long day researching.

I save the photos of places to a Word document and place a caption under each so I don’t forget why I took the picture.  I also save pictures of book pages and place the individual pictures in a created folder.  For example, I usually take a picture of 1) the index which I then flag with a stickee, 2) the pages that the index pointed me to and 3) the title page.  Using the stickee helps me flip back and forth from index to the page I’m directed to quickly.  To create the folder to save the pic, I use last name, first name of the individual found and what was the find.  In this case, Weaver.Christin.1843TaxList.  In the folder I place the picture of the index, the title and 2 pages where I found info.  All of the finds are then slipped into another folder labeled with the repository name and date of visit (This would be HamiltonPublicLibrary.WaynesboroPA.14Jul16..  That way, when I get home and merge the pages together to pdf, I can add to media on my tree and note where and when I found the source.  I’m old school and like to cite the location of the find in my notes.

Stay tuned for more hints in Part 2.

Researching at the Courthouse

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 3 Aug 2016.

Last blog I mentioned two rules I use to make a research trip rewarding – KNOW BEFORE YOU GO and PACK EFFICIENTLY.  Just back from researching in several states and in various libraries and archives so I’m going to share what worked for me at the different locations I visited.

My first stop in Pennsylvania was the Chambersburg (Franklin County seat) Courthouse.  I had called ahead to verify the times the facility was open and that the old deeds and wills I needed were available.  I knew the cost of the copies and how they accepted payment (cash/credit/debit).  I knew which building (there’s an old and new courthouse) and what department and the floor I needed to go to.  I also asked where I should park.  This allowed me to save time and money when I arrived.

I had also previously identified what the deed dates I was interested in finding by using an index on Familysearch.org.  I had ordered the film for the actual deeds but when it arrived in June, it didn’t contain them.  Sometimes the films are mislabeled and you don’t get what you expect.  One of the films did have a deed but it was of such poor quality I couldn’t read most of the page no matter how I tried to play with it.  I was hoping for a better copy.  I also knew exactly what Will Book and page I needed based on an index I found on Ancestry.com.

Since the area was just north of the Mason-Dixon line I wondered what the family I was researching’s views were during the Civil War when they lived in the area.  I had a hunch but hunches are useless without a document to back it up so I also wanted to check out if any voter’s records survived.

So, in this complex of one stop, I had 3 missions – a will, deeds and voter’s records.

My necklace did set off security which was odd since it didn’t at the airport.  Next time, no jewelry! When I entered the Recorder’s Office I introduced myself to the clerical worker and ask for directions to secure what I need.

Directed to a computer I was able to pull 5 deeds in 5 minutes.  The printer was a little slow so while it was still printing, I asked about finding the will.

This is not the first time I tried to find the will – I’ve been to the site before and I hired a researcher to also try to find it.  Again, I was told it was lost.  This time, I whipped out my business card and asked to speak with the head of the facility.  I explained to this gracious woman why it was so critical that I find this document and asked if I could go into the basement where the originals were stored as I believed that the will had been misfiled.  She informed me policy prohibited anyone but employees from going into the basement.  I showed her an email I had received from the state archivist that showed, according to their records, the will was located in the basement.  I suggested that the box of wills be brought upstairs and I would go through them to make sure that it wasn’t misfiled.  She agreed and sent an employee to bring up the box.  All 3 of us went through the box and sadly, it was not there.

Had I been allowed in the basement, I would have gone through every box but that wasn’t going to happen as I had pushed it to just have one box brought upstairs.  There is still some hope as the missing document was placed on the “missing list” that a county archivist maintains and if it is discovered, I will be contacted.

The deeds also turned out to not be for the person that I was researching but that’s okay, I have additional information on a related line and the one poor copy I had from the Family History Library microfilm was readable and what I needed.  Two down, one to go!

It was a short walk from one building to the next (and through security again – this time my jewelry didn’t set off the alarm!) to the voter’s registration office.  The clerk told me that by law, only 10 years of records needed to be maintained so none were available for the years I wanted.  She suggested that I go to the historical society as she wasn’t sure when the law was passsed and perhaps, they had older records.  That was my next stop and just around the corner!  Stay tuned…

Research Tips

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

I spent the past two weeks researching in several states.  Each archive I visited had different policies and procedures but there were commonalities that helped me use my limited time efficiently.  On a visit to one of the libraries I had a co-worker tag along and she asked me to share how I found so much so quickly.  Since she’s a dear reader, per her request, I’d like to share how I plan my research trips.

  1. KNOW BEFORE YOU GO – Your time is valuable and you don’t want to waste it!  The only way to make to the most of your visit is to PLAN AHEAD.  How do I do that?  As soon as I know I will be arriving in a distant area I identify who is in my tree that lived in the area I’ll visit and what additional information for that individual I’d like to find.  I look at the sources I have and focus on what’s missing.  I next go to Familysearch.org and do a search for archives I may be interested in visiting to quickly plan the visit.

Here’s an example from my recent trip to Franklin County, Pennsylvania.  I click on Familysearch.org and under SEARCH at the top, use the drop down and click WIKI.  On the map of the world I click the US, then Pennsylvania, then Franklin County.  Up pops wonderful information!  I scroll down to the bottom where the repositories are located.  I snip to Word (or if you are using a Kindle – copy/paste to Evernote) and in just a minute or two have created a guide of where I need to go.  Is the list complete?  No, but it’s a wonderful tool to start with.  Using the identified places that look promising – Courthouse in Chambersburg (for deeds and wills), Alexander Hamilton Library in Waynesboro (for obit), and the Franklin County Historical Museum (for knowledge of the area’s records in general) I can visit those websites for opening/closing times, admission costs, records that are housed there, and policies in place.  I add that info to my Word document.  As I’m Googling to find additional information about these places I discover more archives to add by looking at the right hand bottom of the Google search results page under “People Also Searched For.”  To make sure I’m not missing any smaller gem that may not receive alot of internet traffic, I also Google “Franklin County Pennsylvania USGenWeb”  Voila – scrolling down under Historical & Genealogical Societies and Museums is listed Waynesboro Historical Society.  That’s a place I need to add to my Word/Evernote document as I know that the folks I’m searching for lived in that location.  Depending on the time I have to spend in the area, I add churches (baptism/marriage/death/parishioner records) and cemeteries (family plot info), too.

In a perfect genealogical world, I would have time to contact the repositories ahead of my visit to make sure that the old deeds are still housed in the courthouse and weren’t moved to the museum but sometimes that’s not possible and I just have to wing it.  For this trip, though, I did call ahead or search the website to verify who had what.

I then prioritize what I wanted to find as sometimes life doesn’t work out the way we want.  Several years ago I planned a trip around a library in Morristown, New Jersey and guess what?!  The day before I arrived they had a gas leak and the library was closed when I got there.  I had nothing else identified to visit in the area and the trip was an expensive waste of time.  Live and learn!

Once I’ve identified my list of sites to visit I route based on my priorities.  On the Franklin trip, my number one priority was to find a will, then the deeds, as I hoped that would lead me to a firm death date and I could then locate the burial site.  If they weren’t available my backup was to find an obituary.

Even with planning, sometimes life gets in the way so you have to be flexible.  I arrived at Reagan National in DC mid day on a Thursday.  I had pre-paid for the rental car thinking I could drive in 1 1/2 hours to the courthouse to get the will and deeds, go next door to the county historical museum to check out their index of county burials and then head to the library (which was open late that evening) to find an obit.  Well, it didn’t work out as planned.  Arriving early at National I then encountered a long wait at the rental car counter as it was lunch time and there was only 1 employee available who was arguing with the customer ahead of me over company policy.  The kiosks were all down due to a computer glitch.  I waited and waited and finally another employee came back from lunch.  He was new, though, and couldn’t find my reservation even though I had a copy of my confirmation with me.  Then he found it but the transaction wouldn’t go through as the credit card I had used to pre-pay had been compromised two weeks earlier and I had a replacement card with another number.  He told me my option was to rent a car at the going rate (much higher) and deal with getting a credit on my pre-payment after my trip.  Nope!  Asked to speak to a manager and none available.  Meanwhile, the clock was ticking….   After two calls to corporate customer service I was permitted to update my credit card information and get the rental.  Thinking it would be smooth sailing ahead I happily followed the employee’s directions to go to the top floor of the parking garage and find the car in the space he wrote on the paperwork.  Except there were no rental cars on the top floor – he should have sent me to the 3rd floor.  Took me several minutes to figure out where to go.  When I got to the designated space I couldn’t get into the car.  I then had to hunt down an employee who told me they rented me the wrong car and I needed to go back downstairs to get it straightened out.  When I arrived downstairs there was a long line and seriously, the first employee was still arguing with the customer who had been there when I first arrived.  Thankfully, the nice people in line let me take cuts and the new employee again didn’t know what to do.  A manager now magically appeared and they found me a different car.  Back to the 3rd floor and another wait to get out of the parking lot as there was one employee to check me out.  I lost an hour plus that I had expected to use researching.  Deep breathing helps!

2.  PACK EFFICIENTLY –   Below is a pic of what I keep together to make my research trip more efficient:

This is all I take – my Kindle as it contains my tree, my phone so I can take pictures of my finds, a small change purse with quarters for parking meters, locker rental or snacks, a thumb drive to save what I find, identification (those are Library of Congress and NARA library cards but I also put my drivers license credit cards and a few business cards in the change purse), a pencil, red pen, black pen and highlighter, stickees (to flag the index as I’m going back and forth in a text), hand sanitizer and a magnifying glass.

All of this fits into a quart size baggie:

Remarkable how everything fits except the Kindle!  Sometimes I take a large rubber band and band the baggie to the Kindle so I don’t drop anything.

This small amount of needed tools helps me move quickly through security and not spend time digging through my purse to find what I need when I’m in the stacks.  I also check out quickly as employees can see I haven’t “accidentally” taken something out that I shouldn’t have.  This set up is a win-win for everyone!

I actually prefer mechanical pencils to the standard shown above but I was out so I used what I had at home.  I’ll get those mechanical ones when the back-to-school sales start this week.

It’s important to know the repositories policy as some do no allow you to take paper, pens, pencils or highlighters in with you.  At the National Archives, I had to leave my Kindle case in a locker, too. Again, flexibility is needed.

Next blog, I’ll give you hints for being effective and efficient when you reach your destination.  Happy Hunting!

Lighting A Fire

A former client informed me today that she thought about me all night long.  I could be flattered by that but the reason why was unsettling.  It’s summer in Florida and during this time we experience torrential storms.  Last evening was over the top with lightning and thunder and subsequently, one of my client’s neighbors home was hit and caught fire.  Thankfully, the fire department was able to extinguish the flames but the home sustained much damage.

Why my client thought of me at that time was due to my insistence a few months ago that her family documents be scanned and saved in several places.  She never got around to it.  Typical excuses – work, family, vacation, and it’s not fun to scan.  I’m not saying that those excuses aren’t valid but last evening she realized how quickly everything can be instantly destroyed.

First thing this morning she contacted me asking for help in cataloguing and scanning her documents and photos.

Please, readers, no more excuses!  Make the time now to save these valuable heirlooms today.

I Hate to Admit that an Unsourced Tree was Right!

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 24 Jul 2016.

I do not want to start a genealogical war but I have to tell you about my recent experience with unsourced family trees and serendipity. I know it’s a touchy subject, the unsourced trees, I mean.

Years ago – perhaps 16-20 – not even sure the exact time period I trusted what I found on the internet without checking sources.  In my mind, why would anyone put out fraudulent information?  I knew mistakes could happen but I really believed that everyone else was more knowledgeable then me so whatever was posted had to be mostly correct.  That was until late one evening as I was happily clicking back on one of my husband’s lines and in the early morning hours, about 2 AM, I realized what  was on the screen couldn’t be correct.  There is no way that he was the grandson of Viking gods and goddesses.  That painful lesson – painful because it took me quite some time to delete all of it – woke me up to reality.

Unfortunately, there were other lines I had added information to prior to that realization and I had no way to verify accuracy of what I had recorded.  All of it was Swedish.  The data looked okay, meaning that the father’s first name became the child’s last name and the dates of birth and death looked correct so I just left it.  I wanted to check but I just didn’t know how as I don’t read Swedish. Verifying the accuracy of those lines went on my to-do list for someday.  I always could identify them because the PAF file I used had funny dates when I converted to gedcom – year-month-day instead of day-month-year.

I am happy to report that the day finally arrived and I can cross this off my to-do list!  In May I blogged about my purchase of a year subscription to Arkivdigital.  That organization has digitized church books throughout Sweden and they look real, compared to the white background on Ancestry’s digitized books.  The site works well, too!  You can bookmark records, play with the background shading if you like and there is lots of helpful information to point you in the direction you need to search. There are NO inaccurate tree leaves like on Ancestry to mislead you, either.  Although the leaves are helpful in most cases they are definitely not correct when it comes to Swedish records and they make me crazy!

I’ll be honest, I had my doubts I could use the Arkivdigital site since my Swedish language skills were limited to Ikea and Samuelson. Oh, and Huskqvarna.   I did  have a phone conference with the U.S. rep and watched her beginners video on Legacy Family Trees. I also went to Swedish Genealogy Center and poked around a bit.  Arkivdigital has English translations, too, so I was able to print out marriage records, for example, from the 1700’s so I knew common words to look for.  Although there was no standard way to record the records in the earliest church books the names seem to jump out in most cases.  Probably because they are so long – Kierstin Johannessdotter stands out among the short words like fodelse (birth) and dod (death).

I decided I would check those old lines and if they were wrong – Snip, Snap and Snur – they were getting cut!  I am pleased to report that EVERYONE of them was 100% correct.  That means that whoever put the info out there back in the early days of the internet really knew what they were doing.  I just wish I knew who the person was so I could thank and credit them!  I have entered citations for every record that I found – birth, death and marriage.  I added a snippet to the gallery of each individual and made the birth record, in most cases, the photo so I can easily see the line was completely researched.  I still have to go back and check out the household records and I want to add the sibling info, too, so I’ll be spending lots more time with Arkivdigital.

Which gets me to the real lesson here – there are very kind, smart people out there in the world who do share their findings, albeit, without sources.  Maybe, back in the day, their program didn’t allow them to enter a citation or maybe they just never thought to do it because they knew where they found it.  Whatever the reason, no one should discount looking at unsourced family trees.  I’m not recommending doing what I did – blindly copying – but getting ideas, contacting the owner and checking it out for yourself can really help you move forward.

And speaking of sharing…..

While I was updating my lines I discovered that my hubby’s dear 2 x’s great grandfather’s real name was not Anders August but Anders Ludvig Johannesson.  He changed his name to Gust Johnson after he arrived in Indiana.  I understand the Johnson part but the Gust?  Well, turns out he was born in August so he went by a shortened version of his birth month.  He died in the early 1900’s and we had no picture of him.  I have his marriage certificate to his second wife but some darling in the family removed the pictures before I found them in a suitcase in my in-law’s basement about 40 years ago.

When I updated my tree with the correct name it hit me that I also needed to update Find-A-Grave as I had created a memorial for him.  I was so surprised when I clicked on and discovered that a distant relative I had never heard of had uploaded a photo of him!  What a wonderful treat – was the best find I’ve had all summer!  Sent the gentleman a thank you and am hoping he has a pic of the second wife.  So here is the wonderful Anders “Gust” Johnson:

I love the faint “My Dad” on the left side right under the pic.  I suspect this is his 2nd wedding photo as he was 66 when he died and this looks like like a much younger man.  The resemblance to my husband is striking.

Notice that this appears to be in a photo book as the right edge looks like more pics.  How cool is that!  I so hope the gentleman responds and shares.  Keep those trees and photos coming!

So I found this just a few days before I left for my Pennsylvania-DC research trip.  I came home late Thursday evening (thanks, southwest airlines for the debacle!) and began the arduous task of downloading to my desktop all the photos I had taken while away.  Realizing I had hundreds, I decided to clean out my email first.

Ok, this is really really weird but here goes….

I decided to read the weekly newsletter I get from the New England Historic and Genealogy Society.  Why I picked that first I have no idea as I haven’t been doing anything with my New England lines this summer.  One of the articles was about Hoosier newspapers so I clicked the link since I have been doing alot with Indiana.  One click led to another and very soon I was on Porter County – Westchester Township pics and the first one that comes up…. was the Helen Chellberg handwritten above’s husband’s grandparents.  How strange is that?!  Porter County was a very rural area of Indiana back in the late 1800’s so there were several Chelllbergs who married into the Johnson and Samuelson families.  In fact, on Thursday, I had been at the National Archives and got the military records for Samuel August Samuelson who’s sister married the man who popped up on the Westchester Township site.  I thought that circle of connection was just incredible.

All I have to say is – universe – keep it coming!!!

Have a wonderful week –

Remembering the Past

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 12 July 2016.

I’m at NARA waiting for my military record pulls  so I’m taking  a break to blog.  Read an interesting article about a way that World War I soldiers participating in the Battle of the Sonne that began on 1 July 1916 were recently memorialized throughout Great Britain recently as reported in The Guardian.  Regarded as the largest battle of WWI, between 1 July and 18 November 1916, it was actually a number of battles in three phases.  Best said by Friedrich Steinbrecher, a German officer, “Somme.  The whole history of the world cannot contain a more ghastly word” casualties were high on all sides; estimates of 485,000 British and French and 630,000 German soldiers was made at the Chantilly Conference on 15 November 1916.  But the war continued….

Please read the moving way that these lost lives were memorialized.

Hoping to make it home tonight.  Can’t wait too share my latest research finds.

More About Will

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 17 Jul 2016.

In April, I blogged about my dear cousin Will, aka, William Shakespeare.  A new study has just been released and you can read the New York Times article by Jennifer Schuessler (30 Jun 2016, p. C1) for details.

Written by historians hungry for any tidbit of evidence about Will’s life the document found by Heather Wolfe of the Folger Shakespeare Library regarding Will and his father’s attempt to obtain a coat of arms unveils much more than the supposition that the Shakespeare men were social climbers.  Way more!

I interpret the direct evidence that Will followed up on his father’s request in 1596 and confirming that Will was the son of John and that the two were close.  If Will had been estranged from his father he would not have taken up the fight to have the arms granted to the family.  Although being a social climber may have something to do with it, I again point to the ancestors of the family who had been socially important back in the day.  Historians are neglecting at looking at Will in the context of his family’s past.  Seeking the arms may have been the family’s way of regaining what had once been lost.

Clearly family was important to the Shakespeare’s as noted that Will’s last surviving descendant, a granddaughter named Elizabeth, used the seal on her will.  Using it would in no way aid her status in society.  Instead, it was the final mark that affirmed her position in the family.