I’ve done a few of Randy Seaver’s “Saturday Night Genealogy Fun” challenges over at Genea-Musings. This week’s challenge is about your father’s mother’s paternal lines. 1) What was your father’s mother’s name? My grandmother’s maiden name was Hazel Lucille Peters. At the end of her life, she lived with my aunt & uncle who lived in the same town as I. She had almost white hair and, as a young child, I thought that was just her hair color. So, when I received a doll with white hair, I named her Hazel. She died when I was only 5 and...
Who did your early ancestors marry? Of course, it was often their neighbors! Last week I learned about HistoryGeo through a Genealogy Guys podcast (#263) and was able to visually see that my Coppenbarger & Randolph ancestors of De Witt County, Illinois were neighbors! HistoryGeo’s First Landowners Project contains nearly 8 million original landowners in a single map. You can search for landowners by surname or by location. My Coppenbarger & Randolph ancestors were early settlers in De Witt County, Illinois (then Macon County) under the Land Act of 1820. Basically, this land act required cash instead of credit for land purchases....
Southern California’s Genealogical Society presented the multi-day Jamboree last weekend. I wasn’t able to travel there, but planned on watching some of the ‘live streaming’ videos they were offering for free. But, my schedule didn’t allow it. Well, they are offering them FREE online until July 5th! Then, later this summer they will be offered to members on their site. (Membership is $35 per year.) If the above link doesn’t work, I found it by going to the Jamboree site and then clicking on the “watch on livestream” button which is near the green “follow” button. The 10 session available...
Lately, I’ve been having a lot of success in researching my Karbach/Koerbach family. They came from Germany around 1850 or 1853 and settled in Norwalk, Huron County, Ohio. One of the wonderful resources I have discovered is the Rutherford B Hayes Presidential Center which has an index of obituaries in several area newspapers. I’ve now ordered about 15 obituaries for only $3 each. One of the obituaries I ordered was for my great, great, great grandmother, Mary Ann (Reuter) Koerbach. I received the ‘obituary’ with this wonderful title: “Aged Woman Answers Summons.” In it, I found two clues: one saying...
Last night I had a wonderful find: I found a family tree that a distant cousin had posted on My Heritage. On that tree was posted a marriage certificate for my third great grandparents in Germany! This gave me the actual village my ancestors were from! Also, he had posted PHOTOS of this couple with one of their children! I have asked permission to post these photos and hope to be able to do that soon! In the meantime, I’ve been working on the marriage record. It is written in Latin and I used about five different websites to help...
Randy posted tonight’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge over at Genea-Musings. Tonight’s challenge is to pick a male relative who isn’t a direct relative. Good choices would be a brother of an ancestor or the husband of an ancestor. You’re wanting someone whose name probably wouldn’t change throughout their life. Also, pick someone who was born between 1800-2000. Then, use FamilySearch to see what records come up. Tell what records you find & if you find anything new. I chose Edward L Stewart (Aug 1879 in PA – abt 1921 in PA), a sibling to my direct ancestor Andrew McClintock...
I have tried to identify the father of Andrew McClintock (1804-abt 1864 in PA) for several years. The key to busting this brick wall was in the newly released Pennsylvania certificates of death. Andrew and his wife, Mary Jane, had eight children that I know of. Three of those children died between 1906 and 1922, the years for which these death records have been released and are available at ancestry.com. Image taken from Ancestry.com. Two of these records, those for Samuel & Adam, list the maiden name of their mother as “unknown.” But the third child, their daughter Sarah Elizabeth...
This week I signed up for my first genealogical institute! It’s called GRIP (Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh) and will be in late July in Pittsburgh. I’m taking Paula Stewart-Warren’s “Intermediate Genealogy: Tools for Digging Deeper.” Besides the daily classes and the evening lectures, we will also have one evening where we can spend time researching at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. About half of my family comes from Pennsylvania and I’ve never been there before, so I hope I find something at this library! I’ll be sleeping in a private dorm room and eating cafeteria food. I’m excited to...
Randy, at Genea-Musings, offers a weekly “Saturday Night Fun” challenge. This is my first challenge, but I thought I’d join in the fun! This week’s challenge…take a selfie of yourself and some genealogical item. My husband’s grandfather, who passed away only 11 months ago, served in the Navy Seals as a Seabee. Their slogan: “We build, we fight.” During WWII, the Seebees built roads, airstrips, hospitals, housing, bridges, and more. Grandpa built bridges. About 10 years ago, my sister-in-law took Grandpa’s navy photo, ring, Navy patch, and Seabee patch, and created this shadowbox. After his death, these were passed along...
What if a fortune teller told you there was a fortune buried on your land? Would you dig up your land in search of it? That’s how my family, the Coppenbargers, figure into this strange tale of a fortune teller who… …told the Coppenbargers there was vast wealth buried on their land …said that he could tell who murdered the German family who was found hung in a tree a few months earlier …and stole the heart of the wife of the man he was employed by. What a crazy story… and I guess it’s true. I don’t know exactly...
