In my GRIP Intermediate Genealogy course last week, Debbie Mieszala discussed Chronicling America in her class about newspaper research. I decided to do a search for one of my more unusual surnames, Coppenbarger, and I got an interesting hit. I found an article that listed not only my Coppenbarger’s, but also some Randolph’s and other names I recognized. I still haven’t tracked down all of the names, but I have done enough to realize that they are children and grandchildren of my fourth great grandparents, William Randolph (1792 in VA – 1867 in IL) & Matilda Kearns/Keeran (1796 in NC –...
Today’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge by Randy over at GeneaMusings is to play Ahnentafel Roullete. The ‘rules’ are as follows… What year was one of your great-grandfathers born? Divide this number by 80 and round the number off to a whole number. This is your “roulette number.” Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ancestral name list (some people call it an “ahnentafel” – your software will create this – use the “Ahnentafel List” option, or similar). Who is that person, and what are his/her vital...
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....
Lisa Louise Cooke has taught me many genealogy methods & tricks online for the past year or so. Yesterday, I got to listen to her in person! I told her how much I appreciated all that she does. And, we posed for a quick photo! Meeting Lisa Louise Cooke from Genealogy Gems (at Houston Genealogical Forum’s meeting on May 1, 2014) Lisa was giving three lectures at the Houston Genealogical Forum. She has recently moved to Texas, so I hope we get to see even more of her! Her first lecture was about newspapers. I have a membership to newspapers.com and...
