New Images from Indiana on Ancestry

Thanks to a Facebook post on the Indiana Genealogy page yesterday, I learned that three new databases were added to Ancestry.com – Indiana Birth Certificates (1907-1940), Indiana Marriage Certificates (1958-2005), and Indiana Death Certificates (1899-2011). At first, I figured it was just transcriptions of these documents (and we all know that there can be errors in transcribing documents!). Imagine how thrilled I was to find out that these three databases all included scanned images of the records!

After spending almost an hour going through some of the records pertaining to my family and ancestors, I realized that if I didn’t set a time limit for myself, I would be up all night! I found the birth certificates for my mom, aunt and uncle! I found death certificates for some of my extended Wilt relatives. And even though I had said that I had found the last piece of the Johnson/Kirkpatrick puzzle, I was wrong! On Ellen Ora Johnson Moffitt’s death certificate, her mother’s name was listed . . . (drum roll please) . . . Nancy J Kirkpatrick!!! Oh, happy, happy dance!!!

I’m sure I will find even more details that I’ve missed when I go through these documents and some are even sad. I decided to look for the death certificate for Albert Wilt. He was my maternal grandmother’s younger half-brother, son of Joseph Napolean Wilt and Anna Park. Albert’s gravestone bears the years 1917-1933. I did find his death certificate and the cause of death listed was horrible: head crushed by railway tram as he walked along the tracks. His death was ruled an accident. My great-grandfather Joe was the informant but he listed his birth date as August 1, 1914. So was Joe correct and the incorrect birth year was put on the head stone? Whatever the case, Albert was too young and his death was tragic.

So if you have family and ancestors from Indiana, please go check out these three new databases. Perhaps you’ll find some information that can help break down some brick walls.

(Image: Indiana Flag 1903 from Wikimedia Commons; public domain)

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1940 Census: Quirks, Frustrations, and Findings

Thousands (millions?) of people began trying to access the Archives.co
Site for the 1940 Census early this morning only to learn that all was not well. Too many hits added to servers that just didn’t seem ready for 37 million hits created that loud crashing sound we heard. Joining in the cacophony were the anguished cries of genealogists, media, and those at the National Archives.

For 20 minutes this morning, I jumped on Ancestry.com and found the “1940’s era” records are now free for another week. I found my dad’s parents (Loyd and Ella Amore) in a 1930 directory. That was exciting because I have yet to find them in the 1930 census! I found them again – on a different house in the 1932 and 1934 directories in Coshocton, Ohio.

Returning home from work this afternoon, I first perused Facebook statuses and tweets from Twitter to get a sense as to what everyone was saying about the release of the 1940 Census. The news was not good. There were a lot of frustrated people. I pulled up three sites – the official census site (Archives),  Ancestry and familysearch.

On Ancestry I saw that the Indiana records were available so I started with Lexington,  Scott county, Indiana. On the last of the enumeration district’s 38 pages, I found my great-grandfather – Joe Wilt – and his wife. HAPPY DANCE!! Later on I found 2 other collateral relatives/ancestors in Madison county.

About 30 minutes ago,  I indexed my first page – Oregon. Looking forward to doing more.

And for everyone who is frustrated, it will get better! We have waited this long – a little longer is not going to hurt. The census will still br there so while we are waiting, lets spend some time with the living!

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Maybe Back to Posting

College classes are done for the semester (maintained a 4.0!! Yay, me!) so hopefully I’ll be able to start posting again on a somewhat regular schedule. So sorry I’ve been silent for too long.  Have also had quite a bit of personal upheaval going on – so that doesn’t bode well for focusing on genealogy, research & writing. 

I’ve recently heard from a new-to-me cousin; related through the Goul line of my family and hopefully she & I can start to compare notes and see if we have any new information between the two of us.

I’m excited by the recent upload on Familysearch Indexing of so many new records.  I’ve already found some marriage records and a baby that I never knew existed.  I’ve looked at the records but haven’t had too much time to absorb what I’ve found.

And as many of you know, I lost my mother a year ago this month.  Her estate is still not settled and now the reverse mortgage company wants to foreclose on her property since the real estate broker and the estate attorney decided to list the property for WAY too much to begin with and in this economy (& the fact that the property is in a depressed area of the country), nothing happened in the way of potential buyers.  So now we are just waiting . . . some more. 

I’ve not had a lot of time either to read most of the genea-blogs I am subscribed to – sorry about that.  I’m not ignoring you – believe me! 

And I’ve been thrilled to hear of the geneabloggers getting together recently in Salt Lake.  Love looking at the pictures.

I watched each episode of “Who Do You Think You Are?” and my personal favorite was Susan Sarandon’s episode.  Looking forward to the 2nd season.  Are you?

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Indiana Resources

There are a good number of my maternal ancestors and collateral families who moved to, were born in, or resided in Indiana for quite awhile. I have several databases I use in order to gather leads or to find records.

Indiana Room of the Anderson (Madison County) Public Library. This is where I find Cemetery Records for 98 cemeteries within that county. Obituary Record index from the Anderson Daily Bulletin (1921-1967).

The Muncie / Delaware County Digital Resource Library has enabled me to find court records, obituaries, funeral home information and burial information on my ancestors that lived in Delaware County.

Indiana Marriages (1811-1959) from Family Search Record Search has recently been updated and has enabled me to locate several more marriage records.

The General Indiana database listing and the Localities in Indiana database listing on Cyndi’s List has also yielded results.

When I am digging for more information, I first look to see if that county or town has an online genealogical presence, if there is an online genealogy database at the public library in that location, if I can find court records or online obituaries. I use Google as my search engine and while I’m there, I check Google Books for county Histories, Biographies, genealogical quarterlies, and other digitized books or pamphlets that could include the researched ancestor.

Once I’ve found a listing for an obituary or death, I can request a copy from the genealogy society or library at that location – usually for a small fee. If the name is spelled differently than what I have listed, I can do further searching on Find A Grave, Rootsweb, or other genealogy databases.

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The Calendar

(Continued from The Box)

After I had opened the box, unwrapped the tissue paper to find my mom’s baby sister’s bonnet and removed the tissue paper, I saw a calendar at the bottom of the box.

Carefully I lifted out the Calendar from 1927 and slowly flipped the pages.  When I found the month of June, there were notes on the page in my grandmother’s handwriting.

June 9: Baby born – 10 a.m. hospital – 3# 4 – Lois Evelyn

June 13: 2#s 5

June 16: I came home – left baby

June 25: Fabitis

Week of June 26: Baby gaining back

July 9: 3-4 1/2

July 15: I came home

July 16: Baby home – 3# 6

July 23: 3# 12 1/2

July 30: Same

August 1: 3# 12 1/2 oz

August 6: 4 – 3

August 13:  4 – 7

August 20: 4 – 12 1/2

August 27: 4 – 7

August 30: 4 – 5

September 3: 4 – 7

September 10: 4 – 8

September 12: cow’s milk

September 15: 4 – 13

September 17: 4 – 7

September 19: 4 – 5

September 22: SMA, 4 – 4

September 28: Back to hospital at 9 pm

September 30: Died at 5 pm

October 2: We buried our dear baby 3 months, 3 weeks

October 18: At Hospital

October 20:  Operated for appendicitis & perineal op

October 22: Real ill

Lois Evelyn Johnson’s Death Certificate

Birth: June 9, 1927
Death: Sept 30, 1927 at Miami Valley Hospital, Dayton, Montgomery County, Ohio
Normal residence was in Fairfield (now part of Fairborn), Greene County, Ohio
Female, White, Single
Birthplace: Dayton, Ohio
Age at Death: 3 months, 4 days (this is incorrect just based on dates)
Father: Glenn (spelling incorrect) Johnson, born Anderson, Indiana
Mother: Vesta Wilt, born Noblesville, Indiana
Informant: Glen R. Johnson, Fairfield, Ohio
Death occurred at 6 pm
Cause of Death: 7 mo. premature birth; summer diarrhea, malnutrition
Place of Burial: Fairfield Cemetery, Oct 3rd 1927

It appears – based on calendar notes – that my grandmother was very vigilant about checking Lois’ weight and even changing what type of nutrition she was receiving.  Lois probably started out being breast-fed and then when she failed to gain enough, was switched to cow’s milk.  She did appear to gain some weight but then started to taper off again.  My grandmother then switched her to SMA Formula but that didn’t seem to help.  I believe the X’s at certain dates of Lois’ life probably indicated either the beginning of diarrhea or a dr. appointment. 

Talking to my mom a year ago, I discovered that Lois had been able to go home from the hospital.  I was always under the impression that she had to remain there.  Mom had told me that her baby sister had been put next to a heat source in order to keep her body temperature up. 

Lois Evelyn didn’t remain at Fairfield Cemetery.  Years later a family had lost their children in a fire (or some other calamity) and a call went out through the community for burial plots or money to help bury the children.  My grandparents gave up their plots and decided to remove their baby daughter to the cemetery they had chosen would be their final resting place.  Mom had told me several times the gruesome tale of how my grandmother had wanted to see her baby daughter one more time after she was disinterred and asked that her casket be opened.  Apparently she was pretty well preserved until the air touched her remains.  Lois was then interred – permanently – at Glen Haven Memorial Gardens in New Carlisle, Ohio.  Almost 40 years after she died, her parents joined her in eternal rest (in 1984 and 1985).  Now, though unfortunate, most of the family is together – lying close together in a very peaceful setting: Lois’ oldest brother and her next to oldest sister (my mother).  My aunt, the oldest daughter, is buried several miles away in the community’s Catholic cemetery.

Medical technology has come such a long way since 1927.  If Lois Evelyn had been born within the last 10-15 years, she would probably be well cared for and received the right nutrition.  Her gastric distress was probably due to her prematurity and she may have been placed on a feeding tube or receive IV nutrients. 

My grandmother spoke of Lois Evelyn often.  She never stopped mourning her last born child.  She had shown me one picture of the little one lying on a blanket.  I’ve not seen that photo again.  The picture I do have, I will not post.  It is her final picture – in her casket at her funeral.  A banner reading “Our Baby” is draped above her on the lid.  She was very, very tiny.  And for all these years, she’s been an angel.

Rest in Peace, Lois Evelyn

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Found Addresses

During my most recent visit to Ohio, I came across some old address books.  One appeared to have belonged to my mother from eons ago and the other was my grandparents’ that she kept after they passed away. 

I learned a few things by thumbing through the pages of these books.  The first was that my grandfather was a very meticulous person.  He actually typed up addresses and pasted them in at the correct spots alphabetically.  When someone died, he would cross out their name and mark “Decased” along with a date.  That only helps me when it was a relative yet it gets me wondering how my grandparents felt each time a long-time friend or a relative died.  There it was in black and white (and sometimes red pencil) – subtracting each friend from their life – through the pages of an address book.

Another thing I learned was that my grandfather actually had addresses for relatives I wasn’t sure he had ever met.  I was unsure if he had met his Aunt Rachel’s family until I saw names and addresses listed.  At the very least they corresponded once a year with a Christmas card. 

My mother’s old address book was a little different.  Not many addresses were marked through with “Deceased” but because of the person moving to a new residence.  That was a big difference between the two books.  Most of the people my grandparents knew stayed in the same place and the only changes were either closer to a child or to a nursing home as they aged or to sunny places such as Florida, California or Arizona.  The people my mother tracked moved due to military service, new job offers, a change of scenery, etc. 

Isn’t it amazing what a few pages from address books can tell you?  Not only about the people written in the pages but the person who kept up with it?

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Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It’s Researching I Shall Go . . .

Which is where I’ve been for the last week!  As I was “googling” and searching for some information, I decided that some more “clean-up” of my gedcom was in order.  Or more precisely – better documentation.  Since I was doing research on the Goul (and for all of those not in the know – it rhymes with Owl!) line of my tree, that is where I focused my work. 

I don’t have subscriptions to any of the online “pay” genealogy sites, so thought I’d work with what I could.  I started on HeritageQuest – which I can access from home thanks to my local library.  I wanted to find every single census record I could that included a member of the Goul family in order to “source” it in my family file. 

While doing so, I ran across “extra” Goul folks so added them into the family file as non-related people just in case.  The documentation took quite a bit of time.  Not only did I add the information on where everyone was in the Census records but the Series, Roll and page numbers. 

After I finished with HeritageQuest, I went to FamilySearch labs and entered information I found from there.  Then on to Rootsweb family trees and the Social Security Death Index.  Then I did a Google search to see what “distant” cousins had entered. 

In the middle of all of this, I received an email from a distant cousin – one who had posted some queries awhile back to one of the message boards.  We wrote back and forth and she mentioned that she had some things to mail to me.  I received the package on Saturday and it was a rather large package with quite a few family group sheets, copies of letters she had received from another distant cousin (who has since passed away).  One of the letters was actually a letter written to this other cousin that he had sent to her, and you’ll never believe who the author of that letter was – my grandfather!  Talk about the “circle of genealogy”!  This is the second time a cousin has sent me copies of letters my grandfather had written to other people. 

My week’s worth of work has been very productive and successful. I’ve been able to attach some of those non-related people to my line.

Even though I’ve used every combination of spellings to find the Goul family in the census, I’m not quite done.  I’ve located them under the variations of Coul, Gowl, Gaul, Gowell, and Goule.  But I’m sure there’s more!

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FamilySearch Update

On February 20th, I wrote this post about my concerns over the new FamilySearch update and design. Apparently, I was not the only one who had problems and sent feedback.

On that same day, I received a total of 5 hits from these search terms: “familysearch problems”, “familysearch error 500”, “server error 500 on family search”, “familysearch”, and “familysearch server error”. For the same type of search terms on February 21st, I received 3 hits. On February 22nd, I received 2 hits from the search term “familysearch record search not working”. And in the last two days, I’ve received 3 hits on those search terms. The post referenced above has received a total of 37 hits.

So late on February 24th when I went to check the site again – just in case – I noticed that they had put a message stating that the site would be down during the day on February 25th while they were making updates. Yesterday when I checked it to see if it was back up again, I noticed that the message was expanded to say that the update would fix problems associated with the update. When the site came back up yesterday evening, the message explained that folks with IE6 could now use the site again!

I immediately sent feedback to say thank you! I’m sure I’m not the only one who is pleased that the problem is now resolved. I would hope that anyone else who had problems, will also thank them for fixing this. The administrators are obviously reading comments made and diligently working to improve searchability for all of us. Let’s show them our gratitude!

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Enumeration Districts and More – Shout Out!

One of the road blocks in locating your ancestor in the Census records occurs when we know where they are living – perhaps even have an address – but for some reason we can’t locate them. Stephen P. Morse web pages can help with many items. This site has links to Ellis Island forms, New York manifests, Castle Garden, other immigration ports, and Census information.

Under Census there are several items:

1. Obtaining the Enumeration Districts for 1900-1940 Censuses
2. Street Finder
3. Enumeration District Definitions
4. Census Codes
5. Determining Counties
6. Changed Street Names
7. Soundex

These items might assist you in your census research.  Please note that some links send you to fee-based sites.

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My Problem with FamilySearch New Design

As soon as FamilySearch came back online Thursday, I wanted to check out the tweeks they had implemented. Unfortunately every time I tried to do a search, I received a Server 500 error.  I sent feedback to their Support to find out why I was having a problem.  My response came yesterday and read,

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch Support about your 500 error. This means you are probably still using Internet Explorer version 6. If this is not the case, please indicate your browser and its version. Most of these problems are corrected by upgrading to IE7. I’ve attached below instructions on how to do this.

I’ve heard a lot of things about Internet Explorer 7 and have been sent warning messages from my internet provider that IE7 is not comparable to what I have.  I went online to see what other information I could get about problems people have had with this upgrade and found that IE7 had been used by hackers to gain access to certain information.  The website also mentioned patches that had been released to counteract this issue.  So now I’m left wondering – what has been the experience of others using IE7?  Is it worth my time and effort (and possible headaches) if I download IE7? Or should I just find a computer with this version already installed so I won’t compromise my system?

I’m looking for all the feedback I can get!  So please let me know!

I really would hate not to be able to access FamilySearch as it has provided much needed information on ancestors that I am researching.

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