Last month (Dec 15th) I was trying to catch up on some of the facts that I had been locating the past several weeks. This included several people whom I found in the 1940 and 1930 US Census records through FamilySearch and Ancestry.
I loved looking at all the cousins and their family members on these records, finding out what occupation each person was doing that year. I found several widowed mothers and fathers who were living with their grown children and grandchildren. I still have not located my own grandfather in the 1930 census, I found him in the 1920 and 1940 but not 1930...yet. I still hold out hope to find him soon. I have a couple of leads that I need to follow, he was serving his first term in the Army at the time.
I started to sync my RootsMagic tree to FamilySearch with all the residence information I had found so far. I also added Census and Occupation facts for each person I had found. I was making progress, but I soon realized that I needed a list of everyone that could have been found in the census to ensure that I had everyone. So I pulled a "who was there" report out of my RootsMagic database, this report will query everyone in the database against those who were born before and do not have a death date before 1930.
I soon started looking at each person listed on the report and eventually I found it easiest to put in report into Evernote. I could then use this basic report as the start of a research log. I started checking off each person that I found and adding the date I found the info.
By whittling away at the report every day, even if I had just 10-15 minutes to work on it, I knew eventually I would get through the 1148 people listed. After six weeks, I am beginning to really see some progress in my end goal of finding everyone in my database in the 1930 census that was alive at the time. As of today I have found 141 of those listed on the report. I also have added more than 50 new cousins to my database as well.
Sunday, January 29, 2017
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Are you sure you have all your Ancestor's artifacts documented?
For the past several weeks I have been busy scanning documents and photos that were given to me when my paternal grandmother, Virginia, passed away earlier this year. Theses items, are carefully scanned and documented in my genealogy. Photos are identified and the originals transferred into a archive box. Other documents are scanned and filled into each person's file folder. I have a treasure trove of information from these documents. The types of documents vary from driver's licenses, to old passports used during a trip to the orient - along with pictures from that trip to several hundred military papers documenting everyday occurrences and daily orders, to a five page resume document that my grandfather typed up sometime between 1965 and 1977 when he passed away, to Mason membership cards. This has kept me very busy and will keep me busy for the remainder of this year and possibly into next. It actually surprised me on how much my grandmother decided to keep, like she knew it would bring me such joy to have some of these simple everyday items. Why did it surprise me - because my grandmother was never into genealogy. That side of me came from my maternal side.
I have been so excited to receive and go through these partly because I have very few of these types of items from my maternal grandmother, Florence. And she was starting to dive into genealogy a few years before she passed away. I got into genealogy when my mother was given my grandmother's genealogy papers - I was 11-12 years old at the time and my mom although she found it kinda interesting she was never interested in expanding on what my grandmother had. There were a few printouts and extracts from records, a few citations, but mostly it was family group sheets and pedigree charts that were filled out and filed with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a long time before FamilySearch was around. I have a few cards and letters neatly tucked away that my grandmother kept. But no diaries, no family bibles, no birth or death certificates.
But today I realized that I was missing a few things in my documentation. Isn't it funny how you can be going along and then all of a sudden WHAM! You have one of the "Well Duh..." moments.
One of these moments happened to me, while cooking dinner tonight. I sat there stirring the ground beef that soon would be tacos for the family and it dawned on me. I have artifacts from both of my grandmothers that really should be documented in my genealogy - at least somewhere. Now these items are not birth certificates, or a precious family bible, or even that elusive diary. It is a simple but very useful .... skillet. Yes a skillet.
I have my great grandma's, Florence Bunce, cast iron skillet. And it is still being used today. I am at least the 4th generation to use the thing, and it will be passed down to one of my daughters when I no longer need it. Such a simple thing, it never occurred to me to document this artifact, but yet it tells me about the women in my family who have used it countless times before me.
I got the skillet this year when my mother, Velleda, had to move into a nursing home. She has had it since 1986 when her mother, Florence, passed away. Florence received the skillet when her mother, Florence, passed away in 1967. It is unknown at this point when or where she received the skillet.
This new "enlightenment" got me thinking of the other precious items that I have of my mother's, grandmothers, and grandfathers. I have some of her most priced possessions, like her china and some of her most common possessions too, like a cane she used and of course this skillet that got me thinking outside the paper lines.
Now I have more items on my to-do list to take photos of and document.
Just remember not all artifacts of our ancestor's are paper and/or pictures. They are also some of the simple and elegant things that they have left us too.
I have been so excited to receive and go through these partly because I have very few of these types of items from my maternal grandmother, Florence. And she was starting to dive into genealogy a few years before she passed away. I got into genealogy when my mother was given my grandmother's genealogy papers - I was 11-12 years old at the time and my mom although she found it kinda interesting she was never interested in expanding on what my grandmother had. There were a few printouts and extracts from records, a few citations, but mostly it was family group sheets and pedigree charts that were filled out and filed with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a long time before FamilySearch was around. I have a few cards and letters neatly tucked away that my grandmother kept. But no diaries, no family bibles, no birth or death certificates.
But today I realized that I was missing a few things in my documentation. Isn't it funny how you can be going along and then all of a sudden WHAM! You have one of the "Well Duh..." moments.
One of these moments happened to me, while cooking dinner tonight. I sat there stirring the ground beef that soon would be tacos for the family and it dawned on me. I have artifacts from both of my grandmothers that really should be documented in my genealogy - at least somewhere. Now these items are not birth certificates, or a precious family bible, or even that elusive diary. It is a simple but very useful .... skillet. Yes a skillet.
I have my great grandma's, Florence Bunce, cast iron skillet. And it is still being used today. I am at least the 4th generation to use the thing, and it will be passed down to one of my daughters when I no longer need it. Such a simple thing, it never occurred to me to document this artifact, but yet it tells me about the women in my family who have used it countless times before me.
I got the skillet this year when my mother, Velleda, had to move into a nursing home. She has had it since 1986 when her mother, Florence, passed away. Florence received the skillet when her mother, Florence, passed away in 1967. It is unknown at this point when or where she received the skillet.
This new "enlightenment" got me thinking of the other precious items that I have of my mother's, grandmothers, and grandfathers. I have some of her most priced possessions, like her china and some of her most common possessions too, like a cane she used and of course this skillet that got me thinking outside the paper lines.
Now I have more items on my to-do list to take photos of and document.
Just remember not all artifacts of our ancestor's are paper and/or pictures. They are also some of the simple and elegant things that they have left us too.
Friday, March 11, 2016
Revisit old information
You should go back and revisit old information, for example I have a copy of my grandmother's birth certificate.
For years I have known that her parents had named her after her grandmother and then for some unknown reason decided after the grandmother had died to change her name. They started calling her by her "new" name around the time she was three years old, it was only when my grandmother had to get a passport after marrying my grandfather (he was career Army) that she learned that she was born with a different name.
Her father had to go to court and swear in front of a Judge that they had changed her name without going to court to do so. Today I looked at the birth certificate again and noticed that she did not have a middle name - I had always heard that her birth name was "Annie Laura" when in fact it was simply "Annie".
I also noticed that both her parents were listed as residence of Denver Colorado, however she was born in El Paso, Texas. Now I knew that my great grandparents actually hopped back and forth between Denver and El Paso, however until I took a look at this birth certificate again did I notice that at the time of my grandmother's birth they actually were living in Denver at the time. Time to go and update some records.
For years I have known that her parents had named her after her grandmother and then for some unknown reason decided after the grandmother had died to change her name. They started calling her by her "new" name around the time she was three years old, it was only when my grandmother had to get a passport after marrying my grandfather (he was career Army) that she learned that she was born with a different name.
Her father had to go to court and swear in front of a Judge that they had changed her name without going to court to do so. Today I looked at the birth certificate again and noticed that she did not have a middle name - I had always heard that her birth name was "Annie Laura" when in fact it was simply "Annie".
I also noticed that both her parents were listed as residence of Denver Colorado, however she was born in El Paso, Texas. Now I knew that my great grandparents actually hopped back and forth between Denver and El Paso, however until I took a look at this birth certificate again did I notice that at the time of my grandmother's birth they actually were living in Denver at the time. Time to go and update some records.
Thursday, March 3, 2016
City Directories can tear down walls
I've decided to use this blog a more of as my family history journal, to document what I'm looking for and what and where I have found information. As my own children are growing up, more online resources become available as well as a change in the industry I work for (not the career itself) I now find that I can spend more time researching and documenting our family and their histories.
In the past few months I have been very fortunate to finally find some information on my husband's family. Despite having a few pictures of his paternal grandfather and great grandfather, both named Peter Joseph Horvath, we knew little to nothing about them.
Even though the last name was not that common, it wasn't very unique either. Actually there are quite a few Horvath's in the US especially in the central part of the country where they were supposed to be from after migrating from Hungary. What is even more I think the majority of the men were named Joseph Peter, but this just made searching for them harder in my opinion there were a lot of dead ends and climbing up the wrong trees. I only had what little information from Peter's ex-wife - my husband's grandmother to go on.
Here is what we did know: My husband's grandfather Peter Jr was a drinker, he died 24 Dec 1971 in Illinois, his mother was Irene and father was Peter Joseph Horvath. According to my husband's grandmother (his wife), he drank every night after work to the point he would leave his entire paycheck at the bar. For a while the bar would return the paycheck to the grandmother knowing that they had several young boys to raise. However, after a while the paychecks stopped being returned, they were soon divorced and she set about raising the boys on her own. She had two pictures of his father, Peter, and two pictures of his mother, Irene. Peter Sr was an ominous looking man, certainly a business man in the 1930s/1940s with a ganster type of look, in my opinion anyway. And of course what family doesn't have family rumors. Ours: The family business was "Bootlegging" and their circle of friends "Al Capone". Yes, the Al Capone!
Wow, now why can't I find anything about this side of the family then? Until last fall I had resigned to believe that due to the nature of their business they were very good at hiding from most records.
My husband and I have been married for almost 26 years and throughout that time I have been researching both his side and my side of the family sometimes take a few years off for various reasons. I found very little on my husband's side of his paternal family - well let me rephrase that in 26 years of searching I found these things items:
After this conversation with my father-in-law I just knew that I needed to start researching again. I started with someone I knew I could find...Al Capone. I read various articles and searched for the names and faces of his "gang" thinking that maybe the reason I couldn't find their records was because the father changed his name, maybe he was arrested in connection to Capone and his men. And I still came up short, I found nothing not a mention of the family not a picture that would match the faces.
So I took a step back and looked at what I did know and what I had heard to be true. I knew that Peter Jr had 5 sons, I started looking more at records of the grandmother (ex-wife) of Peter. Opal, now that is a name combination that isn't too prevalent, Opal Horvath. I got a hit on a newly indexed set of records, City Directories. There she was along with her husband in 1938 Joliet, Illinois. Wait when was she in Joliet - this came as a surprise to me actually I'm not sure why but it did surprise me nonetheless. I have her obit which states she moved to Joliet but by the time her and Peter were married they were in another Illinois town not Joliet. This city directory was after their marriage date and actually after two of their five children were born. But there it was in black and white Opal and Peter in Joliet, but that was not all. In the same address I found Irene, Peter Sr, the unnamed sister "Elizabeth" and an unknown brother John and the family tavern. This was the first record that I found listing Peter Sr. I was thrilled to say the least.
I started looking at the other information I had on the children of Peter and Opal, there it was the entire time! One of their children (my husband's uncle) was born in Joliet. I can't believe I missed that! But I was too thrilled with the discovery to be too hard on myself. Then the flood gates opened. I was able to track the family between 1925 and 1942 through city directories, the business went from a grocery to a beer distributor to a bar and finally to a tavern. The change from grocery to bar happened at the time that prohibition ended. I guess that part of the family stories sure appears to be true. Based on the address in 1925, I was finally able to find the family in the 1920 census under an incorrectly indexed name. I am still locating more information on this branch of the tree all the time. I still don't have on record much but at least it is a start and a lot more than what I had just 4 months ago. I still have yet to find a death record or date for Peter Sr, but what I did find was interesting to say the least, more possibilities and my wheels are turning too.
In the 1940 census Peter Sr was not listed, or was he? I did find Irene at the same address listed as the head of the house, but the next line down was crossed out, through the line you can make out "Peter" above the line are the words "In Sanitarium 10 years". Another lead to follow!
A big thank you goes out to ancestry.com for those initial city directories, without those I don't think I would have this information today.
In the past few months I have been very fortunate to finally find some information on my husband's family. Despite having a few pictures of his paternal grandfather and great grandfather, both named Peter Joseph Horvath, we knew little to nothing about them.
Even though the last name was not that common, it wasn't very unique either. Actually there are quite a few Horvath's in the US especially in the central part of the country where they were supposed to be from after migrating from Hungary. What is even more I think the majority of the men were named Joseph Peter, but this just made searching for them harder in my opinion there were a lot of dead ends and climbing up the wrong trees. I only had what little information from Peter's ex-wife - my husband's grandmother to go on.
Here is what we did know: My husband's grandfather Peter Jr was a drinker, he died 24 Dec 1971 in Illinois, his mother was Irene and father was Peter Joseph Horvath. According to my husband's grandmother (his wife), he drank every night after work to the point he would leave his entire paycheck at the bar. For a while the bar would return the paycheck to the grandmother knowing that they had several young boys to raise. However, after a while the paychecks stopped being returned, they were soon divorced and she set about raising the boys on her own. She had two pictures of his father, Peter, and two pictures of his mother, Irene. Peter Sr was an ominous looking man, certainly a business man in the 1930s/1940s with a ganster type of look, in my opinion anyway. And of course what family doesn't have family rumors. Ours: The family business was "Bootlegging" and their circle of friends "Al Capone". Yes, the Al Capone!
Wow, now why can't I find anything about this side of the family then? Until last fall I had resigned to believe that due to the nature of their business they were very good at hiding from most records.
My husband and I have been married for almost 26 years and throughout that time I have been researching both his side and my side of the family sometimes take a few years off for various reasons. I found very little on my husband's side of his paternal family - well let me rephrase that in 26 years of searching I found these things items:
- the death certificate for his grandfather from the State of Illinois,
- where the grandfather was buried through findagrave.com website,
- the SSDI record for the great grandmother indicating she died in California from familysearch.org - but was this our Irene Horvath - I believe so based on the date of death but it could be a coincidence too.
- the death certificate for the great grandmother in California, and
- the existence of a daughter also named Irene as taken from the death certificate
- occupation of the great grandmother - owner of a restaurant
- Application of Peter and Irene's marriage in South Bend, Indiana from ancestry.com - was this really our Peter and Irene - I still am not sure.
After this conversation with my father-in-law I just knew that I needed to start researching again. I started with someone I knew I could find...Al Capone. I read various articles and searched for the names and faces of his "gang" thinking that maybe the reason I couldn't find their records was because the father changed his name, maybe he was arrested in connection to Capone and his men. And I still came up short, I found nothing not a mention of the family not a picture that would match the faces.
So I took a step back and looked at what I did know and what I had heard to be true. I knew that Peter Jr had 5 sons, I started looking more at records of the grandmother (ex-wife) of Peter. Opal, now that is a name combination that isn't too prevalent, Opal Horvath. I got a hit on a newly indexed set of records, City Directories. There she was along with her husband in 1938 Joliet, Illinois. Wait when was she in Joliet - this came as a surprise to me actually I'm not sure why but it did surprise me nonetheless. I have her obit which states she moved to Joliet but by the time her and Peter were married they were in another Illinois town not Joliet. This city directory was after their marriage date and actually after two of their five children were born. But there it was in black and white Opal and Peter in Joliet, but that was not all. In the same address I found Irene, Peter Sr, the unnamed sister "Elizabeth" and an unknown brother John and the family tavern. This was the first record that I found listing Peter Sr. I was thrilled to say the least.
I started looking at the other information I had on the children of Peter and Opal, there it was the entire time! One of their children (my husband's uncle) was born in Joliet. I can't believe I missed that! But I was too thrilled with the discovery to be too hard on myself. Then the flood gates opened. I was able to track the family between 1925 and 1942 through city directories, the business went from a grocery to a beer distributor to a bar and finally to a tavern. The change from grocery to bar happened at the time that prohibition ended. I guess that part of the family stories sure appears to be true. Based on the address in 1925, I was finally able to find the family in the 1920 census under an incorrectly indexed name. I am still locating more information on this branch of the tree all the time. I still don't have on record much but at least it is a start and a lot more than what I had just 4 months ago. I still have yet to find a death record or date for Peter Sr, but what I did find was interesting to say the least, more possibilities and my wheels are turning too.
In the 1940 census Peter Sr was not listed, or was he? I did find Irene at the same address listed as the head of the house, but the next line down was crossed out, through the line you can make out "Peter" above the line are the words "In Sanitarium 10 years". Another lead to follow!
A big thank you goes out to ancestry.com for those initial city directories, without those I don't think I would have this information today.
Sunday, January 18, 2015
12 Tags of 2015 #1
Here is my first of 12 tags of 2015 inspired by Tim Holtz.
His first tag is found here. I started with a manila tag and glued down crinkled vellum that was stamped using Distress Ink in Broken China and background stamp from Tim Holtz Papillon cling stamps. I distressed the edges removing some of the vellum in places.
The I layered Distress Paints fired bricks and antique linen with accents of picket fences Distress Stain. I used Tim Holtz Alpha Parts - Numeric pieces painting two pieces using antique linen Distress Paint, the other was covered in Sky Blue micro glitter from Jewel Glitter Ritz.
I tool four word beads that I had laying around and sprayed them using Distress Stain Spray in Faded Jeans, highlighting the edges in black. I also used the stain spray on the entire face of the tag adding brushed pewter as well to give the tag a sparkle.
To finish the tag off I added Crinkle Ribbon sprayed in both the brushed pewter and faded jeans and added a metal arrow embellishment.
#12tagsof2015
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Hive Missed You card
I stopped by Archivers the other day and saw a couple of great stamp sets by Inky Antics stamps. The stamps are designed to be used with the age old Honeycomb paper.
More information about the stamps can be found here: http://www.inkyantics.com/honeypop.htm
I tried to copy the sample used and shown at the store as best as I could to get a good idea of how these work. I think it turned out pretty well.
More information about the stamps can be found here: http://www.inkyantics.com/honeypop.htm
I tried to copy the sample used and shown at the store as best as I could to get a good idea of how these work. I think it turned out pretty well.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Update
It has been a busy month for me, I started a new job and I'm loving it. My mother was scheduled for surgery last month but it was postponed until today, so all her appointments have kept me hoppin'.
I've also been working on organizing my scrapbooking area (it is actually my front room - I share it with the family PC - our furniture is in our family room). As soon as I am finished I will post before and after pictures (be warned the before pictures look like a tornado hit the room!
And I've been working on my flower beds outside, it has been a very warm spring and everyting is coming up about 5 weeks early this year. But I'm not complaining, this is the first year in 6 years that I will have flowers so I'm really exicted to clear out my flower beds and plant plant and plant some more. At my last house in MT, we had 6 deer that lived in our back yard, great to look at but the only flowers we could get to survive were plastic ones. So I'm really excited to be back in Iowa and be able to have real flowers again. My yard has not been cared for since we left (we were paying for lawn service but according to the neighbors no one actully did anyting), so we have a lot a weeds in the grass, and a lot of grass and weeds in the flower beds. Maybe I will post some pictures of the beds after I get them cleaned up and planted.
I hope to post some projects that I have been working on this weekend, so check back in a few days...until then...have a great day!
I've also been working on organizing my scrapbooking area (it is actually my front room - I share it with the family PC - our furniture is in our family room). As soon as I am finished I will post before and after pictures (be warned the before pictures look like a tornado hit the room!
And I've been working on my flower beds outside, it has been a very warm spring and everyting is coming up about 5 weeks early this year. But I'm not complaining, this is the first year in 6 years that I will have flowers so I'm really exicted to clear out my flower beds and plant plant and plant some more. At my last house in MT, we had 6 deer that lived in our back yard, great to look at but the only flowers we could get to survive were plastic ones. So I'm really excited to be back in Iowa and be able to have real flowers again. My yard has not been cared for since we left (we were paying for lawn service but according to the neighbors no one actully did anyting), so we have a lot a weeds in the grass, and a lot of grass and weeds in the flower beds. Maybe I will post some pictures of the beds after I get them cleaned up and planted.
I hope to post some projects that I have been working on this weekend, so check back in a few days...until then...have a great day!
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