This is the first post for 2013

I have had a busy year but unfortunately not in genealogy, I did some catching up on sources and names,  helped a few people to find information they needed and tracked down sources mentioned elsewhere so I could actually cite them in my data base.
I added photocopies to my ancestry tree, and was pleased that people added it to their trees. I have never understood why people claiming to be genealogists make their trees private. I actually had a person request that I take information off my tree as that was her private information, the names in question were my cousins and I grew up with them. Any information I had was through my own knowledge and research, and of course I didn't take it down.
True genealogists share so that others may find things that eventually work their way back to you, it goes with the old saying "cast your bread upon the waters and it will return tenfold" . It works that way in genealogy all the time.
That is enough on one of my pet peeves, I hope to do better in this blog in future. If you read this understand. That  anything I find that is true and sourced will eventually get into my tree, I do not put info on people born after 1910 on the web unless they are deceased.
Until next time, Happy Hunting

Not so Often

My last post was in December and I left it as a cliff hanger waiting for a copy of an obituary to arrive. The obituary arrived and was very good except for a note that said taken from the "Jamestown Journal", Arggh!! Needless to say the Journal was targeted in order to get original information.

In February I was back to "Ask the librarian" they actually got back to me within two weeks with information on where I could find the obituary. Unfortunately I didn't check my spam folder for about two months and that is where it sat all that time. When discovered a request was immediately sent to the NY State Reference Library and I received the original version of the obituary. I now am the proud possessor of that and will get it posted as soon as possible.
The obituary doesn't contain as much information as I hoped, possibly because my ancestor lived so long everyone forgot early details.

Family problems have taken up much of my time so the genealogy research has suffered, but I have a question. How come I can get all kinds of information on the collateral lines and still not get the information on the directs? Does anyone else have that problem?

An uncle on the Graves line has been traced down to the present generation, I haven't been able to contact them although the last I heard they were in AZ. Still looking as I want him for a YDNA sample.

I also managed to upgrade to the Family Finder test at FTdna , but no results on that, my hopes weren't high anyway, but we shall see.

That is it until the next time, maybe I will have some good results to report

I.L.L. and L.O.C., Chautauqua, NY

My goodness, time has flown. It is December and Christmas is a little over a week away. I am getting a present for myself! I have an ancestor who was quite long lived and because of that he has an obituary! rah! rah!
I have been working in the time period of about 1790 to 1850 in New York State, It is quite difficult to get information from that time frame as there were no vital records kept by the state except for a few isolated areas. Newspapers were usually weekly or biweekly, but there are few places that have them and those that do, have them microfilmed and stored. If you are not in NY it is difficult to find them. I googled for him and found a lot of information in "The History of Chatauqua County, New York and its people" which fortunately is on-line. I read various items that pertained to him and there was a line that caught my eye. His death was in the Town of Carroll, but his obituary was in the Mayville Sentinel in 1843. Yay, a clue.

I googled for the "Mayville Sentinel", there were microfilm copies and the Library of Congress (LOC) had some issues in their possession. I dug a little deeper on-line and got a volume number, an issue number and a date. Looking good. I emailed the LOC, who replied that they did not have that issue, but the NY State Library in Albany did. They suggested I get an ILL (interlibrary loan). I tried to get the ILL, but due to budget cuts there was only one librarian who knew how and she wasn't there. : (  I left my name and number and went home to wait. 4 days later I got the call, if I could come in she would help me : )

I gathered my information and hopes and went to the library, I gave her the information including the fact that the LOC did not have that particular issue, but NYSL did, paid my $5 and left. 3 weeks later I received The Call, if I would come to the library I could pick up the packet of information they had for me, I was thrilled.
The first thing I did after I got the packet was, naturally, open it so I could see that obituary. There was a note attached, The information in the packet had been downloaded and printed through Ancestry as the LOC did not have that edition, well, neither does Ancestry, I had received my original information from their site. Now I had the same in printed form. $5 wasted.

The LOC has a nifty little site called ask a librarian - www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/   I figured I had nothing to lose at this point so I outlined my information and sent it. I am now waiting for the obituary copy information to arrive at which time I will send the NYSL $10 for their work. It involved some effort on my part, but it is a heckuva lot cheaper than going to NY and I have an authentic source for my database. I will add it to my ancestry.com site for others who need that particular source. I won't know if it is a primary or a secondary source, but it is a source and I am satisfied. I just wish I could find something as solid on my William Wright, Daniel Miller and Thomas Graves. Back to the search.

When I titled this blog Every so Often and put the web site as Anow and Again I wasn't far from the truth, I seemed to have left October in the dust. I was busy, but not in my genealogy research - I did a little online work, but mostly the family stuff kept me occupied.
For those who know, the grand daughter who was in the coma is recovering although still in hospital, I wish to thank you for your many prayers and ask you to keep praying. She is in Sacramento and I am not able to be there with her which does hurt.
I ask also that you pray for another granddaughter who has complications with her pregnancy, We need a full term baby so they can operate successfully after his birth. She is due the beginning of January, and so far is doing OK.
I have a big family with lots of descendants I am trying to keep track of, so if any of them research the family line they will have a head start.

Speaking of research I have put out some more queries in different areas, Chenango County in New York for my hard to find William Wright, I am looking for the one born probably around 1800. I have tried locating siblings, parents, or even a neighbor with no success as yet. I have looked for a descendant of Johnson Wright born 1828, found two of his great great grandchildren and got DNA tests and still no luck. Johnson is William's son and his descendants have no information on William either. I am now trying to trace descendants of Henry W. b 1834 who would be the second son of William. I have been in touch with that line, again no information on our elusive William. I am hoping to find a male descendant to get a DNA test from him. There is no use looking for the third son as that is my great grandfather and he had only the one son, my grandfather. Very frustrating.

I have been researching in the town of Minden, Montgomery County, New York for John Graves who is possibly the father of my Thomas Graves, hopefully after the first of the year I will be able to send for his pension records from 1812 and get more information. I have tried fold3.com (I think that is correct), but there are a lot of John Graves and I haven't had the time to go in depth.

Daniel Miller has yielded a little more information, but I need more if I am going to get his parents names. There are at least three and possibly four Daniels in the same time period and area. I have had several people write and give me information, but when I track it down it's not my Daniel. I am grateful that this happens because it goes a long way toward eliminating the extra Daniels.

I have added additional information on a few others, but I have also added some questions as to the accuracy of past information. I will continue working on the 1790 - 1850 time period until I have found those facts that are out there. If after a few more years I find nothing to add, I will write the details of my search and leave for a descendant to decipher or locate more facts.

This does not mean I am giving up, just shifting to another ancestor  to continue my search.

Just in case I don't get back before then, everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving.

 

Seminar news

Last Saturday, the 24th, I attended my genealogy society's seminar. I am a member of the Chula Vista Genealogical Society and we have a pretty good record on speakers for our members monthly. About twice a year we plan a seminar and hope it is a success. Lots of work involved for the committee.

This past Saturday we answered some requests by our members who wanted to know more about Indians, American that is, and how the Irish and Scots-Irish immigrations affected them.

Our speakers were:
 Donna Bradley, a professional genealogist for 17 years. She specializes in Native American ancestry, but is competent in all areas of international genealogical research. She now has over 67,000 members in her database. She is of Native American ancestry and her family has been in the Northern California area for thousands of years.

Anne Bowman has lived and worked in the San Diego area for over 25 years, she was born and raised in Chicago where she obtained her dental degree and then went to LSU in New Orleans where she received a Specialty Certificate in Periodontics. She became interested in genealogy when her niece was born and what began as a casual hobby evolved into a new career. Her goal is to earn Certification from the Board of Genealogical Certification. Anne is a member of the National Genealogical Society, The Association of Professional Genealogists, The Polish Genealogical Society of America and The Southern California Genealogical Society

Our two speakers knew their topics and gave informative and interesting talks.

The first for the day was given by Donna Bradley, our keynote speaker and the topic was "Ways of Getting Over, Around or Under Your Brick Walls". She emphasised working with court records or as she called them 'Plaintiff vs Defendant' records. Many times the defendants whole family is listed and sometimes so is the plaintiffs. If at all possible the original records should be searched on site even though a trip may be necessary. Donna also covered checking books and magazines especially historical articles. she even found a person she was searching for in an architectural magazine. Donna emphasized that history books often enabled your research to progress because you had a better idea of what and why your ancestor did what he did.  As usual I picked up some new hints on where to search.

Anne Bowman was up next with an excellent talk on "Scots-Irish Research Clues". Anne cautioned that you should not expect to find success 'over the pond' until you were finished with every resource you could find here in the states. She gave us a list of websites and explained what you might find at those sites; she then started us in Ireland with a list she called "from the greatest to the smallest."
There was a list of all the different entities that must be dealt with including both civil and religious parishes, counties, and districts. I am glad I am not ready yet, because I intend to listen to more talks by Anne and get many more details on the search.

Donna  gave the third talk of the day titled "American Indian Research" which covered many of the reasons why finding your Indian ancestor is so difficult. Indians had no concept of owning land, therefore no land deeds, only that they were the caretakers of this gift on which they lived. Indians had been resident here thousands of years before the land was 'discovered' by the Europeans and so were unable to cope with the idea that the land was  personal property.
Since there were very few white women that traveled into the interior or down the mountain trails, indian women were taken as partners and thus many families have the legend that Grandma was an indian, usually the tale goes that she was an "Indian Princess'.
In the 1800's children were taken from their parents and placed in indian schools which did their best to eradicate any memories that the children had that they were Indian. The children were given anglicised or Spanish names depending on the area of the country they lived and their parents or tribes were moved back further and further from the area where the children had been born. This created a problem for the children when they were released from the school, usually in their 20's as most could not remember their Indian name, their language or their parents. Consequently this now causes you a problem in going back any further in your ancestry.
Your first step is to get a DNA test of your ethnicity, make sure there really is Indian in your ancestry and then be prepared to search diligently to find a clue.
Donna's talk was distinctive, informative and gave history, especially that of the American Indian an entirely unfamiliar perspective than what we were taught in school.

General Comments

Perhaps I should have named it the once a month blog, that seems to be the average for posting for me.
I have been busy with family problems and not doing research, at least, hardly any.
I did buy a book "The Genealogist's Guide to researching Tax Records" by Carol Cooke Darrow CG and Susan Winchester, Ph.D, C.P.A. and if it had been any state except New York it would have been invaluable. It is well written and very informative on how to find tax records almost anywhere, it gives instruction on using the FHL catalog to look for areas in states and counties, but when you try New York areas there are no tax records listed, at least not in my counties.
That means that the individual Villages, Cities, Towns and Counties may have them, but you have to check each one individually. Of course, they are not online so that means going there or paying someone to look for them, rather difficult on a pension.
A few years ago I did manage a trip and was able to find the tax records for Unadilla, Otsego Co., in a book written by the late Shirley Goerlich at the Sidney library. This gave me the tax records for my Thomas Graves, unfortunately I could not find the tax records for Sidney itself which I need to prove my William Wright was there in the 1820's through the 1840's. and I was unable to get to Delhi to try to find them. Delhi is where the county records are kept for Delaware while Cooperstown is where the Otsego county records are kept. I happened to be there during the Baseball Hall of Fame event and couldn't get near the records building.
This seems to be a rather rambling narrative this month, but if I have given anyone information on research in New York I hope they can use it.
Just remember that the census for New York is not usually taken except by Town which is an area of perhaps 26 miles +, therefore you have to find out which Hamlet or village your ancestor lived in or around in order to make sure you have the correct ancestor or to find their records.
Enough rambling this month, I will try to get back to my research now that the family seems to be settling down.

Thomas Graves again

I have been researching Minden on line. There is an 1800 census for the Town of Minden on the website, I immediately checked it out as Thomas would have been the youngest category of that census. I found John Graves, the only Graves listed. That made the search rather fast and easy.  He had a son in the correct age category, I then went researching the 1810 census for Minden and again found John. The son had moved into the next category which would have been correct for my Thomas. At this point I am using Ancestry.

I decided since Thomas had definitely been in the war, enlisting in 1812 for two months from Minden and then reenlisting in 1813 in the area of Deerfield I would see what John was doing in 1812. He enlisted in the same unit that Thomas did! I now have to write for John's pension papers (as soon as I save the money) and see what they say. Did he take Thomas with him because he was so young? Interesting question, I wonder what his papers will say.

I went on to check the 1820 census, but neither John or Thomas show up in Minden again, I now have  two Graves to look for as the next information I have on Thomas is his marriage in Unadilla in 1843, whether the Town of Unadilla or the Village of Unadilla is the question at that time. His pension papers don't clarify the place.

Meanwhile I am trying to get better acquainted with Google and its facets. My friend Susi is trying to get me into one of their group thingees, She says they are fun and informative, so I may try it a time or two to see for myself. There are many sides to Google and I have only looked at a few, I need to take more time and explore, but as a babysitter it is not always easy to find that time. I have a few other obligations that take time away from the computer also including housework although you wouldn't think it when you look at my house.