| Technology | |
| February 28, 2008 Posted in: General Research Comments (0) | |
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I’m pretty sure that I’ve been able to get into genealogy at the best time. Nine years ago, when my mother began this research, she wrote to a lot of people, she visited a few of the local historical societies, she talked to the living relatives and she managed to work out a decent pictures of her WINSTANLEY line, who began in Leeds, York, England and ended up in Collingswood, Camden County, New Jersey. A lot of the resources I’ve been able to use were not available to my mother (she’s especially sore about that 1930 census coming out after she no longer had the time to devote to it) and I’ve not only surpassed her research, but I’ve been able to go further back and flesh out the ancestors she put me in touch with. I have a very small budget when it comes to my genealogy — I’m unemployed and I usually can’t spare more than $50 a month to devote, sometimes a lot less so I have to be careful where I spend my time and money. The three things I recommend are as a follows: HARDWARE SOFTWARE WEBSITE/BLOG |
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| Siblings Marrying Siblings! | |
| February 28, 2008 Posted in: General Research Comments (0) | |
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I was very fortunate when I began my family genealogy — my mother had done work on her own lines a few years ago for a project in college and had completed a lot of the ground work, particularly on her maternal line for her mother Beatrice TRAINER (1938-2006). She had already gathered a great deal of information about Beatrice’s father Harold TRAINER (1907-1967) and his parents, the first of that line to emigrate to the United States from their native England. Harold TRAINER is descended from Alice WINSTANLEY (1868-1942), who was born in the English county of York, in Leeds. (Further breakdown has her being born in the civil parish Holbeck). Her parents were William WINSTANLEY (abt. 1840 – abt 1874) and Eliza Ann GAME (abt 1844 – 1905). She had four siblings – John William WINSTANLEY (1863-1922), Elizabeth WINSTANLEY (1866-??), Clara WINSTANLEY (1876-1883) and Ann Eliza WINSTANLEY (1879-1960). I know that Clara and Ann were born after Eliza was already widowed — believe me, I’m looking into that but this post is related to John and Elizabeth. Thanks to my mother, I knew that John had married a woman that we only knew as Rebecca H (1859-?). Whether the H was the first letter of her last name or her middle name, we weren’t sure. Elizabeth married a man named Charles Thomas JAGGER (1863-?) and we were able to track her quite easily in the 1891 and 1901 census. England has this beautiful resource that I freaking adore and that’s their free indexes for birth, marriage and death records, all of which are available for free at Ancestry.com and probably at other resources. These indexes give you the names of the ancestors in question, the year in which the event is registered, the county and the district and then the volume and page number to make ordering records from the General Register Office. I have done this very easily for about six records and even with the general weakness of the American dollar, I’ve been able to order a record for roughly $14 USD, so two records are about $29. This is a bit less those available in my own home state of New Jersey, where vital records can run from $30-$70. Anyway, I used the BMD Index for marriage records and found that John William WINSTANLEY married Rebecca Hannah NEWELL in the district of Hunslet in the county of York in 1881. From census records in 1891 and 1901, I was able to find out that Rebecca was born in the same place that she married. I just like to have a complete idea of all the people I research, even though Rebecca has no actual blood relationship to me. I attempted to locate her in 1881 because I knew thanks to finding John’s census record in 1881, that they were not yet married at the time of the census. I was expecting to find Rebecca in a household with a father who’s last name was NEWELL. Imagine my surprise to find Rebecca H Newell living as a widow with her parents William JAGGER (1835-1913) and Rachel DOVER (1832-1891), along with her brother Charles. I checked my records for Charles Jagger and found that the date and location of birth for Rebecca’s brother matched that of Elizabeth’s husband and it would be way too much of a coincidence if Charles and Rebecca were not siblings. Though again, neither are my actual relatives, I went ahead and did a little bit more research for their family just to have a total pictures. Rebecca married William NEWELL in 1878 and he later passed away in 1880. She waited about a year and married again, having three children with John. Elizabeth and Charles Jagger had about nine or ten children, most of whom still live in England but one or two moved to the states. Though the fact that two of my ancestor’s siblings married siblings isn’t exactly going to help me in tracing more generations of my family, it’s a lovely little fact to file in the folder and I wouldn’t have found it unless I traced the spouses backwards to their own families. It reminds me of something that I tend to forget every once in a while — genealogy is about more than just the names, dates and places. It’s about the people It’s also interesting to note that thanks to Ancestry.com, I found all of the above information in a single sitting in about a half hour. |
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| Edmund Priest | |
| February 27, 2008 Posted in: Priest Comments (0) | |
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Edmund Hewitt Priest Born: abt 1850 in Pennsylvania, United States Mother: Sarah [--?--] Death: Marriage Children Census Miscellaneous
Research Goals
Edmund Priest’s Relationship to Me |
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| Margaret B Krips | |
| February 25, 2008 Posted in: Krips Comments (0) | |
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Margaret B Krips Born: 14 Jan 1858 in Pennsylvania, United States Mother: Sabina Gary Death: 4 Dec 1927 in Camden, Camden County, New Jersey, United States Burial: New Camden Cemetery, Camden, Camden County, New Jersey, United States Marriage Children Census Research Goals
Margaret Krips’s Relationship To Me |
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| Germaine Smith Hammell | |
| February 25, 2008 Posted in: Hammell Comments (1) | |
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Germaine (German) Smith Hammell Born: 15 Sep 1854 in Camden, Camden County, New Jersey, United States Mother: Mary Locke Death: 16 Apr 1925 in Camden, Camden County, New Jersey, United States Burial: New Camden Cemetery, Camden, Camden County, New Jersey, United States Marriage Children Census Research Goals
Germaine Hammell’s Relationship To Me |
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| On The Road to Organization | |
| February 18, 2008 Posted in: General Research Comments (0) | |
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My Trenton trip was just about a success. I came home with about eighteen documents and found almost all of the records I went there to search for. A few marriage records still remain elusive and I’ve just about given up hope of finding some of them in the state archives. I’ll have to pay a visit to the Cumberland County repositories in the near future since a great deal of my ancestors on the Hudson side have come from there. I brought everything home, I filed it all and entered it in to the databases. There were a few interesting nuggets — I was able to confirm that my possible Civil War men William Krips and John Ottinger were, indeed, part of the family, so my mother is thrilled to finally have a confirmed war vet on her side. She’s 1-4 for my dad, because Dad already had two and I found two more. (One Revolutionary and three Civil War). I think I’ll get my DAR membership through him first mostly because my grandmother’s side is from rural South Jersey and different lines appear to have been here since the creation of man. But I might be able to slide my mom into the DAR through her Mead ancestor. It makes me laugh because she was always so sure it’d be her Hammell guys to do it and we’ve stalled at 1822 for them. Anyway, my project for this week is to work on my census extracts. I’m attempting to achieve one of my research goals for the year by logging all the different census data to make sure that I’ve combed every possible detail from them. Once that’s done, I’ll work on researching some of the collateral people like brothers and sisters and children to see if I missed an ancestor somewhere. After I feel like that’s done, I hope to employed with a steady job at that point so that I can resume spending some money on this hobby. I have oodles of records to send for from England and I need to hightail it to Philadelphia for those family members (unfortunately, the photo copying is just a bit higher there than NJ Archives so it’s going to cost a bit more what with gas to get there and whatnot). It’s tough having a hobby like this on such a strict budget. There’s so much I want to do and so many books I want to buy but I have to do everything piecemeal. It’s somewhat frustrating but at least I’ve been able to maintain my Ancestry membership all along, it’s the only saving grace. |
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| Preparing For A Trip | |
| February 11, 2008 Posted in: Research Trip Comments (0) | |
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I’m kind of excited to be writing this post because it’s the first real post since beginning my blog six weeks ago. I’ve been working on adding all my ancestors to the blog archives and while I’m nowhere near completed, I’m far enough through to start concentrating on other aspects of the blog. This Friday, I’m going back to my favorite research place — The New Jersey State Archives at Trenton, NJ. It’ll be my sixth trip or so to the state capital but each trip I come back with so much information that I know I’ll never be completely finished researching. The state of New Jersey began requiring civil registration in 1878, so the archives have a pretty decent archive for marriages and deaths 1878-1940 and births from 1878-1922, but it has a fabulous amount of material available for the years 1847-1878, which has solved so many issues for me. Thanks to the state archives, I found the first real evidence that my major brick wall, Joseph R Hamell (Hammell) existed, much less passed away. I was able to locate his death registration in 1876 and a copy of his inventory, giving myself and my mother a much more accurate view of her great-great-great grandfather (add one more great for me) and his financial status when he passed away. So what will I be looking for on my sixth sojourn to Trenton? I am hoping to find at the very minimum the following: + Birth records for Thelma HUDSON, Elva HUDSON, and Chester HUDSON. These are my grandmother Charlotte’s aunts and uncles and while I have a birth date for Chester, I have nothing for the ladies and no real evidence of the birth of any of them. + Obtain death records for the MEAD ancestors I have been able to flesh out these last few days. I picked up a membership at Genealogy Bank and found obituaries for Ephraim MEAD, Isabelle MEAD and Thomas MEAD. For Ephraim and Isabelle, I’m not entirely sure they didn’t die in PA — the obituaries weren’t clear and I last found them in 1880 living in Philadelphia, so if I am able to find them in the state archives, I will be thrilled! As for Thomas MEAD, I am most curious to find his cause of death. He was only twenty-five when he died and no one in the family had even known of his death. We knew very little about the MEAD side of the family as my great grandmother Minnie had passed away when my grandfather Charles was five so I am looking forward to finding out more. + Look for the death certificates for Thomas W Krips and John Ottinger. I have some evidence that these two ancestors (from complete opposite ends of my ancestry) served in the Civil War. Both were of age and neither married until after the war had ended, as was the case with my other Civil War ancestor, David Henry Ware. I located copies of their pension applications with death dates at Footnote so I am going to look up their death records to see if possibly they belong to my family. + Try to obtain copies of birth records for Francis Thomas Hammell Jr and Sr (1875/1898). I have been unsuccessful in my search for Francis Hammell Jr, despite his birth being in 1898 after civil registration was required. + Check death records for William Smick and his wife Mary Elizabeth String Smick. I have had their death dates for a long time but for whatever reason, I have been remiss in looking up these records. I am hoping that their death records will confirm what I already know about them as well as finally give me the background of Mary Elizabeth String’s family, though I know that odds are not in my favor for that. + If time permits, to just continue to check information I already have against information I am looking for. Just various birth, marriage and death records for various siblings of direct ancestors and whatnot. I need to make copies of records I have found there before and never printed so that I have them for my own records. The good news is that my mother will hopefully be attending with me as she has off that day (and she loved the pizza shop we found the last time we were there) so I will have an extra set of hands and eyes to help me out. I will be spending a lot of the week refining the spreadsheet I will be taking up there as a reference. I like to have all dates and places with me for comparison without dragging a ton of paper around so I will be attempting to trim that down. |
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| Anna F Wright | |
| February 11, 2008 Posted in: Wright Comments (0) | |
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Anna F Wright Born: 5 Dec 1847 Mother: Martha Jane Paullin Death: 2 Nov 1936 in Bridgeton, Cumberland County, New Jersey, United States Burial: 4 Nov 1936 at Deerfield Presbyterian Cemetery, Deerfield, Cumberland County, New Jersey, United States Marriage Children Census Research Goals
Anna F Wright’s Relationship to Me |
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| David Henry Ware | |
| February 9, 2008 Posted in: Ware Comments (0) | |
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David Henry Ware Born: 24 Aug 1844 Mother: Sarah Bonham Death: 5 Jun 1914 in Deerfield, Cumberland County, New Jersey. United States Burial: 12 Jun 1914 at Deerfield Presbyterian Cemetery, Deerfield, Cumberland County, New Jersey. United States Military: First Sergeant in the 48th New York Infantry, New York 1861-1865 Marriage Children Census Research Goals
David Henry Ware’s Relationship to Me |
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| Mary Bowen | |
| February 9, 2008 Posted in: Bowen Comments (0) | |
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Mary Bowen Born: 18 Mar 1854 in Greenwich, Gloucester County, New Jersey, United States Mother: Mary [--?--] Death: 9 Apr 1931 in Shiloh, Cumberland County, New Jersey, United States Burial: 13 Apr 1931 at Cohansey Baptist Cemetery, Roadstown, Cumberland County, New Jersey, United States Marriage Children Census Research Goals
Mary Bowen’s Relationship to Me |
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