Preparing For A Trip
Posted: February 11, 2008I’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.