Genealogy research

Susan1

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12,006
I wish I had somebody in my family who was interested in this stuff. Anybody know any Bauers from Cincinnati? Because..... I found a death of Josephine Bauer Wiese, father Michael (born in Alsace Lorain), who would have been born a year before the oldest one that was sent to the orphanage. Doesn't have a mother's name. Josephine was the name of the mother who died in childbirth. Did he keep the oldest daughter and get rid of the other four? She would have been 13. Is that weird? I have chills.

Every spring, it drags me back in. Just like in The Godfather???? Getting giddy.....................................

False alarm! Josephine was born in October of 1861. George was born in April of 1862. That would have been impossible. And she is listed on the 1900 census with father Michael and a mother AND an older brother (See - this is the kind of thing they do on WDYTYA - follow the new information because it is more interesting. I think it was the Smokey Robinson one, where a son they went back and "discovered" a person with the right name who couldn't have been the father because they were only 10 or 12 years older or something. But they mentioned in a newspaper or something, so they researched that one as the famous relative.)

So, there are four Michael Bauers buried in Cincinnati who are the right age range. Some had widows, which would make sense that he got remarried. I'm hoping he didn't have more children. An unmarried one is the only one buried in the same cemetery as my great-great-grandma Josephine. But.....one of the widowed one's mother was named Eva, which was my grandmother's name. Too many people with same or related names back then. Maybe all the Michael Bauers are cousins!!! I put messages on Find-A-Grave. Figures that the one I think it is does not have a person who did the indexing because they are a relative. It's just added by the site.

Oh (sob stories) - after 7 years in the orphanage, at the age of 12, my great- great-grandma was sent back to the orphanage a week after her first "entrustment" because of illness and wasn't entrusted out again for two years. The Cincinnati Historical didn't have any more details. Geez Louise!!!!

Turning off the computer now!
 

Jubak

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1,559
The European borders changed so much. My grandmother's family is Hesse, from the Hesse region of what would seem to be Germany, except it was also in France. She always had visions of being from the Royal Hesses; her grandfather came over as a shoemaker, so I highly doubt it. I also know a man who is German & Egyptologist at the Met Museum here in NYC. He said much of the German and European records were lost in the WWII bombings, making it extremely difficult for those of us who are part German to really trace the trees.

As far as Italy, if you can manage to afford to go to Italy to the hometown, the churches should have excellent records of marriages & baptisms. So heck, plan that trip to Italy you always wanted! You may also find some relatives, like John Stamos did in Greece!
 

Susan1

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12,006
The European borders changed so much. My grandmother's family is Hesse, from the Hesse region of what would seem to be Germany, except it was also in France. She always had visions of being from the Royal Hesses; her grandfather came over as a shoemaker, so I highly doubt it. I also know a man who is German & Egyptologist at the Met Museum here in NYC. He said much of the German and European records were lost in the WWII bombings, making it extremely difficult for those of us who are part German to really trace the trees.

As far as Italy, if you can manage to afford to go to Italy to the hometown, the churches should have excellent records of marriages & baptisms. So heck, plan that trip to Italy you always wanted! You may also find some relatives, like John Stamos did in Greece!

Well, geez, some of the Homrighausen's info waaaaay back says Hessen, Germany. Was that France too? I'm sticking with them actually BEING German. This was a long line that was already done that matched up with my current people, so I didn't even look to see if there was royalty or famous Hessians (sp?).

A few years ago, I found a Gengler website that someone had already done that matched up with what I knew. There was even an old picture of a Susan Gengler!!! And I emailed a current Helen Gengler who was on the page. She was a Gengler by marriage and her husband's second cousin (? I forget), a retired schoolteacher, had been to Luxembourg twice and had everything going back to the 1700's HARD COPY - not connected to the website. She was making "people pages" in some kind of genealogy software for them. What they did have wrong was my grandfather. They found "A" Daniel Gengler in California and thought it was him. Nope! So I actually got to add to their research for Daniel and his brothers and sisters that my mom knew (and then we combined our research on the others) AND I got to send them Daniel's family (us) going forward.

If I had $1 million to do genealogy research, I would go to Ireland. Although it's pretty much impossible to find THE RIGHT Thomas Murphy who was born there in 1860. I have the great-great-grandparents birth and death dates, marriage date and place (here), I've been to their graves in Dayton, all the "kids" and grandkids going forward (started with the names my mom wrote on the back of great-great-grandma Lizzie's picture!), but the names are too common to trace them back "to the old country" with nothing to go on! Arrgghh.
 

Susan1

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12,006
I put messages on Find-A-Grave. Figures that the one I think it is does not have a person who did the indexing because they are a relative. It's just added by the site.

Sorry, two posts in a row............but I just checked my email and I have an Update (if anybody's interested)!!!! Got a message back from Tom Stonehunter (don't think that's his real name!) on Find A Grave. Michael Baur (spelled wrong - I didn't even think about that) is my great-great-grandfather. Buried in the same cemetery as Josephine. He wrote that his address in 1872 is the same as Josephine's at death in 1873! But, he sent me an Ancestry person/tree link. I'll have to email it to myself and go to the library to use it. Family Search won't have the details and the tree/person, etc. I'll have to email that back to myself. Exxxxxxhausting!!!!!
 

smurfy

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6,084
Murphy - that is my last name. Do not despair. I had my great grandfathers name, along with 3 of his siblings, the birth order, my great great grandparents names -including my 2great grandma maiden name. With not much effort - I was able to track the marriage record of my 2GG and baptism records for my GrGrpa plus 3 siblings in Co Cork.

My favorite thing for the Irish - and my Irish born Grandma is a classic example:
'Baptized before they were born'. My grandma was born in 1884 - irish catholic. The baptism record states January 1884. But the civil record states March 1884 - and was reported in May 1884. At that time the government required civil birth registration within a timeframe (I think 2 months) or pay a fine - so the irish catholics got the baby baptised right away, reported the birth when they could and to avoid a fine, gave a different date of birth - within the required reporting period. In lectures I attended - with these irish catholics - the church mattered more - so that is closer to the baby's birth than the civil record if there is this kind of discrepancy.
 

Jubak

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1,559
I think Hessen (sorry, that is the region, not Hesse as I quoted) is considered to be Germany, it's that the border went back & forth a bit. Overall, I go with the German, also, esp. as my 2x Great grandfather spoke German, not French. I have enough French on my mom's side! Tom Bergeron's family had a young woman sent to "New France" in Canada (Montreal) from LaRochelle, France. His story is fascinating, and wouldn't you know, I have an female ancestor who also was from LaRochelle and sent to Montreal at the same time for the same reason. Watch WDYTA for good info, sometimes.
 

Susan1

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Rats - I thought I found my grandmother's father's parents graves. The mother was old enough to be Louis's (Ludwig when he came here), but then I found his brother Henry while looking for other information on the father Henry, and he had the right mother's maiden name (which my mom wrote down years ago) and was 8 years older. So the first Elizabeth would have had to have been 11 to have Henry. - Not EVEN in the 1800's! The wrong ones even had a daughter Elizabeth who would have been a year younger than Louis. FRUS-trating! I'm wondering if maybe the parents did not come here. Supposedly Louis was 18 when he came her. And Henry would have been 26 if they came together. I don't know how to find any others.

But every other person in Cincinnati was named Michael, Henry and Elizabeth in the 1800s!!!! :)

I think Hessen
It was Preussen, Germany before that. I bet that's Prussia? I haven't dug into any of the Housers/Homrighausens details because the tree was already done back to 1505!!!!! And I have too many other trees a-blowin' in the wind here.

I haven't even gotten close to the Mills side (my dad's mother's mother; married to Houser). There's just going to be way too many!!!!! Who knows where they came from or what they could have changed their name from.

Overall, I go with the German, also, esp. as my 2x Great grandfather spoke German,

I was just kidding about the French thing. It was crazy over there, huh? ha ha

I know my grandmother only spoke German until she went to school and learned English. And Henry (above) was born in Oldenburg (sp?) Germany.

So, regretting thinking of this now - remember I said the family always thought the Genglers were from Germany, and I found out they were from Luxembourg? They came to northern Ohio in the 1850s(ish). I'm assuming they spoke German when they got here at least? And the Luciuses from Belgium? They came around the same time too. (Going by who was born in Europe and the next "kid" born in Ohio.) What language did they come with? Just thinking how hard that would be!!!! I know - old movies with immigrants speaking different languages......... Both families settled in the same area and there were several Gengler-Lucius marriages! I'm glad somebody had already done both those trees completely.
 

skatesindreams

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30,696
Tom Bergeron's family had a young woman sent to "New France" in Canada (Montreal) from LaRochelle, France. His story is fascinating, and wouldn't you know, I have an female ancestor who also was from LaRochelle and sent to Montreal at the same time for the same reason. Watch WDYTA for good info, sometimes.
His entire episode was fascinating.
 

Susan1

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More frustration to share. After three years I finally located some graves (for real!). In the Cincinnati Catholic Cemeteries find a loved one, St. Mary's, I searched for all Reginas (Catholic - so approx. 50 zillion!). Olberding was spelled Ollberding. Her husband's was spelled Ololberding. I HATE typos!! Her sister Frances was there under Francis (male), which matched the date of death. I always wonder why I didn't do something some way sooner. Not that these get me anywhere. Neither one had children. It's just a relief to find something I knew was there.
 

Lizziebeth

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Susan1, get used to the spelling "variation." In those days, people were apparently not fussy. You have spelling variations in the primary sources and it is compounded by transcribed search engine entries that have errors because the original source was hard to read and the transcriber guessed (or something).

If you are looking for names on a search engine, be sure to use their variation of a wild card search (often involves using * instead of a letter) and be prepared to look through a lot of options. It is best to start with a search that is not too specific and then add another field to narrow it down. I do this and I sometimes find stuff and feel like it was a complete accident that I managed to find what I was looking for.
 

Susan1

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12,006
Susan1, get used to the spelling "variation." In those days, people were apparently not fussy. You have spelling variations in the primary sources and it is compounded by transcribed search engine entries that have errors because the original source was hard to read and the transcriber guessed (or something).

If you are looking for names on a search engine, be sure to use their variation of a wild card search (often involves using * instead of a letter) and be prepared to look through a lot of options. It is best to start with a search that is not too specific and then add another field to narrow it down. I do this and I sometimes find stuff and feel like it was a complete accident that I managed to find what I was looking for.

Yeah, it's really frustrating. If you don't know the "wrong" spelling, how can you match it up with the right one relatives. My great-great-grandfather came here as Ludwig. His marriage certificate says Lukas. The 1900 census says Lukes. His name on my grandma's (his daughter) marriage certificate is Lewis. And it's Louis on his headstone.

Anyway, remember the orphans? When Mary's husband (pick a name from above!) died in 1906, her sister Francis (is spelled the male way everywhere) and her husband must have moved in with her and her three daughters. This was 1910. And dopey me, I didn't even notice that Regina Olberding and Charles lived next door!!!!!! Same in 1920. (Side note - the name actually written on the census is Virginia. Was the census taker deaf or stupid or what? But it HAS TO BE my Regina. That's the address where she died in 1925.) So - Frances died in 1923. Mary died in 1926 both at the same address. Three sisters separated from an orphanage all ended up living on top of each other and dying within three years of each other. How did they find each other again? This was the 1880-90s. It's not like they could call each other on the phone. Would the orphanage have told them where the others were? They were sent out to live/work for people in the Cincinnati area in 1880, 1883 and 1886 (I love the Cincinnati Historical Society!!!). It's not like they could hop in the car and go see their long lost sister.

I've been compiling the chronology from my notes off and on all day. It's just so amazing and sweet and sad. Michael, the father who gave them up, lived at various addresses on Vine St. - probably "rooms" -in Cincinnati from the time Josephine (Josephina Margareta Schell Bauer, of course) till he died in 1883. I wonder if they knew. The oldest, George, was sent up here to Dayton. He didn't die till 1945 and my aunt remembers going to his house with her mother. My aunt was born in 1934. So the girls would have kept up with him too. I'll shut up now. It's just so interesting - to me.
 

smurfy

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6,084
I think spelling is more of a 20th C thing. People could not read or write. People wrote what they heard...
In 'The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy' by Greenwood - it says there were over 30 different spellings for the last name Engle/Engle/Ingle..... for research in one family. You just have to be diligent.
And question everything. One source is not always definitive.
For one person I was researching in the US census - I tried so many different spellings I could think of, and wrote the name in script to see what other letters could be seen - no luck, then the guys's first name could be a last name, so I switched the first name/ last name and found him!

Back to my great great grandmother that I wrote about recently - and finding her death record successfully.
I had a handwritten tree from my dad that indicated she had another husband and children.
Even though I had her death record - and I knew it was her - I still called the cemetery. They sent me the listing of everyone buried in the plot.
Based on the names I had from my dad's tree - and the others buried in plot with her - the last name matched for the last name of the other husband - and then going through the cities directories and the US census - I was able to provide support for what my dad had. The only difference - we are from the second marriage, but my dad's note had us as the first marriage. And I still need to go back to the town hall and look up some marriage/death records on my great grandfathers half brother to be 100% sure.
The plot has my great great grandmother, her son from the 1st marriage, daughter inlaw, their son and his wife, and their granddaughter. But also my great grandfather had a 2 year that died - and she is buried there also.

I believe it is called Collateral research - not just going up the line, child, parent, grandparent and so on.
One needs to look at the siblings, and neighbors. All my Irish Catholics that came over in between 1850s to 1880s to Stamford, CT - all live within about a 2 mile range of each other - well into the 1930s.
Also FAN - Family, Associates and Neighbors is another technique.
 

Susan1

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I'm lucky that somebody did so much back research on the Gengler/Lucius side. My grandpa was one of nine. But I had to do a lot of research on the other 8 going forward. Their mother died when my grandfather Daniel was 18 after they moved from Ohio to Alabama and his younger brothers and sisters were sent to a monastery. My mom had most the names written down, but didn't know the circumstances of Rosalia's death. Back in the 90s we contacted some Alabama Genglers but they didn't know a lot. Maybe their "kids" and grandkids know what I know now.

Mary became Sister Rosalia (after her mother) and kept in touch with Daniel's family. My mom had prayer cards with message written on the back from her. But nobody knew how she had become a nun. I so wish my mom was still around so I could tell her everything I learned.

The later Bauer/Brunes are pretty much easier because, besides George, Mary only had three daughters, and only one of them, my grandmother had kids (6). Scarily, five of my older cousins (four males) have all died before the age of 63!!! They all had kids, and grandkids now. And the younger generation would have the resources to do genealogy without having to get information from the parent/grandparent.

I still have a total dead end of Thomas Murphy born in Ireland in 1860. There's no way to pick the right one. (And there could be wrong Murphy spellings.) He died in 1900. I know when and where Thomas and Lizzie were married, but I couldn't find any details, even on the free ancestry at the library. I wrote to all the churches in Springfield to see if they had old parish records. No help. The records from the church in Dayton that oversaw their deaths and burials lost all their records in a fire years ago!!!!!! And I've even been to their graves. Clark County charges too much to do research for you, which could possibly be wrong anyway.

Thomas's son, William, had my dad, who just had me. And my dad's sister (different last name) had a daughter who has a son (double different last name). And another son who did not get married or have children. William would be a Murphy dead end for anybody else doing this.

I bounce around to different families and follow trails that dead end with the 1940 census. My dad's aunt had one daughter who got married and had one daughter on the 1940 census. Nowhere to go from there.

Just rambling.
 

gkelly

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16,433
Anyway, remember the orphans? When Mary's husband (pick a name from above!) died in 1906, her sister Francis (is spelled the male way everywhere) and her husband must have moved in with her and her three daughters. This was 1910. And dopey me, I didn't even notice that Regina Olberding and Charles lived next door!!!!!! Same in 1920. (Side note - the name actually written on the census is Virginia. Was the census taker deaf or stupid or what? But it HAS TO BE my Regina. That's the address where she died in 1925.) So - Frances died in 1923. Mary died in 1926 both at the same address. Three sisters separated from an orphanage all ended up living on top of each other and dying within three years of each other. How did they find each other again? This was the 1880-90s. It's not like they could call each other on the phone. Would the orphanage have told them where the others were? They were sent out to live/work for people in the Cincinnati area in 1880, 1883 and 1886 (I love the Cincinnati Historical Society!!!). It's not like they could hop in the car and go see their long lost sister.

It's unlikely that they could have called each other on the phone in the 1880s -- Wikipedia tells me the first public phone company started in Connecticut in 1878; I don't know when telephones were first used in Ohio or how widespread they were.

But by 1910 it wouldn't have been unusual to use a telephone to track each other down, even if they didn't own one themselves. Maybe more like using the Internet ca. 1990 or 1995.

And they could have hopped in a car in 1910, if they knew someone who owned one.

The question is what kind of research they might have done to find each other, or did it happen by chance? There's probably an interesting story there, but it's not likely you'd find any evidence or anyone alive who remembers hearing it from their own grandparents.
 

skatesindreams

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30,696
But by 1910 it wouldn't have been unusual to use a telephone to track each other down, even if they didn't own one themselves.
In small towns there was often a phone in "general stores", or the like.
They would connect you with an Operator, who would place the call.
 

Susan1

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12,006
It's unlikely that they could have called each other on the phone in the 1880s -- Wikipedia tells me the first public phone company started in Connecticut in 1878; I don't know when telephones were first used in Ohio or how widespread they were.

But by 1910 it wouldn't have been unusual to use a telephone to track each other down, even if they didn't own one themselves. Maybe more like using the Internet ca. 1990 or 1995.

I said "it's not like they could call each other on the phone". :) This was the late 1800s. Especially in far flung Cincinnati suburbs. More thinking today (this is all consuming) -- The Cincinnati Historical Society had the orphanage's records. Frances, the oldest, was not entrusted out till she was 16. Maria, 3 years later, and Regina 3 years after that. Frances would have been 21 by then (1886).

I just spent 2 hours at the library looking at Ancestry directories (Bauer, Brune, Jackson, Ollberding (it was 2 Ls every time!! - there were also one L ones, which is what his death certificate had) and I only got back as far as Frances and William Jackson living with Mary (widowed in 1906), her sister in 1909. And Regina and Charles were living on Center Street. (I need to look that up.)

I started in 1924, the year my mom was born. Her parents got married 10 (geez, I hope) months earlier and I am absolutely positive they would have lived with her mother, Mary, till they moved up here in 1926. Frances died in 1923 and William was not listed on 68th Street. It is currently a multi-family home, so they had plenty of room. AND IT'S STILL THERE, approximately 7 miles from my cousin, Lynn's house!!!!! So cool. I have a picture from a real estate website when it was last sold.

My mom's baptismal certificate has Louis Bauer as a godparent. Another freakin' leaf!!!! But since we know Mary's brother's name was George, and he didn't have any kids named Louis, this would have to be a descendant of Michael Bauer's brother. So orphaned Mary knew other relatives too. I'm sure they would have told the girls that their father died in 1883, while they were living in the orphanage or with strangers. And I go back to why didn't these Bauers take them in.

In the 1924 phone book, there are are 2-1/2 pages of Bauers. Six Louises.

More "holy sheep! I can't believe this" later. I have to look some stuff up.
 

Susan1

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12,006
:wall: - #1
On the typed page I got for St. Charles Borromeo church Brune births, deaths and marriages - (Latin) Louis is
Soudovici, Soudovicus and Loudovicus.

The Latin for Louis/Ludwig (German) should just be Ludovicus. The L's must have had curlicues at the beginning to look like S's. And then there is:

Lucaui Brune married Miriam Bauer (Louis and Mary). Geez.

And they have Hilda as Mildred. Transcription Hell. It's a good thing I already put together all of the English information.

The church in Alabama sent me copies of the actual entries in Latin for all Genglers in their OLD church record books! Free. And I had to figure out what they all meant.

:wall: - #2
I was looking in my folder last night for this picture of a Louis that says he brought home his young wife, was going to NJ for three weeks then to Australia. What in the world? Anyway, that's got to be my mom's godfather. Story - My aunt stole all of the OLD pictures - in a big white album with black pages and those old corner things years ago - that my mom had. Four years ago, she MADE PHOTOCOPIES of some of them for me and this one actually had writing on the back. And then got rid of the original pictures. I will never forgive her. (Not that my mom even knew who the people were, it's just the idea..............)

So - :wall: - #3
Then I was looking at my mom's old notes and remembered a page with Anna as the fifth child of Michael and Josephine. When I wrote to the Cinc. Hist. Society, she said they didn't have any other Bauers sent to the orphanage. I researched all the others, then forgot about Anna. So, who and where is/was she? If she died when Josephine did, my grandma (who my mom got the information from before 1974) would not have known she had a name or there would have been a notation that she died. All my mom wrote on a piece of scratch paper was that Josephine died in childbirth and the children were sent to Aloysius. The names of the 5 children were on another sheet of paper. Geez Louise again.

So............I was looking at Michael's addresses back then. They were all in Over The Rhine. I found an article about all the Germans who settled there. So I looked for a church. Old St. Mary's Church IS STILL THERE!! I sent them an email asking about Bauers. If they can't help, I'll hit the Cinc. Hist. Society for that church.

I'm obsessed again. I stop doing other things and write stuff down! My mind wanders while I'm reading. Man. I wish I was getting paid for this. ha ha
 

smurfy

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6,084
Susan1 - have you gone to the cemetery where Murphy is buried. Cemeteries can have multiple records:
-Plot cards - everyone in a plot, ownership of plot
-Internment Book - chronological log of burials, can list place of birth, parents, cause of death, - and the person that arranged the burial
-other file/book with info on a person
-Actual Stone - sometimes with the irish - it may list the county and/or townland on the marker
 

smurfy

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6,084
I have been able to solve or really move my research forward by looking at who is buried in a plot in multiple instances.
And I have visited some cemeteries where the staff is super helpful. At 3 cemeteries - one of the employees drove me to the various plot locations. Always call ahead and give the names. And who owns the plot - over time - helps fill in the gaps, and also prove it is the proper family.

One instance - where my great grandmother is buried. There was a baby that was few days old - just Baby Last Name.
I was not familiar with the last name. And my grandfather had a sister - that I did not know where she went - it was her baby and the last name helped me find her living in another state with husband and figure out her family to the present day.
Another instance that was the best - at the same cemetery, I looked at the plot for my great grandfather's brother. I am so glad. My great grandfather died young, as my great grandma remarried and my grandpa hated his stepfather. But I could never find death record of great grandfather. He was buried in the plot bought by his brother. And their parents were there too - I only had partial names. I was able to find my great grandpa's death record by the address listed. They always lived in one town, but for about a year before his death - lived a few towns over.
My great grandfather's brother was the only one with stone for the plot (and his wife).

In Connecticut - one of the WPA projects during the 1930s was the Hale Project - folks went around to many cemeteries wrote down what was on the stones/markers. It is available in libraries in the state, and online - I copied and pasted into Excel and searched through and found many ancestors.
 

Susan1

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12,006
Susan1 - have you gone to the cemetery where Murphy is buried. Cemeteries can have multiple records:
-Plot cards - everyone in a plot, ownership of plot
-Internment Book - chronological log of burials, can list place of birth, parents, cause of death, - and the person that arranged the burial
-other file/book with info on a person
-Actual Stone - sometimes with the irish - it may list the county and/or townland on the marker

Yep. They didn't have much on the plot cards. The stones are small, in the ground (impossible to find - I got lost WITH a map and directions and the names of the big stones on their aisle, and had to call the office to send a guy in a golf cart to find me and them!!!!) - just name and years of birth and death (died 1900 and 1936). I already had their exact birth and death dates, and their marriage date and place, and censuses with the "kids" off Family Search. And my mom had the kids names written on the back of Lizzie's picture, in an old frame in a box of old pictures! I about died when I turned it over and saw what my mom wrote. But she didn't even have their daughter, Rose, that I had, who died 16 years before my dad was born. who is buried next to them. I'd attach one of the pictures I took if I could, but you can't even read the stones.
This is what is on the plot card online and at the cemetery. And you can locate it on the map and use the satellite mode. The office gave me a paper map and marked where they were and drew a line from the office. However, from the website - "More than 75,000 graves are here. Only half of the usable space of 200 acres is occupied." It was chilly and gray and windy and I was lost in a cemetery. Funny. That was 2013. I've only been back once. I wrote down landmarks and took pictures FROM the graves for perspective the first time and I still spent half an hour looking down at the ground and wandering up and down "aisles" - on a hot day. I was sweating bullets. I'm not a good grave hunter. hee hee

In Connecticut - one of the WPA projects during the 1930s was the Hale Project - folks went around to many cemeteries wrote down what was on the stones/markers.

I've found a lot on Find A Grave, but not everybody. Some had pictures. You can contact the person who cataloged them. I even sent an edit to them for my mom's Aunt Hilda's husband/boyfriend. They had his birth and death year the same!! Oh, great Aunt Hilda (if that's what she would be?) - my aunt said the story she heard was that she went home during the day to tell him she was pregnant, found him in their bed with another woman, and lost the baby. This would have been some time between the 1930 and 1940 censuses. We can't find a divorce or death for him so we said maybe she killed him and buried him in the back yard. But she could never legally marry Ray who she was with till she died in 1964 because they didn't get divorced. hee hee

She also said that she remembered that Ray sent $500 to all six of her sister's (my grandma's) adult kids from her estate because he remembered them so fondly. Sigh.
 
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smurfy

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6,084
Be careful with Find A Grave.
Pictures are good. But I am noticing that some people are people several generations of information - and it is not sourced, and I know in one case, the information was completely wrong.
That website started out great - getting to see pictures.
I just heard that Billion of Graves has GPS - to the exact location of the grave -on its app. Not sure if is only available for paying customers.
 

Jubak

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1,559
If anyone is interested in another WDYTA episode, check out Jerry Springer's. His was done as a UK version, as he was born there. Fascinating history as he is Jewish and absolutely heartbreaking at the end. We know him as a crazy talk-show host; in this he is a sensitive man. You Tube should have it.
 

Susan1

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Does anybody have ancestry.com? A Find-a-grave guy sent me this link for Michael Bauer. I can't get to it from the library ancestry because you can't just link something. It was getting too crowded with after school kids running around and playing on the computers to figure out if there is a family-tree/person/tree tsection or whatever. He also sent me a list of Michael's addresses from 1870-1883 (when he died), but I don't know if there is anything else in these "facts"?

https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/47274232/person/300094413339/facts

I've gotten tons and tons of things for free from Family Search, and only some addresses in off-census years on the free ancestry.com at the library. I don't want to pay for ancestry.com if I'm not going to get anything better. And I'm on such a roll here, I don't want to wait for a "free trial". Thanks bunches.
 

Lizziebeth

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I clicked on the link. There are a lot of city directory entries up to 1883 that would show his address and occupation. What exactly are you looking for?
 

Susan1

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I clicked on the link. There are a lot of city directory entries up to 1883 that would show his address and occupation. What exactly are you looking for?

Cute dog! I'll change my profile picture to Sadie for awhile. She's been gone since 2000.

Thanks!!!!! So, is that all it is? That's the list he put right in the email. He said it was Michael's bio. And the link says tree and person and family tree in it. I thought there might be an actual FAMILY TREE, like parents or brothers and sisters in it. Rats! This is the point where I hit a wall and give up every year. I can't go backwards with someone who was born in Germany or Ireland with too common a name.

I did find the sisters in the orphanage "asylum!" in 1880. The "location" said Bond Hill, a suburb of Cincinnati, not listed as Cincinnati (funny word if you look at it too many times). The thing that irks me to no end is that there are no 1890 censuses. That would show the sisters in whatever home they were placed in. Regina is the only one I don't have in 1900. She probably was still where she was placed in 1886. Need to go check that.... AAARRRGGGHHH!
 

Susan1

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Interesting (while I've got it up) some of the boxes to check on the 1880 census:

Cannot read/write:
Blind:
Deaf and dumb:
Otherwise disabled:
Idiotic or insane:

How rude! :eek:

Transcription problem? - occupation "garage builder"? in 1900? Uh, I enlarged the census. It's "carriage". Duh. Genealogy =:wall::wall::wall:
 

Lizziebeth

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There are a LOT of transcription errors on Ancestry. It takes a while to learn to read writing that is over 100 years old. Unfortunately the transcription errors mess up the search engine. My grandfather's first and last name were both garbled. Luckily I had letters that showed when he came to America so I found him on the Ellis Island site (also misspelled). I posted a correction for his name on Ancestry so future people looking for him won't have such a hard time.

I have letters from several of my grandfather's cousins. They were pretty easy to track because I had addresses - my grandfather kept the envelopes so I had return addresses and can read the postmarks. Pretty cool. Found them on the census. One of the cousins turned up in a New York state institution for the mentally ill on several censuses. He must have died there, but the death records are missing, if they were ever properly kept at all. Poor guy.
 

Susan1

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Messages
12,006
There are a LOT of transcription errors on Ancestry. It takes a while to learn to read writing that is over 100 years old. Unfortunately the transcription errors mess up the search engine. My grandfather's first and last name were both garbled. Luckily I had letters that showed when he came to America so I found him on the Ellis Island site (also misspelled). I posted a correction for his name on Ancestry so future people looking for him won't have such a hard time.

I have letters from several of my grandfather's cousins. They were pretty easy to track because I had addresses - my grandfather kept the envelopes so I had return addresses and can read the postmarks. Pretty cool. Found them on the census. One of the cousins turned up in a New York state institution for the mentally ill on several censuses. He must have died there, but the death records are missing, if they were ever properly kept at all. Poor guy.

I know! I already mentioned the variations of Louis I've found. Apparently my dad's grandmother immigrated from Germany in 1860 (they wrote that, so it messed up my research for a minute), but she was not born till 1865.

Are you allowed to send them corrections? What if someone sends them a correction they think is right, but it turns out to be the wrong person or something. I would have a long list, starting with my dad's place of death just 10 years ago. The death certificate was typed. There's no writing to "transcribe". How do you get Champaign County from Montgomery County? They are 3 counties apart. (Sorry, that one really drives me crazy cause it's not like it was from the 1800s or something.) Not that there is anyone who would be looking for him in Montgomery County.

I repeat - genealogy =:wall::wall::wall:

My dad's grandmother's brother's son (try to figure that out!) was in prison when he was 17 (1910 census). Profession - baker. Wondering if that was his job in prison?? Personally, I think his profession should have said criminal because in 1918 his death notice says “gun shot wound in head; inflicted by Police Officer." Yikes.

I got started cleaning up the Murphy documents this moring, which leads to looking more things up..................and I just can't stop.
 

Lizziebeth

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There are some places on Ancestry that let you post a correction and give a reason. I usually correct the spelling if the census has it one way and the transcription has it another. That way the correct spelling will come up in the search engine as well and people will find it. Sometimes the census person must have just written the name without worrying about the correct spelling. Not much you can do about an original document with spelling variations!
 

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