Month: August 2010

Updates on my Progress

Posted on by Kathleen

Today is one of those days where I’m really glad I have a blog category called Family File Hijinks. It makes it all sound more interesting than what it actually is. I’m writing today to update about my progress in two areas. One being my family file clean up and two on the new website progress.

We’ll start with the family file cleanup. I finished my Grandpa Moore’s side yesterday. I thought I’d be done sooner but as I was documenting the Loves and Menzies I found more clues! I used to focus just on census records. With this cleanup though, I’m trying to look other places. I haven’t done newspaper searches yet but I have been utilizing FamilySearch. They put up a bunch of New York and New Jersey records a few months back and that has made this line EXPLODE. I still have to systematically get the records for what I found in the indexes but really I’m just verifying census records with these. Then I upgraded my Ancestry.com account to the World subscription. I know it’s more expensive but I’ve put off doing it for many years (I’ve been a member of ancestry since at least 2003!) My Dad’s side is a league of immigrants and eventually I just had to make the plunge. Well it’s paying off! So if you want, you can click around on my Moore Family Tree. I’m starting on the second half of it today… maybe tomorrow. I might take today off. 😉

Now we’ll go to the site redesign. I started off keeping the color scheme and basic banner from the current page. Then I got the design finished and it didn’t sit right with me. I kept going, but when I tried to incorporate WordPress, it just didn’t work. Now I’ve decided to learn the necessary WordPress coding instead of modifying my own template. I decided to start with a fresh design while I was at it.  The above ‘swatch’ is how I started the new design. The main complaint I had with myself was I like colors. I like lots of bold contrasting colors. I’m also prone to migraines so I’m aware too many bold colors will leave everyone with a pounding head. So I started off with a nice neutral blue. My new love is gradients because I can get in between shades. Lots of color mixing! There’s a reason I am 26 years old and still have a million Crayola products in my supplies. So the color swatch is how a website starts for me.

This is what it’s turning into. Will it be exactly like this? Not on your life! There are some spacing issues I’m still figuring out. This is the main design though. Do you see how I took those bold blues and pinks (my favorite colors by the way) and I made them understated? That lets a splash of color come through without killing your eyes and my head. I’ve learned new CSS coding this month while doing this design. I’ve learned a lot of new stuff in this design. The main lesson is I shouldn’t fiddle with it too much! I do love using gradients though. We’ll have to see how this turns out!

Goodbye Brickwall, hopefully

Posted on by Kathleen
Marriage Record for Robert J Moore and Mary E Johnson

It came yesterday! Well technically it came on Saturday. We usually get Saturday’s mail when we’re out getting Sunday’s paper. It’s just the way we work it. I can’t believe this baby was in the mailbox all night and I didn’t know it! I ordered this record online on August 1st. I was prepared to wait 4 to 6 weeks like normal. I can’t believe it’s already here.

I have to move past that though and actually look at the record. It was two pages. In fact I was very familiar with the format of it because I’ve been transcribing some marriage records like this for FamilySearch indexing in my spare time. The first page was a bit harder to read but it does give me a few things. It gives me the marriage date of 23 Apr 1896. So now I know that Robert married just 6 months before his mother passed away. It also gives the witness to wedding, one Sarah T Adams. Since the person marrying Robert and Mary was named J S Adams, I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say Sarah was his wife.

Now onto the page pictured on the left. The address of 1845 Broadway is actually new. I hadn’t seen that one. Looking it up on Google though, it’s not out of the circle that the Moores lived in during their time in Brooklyn and it’s almost right next to the cemetery where they would bury Robert’s mother in 6 months. Robert’s occupation as an Insurance Agent is nothing new to me. He definitely did that for awhile. Father was William H Moore. Still all good information. Oh wait, there it is. Mother’s Maiden Name. I won’t keep this from you. When it comes to finding out this woman’s maiden name I have the worst luck in the world. When I got the record out of the envelope, I was so scared to even look for this section. Imagine my surprise when it wasn’t blank! It’s always blank! Not this time though. Looks like her maiden name was Starret. I could be wrong but it’s definitely a starting point!

Now lets move onto Mary E Johnson. The only things I’d known about her was what was listed on censuses and William’s (her son) birth certificate. The residence of 196 Macon Street, Brooklyn definitely gives me a starting point for her. Imagine looking for Mary E Johnson in Brooklyn, with parents born in Ireland. Now we move down the record to her parents. Oh! Oh! I’m just going to cry now, both her parents are listed. Arthur Johnson as her father and Annie Moffot (?) as her mother! Of course, if anyone has better ideas for the mother’s name, just let me know. I’m open to discussion.

I did a quick search of Arthur Johnson with a wife Annie. Believe it or not, the best matches came to a family living in Babylon, New York in 1870 and 1880. I want to look in the New York State Censuses before I rush to judgement though. I especially want to look in the 1892 one. That would be 4 years before this marriage, so I would imagine that would be my best chance of  a good match!

GEA: Thornhill, Scotland

Posted on by Kathleen

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a Google Earth Adventure. They’re fun, I need to make more time for them! I’m still in the process of collecting my data for the Menzies family. Just when I thought I was at a stopping point, I found another lead this morning. Never ending! I just have to say I love the FamilySearch indexes. Sure I can’t confirm until I set eyes on the record myself, but since I knew the maiden name of Jennie Menzies-Love’s mother I’m pretty positive about what I’ve found. So thank heaven for the California Death Index listing the mother’s maiden name! Since most of my Dad’s family stayed in New Jersey, I fretted over ever getting my hands on more records. Little did I know a bunch of New Jersey people headed west to California in the 40’s!

Anyway, back onto the Google Earth part. I found that John Menzies and Jane Ferris’ first five children were born in Scotland before the family went south to Liverpool, England. I plugged some search terms into FamilySearch’s Scotland Birth and Christening Records. Voila! I have a place! Morton by Thornhill, Dumfries, Scotland, UK. All five children born in Scotland have Christening records there and John and Jane have a marriage record there. In fact I think I found John’s birth record there too 😉 The only problem I had was that there was no Morton on any maps I looked at. I’ve run across this in the United States though, so I don’t fret too bad.

I started with Thornhill. That still exists. It just so happens there is a Morton Street that runs through the center of Thornhill. So this is where I tried my luck with a Google Earth Adventure. I figured the worst that could happen is I spend another pleasant morning touring Scotland from the comfort of my home… Too bad I was already dressed, pajamas would have made it better! Best case scenario is I’d find a church along the street.

My first thoughts were, “What a quaint little street!” Then as a long time user of Google Earth, I knew I should probably do a 360 view and see what’s around.

Oh. Well, that’s a little anti-climatic. The sad thing is the church had a For Sale sign on it. I wonder how much an old church in Scotland costs? Probably more than I could afford.

For those keeping track of my previous GEA, the very first one was a tour by Castle Menzies. I’m positive I can link my Menzies there eventually.

I’m certainly closer than I used to be! Thornhill is about 2 and a half hours south of Castle Menzies location. Not exactly a day trip in the 1800’s but it’s a lot closer than New Jersey, which is where I was before today.

Well, since my goal was accomplished I might as well keep looking around more, right?

I really do long to visit quaint little towns like this. I just love the buildings.

Full Disclosure: Starting with this picture I switched to maps.google.com. For some reason my Google Earth is messing up so I have to re-install it and see if that will help. I’d rather not talk about it though, I’d rather look at the Scotland buildings.

There much better! I think what I love about looking around Scotland and other countries is how much older the buildings are. I’ve got a million houseplan books that show me what these old houses look like on the outside and the floor plans on the inside, but there’s nothing like seeing a real version of it.

Back to Morton Street. I love how green Scotland is. I know everywhere else is green too. It’s just that everytime I open a random street view in Scotland, it’s just so green!

I really do wonder how old these buildings are.

Then I came across this. I was curious as to what all the busses were there for. A quick Google Search told me this is Wallace Hall Academy. Well not the bus activity, but the building I couldn’t really get a look at. The original Wallace Hall Academy was established in 1723. In 1972 Wallace Hall Academy merged with Morton Academy at Thornhill (!) and they moved to the building they are in now. The revelation got me to thinking about Morton parish again. It’s got to be here somewhere!

When I looked up Closeburn, the original site of the Wallace Hall Academy, I found a little nugget of information.

The hamlet of Gatelawbridge, 2+1⁄2 miles (4 km) east of Thornhill, is on the boundary of Closeburn and Morton parishes near Crichope Linn.[1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closeburn,_Dumfries_and_Galloway]

It’s still not on the map, but looking through the street views between all three places (Closeburn, Gatelawbridge, Thornhill) I found a few more churches. So I don’t know which one my ancestors were christened in. I guess I’ll just have to take a real trip to Scotland some day and check them all. It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it!

Disclaimer: Google owns the images I used in the entry. I am making no profit from these images. Please don’t sue me Google, I own nothing of value except for the Mini-Oreos I ate on this trip.

Mary Menzies-Winters

Posted on by Kathleen

I’ve been hard at work tracing down my Menzies ancestors. I thought I didn’t have much on this line of the family. Then I found a few things that helped me over a brick wall. So now I’m trying to go slowly and search out these families. For anyone keeping count, though I don’t know why ^.^, my new family-file is up to 270 people. This is all sourced information without me going bonkers on the “allied families”, so this is a big accomplishment for me. It’s so hard for me not to go crazy collecting relatives.

I thought I’d share one of my interesting finds with Mary Menzies-Winters. Mary is the sister of my 3rd Great Grandmother, Jennie T Menzies-Love. She was born around 1840 in Lancashire, England (most likely Liverpool). According to a listing I found on the Love-Menzies Family Outline, she married a man with the surname Winters. So that was my first step in locating her after she disappears from her family household. I found her in 1870 in New York City living with her husband Jacob Winters and their 6 children. By 1880, Jacob was gone and Mary had remarried a man named Theodore Thomas. When I went to the 1900 census, I’ll be honest, I did I quick search for a Mary Thomas, but nothing came up. So I just set out to find her children. My reasoning was, if her children were centrally located, most likely that’s where I’d find Mary.

Thanks to FamilySearch’s Manhattan Marriage Index, I had some married names to try for Mary’s girls. Girls can be so difficult if you don’t have any clues about their marriages. I found a marriage record for Mary E Winters and John Thomas Brent. So then I searched for the pair and found them in Putnam County, New York. Everything matches up perfectly. Mary living with the family helps to verify the marriage of her daughter. So then I set about finding the rest of Mary’s children in 1900.

I only found a marriage record for the oldest daughter this morning. So I brought up Ancestry and plugged the information into the search. The only difference from the marriage record is that Elizabeth’s husband is referred to as Tom and not William. That doesn’t bother me too bad because he could go by his middle name. (edit: After reviewing the image more closely, he is listed as Wm but there were numbers written over his name making it hard to read.) Then I noticed that Mary is listed as living with the family. Well, alright. I checked the enumeration dates on both households. Both are listed as June 1, 1900. My only guess is that Mary probably lived with both families during the year. Maybe leaving the crowded city in the summers. I can’t tell which house she was actually at on June 1st. I’m just happy I found her son Frank without too much fuss!

Then I plugged Mary Winters into the 1900 Census search. Just to see if maybe she showed up in her daughter Jane’s house too. Hey, it was worth a shot! Of course, I kick myself for not trying her first married name before moving onto her children, but it all worked out in the end.

I Love Technology

Posted on by Kathleen

Let me be up front. My usual operating procedure is I get really excited about something, spend all my time on that one thing, then I lose steam. I’m working on spreading myself out a little more in all aspects of my life. I really don’t multi-task well is what I’m getting down to. So we’ll see how my new outlook affects me in August.

Website Re-Design: This is still in the works. I haven’t given up on it or my previous design. I just want to tweak it a bit more. I’ve also decided to actually learn the coding I’m using instead of just trying to manipulate things from a ready-made template. I’ve been much happier with my TNG websites after I ditched the templates and made my own design. I’m hoping the same goes for WordPress. I really want a better integrated website. I’m good with HTML and CSS, so I just have to learn what I need to about some WordPress coding to make my designs work.

Ordering records has gotten a lot easier in recent years. The last time I ordered a record from New York City, I filled out the form (I love forms), sent away for it, and waited the few weeks. I really do love sending for records. Then I remembered, I don’t have any envelopes… or stamps… or checks… Which means I’d have to find a time to go and get a money order, which isn’t easy to time.

It was then I saw on the NYC Records form that there was a place to order online. Online! Now the last time I ordered a record, ordering online was very expensive.

This time however, it was the same price! Ordering by mail was $15.00 (for the record/search), $2.50 (for shipping). Online ordering only added an extra $1.00 surcharge from what I could see! So my order is placed from the comfort of my pajamas, without going out to town, without the risk of my crazy new allergies flaring up. I’m sure it’ll still be 4-6 weeks for delivery but it would probably take me up to 2 weeks to get everything together to order. I really do hate going to town if you couldn’t tell. Of course not all areas have this option available, or at the lower price, but it’s certainly nice to find. Especially since I have quite a few New York City records to gather eventually.

Order your own New York City Records

I can’t wait to get this record, if they find it that is. I ordered the marriage certificate of Robert J Moore and Mary E Johnson. If you’ve been keeping up on my Moore adventures, you’d know that I’m blocked on Robert’s mother and Mary’s parents (their names!). Maybe this record will give me something good, maybe it won’t, but I’d at least have a date for their marriage!

I’ll keep you updated when the record comes in.