My website was down for about a week while it was moved to another server. I am fixing the broken images on the last few blog posts now. They should all work by tonight!
Month: May 2014
William, Father of William
Even though my main focus is to clean up my source citations, every once and a while you just need to put in a little research time. So that’s what I do when I just need to do something fun with my genealogy.
This strategy has paid off for me because I managed to find William Travis and Sarah Booth‘s marriage record! That means I’m back one more generation since it gives the father’s names.
I was also able to confirm that this 1841 England Census entry was in fact William, Sarah, and their 4 month old daughter Frances. I was about 95% already but confirming that William’s father was named William gave me the last 5%. Now I have to figure out who David and Alice are. I’m assuming siblings of William, Jr. Or maybe David is a son of Alice. They are 20 years apart so anything is possible at this point.
I love figuring things out a small step at a time because I’m able to really take in the info! What’s your latest exciting find?
Mystery Monday: Bell Brodie Returns!
Before my unintentional hiatus from the blog and genealogy, I was working on a little mystery. It was actually quite fun and I’m eager to pick up where I left off.
This weekend, I received a discount in my e-mail to come back to Ancestry.com and I decided to go ahead and use the discount to upgrade to the World Membership for at least the 6 month term of that discount. With my World Membership I can see the Canadian census images now which really excites me.
If your memory is as fuzzy as mine, I posted previously that Ancestry hinted at some exciting news before my membership expired and my computer went nuts. Now is my first chance since August (WOW!) to look through those records except for trying to use indexes.
I’m going to show you a timeline of my Belle Brodie info so we can all finally know who she was!
Abt. 1835 – Isabella Farris is born to John and Janet Farris in New Brunswick, Canada
1851 – Isabella Farris is enumerated with her parents and six siblings in Westminster, Ontario, Canada
Note: I should mention that Westminster is basically a neighborhood in the outlying part of London, Ontario.
1861 – Isabella Brodie is still living in Westminster but now with her husband, a daughter and a son.
1866 – Bell Brodie writes a letter from London, Ontario to her dear cousin detailing a visit that her cousin’s mother is currently on.
1871 – Isabella’s family which includes her husband and daughter Jessie are enumerated as living in London, Ontario, Canada.
1881 – Hugh, Isabella and Jessie are still living in London, Ontario.
April 1882 – Jessie Brodie is married to Detroit resident Francis William John Peel.
Around 1886 – Hugh, Isabella and family including Jessie move across the border into Detroit.
1900 – Hugh, Isabella and their grand daughter Isobel Peel are now living in Detroit, Michigan. Per this census, Isabella had 3 children with only one still living. I assume that is Jessie who is living in Springswells, Michigan with her husband and 3 other living children (Laura, Hugh, Margareth/Marjorie). They live minutes away from each other.
1906 – Isabella’s husband Hugh dies in Detroit, Michigan.
1910 – A now widowed Isabella Brodie is living in Detroit with her two grand daughters, Isobel and Marjorie Peel. Also widowed, Jessie is living with her daughter Laura’s family.
1920 – Isabella is still living with grand daughter Isobel Peel. No sign so far of Jessie or Marjorie.
There are still tons of holes to fill in this timeline. I basically followed Isabella (Belle) down through her lifetime as I could find the records. Even knowing that she was born to John and Janet Farris, I haven’t quite linked her to my Ferris/Farris/Farish family. I just know that John Farris is about 4 years older than my Jane Ferris-Menzies and that they were both from Dumfries, Scotland. I’m going to try and track down some more records but I can’t even believe how far I’ve come so far when I started knowing so little!
My new goals with Belle Brodie are probably going to be low priority ones now that the information is getting harder to find. There is still plenty to find but it will take more effort. So I’m probably going to go ahead and make my research notes on this and pick it up less often until I can at least link John and Jane.
Happy Genealogy Friday!
Hello from Southern Maryland. I’ve been working a lot lately on a bunch of different things having to do with my Family File. Most of those things involve cleaning up my sources mess.
I realized last night however, that I somehow, in the midst of all this confusion finished entering in my family lines for the Family File Cleanup Project that I began many years ago. How that snuck in on me, I have no idea.
So now I think is a good time to do a little planning on what comes next… after I clean up the sources again.
For the Moores/Thorwards/Loves/Menzies and so on, my main goal is to make timelines and gather records for the individuals I need information for. I want to get my One Note research notebook setup so I can start analyzing these guys and finding my missing information more efficiently.
Same deal with the Redfords and Parkins. There is so little information on these families that I really need to start getting records for them so I can start filling in some blanks. That will probably mean a trip to the New Jersey Archives for me. No complaints here but I just want to make sure this time when I go to Jersey that I have a list of names and dates and where the records should be at.
The only problems I ever encounter with the Mays families are the sheer abundance of them. The hard part is that the part of the country they lived in didn’t formally start keeping records until 1911, which makes it really hard to track down a lot of the info. Not impossible, just hard. I also have a list of names that I haven’t put back into my working file because I don’t have the smoking record that links them to William Mays and Frances Adkins. Just family legend that they were a part of the family. So I have to start digging into Kentucky a lot of farther.
The Taylor family is probably my most emailed about family. There are just so many contradictory genealogies and researchers that just an afternoon spent researching the Taylors can leave you with a migraine. The great thing about it is that there is so much information on them. I wish I had as much information on some of my other lines! The best thing about the Taylors is that most of the researchers are friendly and collaborative so it’s a shared migraine. 😉
The Webbs, Crabbs, Applegates, and Wests are families I lose track of often. Despite finding a biography giving a ton of information on the Webbs, I’ve been stalled again while I figure out the geography and timelines of what my information is telling me.
As for my biggest mission. The case of Zeroah Black. I’m pretty sure she’ll end up being the focus of Mystery Monday once Belle Brodie is finished because folks, Belle Brodie is finishing up! How exciting. Hopefully I can tell you all about it on Monday! If I don’t make it, then it will definitely be next Monday. 🙂
Even More Source Cleanups
Well, I did it. I got through all my census citations. They’re all back to what they were before the computer switcheroo. Now I’m onto the other 80 sources that duplicated themselves in the merge.
Throughout all those census citations, I frequently took “breaks” to do something different. Different like parish records and newspaper records instead of turning 900+ census citations into 200… for each census.
Naturally when you’re looking at all these sources, it makes you want to research. Unfortunately, my sources were in such a state that it confused me more so I held off on that.
One thing I did do though was make myself a 1940 census lookup list.
I started by creating a custom report that filtered in anyone born before 1941 and after 1830 (you never know). Then I filtered out anyone who had a death date before 1940. Lastly, I filtered out anyone who had a census event containing 1940.
I then printed out the 48 pages (24 double sided) and saved it to PDF also for later. I like to have a paper list beside me but I’ll probably make a section in OneNote for each census to keep notes on why I couldn’t find someone or if I find something I want to look at again later. I sure can’t wait until I can get back to blogging about actual research again!
All these are the things that will occupy my Genealogy Friday, including answering more emails. I’m just about caught up. I hope everyone out there in cyberspace is able to do a little genealogy this weekend.
