Wednesday, April 29, 2015

8 Escape Injuries When Auto, Ambulance Collide (June 30, 1923)



Climbing My Family Tree: "8 Escape Injuries When Auto, Ambulance Collide" June 30, 1923
"8 Escape Injuries When Auto, Ambulance Collide"
The Findlay Morning Republican, June 30,1923, page 2
(found at Newspaperarchive.com)
Click to Make Bigger
Transcription:


8 Escape Injuries When Auto, Ambulance Collide

Touring Car Driven by S. M. Hartman, 318 First Street, Crashes into Rear of Carey, O., Ambulance Driven by Charles Sutter, Funeral Director of That Place, Who Suffers Minor Injuries

      Eight persons narrowly escaped injury when a touring car crashed into and toppled an ambulance from Carey, O., on its side at First and S. Main Streets yesterday afternoon.
     
     Charles Sutter, funeral director, of Carey, who was driving the ambulance, was slightly injured about the head and neck. He was the only occupant of the machine, having taken a patient, Miss Clara Shull, of near Vanlue, to the Home and Hospital, a short time before.

               Seven in Touring Car

     The touring car was driven by S. M. Hartman, 318 First Street. Other occupants of the machine were his wife, four grandchildren, and one great-grandchild, all ranging in ages from 3 to 18 years. All were shaken by the impact but unhurt.

     The children were:

     Berenice and Helen Duffield, daughters of Jay. W. Duffield, of near Van Buren.

     Mabel and Dale Erwin, children of Mrs. Fannie Erwin, 225 Park Ave.

     Josephine Hart, a grandchild, of the same address.

     The collision occurred shortly after 3 o’clock. The ambulance was northbound from the hospital on the return trip to Carey, and the Hartman machine was running south on Main Street.

               View Is Obstructed

     A third machine, driver unknown, passed the Hartman car obstructing the view of Mr. Hartman as he turned his car to go east on First Street. Before the machine could be halted, it crashed into the rear of the ambulance, turning it around and pushing it over on its side in front of the Campfield apartments.

     Mr. Sutter, his straw hat bent by the mixup, crawled out of the window while residents nearby, hearing the crash, held their breath for signs of life around the ill-fated car.

     The touring car with its seven occupants lost a wheel in the jam. The ambulance was badly damaged. A wheel was broken, the body battered and glass in the windows and windshield shattered. It was removed to Runnell’s garage.

     Renshler’s ambulance was summoned to the scene.

(Findlay Morning Republican, June 30, 1923, page 2 (found at NewspaperArchive.com))

This was likely the accident I talked about a year and a half ago, in the profile of my second great grandfather, Samuel Myers Hartman. I had not found this article when I wrote it, but I did find legal notices in the papers that due to a car accident in the spring of 1923, Samuel M. Hartman had been sued for $4500 in damages by the driver of the other vehicle, and that Samuel M. Hartman had filed a cross-claim against the other driver for $1200. In that prior profile I noted, for perspective, that in 1923, the average car cost $393, the average house cost $8,142, and the average yearly wage was $1,066. I stated then that it had to have been one heck of an accident, even though both drivers obviously came out of it alive. Now that I know that Mr. Sutter’s ambulance was destroyed, I can speculate that it likely cost more than a regular car to replace, and that its loss likely had a significant adverse impact on his ability to carry out his normal business because, in most of the 1800’s and early 1900’s, the town‘s ambulance service was run by a funeral home in the town (I've learned by reading accident and death notices). So Sutter could have sued for the replacement value of the ambulance and for the damage to his business.  I don’t know enough to speculate as to what damages the amount of Samuel M. Hartman’s cross-claim represented. On the eve of trial, the parties came to an undisclosed settlement. 

From this article, I could learn:

  • that S. M. Hartman, my second great-grandfather, lived at 318 1st St., Findlay, OH on June 30, 1923; 
  • that he was well-off enough to own a touring car in 1923; 
  • that he was married, and his wife was living at that time;
  • that he had at least four grandchildren, all granddaughters; 
  • that one of his daughters had married a Jay W. Duffield of near Van Buren Ohio and they had two daughters, named Berenice and Helen; 
  • that his daughter Fannie (my great-grandmother) had married a man surnamed Erwin (my great-grandfather) and was either widowed or divorced from him since she was allowed the use of her own first name in the newspaper account (traditions of the early 1900’s requiring that married women were always identified by Mrs. "their husband’s name.");
  • that Fannie and Mr. Erwin had (at least) two daughters, Mabel and Dale; 
  • that Mr. Hartman had a great grandchild by the name of Josephine Hart who was also Fannie Erwin’s grandchild (which indicates that Fannie probably also had at least one older child);
  • that Fannie, Mabel, Dale, and Josephine lived at 225 Park Ave., Findlay, Ohio, on June 30, 1923; 
  • and that the named children ranged in age from three years old until 18 years old. It was likely, but not certain, that Josephine was the three-year-old child. 

I also learned the names of a few businesses in Findlay, Ohio.

That’s a lot of genealogical information to pull out of one newspaper article. Besides allowing you to show some slice of life color for your ancestors, newspaper articles are often a genealogical goldmine!


Sunday, April 26, 2015

NoteWorthy Reads #11

Climbing My Family Tree: NoteWorthy Reads #11 (image from Pixabay.com)
image from Pixabay.com


For week-ending 4/25/15

For me, Noteworthy Reads are articles, websites, or blog posts I found this week which are fascinating, interesting and/or helpful, and occasionally “wacky” or “wonderful” will likely sneak in as well. It’s not going to be a “best of” post because I don’t have the knowledge to make that determination. I don’t even promise that the articles & blog posts will be written that week – just that I found them that week. At the end of each trimester I’ll review the posts to determine which entries should be put in my Resource pages; the rest will still be available through the blog's search function.

Note: Just because I list an article does not mean I endorse its contents. It just means I want to be able to find it easily in the future when I may want to consider the issue in more depth.


CANADA

British, Irish, Scottish, Loyalist, American, German, Scandinavian, Dutch, Huguenot families in lower Canada and Québec from 1760  From the Genealogy Ensemble blog – includes a link to a database which contains “information on villages and communities where families settled in Lower Canada and Québec from 1760 onward. This document will assist researchers seeking to find the names (past and current) of the settlements” and show them on modern maps.



COPYRIGHT

Photographs and Copyright Law from the California State Genealogical Alliance Copyright blog – just because there are now millions of photographs available online that does not mean that they are all legally free for the viewer to take and use for whatever reason they desire.


DNA

AncestryDNA is a Team Sport, from Ancestry.com blog – a fascinating article, with graph, showing how taking the ancestry DNA test in conjunction with other family members increases precision in determining a common ancestor with matches.



EDUCATION



ENGLAND



FUN

Grandma Has Some Secrets from Janice Genealogy and Family History Blog  – LOL, grandchildren find out some surprising secrets about grandma’s life!

Pinocchio: Records Don’t Lie (or Do They?) from On Granny’s Trail blog – it’s funny, but you also learn from it.


GREAT STORIES

Military Monday – Fred Goempel’s Story Part Two from Jennifer Holik‘s blog – the fascinating story continues. (For link to Part One of this story see Noteworthy Reads #10.)

Patriots’ Day and Ancestor William Grout from the Passage to the Past’s blog explains how the author found that his fifth great-grandfather was involved in the Lexington alarm (American Revolution) -- with cool pictures.
  
52 ancestors in 52 weeks 2015 week 15: Joseph Herrick part 3 from the West in New England blog – An ancestor involved in the Salem witch trials!


HISTORY

Laura Starcher and the Petticoat Revolution of 1916 from mentalfloss.com – in a small town in Oregon in 1916 females replaced the majority of male elected officials in a write in campaign!

When the Soldiers Went Home, from the Opinionator column, the New York Times. What happened when the soldiers went home from the Civil War. PTSD, before it had a name.



INTERESTING ARTICLE

The Genealogy Factor: Graveyards & Gravestones from JSTOR Daily - This is the first in a series of columns by Genealogy Roadshow host D. Joshua Taylor about doing genealogical research on JSTOR, in which “unearths discoveries that provide context and clarity for those tracing their past.” It discusses how context can be supplied by examining a gravestone’s art. 

Naturalization Records: Lorence Kihn (Lawrence Keen) Becomes a Citizen in 1845 from the blog, Indiana Ties – tells of how the blogger found out how to obtain naturalization records, what she did to obtain them, and what she found on them.

Russia’s Forgotten WWII Heroes Gain Recognition Thanks to Online Project  -families of Russian WWII combatants around the world are now able to give their forebears the recognition they deserve, 70 years on. The Zvyezdy Pobedy project, organized by the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper, allows the descendants of those who fought in the Red Army in WWII to find out whether their ancestors were among the recipients of over 38 million orders and medals awarded during the war.


IRELAND

Graveyard Transcriptions and Photos (Ireland) from the As They Were blog – contains a list of websites referring to graveyard sliced cemeteries that have either photos, transcriptions or both.

Genealogy Arbor Day - A Typical Irish Tree from the Black Raven Genealogy blog - interesting, and I like her colorful style of tree (and its inherent definition of family). 


NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS



HRVH Historical Newspapers - provides access to digitized copies of historical newspapers from the Hudson River Valley region of New York State.



SCOTLAND

Scotland’s Places  –  The website allows you to search across different national databases using geographic locations. Their databases include: historical tax rolls (e.g., dog tax, clock and watch tax, poll tax, female servant tax, among others) ordnance survey named books, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland archives, official reports, published Gazetteers and atlases, and other records). Subscription.
  
The Statistical Accounts of Scotland, 1791-1845, written by each parish minister they kept a contemporary account of life at the time, “offering uniquely rich and detailed parish reports for the whole of Scotland, covering a vast range of topics including agriculture, education, trades, religion and social customs.” Part free, part by subscription. [It looks very cool!]

Scots In Midieval England from the Scottish Emigration Blog = discusses England's Immigrants 1330-1550 research project website as a great source for learning about emigrants from Scotland.

The Scottish Indexes – “We have a large collection of indexes, from unique sources such as prison and court records to more commonly used sources such as birth, marriage, death and census records. While currently many of our records are from the south of Scotland, our Quaker records and mental health records cover all of Scotland. We will also be adding more records from other areas of Scotland soon.”


TIPS

My Genealogy is Wrong! by the Great Genealogy blog – errors creep in, what to do to minimize them.





TOOLS

Historylines.com, a new tool for genealogists and family historians launched this week. It helps you build a life sketch about your ancestor. 
            Thomas MacEntee at Geneabloggers blog published the announcement press release in History Lines Official Launch with a Bonus.
And Randy Seaver at the Genea-Musings blog has done a very helpful three-part series explaining how it works, or how you make it work for you, in detail, with step-by-step instructions and screen captures. Those three posts are:







Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Lester Dene Hart (1894-1981), no stranger to sorrow


Climbing My Family Tree: Birth Record of Lester Dene Hart (21 April 1894)
Birth Record of Lester Dene Hart (21 April 1894),
Portage Twp, Hancock County, Ohio.
Click to Make Bigger (closeup below).

In the beginning, he went by Dene, and that is the name by which my mother knew of him. He was her Uncle Dene, although I am not certain that she ever met him. Hi Mom, I'm back on your side of the family!

Lester Dene Hart was my grandmother’s oldest brother and my grand uncle. In actuality, he was my grandmother’s half-brother. He had a different father than my grandmother did. Lester Dene Hart was born, on April 21, 1894, to Orley Calvin Hart and Fannie Susan Hartman (my great-grandmother) in Portage Township, in Hancock County, Ohio, five months after his parents’ wedding. His mother was from Hancock County, Ohio.

Climbing My Family Tree: Closeup of Lester Dene Hart Birth Record
Closeup of Lester Dene Hart Birth Record.
This is what above red arrow points to.
Click to Make Bigger.

He was their oldest child. Fannie and Orley had four children after Lester Dene: Gladys (1896-1902), Reed Charles (1898-1954), Verne Allen (1900-1954), Julia Ann (1903-1978).

By 1900, the family had moved to Clay County, Illinois, where Orley’s family lived. Orley took up farming and shared farming duties with his family across several farms. On August 7, 1902, Dene’s younger sister, Gladys, died at age 5; Dene was only 8 years old. The family records state that she died of diabetes, but I have not been able to find anything confirm that. Just two years later, on January 28, 1905, at age 30, Dene’s father died, purportedly for the same reason (I don't have a death certificate) , leaving his mother to care for and raise the children alone, far from her family. I expect that Orley’s family continued to help farm the land. Dene was eleven years old when his father died.

In 1909, Dene’s mother married my great-grandfather, Vernon Erwin, in Louisville, Illinois, Dene and his siblings continued to live with their mother after she married Vernon. The 1910 census shows Vernon (spelled Verna), Fannie (listed as Frances), and Fannie’s four children in the household. Vernon was not working then, but the census indicates Dene was working as farm labor on the home farm. The 1940 census indicated that Dene’s highest level of schooling was the 8th grade, so he likely dropped out of school right about 1910, age 15, because his labor on the farm helped support the family. In the next two years, Vern and Fannie gave Dene two more little sisters: my grandmother, Mabel LeRe (1910-1990) and her sister, Dale Hart (1912-?).

In 1915, at age 21, Dene married Leta Frances Elkin (20), daughter of Larkin C Elkin and Clara Hayes Elkin. On June 5, 1917, at age 23, Dene registered for the draft for WWI. On his registration, he indicated that he was a farmer and self-employed in Louisville Township. His only dependent was his wife. He did not try to claim exemption from the draft. On the back of the card, he was described as being of medium height and medium build with blue eyes and dark hair. He was not disabled.

Climbing My Family Tree: WWI Draft Registration of Lester Dene Hart
WWI Draft Registration of Lester Dene Hart.
Click to Make Bigger.
In “Clay County and the Great War: a Narrative History of the Contributive and Sacrificial Involvement of Clay County, Illinois in World War I” the author, Ryan Herdes, stated that a total of 1350 men registered for the draft in Clay County on June 5, 1917. Of the 1350 men who registered on June 5, the names of 214 men were drawn to represent the county in the national draft. Ultimately, only 107 were actually drafted from Clay County. The article indicated that a complete listing of those individuals called in the county draft appeared in the final July edition of the Southern Illinois Record. I went looking for a copy of that paper (I googled it, after checking my normal sources for online historical newspapers to no avail) and found that it had been digitized in a collection maintained by the Eastern Illinois University. The listing was found on the first page of the July 26, 1917 Southern Illinois Record. Lester is not on that list. I’ve found no evidence that he served in World War I.

On May 18, 1920, Leta gave birth to their daughter, Josephine Vivian Hart. According to the 1920 federal census, Dene worked as a Teamster hauling coal at that time and earned a wage (he was not self-employed). Both he and Leta indicated that they were able to read and write. Unfortunately, on June 30, 1922, Leta died. I have, so far, been unable to find out why. She was buried in the Orchard Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Illinois. 

This left Dene a single father of a two-year-old girl. At some point after Leta’s death, Dene and his daughter moved to Findlay, Ohio, in Hancock County. He probably moved there because his mother, my great-grandmother, had moved back to Ohio with her two youngest daughters, after my great-grandfather left her; she and her youngest daughters were in Hancock County Ohio by the 1920 Census. (Family notes say Vernon left in 1915, the year Dene married Leta.)  I don’t know what Dene was doing to support himself and his daughter, who was caring for her, or where he was living when he first moved back to Ohio. 

On November 22, 1925, Dean (31) married Edith Matilda Becker (20), daughter of Casper and Anna Becker, who became stepmother to five-year-old Josephine. According to the 1927 Findlay City Directory, they lived at 1203 Lima St. and Dene was a “tire builder.” Findlay, Ohio has had a history of tire companies as significant employers in the town; the longest lasting one being Cooper Tire and Rubber Company. I’m not certain which one he worked for yet.

According to the 1930 census, Dene, now 35, and Edith, now 26, (and Josephine, age 10) rented their home and paid $15 a month rent. They lived on Santee Avenue. Dene worked as a truck driver for the state highways.

In or about July of 1930, Dene’s wife, Edith, contracted tuberculosis, a dangerous respiratory illness that frequently caused death. Approximately 110,000 Americans died each year from tuberculosis in the early 1900’s. Typically, patients were separated from their families so that their families would not catch it; in the 1930s the most popular treatment was rest and fresh air in sanatoriums. I don’t know whether Edith was sent to a sanatorium. She was sick for eight months and then died at the home of her parents on February 12, 1931. She was buried in Maple Grove Cemetery in Findlay, Ohio. 
Climbing My Family Tree: Edith Matilda Becker Hart, Obituary, Findlay (OH) Morning Republican, 13 Feb 1931 p.2.
Edith Matilda Becker Hart, Obituary,
Findlay (OH) Morning Republican, 13 Feb 1931 p.2.
Click to Make Bigger.

Edith's death was less than ten years after the death of Dene's first wife. 

Later that year, on August 18, 1931, the Findlay Morning Republican, reported that Dene and his daughter, Josephine, his mother, and my grandparents, were among 44 family members (all named in the article) who attended the fourth annual reunion of the S. M. Hartman family, held at the old homestead, 1 mile east of Van Buren. Perhaps being with family was a comfort.

Dene apparently liked being married, and he did still have a young daughter who needed to be cared for. On December 23, 1932, at age 38, he married Helen Marie Black, age 29, daughter of O. L. (Lawrence) Black and Carrie Plumber or Plumer. While the marriage license indicated that Helen had been married before, I know nothing about that marriage and I don’t know whether she had any children from that prior marriage but I don’t think so as she didn’t bring with her into this marriage. While the certificate indicates that her prior husband was not living, I cannot confirm that (there are some indications the contrary, but, if that bears out, we should remember that it was not unusual for divorced women to list themselves as widowed as that was less embarrassing).

Climbing My Family Tree:Marriage Record for Lester Dene Hart and Helen Black (1932)
Marriage Record for Lester Dene Hart and Helen Black (1932).
Click to Make Bigger.

In 1935 and 1937, city directories indicate that the couple were living outside of Findlay in the village of Jenera. Dene worked as a foreman for the state highway department. In May 1937, the couple experienced tragedy when their daughter, Alice Virginia, was born, but only lived one day.  

Approximately one year later, on June 11, 1938, Dene’s daughter, Josephine, age 18, married Merrill Bushong (son of Mr. and Mrs J. M. Bushong), in New Stark, Ohio.

At the start of May 1939, Dene and Helen left Ohio for Texas to work on a Rural Electrification project, with the Bigley construction company. He ended up working first on a REA project in Arkansas. The federal Rural Electrification Act was passed in 1936. It was one of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs to improve the economic condition of farmers hit hard by the depression and drought. It provided 25-year loans at 3% interest for constructing power lines in rural areas. Local cooperative companies were formed to provide electricity. The Bigley Construction Company, of Findlay, Ohio, won the contract to install the substations, poles and wires with the low bid on the project. The bid for the North Central Texas electrification project was $86,787.06. I don’t know what the bid was for Arkansas. The first Arkansas project provided electricity to 600 farmhouses over 307 miles of wire in Mississippi County, Arkansas and used 3500 poles, 600 miles of aluminum wire, and 36,000 man hours of employment. Farmers along the lines purchased electric pumps, ranges, and some had modern plumbing installed in their homes for the first time. After total installation in Arkansas, the minimum bill of $2.50 for 35 kW gave sufficient current to light a four-room house, and to run an electric iron, a radio, and a fan for a month. Later the North Central Texas project made service available to 1400 families.

While the men worked on the REA project in Arkansas, the wives and families lived in an encampment near Lockesburg, Arkansas. On August 15, 1939, the Findlay Republican Courier reported that “Mrs. Dene Hart, the former Helen Black of New Stark, and daughter of Mrs. Carrie Buchanan of Findlay, was honored guest at a recent shower given at Lockesburg, Arkansas, by the women of the Bigley Electric Construction camp. She received many gifts from guests. Dene and Helen’s second daughter, [Edit: name removed as I just found indications that she may be alive] was born 1939 in Arkansas. Helen’s mother went out to visit with the family and see her new granddaughter, for three months, returning in late November 1939.

Climbing My Family Tree: 1940 U.S. Federal Census - Hart, Lester Dene and family
1940 U.S. Federal Census - Hart, Lester Dene and family.
Click to Make Bigger.
By 1940, the family was back in Findlay, Ohio and Dene was once again working for the state highway department, although he was looking for work at the time the census was taken. He reported that, in 1939 he worked 48 weeks and earned $1400. He evidently found new work because the City Directory for 1941 indicated that Dene worked for G.E. Edgington & Sons as a distributor operator. They lived at 134 ½ North Main St., Apt. 10., Findlay.

Climbing My Family Tree: WWII Draft Registration Card for Lester Dene Hart, front page
WWII Draft Registration Card for Lester Dene Hart, front page.
Click to Make Bigger.
Climbing My Family Tree: Draft Registration Card for Lester Dene Hart, top portion of back page.
Draft Registration Card for Lester Dene Hart, top portion of back page.
Click to Make Bigger.

Dene registered for the draft for World War II on April 25, 1942. He was 48. The draft registration indicates that he is white, 5 foot 7 ½ inches tall, 155 pounds and had blue eyes, black hair, and a ruddy complexion. He also indicated that he had a bad thumb on his left hand and that he worked for an ordinance company in Marion Ohio. This is likely this Scioto Ordinance Company, an ammunition and bomb-making facility operating from 1942 to 1945. It produced fuses, 20 mm bullets, 50 caliber bullets, artillery shells (50, 65, and 75 mm), incendiary bombs, and napalm bombs. I don’t know if he stayed there after the war working for the postwar company on the same site, Atomic Energy Commission Laboratory, which was operated by Monsanto. Radioactive materials were used and stored on-site and a nuclear reactor was built but never operated. If he did, I would be concerned for his health in his later years as at the end of the 20th century it was noted that there was a higher than expected number of leukemia cases and respiratory illnesses in the area, and a government investigation was launched, as well as a few lawsuits.

I lost Dene for a few years, but by 1952 and 1953, pursuant to Dallas (TX) City Directories, Dene was now going by his first name “Lester;” he was a carpenter and a cabinetmaker; and he and Helen lived at 512 Liberty.  Dene’s mother died on July 13, 1954. I don’t know whether he made it to the funeral, as the July, 1954, Findlay papers are missing from online records. His wife, Helen’s father died on May 15, 1958 and they did return to Ohio for the funeral. This indication of family feeling might mean that they returned for Fannie's funeral as well.

I then lost them again until I found his death certificate, which indicated that Lester died on April 21, 1981 at 10:15 AM, at the age of 87.  He and Helen were living in the Dallas Texas neighborhood of Cockrell Hill. Lester died of emphysema and renal failure. The death certificate indicated that he was a self-employed carpenter. He was buried at Calvary Hill Cemetery in Dallas. His wife outlived him by nearly 5 years, dying on January 14, 1986, in Fort Worth, Texas.

Texas Death Certificate for Lester Dene Hart (1981).
Texas Death Certificate for Lester Dene Hart (1981).
Click to Make Bigger

-------------------------------------
I would like to know more of what happened in Dene’s childhood, how he met Leta and courted her, how he met and wooed Edith, and how he met Helen. I’d like to fill in the blanks about when he and his daughter Josephine moved back to Ohio, and to fill in the huge gaps in his life from 1942 to his death in 1981. I’d also like to find out what happened to his children.


(More complete citations available on request)

Marriage record for Orley Hart and Frances Hartman, Hancock County, 1893; Ohio Birth Record, Hancock County, 1894; U,S, Federal Census for 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940; Draft registration for WW1; Birthdate of daughter Josephine Vivian Hart from email from MSD & confirmed in part by 1930 & 1940  U.S. Federal Census; death of Leta Elkins Hart, Illinois Death and Stillbirth Index, 1916-1947 & Find-a-Grave.com; Findlay, OH City Directories for 1927, 1931, 1935, 1937 and 1941; Dallas TX City Directory for 1952 and 1953; Marriage record for Helen Marie Black and Lester Dene Hart, Marion County OH, 1932), Birth record for Alice Virginia Hart, Ohio Birth record; Alice Virginia Hart U.S. Find-a-grave.com; Draft Registration for WW2; Ohio Obituary Index; Findagrave.com; Texas Death Certificate for Lester Dene Hartman; Texas Death Index for Helen Marie Black Hart.


“Clay County Soldiery” Flora (IL) Southern Illinois Record, July 26, 1918, p. 1 (found at http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/ref/collection/fpl01/id/2483);  “Mrs. L. D. Hart is Dead”, Findlay (OH) Morning Republican, 2 February 1931, p. 2; “Hold Reunion”  Findlay Morning Republican, August 18, 1931, p. 8; “New Stark” (Hart-Bushong wedding) Findlay Republican Courier , June 11, 1938, p.15; “New Stark”, Findlay Republican Courier, May 13, 1939, p. 2;”Hardin Men Leave For Jobs in West”, Findlay Republican Courier, May 13, 1939, p. 14;  “Findlay Bid Low on Light Project” New Philadelphia (OH) Daily Times, June 15, 1939, p.2; “Shower Given For Mrs. Dene Hart, Findlay Republican Courier, August 15, 1939, p. 6; “Return From A Visit” Findlay Republican Courier, December 1, 1939, p. 8; “Current To Be On By Sept. 15 First Line of REA Lines to be Energized Soon”, Blytheville (AR) Courier News, August 3, 1939, p.1; “To Energize County’s First REA Line of 145 Miles Tuesday” Blytheville Courier News, 4 December 1939, p. 1; “Lawrence Black Called By Death” Findlay Republican Courier, May 15, 1958, p. 16; “Officials Want Probe of Marion Laboratory”, by Randall Edwards, Environmental Reporter,  The Columbus (OH) Dispatch, October 9, 1999 (found at http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news/nn10253.htm); “Leukemia Fears, Man’s Scary Take Trigger Marion Radiation Probe”, by T.C. Brown, Cleveland (OH) Plain Dealer, October 9, 1999 (found at http://www.ohiocitizen.org/campaigns/marion/o09mark.html); Scioto Ordnance Plant, Wikipedia; “Rural Electrification”, The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture (found at http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2162);  “Clay County and the Great War: A Narrative History of the Contributive and Sacrificial Involvement of Clay County, Illinois in World War I” by Ryan Herdes, Historia (A publication of the Epsilon Mu Chapter of Phi Alpha Theta and the Eastern Illinois University History Department), Special Edition, Volume 1 (2013), p. 111 (http://www.eiu.edu/historia/2013SEissue.php).

Sunday, April 19, 2015

NoteWorthy Reads #10


From Pixabay.com


For week ending 4/18/15

For me, Noteworthy Reads are articles, websites, or blogposts I found this week which are fascinating, interesting and/or helpful, and occasionally “wacky” or “wonderful” will likely sneak in as well. It’s not going to be a “best of” post because I don’t have the knowledge to make that determination. I don’t even promise that the articles & blogposts will be written that week – just that I found them that week. At the end of each quarter I’ll review the posts to determine which entries should be put in my Resource pages; the rest will still be available through the blog's search function.

Note: Just because I list an article does not mean I endorse its contents. It just means I want to be able to find it easily in the future when I may want to consider the issue in more depth.


CANADA
Finding A Family Hero – An Obscure Canadian Database You Might Not Have Used But Should  from Ian Hadden’s Family History Blog – discusses and links to a searchable database of Canadian National Honors and Awards

DNA 

EDUCATION
Ancestry Academy Launched Today -  this post by the Genea-Musings blog explains the new launch better than the announcement Ancestry.com sent out, so I’ve chosen to share this one instead.

FUN



GREAT STORIES
Military Monday – Fred Goempel’s Story Part One, from Jennifer Holik‘s blog – a fascinating story. I’m good to have to tune in again next Monday and hope that she gives us part 2 because I want to know what happened next!

Luremia Combs (c 1740-c1820) and the revolution on her doorstep, 52 ancestors #67  from DNA-Explained blog– interesting story, both as to the family story and the story of how the author found it (including her own pictures of the area in which her ancestors lived).


HISTORY


INTERESTING ARTICLE

Changing Perceptions and Making Connections – One Map at a Time from the Indian Country Today Media Network – Article about the maker and making of the Tribal Nations Map

A Dozen Ancestors That Aren’t – aka – Bad NADs from dna-explained.com “Sooner or later, this happens to every genealogist.  You are “gifted” with an ancestor one way or another and either they turn out not to be your ancestor at all, or at least not by that surname! Then, you have to saw that branch off of your own tree!  Ouch!” -- Read the comments as well - informative  and lots of fun, too!


IRELAND


NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS
10 Great Online Newspaper Archives, from a UK perspective, from the Newsroom blog of the British Library 


TIPS
Genealogy 101: Bible Records from Colonial Roots Blog - an article on where to possibly find your family Bible records and to analyzing them on to find them.


Protect an Overlooked Genealogy Treasure from Legacy Family, Tree Legacy News – have you considered saving your family related email? [I will tell you that, after my brother died, I went looking for every email I had saved that he had sent me and I really wish that I had saved more.]

Genealogy: 150 Questions to Ask Family Members about Their Lives, from genealogybyBarry.com – a very good list of questions. May you have better luck than me in getting family to answer questions. I have had problems getting most of my family members to answer 10 questions. [My thanks to my father who answered about 500. Yes, I sent him 500 questions, LOL - that was more than a decade ago. I was quite young.] 

Keep Your Timelines Relative from the Genealogy Tip of the Day blog – I do timelines for each one of the ancestors I have written up as part of my preparation for writing, I had not considered doing one for each one in order to figure out what areas of their life need further research. I will now. 

Tuesday’s Tips – Using Timelines, from Are You My Cousin?  Blog – Video how-to and picture illustration of how to make a timeline for your ancestors. 

Tip: Finding Women in Military Records from Fold 3 HQ, the official blog of Fold3 



Skipping Page Two  from Begin with Craft blog – Don’t skip page two!


TOOLS  
  
Free Historical Book Collection Online Hits 200,000th Milestone – free virtual online library of rare historical books from all over the world.

Dayna’s Genealogy Toolkit from On Granny’s Trail – “my go-to links that are not record repositories, but rather are tools to help me find, interpret, and organize my research and records.”


USA
PENNSYLVANIA

Friday, April 17, 2015

Here Be Dragons!

Image from Pixabay.com


Or at least, Dragon NaturallySpeaking. ;-)

I’ll let you in on a little secret about me: while I can read really fast, I type really, really slow. I type so slowly that, after we got computers to do our own typing at work, it adversely affected my production to the extent that my employer bought me Dragon NaturallySpeaking so that I could talk to the computer and it would type what I said. I don’t know why it took me so long, especially given how long it was taking me to type up my ancestor profiles (you have to admit, I don’t tend to write short profiles), but this week I bought Dragon NaturallySpeaking for my home computer! And I have to say this newer version works a whole lot better than the version I use at work! This is written/typed with it.  I’m hoping that it will make writing posts quicker so I will have more time for other things (such as... more research, ... and some exercise - I need to lose weight).

Due to, well, life, I find that I must make some changes in my blog structure. I must become more flexible. I still intend to write a Noteworthy Reads post each week as I enjoy it and I read all that stuff anyway, and I still need to sort through what to add to my resource pages. But rather than committing to do one other post per week, I’m going to move more into the model I’ve seen some other bloggers do and only post when I have something to post, which will give me more time to actually research and write a decent post and to get other stuff done in my life at the same time (and sleep). [It’s turned into a more complex year than I’d anticipated.]

I may well still end up putting up a second post a week if I can find interesting newspapers and ephemera regarding my ancestors, but more likely it will be every other week.  I am working on another ancestor profile and I had hoped to have it up earlier this week, but that didn’t happen. At this point, I think that it will probably run next week, as I have a lot of blogs to read tomorrow. This one will be back to my Mom’s side of the family. Through him, I’ve learned about some portions of early 21st century history that I’d not known about before. It’s been quite interesting, and I hope that it will be as interesting for you after it's posted. 

Me using my Dragon!

Saturday, April 11, 2015

NoteWorthy Reads #9

Climbing My Family Tree: NoteWorthy Reads (Image from Pixabay.com)
Image from Pixabay.com


For me, Noteworthy Reads are articles, websites, or blog posts I found this week which are fascinating, interesting and/or helpful, and occasionally “wacky” or “wonderful” will likely sneak in as well. It’s not going to be a “best of” post because I don’t have the knowledge to make that determination. I don’t even promise that the articles & blog posts will be written that week – just that I found them that week. At the end of each quarter I’ll review the posts to determine which entries should be put in my Resource pages; the rest will still be available through the blog's search function.
Note: Just because I list an article does not mean I endorse its contents. It just means I want to be able to find it easily in the future when I may want to consider the issue in more depth.

For week-ending April 11, 2015

[Wow! I go off-line for a weekend and, geez, there are even more interesting / useful posts written than usual. I had a lot of catching up to do.  I finally left some to be looked at in the next week or this post would get way too long.  (I begin to feel sorry for the folks who follow me on Facebook as well as on the blog – I’m link-happy there too, although not that many have anything to do with genealogy there, so at least it’s not repeats.)]


CANADA



COPYRIGHT 


DNA
On the Ancestry.com “New Ancestor Discoveries” kerfluffle:
Testing Ancestor’s Amazing “New Ancestor” DNA Claim by the  DNA-Explained – Genetic Genealogy blog  (a very good DNA explanatory blog) – I’ve chosen to use this post as representative of the many posts I’ve seen on this subject recently as it's very clear and balanced, gives examples, and links to a selection of the other articles out there at the time at the bottom of the article. The blog has done a series of posts on the subject. They are all worth a read.
New Ancestor Discoveries: Clues (Not Proof) to your Past by the Ancestry.com blog – Ancestry.com’s response to the first round of blog posts on their new roll out.
Kenny, Kenny, Kenny… by the Diggin’ Up Graves blog – A response to the response (she didn’t take it well).



GERMANY 
The Living in The Past: A Family History blog has done a wonderful four-part series on Researching Genealogy in Germany; this will be a huge help! The posts are:




Archion in a Nutshell – German Protestant Parish Records Online  by the Ahnenfunde blog  – the article explains Archion, a new online source for digitized protestant German parish records: what it is, what it includes (& doesn’t), and how to use it.


GREAT STORIES 
Jucket to a Hawks: Finding Truth in Lore by the Family Sleuther blog - well-written, fascinating post, describing  the search to prove or disprove this bit of family lore




HISTORY
Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Quakers (and How Quakerism fits into the Temperance and Suffrage Movements by It’s A Beautiful Tree blog  – fascinating, especially as it's starting to look as though I might have Quaker roots (maybe)

Why Did People Wear Powdered Wigs? from Mental Floss  – quite interesting (& ick!)


170 Years of American History in One Amazing GIF, by FreedomFathers.com – VERY cool!


IMAGES/PICTURES
30,000 NYPD Crime Photographs Will Go Online from Hyperallergic.com – This could actually become quite an interesting resource if you have NYC ancestors or fairly recent NYC historical research to do.


INTERESTING ARTICLES 
Amateur Beats Gov’t at Digitizing Newspapers: Tom Tryniski’s Weird Wonderful Website  found at Reason.com – fascinating article & video on the creator of the Old Fulton Postcard site or Fultonhistory.com, which isn’t really about postcards, and isn’t really or only about Fulton county NY history. It is an absolutely fabulous historical newspaper site. I love it! (It made my post on Rosa Henn Strauss possible.) The video is only 5 minutes long. You’ve got 5 minutes. Watch it!


There’s More Than One Way to Skin A Cat found at Worldwide Genealogy – A Genealogical Collaboration  – there’s more than one way to do genealogical research

TIPS







TOOLS
Hot Tips on How to Use Google for Genealogy Searches by Genealogy In Time Magazine – long article, helpful explanations





WorldCat for Genealogy: 40 Million Records and Digital Gateway by Lisa Louise Cooke’s Genealogy Gems – I’ve already got a link (or maybe more than one) to WorldCat in my Resource Pages but a reminder of what it is and how helpful it is might be helpful to someone, and a good reminder to me to use it more.

Linkpendium: the Best Genealogy Link Site that You’re Not Using  by No Story Too Small Blog – “Linkpendium has more than 10 million links to locality and surname site.” She’s right. I wasn’t using it. I’d never heard of it. It looks wonderful!

Epidemics and Pandemics Chart by Your Roots Are Showing Dearie! blog – click through the link on the webpage to a helpful resource that might explain why your ancestor disappeared.

Google Scholar and ProQuest Team Up! by  Lisa Louise Cooke’s Genealogy Gems  - providing access to serious scholarly journal content


USA