Hey fellow genealogists! Sorry for the long absence things have been kinda hectic around my house lately. Unfortunately my uncle lost his 3.5 year battle with colon cancer so we've been dealing with that and everything that comes with a death in the family; but I digress. So in my absence I haven't been able to spend as much time as I would like working on my genealogical quests, but I have come up with a few small things. Firstly I must say that attempting to hand search through hundreds of 1940 census records to find your family is exhausting. I have still yet to find everyone, but I'm making some headway. In my efforts to find all my living family members on the 1940 U.S. Census I have realized that I have a lot of those little hint leaves on my ancestry.com family tree (at last count about 340 total hints) and I must say it is driving me a bit bonkers. Hopefully when you hear from me next I will have been able to sort through some of those to eliminate them.
In other news, I have been attempting some more research on my 4th great-grandfather on my mother's side of the family. For those of you who may not remember I've written about him a few times; Familial Connections in a Strange Place & Finding Your Ancestry Isn't Always Easy. William R. Meek has been a bit of a mystery to my family as of yet and I'm really struggling to find out more about him with the records I have available to me. Now I know that he was injured at a battle in Georgia and died later of wounds he received there, his wife Rebecca remarried and her parents took in their only son William D. Meek. I've been searching for where the Meek(s) family came from and I'm still coming up blank and it is beyond frustrating. I was hoping that by finding William R. Meek's military records it would help lead me to his parents. Unfortunately, that was not the case but I did get some really interesting documentation to share with my family.
Through the National Archives I was able to order William R. Meek's Pension Records and Military Death Records. When they arrived it was like Christmas morning; I was so excited to dig into those records and see what they could tell me. The death records were fairly simple, mostly copies of casualty sheets and muster rolls all signed by commanding officers. The Pension Record envelope was a whole different story. While it didn't lead me to William R.'s parents; it did give me some insight into how things working in the 1960s after the Civil War. Most of the documents were depositions as to when William R. & Rebecca got married, doctors attesting to William D. being their child and all that good stuff. There were also papers in their about Rebecca's pension claim being denied because she had gotten remarried, and that William D. would get $8 a month until his was 16 years old. All in all unfortunately nothing helpful in the genealogical sense, but none the less exciting to look at.
Anyone have any suggestions as to what steps to take next? I'm stuck in Ohio in 1800 and I don't know who to get out!
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Sunday, May 6, 2012
writing letters & DNA
Hello all! Sorry for the gap in posts but I've been in the process of giving my room a bit of a face lift with some new paint and new furniture so needless to say my genealogy research had to be put on hold for a bit. I've been muscling through trying to find the 1940 census for everyone in my family and I hit a bit of a snag on one of my branches. My paternal grandfather's mother's family, the Opalinskis, have been a bit of a pain in my butt when it comes to research. My great grandmother's brother and sister have been very allusive and hard to find in any records due to their parents dying so young. I've been in touch with children from both of those families and have recently yielded some interesting information. Bob Ryan is my grandfather's cousin, and is the son of Lillian and Patrick Ryan; or so I thought. Upon trying to find him at 10 years old in the 1940 census I realized I have no 1930 census. When I tried to find the 1930 census and came up dry I wrote Bob a letter detailing all the information I was missing and asked him for some help.
What came back in the mail was pretty interesting. He told me that he was born in 1930, which I knew; and that his father's name was Robert Wallace Smith. On top of that he also informed me that his original name had been Robert Wallace Smith Jr. His parents Lillian & Robert divorced when he was very small and Lillian remarried Patrick Ryan in 1935. So now I have even more of a mystery on my hands. I'm going to be spending the rest of the morning looking for Lillian & Robert Wallace Smith in the 1930 census and then Lillian, Patrick & Bob in the 1940 census. Here's to hoping I find something!
On a side note, I have been watching the Ancestry.com webpage for information about their DNA program and I finally got an email from them about 2 days ago. They are offering this program to Ancestry.com subscribers for only $99. They'll send you a DNA kit where you just need saliva and then you send it back to them and they will help you trace your family roots. I'm not very good at explaining how the program works so if you want some more information check out their website. Ancestry DNA
Happy searching everyone!!
What came back in the mail was pretty interesting. He told me that he was born in 1930, which I knew; and that his father's name was Robert Wallace Smith. On top of that he also informed me that his original name had been Robert Wallace Smith Jr. His parents Lillian & Robert divorced when he was very small and Lillian remarried Patrick Ryan in 1935. So now I have even more of a mystery on my hands. I'm going to be spending the rest of the morning looking for Lillian & Robert Wallace Smith in the 1930 census and then Lillian, Patrick & Bob in the 1940 census. Here's to hoping I find something!
On a side note, I have been watching the Ancestry.com webpage for information about their DNA program and I finally got an email from them about 2 days ago. They are offering this program to Ancestry.com subscribers for only $99. They'll send you a DNA kit where you just need saliva and then you send it back to them and they will help you trace your family roots. I'm not very good at explaining how the program works so if you want some more information check out their website. Ancestry DNA
Happy searching everyone!!
Sunday, April 8, 2012
how to get started on your 1940 census adventure
Well it's been a few days since the 1940 census was officially released by the National Archives and I'm sure many of you are excited to get started. Now the thing about the census being newly released, is that it has yet to be indexed. Now what that means to you as a researcher is that you have two options; A, wait about 6 months until Ancestry.com, Myheritage.com and familysearch.org have indexed all the census records, or B, do the leg work and hard searching yourself. I will warn you that doing this research yourself is going to be a bit time consuming, but depending on what kind of information you have readily available about who you are looking for it might be a little easier than you think.
I opted to attempt to look for as many family members as possible on my own. Now keep in mind, I am doing research for all FOUR of my grandparents and their ancestral lines, so needless to say I've got a loooong road ahead of me when it comes to the 1940 census. I started off my going through each of my family tree binders and making a list of the people who should be alive and on the 1940 census. I then went through all those people and made note of their status on the 1930 census as well as an pertinent information on that census; i.e. enumeration district, city ward and address. I typed all this information up so that I could have it available and easy to read whenever I wanted to search for my family. One issue that I'm sure will be prevalent for most people is going to be whether or not you can read the census taker's handwriting, that is something you will just have to work with or decided to wait on that family till the records have been fully indexed.
As far as what site to start looking at I would suggest ancestry.com. They took longer to get their census records up, but I think you'll find that in comparing the same images from all three sites available that ancestry.com's are much cleared and easier to read. Ancestry also has a TON of links and things to help you with your search. To get yourself started I suggest this: Your Guide to Finding Ancestors in 1940 Census Images. It is a great step by step run through of ways to look for your family in the 1940 census. There are pictures and detailed information on places to look for more information. I also would suggest checking out this website, 1940 census general information. It has a list of all questions asked on the census, as well as a very easy to read, printable census form. I printed this so I can easily go through the census and see what I'm looking at.
I headed on over to ancestry.com and with the information I had on my great grandparents, Andrew and Elizabeth Panfil, I successfully found them on the 1940 census record. If you have them on the 1930 census I suggest looking in that same areas again for them. On the search page you can click on "already know the enumeration district from 1930?", it will prompt you to choose the State, then County & then district from the previous census. From there you just have to look at every image and try to find your family. Where I have hit a brick wall so far is that there are family members who were still too young to be out on their on in 1930, but now in 1940 there are no longer at home. I have no information as to where they might be that I know of, so unfortunately there I will probably be stuck waiting for the indexes to come out for cetrain people.
Happy hunting genealogy nerds!
I opted to attempt to look for as many family members as possible on my own. Now keep in mind, I am doing research for all FOUR of my grandparents and their ancestral lines, so needless to say I've got a loooong road ahead of me when it comes to the 1940 census. I started off my going through each of my family tree binders and making a list of the people who should be alive and on the 1940 census. I then went through all those people and made note of their status on the 1930 census as well as an pertinent information on that census; i.e. enumeration district, city ward and address. I typed all this information up so that I could have it available and easy to read whenever I wanted to search for my family. One issue that I'm sure will be prevalent for most people is going to be whether or not you can read the census taker's handwriting, that is something you will just have to work with or decided to wait on that family till the records have been fully indexed.
As far as what site to start looking at I would suggest ancestry.com. They took longer to get their census records up, but I think you'll find that in comparing the same images from all three sites available that ancestry.com's are much cleared and easier to read. Ancestry also has a TON of links and things to help you with your search. To get yourself started I suggest this: Your Guide to Finding Ancestors in 1940 Census Images. It is a great step by step run through of ways to look for your family in the 1940 census. There are pictures and detailed information on places to look for more information. I also would suggest checking out this website, 1940 census general information. It has a list of all questions asked on the census, as well as a very easy to read, printable census form. I printed this so I can easily go through the census and see what I'm looking at.
I headed on over to ancestry.com and with the information I had on my great grandparents, Andrew and Elizabeth Panfil, I successfully found them on the 1940 census record. If you have them on the 1930 census I suggest looking in that same areas again for them. On the search page you can click on "already know the enumeration district from 1930?", it will prompt you to choose the State, then County & then district from the previous census. From there you just have to look at every image and try to find your family. Where I have hit a brick wall so far is that there are family members who were still too young to be out on their on in 1930, but now in 1940 there are no longer at home. I have no information as to where they might be that I know of, so unfortunately there I will probably be stuck waiting for the indexes to come out for cetrain people.
Happy hunting genealogy nerds!
Friday, March 30, 2012
Familial connections in a strange place
For starters let me give you all some background information about myself. I grew up here in the Chicago suburbs & never in a millions years thought I'd leave Illinois to go to college. When that time actually came around I turned down schools in Illinois to pursue my dream of becoming a Forensic Chemist at Ohio University in Athens, OH. The campus was everything I could have ever pictured a college campus to be & strangely it felt like home. Little did I know that almost 3 years after leaving my beloved OU, I would find out why I felt so at home in the little town of Athens, Ohio.
This all started with the dream of being able to tell my maternal grandfather where his family came from. I knew so much about both my paternal grandparents and my maternal grandmother that I felt really bad we never were sure where the Meeks side of my family came from. Little did I know that I would be fighting and uphill battle to find my ancestors on my maternal grandfather's side of the family. Through the beauty of ancestry.com learned that my 3rd great grandfather was William Dalton & he was married to a Millie (Smith) Meeks, which led me to his father William R & his wife Rebecca. That is where I hit my first of many speed bumps. William R wasn't around for very long and I was at first confused as to where he could have gone. I then looked at the dates and realized that he disappeared during the Civil War. Some Google searches and lots of research later I discovered a family website belonging to a distant relative of who else? William R Meeks & his wife Rebecca! Lucky for me I had some other family members off of Ethel's branch who were just as interesting in our ancestry as I was.
On this website there was information pertaining to William R., the Civil War, and surprisingly enough; his parents. I learned William R joined the Union army in February of 1864 where he we in the Atlanta Campaign with none other than Major General William Tecumseh Sherman. Unfortunately he was wounded in Atlanta and died in Effingham in October of that same year. Now this family website listed William R.'s parents as a Ichanenstean and Mary Meeks. When I contacted the owner of the site she couldn't remember where she had gotten that information from, so the trail went cold.
Recently I tried to give it a go again at figuring out where William R Meeks and came from. I had an 1860 census from Effingham in which he was living with his wife Rebecca's family and it listed them as being born in Ohio. I knew where to start but narrowing down all the information I had was not going to be easy. I knew he was 25 in 1860 so he had to have been born about 1835 some time. I started looking for an 1850 census in Ohio with William on it with no luck. Then I cam across 3 Ohio census records from 1840 that had a William Meeks that was about the right age on every single one!! I was so confused and not even sure where to start. Then I got a bright idea. Lets look for that same family in the 1860 census and if William is still with them, then it's not my William. Well am I ever happy I did that because, I found him! I couldn't believe it. An enumerator of the census had typed in that his father's name was Johnathan & his mother's name was Mary. Upon further inspection it seemed pretty obvious to me that the census in fact said Ichanenstean not Johnathan, but maybe that was the "American" name for him?
I couldn't believe my luck. There he was, my 4th great grandfather in the 1850 census with his father & family. On top of all that, I couldn't even believe where in Ohio they were. Hocking County, which for those of you who don't know, is the county over from Athens (where I went to college). I did some more looking & found his parents and 4 siblings had actually came to Effingham with him and were there in the 1860 census. Now this census gave me some interesting information. I found out my 5th great grandparents, Ichanenstean & Mary, were bother born in Virginia. I also learned that William R. had NINE brothers and sisters. Next came the hardest step, finding an 1840 census. Those of you who are knew to this may not know but in 1840 when the census was enumerated they only listed the head of household. All other people, black or white, living in that household were tallied and placed into categories. Luckily since I had the 1850 census I could figure out who would have been on the 1840 and under what age/gender category they would have fallen.
I almost jumped out of my chair when I found it. I couldn't believe that all of my hard work was paying off. I didn't even stop to look at where in Ohio the census was from; just that I found a record for "I Meek" and that there were 9 other people living in the household that all fell under the right age categories. The next thing I looked for was to see if there were any black residents of the house, and to my great excitement, there were none. What I saw next really blew my mind. There it was, in the top corner of the census document, the County where my 5th great grandfather and his family was living in 1840. I couldn't believe my eyes . . . ATHENS! My family lived in ATHENS!! The county I called home for the greatest 4 years of my life was where my 4th great grandfather was born!
Unfortunately I have been unable to find anything back further than that, but just knowing that I have more than a collegiate connection to Athens is good enough for me at the moment.
This all started with the dream of being able to tell my maternal grandfather where his family came from. I knew so much about both my paternal grandparents and my maternal grandmother that I felt really bad we never were sure where the Meeks side of my family came from. Little did I know that I would be fighting and uphill battle to find my ancestors on my maternal grandfather's side of the family. Through the beauty of ancestry.com learned that my 3rd great grandfather was William Dalton & he was married to a Millie (Smith) Meeks, which led me to his father William R & his wife Rebecca. That is where I hit my first of many speed bumps. William R wasn't around for very long and I was at first confused as to where he could have gone. I then looked at the dates and realized that he disappeared during the Civil War. Some Google searches and lots of research later I discovered a family website belonging to a distant relative of who else? William R Meeks & his wife Rebecca! Lucky for me I had some other family members off of Ethel's branch who were just as interesting in our ancestry as I was.
On this website there was information pertaining to William R., the Civil War, and surprisingly enough; his parents. I learned William R joined the Union army in February of 1864 where he we in the Atlanta Campaign with none other than Major General William Tecumseh Sherman. Unfortunately he was wounded in Atlanta and died in Effingham in October of that same year. Now this family website listed William R.'s parents as a Ichanenstean and Mary Meeks. When I contacted the owner of the site she couldn't remember where she had gotten that information from, so the trail went cold.
Recently I tried to give it a go again at figuring out where William R Meeks and came from. I had an 1860 census from Effingham in which he was living with his wife Rebecca's family and it listed them as being born in Ohio. I knew where to start but narrowing down all the information I had was not going to be easy. I knew he was 25 in 1860 so he had to have been born about 1835 some time. I started looking for an 1850 census in Ohio with William on it with no luck. Then I cam across 3 Ohio census records from 1840 that had a William Meeks that was about the right age on every single one!! I was so confused and not even sure where to start. Then I got a bright idea. Lets look for that same family in the 1860 census and if William is still with them, then it's not my William. Well am I ever happy I did that because, I found him! I couldn't believe it. An enumerator of the census had typed in that his father's name was Johnathan & his mother's name was Mary. Upon further inspection it seemed pretty obvious to me that the census in fact said Ichanenstean not Johnathan, but maybe that was the "American" name for him?
I couldn't believe my luck. There he was, my 4th great grandfather in the 1850 census with his father & family. On top of all that, I couldn't even believe where in Ohio they were. Hocking County, which for those of you who don't know, is the county over from Athens (where I went to college). I did some more looking & found his parents and 4 siblings had actually came to Effingham with him and were there in the 1860 census. Now this census gave me some interesting information. I found out my 5th great grandparents, Ichanenstean & Mary, were bother born in Virginia. I also learned that William R. had NINE brothers and sisters. Next came the hardest step, finding an 1840 census. Those of you who are knew to this may not know but in 1840 when the census was enumerated they only listed the head of household. All other people, black or white, living in that household were tallied and placed into categories. Luckily since I had the 1850 census I could figure out who would have been on the 1840 and under what age/gender category they would have fallen.
I almost jumped out of my chair when I found it. I couldn't believe that all of my hard work was paying off. I didn't even stop to look at where in Ohio the census was from; just that I found a record for "I Meek" and that there were 9 other people living in the household that all fell under the right age categories. The next thing I looked for was to see if there were any black residents of the house, and to my great excitement, there were none. What I saw next really blew my mind. There it was, in the top corner of the census document, the County where my 5th great grandfather and his family was living in 1840. I couldn't believe my eyes . . . ATHENS! My family lived in ATHENS!! The county I called home for the greatest 4 years of my life was where my 4th great grandfather was born!
Unfortunately I have been unable to find anything back further than that, but just knowing that I have more than a collegiate connection to Athens is good enough for me at the moment.
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