Goals for 2010

Wow, just realized that I never did define my genealogy goals for this year. And if I don't define them, I know myself, and I will be floundering all over the place! I searched the web for some ideas that sounded realistic for me and here is what I have come up with:

1) Take an on-line genealogy class-which I have never done. I just read about one in Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter that is being offered. I can take it for free (with no credits earned, of course). I think that would be the perfect start for me! It is an Archival Research Basics class. I'm excited!

2) Continue to work on problem areas in my RootsMagic database. As I wrote earlier, I have been working on the Problem List and want to get that completed. Then I think that I will begin to work on the Sources list and get it cleaned up somehow!

3) Blog more often about my genealogy efforts!

4) I want to focus more on pictures...I have begun putting some up on Picassa Web Albums for the family. I want to get more pictures scanned and organized this year.

5) Another tip for goals that I read was to choose one family to focus on this year. I am not sure who I want to choose for that, so will need to do some more thinking on that one. It is a good idea, however!

Please share what goals you have set for yourself for 2010 in your Genealogy endeavors...we can all help each other with ideas!

"Bear"

My brother Mike was born today in 1951 and died today in 2005. 

 My brother Mike was born on December 30th. He was 2 years younger than I. He died on his birthday at age 54. He was my second and last brother to die. My brother Bill had died 15 years before. Mike had knee surgery in June of 2005 and had developed a staph infection in his knee. He had 3 surgeries to try to clear up the infection. He died following the 3rd surgery. He came out of surgery alright, but sometime that night, his heart stopped and he died. 

 Mike was a small kid, always small for his age. However, as an adult, he put on lots of weight and was nicknamed "Bear", because he was so big and always had a beard and just kind of looked like a bear.

 Mike was the kind of kid who was never in trouble. He always did what he was told to do, never talked back, never got in trouble. It used to make me crazy because I was just the opposite and was always in trouble. But, boy, you couldn't make him do anything that he wasn't supposed to do. Perfect child at home and at school. He even started out that way...he was about 10# when he was born and would have to be woken up to eat. The perfect baby...never cried, just slept. I guess as he got a little older he began to make up for it. By the time I left for college, he had started drinking and had some "incidents" that were alcohol-related. He finally wasn't the perfect child, which was fine with me! Mike finished high school and tried junior college, but just wasn't interested in school. He loved cars and became a mechanic. He got involved in tractor pulls and had an old tractor that he competed with in the tractor pulls. Everyone knew "Bear" and he was well known for being someone who would do anything for anyone. He was a truly generous person, never talked badly about anyone, and had a great sense of humor.

Goals and hopes for 2010

I am going to spend the next couple of days working on goals for 2010 in several different areas of my life, but genealogy is probably the number 2 area, only preceded by wanting to work on health and wellness! I will post when I have finished determining my goals. Meanwhile, I would love to hear what goals others are setting for genealogy in 2010!

I printed out a Problem List (I use RootsMagic) that is 6.5 pages long! So that has been my project this week. I began from the end of the list and am working backwards. It is amazing what all can be found when you start to correct some of the errors in the database!

Advent Calendar-Christmas Shopping

As I wrote in an earlier post, one of most favorite memories of Christmas shopping are the years that my dear " Nanya" took me on the Rocket (train) from Peoria to Chicago to see the Christmas sights and do some shopping! Great fun! 

 I was so lucky to be the first grandchild! I was my grandparent's "angel on top of the tree". I don't remember my parents doing shopping, but I know that most of our presents were hidden at my grandparent's home, so we wouldn't find them! Which is exactly what I did when my kids were small, too!

 I have always gone on Christmas shopping trips. When my kids were young, I always went with either my mom or some girlfriends. Since my girls have grown, we have begun a girl's Christmas shopping weekend each year. After my son married, his wife, is part of our girl's weekend, too. We have a great time! For the last 2 years, we have shopped literally until we have dropped in St. Louis. It is great fun, with lots of laughter, talk, shopping and eating! We wouldn't miss it for anything!

 As far as my husband's shopping, he does some himself, but he also relies on our daughter, Maggie, to be his Christmas helper. She pretty much has free reign and he then reimburses her. Works out well for him and for me!

Can't find Lucina

Last night I searched the Illinois State Census (on Ancestry.com) for some of my Adamson ancestors, mostly in Richland County. I was hoping to find something that might help me solve a long-unsolved mystery of what became of my great-grandfather's sister, Lucina Adamson.

 In October of 1861 in Richland County Illinois, Lucina married John Dewhirst, who was from Clay County, Illinois. John then, at age 22, came down with typhoid and died in March of the following year, leaving Lucina as a 19 or 20-year-old widow. 

 What follows is a huge puzzle, that I have had no luck in solving. I checked the Illinois State Archives Marriage Database online and found a record showing that Lucina Dewhirst married Washington Lewis in October of 1863 in Clay County. I was thrilled to have found that, but quickly became aware that Washington Lewis had married Nancy Wattles on 4/6/1862 and Nancy is listed with him in the 1870 and 1880 census'. So it obviously was not this Washington Lewis whom Lucina married. I sent for a copy of the marriage record and, sure enough, it is clearly written on there "Washington Lewis", so it wasn't a transcription error. I have gone over and over census readings for Lucina Lewis in 1870, but no luck finding mine. So when I realized that I could check the 1865 census for Illinois, I was hopeful that perhaps this would give me some answer. Alas, no...still no luck. 

 So, Lucina still remains missing. The only other piece of information that I have is that she was not living in 1900 according to her mother's census information. I am guessing that she did marry, but that the groom's name was incorrect on the marriage record. Could that be? It wasn't a lost night, however. I did find census readings for other family members that helped add to their family information. 

 NOTE: January 2015-an update to this post. Lucina was found! See the post dated October 4, 2014!

Update

In my last blog, I wrote about finding a divorce mentioned in a census reading on my great-uncle. I sent for marriage records to see if he had been married before, and nope, his marriage to Helen was his first. So was the census reading wrong? Nope, but guess what...it was not him in the census that I read. It was another Fred with the same last name and same age, living in the same town.

I share this to remind all that 1) always check all sources, and 2) don't always trust census readings!

This week I have been doing some genealogy for a friend of my parents and so far have found 4 birth date sources:

Civil War records: b. 1840
1880 census: b. 1842
1900 census: b. June 1849
IGI record: b. 1842

That's quite a difference between 1840 to 1849. Right now I am going to go with the 1842 as date of birth. Though not impossible, he probably wasn't only 13 years old when he enlisted in the Civil War. I am hoping to find a death certificate that might have a more accurate date of birth, although that is a secondary source. He came from Sweden with an incredibly common name, so I don't know that I will get as far as trying for birth records!

Dilemma

Well, here is an interesting, and all-to-familiar dilemma...today as I was entering some information into my RootsMagic database, I noticed some information was missing. My dad's cousin, Barbara (who turned 80 this year), had written to me answering some questions that I had asked her about her family. As I entered the data, I realized that I had never checked/entered the census readings for her parents. They were married in May of 1920, so I first checked the 1920 census. Well, the census there was taken in January of 1920, so her father was listed alone, as a "roomer" in someone's home. What caught my attention, however, was that he was also listed as "divorced". What? I never heard that before? I called my dad...he had no knowledge of Barbara's father having been married before he married Barbara's mother.

Now the dilemma...do I ask Barbara about it? Does she know that her father had been married before he married her mother? It is a sticky subject, as I have learned from past experience. The last time this happened to me was when I learned that my mother-in-law's father had been married before he had married her mother (again, found in the 1920 census). When I asked my mother-in-law about it, she became terribly upset and said that her father had NEVER been married before, and that was the end of that. I learned at her funeral from her nephew, that her father had been married several times before he married her mother...so I don't know if she knew that and didn't want others to know, or if she truly did not know that he had been married before. I am often surprised at how upset some people will get when faced with facts that occurred 50 or even 100 years earlier.

Anyway, back to the immediate problem. When I talked to my dad, he did not think that Barbara would be upset if I asked her about her father being married before, so I wrote a letter to her asking what she knew.

Meanwhile, I have written a request to the county where her parents were married to request their marriage applications. That should have on it if he had married before or if it was a first marriage. It is only costing me $3 to solve this one!

3/11/2024-it turned out that it was not Barbara's father.