Geneaology Thrill!

[snarlingcoyote]

So, a lot of times, ancestors don't have gravestones or the marker was made of wood and is gone, or the cemetery itself is completely gone.

Well, I was looking this morning at the death certificate of my g.g.grandmother who died in 1924. I always thought it gave the location of her burial, but not the name of the cemetery and I couldn't find her burial in any list of cemeteries in this parish (and the parish is supposedly 100% recorded, at least for the cemeteries in existence). But then I thought, what if that's not the PLACE but the NAME. . .hmm. Went and there it was. Pulled down at text copy of the people buried in that cemetery, listed by rows. I knew the location wasn't anywhere she'd lived on her own; I looked for sons first. No dice. So then I went and pulled up the last names of the men her daughters had married.

Hmmm. I found her youngest daughter's husband's family in that cemetery. On a whim, as she was married twice but her death certificate was in her maiden name, I ran a search on her first and middle name.

And there was someone with her first and middle name with her birth and death years buried right next to two children of her daughter's who had died in childhood.

But I had never heard of the last name. Strange. But maybe she'd remarried after husband #2 died? Hmmm. I went to the 1900 and to her main stomping grounds and did a search for her using the new last name; this was 15 years after DH #2 died. And there she was. Hunted through the family geneaologies for the husband and found someone who had her with the wrong birthdate, but the last name of DH #1. (Not a common name AT ALL.)

So, considering the low population density and the preponderance of evidence. . .I'm saying it's her. She had a child with husband #3 as well that no one has recorded elsewhere and one of her step g.nieces by DH#3 was the oldest living person for a few months in 2011!

Total, total win! I am sooooo excited to add this chapter to her life and to see if I can find out what happened to the child she had with DH #3. (He's not on anyone else's tree, as far as I've found thus far, and I can't find him on any other censuses or buried in DH #3's family's cemetery.) I still don't know anything about her family, buttttt. . .if you do geneaology, you probably understand why I'm so excited!

I love making these new connections and finding out the stories of people's lives!

 

[Buckalew11]

How cool!

I've only dabbled a bit and had good luck and it was like mining for gold and finding a small nugget!

I typed my grandfather's name into google once and it pulled up a bunch of names and one was a man who had died in AR (Pop-pop was from NC). I click on the link and there is this man's obit with photo and I kid you not, this man looked like he could be my Pop-pop's brother! It was shocking! Turns out they were 2nd cousins or something.

 

[cassiez76]

that's awesome!!

i keep and kept hitting blocks. the best was when i found out my grandmother was really on the census in 1920 or '30...they had her listed under her step fathers last name. that's helped, but not really!

i'm hoping to have time to search this summer...

 

[agnes!]

I have an ancestor who is my own personal brick-wall.. I know he was in the Pennsylvania Navy during the Rev. War....then he disappears from any records I can find until he married my gggg-grandmother in Western Pennsylvania in 1792. I know where he lived from then until his death in 1844 *but* no one knows where he was born, no one knows if he had any siblings, not one knows anything about his background.

My other brick-wall is one of my gggg-grandmother's siblings. I've figured out where three of them lived and were buried but her sister Elizabeth disappears from the records...I don't even know how many children she had and what happened to that branch of the family other than Elizabeth's husband reappears by himself (in the federal Census) back in the family's home county about 1840 or so.

agnes!

 

[snarlingcoyote]

Yeah, I hear ya'll. I've still got a ton of brick walls - for example, I still don't know this ancestress's background, only that she was born in Georgia in 1842 or 1844 and married when she was either 15 or 13 to a widower who was born in 1796 and they moved possibly first to Natchez, then to Natchitoches, then to the ward of Calcasieu parish that is now northen Beauregard parish (but several communities in that ward.)

My g.g.grandmother, another child bride - I can trace her family back 2 more generations, then nothing!

It's really frustrating because in many cases people moved to southwestern Louisiana to get away from their old lives, so they didn't leave a lot of clues. I resolved my biggest brick wall who changed his name after he murdered his BIL about a year and a half ago, mostly because his kids talked about it in family and an oral history was preserved that I used to tease out enough clues to find the "ahah" and now a copy of the court case from 1855 is sitting on my desk; but that still leaves a LOT of folks who are just blanks, who didn't talk about where they were from or why they're here.

Women are the hardest too, aren't they? At least a man had the same name his whole entire life (unless he intentionally changed it, which is a whole 'nother kettle of fish).

 

[hanutedmansionmomma]

congrats on the great find!!

I too am at brick walls with every line. I'm at the point where I need to get an in an RV and just travel to each town and sit with an old dusty box of records at each town hall and figure everything out. Something to look forward to at retirement! Wait...I want to work at wdw when I retire...decisions, decisions

 

[Geoff_M]

I love making these new connections and finding out the stories of people's lives!

That's great! I love the feeling when you make a find and "push back" things a generation or two.

I have one "wall" that's still bugging me. I've had great luck with all my lines.. except for my mom's dad's surname (also my middle name). I can go back no further than my gg-grandfather. All I have, from a marriage license transcription, is his father's first initial and last name and the name of his mother. They were from west-cental Ohio. All efforts to find a matching set of parents by those names in the region, or any record of my gg-grandfather as a child has been fruitless.

One "hole" I'd like to fill is the resting place of my ggg-grandfather (bearing the same surname as me) who died of illness in Savannah, GA at the end of Sherman's March. I know that there's a very large public cemetery there that contains a lot of Civil War dead (from both sides), but there's never been a full "reading" of the cemetery that I've found on-line. The cemetery's web site says that they are working on getting a full DB on-line, but the target roll-out date has passed.

 

[phorsenuf]

That's awesome! I'm banging my head on that wall now. Can't find any info on my gg grandfathers death. No record, no resting place, nothing. It's like he dropped off the face of the earth. Very frustrating!

 

[Feralpeg]

Way to go, OP! Finding that missing piece that lets you resume the hunt is always such a thrill! Carry on!

 

[agnes!]

Heh...maybe we should start a thread (or support group!) called "My Brick Wall". It might be fun to help other Brick Wallers out...

agnes!

 

[phorsenuf]

Heh...maybe we should start a thread (or support group!) called "My Brick Wall". It might be fun to help other Brick Wallers out...

agnes!

Not a bad idea actually. I'm sure we all have different resources that we use or different ways to search.

 

[lil mermaid]

Awesome! I know how great it is to finally break down one of those "brick walls." I have a couple of those too.

 

[lil mermaid]

Not a bad idea actually. I'm sure we all have different resources that we use or different ways to search.

That would be a great idea! Genealogy geeks unite!

 

[PrincessBelle39]

That is awesome. Its great to step over that wall. I've been working on my family tree for about 20+ years now on and off. I've recently discovered that King Edward I is my 21xGG Grandfather although there are still a couple of queries with it.
I have several brick walls though that frustrate me to no end. The one that bothers me the most is my great grandmother Priscilla Wolstenholme. She was born in 1886 in Clifton, Lancashire England and died in Memorial Hospital, Pawtucket, Rhode Island in May 1914. She travelled there with her husband - John and daughter - Norah (my grandmother) supposedly for an inheritance but died within a couple of years of arrival. Her obituary states that she was survived a husband, daughter and son. I would love to find a record of this so called son and what happened to him. He didn't travel back to the UK with my grandmother and her father shortly after.
I have access to the UK and Australian Ancestry websites if anyone wants a look up. Maybe I can help in someway.

 

[Snoozan]

My twin DSis would be soooo excited for you! She's the geneology freak in our family. A lesson she learned the hard way: If you think you found a living relative that might help with your family history, contact them sooner rather than later. My DSis found a living first cousin for our Mom, who never knew her father or any paternal relatives, but after waiting until after the holidays to contact her, discovered this woman died just days before Christmas - taking with her any info that might have given my Mom some info about that missing part of her life. So sad...

 

[tabby1881]

So, a lot of times, ancestors don't have gravestones or the marker was made of wood and is gone, or the cemetery itself is completely gone.

Well, I was looking this morning at the death certificate of my g.g.grandmother who died in 1924. I always thought it gave the location of her burial, but not the name of the cemetery and I couldn't find her burial in any list of cemeteries in this parish (and the parish is supposedly 100% recorded, at least for the cemeteries in existence). But then I thought, what if that's not the PLACE but the NAME. . .hmm. Went and there it was. Pulled down at text copy of the people buried in that cemetery, listed by rows. I knew the location wasn't anywhere she'd lived on her own; I looked for sons first. No dice. So then I went and pulled up the last names of the men her daughters had married.

Hmmm. I found her youngest daughter's husband's family in that cemetery. On a whim, as she was married twice but her death certificate was in her maiden name, I ran a search on her first and middle name.

And there was someone with her first and middle name with her birth and death years buried right next to two children of her daughter's who had died in childhood.

But I had never heard of the last name. Strange. But maybe she'd remarried after husband #2 died? Hmmm. I went to the 1900 and to her main stomping grounds and did a search for her using the new last name; this was 15 years after DH #2 died. And there she was. Hunted through the family geneaologies for the husband and found someone who had her with the wrong birthdate, but the last name of DH #1. (Not a common name AT ALL.)

So, considering the low population density and the preponderance of evidence. . .I'm saying it's her. She had a child with husband #3 as well that no one has recorded elsewhere and one of her step g.nieces by DH#3 was the oldest living person for a few months in 2011!

Total, total win! I am sooooo excited to add this chapter to her life and to see if I can find out what happened to the child she had with DH #3. (He's not on anyone else's tree, as far as I've found thus far, and I can't find him on any other censuses or buried in DH #3's family's cemetery.) I still don't know anything about her family, buttttt. . .if you do geneaology, you probably understand why I'm so excited!

I love making these new connections and finding out the stories of people's lives!

that's a great discovery! I get deep into my family genealogy every couple of years when new documents come online. It's not easy though. My ancestors were Irish Catholics that went from Ireland, to Liverpool and finally my parents came over here. Bit by bit, I do find lots of great information. I love doing research! Right now I'm trying to figure out a name that I found on the 1851 census for Liverpool. I believe that I've found my gg grandparents. The only thing is, I can't figure out what the woman's name is. To me it looks like "Oney" on the original census document. On the modern transcription of the census, they have "Oney" too. Her brother and sister are living at the same address. Their last name is Moloney. So, her maiden name might have been "Oney Moloney"! married name was Flanagan. Good luck with the rest of your research.