Wordless Wednesday- Fort Wayne

Saturday Challenge: Current Bucket List

Randy Seaver’s GeneaMusing last week was, for me, an ongoing question. Here is my answer that I finally got around to writing:

For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), I challenge you to: Knowing that a "Bucket List" is a wish list of things to do before death: 1) What is on your Genealogy Bucket List? What research locations do you want to visit? Are there genea-people that you want to meet and share with? What do you want to accomplish with your genealogy research? List a minimum of three items - more if you want!

Can I answer, anywhere and everywhere?!

I have many projects I want to work on and as I work on each, I discover more places that I want to explore and see if they have the information to solve this particular puzzle. Some of the places are new to me, but others I have been to once or multiple times before.

Last week I explored two different library’s local history departments. Both places I had been to before to work on other things.

First I visited Seymour Library in Auburn. On the day I visited I was working on two projects. The first was looking for some more information about a barn that burned in 1963. My brother, David, now owns the property and I was looking to determine when the fire was and what caused it. We had been surmising that it might have been a lightning strike as there are many lightning rods on the current barn. However, I found in an article that it was a fault in electrical fencing that started it. Also, one of the neighbors had thought it was in the 70s rather than fall of 1963 that I discovered.

The second project was research on the blog post I made last week of The Case of Lead Poisoning. I haven’t found any new information. But I did discover that the notation was not on the actual cemetery listing, but rather on cards in the local historian’s office that were used to create that list. Another place to visit!

In the near future, I would like to check out some locations in Cortland County. There I’d like to check probate records and see if there is any more information on the family in the historical society’s holdings. If what I suspect is true, I can trace my Ingalls family back at least one more generation, possibly more and find that they were in Cortland before Jefferson County. This is after doing some research last week at Flower Library in Watertown on the family.

I could easily create a list of many repositories near me that I would like to visit. Some are for the first time, while others are repeats. I have many ancestors as well as interesting collateral lines that lived and died in this area. With every visit, I tend to find a new tidbit or two about their lives that I hadn’t found before.

My husband and I also postponed two research trips this summer. These will be made soon. We want to go to Westchester County in downstate NY to research some of his family. Along with that, we may sneak in a little research in the Hudson Valley or western Connecticut where we both have families. Also, we’d like to get back to the Allen County Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. What would I research there? They have some information on New York State areas. However, the areas that are goldmines for me are books and records on many different mid-west areas covering multiple states. Obviously, I need to do an overall research plan of priority areas and questions to work on there!

My husband jokes that I have ancestors, either direct or collateral, in every county of New York State. I’m not sure, but there may be a county or two missing off that list. However, if you put me in any repository in this area with my computer database, I probably can find somebody to research and so will happily sit there searching! Of course, that is not mentioning the cemeteries, or people, or…

Saturday Challenge- Dear Santa

Randy Seaver's Genea-Musings Saturday Fun Challenge this week:

1) Write your Genea-Santa letter. Have you been a good genealogy girl or boy? What genealogy-oriented items are on your Christmas wish list? They could be family history items, technology items, or things that you want to pursue in your ancestral quest.

Dear Genea-Santa:

I’ve been a good girl this year. Well, at least I’ve tried to be good. I haven’t always succeeded, but when I fail, I’ve tried again. I think that counts, right?

I’ve tried to keep my genealogy research organized. Although a lot of it is still a mess, I’ve gotten it in better order and can find more things than I could last year.  I’ve even got a number of things scanned so that I can find them easily and all my scans backed-up in various places.

I attended the IGHR in Samford and completed my course on Legal and Government Records. I’ve also put this knowledge to use in doing some research and intend to do more next year. I also attended the New York State History Conference and went to various sessions to learn about new things. While attending these I saw and talked with many different people

I also did some on-site research and expanded my knowledge of Dennis Wooster’s family. We don’t know if my great-great grandfather, Barclay, ever visited his brother after he moved to Indiana, but I have gone to several of the places he was in that area.

Okay, so I didn’t do so well with the Professional Management Conference. That wasn’t my fault, really! I did attend one of the three days of the conference and networked with a few people before I got sick.  After I returned home I also purchased some of the sessions that I missed and listened to them. So, overall I don’t think I did so badly with that conference. And, Santa, later I found out it wasn’t because I didn’t drink enough water, but rather that I was allergic to a new medication. So, really you can’t blame me for being dehydrated and missing out on 2/3 of the conference.

So, since I did good with my genealogy overall this past year, won’t you send me a few Genea-presents this year? I won’t ask for much. I’m not going to ask for the restoration of the 1890 census, although that would be cool if you could tuck it in my stocking somehow! How about a DNA test kit, registration for New England Regional Conference and maybe a few little research trips? A day or two in Albany or even the Connecticut State library would be great, but whatever trips you can find tucked away on your sleigh will be made good use of here. Please Santa. I promise I’ll try to be good again next year!

The Collins Family

When I was in Indiana a few weeks ago, I did some research on a family. The family of Barton and Annahritte Collins. They are no relation to me, however I found their story interesting. They were the first settlers of the town of Jamestown in Steuben County, Indiana. The same county that Dennis Wooster, the brother of my great-great grandfather, had settled in many years later. Did they know each other? Anna certainly knew the Wooster’s, but Barton had died before they settled there.

These two families were near neighbors to each other. As often happens in rural communities, one of their grandsons did not go far when it was time to choose a bride. Their grandson, Stillman Collins married the oldest daughter of Dennis, Frances Wooster. And thus, the two families had a connection and is where my interest began.

While at the library in Angola, the county seat, I found some new information on the family. In amongst this was a picture of their home in Jamestown.

I looked at this picture and then I looked at it again. It looked familiar. I had seen this house before.

Earlier that morning, my husband and I had been driving around the Jamestown area. We visited the cemetery where the Wooster family is buried. Just down the road is a farm that I knew Stillman and Frances lived on. I knew it was the same farm his parents had lived at and was part of the property that his grandfather had originally filed for when he became the first settler. By comparing old property maps with contemporary maps, I had found where this farm was and had taken pictures of an older farmhouse on the property. I felt for sure, but had no proof, that this was the house that Stillman and Frances lived in and her parents had visited from time to time.

The house has, of course, been resided and remodeled. There is now a modern addition on the back of it as well. But it is definitely Stillman’s grandparents house and so, must be the house that they lived in! In fact the article that accompanied the early picture, mentions that the south room of the house was always referred to as Grandmother’s room, further indicating that this would have been Stillman’s parents home when his grandmother was elderly. George Collins was the oldest son of Barton and Anna and inherited the farm where Stillman grew up and took over from him.

Although certainly not a great breakthrough in research, by researching the collateral family I found the answer to my question. I knew I had stood in the driveway of my distant cousin’s home. I need to do further research as I have a feeling that if the owners had been home that morning, I would have met some more cousins. Distant, of course, but still, related to me.

Wordless Wednesday- Steuben County Indiana

Tombstone Tuesday- West Jamestown Cemetery

Wordless Wednesday- Allen County Public Library Fort Wayne

Carnegie Public Library, Angola, Indiana

Carnegie Public Library, Angola, Indiana

Address: 322 South Wayne Street, Angola, Indiana

Phone: (260) 665-3362

Website: http://www.cplsc.org/

 

Fountain in center of Library

Located in the small town of Angola in Steuben County, Indiana, the Carnegie Library is very easy to get to. In fact, it really is hardly a city in more than name with a population of less than 9,000 in 2010. Two blocks south of the center of town, there is a free parking lot located right at its door. Entering the library you are swept away by the modern, yet beautiful architecture. Half a flight up or a convenient elevator ride is the reference department. Half of the area is dedicated to local history. If you have relatives that spent time in Steuben County, you are likely to find them here.

Hours:

Mon.-Thurs.

9:00 am - 8:00 pm

Friday

9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Saturday

9:00 am - 3:00 pm

Photocopies cost 10 cents each and I was free to use the copier for any material I wanted to use. In fact, there were virtually no restrictions with this collection. The librarian was available at her desk in the corner of the room for any assistance you might wish and was very knowledgeable of the collection. There were many free handouts including maps of the area and standard genealogy forms.

For a library in a small rural community, there is an amazing collection here. Family files, cemetery and obituary records for numerous people. Although a good share of the community today seems to be of the resort type with a number of small lakes scattered all across it, people have taken the history of the people and families of this area seriously. It was originally a farming community and there is still evidence of this with many farms dotting the countryside amongst the seasonal cottages and more recent suburban housing developments.

The Collins homestead

Earlier yesterday morning, before we got to the library, we drove around exploring some of the countryside. Besides visiting once again the West Jamestown Cemetery, of which I’ve posted pictures here before, we looked for the farm property of Frances (Wooster) and Stillman Collins. Frances was the first cousin of my g-grandfather and her husband’s grandfather had been the first settler in the town of Jamestown. I took pictures of what I presumed to be the family homestead. Later in a history that I found in the library, I was able to confirm that it was the same house. What’s more from a 1970 plat book, I found that their daughter, Una Barry still owned the property then!

Wordless Wednesday: West Jamestown, Indiana

PERSI

Find My Past announced yesterday their monthly updates to PERSI. There are 92,647 images added with 20 new publications that cover New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Lancashire England, Ireland and more places! Of course, there was already a lot there as they state there are over 2.5 million entries. This is a resource that I go to periodically to find articles, but will be diving into a lot more over the next few weeks, as I get ready to head for Indiana.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with PERSI, that is the acronym for the PERiodical Source Index that originated many years ago at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It used to be available on HeritageQuest, but as of about three years ago is now available through Find My Past. The older listings are still available at HeritageQuest through 2009. However, all the listings including the latest are on Find My Past. Also, with the change to the new website provider, there are some articles that are available directly from the database. It is no longer just an index from which you need to find the journal in which the article is in to get a copy. From what I understand, as time goes on, there will be even more available through the scanned images on the servers.

How do you get to the articles once you find one you are interested in if it’s not already available on their site? Well, here are the directions from their website:

“Alternatively, you might find the periodical in a library or other research repository in your area. Try searching your local library’s online catalog. If the title does not appear there, search OCLC’s WorldCat.org. WorldCat is the largest bibliographic database in the world, and can generate a list of libraries local to you that own a particular item.
Finally, you can engage the research services of the Allen County Public Library’s Genealogy Center and order a copy of your periodical article. An “Article Request Form” can be completed at: http://genealogycenter.org/docs/default-source/resources/articlerequest.pdf?sfvrsn=2”

That second paragraph is why I always think of Allen County when I think of PERSI. When I was there three years ago, I had a list of many, many articles that I wanted to get copies of. Sure, I could look in my local library for these journals, or some of the libraries in the area just like that first paragraph mentions. However, I prepared that list knowing that in just a few days, I’d be on the road. The Genealogy Center has every journal available there that is indexed on PERSI. Why start looking to see which of several libraries or repositories might have the one I was interested in when I knew I’d be spending three days there and could just walk over to the shelf and grab the ones I was interested in. Convenience meant this was a fast and practical way to get these articles. What is more, there I can copy the articles if I wish, or insert a thumb-drive into the copier and get a digital copy! Less paper to carry home, less cost in paying for copies (digital is free!), and I don’t have to scan them later in order to add them to my files. A big win all the way around as far as I’m concerned.

This time while visiting the Genealogy Center I will probably be looking for less journal articles. I’ve already got a good many that I wanted from that previous trip. The fact that many are already available online means I’ll have less new ones to get. Also, I have a bit more Indiana and Michigan research that I want to concentrate on.

Upcoming Conferences

September is shaping up to be a very busy month for Remling Genealogy. There are two conferences coming up in September.  

The first is the New York State Family History Conference, which will take place September 15-17 in Liverpool. This is a 3-day conference concentrating on New York State and New York City research. The New York State Historians will be having their conference at the same place and time. Registrants for both conferences can attend sessions of the other one if they wish as well.

Registration is still open: http://www.nysfhc.org/registration.html

Allen County Public Library

The second conference is the Professional Management Conference (PMC), which will take place at the Allen County Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana on September 22-24. This conference is geared towards those that work in genealogy as a career. Mainly for those that work independently, there are also many sessions that are helpful to those that work in larger companies as well. This conference has the added advantage that it is taking place at one of the largest genealogical libraries in the United States.

Registration is open for the 2016 PMC, September 22 through 24, at https://www.apgen.org/conferences/index.html.

My husband and I have added to these conferences some research days as well. We’ll be leaving right after the New York State conference and spending some days exploring the northeastern part of Indiana and getting some extra time in at the Allen County Library. This is a return trip for us as we did some research in these areas three years ago.

Dennis K and Sarah Wooster gravestone

I am hoping to find out some more about Dennis Kennedy Wooster, the son of Jerusha Wooster that I mentioned yesterday. He left Central New York in 1869 and spent the rest of his life mostly in either Steuben County, Indiana or Branch County, Michigan. These counties sit either side of the state line and Steuben is the very northeast corner of Indiana. Dennis and much of his family are buried in the Jamestown Cemetery in Steuben County. Just out of site of the cemetery to the north is Interstate 80 and 90 cutting east-west across the country in Indiana, but with views of Michigan to the north. Considering that it is that close, you can certainly understand why some of the children were married across the state line, even though they barely left home to do so.

Find My Past Friday

In case you didn't realize, Find My Past lists their new databases every Friday and allows free access to certain databases over the weekend as a promotion of what they have. Here is today's announcement:

What has me particularly interested this weekend is the announcement of July updates to PERSI. That's the Periodical Source Index for those that aren't familiar with the acronym. It's a catalog of sorts for articles across many journals in the genealogical world. Originally kept by the Allen County Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana and available on HeritageQuest, Find My Past now takes on part of the job and has the most recent ones available on their website. There were 18,257 articles from 94 publications added during the July report alone! Some are available digitally on the site while others you need to go to a library to look at. Guess what library has all these periodicals available! Of course, Allen County.

Here is why I'm excited to be able to look into all the updates in the catalog.  If you're also headed to the Professional Management Conference in September, you already know that it is being held at the library in Fort Wayne. I need to dive into PERSI and see which articles I'm going to be rushing to get in between sessions.

Saturday Challenge of Names Part 2

This week's challenge from Randy Seaver's Genea-musings:

1)    My friend and colleague Linda Stufflebean posted Just For Fun – 4 X 6 = 24 FAMILY TREE QUESTIONS on her blog last week, and I thought we could answer half of the questions last week and half this week.

2)  Here are the last three questions:

*  Name four places on my ancestral home bucket list I’d like to visit:

1.     Stephentown, Rensselaer Co, New York

a.     I’ve been there before, but have more research I’d like to do on Reuben Tifft an his parents, Robert and Betsy.

I believe this is the burial spot of Robert Tifft

2.     Jamestown, Steuben Co, Indiana.

a.     I’m cheating a bit on this one as it’s a collateral line. However, I’m hoping by learning more about Dennis K. Wooster and his wife, Sarah Hammond, to figure out some things about his parents Leverett and Jerusha who are direct ancestors.

Dennis and Sarah's graves

3.     Afton, Union Co, Iowa.

a.     Dennis’ brother Barclay (my GG-Grandfather) and many in his family lived here.

4.     Sheldon, O’Brien Co, Iowa

a.     Barclay’s grandson, Marion- known to me simply as “Grandpa” and his brother, Dana were both born in this community.

 
*  What are the four most unusual surnames in your family tree?

This one is hard as many of my lines are rather common English names, so don’t seem all that unusual. However, three just by the sounds of the name and the last one, well…

1.     Chatfield

2.     DuColon

3.     Basford

4.     Ingalls

a.     Many probably think of Laura Ingalls Wilder. As far as I can find, we are not related. There is a 7^th cousin 4 times removed that shows up in the collateral lines—her husband Almanzo Wilder! That makes it seem unusual to me that it’s not the obvious connection.

Alice & Charles Ingalls, my g-grandfather and his second wife

*     Which four brick walls would you most like to smash through?

1.     When did Leverett Wooster above die and is he buried with Jerusha?

2.     What is Jerusha’s maiden name?

3.     When did Reuben Tifft die and where is he buried?

4.     Proof of  Leverett’s parents. (I think I have this one almost!)

Respecting Cemeteries

The weather is getting better and more and more spring-like. However, we are predicted to possibly get 3-6 inches of snow around Syracuse this weekend. I was hoping to get out and visit some cemeteries and catch up on photo requests. But now it looks as though that might need to be postponed.

If we can get out this weekend, however, let’s keep in mind in our enthusiasm to get to all the relatives stones, that there are others to be thought about as well.

Dennis Wooster in Jamestown, Indiana

It is a good thing if while we are taking our own photos we can fulfill some requests for others on Find A Grave. People have requested these photos for a number of reasons. Sometimes they are too far away to ever get to that cemetery or if they can, it will be a long time in the future. Others might be handicapped so that it is impossible for them to wander the cemetery looking for the stone that they want to see. Take a few extra minutes and see if you can find some of these and get the pictures.

While you are in the cemetery, be mindful where you walk as well. I was taught as a small child that you should not walk across a gravesite. It is like walking on top of the person. I’m not as mindful of this anymore as I should be, but I do try to walk along the edge and not across the center of the plot. It’s especially good not to in older cemeteries that might not have used vaults! Imagine stepping down and the dirt compressing down on the old burial creating a hole. Just another reason to be respectful and follow the old custom-- it could be for your own safety.

While there, I try to notice if graves around where I am need to be tidied up a bit. Has somebody’s flowers or a flag tipped over? If so, I like to put them back to rights. It not only makes it look nicer, but also shows respect for the deceased.

Jordan, NY Cemetery

Speaking of respect, I also try to avoid areas of a cemetery that have a funeral going on or where friends or relatives of the deceased are visiting the grave. Unless of course, if it was of a person I’m researching! Then I would use judgment of whether it would be a good time to approach the people or if they are too mournful to want anybody talking with them. I’ve actually never had this occur, but at times have been hopeful that somebody might be near the stones I’m researching.

There is one time that you should definitely avoid a cemetery. When one is on private land and you don’t know who owns it to ask for permission. I have seen some small family cemeteries that are now in the middle of a field that has crops in it. I know there is no way that farmer is going to give permission to go to that cemetery until after harvest! As disappointing as it may be, you need to make other arrangements to see the plots. If there is a pasture around it then an old joke may apply: “We don’t charge if you cross the field, but the bull does!”

Fields along Owasco Lake, NY

I heard a person complaining last week about people accessing a private family burial ground on their cousins’ land. Many people were damaging private property getting to it and they felt as though they were entitled to go there, as the people buried in this plot were somewhat public figures. I’m not mentioning the names for privacy reasons, but there were characters in a book or television show a number of years ago based on this family. If a well-known person is in a public cemetery, that is one thing, but in a case like this, please respect the family’s privacy and restrict your viewing to photos that may appear in books or online! One or two people walking across an area might not be a problem, but with many, even being very careful it soon becomes a big problem.