October is Family History Month

It's Family History month and I plan on spending it trying to make sense of all this!

In previous posts and for my 2011 Genealogy Goal I told the story of Una/Viola and Mary/Martha, my grandmother and great-grandmother who were proving to be very elusive to me. When I set my ONE goal for the year, to find Mary, I felt that I was being a little lazy. I don't feel lazy about this any more.

I finally have some promising evidence that is pulling the pieces together and a family is starting to form. Actually, at this point I'm in information overload mode! I have 28 pages of probate records, from Illinois, including documents from two of the heirs contesting the will. The best part...the papers list the daughter's married names! I also have two sets of marriage registers, from Nebraska, that list the father and the mother with a maiden name. All of these pieces are allowing me to tie two generations together. I am waiting on additional documents before I feel comfortable enough to unveil my family, but I'm certain I have them.

This journey to find these women and their family has brought several points home for me. We get fixated on what we THINK we know and where we THINK a person should be based on one piece of information we have or one story we were told. That doesn't help and we need to keep an open mind:

• Families did move around, but seldom was it random and seldom was it solo. There was a reason, a person or a thing that motivated them.
• Just because a person was born in Ohio then married and died in Illinois doesn't mean she didn't live in Nebraska at some point in her life.
• If you find someone that fits your person, in every way, don't automatically dismiss them because you think they couldn't have possibly lived in California. Check it out further.
• Sometimes you have to eliminate families from the picture before you can move on.
• And most of all...you intuition knows more than you think it does!

I am looking forward to the month of October and discovering more of my family history, particularly on this line. Stay tuned, if the remaining documents I am waiting for confirm what I've found I will have Una/Viola Mary/Martha's story ready for the holidays.

Resources and Timelines in the Hunt for Martha/Mary

As I continue to spin my wheels while trying to find my Great Grandmother, Martha/Mary Evingham/Smith (this family line picked up and discarded names at will), my frustration level inches ever higher.  Once I received my Grandmother's (Una/Viola) death certificate listing her mother and father's names I thought for sure that was the break through I needed.  No, the brick wall is now another generation taller.

I added Martha and Joseph to my online tree at Ancestry and waited for the "shaking leaves" to appear.  That's how it happens on the commercials, right?  I am still waiting. Not one, single hint has appeared.  My searches are to no avail, my queries posted on message boards remained unanswered.  Time to go back to the drawing board.

I began listing the resources available to me.  Some I had already contacted using my Grandmother's name, but now that I have Martha/Mary and Joseph I need to revisit.  I also need to revisit the Genweb site for Livingston County, Illinois and, well, I actually need to revisit every source and/or website that I visited looking for Una/Viola.  This is the point where I realize just how important a research log is...I don't have one, so I really have no idea what sites/resources I did visit/review when looking for Una/Viola.  Take note budding genealogists, that is a lesson in what not to do!  Illinois will be my starting point as that is where Una was born, Nebraska and New Jersey will follow.

I started going through the images of documents and photos I have for this family and started asking myself "what is it I really know about them?".  I was struggling with the "big picture" and making sense of the Illinois, Nebraska, New Jersey maze.  A timeline came to mind as a tool to help me visualize the information I had.  I was hopeful that getting my information into the proper sequence would shed some light on where and when I needed to focus my research.

The timeline showed me I had documents and details for my grandfather, Joseph, a few details about Una/Viola, very little on Martha/Mary and nothing on great grandfather Joseph.  I will not let this deter me, I feel better having the information written down. My next step will be to add these timeline items to a digital timeline that will show me the current events at the time.  This might also be a good time to bring Google Earth into the picture.  Illinois, Nebraska and New Jersey are not right next door to each other and moving from one to another seems so random to me.  If I'm missing a significan clue, perhaps seeing that migration route will bring clarity to my search.

Now that I have a defined direction I feel much better, no more stumbling around.  Famous last words! :)

Mary AND Her Daughter Make Me Contrary

For 2011 my genealogy goal was to find my great grandmother Mary.  I detailed in a post the challenges I was facing in finding information about her.  I had hoped, with all my focus on this one task, that I was going to be making quick progress where I hadn't before.  What is that saying about the best laid plans?? :)

With expectations of finding more details on Mary, I requested her daughter's (Una/Viola) birth certificate from Illinois.  No birth certificate was found.  I reviewed Una/Viola's funeral book again slowly, but there is not any mention of a mother, Mary or any father.

Lucky for me, Una/Viola died in Missouri and our Secretary of State's Office has death certificates from 1910-1960 available online for free.  Una/Viola died in 1960, so I was actually very lucky!  After downloading the certificate I started extracting the information it contained.  The parents are listed as Joseph Evingham and Martha Smith.  This was the first reference I had found of her father's name, that information by itself was exciting.  However, Martha Smith?  Smith?  Really?  Is Mary a common nickname for Martha?  I didn't think so and this now creates more questions.  Is the Mary listed in the census records with Una/Viola really Martha and is it a coincidence that the man listed as a servant has the last name of Smith?

I am now off to see what I can find about Joseph Evingham and Martha Smith in Ohio and Illinois.  I will also continue to research Una/Viola in an attempt to find more references to her parents.  The quest continues!!

Getting Organized Genealogy Style Day 6

A task on Dear Myrtle's organization checklist includes scanning in all those photos tossed into a box. I have started on this item and have scanned 250 photos so far. After scanning, the goal is to name and organize the photos by family groups. That will be the most time consuming aspect of this task for sure!

During the scanning process (several hours so far) several questions have arisen. Why do Wyouida Emery and Howard Vanderman have such a strong resemblance to each other when she was an adopted sister? Why does Viola Vanderman's photo album, spanning many years, have photos of her adopted children and no photos of her natural children?

I have also begun to believe that all the photos I thought were of my grandmother may actually be of my great-grandmother also. I hope as I continue this process I find more photos with information on the back that may make things clearer.

I am including a photo I found just because it's a fun photo. There is no writing on the back, but I believe this photo is from the Emery or Evingham lines.