Finding Family for Free, Part XV

Efforts to research and record your family history will in most cases be more successful if part of the story is already published in books. These books may include individual biographies, brief biographical sketches in history books on various communities, memoirs and family genealogy books.

During the 1800s and early 1900s, many volumes of community history were published, and most contained biographical sketches of individual citizens.  Whether you find biosketchs about direct ancestors or about close relatives, you can find invaluable insights about your family members and their lives.  Remember, though, that published works can have errors, just a census records and other sources do.

One example of the biographical narrative published as part of a community history is the story of Isaac Sharp and his wife Mary (Woolverton) Sharp of McNarlins Run, Waynesburgh, Greene County, Pennsylvania. The biosketch offers a look at Isaac and Mary’s lives as well as their many children.

Unfortunately, it gives incorrect information about some of the daughters’ spouses. In particular, daughter Rebecca married David Conger, not Ephriam Corwin. See the clarification, based on Conger genealogy records and family letters.

Still, to learn that Isaac’s parents were Scotch-Irish, and that Isaac’s own career was as a teacher and surveyor, adds immensely to the family story.

Another book that helped me, although with a different branch of the family, was I Was Born in America: The Memoirs of William George Bruce. William was the oldest brother of one of my great-grandfathers. Thus the sections of the book about his parents and about his and his siblings’ childhoods in early day Milwaukee provide wonderful insights about my own ancestors.

To help me and others interested in this period of Milwaukee history, I created an index to this book of memoirs that mentions many well known people of Milwaukee in this era as well as family members.  A fine genealogy Web site for Milwaukee — Links to the Past/Milwaukee — has posted that memoirs index online.

Fortunately, twelve chapters of his memoirs were published in the 1930s in the Wisconsin Magazine of History, from the Wisconsin Historical Society. And today, WHS has digitized its magazine back issues and put them online. Thus, I can reread his descriptions  in Chapters I and II of growing up in the intensely German neighborhood just to the east of the Milwaukee River.  Or view again the photograph of his parents, Augustus F. Bruce and Apollonia Becker Bruce, and read a bit of their story. All twelve chapters are listed on the William George Bruce Web page that I created.

You can use the WorldCat or world library catalogue to search for books about your family lines, and then you can use the free or low cost Interlibrary Loan Service to bring the volume to you for reading.  Don’t miss this great method for finding family for free.

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research ideas to help you find your family and ancestors for modest or no cost.

Finding Family for Free, Part XIV

If your ancestors attended a college or university, you may find information about their lives in a source seldom mentioned in genealogy books:  class notes.

Almost every colleage and university publishes brief notes about the lives and careers of their graduates, submitted by the graduates themselves. Topics typically include engagements, weddings, births of children, new jobs and promotions, moves to new locations, awards and, finally, obituaries.

These notes are printed in college and university magazines or newsletters.  Some have indexed their older classnotes. Some remarkably have put these older records online.  One of the finest resources is the University of Wisconsin Library’s digital collection online, including its historic yearbooks and alumni newsletters.

The usefulness of this resource can be seen in several examples.

– In May 1911, the Wisconsin Alumni magazine ran an engagement announcement for Marie Grace Miller and Frank Joseph Petura, both 1904 graduates. Her father’s name, the careers pursued by Marie and Frank, and the month of the wedding are included. What a genealogical gem!

– In 1904, both Frank of Racine and Marie of Madison were included among the seniors with their individuals photographs, field of study, clubs and a quotation. What a remarkable way to see ancestors when they were young!

Many more class notes were published about them and Marie over the years, allowing family to understand more about their lives.

Another ancestor I am researching is William Henry Luehr, who graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1889.  He is in the Badger yearbook several times including when he was censor and historian of the Bildungsverein club and when he was elected in May 1888 to be a general editor of the Aegis, the student newspaper. He had many mentions in the Wisconsin Alumni magazine, such as when he was the principal at Manitowoc high school.

While not all universities and colleges have such a fine resource as that provided by the University of Wisconsin, they may have an index and may be willing to send copies of relevant class notes, if you send a stamped, addressed envelope. It is worth a try!

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research ideas to help you find your family and ancestors for modest or no cost.

Finding Family for Free, Part XIII

Part of the fascination of genealogy is solving the puzzles of who our ancestors were; what occupations they followed; where they were born, lived, and died; and who their offspring were.  If you send a steady stream of emails, letters, queries and requests for information, you’ll find new clues and answers arriving every so often, just enough to keep you motivated!

Consider this checklist of correspondence to do, even if you only write one letter or query a week:

COUSINS:  Write to every cousin and other relative you know, even if you’ve not been in touch for years. You never know who has a box of old family letters and pictures tucked away that they’ll copy and share. Or who will turn out to share the genealogy bug and so have worked out key parts of the family tree.

PEOPLE WHO POST:  People who post family tree and genealogy information at places such as RootsWeb.com or GenForums typically include an email address. If you find a posting with some of your family, write to the person who posted the information to see what else they know. They may have new research not yet online. 

One wonderful contact for me has been Ginni Morey, who has a very fine Web site for her own family and for her husband’s Morey family.  The site shows the family of George Bradley Morey that includes sibilings Eda Dell Morey, my great-grandmother, and Frederick Eugene Morey, Ginni’s husband’s ancestor.  Thanks to email, we’ve shared some research to the benefit of both.

Recently, I emailed two people who had posted information about the Luehr family.  Back came a digital copy of a wonderful photograph of my great-grandfather’s oldest brother and his wife from one person while the other sent a five-generation pedigree of our lineage of the Luehr family, starting with my ggg-grandparents in Dithmarschen, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Both picture and family history came by email, are family history treasures — and were free!

LOOK-UPs:  Find Web sites for the surnames you are researching or for the locations where your ancestors lived.  Check to see if any of them list people who do volunteer look-ups in books with histories and biographies, as well as census or local records.  Or try the well known genealogy look-up site, Random Acts of Kindness. Submit a look-up request.  These volunteers get many requests so the reply may take a long time. Try anyway.

QUERIES:  Posting your own queries is another step that should be part of your week-in, week-out correspondence strategy.  Genealogy forums and discussion lists for the surnames and locations of interest are good places to post. You may also want to join history and genealogy societies in relevant locations, and submit queries to appear in their newsletters.

SOCIETY ARCHIVES:  Speaking of history and genealogy societies, many have files and archives on families in their area. Visit their Web sites for procedures for asking about what they might have on your ancestors. Some allow a simple email request while others have forms to complete and mail with a modest fee.

This steady, methodical approach to genealogy research can protect you from being overwhelmed by thoughts about all the steps you need to take, while ensuring a steady flow of clues and information to help you solve your family puzzles.  Try it!

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research ideas to help you find your family and ancestors for modest or no cost.

Finding Family for Free, Part XII

Gathering multiple sources and documents for a single person or family is crucial if you intend to create a highly accurate family tree or family history. 

To acquire them, you likely will need to move from free resources available via the Internet to materials held by genealogical societies, state historical societies and libraries. And you will have to pay a fee for each copy and possibly for research time if you live too far away to visit in person. The fees typically are reasonable, and you will be rewarded with invaluable details that will confirm or clarify what you have found in free sources.

As noted at the end of the last post, obituaries would seem to be the very best source of details on an ancestor’s life. After all, it is the person’s life story summed up and published in one place. However, many obituaries were written by a surviving relative who knew many facts about the deceased but may not have recalled correctly specific dates and places, especially from early in the person’s life.

In Part II of Finding Family for Free, I discussed the many sources on the Web for educator William Henry Luehr, my great-grandfather.  I discovered enough online sources to be able to create a detailed Web page about him and about his family.  I have also written a 15+ page biography about him for the family.

To make sure I had as much accurate information as possible, I searched the Wisconsin Historical Society Name Index online and found that a biographical sketch and obituaries were available. I wrote for copies of them.

His university education was important to his career, so I wanted to be sure I had the correct details. Interestingly, his obituaries give his graduation from the University of Wisconsin Madison as 1887 while other sources gave 1889.  Fortunately, the biographical sketch published in 1912 in a Wisconsin educational history volume contained a precise outline of his education.  

It states:  “His early education was received in the county schools of New Holstein and the high school at Chilton. Later he spent two years at the Oshkosh State Normal and two and one-half years at the University of Wisconsin where he graduated in 1889 with the degree of Ph. B. In 1896 he took a graduate course in American history under Prof. F. J. Turner, and in economics and finance under Prof. R. T. Ely.”

The biographical sketch clarified his graduation date — and added insights on his love of learning and other aspects of his career.

Multiple sources are the key to creating accurate family trees and histories. They are also crucial for getting past brick walls in your research, a topic for a future post here at Relative Musings: Finding Family for Free.

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research ideas to help you find your family and ancestors for modest or no cost.

Finding Family for Free, Part XI

Obituaries can help you discover more about the life of an ancestor and can also fill in key family details such as a mother’s maiden name or a birthplace in Europe that you’ve been seeking. Once you have your basic research done and key family members charted, it’s time to hunt for obituaries.

If some of your ancestors lived in a small-to-medium-sized community served by a long-running newspaper, your search will likely be easier than in other situations. My greatest success so far has been in obtaining obituaries for ancestors who lived in New Holstein, Wisconsin.  The town was founded in 1848 by people from Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, and the community has a strong sense of pride in its history and people.

In fact, it was an obituary for Nicholas Boie, posted on a New Holstein genealogy Web site, that revealed my ggg-grandparents Nicholas and Cecilia Tonner Boie. Their oldest daughter Elise married the younger Ferdinand Hachez. I had known the Hachez name since childhood, but not the Boie name.

The New Holstein Public Library has a genealogy section on its Web page, and lists an “obituary index” among its holdings. Thanks to the helpful people at the library, I was able to obtain a list of obituaries of known family members — and also several in the “cluster” of in-laws worth reviewing.

Using Interlibrary Loan at my local library, I obtained the microfilms covering the relevant issues of the newspaper, the New Holstein Reporter.  When you find the obituary, print it out and, as soon as you can, transcribe it so it is easy to share.

Transcriptions that I have done have recently been added to the New Holstein genealogy Web site’s obituary section, where I’d found Nicholas Boie. 

Direct ancestors include:

Anna Margretha Groth Luehr, gg-grandmother

Clara Hachez Luehr, great-grandmother

William Henry Luehr, great-grandfather

Ferdinand E. Hachez, gg-grandfather

“Cluster” relatives include:

John August Hansen, who married Lena Boie, one of the younger sisters of Elise Boie Hachez.  This obituary provided details on Ferdinand Hachez’s business in New Holstein.

Mathilde Agnes “Tillie” Boie Sebelein, the youngest sister of Elise Boie Hachez.  While Elise (Mrs. Ferd. Hachez) is mentioned just once, the brief text provides a picture of the Boie siblings growing up on a farm south of town.

Just as with all documents, you must use care with the information in obituaries and seek corroboration from other records. See the note I provided at the end of the obituary for Ferdinand E. Hachez as a good example. If I had not viewed many census records and other documents, I would not have known that it was his ancestors who were born in Alsace Lorraine, not Ferdinand himself.

We’ll discuss obituaries again in the future. Good searching!

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research ideas to help you find your family and ancestors for modest or no cost.

Finding Ancestors: Resources & Index

Blogs are marvelous devices, but due to their behavior as a diary or log, the most recent posting is always on top or first on the home page. To read a series of postings on a related topic, you either have to read last to first or scroll down to begin.

To make it easier to use the Finding Family for Free series of postings here at Relative Musings, I’ve created an annotated index that runs more naturally, first to most recent. You can click on the above link to view it or you can always find it on this blog’s right navigation bar under the title Index to Free Genealogy Tools. It will open in a new window for ease of use.

I’ve created two other genealogy guides on separate Web pages. One lists and describes a good number of the finest genealogy resources on the Web today. The page makes useful starting point for learning about these research tools. This too is on the right navigation bar under Blogroll.

Finally, to help people with “brick wall” or dead end genealogy situations — including myself — I’ve created a brick wall genealogy page with links to a wealth of articles and examples of strategies for getting past the dead end. This too is on the right navigation bar, called Brick Wall Genealogy Solutions.

I hope these resources are useful for those seeking their ancestors!

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research ideas to help you find your family and ancestors for modest or no cost.

Finding Family for Free, Part X

City directories are an invaluable tool for learning more about your ancestors.  Some you will find transcribed and online, while others will be available at historical or genealogical societies. 

The role of city directories is especially important in filling the gap left by the loss of virtually all the 1890 Census records.  City directories at this period often included a person’s employment, work address and a second address, typically a residence.  That’s considerable detail for one brief record.

An early city directory for Milwaukee, Wisconsin, helped me discover quite a bit about my gg-grandfather Sherman A. Bradley soon after he arrived from Connecticut.  The relevant entry was on the page of B surnames in the 1857-1858 Milwaukee City Directory on the excellent volunteer Web site Links to the Past for Milwaukee.

The entry is terse but informative:  “BRADLEY: Sherman A.  Carpenter,  bds Mrs. Luscomb.”  Census records show that he was born in 1835, so now I knew he was 22 or 23 years old when he was working as a carpenter in the young but rapidly growing city on Lake Michigan.  And, because he was boarding with Mrs. Luscomb, it seems likely that he arrived in Milwaukee on his own.

To be thorough, I decided to look up Mrs. Luscomb to see if she had an entry. Sure enough, on the page of L surnames, I found:  ”LUSCOMBE:  Mrs.  Fourth, bt Cherry and Galena, W.”  At first I was simply pleased to know where Sherman was living, but suddenly I realized the address looked very familiar!

I had researched Benjamin Church, an early pioneer carpenter and builder in Milwaukee and my ggg-grandfather.  His famous Greek Revival home, built in 1843-1844, was rescued in the 1930s, moved to Estabrook Park and made a small history museum. [See my Wikipedia entry on the Benjamin Church House]. 

Just to make sure, I looked again for his listing on the page of C surnames in the city directory.  There it was: “CHURCH: B.  Builder, Fourth, bt Galena and Cherry, W.” Clearly the same neighborhood as the Luscombe home, a fact confirmed by census records that placed the Church and Luscombe homes next door to each other.

Why was this one of my favorite genealogical discoveries? Because I had found how Sherman A. Bradley had met Ann Marie “Hannah” Church, the oldest child of Benjamin and Permilia Church. On January 6, 1859, Sherman and Hannah were wed, a union that would extend our Bradley lineage when son Jesse Charles Bradley was born June 22, 1866.

Put city directories on your research list when you are seeking to fill in gaps in your family story.

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research ideas to help you find your family and ancestors for modest or no cost.

Finding Family for Free, Part IX

Genealogy and family history research are aided greatly by the generosity of volunteers. They know the importance to people of finding their ancestors.

These volunteers transcribe old documents such as census records, city directories and genealogy books. They develop and maintain Web sites, and find still more volunteers to contribute information. They own valuable books and documents and offer free look-ups.  They are the heroes and heroines of genealogy.

A remarkable network of volunteer genealogy Web sites is the USGenWeb Project which aims to have a useful — and free — genealogy site for every county in every state in the USA. From the home page, you can find the state sites, and at state sites you’ll find links to county sites and other helpful resources.

Let’s use Wisconsin as an example.  At the WIGenWeb Project site, you’ll find a brief description of Wisconsin history, a history timeline, a state map showing the counties and a link to the County List of county sites.  There is also a Wisconsin Archive of historic documents and a search engine for them.  In addition, there is a big page of Wisconsin resources.

But if you know your ancestors’ county, you’ll likely find the most useful information on the county site.  For example, I visited Calumet County where New Holstein is located. One-quarter of my ancestry has its roots in New Holstein and back to Holstein, Germany.  The Calumet County page is helpful, but the treasure trove for me was the Calumet County Genealogy Page.

For example, in searching for my Hachez ancestors, I found the obituary of Nicholas Boie that listed his many daughters and sons. Among them was Mrs. Ferd. Hachez. I now had the maiden name for my great-great-grandmother, unknown until then.

Then, in searching for Boie, Hachez and Luhr/Luehr ancestors, I found them all in the 1860 census transcription. There were Nicolaus Boie, Ferdinand Hachez [the elder], and John, Margaretha and Peter Luhr, later spelled Luehr.

Transcriptions from the New Holstein Cemetery provided more family details including for many of the Boie family members, including Nicholas Boie and his wife Cecilie Boie. The online cemetery plot owners listing  shows listings for Nic Boie, Ferdinand Hachey [Hachez] and John Luehr.

The 1893 New Holstein Patrons Directory had a business listing for Ferd. Hachez [the younger], and the transcribed newspaper clippings revealed that William Henry Luehr, son of John and Anna, was at the University of Wisconsin during 1888-1889.

Thanks to this excellent site, I found details that helped fill in the family story. In return, I have transcribed and donated the obituary for Anna Margretha Groth Luehr, another of my great-great-grandmothers, and will donate others soon.

Check out USGenWeb and consider the parallel WorldGenWeb for your own research.

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research ideas to help you find your family and ancestors for modest or no cost.

Find Family for Free, Part VIII

Connecting with others researching your surname or your geographical area can help you make discoveries that Internet search engines and databases cannot.  

Last time we discussed the Rootsweb.com mailing or discussion lists which send messages to your email box and are posted online in an archive.  Another service to consider is Genforum, a large collection of free online forums or discussion sites.  This service collects the posts online and you need to visit the forums to browse or search the postings.

Genforum, hosted by Genealogy.com, has several unique features.  The most noteworthy is that you can set up a My GenForum account free — and then add the forums you are interested in to your personalized site. The forums you choose are all listed at the left side, making it easy to find and review them again.

The categories for GenForums include surnames, U.S. states and counties within states, countries, and an array of special topics from immigration to genealogy software. You can search previous posts and add your own.

Does it work? Yes.

One of the most exciting finds early in my own family research was finding a January 23, 2001, query from Paul Church seeking information about Benjamin Church who came to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, about 1840 from New Paltz, New York.  Information previously obtained from my uncle told me that this Benjamin Church was my ggg-grandfather. Consequently, I immediately posted a reply.  Paul and I shared information and as a result I was able to find more about Benjamin’s family — Caleb and Hannah Baker Church — in Ulster County, New York.

Since then, I have created a Web page about Benjamin Church and his place in Milwaukee history. He arrived in the new town on November 15, 1835, some 13 years before Wisconsin became a state. He settled on the west side of the Milwaukee River in the village then called Kilbourntown.

He was as a pioneer carpenter and builder who erected a Greek Revival house for his family that today is a Milwaukee area museum.  The page  includes many links to Web pages about the house — called the Benjamin Church House or Kilbourntown House — which is today on the National Register of Historic Places.

I also wrote the Wikipedia entry about the Benjamin Church House, based on various published sources.

Thus, the Church Family Genealogy Forum helped me connect to my cousin Paul Church, discover details about Benjamin Church’s life in New York and Wisconsin, and share the results with family and online.  Give GenForum a try.

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research ideas to help you find your family and ancestors for modest or no cost.

Find Family for Free, Part VII

Rootsweb.com offers more than the handy search engine to its site discussed in Part VI.  Another of its popular services are mailing lists or email discussion lists for individuals with common family research interests.

Genealogy information on the Web continues to grow, much of it available through search tools. But there’s a wealth of family information held in private family records offline.  The mailing list approach can help you connect with people who may have just the pieces of family history that you need.

Rootsweb.com offers more than 30,000 mailing lists or email discussion lists. They are arranged in four categories:  surnames, U.S. states, international and other. With this number of lists, you have a good chance of finding several that are relevant to your research interests. You will be able to post queries and possibily connect with others researching your surname or ancestors.

For example, some of my ancestors are from northern Germany. By checking the list for Germany, I found that there is a list for Schleswig-Holstein, one of my specific ancestral home areas. I joined that list and have made some useful contacts.

Each list offers the opportunity to search or browse previous messages, on a year by year basis. The search and browse links are at the bottom of each list’s description and sign-up page.

The year-by-year search can be tedious, but a new archives search engine of the full archives for all lists, in beta status, in now available.  This is worth a try as others may have posted just the information you need. Or you’ll find new contacts.

Before signing up for email discussion lists or groups, you might want to set up a Web-based email address for use just for this purpose. Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft and others offer this handy service. You’ll keep your genealogy emails in one email box, and protect your personal email address.

In addition to posting queries, you can share information you have found to help others.  You likely want to join just a few lists at a time, to keep your email from overflowing — many of these are very active.  Good searching!

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research ideas to help you find your family and ancestors for modest or no cost.