Saturday, November 30, 2013

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Random Research!



Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Do Some Semi-Random Research
It's Saturday Night - 
time for more Genealogy Fun! 



Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to:

1) We're going to do a little bit of Semi-Random Research tonight...


2)  Go to your family tree database of choice (you know, like RootsMagic, Reunion, Ancestry Member Tree), and determine who the very last person on your list of B names is.  Or the last person on your list of D names.  Or H names.  Or any other name you need to research.  Your choice!


3)  What do you know (or not know) about this person based on your research?  It's OK to do more research if you need to - in fact, it's encouraged!


4)  How are you related to this person, and why is s/he in your family tree?


5)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook Status post or Google+ Stream post.

Here's mine:

1)      Okay, sounds like random fun!
2)      I’m using myHeritage Family Tree Builder for this, as I’m more familiar with it than either Legacy or RootsMagic.  My last “B” name was William Evelyn Byrd, but he died in 1704 and came from England, for which I don’t have many readily available resources at the moment.  So I moved up one, and chose Washington Byrd, my 1st cousin three times removed.
3)      I don’t know much about him, just that he was born circa 1850 in Indiana.  Since my ancestry is all from the Crawford County area in southern Indiana, I’ve a hunch he was also from that area.  Washington was the son of Bryant Cole Bird and Mary (Straughan) Byrd.  I don’t even have a source cited for this little information!  I have my work cut out for me.
a.       Washington Byrd shows up in the 1860 US Census for Indiana, right where I expected to find him in Sterling Township, Crawford County, Indiana.  And now I have my first citation for Washington!
b.      I found another MyHeritage Family Tree that claims his name is George Washington Byrd.  That’s not unreasonable, to name a child after our founding fathers.  I will wait until I have better documentation to make a change, as the 1860 census did not show that name.
c.       I found several newspaper entries about Washington Byrd, a Democrat from Virginia in the mid-1950’s.  Obviously not my Washington Byrd.
d.      I found a MyHeritage Family Tree using the BIRD spelling, but otherwise the same family.  It is similarly sparse on details for Washington.
e.      As part of my research, I found that Washington’s father Bryant ole Bird had an erroneous death date of 1843 – before Washington’s birth by several years!  I was able to locate US Census records showing Bryant lived until after 1880, and some MyHeritage Family Trees that show Bryant’s death in 1886 in Grantsburg, Crawford County, Indiana.
f.        I was unable to find any further US Census records for Washington Byrd.  Did he die before 1870?  1880?  Time to search some other records.
g.       Find-A-Grave came up empty.
h.      I found an undocumented Ancestral File on FamilySearch that claims a birthdate of 1849 and a marriage on 15 Nov 1878 to Fetina J McMahel in Crawford County, Indiana. This file uses the BIRD spelling, but has the correct parents.  I also found the 1860 US Census entry on FamilySearch, but found no other records for Washington.
i.         MyTrees.com returned two hits for Washington Byrd, but kept throwing up errors and not letting me see the entries.  This was from within Legacy 8.
4)      As mentioned, Washington Byrd was my 1st cousin, three times removed.  (Doesn’t three removes equal one fire?)
5)     Here’s my results!  Did you play along?  What did you find?
 

My Thanks to Randy Seaver of GeaneaMusings for the weekly prompt.  This one I enjoyed rather a lot!


This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2013 by Daniel G. Dillman

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Wordless Wednesday - New Fangled Icebox

Scanned from original negative, ca. 1942 in Huron, Beadle Co., SD



This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2013 by Daniel G. Dillman

On This Day - November 27th

On This Day...



1659 - Death: Mary Dresser, Rowley, Essex County, Massachusetts
1711 - Birth: Thomas Morgan,
1736 - Death: John Copeland,
1801 - Death: William Fenstermacher, Heidelberg, Northampton County, Pennsylvania
1822 - Marriage: Enoch Abell and Nancy Wiseman, Crawford County, Indiana
1825 - Birth: Harvey H. Denbo, Palmyra, Harrison Co, IN
1859 - Death: Cordelia Beaudreau, Fond du Lac, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin
1885 - Birth: Rose Rosenia Thurston, Portage County, Wisconsin
1888 - Birth: Mabel True Cox, Schoonerpoint, Crawford County, Indiana
1893 - Death: John Landiss, English, Crawford County, Indiana
1904 - Birth: Arthur Thurston Beaudreau, Belgrove, Kootenai County, Idaho
1923 - Birth: James C. Austin, Missouri
1934 - Death: John Lorenz Fuerstenberg, Saint Wendel, Stearns County, Minnesota
1962 - Death: Alfred Lee McMurry, Jackson Parish Hospital, Jonesboro, Jackson Parish, Louisiana
2007 - Death: Larry Lee Dillman, Fort Wayne, Allen, Indiana, United States of America

And with this entry, I have now completed a full year of On This Day.  I've done this in the hopes that someone searching for any of these names will find the posts and contact me either for more information, or to share what they have (or both!).  To you who read this blog daily, I thank you for putting up with what are usually dry, boring lists of names and dates, the exact things that so many people say are the reason they hated History classes.

Side note: There will be one more post in this series, coming on February 29th, 2016.  I did make a post for it on Feb. 28th of last year, but I also wanted it to post on a Feb. 29th.

Now I need to start writing more regular posts! 



This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2013 by Daniel G. Dillman

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

On This Day - November 26th

On This Day...



1754 - Birth: Elizabeth Smith, Granby, Hampshire County, Massachusetts
1794 - Birth: Rhoda Day, Sheffield, Lorain County, Ohio
1801 - Alternate Death: William Darke, Virginia
1812 - Birth: Matilda Austin, Sheffield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts
1824 - Birth: Mary Henderson (Polly) Landiss, Crawford County, Indiana
1838 - Birth: John Wesley Belcher,
1868 - Birth: Francis Neoma Branch, Winn Parrish, LA
1871 - Birth: Bert Mederick Beaudreau, Cottonwood Falls, Kansas
1889 - Death: Robert Scott, Marengo, Crawford County, Indiana
1899 - Birth: Henry Middendorf, Stearns County, Minnesota
1902 - Birth: Herbert Otto Watry, North Ottawa Township, Grant County, Minnesota
1919 - Birth: Viola Rose Theisen, Fairhaven Township, Stearns County, Minnesota
1959 - Marriage: Vernon Joseph Theisen and Carol Ann Meyer, Stearns, Minnesota
1966 - Marriage: LeVern Kotschevar and Dorothy Vivian Orcutt, Saint Cloud, Stearns County, Minnesota
1989 - Burial: Malcolm Henry Steichen, St. Boniface Cemetery, Cold Spring, Stearns County, Minnesota

 And very happy birthdays to my brothers-in-law, Paul and Gary!



This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2013 by Daniel G. Dillman

Monday, November 25, 2013

On This Day - November 25th

On This Day...



1632 - Birth: Phillip Smith, Ipswich, Suffolk, England
1784 - Birth: Anne Margaret Steichen, Kehlen, Capellen, Luxembourg
1796 - Death: Anna Maria Zwilling, Wallenborn, Eifel, Germany
1799 - Birth: Charles Wells, Huntington, Connecticut
1818 - Death: Gertrude Pomer, Niederingelheim, Germany
1819 - Birth: Anna Catharina Hoffmann, Herschbach, Koblenz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Prussia
1860 - Death: James Booker, East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana
1893 - Birth: Walter Prettyman Holley,
1894 - Death: Herman Anton Holthaus,
1970 - Death: Aldia Almira Alda Erskins, Winnfield, Winn Parish, Louisiana

 



This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2013 by Daniel G. Dillman

Sunday, November 24, 2013

On This Day - November 24th

On This Day...



1583 - Christen: Nicholas Olmstead, Great Leighs, Essex, England
1664 - Marriage: Samuel Kellogg and Sarah Day, Hartford, Hartford County, Connecticut
1679 - Birth: Mary Foote, Wethersfield, Hartford County, Connecticut
1737 - Marriage: Dominic Steichen and Elisabeth Theisen, Kehlen, Capellen, Luxembourg
1795 - Death: Rhoda Day, Sheffield, Lorain County, Ohio
1801 - Death: William Darke, Berkeley County, Virginia
1810 - Birth: Francis B Abell, Nelson County, Kentucky
1830 - Birth: Robert Leveret Crain, Madison County, Tennessee
1846 - Birth: Jesse F. Belcher,
1850 - Marriage: Nathaniel Straughan and Naomi Bowman, Crawford, Indiana, USA
1872 - Alternate Birth: Howell Kirk Williams, Clinton, East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana
1873 - Birth: Emma Luellen Beaudreau, Fond du Lac, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin
1881 - Marriage: Joseph B. Thurston and Eunice Elizabeth Wakeman,
1897 - Marriage: Stephen Rossin Eldridge Dillman and Celia Anna Blythe, Mount Carmel, Wabash County, Illinois
1903 - Birth: Russell Elwood Dillman, Crawford County, Indiana
1911 - Birth: Johanna Margeruite Lommel, Stearns County, Minnesota
1925 - Marriage: Victor William Hengel and Wilhelmine C. Lommel,
1965 - Death: Victor William Hengel, Saint Cloud, Stearns County, Minnesota

 



This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2013 by Daniel G. Dillman