I'm feeling SO blessed

Some many things have started to come together this week and I am feeling overwhelmed with gratitude. 

I have made contact with a fellow genealogist who is breaking down walls and filling in holes for me on a line that has long been my "problem child".  I am so grateful that she is willing to share her information, scan her documents and pictures and email them to me.  I am so grateful that we have made contact and that the Spirit of Elijah is touching both of us.

Yesterday morning (at 5:30am to be precise) I was able to go to the temple with a group from my ward to do baptisms for the dead.  We were on the road before the sun came up and it was just beginning to shine as we entered the temple.  With my recent research I have been able to fill in some holes and had prepared names to take to the temple.  (If you have new.familysearch.org active in your area look at it, use it, it is an amazing tool to see what work has been done for your ancestors and what work still needs to be done.  It makes it so simple to then take their names to the temple.)  I chose to do the work for my great aunt and saved the other cards to take to Utah so that my family can share in the blessing of doing the work.  As I was doing the work for my great aunt and names for a friend in the ward the sun started to shine through the stained glass windows into the baptistry.  ...  The Spirit of temple work is so real!  The Spirit of Elijah is real and guides us and urges us as we search out our ancestors.

Things are starting to work out for where we will be after graduation.  I still don't have details but things are beginning to solidfy amid the haze that is currently our future.  Hopefully we will know in the near future.  

I am grateful for a Heavenly Father who is mindful of me, who loves me, who knows my future and has a plan for me, who gives me strength inspite my complaining.  I really am so blessed.

Goodness... Time has flown

It's been in the back of my head for a while now that I need to update by personal blog but I didn't realize that I haven't written since the 10th. Goodness, what have I been up to?

Thats a good question and the answer is nothing much. If you follow me on facebook you probably know that I really hurt my back (probably a herniated disk) and was in a world of pain for a couple weeks. It pretty much knocked me out and everything was back burnered. I'm finally feeling a lot better now, though not quite back to normal yet.

The boys have been troopers keeping themselves occupied and making a disaster of the house, which I have finally caught back up on. Elijah started preschool yesterday and gets to go four days a week this year. He is super excited to be back and see his friends from last year and make new ones. The challenge is that Sam is DYING to go to school too and melts every time we have to drop off Elijah. I hope he gets over that soon or its going to be a L-O-N-G year.

Still no word about jobs for Josh. He has contacted a dozen or so groups doing quantum computing and has gotten a few maybes back but nothing solid. AHHHH! I'm going a bit nuts! I want something, anything, anywhere (within the US), and I want to know yesterday. It has been a true test of my patience and faith. I know things will work themselves out but I'm having a hard time with the timing. Deep breath... things will work out. Meanwhile Josh is steadily working on his dissertation and he will be graduating in December (Hallelujah!). We just don't know where we will be after that. :)

I've been keeping myself busy with crochet projects, family history and long distance wedding planning. I've actually made contact with some distant cousins working on the same line (all three of us)! I am very excited to collaborate with them. I'm hoping to break through on the Daniel and Daniels lines soon. I've also been posting pictures and information from my trip to my grandma's on my family history blog.

Well, I think that catches us up. I have a few pictures on the camera to upload, but that will have to be later. Sam is craving some attention.

Have a happy day!

Where have I Been? Finding Buried Treasure!

Well, pretty much everywhere. This month I've been to the Denver airport four times and drove across state lines twice. I was living out of a suitcase for three weeks and home long enough to do laundry and then fill it again. It's been a crazy month of travel and time away from my hubby but I really had a good time (other than the away from hubby part but it has been a lot of fun to be with him again, distance does make the heart grow fonder even after 6 years of marriage).

So what's happened since my last post? Goodness... where do I begin?

I FINALLY, after 5 years of talking about it and trying to figure it out, made it to Minnesota to visit my Grandma and my Aunt and her family. It was long overdue and I am so grateful that it worked out that I could go. It was a very worthwhile trip. It was so good to see my grandma and to be her guest and get the royal treatment (which ment being offered hostess cakes and pop every couple of hours). My grandma is a sweet, kind and self-sacrificing woman. She will be 84 on her birthday next month. It was also wonderful to see my aunt and uncle who I haven't seen since my wedding and my cousins who I haven't seen in just about as long or longer. My aunt and I stayed up too late most nights just talking.


I went out there with a goal to take note of and steps to preserve the family heirlooms, photos, and documents in my grandma's hands. It turned out to be a bit more work than I thought it would be. It was literally buried. I went through just about every nook and cranny of her basement apartment, 27 years worth of stuff, looking for family photos and turning up all sorts of interesting things (along with a lot of garbage like bank statements from the 80's). In the end it was very rewarding. I was able to pull together a lot of her original photos some from the mid 1800's, as well as funeral cards, obituaries, my grandpa's honorable discarge, marriage certificates and notices, birth records, and much more. A GOLD MINE! I then set to work to scan it all and then put it in a binder so it will all be in one place. My goal is to share the stuff I found on my family history blog in the months to come. It's going to take me awhile, I came away with about 600 images between scans and photos I took of heirlooms that my aunt and grandma have as well as a stack of old family group sheets to go through. I was also able to take along a digital recorder and record some of our conversations.

In addition to family history items I found a stash of personal history items for myself. My grandma had a lot of my family photos that my mother doesn't have copies of (including ones of my brother Daniel) as well as original art work from when I was 2 years old on up.


If any of you have older relatives I would strongly encourage going through their stuff with them. I came across a few items that only have meaning when you know their history and that history will be lost unless someone takes the steps to preserve it. It was also nice to talk to my aunt who knew her grandparents and was able to tell me stories too. It is a very rewarding thing to do (though I might be a bit biased being a family history buff).


Picture is of my grandma at my grandpa's grave.


I wasn't out their nearly long enough. I could have stayed a few more days. As it was I was working down to the end trying to get this recorded. I hope to make it out there again soon. I hope with my boys in tow.


-----------------------------------
After my Minnesota trip I had an evening to do laundry and then Josh and I were off to Utah to pick up our boys the next day. We got to see Josh's family for Pioneer Day and then had the long awaited beach party at my parents before driving home again. More posts on that to come!

Family History Library: Summer of Sleuthing

I am still very much on a family history high. It was a great weekend and I am very engergized.

Last week I came across mention of the Family History Library's summer program for youth and families. I looked and looked for more information on Familysearch but was unable to find anything. Then while at the Expo one of the speakers mentioned the program and gave reference to it being on Familysearch Wiki. I looked it up today and I'm EXCITED to share it.

Family History Library SUMMER of SLEUTHING - SOS!

• Are you looking for a fun activity to keep your children occupied this summer?
• Would you like to learn more about your family?
• Do you need a kick start to organize your family records?

The program includes a series of family history related challenges and activites that will help you learn more about yourself and your ancestors.

It is divided into age levels: preschool children, children, teenagers, and adults. There is also a series focused for LDS families that includes activites to complete activity day, young women, and young men requirements.

There is also a link to a website for children: Family Tree Kids which has many games and activites for kids focused on family history.

I am very excited to do this with Elijah and Sam. I'm all for starting 'em young.

Expo Highlights

Well, the Family History Expo is over. I had a great time and have posted my highlights on my Family History Blog. I would highly recommend an expo or conference to anyone remotely interested in Family History. They are a great way to energize you and get you involved in genealogy.

Family History Expo in Loveland, Colorado

My anticipation is building for the Colorado Family History Expo which is NEXT week (June 12-13). I spent yesterday afternoon studying the schedule trying to figure out what classes I am going to take. It's going to be hard to choose, there are so many that I am interested in. I'm hoping the syllabus will help me decide.

I will be sharing the expo experiences with you on my family history blog Family Tree Climbing so be sure to check in.

Meanwhile the word is getting out about the conference. I'm excited to meet, mingle, and learn with people that share my interest in family history. Check out the links below to get in on the excitement.

TV Commercial produced by Family History Expos and broadcast via Channel 4, Comcast, & Bresnan Cable

Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter

Estes Park Trail Gazette

Blogger of Honor Laura Craner

Three Weeks and Counting...

until the Family History Expo in Loveland, Colorado! I've been reading the class schedule. I think I'm going to have a hard time deciding what classes to take. I'm hoping that the teachers all have a detailed sylabus so I learn something even if I can't make it to their class. You can drool over the schedule yourself on the expos website. There are classes for everyone, beginner to expert, US and International localities.

1st Annual Colorado Family History Expo

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Family History Blog Updated

For those of you that are interested I have posted some new finds on my family history blog. I have been playing around with the church's website lab.familysearch.org and have found images of original documents for my ancestors in the records search. CHECK IT OUT and do a search for your own ancestors! It always amazes me what new stuff is becoming availible at a click of a button.

Stake Family History Conference

I had the great opprotunity to participate in my stake's family history conference the Saturday before Easter. The conference consisted of classes as well as an open house of display tables in the cultral hall. They asked me to do a manned display on connecting through blogging. The idea really excited me and I really enjoyed getting ready for and presenting my display. I did a lot of my plotting while I was still in Utah. I really enjoyed bouncing ideas off my mother. I would even email her pictures and files of my ideas after I got home. She was a great help to me.

There were two focuses for my display... General Blogging and Family History Blogging. For some people blogs are a totally unknown thing and I introduced the benifits of blogging and how it can help you connect with family as well as build your personal history. But for those that might already blog I had information on using blogs to help with your family history research as well as sharing what information you have with family.

Overall, I was very pleased with how the day went. I had a lot of interest and think there were a few people who learned something new and left with a desire to start something of their own. If you are interested in information I have my handouts and blog link lists availible to email out.

Pulling together my display spurred me to finally copy and frame some pictures to go on my iron tree. I love the way it turned out and I even had people asking me where I got my cool tree (from my mother of course who was kind enough to pick it up for me from Rod Works in Utah. It was part of their Christmas decor and they had extras on clearance after Christmas.)

Another thing preparing for the conference spurred me to do was start my own family history blog (you may have noticed the new button on my sidebar). It is still a work in progress. Mostly all that is on there now has been pulled from this blog. I have big plans for it though. I'm hoping to use it as my research log (when I actually take/have the time to do family history). By putting my research log on a blog I can share what I am doing, what I have found, where I have found it, family stories, family photos, internet sourse links, etc... with my family and also with people who might be searching the same lines. The blog format also allows me to have multiple authors posting and allows for people to comment on my research --great for collaboration! So, that's the plan. I'm excited!

Family History Friday: GenDisasters Website

I came across this cool website a few weeks ago. It is a database that collects information about various disasters that have happend in the United States (and Canada) throughout history. The events are not necessarily major ones that make it into the history books, but ones that affected everyday people, even our ancestors. Many of them are gleaned from newspapers and other odd sources. You can search by state, disaster, or browse by year. It is also set up so you can comment and add information to an entry. I think it is so interesting to go through and read how they described the disaster and the people involved.

Take a look and see what sparks your interest.

Family History Friday- "The Three Quarters"

I apologize for my family history absence. I've been a bit distracted these past few weeks and haven't done much in that area. I promised I would be better this week and then realized that today was Friday...


Josh was out of town Monday through Thursday. I really dislike being apart from him. With the help of great friends and some addicting books (the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer) I was able to survive his absence. Unfortunately the books took up all my extra time that I should have spent doing some family history.


I thought though, that I would share a picture that my grandma gave me a few years back. It is of myself and my maternal grandparents. My grandma calls it the Three Quarters picture because each of us in the picture has a quarter blood from some country. I am a quarter Palestinian Arab, my grandma a quarter Irish, and my grandpa a quarter English. The picture was taken in July of 1982 in Decatur, Illinois and hung on my grandma's wall from then until 2005 when she passed it on to me.

I am grateful not only for the picture and the people in the picture but also the story behind it's history. It makes me so sad to go through the antique stores and see old photos of people who are now name-less and family-less with a price tag on them. If I could claim them as my own they would be priceless to me.


So amid all this rambling is my plea for you to do something to preserve and label your pictures. Not only the current ones of yourself and your family but also the old ones that are stashed away somewhere of your parents, grandparents, etc. There are so many ways to preserve them, do anything that works for you.


I am dying to get my grandma's pictures scanned and digitized. I cam across a site, mypublisher.com, last week that prints photo books. They have a special layout for vintage photos. You simply upload them into the layouts, adjusting as you desire, submit it online and they will print you as many copies as you like in a variety of formats. There are also other websites that will do the same thing. It seems like a great way to share all the photographs with multiple generations. That's my dream!

Family History Friday: Census Clues and Cemetery Records

Warning: this is rather long and might be boring to casual readers but to me it is too exciting not to share!

While I was doing my census record sweep I came across a tiny clue that led me to believe that I was missing a child of one of my ancestors, William Wesley Alderson and his wife Isadora Winders Alderson. The clue came from the 1900 census where one of the questions asked by the enumerator was how my children were living versus how many total. The answer for Isadora was 3 of 4, hinting to the existence of a child born after the 1880 census that died before the 1900 census. There was also a pretty distinct gap in the ages of the living children.

I was unable to find any helpful information on the internet and made a point to look for the missing child while I was in Utah at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. Time was short at the library and I had multiple things I was looking for, but I was by chance (though probably not really chance at all, just not somewhere I would have logically looked so early in the game) I was able to find the cemetery record for the Aldersons and the Winders (Isadora’s parents). Turns out this was a classic case of the cemetery being just across the county line, not in Marion County, Illinois where I knew the family to have lived and died and had come up empty in the Marion County cemetery records, but in Clay County, Illinois right next door to the East.

Clay county happens to be a county where one of my very elusive ancestors, George Daniels born in England (if you know anything about him, please oh please let me know!) lived and presumably died before 1880 in Oskaloosa, Clay, Illinois. Anyway, while we were looking at the cemetery records for Marion County my mother suggested we look in Clay county for good old George. The books happened to be close to each other on the shelf so I picked up the book Cemetery Inscriptions of Clay Co. Illinois (977.3795 V3t). This book turned out to be a gold mine though not for George Daniels (alas he will have to continue to wait).

Thank goodness for INDEXES! Without them we would never have found my missing Aldersons and the Winders. We found EIGHT of my ancestors buried in Parker Cemetery in Songer Township, Clay, Illinois (just across the county line from Omega, Marion County, and multiple pieces of information that I did not know!

Page 357
Alderson, W. W. Apr. 10 1858 (my great great grandfather)

Isadora-his wife-June 7, 1859-Nov. ?, ???? (my great great grandmother)

Alderson, Estna M. Apr 5, 1885 d. Oct 14, 1958 (daughter of William and Isadora Alderson)

Daniels, T. Arthur 1875-1958 (my great grandfather)

Ellen O. 1878-1957 (my great grandmother, daughter of William and Isadora Alderson, wife of Arthur T. Daniels)

Page 355
Winders, Wm. W. b. Oct 25 1824 d. July 26 1877 (my great great great grandfather)

Sarah wife of Wm. b. Dec 15, 1826 d. Aug 16, 1901 (my great great great grandmother)

Ethel L. dau of Wm W. and Dora Alderson b. June 14, 1883 d. July 1, 18??

Tada! There she is, my missing child, Ethel! (With sisters named Ellen, Estna, and Elva. Oh my.) Unfortunately her death date is not complete, apparently the transcriber was unable to read the death year, BUT I will take what I can get. She fits in exactly where I thought she would. She is buried with her grandmother, who lived with the Aldersons after her husband died. I didn’t have birth or death dates for Sarah or William W. either and was very surprised and happy to see them in the Parker Cemetery too. Talk about one of those moments when you want to stand up and do a jig in the library (don’t worry I restrained myself to a low five).

Well, my point is to never ignore even the smallest of clues and follow those little urges to look somewhere you didn’t think about initially (thank you, mother!). Doors can open and ancestors can be found. It is an amazing thing to be a part of.

Family History Friday: Exciting Finds!

Today I had the opprotunity to go to THE Family History Library in Salt Lake City with my mother. I went very hopeful that we would find something and did not leave disappointed! There's nothing worse than a long day of research and leaving with nothing, but today was not that kind of day. We were very very blessed.

Earlier this month I posted about my great great aunt Helen Condon Dillman and her husband, Shelby Dillman, that up until this month I was unable to find any information about. Well, today I was able to put a few more piece of the puzzle together. I located the cemetery record for both Shelby and Helen in Pleasant Point Cemetery, Meramec Twp, Crawford County, Missouri. His tombstone gives his birthdate as 27 Jan 1900. This happily matches the birthdate given on the WWI draft registration I cited in my previous post, confirming that they are the same person! Suddenly I have Shelby's birthday and his father's name, William F, confirmed. The tombstone also gave his death date as 15 Dec 1964. I was also able to find the marriage record for Shelby and Helen in St. Louis, Missouri on 10 Sept 1931 at the Union Avenue Christian Church. All of this information is enough to get the temple work done for Shelby and get him sealed to his wife. All very exciting!

Well, I have more exciting news to share about my Winders and Alderson families but it's been a long day and the information is on my mother's computer right now. I'll be sure to share it soon.

Family History Friday: Google Books

I just discovered this exciting thing a couple of weeks ago through a family history blog. I've used Google books before, in fact I even linked to it in one of my early posts, but never realized the great potential it had for family historians.

Google Books is a great way to view and preview books that are on the market today. But even better are the books that are out of copyright or are public domain. Those books are available in their entirety and some are even available for download. You are acutally able to view the book in it's original format but are able to do electronic searches within the pages of the book. There are a lot of local and family histories out there that were published eons ago and I am excited to say that there are a lot of them available on Google Books! The possibilites are amazing!

Google Books has it set up so you can flag a book and add it to your own "library". Just in a matter of hours I was able to build up my own library with a wealth of family history information. You are welcome to browse through what I found in my library at Google Books. Even if the book isn't available for full viewing it is great to know that it exists somewhere. Some of the books that I am most excited about that are my ancestors specifically are:

The Corwin Genealogy
Genealogy of the Bigelow Family of America

I've found it also to be a great place to find local histories written during the era my ancestors were actually living there. A lot of them have biographical sketches (though I haven't been lucky enough to find an ancestor that has one, yet).

History of Pike County, Ohio 1880
History of Detroit, 1912
A Guide to the City of Chicago, 1909

Using another tool by Google called a Notebook, you can highlight snippets of a text and save them seperate from the book into your notebook. You are also able to add notes and labels. This enables you to then go back and find the actual page from the book that pertains to your ancestor through your notebook.

You can also highlight a portion of a book and imbed it into your own post like this one about my great great great grandfather Chester Mathews Bigelow from the Bigelow Genealogy:


Genealogy of the Bigelow Family of America From the Marriage in 1642 of John Biglo and Mary Warren to the Year 1890 By Gilman Bigelow Howe

Through doing this I was also able to find a reference (though sadly not a sourced reference) to my ancestor Joshua Bigelow who served in the King Phillips War as I mentioned last week:


In all Google Books has made it rather simple to do a search on your ancestors through a plethera of different books available for full view or not. They have made it easy to search, read and share what you find.

Check it out!
Do a search on your own family.
Come up with any questions? Just leave me a comment and I'll see what I can do to help.

Family History Friday: Freedom Fighters

With today being the Fourth of July and the day we celebrate the birth of the United States of America, I was thinking that it would be a good day to commemorate some of my ancestors that served in various wars to preserve the freedoms we enjoy. My grandma has told me on multiple occassions, and is very proud of the fact, that we have ancestors who have served in many of the major American Wars from WWII back.

• Joshua Bigelow fought in the King Phillips War 1675


• Redmond Condon, Richard Corwine, and John Day served in the Revolutionary War


• Samuel Corwine was in the War of 1812


• Daniel T. Short served during the Civil War on the side of the North


• John C Bigelow Sr served in WWI (pictured below)


• Robert N Daniels served in WWII along with my great uncle, John C Bigelow Jr.

I would have sworn I had more pictures in my possession to share, but I was only able to come up with one. (One thing I am finding by doing these Family History Friday posts is that my paper work is in horrible order! You think you know where something is until you go looking for it and can't find it!)

This picture is of my great grandfather, John Chester Bigelow (pictured on the right), and his brothers Harold (on the left) and Amerson (seated). They all served in WWI in 1918.

This is the WWI draft card for John Chester Bigelow.

I am grateful for these men, and the many other men and women now and through out history, who have made sacrifices to serve their country and to preserve the freedoms we enjoy in the United States of America

**Most of the above list is family traditon. I have only personally verified those who served in WWI and WWII. More fun work to do!**

Break Through

Years ago my grandmother asked me to try and find information on her uncle, Shelby Dillman. Specifically to see if his temple work had been done and if he had been sealed to her dear aunt Helen. When she asked me I was unable to find anything about uncle Shelby for reasons I don't remember. Yesterday I had a break through though!

I was resting and thinking during our quiet time and it occured to me that there was one more death certificate I hadn't looked up in the Missouri State Archives (see my previous post on what I did find). It was the death certificate of my great great aunt Helen Dillman. I went back to look yesterday and low and behold it was there!

The death certificate gave me some good leads to follow in finding her husband and other details including where they were living, Meramec twp; what cemetery she was buried in, Pleasant Point (which I can not find on the internet except on one genealogy site); how old Shelby was leading to a birth year, 1900; and details about Helen's accident which resulted in her death.

With the addition of a birth year I was then able to find the WWII enlistment record for Shelby Dillman. This record transcription (which you can't see unless you have an ancestry subscription) gave me more information. It gives his birth state as Illinois, his residence as Crawford County, Missouri (which checks out), his enlistment date as 16 Sept 1942, education as grammer school level, civil occupation as geographer, marital status as widower without dependents (which checks out), height 65, weight 117 (a small man). I had known that he served in WWII and my grandma had thought he was born in Illinois and this record confirms this information.

I also found, but haven't proven the connection yet, two more records for a Shelby Dillman in Illinois. One is the 1930 census for Flat Branch, Shelby, Illinois. The other is a WWI Draft Registration. The census includes a mother and brother; the Draft card includes a father and exact birthdate as well as a mark under Indian Citizen (which confirms another tidbit of information from my grandma). Hey, I just uploaded this image and was looking for the second page on ancestry, but it doesn't show except when you save the file. Anyway, the next entry is for a Russel Dillman with the same father!

I'm excited (can you tell?)!

I also found film numbers for cemetery records for Pleasant Point and St. Louis marriage records. I guess I'm planning a trip up to the Family History Library while I'm in Utah.

I love it when things come together! I'll keep you posted!

Family History Friday: 1880 Census

Federal Census Records hold a wealth of information and give a great peek at a family in 10 year intervals. Federal Census Records are available from 1930 back every ten years with the exception of 1890 which was destroyed by fire. The further back you go, the less information you will find until eventually all you are getting is the name of the head of household and tally marks.

All of the census's are available online for searching but require a membership to do so. The two biggest places I do census searches are Ancestry.com and Heritage Quest. As mentioned last week, Ancestry is a paid membership whereas with Heritage Quest you can get access through the BYU library with your student/alumni log in (I imagine there are other ways to get in though this is the only way I know. Heritage Quest not only does census's, it has a large collection of family and local histories with original images online).

The 1880 census is an exception. It is available for FREE through Ancestry and also through Familysearch.org

What will you find in the 1880 Federal Census Records?
You will find full names of all people living in the household, their relationship to the head of household, their marital status, race, age, birthplace, occupation, father's birthplace, mother's birthplace, who their neighbors were (this is useful for establishing family relationships) and more.

Because the 1880 is free on Ancestry you should be able to follow the following links (that is if you are interested) and view the actual census records online. It is helpful to zoom in once or twice (150%) in order to be able to read the names. The names will appear in list form down the left side. Sometimes the surname comes first, sometimes it does not, depends on the census.

My ancestors in the 1880 census:

Charles Everette Condon with parents Jacob and Sarah Condon

Margaret (Maggie) Garvin Short and Daniel T Short with children

William and Sarah Garvin with two of their children

William Wesley and Isadora Alderson with child and Mother-in-law Sarah Winders

If you have your own name you want to search, follow the links above. Type in as much information as you have, if nothing comes up take out some of the information and try again. I've also found many times that my ancestors have given their nicknames to the census taker and that the ages are often incorrect.

1930 Census of Arthur T. Daniels and family

I've mentioned before that I am trying to find all of my ancestors in as many census's as possible. I have a few that are still proving elusive but have found a majority of my ancestors in the census records throughout their lives. It has been very interesting to see where they have moved (which proves very helpful when looking for other records) and what occupations they have held as well as what children were living in the house and when. Census records are an easy door for opening up other research possibilities. I'm excited about the many leads I have found. There's always something more to do.

Have you done any tree climbing lately (that is family tree climbing)? I would love to hear what you are doing and/or if you've found anything in the 1880 census etc.

Happy climbing!

Family History Friday: Ancestry and FTM

I've been thinking that blogging has helped me get involved and excited in other areas of my life why not carry it over into family history, my chosen field of study. This is my second week posting on family history and I have now dubbed Fridays "Family History Friday". We'll see how long I keep it up, but for now I hope you find it informative and interesting.


I absolutely love family history and the amazing application of history and people combined in one. I love a good challenge and checking off all the possibilities. I love the thrill of finding something I didn't know and putting records together to bring people alive. Our ancestors are not just names and dates on a page, they lived full, happy and often challenging lives and I love putting the pieces of the puzzle together and seeing as much of the picture as I can find.


Doing family history with children has proved a little challenging. It tends to be all engrossing (at least for me) and Josh will come home to dirty kids still in their jammies and the house a disaster because I've been on the computer finding dead people. I'm doing better at finding a balance. Someday I dream of traveling to the locations where my ancestors lived and diving into the old libraries and court archives but for now I spend time gleaning stuff off the Internet (there is new stuff just about everyday, it's amazing) and cleaning up the files I have; making sure all the information is correct and citing sources where possible. Ancestry.com has become my number one source for finding information from the comfort of my home.

Ancestry is adding new records to their online database regularly. Many of them include images of the original records. Lately I've been doing extensive census searches (more on that next week) and ancestry has all of the years available with multiple options for searches and viewing. Most of their databases are available to members only but a few are available for free.


A year ago I bought the Family Tree Maker 16 Collectors Edition (FTM) which is a computer program for compiling all your family history information (similar to PAF with more capabilities). The program came with a 366 day trial membership to ancestry.com and only cost me around $30 (if I'm remembering correctly with rebate). It's a total steal when you calculate in the fact that a year membership to ancestry.com costs $155!


Well, my days are numbered, my account is due to end, and I'm not about to spend $155 though it really could be worth it. I went on a hunt for another version of FTM specifically for another trial membership. FTM 2008 costs more and doesn't come with a huge trial membership. I ended up finding the same version 16 in a standard edition that includes a 6 month trial membership for $15.00 on eBay. Thanks to my amazing husband and his new log in I now have another 6 months of ancestry.com.

Anyway, the point is if you are in the market and interested in family history buying the 2006 version of FTM (which I am very happy with) with the trial membership is definitely the way to go. If you aren't sure if you would use it much or are curious what ancestry has to offer this is well worth the money. I don't think you will be disappointed.

Family History: Death Certificates

I have been working a lot recently on getting all the census and other information off of Ancestry before my membership expires later this month. (I'm attempting to renew without actually paying the annual fee online, I'll let you know if it works). I've been filling in the sources and completing families along the way, working mostly on my mother's line and focusing on solidifying the information I already have with sources.

Mind you this might not be terribly interesting to most of you, but I know that my immediate and extended family also read this blog and might enjoy seeing some of what I've found.

The state of Missouri has a project to get a lot of their death certificates available online. Their extensive database includes images of death certificates from 1910-1957 and is easily searchable. If you happen to have any Missouri ancestors be sure to check it out. They also have an incomplete birth record database and pre-1910 deaths but they do not include images of the original documents (which is the really cool part).

Last week I found some death certificates for Condon's and Corwine's living in Missouri (St. Louis and Jasper County) including the following:

Charles Everette Condon (my great-grandfather)
Margaret Ellen Short Condon (wife of Charles)
Jacob Condon (father of Charles)
Sarah Alice Corwine Condon (mother of Charles)
Paul Corwine Condon (brother to Charles)
George D. Corwin (brother to Sarah Alice)
Charles W. Corwin (brother to Sarah Alice) his wife's is also available
Bertha Condon Budlong (sister to Charles)

I love it when I find death certificates. A lot of times it will give birth information, parents, informant, addresses, occupations, cause of death, etc. Just a load of interesting information.

Unfortunatly I can't easily share all the census information I have found. It is not all freely accessable online. The 1880 Census though has been made readily availible to everyone. I am not done with my census searches but will include links to the 1880 Federal Census in a post to come. If you are interested in all of my family census images I can burn you a CD (or it might take multiple CD's) and send it to you, let me know.

If anyone has any family information or questions (pertaining to my family or your own) let me know. I love a research challenge!

Happy tree climbing!