Overcoming Murphy's Laws in Genealogy

I said I'd do it, so here it is.... Overcoming Murphy when he comes to 'help' with your research.

#1 The records you need for your family history were in the courthouse that burned.

Burned, blow up, flooded, etc.  Every genealogist has had this happen, if you don't think you have look up the 1890 US Federal Census.  So how to tackle this one?  Try checking other local repositories.  I'll use Great Grandparents Thomas and Henrietta Fitzgerald as an example.  They emigrated from Pennsylvania to Michigan to a little place near Cadillac, Michigan called Hollister.  According to their obituaries they were charter members of the Hollister Methodist Episcopal Church.  Yay!  What a great place to find family records....guess what....the original church burned down taking all those lovely records with it.  So where else can I and did I look?  I found their death information in the liber books at the Wexford County Clerk's office.  (I had those before the obit, but this is a good example where to look).  I could also look for death records at the state level for them and their children.  In fact if you have Michigan ancestors who died between 1897 and 1920 you can access a huge collection of online images of state death records at seekingmichigan.org.  Check some of my previous blog entries for more on Seeking Michigan.  Another place I could research my great grandparents is at the local genealogy library.  I could also check into the current church to see if there are any post fire records of my family.  Another place to continue to look is the local newspapers.  My Great Grandfather was also a members of the Hollister Grange.  I wonder where those records might be.
Another source of information I found for Great Grandpa was the National Archives.  Great Grandpa served during the civil war and I was able to obtain his military records.  There is a fee charged for the records so make sure to check out their website for the most up to date information.  (www.archives.gov).
Another source to check would be the church where they were married at in Pennsylvania.

These are just a few ideas to help you overcome.  Please feel free to share additional ideas in the comments!  I love to hear from my readers.
Happy Hunting!

The Brickwall Comes Tumbling Down

Recently my focus has been on my Fitzgerald ancestors, specifically John and Emily (Tennyson) Fitzgerald's family.  I have been doing a lot of collateral or cluster research.  I have been tracing down their children as far as I can chase them....some farther than others.  All this in preparation for the trip to Pennsylvania with my family (the trip has been postponed again due to my recent new job...but that's for another day).  Anyway, this family has been m brickwall for 10 years! 
A few weeks ago I requested a death record transcription from a wonderful volunteer via Random Acts of Genealogical Kindess for John and Emily's youngest son, Edward.  Edward moved to Iowa, had a family, then died in Los Angeles at the home of his daughter.  He and his wife are buried in Inglewood Cemetery in Inglewood, California.  Imagine my joy when, on Edward's death certificate, John's city of birth in Ireland was recorded!  So know I know that my 3rd Great Grandfather was born in the City of Cork, County Cork, Ireland!  Now I still don't have John's parent's names, but I have a great detail about my ancestry!  AND it's a very exciting discovery. 
So maybe the brickwall hasn't come completely down, but I think I have broken a big chunk out of it!
Happy Hunting!

It's been awhile

It's been awhile since I've been able to Blog about Genealogy or let alone even work on my genealogy. I've had a few sessions here and there with very brief hits of research, but with school and job and now a new baby, there hasn't been much researching in my Family History. I have been emailing back and forth with my Dad's counsin Linda about the family history and have arranaged to send her printouts of what I have with current information on the family and to be able to update on her family and her sibilings. Hey, at least it is something. :)

Yes, I have finally added another root to my own family. My son was born December 1st. It is crazy and fun to have a baby in the house again.

My plans for Christmas break is to work on some genealogy and I have a lead on another family member to hopefully add some new information to the family tree. We still plan to visit Pennsylvania, but it won't be until September now. But that gives me plenty of time to plan! We're packing up the kids and renting an RV and driving from our home in Northern Lower Michigan to Danville, Pennsylvania where my Great, Great Grandfather was born. I'm excitied for the trip and excited to see what new information that we will be able to uncover when we are there.

Good luck and happy Hunting! Until next time.

Home Sweet Home

So we're home and we've survived our camping/family reunion weekend. Although we had really bad wind during the family reunion and it was freezing cold and there was only a small turn out it was nice to see everyone that was there...and of course the food was good as always.
We ended up leaving late last night because of sore backs and other things and slept in our own beds last night....boy was it every nice to sleep in my own bed.

As for my research...I visited my GGrandpa's brother and his wife's grave site. I also took my family and we visited the old family farm...actually it was more of a drive by and check it out. Beyond that my weekend turned into a nonresearch weekend. It is difficult when you are only there for a weekend and that the places you need to go are only opened for limited hours-of course the hours that I wasn't there. The good news is that Cadillac is only about an hour drive from where we live and it won't be hard for me to plan a day trip there.

Happy Hunting.

Pennsylvania Cancelled

It has been disappointing to find out that we are not able to take our trip to my ancestor's home state. Due to family conflicts we aren't able to take our vacation as we planned.
I've spent some time lately helping other people with their research locally. I've filled some Find A Grave photo requests and I'm working on a couple of RAOGK requests. I'm a little embarrassed that I actually lost one request out of my email. I think I deleted it. Ooops! I hope the requestor emails me back soon.
Anyway, off to bed soon.
Good luck in all your future research!

Slow Going

Things have been kinda slow lately in the genealogy arena for me. I've been so overwhelmed with school and I just learned a couple weeks ago we're going to be adding to our own family tree. Anyway, I've done some work on findagrave.com adding memorials and photos that I have taken, fulfilled a couple of photo requests and had a couple of my own requests filled for Fitzgerald family members in the Cadillac Area.

We are continuing to plan our trip to Pennsylvania for our family research. I just bought one of those scanning pens that scans text from Woot.com. I'm hoping it will come in handy for my research trip.

I finished the last couple of photos in Monroe Center Cemetery. I drove down there on Thrusday after class and the snow is finally melted off all the headstones.

I have submitted my first (and second) round of press releases as the publicity chair for GTAGS. It came to my attention after I sent out the batch orginally, that I put the wrong date, so after several phone calls and emails and another mailed batch, I think I have the error undercontrol. Thanks Brenda, if you're reading this, for catching that for me. This is definately a lesson in checking your work before submitting and making sure to proofread!
Of course, all this is after having the speaker changed because the orginal speaker that was booked wouldn't confirmed and that left us scrambling for a speaker. To make matters worse the orginal speaker was one of my newspaper contacts. I can imagine he was rather suprised when he recieved the email. At least it was straightened out.
I am very excited that this month's speaker is Betty Driscoll from Oceana County and she is speaking on her reserach on the Traverse City State Hosptial! I get lots of research requests about the state hospital and I am interested in hearing what Betty has to say. She is currently working on a book about the State Hospital, which I am sure I will add to my library here at home.

Google Maps

When we attended the Western Michigan Genealogy Society conference last fall, I learned about using Google Maps to help with my research. So today I spent the morning working on Google Maps with John and Emily Fitzgerald's family. I had done this once before, but that map came up missing. I think it was attached to another account, but its gone now. Anyway, I added the new map. I haven't quite figured out how to get the URL for the map, but once I do, I'll post it.

Today is the GTAGS/DAR workshop at the Traverse Area District Library at 1 to 4 pm, so I must be off. I will definately report on the workshop later!

Thomas Fitzgerald Pension Record

Friday, March 6, 2009
Thomas Fitzgerald Pension Record
A few days ago, Thomas' pension record arrived. It was sitting there between the front doors when we got home after getting our taxes done. I was so excited to see it there. I couldn't believe how thick it was. I was able to go through the file as a preliminary look over, but with all my school work, I couldn't really go through it until today. I have lots of information I'm adding to the file and filling in some holes, but it still doesn't give me anymore information on John and Emily. In fact, the only reference to John and Emily Fitzgerald made in the entire file is Thomas replying to the pension department that he was unable to access any family records about his birth as his parents are both dead. That recorded on 9 May 1913, which would be rather obvious that they would likely have died long before then, or they would both have been over 100 years old!
I did send a copy of the most current report this week to my Uncle Jack, who is my grandpa's only living sibling, to see if any new information helps him to remember anything about the family. I always look forward to seeing what Uncle Jack remembers, he always has stories about his grandparents. The stories make it all the more fun to do the research.