Obituary: Walter H. Hegwer

Thank you, thank you, and thank you again to the Mesa County Libraries!!

My goodness, I'm having a great summer finding obituaries!! This time it's not a subscription website but is a free service of a public library: Mesa County Libraries in Colorado.

Luckily for me, one of my great-grandmothers spent her last years in Grand Junction, Colorado. I know my great-grandmother is buried there and that Hegwer grave(s?) were purchased at the Orchard Mesa Cemetery in Grand Junction.  I know I've looked before but, this time, something went right and I stumbled into the Genealogy section of the library system's website.

I was shocked to find that they had four entries for "Hegwer" or related "Danes" surnames in their files. I was even more shocked to see that it appeared that they have a free service of providing e-copies of the related obituaries.  I filled out the form and now I have copies of obituaries from the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel for:

• Margaret Lavina (Richardson) (Hegwer) Danes, my great-grandmother
• Albert Wentling Danes, her second husband
• Walter Hegwer, one of her children who died young
• Myrtle "Mamie" May (Foltz) Hegwer, widow of Raymond Dudley Hegwer, another of Margaret's sons

The biggest news here is the info about work, residence, and illness for grand-uncle Walter.  And, I have his birthplace as Laveta, Costilla, Colorado rather than Pueblo.  The clipping is from the 18 Feb 1908 issue on p. 8.

The moral of the story is to always check the library where family lived and to recheck it periodically...the digital world is changing...!

Resource: Old Lutheran Migration

The latest issue of American Ancestors has a great surprise!  American Ancestors is a publication of the New England Historic Genealogical Society and I'm used to finding info about my maternal grandfather's Colonial New England ancestry in almost every issue.  I was unhappy about 2 years ago when the society decided to open their focus to be much more general: there'd be less content for me but I could understand their need to appeal to more people and make more money to support the society...so...

I never expected to find an article directly relevant to my Hegwer line!  While Carl Benjamin Hegwer and Maria Rosina (Ilgner) Hegwer are not specifically mentioned, "George Dopf and the Old Lutheran Migration of 1839" is a very good article about the nature of their immigration in 1839.  It's very hard (as in near impossible?) to find scholarly things in English about the early 1800s in Silesia, so this article is a real treat.  The ship the Hegwer's were on left Hamburg 1 Jul 1839 and is the one described in this article, arriving NY on 24 Aug 1839. 

Wherever the article refers to the Silesia group, that's us!  There is no doubt that Carl Benjamin Hegwer knew Krause and Grabau, and probably Rohr, too.  There was quite a bit of documented 'drama' among the 3 ministers, the Buffalo congregation, and the Wisconsin groups that has been left out of this article.  You can't fit everything in one article!

WHAT I NEED TO DO NOW

I had no idea that any of the travel documents needed by the Old Lutherans to leave Prussia still existed.  I can't wait to follow author McGrath's reference list and see if I can find some new info specific to the Hegwer's or Ilgner's.  Records from the part of Silesia now in Poland are harder to find than those now in Germany, but I'll still try... and maybe the Hegwer/Ilgner party had already started to move and were interrogated along the way, leaving records in what is now Germany???

REFERENCE

McGrath, Lawrence R. "George Dopf and the Old Lutheran Migration of 1839." American Ancestors, Vol. 16 (2), Spring 2015, pages 37-40 & 59.

Disclaimer

I am a paid member of NEHGS but receive no other consideration from them.

Portrait of a Great Great: Mary Mason

With a full quarter of my ancestry coming from the Great Migration, I'm used to finding the occasional mention in American Ancestors, one of the periodical publications of the New England Historic Genealogical Society.  But the Winter 2015 (Vol. 16, No. 1) has set a new standard here for excitement!

One article is primarily about Abigail Smith Adams, wife of President John Adams and mother of President John Quincey Adams [1].  Author Michelle Marchetti Coughlin hypothesizes howAbigail's maternal great-grandparents may have affected Abigail.  Luckily for me, those maternal great-grandparents are also my 8th-great-grandparents, John NORTON and Mary MASON.

The entire article is very interesting and includes a good deal of family history information and detail, far beyond birth-marriage-death.  The great surprise is a portrait of Mary Mason, circa 1670!  The actual portrait, artist unknown, is on display at the Adams National Historical Park in Quincy, Massachusetts.  As part of the United States National Park Service (NPS), the website is great, too.  It includes a Photo Gallery with eight sections, one of which is Portraits in the Old House. Of the 32 portraits shown there, one is of "Mary Mason, circa 1670" and a download is available.  My illustration here is a clip of that NPS download. Please visit their fine site for your own full copy.

Conclusions

• Join national genealogy societies!
• Read their publications and be prepared for surprises!
• Appreciate fine government websites!

Line of Descent
Rev. John Norton = Mary Mason
Capt. John Norton = Elizabeth Thaxter
William Norton = Elizabeth Bennett
Moses Bates = Hannah Norton
Moses Bates = Ruth Shaw
Norton Bates = Betsey Sweet
Homer Thomas Porter = Dolly Ann Bates
Celim Homer Porter = Clara Evelene Davidson
my Grandpa Porter


[1] Coughlin, Michelle Coughlin. "A shared sensibility: Examining the legacy of John and Mary (Mason) Norton, maternal great-grandparents of Abigail Smith Adams." American Ancestors, 16 (1): 47-51.

Great Resource: Maps of Morrow County, Ohio

This is just a clip of the Chester map from 1857.  Visit their website to see much more!

The Morrow County Engineer website includes several links to county and township maps.  The section titled "Misc Maps" is especially interesting since it includes the 1857 atlas maps, which it says were taken from actual surveys. Eight other Morrow County atlas maps are also included, dating from1871 to 1989.  The map is in a pdf file and is very, very slow to load, so I'm not including that specific link here.  Visit the 'Misc Maps' link and select the atlas map of your choice.

My SHAW and MILLER lines were in Chester, Knox County from the early 1800s.  Morrow County was created in 1847 and Chester was one of the areas reassigned.  Robert Shaw and Sarah Miller were in Missouri for the 1840 & 1850 censuses, but I can't find them in 1860…I wonder if they went back to Ohio?  This 1857 maps show that there were still Miller's in town.  Adjacent names are familiar, too.

I found this resource from a footnote in an article in the Ohio Genealogical Society's Ohio Genealogy News, Fall 2014 (45:3, p.21) by Corinne Bertin Konecny.  My membership in OGS has paid for itself many times over through all I've learn through its publications.

Presidential Cousins

The latest post at the Vita Brevis blog, Celebrating Presidential Kinship, US Ancestry by Christopher Carter Lee,  does "briefly" discuss the presidency,  genealogy of the individual presidents, and NEHGS's support of such research and archiving.  It also reminds me that I haven't blogged about any of my presidential connections….

While I am not descended from any American Presidents, several of them are distant cousins through some of my Great Migration ancestors.  At the 2009 SCGS Jamboree, I had the pleasure of talking with Gary Boyd Roberts at the NEHGS booth.  I blogged about his great books before but didn't list my presidential cousins...

That year, after reviewing my pedigree chart, Gary Boyd Roberts listed the following cousins for me:  Fillmore, Lincoln, Grant, Cleveland, Harding, Coolidge, FDR, Nixon, Ford, both Bushes, and conditionally added Pierce and Hoover.  It's almost six years since Mr. Roberts examined my chart and wrote the notes and I'm still gratified by his kindness.

As the Vita Brevis post mentions, there is a newer 2012 edition of the book and I'm sure it's worth having for all the additions & corrections it must have, but I can't bear to replace mine.  I will always cherish the thought that Gary Boyd Roberts actually took my pedigree chart back to his hotel room, read it, wrote on it, and took the time to write a detailed personal comment on my copy of his book! Thank you, Mr. Roberts!

I hope to someday get to Boston to visit the library and do lots of research.  I'll take my book along with me, hoping to show Roberts and talk with him again.  In the meantime, I really, really hope that someday NEHGS brings him back to this area for Jamboree.

Great Resource Verifies New Cousin: Martha (Earl) Black Beck

In genealogy, we seem to spend a good deal of our time fitting pieces together, hoping we're right, and going on from there.  Don't you love it when you find something that verifies a chain of assumptions?

I've been working on William EARL with wife #1 (married 1860 in Ottawa County, Ohio) Ellen/Helen KEATING and wife #2 (married 1868 in Ottawa County) Mary HADD Gourno Earl Peeling for some time with no indication that they are related to me.  But, when you know so little about a great-grandfather, you must research those around them (FAN concept)!  My great-grandfather, Patrick KEATING, had land dealings with William EARL in Ottawa County, Ohio, in the 1860-70s, and William's first wife was an Ellen KEATING.  I figure there has to be a family relationship there but it's been outside my grasp.  Ellen left even fewer records than Patrick and for years I believed that there were no children from her short marriage to William Earl.

Long story short: a few months ago, I was able to verify that some of the children formerly/sometimes attributed to Mary HADD's first or second marriage were actually her step-children.  Ellen Keating did have descendants!  But, there was still a lingering uncertainty with confused names, common surnames, and only circumstantial links.

The great resource in my title for this post is the Ohio Memory site . It's one of those resources where you can get lost for hours and find wonderful things! It's a must if you have any roots in Ohio.

Today, after reviewing all the inconsistencies in Ellen's children's names and ages, I decided to review my "EARL possibilities" folder and found a note that there is an obituary for one of Ellen's daughters at OhioMemory.  Hmm, better check it out…. well, it's a great find! It's just a 15-line obituary with only 94 words from an unnamed newspaper, but it ends all my doubts about the children of William Earl and Ellen Keating!

Transcription:

 Mrs. Charles Beck, better known in Oak Harbor, where she was born and raised, as Mrs. Mattie Black, died at Marion, Ind., last week Wednesday, at the age of 52 years.  She was a step-daughter of Mrs. Mary Earle and half-brother of Wm. T. Earle.  For many years, the deceased with her first husband Daniel Black, operated a milk route in Oak Harbor, residing north of town about a half mile. she leaves two sons Ira and Guy, the former being a prosperous grocery dealer at Marion, Ind., and the latter in the ministry.

The online item title is "Obituary of Mattie Beck" and has a handwritten date of 2-26-1917 on the clipping image and was submitted by the Harris-Elmore Public Library, which seems to be about 9 miles from Oak Harbor.

The Great News
Careful readers should now be asking "What's the great news? Where's your connection to Patrick anyway?  Well, one of my atDNA matches is a descendant of Daniel Black and Martha/Mattie Earl! Ancestry.com DNA predicts we are 4th-6th cousins with "very high confidence. " My "conclusion" is that my great-grandfather, Patrick Keating, and Ellen Keating are indeed related: maybe cousins, maybe even siblings!

Of course, there's still a lot of work to do.  But I think it will be easier to find Patrick's origins now that I
'know" at least one relative for him!

The Plan

• Enter all my Earl info into my database and online trees
• Contact and exchange info with my new Black Family cousin
• Go back to researching Patrick with a new perspective and renewed energy!

Don't you love the feeling that just maybe there is an answer in sight?

Ohio "County Histories" -- Easy Access

The most recent of the Ohio Genealogical Society Quarterly (2013, Vol. 53, Issue 1, pp. 23-38) has the greatest article about the published county histories of the state of Ohio!  Professional librarian (retired), Robert Foster Seal has compiled a listing of county histories currently available online digitally "free of charge to all researchers" at FamilySearch, Google Books, Internet Archive, &/or HathiTrust Digital Library. I had not previously heard of HathiTrust, but it was the easiest of the four for me to actually use for my counties!

Most of the books listed are available on more than one of the sites.  For instance, the 1881 edition of History of Knox County, Ohio: Its Past and Present is at all four sites, as is the 1880 edition of Morrow County and Ohio.  On the other hand, the Historical Atlas of Paulding County, Ohio of 1892 is available only at Internet Archive.

Each of the 88 Ohio counties has at least one book listed, but many have more than one.  For example, Ottawa County has only one listed, but Knox County has four and Seneca has five!

It is a great treat to have this resource list readily available in one place.  The journal editor added a note saying that OGS will add Seal's list to their website and will accept additions of listings for other histories available at free sites.  I am so glad I am an OGS member! I think this article alone was worth the price of my last renewal....!  Thank you, OGS, and thank you very much, Mr. Seal!

Great-Great-Grandparents: Heritage Pie

Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun looked interesting.  I guess it's still ok to participate on Sunday afternoon....

It took only about 3 minutes to make the graph at Kid Zone's "Create a Graph" and represents the birthplaces of my great-great-grandparents.

My sixteen great-greats, with abbreviated info, are:
William CARR (1840-1916?) -- Yorkshire
Jane ETHELL (1841- after 1901) -- Yorkshire

Charles CAUSIER (1836-1912) -- born Worcestershire, died Wisconsin
Catherine HUGHES (1838-1911) -- born Staffordshire, died Wisconsin

Carl Benjamin HEGWER (1791-1860) -- born Silesia, died Kansas
Maria Rosina ILGNER (1801-1873) -- born Silesia, died Kansas

John D. RICHARDSON (1829-1908) -- Missouri
Isabella SHAW (1828-1877) -- born Ohio, died Missouri

parents of Patrick KEATING  -- unknown Ireland

parents of Cathrine DOOLEY -- unknown probably Ireland, possibly but unlikely
 Canada

Homer Thomas PORTER (1813-1903) -- Vermont
Dolly Ann BATES (1823-1892) -- born Vermont, died Montana

Titus DAVISON (1804-1900) -- Vermont
Hannah Field BASCOM (1808-1881) -- Vermont

If I use the location of their deaths, I get a different picture.  I've kept the same people in the same color or with a different value of the original color.

It's a little complicated not knowing four of the 16 at all.  This activity has certainly reminded me that that generation saw a lot of major changes in their lives.

A more specific problem this activity has reminded me of is that I've found info to make me think that the death date/location I have for William CARR could be wrong.  I've got to add that investigation to my TO-Do list!

Big & Little Things I've Been Doing

Big Thing
I regret my recent absence from the genealogy blogosphere, but I know you'll understand.  Ah, it feels so good to again sit at my computer and breathe ....  We are caregivers for our dear neighbor.  He'll be 85 next month.  He's retired, career Navy and, oh, the stories he has told, including having been on a ship off Japan for both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  He's been very independent until March 9, long story short: ER, hospital, surgery, skilled nursing, and now we are planning the next step.  I have had the privilege of giving him all the time I could these last two weeks.  Things are better now, but I don't know when my blogs will be regular again.

Relatively Teeney Little Thing
With just a bit of "free" time now, I sat down and started on the accumulated blog postings in Reader.  Wow, people have been very, very busy, ..., there are hundreds to read...  I don't know if I'll ever get caught up.

I say a recent post at Randy Seaver's Genea-Musings
on how to make these personalized maps for blogs.  He credited Becky Jamison and Sheri Fenley with leading him to it.  It's so easy that I made this one in just a few moments.  The BigHugeLabs webpage really is incredibly easy to use! 

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

Some of these states were very short stays for my ancestors.  I can probably add Illinois (great-grandparents had one child born there, I think on the way to a South Dakota / Minnesota border town) and New York (4th great-grandfather owned land there, but I haven't proven he lived there).

It strikes me that my ancestors lived in at least 20 states, yet if I made a map for my husband's ancestors, it would only show New York and Italy before that.  If I made one for our dear neighbor's ancestors, it would only show Pennsylvania and Germany before that.

How different we all are ....

Research Diary: Weaverthorpe, Yorkshire

This post is a report on how my research on ETHELLs and GRICEs of my last First Friday Folder post is going.  Ah, the unexpected things I learn....

DAY1

Having reviewed my folder on great-great-great-grandparents Joseph Ethell & Rachel Grice, and feeling well-prepared for my research, I arrived at the local Family History Center and set myself up at a microfilm reader.  My goal was Item 3 of FHL # 990,896: Bishop's Transcripts for Weaverthorpe, 1631-1852, Church of England, Parish Church of Weaverthorpe in Yorkshire, England.  My first thought was 'How inconvenient that I'm going to have to scroll through 2 whole items to get to the one I need, drat!'

I am still compulsive enough that I at least write down the title of every item on a film and annotate my notes about whether or not I read an item.  First, I wrote down the film number and what my general goal was: birth and marriage data on Joseph, Rachel, and their children.  Then, I wrote out the title entry for Item 1 and my note that I was not reading this one at all: whoever even heard of 'Helperthorpe'?  I need Weaverthorpe and so there. 

But the compulsive me, while rapidly scrolling through Item1 on my to Item 3, did a random stop and read one page.   And, there was a GRICE!  This is not a super common surname so I figured I'd better check this out before I went any further.  I ran Google maps on one of the FHC's computers and found that, wonder of all wonders, Helperthorpe is only 0.8 mile from Weaverthorpe! 

I had broken one of the cardinal laws of genealogy: know your geography before you do serious research!  Fortunately, the Genealogy Elf had given me a GRICE on my random stop.  Otherwise, I probably would have sent the film back to Salt Lake without knowing what I had in my hands.

Quickly reading backwards just 3 pages from my random stop yielded 4 more GRICEs, but the year was much to early to be of use to me now, so I went forward to an intermediate section title page which said "Helperthorpe -- 1790-1807, 1802, 1809-1812." As 1790 was where I had decided I would focus my reading in Weaverthorpe, this seemed like a good place to start my notetaking for Helperthorpe.  I saw that Helperthorpe must be a pretty small place because there were only 3 baptisms and no marriages nor burials for the entire year from Lady Day 1790 to Lady Day 1791.  I also found a notation for one year specifying that the marriages and burials for that year were recorded at Weaverthorpe.  So, clearly, these two locations are linked and I must consider them both in my ETHELL / GRICE quest.

I read through to 1850 in Helperthorpe and found 15 GRICE entries (including 3 children of a Wilson/Grice couple.  I can't yet connect any of these to my lines, but I've just begun!

DAY 2

Before I left for the FHC, I went to the GENUKI website and ran Weaverthorpe through the church database.   I searched for all churches within 6 miles of Weaverthorpe.  I quickly got a list of 26 churches (18 Church of England and 8 Methodist of one sort or another).  Here's a snippet of those search results:

I'm already pretty confident that my GRICEs & ETHELLs are connected to Weaverthorpe and to Lutton.  Now, I see that if I had run this search earlier when I should have, I would have also known to search in Helperthorpe and Butterwick.

At the FHC, I scrolled ahead to Item 3 to read Weaverthorpe. [I had already run Google maps on Hornby of Item 2 and found that it was 60 miles away and I don't feel a need to read it yet!]    I started reading/notetaking in the third section, dated 1760-1775.

There are more GRICEs here, but the script is different and it appears to be spelled 'grifse,' which I think is GRISSE, a possible alternative spelling.  I was hoping I was making a good assumption when I found this marriage record:

Banns of Marriage between Richard Grice & Ann Kellington were published on Tuesday ye 12th ye 19th & ye 26th of May by Mr Geo Lawson Mininster. / The above Richard Grice, spelled Grifse in ye Baptismal Register of Lutton, Batchelor & Ann Kellington also of Lutton Spinster, were married in ye Chapel of West Lutton by Banns on Wednesday ye twenty ninth day of May in ye year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred & eighty two by me...

Wasn't that nice of the minister to specify the exact name he wanted!  Altogether, I extracted 14 more GRICE entries this day.  I still can't confidently claim any of them, but I am starting to form family groups.  Once I get to the 1830s, I hope to find the link I need.

DAY 3

Whoops! I woke up with the sudden realization that I wasn't looking for GIB/GIBS/GIBB/etc.  That's the surname of Rachel's possible mother.  I think I would have come to my senses if I had seen a GIB, but it bothers me that I hadn't actually include the surname in my goal statement.  The little research I've done before on Rachel has never found any GIB (etc.) families anywhere near a GRICE or ETHELL.  

Well, I'm eager to get on with reading the Weaverthorpe film, but I won't make it to the FHC today after all.  Life gets in the way sometimes....  But, I've sat here instead and reviewed all the notes I've made so far.  I'll try again on Thursday!

MEMO TO SELF

• Always run the church locations before reviewing any church records in England.
• Always look at a detailed map and see the nearby towns, too.
• Make sure the goals I specify for reading any film have all the surnames I'm looking for.

NOTE

There are no page numbers in either of the two Bishop's Transcripts used here.  All the records are in rough chronological order.  The film is unusually clear and easy to read for the most part.

Irish Genealogy Tip: The Irish Times

ProGenealogists recently posted a brief mention by Kellie Scherbel about a tool for finding variant spellings for Irish surnames.  It's a great tool, hosted by the Irish Times.  But, I quickly found that they have a LOT more at their site for those of us trying to research Irish ancestors.

The Irish Times home page, under the 'More' section, the drop-down menu includes an option for 'Irish Ancestors.'  The Surname Search button there yields a search box and this explanation:

"Enter a surname in the box above, and find out:

• the number and location of households of the name in Ireland 1848-64;
• variant spellings or associated names;
• surname dictionary entries;
• surname histories;
• the number and location of births of the name in 1890;
• published or printed family histories;
• a possible coat of arms associated with the name."

It all works beautifully!  I got quite a lot of information on KEATING and less, but still useful, on DOOLEY. 

There are also options for placename info, research outlines, immigration, and full text archives of a regular Irish Times genealogy column by noted genealogist John Grenham, beginning from Jan 2009!  And, there are more links to additional helps at this page.  I think it's a real treat to be able to read regular articles by Grenham!

Conclusions

Thanks to ProGenealogists for this tip.  Now, I just wish I could find some little lead somewhere about specifically where my Irish great-grandparents originated ....

Disclaimers

I read the ProGenealogists blog regularly and love the info available at their website, but I have no other connection to them at all.  

I receive no consideration from the Irish Times, but I will start visiting their Irish Ancestors webpage regularly now that I know about it!  Warning:  There is an option to subscribe for full access to Irish Ancestors.  But there are oodles of free goodies available.

William Causier in Dodderhill

I went back to the Dodderhill Parish Survey Project site mentioned in last post and found great-great-great-grandfather William CAUSIER actually named! It says 

 Most of the Land is owned by Earl Somers and Thomas Thould, with John Bobeson, Thomas Wilson, Edward Bayliss, and William Causier as main occupiers. Full details are in the Appendices of the document available by clicking the link below, which also has information on the various legal documents conveying the land at Impney to John Corbett.

 My goodness!  A name and more information available?!  What could be better than that?!

It took a while to navigate and get to the additional information, but it is super!  Links led to the Worcestershire County Council site and, wonder of all wonders, they have a searchable database with digital copies of the 1845 tithe maps!  There are lots of ways to display the maps and a complicated/thorough legend and labeling system.  It seems to work much better with IE instead of Mozilla.  This image is a very simplified version of what I found:

The pink hash-marked spaces are roads, with the main one from the right of the top center to the bottom left corner being Bromsgrove Road.  The label didn't transfer with the image, but the area immediately to the east of that road and immediately south of the L-shaped dead-end is Hill End!

Now, for the biggie: look at the line of 8 structures along Bromsgrove Road in the center of the image.  The thin, greenish parcel with the 4th structure down is that of William Causier in 1845!  I hope this makes sense because this is a great find: a map that specifically shows William's land and the location of the Hill End area.

The unique intersections allowed me to use Google street view and locate the spot! It shows lush foliage in a mostly residential area with the Hill End busstop in front of a wall that would be just about where William's parcel was.  I may never get to see it in person, but this find is almost as exciting as that would be for me.

The tithe mapping database says:

Parcel 436

Owner: Earl Somers

Tenant: William Causier

Title: Cottage and garden

Area: 0,0,9

Tithes: 0

Land Use: Non-agricultural 

Parish: Dodderhill

 I haven't yet found the appendices and document mentioned, but I'll keep looking.  And, I don't know what the '0,0,9' means for the area, but I bet the folks at RootsChat will!  Right now, I'm going back to RootsChat to show them what I found because of their answers to my query!

Conclusions
It's good to keep looking and exploring all the info in a large website.  I don't know why I kept looking this time because I know I was assuming it was all just general info and would never have anything on just, plain, regular folk....

Now, I have a map and a very specific location for a great-great-great-grandfather from 1845.  English geography doesn't seem quite so complicated right now!  I am so very excited! A map can be better than anything!

DISCLAIMER

I am not an employee of any of the entities mentioned here, nor do I receive any special consideration from them.

Great Resource: National Probate Calendar for England & Wales

There have been lots of announcements lately about the debut of the England & Wales, National Probate Calendar database at ancestry.com.  I finally got a chance to play around in it and found some of my CARRs and CAUSIERs.

Grice Ethell Carr 

He is one of my great-grandfather John Carr's brothers.  I don't have problems in that generation or the previous one, so I haven't done too much work on Grice Ethell.  Given his unusual name, he is easier to spot when looking for CARRs in general, and I have written about him before.  

This find [1] gives me a specific address and a death date.  The surprise (or problem?) is his wife's name being 'Sarah,' when I was expecting Emily J.  Since I have no other record of him after 1901, Emily could have died and he could have remarried.  I should spend at least a little time and see if I can fill in the new gaps and see if I can resolve the wife issue.  I don't feel a real need to pursue the original records that go with this index entry, but at least I now know where and how to find them!

The address given, however, intrigued me.  I have a terrible time keeping track of the geography and levels of goverance in England.  This one, especially with no punctuation, completely threw me.  So, I posted a question in the Yorkshire section at RootsChat (also see previous post about this great resource).  Almost immediately, I received several responses, telling me that the street address is 12 Brandon Terrace.  'Slade Hill' is an area within the Moortown district of Leeds.  I also was told that it's a very nice area of town and that 'Slade Hill' has an alternate spelling of 'Slaid Hill.'  I love RootsChat!

William Cornelius Causier

Yes, this record [2] only says 'William Causier,' but with the info given, he is the one in my files as William Cornelius Causier, the son of my great-great-great-grandfather William Causier and his first wife, Letitia Willis.  My line is through William's second wife, Ann Tolley, so this is a very collateral record for me.

His occupation at that time is new to me.  I sent off another question to the Worcestershire section of RootsChat asking about 'Hill End' and the relationship to Droitwich and Dodderhill.  I've seen it many, many times in parish records for the Causiers.  Again, I received replies clarifying the lay of the land and including a new website to checkout:  the Dodderhill Parish Survey Project.  There's enough info there to keep me busy for ages!  Their growing site includes history, maps, and records.  Thanks, yet again, to the great folks at RootsChat!

The WRONG William Carr!

My William Carr is my great-great-grandfather and I only have death information from another family researcher.  Granted he's an absolutely expert researcher, but it would be nice to find more info anyway.  As you should assume, the search at the database turned out oodles and oodles of William Carr's who died in 1916.  But I was excited when one of those high in the list was a William Herbert Carr who died in 1916 from Scarborough, Yorkshire, which is very close to where I would expect to find William, and 'Herbert' is a family name.  But, look at what I got when I went to the image [3]:

Regretably, I have no known relationship to this brave soldier.  I am, however, certain that my 76-year-old great-great-grandfather was NOT off in France in WWI.  This non-find reminds me that no matter how an index entry may appear to match, don't get too excited! 

Conclusions

Yet again, I found myself playing around, finding absolutely interesting stuff on collateral lines and strangers.  Do I need to draw a harder line on how I spend my research time?!

The entry on William Carr was a good reminder that I must never assume that an index entry is the person I'm researching, not even when the dates seem to match.  And, it's real folly with common surnames.

Genealogy people, and especially those at RootsChat, are the nicest and most helpful people!  I should spend more time in RootsChat searching the info already there and I should see if there are any queries where I can be a help and not just a problem.

Sources

[1]  England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1861-1941.  [Database at ancestry.com]  Image from 1928, p. 526.

[2]  England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1861-1941.  [Database at ancestry.com]  Image from 1870, p. 333.

[3] England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1861-1941.  [Database at ancestry.com]  Image from 1917, p. 454

Disclaimers

I am a paid subscriber to ancestry.com but I receive no other special consideration from them in any way.  I am registered at RootsChat [that's free!] and receive nothing but good responses from them.

Gravestone Photographic Resource (revised 7/26)

The blog GenWestUK just posted info on Gravestone Photographic Resource.  It seems to be a very thorough site and has super potential as the contributions increase.  The goal is worldwide, but at least for now, most entries seem to be UK related.

Their database includes entries for George Causier (1854-1916), his wife Jane Elizabeth (Pearce; 1864-1934), and two of their children: John & May.  They are buried in the Municipal cemetery of Linthorpe, Yorkshire.  Apparently, their names are on one monument. George is a great-grandson of my 4th-great-grandparents, Sacheverell Causier & Sarah Hunt.  I was able to fit George's family in my lines because of all the work Cousin Val has done and kindly shared.  I must reconnect with her!

Conclusion:  Uh oh, catching up on reading blogs can seriously add to the ToDo pile....  I won't run any of my other Yorkshire surnames now, but posting this resource should make it easier for me to remember to get around to it!

It's nice to have at least one, moderately unusual surname in my Carr/Causier line!

Thank you, GenWestUK!

Treasure from the TO-FILE Pile: Western Antique Power Associates

Yesterday, working my way down, I hit 3 copies of the 2009 newsletter of the  Western Antique Power Associates.  I had received them last October when we attended a local community fair and WAPA was one of the exhibitors.  I took these two photos of some of the equipment they had on exhibit.  The blur in the photo above shows that the engine was working with the wheel spinning!   When they set up working machines, they sell corn meal that was ground by an antique right there in front of you!

Their homepage has a link to the newsletter and the April 2008 newsletter is online.  My copies of the 2009 newsletters are either a 4- or 6-page, glossy, heavy stock publication.  Each of my issues included lovely color photos of their working antiques and older black & white historic photos.  Some of the machines included a fully restored John Deere model E tractor, Desjarden's engine, Bouris' Caterpillar, and an M. Lytle & Son cylinder (circa 1900) on a Gibbs, Russel & Company bed (circa 1860s) from the oilfields of Western Pennsylvania.

I'm not a totally dedicated power fan and don't know specifically what I've photographed, but I loved re-reading these 3 issues yesterday and I loved looking at these working antiques on display.  I know my dad would have absolutely loved them, too.  I bet he would have joined their group!  I've decided I don't have the room to archive the newsletter, but at least I've published this blog about them!

Great Resource: Los Angeles City Directories

My biggest problem in tackling the "To Do" piles is that even just one brief item to check out in a newsletter can keep me busy all afternoon! This week, it was one tiny, little article in the May 2010 Questing Heirs Genealogy Society's Newsletter [1] reporting that the Los Angeles Public Library had added the 1923 edition of the LA City Directory to their digital collection.

I have made the trip to the Los Angeles Public Library in downtown LA a few times; their genealogy collection is quite good. I have used the cumbersome microfilm copies of the directories to track approximate arrivals in and movement around Los Angeles for my Hegwer, Porter, and Keating lines. But I had no idea that any of the directories are online! Wow! And anyone can access them from home: no library card required! (Of course, if you do have a card, there are lots of other databases you can also access.) Note that this is the library of the City of Los Angeles; the Los Angeles County library system is a completely different entity [2].

Access the directories at http://www.lapl.org/resources/en/.  [Personally, I cannot find a way to easily get to this link from their home page!]   Select the link to the 'Los Angeles City and Street Directories.'  Once you get there, the search engine for the site is super easy. Of course, just to test it, I put in my names and found some new-to-me info!

This image is from p. 1082 of the 1942 Los Angeles City Directory.  Leonard Benjamin HEGWER was one of Great-Uncle Henry Hegwer's children with his second wife, Flora Wallace. A meterman with the city power company, Leonard appears in the 1929, 1936, 1938, 1939, and 1942 Los Angeles directories, each time at a different address! Interestingly, the listings also vary by who else is recorded with him:

1929 -- alone

1936 -- Louise I.

1938 -- Louise T.

1939 -- alone

1942 -- Dollie

The 2 listings where Leonard is listed without another name don't bother me; I know there are many instances where the directories do not show spouses. My records show that a marriage license was issued in Los Angeles for him and Louise Isabelle Ferguson in 1924, but I don't know if 'Dollie' is Louise.

Genealogy lessons for today

• The newsletters from local genealogy societies can have all sorts of wonderful goodies in them.
• Freely accessible digital collections at libraries are rapidly growing.
• Working on the ToDo pile can create more to do!
• Leonard is very collateral for me, so I probably won't spend any more time on his marriage(s?), but it does remind me that new info can turn up when you least expect it.

Line of Descent

Carl Benjamin Hegwer = Maria Rosina Ilgner

Henry Hegwer = Flora Wallace (his second marriage)

Leonard Benjamin Hegwer = Louise Ferguson and/or ????

Disclaimer & Notes

I do not receive any special consideration from any of the entities mentioned in this blog post.  I have a library card for both libraries mentioned and I am a Questing Heirs member.  For the directory image, first I saved and printed the page I wanted.  Then I took a digital photo of a portion of the page and cropped it.

[1] Questing Heirs Genealogical Society meets in Long Beach, California. Both their monthly newsletter and monthly meetings are always very interesting.  Past issues of the newsletters are available to anyone at the website.

[2] A library card from the Los Angeles County Library is free to temporary or permanent county residents.  I can access Heritage Quest from home and use my local branch for inter-library loans for lots of genealogy sources! 

Great New Resource: DAR Genealogical Research System

I'm a regular reader of Randy Seaver's Genea-Musings blog. His entries are frequently so good that I can tell I need to set one aside and come back when I can really get into it. Tonight I finally sat down to read his 20 November blog on how to use the DAR Genealogical Research System at the DAR website.

I won't use my time or space here needlessly repeat Mr. Seaver's info. I will say that I had a lot of fun putting in some of my PORTER-line ancestors and seeing what I got!

Dan DAVISON/DAVIDSON, Moses BATES, and Ichabod MARSHALL were all there! It doesn't look like there's any much new info for me, but I printed it out and will study it.

In addition to service info, there is info on which of their descendent lines have been used for DAR membership purposes. While the online info is NOT proof of lineage, it does give info that could facilitate finding primary sources. Be prepared to spend lots of fun time at this site!

Great Resources: England

The London Gazette is an official newspaper in the British Isles and has been continuously published since the 17th century. My first reaction when I read that it now had a fully searchable online archive was 'Why bother? My people weren't in London.' But, I still visited the site and searched for the fairly uncommon surname CAUSIER and for some of my CARRs, all of whom were in Yorkshire and neighboring areas. ... Now I know that the London Gazette is much, much more than a London paper!

I found Great Uncle Grice Ethell CARR in bankruptcy listings:
11 May 1888 -- p. 2733
18 May 1888 -- p. 2874
16 May 1888 -- p. 6264

His address is listed as "Bridge-street, Sandal-road, Wakefield, Yorkshire" and is a "Grocer and Tea Dealer." The prodeedings are being handled in the Wakefield Court. This data adds to what we know about where he lived and his occupations. The second child of William CARR and Jane ETHELL, his name is actually three of the family surnames! By the 1891 England census, he was back in Whitwood Mere and working in the glass foundry.

I didn't know what the listings were referring to; 'bankruptcy' wasn't mentioned on any of those 3 pages and working backwards to the beginning of each listing had not made it any clearer. So, I went to RootsChat and posted a query there. Within in 2 days I had 3 great responses and that's how I learned great uncle Grice Ethell CARR had filed for bankruptcy. I don't see much in the the genealogy press about RootsChat, but I think it's a great resource for anyone doing research in England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, etc. Everyone is very nice and very helpful.

I made these website thumbnails using Thumbizy which I learned about a few weeks ago from the Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter. But, I'm not totally satisfied with them here and will try something else next time.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I neither work for nor receive any consideration from any of these groups. Actually, I don't work for anyone.