You know those transcriptions on FamilySearch and Ancestry and such? I am thinking they are done by a computer with no brain and they are never proofread. Along comes a collector, adds them to their genealogy and yet another nonsense “fact” is born. On FamilySearch I found an obituary abstract. You have to go to a pay site to see the actual obituary. The deceased person is Robert William Jr. His father is Robert Thomas. Duh! How does that follow?…
You’ve been wanting access to FamilySearch Family Tree, right? The link tells you how: http://broadcast.lds.org/eLearning/fhd/Community/en/FamilySearch/FamilyTree/pdf/familyTreeAccess.pdf Be careful what you wish for though. I’ve been on it for about a year and, frankly, it’s a major mess. Here’s what James Tanner has to say: http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2012/04/sorting-out-relatives-in-family-tree.html Ancestor Hunting
The Lucases came to the US in 1710, having fled up the Rhine from Otterberg, Germany. Before that they lived in France. They were Protestants and fled France to Germany. For some reason the records of the French Protestants in Otterberg survived three centuries of war. Now you can look them up on FamilySearch.org. The Otterberg records show up in Germany Births and Baptisms, 1558-1898. [https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/show#uri=http://hr-search-api:8080/searchapi/search/collection/1473000] Just because I could I checked out France, Protestant Church Records, 1612-1906. [https://familysearch.org/search/collection/show#uri=http://hr-search-api:8080/searchapi/search/collection/1582585] There are…
William Henry Downing’s probate file came from the Logan County Circuit Clerk. Parts of it could be found at IRAD and the whole probate would be in the FamilySearch files. On December 2, 1903, in the typhoid epidemic, William Henry Downing died. He was the only child of William Nelson Downing, who died in the Civil War, ironically of “typhoid pneumonia,” and Delilah Downing Downing. He was 40 years old, not expecting to die and had no will. His heirs…
Delilah Downing Downing Shellhammer was the youngest child of Robert Downing whose probate was previously discussed. I had never considered that she had a will or probate but I found it in the probate records posted online at FamilySearch. These probate files are more work to collect, not being word searchable, but they are also free. Help with the records. Delilah died June 22, 1909. She first married William Nelson Downing who died in the Civil War. She then married David…
I own two monitors. I finally gave in and set both up on the same computer. For work it has been okay, not worth going out and buying the second one though. Genealogy is a very different story. Today on one monitor I had my genealogy program open to a family. On the other I had the Illinois Archives databases open. I was able to quickly check the dates for marriages and some deaths, Civil War and other military records…
All those records in Granite Mountain near Salt Lake City are being digitalized and will eventually be available online free. As you can imagine, there are millions of records which the LDS Church has collected over the years. They have the digitalizing down to a science and anticipate it will be completed in 10 years. That’s the worldwide collection. The indexing, which is necessary before you can search these records, is done by volunteers, checked and double checked, will take…
FamilySearch is constantly adding searchable records. I tested their records for Cook County, Illinois. I note you cannot right click and save a section but if you have Windows 7 you can use the snipping tool. If you hover over a name you get more information, perhaps spouse, parents and/or children. And if it is a vital record you can order a copy from the Cook County Clerk. It produced assorted birth, death and immigration records for the surname. I…