I’ve left voicemails and e-mailed comments in to podcasts before, but I still go all a-squee when I hear MY E-MAIL being read on the air, so to speak.
Last week, I e-mailed the Genealogy Guys about finding Great-Aunt Phoebe’s service station. (Actually, she’s my great-great-aunt, but who’s counting?) Today, I listened to George and Drew give me (and hundreds of other genealogy buffs) some clues about where to go next:
- City directories? Establish the year it was founded and the year it went out of business or changed hands.
- Land and property records; perhaps a mortgage?
- Florida Secretary of State: Bureau of Measurements’ annual inspections, incorporations.
- Florida State Archives for archived gov’t records?
- Local genealogical society or historical societies
- Sanborn fire insurance maps? Chipley might not be large enough of a city to appear in one of those.
So, that gives me a pretty good start. The city directories were something I’d thought of myself, but I hadn’t considered going to the Secretary of State. Good idea, George!
Other fun things: Drew actually pronounced “Schnuth” correctly, and George started out by giving a mini-plug of my podcast, as I’d decided to sign my e-mail with my podcast’s name, as well as my own. Any publicity I can get is fine with me. 🙂
I’m off to go search for some Washington County libraries online…