dianaschnuth

I guess that’s what I get for being a long-time member of a paid-subscription website. First, my annual subscription price gets raised (albeit some time ago). Then I find that, since I didn’t cancel in time, I’m not eligible for a refund. That’s $99 down the tubes, since a.) I’m not actively doing genealogy these days, and b.) I have online census access for free through the Toledo Lucas County Public Library.

So… if anyone I know would like to look up some census info on Ancestry.com, give me a holla. I’ll hook you up.

I’d just like to say that I am an incredible dork for not having signed up for a Lucas County library card sooner.

You know how I’ve been subscribing to the Ancestry.com U.S. Census collection for, like, $70 a year or something? Well… it turns out that HeritageQuest Online, available from the Toledo-Lucas County Libraries website, also has census images available. HeritageQuest also offers a search of PERSI, the PERiodical Source Index; books; Revolutionary War pensions and records, and others.

Apart from HeritageQuest, the library also subscribes to America’s Obituaries & Death Notices, various biography collections, several newspaper archives, Sanborn Maps (holy crap! sweet!), and WorldCat, of course.

*facepalm*

I totally need to cancel my Ancestry.com subscription. And go look for that Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Chipley, Florida in the 1930’s Sanborn maps from cities in the state of Ohio.

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:

1. City directories? Establish the year it was founded and the year it went out of business or changed hands.
2. Land and property records; perhaps a mortgage?
3. Florida Secretary of State: Bureau of Measurements’ annual inspections, incorporations.
4. Florida State Archives for archived gov’t records?
5. Local genealogical society or historical societies
6. 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…

As we were swapping family photos over e-mail, a newly-discovered relative of mine told me, “I love photos also. In fact, when I am doing work on a family, I like to have their photo to look at. I think it brings reality to the numbers.”

I took that to heart this week and decided to research one particular photo I’d found online a few years ago. My great-great-grandmother, Grannie Maudie, two of her sisters, and her daughter pose in front of a 1940’s era service station. From what I read, Maudie’s sister, Phoebe, actually owned the station, but the researcher who posted the information didn’t know where the station was located.

Luckily, I discovered this back in 2001, and had plenty of time to approach Memaw about it before she passed. Maudie was Memaw’s grandmother, and Memaw had spoken enough about “they was a bunch of girls in that family” that I figured she might know something about the service station. After all, she used to say that Aunt Miney (MY-knee) was the first person in the family to own a car, and I believe she said it was a Model T. (I’m still not sure who Aunt Miney is, but I’ll piece it together someday.) So, I wasn’t surprised when she knew exactly what I was talking about, and told me that the station had been out on Route 10.

After that, I didn’t think about the service station for quite some time. I always knew I’d come back to it eventually, though.

This week, as I was pulling out family photos to inspire me in my genealogical research, I came across a print of the service station picture, and decided that I wanted to make it the cornerstone of my current project. I want to get as much information as possible about the women in the photograph, the service station, and how it came to be.

In getting my facts straight, I realized that I’d had a couple people recorded in the wrong families entirely, and that I didn’t have much information on these ladies. I had dates, thanks to Mrs. Smith’s research, but no sources. And I’ve become a stickler for sources lately.

So, tonight, I’m requesting death certificates for three of the four women in the picture: Phoebe, Delia, and Ida. I already have Maudie’s. I’m hoping to see whether they had Social Security Numbers — if they did, I can order up their Social Security Applications. Those will tell me where they were employed, if anywhere, at the time they applied for the SSN; their home address; their places of birth and their parents’ names; and a few other random goodies. Unfortunately, I’m fairly positive that Maudie never had a SSN, as her death certificate lists none, and she died in 1950, before it became mandatory for all U.S. residents to have a SSN. Phoebe also died relatively young, in 1957, at the age of 64; however, she may have had to have a SSN, since she was the owner of the service station. I have high hopes for Ida and Delia having SSNs, as they seem to have survived a little longer, and I think I’ve found them both in the Social Security Death Index.

I think I’ve geeked out on genealogy long enough for one night. I’m off to write three $5 checks to the Florida Department of Vital Statistics, record the requests in my research log, and get them ready to go in the mail tomorrow.

I’m hoping that having some focus in my research will help me untangle this confusing web of multiple marriages and not-quite-legal adoptions and divorces and separations and step-children and OMG. Why couldn’t these women be a little less strong-willed and a little more marriageable? 😉

And still they’re eluding me.

So, today’s research: I got emails back from the Clermont County Public Library and the Ohio Department of Health. First, the *very* nice librarian at Clermont County confirmed that Thomas COOK and Rachel HILL were married on 5 March 1852 in Clermont County, but said that the record contains no information about their parents. I’m not sure why I thought that would be helpful in the first place, being that I need to establish a link between them and who I think is their son.

As for the Department of Health, they haven’t offered uncertified copies of death certificates since 2003. My bad. So, I’m sending off a request for Benjiman Smith COOK’s death certificate along with a check for $16.50 (ouch). I’ll wait and see if that’s helpful before I go and drop over $30 on the other two certs for Ben’s siblings. I’m pretty much just trying to establish where they were all born, and Ben is the oldest sibling I don’t have a death record for. (We’re assuming that the birthplace listed on the death cert is marginally correct, and that I might be able to someday locate birth records from that information. I haven’t had a lot of luck with his older two siblings, though.)

Tonight I mainly spent by looking up census records on Thomas’s and Rachel’s respective families and figuring out how they might have hooked up. From what I can tell, their families lived mighty close to each other for quite a while. Now, Thomas and Rachel got married in 1852, when he was 20 and she was 19 (I think). They had at least 5 kids: Isabelle Kate, John, Comadore (?!), Harvey, and William.

William’s older sister Isabelle married John HILL sometime between 1870 and 1876. As far as I can figure, their parents must have died just about that time, too, because William was living with Isabelle and John HILL in the 1880 U.S. Census, at the age of 12. I haven’t been able to find their brothers John COOK or Harvey COOK, and I believe Comadore died young (before age 10). Leave it to them to throw me a curveball, eh?

I think my problems would be solved if I could find William’s marriage record to his wife Ella, and if that record states who his parents are. I know from the census that they married in 1895. I just don’t know exactly where. Could be Clermont County, could be Butler County, could even be Warren or Montgomery (although I think those are less likely). I’d have to request the record from the county, since the state of Ohio doesn’t hold marriage records from before, jeez, looks like 1949? Wow.

So, yeah. The counties I need wouldn’t be at the Ohio Historical Society archives, so I’d have to contact the counties directly. If it’s in Butler County, I might be able to get it from the Butler County Records Center & Archives — looks like they’ve got marriage records from as far back as 1847, and parents’ names were listed beginning in 1894. Just in time.

If the marriage took place in Clermont County, it looks like I’ll have to write the County Clerk for the record. No big deal, though. Looks like they have marriage records beginning in 1801? Hmm. I’ll have to write them and see.

That’s been my evening. Man, tomorrow I need to take a break from this and work on my podcast. Can’t believe the marathon genealogy-fest I’ve been having this week. And I’ve barely even used any of Ancestry’s resources, which was the reason for this binge in the first place.