dianaschnuth

I haven’t been doing much work on my genealogy lately, so when I got an e-mail from Ancestry.com, I was only vaguely interested. Until I read the subject: “Class Action Settlement Benefit Notice.”

Seems that there was a class-action lawsuit against Ancestry, resulting in Ancestry giving one month of free access to all subscribers. I’m only subscribed to the U.S. Census Collection, but they have several other collections, including newspapers, records in general, and god knows what else.

And, for the entire month of May, I get FREE ACCESS.

So… despite prime gardening season approaching, I’m going to be going gangbusters with my genealogy during the next month, to take full advantage of $30 worth of records access for FREE.

I love class-action lawsuits.

Looks like the check I sent to the State of Ohio Vital Statistics cleared on Friday night. That means that Uncle Russ‘s death certificate should be on its way to me soon! Yaye!

I plotted out a timeline / ancestor profile for William Henry COOK last night. It’s amazing how much of my information is straight from the U.S. Census. There’s barely any primary sources at all, mainly because the family moved around so much that I don’t know where all his kids were born. Getting Uncle Russ’s death certificate should help give me somewhere to start, though.

I’ve been focusing my genealogy on the Cook line recently, on William Henry COOK in particular. To help guide my research, I’ve been compiling a list of dates and events that happened in William’s life.

As I compiled this list (and in the past, as I compiled other similar lists), it occured to me that this list of names and dates and places really doesn’t tell anything about the person themselves. And I got to thinking of what my life would look like, were it broken down into small, documentable dates and events.

It would be pretty boring:
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This entry may not interest anyone other than myself. I can deal with that. I’m just figuring that writing stuff down here is better than scribbling a note to myself or typing a to-do list that I may never unearth again.

I’ve been focusing on my Great-great Grandpa COOK‘s family, as I mentioned earlier. I figure that maybe, by filling in every last detail of his marital family life, I might be able to work backwards and figure out how to puzzle out his parents. I have some pretty good ideas, but no solid links. No marriage record for William Henry and his wife Ella WILLIAMS, no birth record for their oldest son, and no freaking clue why William Henry’s birth record gives a Nancy as his mother, when all clues point to a Rachel HILL.

(BTW, genealogists capitalize last names, just to avoid confusion. Just so you know.)

Tonight, I scoured the Family History Library catalog for some more ideas of microfilm I could order up (once I get up the balls to drive down to Perrysburg and try something new *heaven forbid*). And it looks like I’ll be able to track down at least a couple of William Henry’s kids’ birth records, which will help me trace where the heck the family was at any given point in time. I’m planning to order the Butler County Birth & Death Records film, to hopefully find Wm Henry’s oldest child, Leonard, and maybe some of his younger children. I also want to request the Hamilton County Birth Records Index, to find his second-oldest son, Thomas.

Thomas, incidentally, was working for the Ethel Gas Company in 1924 when an electric train struck his car. He died at age 27 of a resultant brain hemorrhage. I’m hoping to someday locate a newspaper article about the accident, because I’m *sure* that would have been big local news.

While I was trying to figure out how I might find William Henry’s will, I stumbled across a great resource: The Montgomery County Records Center and Archives. They have not only wills and probate records, but records from the County Home, recorded mortgages going back to 1834, and dozens of other useful records. I’m planning to write in a request that I know they should be able to fulfill — William Henry COOK’s residency at the County Home from 10 December 1945 until his death in 1946 — and see how much that ends up costing me. If it’s reasonable, I’ll likely request a search for his will, and possibly his mortgage. This could be very helpful…

I keep meaning to write about genealogy, but I keep getting distracted by other things, like my podcast or my diet. Actually, I keep getting distracted from actually *doing* it, too.

I listen to the Genealogy Guys Podcast, by George G. Morgan and Drew Smith, and I frequently get inspired by the suggestions they give. It’s a good thing that I listen to their podcast at work; otherwise I’d likely stop the podcast and start doing research, and to hell with whatever other project I was in the middle of doing.

I also purchased George G. Morgan’s book, How To Do Everything With Your Genealogy, and it’s given me dozens of fantastic ideas, and I’m not even halfway through it yet! Again, it’s a good thing I’ve been reading it before bed, otherwise I’d be setting the book face-down by my desk and firing up my genealogy research right then and there.

Even though I grew up Mormon, and that’s what began my interest in genealogy in the first place, I hadn’t even thought about the fact that there might be a Family History Center nearby.

Oh, goodness, where to begin with this explanation… Well, let’s start from the very beginning, I suppose…

This might get long.
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