Author: Kathleen

It’s So Hard to Let Go Sometimes

Posted on by Kathleen

Even though I’m coming up on the end of my family file cleanup, (which I started sometime in 2010), sometimes I just love to dig into my Original file and clean that up a little too. I just can’t seem to let it go. Am I going to always have two working files? Or will I eventually scrap the original? I just can’t decide. I don’t think I’ll ever fully delete the original file.

With all the new databases that come out on a regular basis, sometimes I want to just dig into that old file, and just test the waters out a bit. Sometimes it’s really just to see if the database is going to be a very prolific resource for my family tree. I’m never really sure if the more rural areas of my family recorded the vital records or not. I know it wasn’t mandated until the 1900s in those states, so I know it’s a toss up.

Two of the databases I’ve really been digging into is the Ohio, County Births and Ohio, County Marriages databases over at FamilySearch. I’m digging up my Ohio roots right now on my file cleanup, so I’m really able to progress. I’ve already had some of these records recorded, but only from an index at FamilySearch, so I didn’t have all the information from the original record.

Ohio Birth Report, 1856-1909
Ohio Birth Report, 1856-1909

Yesterday though, I wanted a little break from the cleanup. So instead of just sitting in front of the TV watching the Housewives on Bravo, I opened up my Original file and I printed out the above report. The great thing is that I used the instructions discussed by Russ Worthington on his blog about preparing for the 1940 U.S. Census. Only I didn’t prepare for the 1940 U.S. Census.

I prepared for the Ohio, County Births database. I filtered in individuals with a Birthplace containing Ohio. Then I filtered out anyone born before 1856 and after 1909. Voila. I had an Ohio Birth Report to work from. It turned out to be 18 pages long, but my printer prints on both sides of the paper, so I went ahead and printed it out for ease of use.

After all that preparation was done, the dryer buzzed and my full day took over. Hey, I have the list though, which means now when I have some extra time, I can just bring up the Original file, take out the list and work from that. The great thing is even if I input information into my old database, I always have that up when I’m working from my new database. So I can easily find my sources and information in my old program once I get to that person in the new database.

Sure it might not make much sense to work in such a haphazard way, but then again if it wasn’t that way, it wouldn’t be me researching. It’s how I roll. That’s right, I roll back and forth over and over again.

A Pleasant Surprise

Posted on by Kathleen
Probate Court, Clermont County, Ohio, “Marriages, 1801-1910”, 1881, p. 516, no 299, Lafayette Moyer-Mollie Howell;

One of the reasons I haven’t been posting much is because I’ve been catching up on my family file cleanup. It’s been going really well. I’m onto the Moyer line of my family tree. I’ve also been soaking up the Ohio, County Marriage and Birth images that were added to FamilySearch. At first I wasn’t going to do new research into Daniel Moyer’s (my 3rd great grandfather) brother. I know he had siblings, and I knew I’d get back around to it, but I couldn’t help myself with these county marriages. What would a little search hurt right?

Well, I found Henry Moyer up to the 1880 census. I know he had two children, Emma and Lafayette. I was having problems finding the children after they left their father’s house. For Lafayette it would be the 1900 census and Emma the 1880. As you all know, the girls take a little more leg work. Well, I found Lafayette in the marriage records as you can see above. However, it was a pleasant surprise to also find that Henry Moyer, appeared with the couple. This is the first time I’ve actually had a parent appear with the child. Lafayette was well over the age of consent (21), so that wasn’t the reason why.

I think what I want to do is learn more about the marriage records from the 1800’s and figure out what little surprises like this could actually mean about the family.

The Census and the Presidency

Posted on by Kathleen

I have a little fun sometimes, and I look up United States Presidents in the census. Don’t try to tell me you haven’t! In fact, I look up a lot of people in the census, not just presidents. This entry isn’t about them though, it’s about the presidents aspect.

Here are some interesting things I’ve learned about past presidents through the census.

  • Even though George Washington didn’t die until 1799 and was president at the time of the 1790 census, I was unable to find him on the census. There were only two George Washingtons that came up in both Ancestry.com and FamilySearch searches. One lived in Massachusetts and the other in South Carolina. I’ll forgive our first president though, he was kind of busy at the time. You know forming a government and a little ol’ place called Washington D.C.

Also, am I the only one out there who wishes they could go back in time and just get a peek at Washington D.C. before all those monuments were built? Or maybe to see the White House and Capitol building but have nothing else be there? How strange would that be?

  • Martin van Buren was the eighth president but the first one to appear on the 1850 census, well actually the first president in the chronological list. He was joined in the 1850 census by fourteen other future and current presidents. Including a posthumous Zachary Taylor and his vice president Millard Fillmore.
  • A fun fact is if you happen to come across the presidents, there are usually arrows pointing to them in the margins!

Just from the 1850 census (no other outside influences), I learned that two presidents are the sons of ministers, Chester A Arthur and Grover Cleveland. Two presidents listed their post-presidency occupations as farmers: Martin Van Buren and John Tyler. There were many variations of pre-presidency occupations, Lawyer (Franklin Pierce, Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford B Hayes), Farmer (James Buchanan), Congressman (Andrew Johnson), and Army (Ulysses S Grant).

This obviously leads me to the 1940 census and what presidents should be on them. If you don’t keep count like me (because I’m weird), there should be eleven, Herbert Hoover, FDR, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, JFK, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H W Bush. No president appears for the first time in the 1940 census, but a lot of them are becoming of age. So there should be some interesting details to be had!

The president at the time of the 1940 census was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He happens to be one of my Mom’s favorite presidents. Not because she lived during his time, but because she was always fascinated by him as a person. Some celebrities who could possibly be making their first census appearance are Tom Brokaw, Smokey Robinson, Peter Fonda, and Chuck Norris.

Who do you look for in the census as a guilty pleasure?