TWO brick walls down this weekend!

[fudge stripe cookays]

I love it when I can make some headway like this!

I had been looking for Mabel for YEARS. She married this guy AND died between the 1920 and 1930 censuses, when he son was only about 3. The husband remarried to a woman who treated the son (Gerald) terribly, I heard from another family member. But no one knew where he was. Unfortunately, when I did finally find him, he died in 1991.

His half brother was no help, and is kind of a jerk. That guy's daughter is nice, but doesn't know much because she's pretty young.

SOME kind soul submitted a tiny bit of info to Ancestry, and that piece (where this woman is buried) filled in the blank. I had the book of cemetery transcriptions from Oak Hill in Janesville, but when I bought it a few years ago, had completely missed her, since one of the family members told me her first name was Grace! But there she was, with a death date, so I was able to look up her obit in Madison on Saturday (sorry Sybylla, short notice on this one!). Her Janesville obituary listed her marriage YEAR, so it won't take me quite as much time to find it. :bounce:

AND one tiny clue in an obituary I sent for from Oregon yielded a teeny tiny bit of info that led to me finding a woman's obituary on Ancestry last night. I was able to finally make contact with my bunch that ended up in Ohio. :woohoo:

Life is good! If the weather improves any tomorrow, I'm heading to Green County to finally visit my first courthouse and see if I can answer some more brick wall questions that have been bugging the crap out of me, then I start my new job on Thursday, barring any unforeseen complications. Ya'll wish me luck!

:bounce: !

[CBHagman]

1. Time for the Dance of Joy!

Congratulations!

It's amazing what a difference a single line of information can make. And oh, how I love finding obituaries (Yeah, I know that sounds grim, but...). Like you, I've gotten real progress out of single brief obituary.

Good luck on your next steps! :hi:

[fudge stripe cookays]

2. Thanks CB!

I live and die for obituaries. They are the goldmine that make my sort of searching (bringing old lines into the modern day to obtain photos from modern day descendants) possible.

My cycle is:

Start with info from LDS or family data > check censuses > check WWI draft cards for any males for exact dates and locations > check SSDI for those era folks > check RAOGK for obit sources > check SSDI again for any next of kin mentioned > check anywho.com for living folks from the obituary > call living folks, get more data > repeat process.

Seems to be working for me so far! :D

[sybylla]

3. That's great!

Wish I could have been there with you but I had a funeral - spent the afternoon in Wausau at the memorial of dem activist and party leader Marlys Matuszak. Plus, I've been under the weather. A day in Madison would have been out of the question, I fear.

One of these days, though, the weather and life will cooperate and we'll get together. I swear!

[fudge stripe cookays]

4. Promise!

During winter it's been a matter of when there's a weather opening of halfway clear conditions. That'll get batter in the apring and summer. Every weekend I'm gonna be gallivanting off somewhere!

[sybylla]

5. I'd even do Green County with you

Three-fourths of my family came through that county at some point. I still have family there. I know it quite well if you need a navogator to hunt down old cemeteries.

[fudge stripe cookays]

6. Thanks!

Unfortunately, I think the bulk of my Crittendens/Baldwins there are in Greenwood. And they're a slightly different batch than the one in my book, although they are related. The records supposedly burned, I learned from Donna Kjendlie or one of her collaborators.

When I checked a few years ago, they had no record of my Cal and Ella Smith, so they must not have stones. He was a Civil War vet who retired in Brodhead, and died in his 40s of his wounds (4 gunshots to both arms, both legs, all in 1 volley! That had to hurt....) I'm still trying to figure out what happened to her...whether she remarried or died with the "Smith" last name.

They transcribed the stones in Greenwood and did a book a few years ago, but now Origins storefront is closed! :cry: Their inventory is supposedly still available, but they got rid of all the county stuff available on their webpage.

I'm still thinking about going tomorrow if I can manage it. Today I knew the ice would be bad, but they're still talking about snow later. Oy.

[sybylla]

7. I have the Greenwood Cemetery transcriptions on CD

I'd be happy to do look ups.

[fudge stripe cookays]

8. Coooooool!

If you see David and/or Melissa Baldwin on it, I could be your very best friend!

They were Ella's parents. If I could find THEIR obituaries, it will help me narrow down whether Ella was still alive at the time or not.

:-)

[sybylla]

9. No luck :-(

Only one family of Baldwins shows up - Henry and Dorothy and their children, Clara, infant and Otto. But there are a lot of cemeteries not far from Monroe. Depending on where your Baldwins lived or the church they belonged to, they could be buried elsewhere. Are you certain your Cal Smith is buried in Greenwood?

[fudge stripe cookays]

10. No,

but much of his wife's extended family is there. I just found Melissa's sister Louisa's obit the other day, and she was listed as being there (see? A Baldwin. No record for her either.)

You have to see a diagram of the Smiths, Baldwins, and Crittendens and their intermarriages to believe it. I did one for my book- I'll show you when we meet. These aren't just double cousins....they're like triple & quadruple cousins!

Thanks for looking, sweetie. I'm hoping when I do finally find Ella's obit it will say where she is. Cal's didn't. Now that I'm up here it's a lot easier to look more. Off to do more searches....

:-)

[Bitwit1234]

11. I didn't bookmark the website but Ohio

has either death index where you can photocopy the death certificate or where you can look up the individual and order the death certificate.

I know WVA website you can photocopy the death certificate right off the net. And you can research the birth and marriage records also. I am going back and find the Ohio site and bookmark. A lot of my relatives migrated there and spread out even to Alberta Canada.

[Bitwit1234]

12. Ohio death certificate website

You have the index, which list the name etc and the death certificate number. There is a 7 dollar fee to order a death certificate.

www.ohiohistory.org/death

[fudge stripe cookays]

13. Thanks,

I found it several months ago, when I had to start researching Ohio. The Rutherford Hayes and Tiffin libraries also will make copies of obituaries, if anyone's interested! I've found quie a bit through those, so far.

THIS Ohio bunch ended up down in Oklahoma, then became Okies and migrated to California, and their California Death Index ROCKS!

We had some folks end up in Alberta too. We're in pretty much every state in the union, 4 Canadian provinces, and some other countries too (Italy, Switzerland, and Australia come quickly to mind).

[kestrel91316]

14. I'm researching a friend's mom's family for her -

her grandfather died when her mom was little and her grandmother never talked about him. She knew he had been a bagpiper at the Citadel in Charleston, so I emailed them, and a very kind public affairs person found and sent me his obituary!! And she's having an archivist copy up and send me a whole packet of stuff they have on him.

Now that I have when he died, where and when he was born, parents' and siblings' names from the obit, I am really off and running! He has a unique enough name, it was easy to get him in the census.

Major brick wall is down.

[fudge stripe cookays]

15. Woohoo!

:woohoo:

Congratulations!

I did 2 courthouses last week, and knocked down even more! :D