1940 I'm pretty much waiting till it's indexed. I've got plenty of other stuff to keep me busy in the meantime.
My mom found some more stuff. She didn't even know what she had! A book of family history published in 1894 and a super old family bible with a ton of dates written in it. And in one of the books was a letter written by my 3rd great grandfather in 1855!
Alegna - you have been really finding some treasures recently! How cool!
This week we visited a family member I haven't seen since I was a kid, he's 92 and still very sharp. I tried not to pepper him with questions, but I did get a lot of information out of him! Very exciting, some names and towns that I didn't know, so at least I have a starting point now for further research. I've been going through the Ellis Island records, tediously logging each person with a certain last name from the tiny town my ggparents came from, and trying to sort out how everyone's related. Looks like there was a mass exodus from this town between 1905-1920, and 20+ people came over. So confusing--cousins, siblings, all these nicknames. I've got to do some research on WHY they all left then.
Have any of you tracked down likely causes of your ancestors' emmigration? I know the early Americans came mostly for religious reasons, but I haven't figured out the later people's reasons.
I've found most of my ancestors on the 1940 census, just not my mom's parents. I'm sure if I went through all the files from the neighborhood all their relatives lived I'd find them, but I haven't felt like doing it yet. I feel starting this way (before they're indexed) has taught me a lot about the census, I've found out more about the neighborhoods, and I've come across people I wasn't looking for because they all lived near each other.
And I found my house! It's the first time that it would have been on a census as it was built in 1938. It was worth $5,500 and the person who lived here was a mortician! And the side street next to it had a different name than it does now.
scooter I can guess all mine came for better opportunities. None of them were wealthy or anything, just lots of peasants I think I know my mom's grandpa came because his brother got sick and couldn't use his ticket, so he came instead. Better than working in the cloth mills in Dundee I suppose.
Eve Eleanor arrived June 5, 2007
Graham Alexander arrived February 27, 2010
I'm hoping to find some time for genealogy this summer. My Grandmother passed away in February, and she was the one who really inspired me and supported me as I started to work on genealogy. She left me all her family files and photos (8 large bins full), which are now sitting in my office waiting to be sorted. Over the past years, I went through all those files with her and she shared a lot of stories, so I don't think I'm going to find any big surprises. What I need to do is organize, consolidate and think about how I'm going to share all this stuff with the rest of our family. I've written some family histories that I've passed around, but they're very time consuming and I've only just cracked the surface. I was thinking about a blog, where I could share bits and pieces as I go along. That might be an easy way not only to write it, but for younger cousins and such to digest it. Thoughts? Still, I'd have to worry about how to save it for posterity.
RB, I'm sorry for the loss of your grandmother. It is so nice that the two of you were able to work on this together while she was here. It must have been some comfort to her to know that so much family history would be remembered through you. I think a blog is a great idea. You can share bits and pieces without having to commit to how regularly you do it. That is a great idea, I may have to steal at some point. I want to get to a point where I can make copies of everything we have and give it to everyone, but that is going to take a lot of travel before I really have collected all the documents I want. A blog would be a nice way of sharing little stories and things as we go.
I started watching Finding Your Roots, but caught on late into the season. I've got to find the earlier episodes online. Very interesting!
On another note, I just found evidence that one of DH's ancestor's died of the Plague. That's the first Plague victim I've found, which I thought was exciting. I feel a little bad for being excited by that, because he must have had a miserable death, but from a research standpoint it's a little thrill.
Have any of you ever ordered naturalization records?
Nope, sorry I'm no help.
I found my GGrandfather in the 1940 census and it lists him as a widower. That narrows my GGrandmothers death down to 1932-1940. I've got the library in Sioux City, IA searching for an obit for me. So excited.
FYI, Amazon is doing a Cyber Monday flash deal on Family Tree Maker today. If you don't have FTM, I think it's really the best system out there for organizing your genealogy work. This version is not Mac compatible-- PC only. Currently $38, but at 5:41pm PST their flash deal will start. Access from the Amazon home page. Just passing this along in case anyone is interested in grabbing it.
Glad this thread got bumped, I've been meaning to post here and kept forgetting.
In case anyone hasn't seen this, the Library of Congress has an online (and FREE!) archive of a ton of newspapers from 1836-1922. You can search by phrase or name. I've been able to find a lot of articles about my ancestors dating back into the mid-1800s.
Reading old newspapers is so much more interesting than modern-day ones. It was obviously before people used to sue the papers for libel, because they print the most salacious stories, and sure don't fuss about calling things "alledged." For example, I found an article about my ancestor who divorced her husband in the 1890s. They didn't interview him, printed a photo of her surrounded by drawings of cherubs, and went on and on about how he was abusive to their daughter and drank too much and had fallen in love with his mistress. The articles back then were like reading soap operas, it's shocking! But it's lucky for us as researchers because you get some very different perspectives on your ancestors.
Thanks for the link. I'll have to see what turns up.
I know what you mean about news being different. Even some of the stories from 1950s are crazy to read now. Details about how people died and accidents. Talk about graphic descriptions!
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I know my mom's grandpa came because his brother got sick and couldn't use his ticket, so he came instead. Better than working in the cloth mills in Dundee I suppose.
So excited.
