117th Carnival of Genealogy, 1940! Fibbin' Fun

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

1940 !  Census that is.

Jasia at Creative Gene is graciously hosting this month's Carnival of Genealogy, where she has challenged us to chat about our finds in the 1940 census.  Now, you will all recall that the 1940 is not indexed in full just yet. By the way, the project at the1940census.com is coming along so wonderfully, thanks to all that are indexing.

Anyway, this challenge reads:   "1940! Have you found a family member in the newly released 1940 U.S. Census? If so, what have you learned about them? No family member in the 1940 Census? No problem. Write what you know of your family back in 1940 anyway. Let's take the COG back to 1940 and create a history lesson that brings our families to life!"

So, as some of you know, Man and I have been traveling a lot since April 2 when the 1940 census went LIVE on the internet.  Truth, I have not had a lot of time to search for our ancestors on the 1940.  So, what limited time I have had, I decided to look for direct line ancestors only.  Looking at our pedigree or ancestor charts I quickly determined that I would need to search for our parents, grand parents, and our great- grandparents, no further.  SOOO, if you chart it out and start counting, that is 14 ancestors (male and female) for each of us.  Truth here, I have had very little time to study the information I have found.

So, for the 117th COG, I am sharing how many of the 28 ancestors I have found, a few tidbits about my finds, focusing for the most part on the fibs I found, or did not find.  I even have a few theories about the fibs. SOOOO, here is how I did, noting the fibbers and those that fibbed a little more.  Not exactly history, although Man's and my family histories are full of fibbers!

Man, out of his 14, 8 of those ancestors either did not live in the United States or had passed, or both.  So, I needed to look for 6 that should be enumerated.

Man's father is still a MIA, he was most likely living with his first wife, and to be honest, I have no idea where, have some suspicions, but, this search will wait for indexing to be complete.  No fibbin' going on here, yet.

Found Man's paternal grandparents, his grandmother was the informant, she fibbed about a LOT of stuff, no surprise there, she is a renown fibber.  Yep, our resident fibber.  She fibbed most about her information.  The grandfather was working as a plasterer in an automobile plant, no surprise, no fibbing, just verification, we like verification.  The great grandparents of this direct line, have all passed or live elsewhere, no searching required.

Man's maternal grandparents, found.  There was a bit of  fibbing here as well.  The fibbing/stretching in this case had to do with ethnic heritage and the after effects of the World War I.   Again, the great grandparents of this direct line had all passed by 1940, no searching required.

On my lineages, I need to search 11 of the 14 ancestors.  My father and his parents are MIA.  I had a few addresses, one as late as 1937, but, alas, they are not enumerated at that address.  They will remain MIA until the indexes become available (and hopefully not AFTER that, LOL)

My father's paternal grandparents have been found, only one small inconsistency in their report, his age was off by a few years.  He was retired.  Nothing much new here.  One of the most accurate findings.

My dad's maternal grandparents, well, he died in 1904, so I went looking for her, you may recognize the name, Lorena.  And, I was successful at finding her, see:

I did learn from Lorena's entry in the 1940 that her hubby was working as a night watchman in a fertilizer plant (first employment information I have on J.C., new data!  Woot!).  Lorena told the truth, no fibbing here.

My mother and her parents were found quite easily, and fast,  they were on the first page in the enumeration district.  The fun find, was that in the houses nearby, were names I recognized, you see, next to my grandparents home was what we called, "the Hoover house".  Guess who lived in the Hoover house in 1940, well, YAAA, the Hoovers!  I know I will be playing with that information again.  My grandfather reported the information and he fibbed too, he got the birth places correct and the age of his children correct.  Grampa's fibs were about, age, a continuing issue with him.  The age fibbin' issues followed him to the grave, even the birth year on his headstone is incorrect.  SIGH

My grandfather's folks had already passed and no search was required.  My grandmother's folks, on the other hand, lived until 1963 and 1965, and should be enumerated. So far, they are MIA.  I know where I believe them to be living, in fact, I was stomping around the farm just last week.  (See the photo below, yes, there is the farm, and just a mile or so west of here, is the West Virginia/Virginia state line.)

I pulled what I believe was the correct enumeration district for the farm, but, they are not there, or I skipped over them.  I looked twice at the pages.  I will revisit them again, but of course, but, think that I may have to wait for the indexing to be complete.   See the thing is, somehow they were not enumerated in Rockingham County Virginia on the 1910 census. They were found in the 1920 and 1930 census enumerations.  Will they eventually be found in the 1940?  I have my doubts, am hopeful, but, have my doubts.

So, there you have it, the fibs, big and small and everywhere in between.

Next up, really studying each and every one of the reports I have pulled, extract the other interesting facts that were enumerated and see if there are any surprises.  I am sure there will be.

For now, with the very little time I have had to play in the 1940 census, there are no major surprises, those that have been known to be fibbers, were fibbin' in 40.  I find it interesting that they stuck to the fibs for years and years.

Who and what did you find in the 1940??  Do you have any fibbin' going on ??




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Coming Home, Flora and Fauna Report

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

We arrived back in SE Michigan about 4:30 April 27th.  Man started looking at lawn mowers, cars, batteries, water pumps, removed the BBQ that had been sitting in the hallway of the house for about 20 months (HUGE WOOT) and all sorts of mechanical stuff.  I, of course, grabbed Sony and walked around the place discovering the situation with the flora and fauna and such.

It looks like it will be a bonus year for helicopters, which translates into, mucho weeding of baby trees, I could probably start my own forest from the looks of it, whew, every maple in the yard is loaded, really loaded - -

The  forsythia and star magnolias are DONE!  Ditto for the daffodils.  The iris are just beginning to bud out, the grass is Irish Hills kelly 'hurt your eyes' green.  The weeds are growing and I am already behind.

For the most part the dandelions have bloomed:

The johnny jump ups have jumped:

The bleeding hearts are right on time, they rarely bloom in my yard before April 23rd.

My wild violets that spread all over the yard, showing up someplace different each spring, are at peak,  I think these are about on time, maybe a bit late:

There is water under the bridge, not as much as a few years ago when both ends of the bridge were actually UNDER water, but more than we see many years:

Usually I am not thrilled about the unpacking process, Tana is my home, at this point in my life, yes, Tana is my favorite home, I mean, look where she (and Jolly and Man) take me.  But, I have to say that this year I have not been minding too much, and one of the major reasons is this, my Korean Spice bush (below).  This is about 3 weeks early, usually full bloom does not happen until mid May, right about Mother's Day.  It is a bonus blooms year, just love bonus blooms, don't you?

There are times I would so dearly love to have smell-a-vision/computer.  This is one.  Korean Spice has the most delectable smell, even walking 4 feet away you can smell it. There are not words to describe, except, maybe a bit of heaven.  Every trip to Tana to bring something into the stick built has been enhanced by the delightful and heavenly scent I get to walk by.  I purposely planted the Korean Spice near the driveway and garage so I could have just this experience year after year.

My lilacs are also in full bloom, again, several weeks early, the color on this is a deep reddish purple, rich in color and yes, they also smell heavenly.

The baby goslings are about a week or so old, still have some yellow about them, but, are about triple the size of new hatches, so I have to say they are a bit early too, maybe by a week or so.

It was an interesting walk about.  Some of the flora were blooming right on time, others are 2 to 3 weeks early.

And, now, let the weeding and planting and such begin.  Summer is right around the corner - -




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Ida's Iris

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Usually I post floral photos over at my blog, Reflection's Flora and Fauna, this one is a bit special, so it comes to Reflections.

A sole iris found growing beside the house of my great grandparents in late April 2012.  One of my favorite flowers and my favorite color.  I have no idea or recollection if these iris were growing there when Ida died in 1963.  I seriously doubt it, however, if they had been - - I would ask, do I come by this love of iris and purple naturally?  genetically??   Ahhh, for a moment emotional whimsy - - yes, naturally and genetically.

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Windows to the Past

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

It has been a long interesting and introspective week here in Rockingham County Virginia, looking through the windows to the past.

As a researcher of things and people of the past, this week in particular was in some ways the most wonderful and in others the most painful.  It will take some time to process it all.
 
Looking out the windows to the past - - -





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Tuesday's Tip, Visit that LOCAL Library

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

So, you think that the state library and archives and historical societies have all the goodies in their collections??  Of course not, but, let's face it their collections are fantastic, and so much fun and great stuff all in one building.  Be still our researching hearts!

Recently on our way back north from our winter escape, we headed up the east coast and I just could NOT resist a stop at Richmond Virginia and the Library of Virginia.  Yes, it was fun, yes, I found some pretty interesting stuff, yes, I   L*O*V*E the Library of Virginia.

That said, I do have a few minor issues with the collection.  The newspapers is the biggie.  For the most part they are stored on other floors in closed stacks.  A few papers are actually in the main reading room on the second floor, but, for the most part, all the papers I would want to access must be done so via the closed stacks.  Now, trying to keep this simple and short and sweet (eyes rolling), here is how that is done.  You need the name and date of the newspaper you want.  If you are lucky, the newspaper will not have changed their name very often, ya, right!  They changed those names constantly.  Each paper, for Norfolk Virginia, named differently, is cataloged differently.  Tis the right way to do things.  Tis frustrating too!

So, the first step is finding the correct newspaper for the locality you want to research in.  They have this really nifty finding aid which lists all the localities and ALL the newspapers by name and date of publication.  If you know about that little jewel of a finding aid, you can use it, to prepare to order the films from the stacks.  Ordering is done via computer (I only did once this trip and it was a FAIL) or via the reference librarians.

(Here is one small problem, not all the librarians know about the finding aid.  The majority of them do, but, not all.  So, when you go asking for the finding aid, some of them will insist there is no such thing and that all the papers are stored in those cabinets right over there, waving at the second floor storage cabinets, only as I have already explained, not ALL the newspapers for the state are there.)

So, we have the finding aid, we have figured out what newspaper we want by name, locality and date, we visit the reference desk and the librarians order the correct film.  Now we wait, for a minimum of 15 minutes, sometimes a bit more.  Sometimes you don't get the film, this happened 2 times during my recent visit, these two films were simply MIA.

When you are notified the film has been brought to the circulation desk, you go over there, check it out with your library card, (no, you MAY not leave the library with it, I have yet to figure out why the check out procedure, but, that is what you have to do) and go back into the reading room.  In the reading room you go request a microfilm reader/scanner, if it is a digitial scanner the librarian must sign you on and set it up the way you want, for example, if you want jpg format output, they must go into the software and set it up for you, it is password protected.

NOW, after all this you load the film and start the searching.  If you are on a digital scanner all you need to produce a copy is a flash/thumb drive. Once you have found your obituary or marriage notice or whatever you are looking for in the newspapers, you can copy it to your flash/thumb drive quite quickly.

When you are done with your newspaper research you gather your films and return them to the circulation desk where you hope they check them back incorrectly (2 films I used did not get checked back in correctly, causing me a tad bit of angst, sighhh).

So, you can see this is a rather slow and time consuming activity, this newspaper research at the Library of Virginia, those closed stacks, sighhh.  You will get some exercise here though, running from the reference desk to the circulation desk to the readers/scanners and back to the circulation desk.  Exercise is a good thing.

NOW, cut to the next week and Man and I are now in Rockingham County Virginia.  I still have obits to find, see, all the ones for Rockingham County, I did not pull while in Richmond.  I did not have time and I hoped I might get to them while IN Rockingham.  So, off to the library in downtown Harrisonburg.  Up on the second floor they have open stack storage for the newspapers, and they have two reader/scanner/printers.  One machine is a paper printer, no digital at all. The second machine is a digital scanner, have flash/thumb drive, will copy.  We are allowed to pull our own films, just 2 feet from the readers.  In just a few minutes over 2 hours Man and I pull and find 20 different obituaries and/or marriage anouncements.  One of those 20 was a gift, I found it on the way to something else.  We did not find 2 others we were looking for. I had to load both machines, Man will look for obits for me, but, he pretty much refuses to load the machines.  I refuse to look at gift horse in the mouth, so I stop what I am doing and load his machine.  It does interrupt the work flow a bit, but, like I said, gift horses!  LOL

There is no way I could have done this amount of work in this time frame at the Library of Virginia with the closed stacks.  I pulled 11 of those 20 items in those 2 hours at the library in Rockingham County.  The huge time saver is the fact that at the local library the films were stored in open stacks, open the drawer, find the correct date, pull the film, takes moments, just moments.

So, you do use the local libraries in your research, right??  Many of them are smaller libraries, smaller collections.  This means, in many cases, easier parking, faster access, easier access and in many cases the local libraries have items in their collections you will NOT find at the state libraries or archives.

Bottom line, a local library can be a gold mine.  Many of them have access rules (to protect the collections from theft, etc.), but if you find open stacks of film, you can really make some time, accomplish a lot in a short time, and walk away blessing open stack accessibility.

If you have not done so during research trips, visit that local library, I think you will be very glad you did.



* Source of the graphic lost to the ravages of time, found on the internet years ago, my apologies to the artist and web site.
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Caching Our Way North

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

As we work our way north towards the stick built, we are doing a bit of caching.  Part of the fun is to collect little state digital emblems.  Every time you find a cache in a state you have not found one in prior, you get a little emblem.  Since we have no idea when we will be back this way, we have attempted to collect a cache in the states we are traveling through.  We report:

Below:  St. Augustine Florida, very well hidden below a live oak and surrounding brush/weeds:

In the general vicinity of Savannah Georgia, tricky, hidden inside a light pole, sorta:

Missed South and North Carolina, sighing.

Below, near Timberville Virginia, a kids hide, as we are still newbies to the sport, kids hides are good practice, this one the GPS directed us across the street, but, I spied it with the hints available on the web site:

Below, in Broadway Virginia, ground zero for my family heritage:

We need to get a handheld GPS meant for this sport.  WHOOPEEE, more techy toys!  Also need to make up a small hunting kit, pencils, maybe a pair of tweezers for the petite mini caches, maybe some gloves, and for many, as taught to us by friends John and Donna, a walking stick to scare off the snakes and move the foliage around!  LOL




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Things We See in Campgrounds

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Not sure this is legal, but, WOW, think of the wide turns he has to make - -

And, those dark brown square fancy smancy wheel covers on the Motorhome, he put them on, and less than 12 hours later, he was gone, so had to take them off.  Befuddles moi.  Extra work and effort for what??  Yep, call us retired, color us, sorta, lazy, yea, that's it, retired lazy.  When we pull a one night stay, we sometimes don't even hook up the water supply.  I don't think that these two retired lazy ones would be putting those wheel covers on for 12 hours, how much damage can the sun do in 12 hours AT night??  LOL

BTW, NOT our Montana in the background.




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Springtime in Rockingham County Virginia

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

This photo was taken April 21, 2012 near where my mother grew up in Broadway, Rockingham County, Virginia.

It has been a week of ups and downs, but, for now, lets just enjoy the beauty.  Off to the right, but, not seen is Linville Creek.  Way off to the left would be the north branch of the Shenandoah River.


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Yes, I WILL Go Over The Fence For Cemeteries

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Yes, I had permission.  My grandparents, great grandparents, great great grandparents, great great great grandparents and possibly other greats are buried here.

We also ducked barbed wire and this thin wire that we suspect may have been electrical fence??  We were not going to touch to test it though.

Yep, I WILL go over and under fences to visit a family cemetery.  And, I'll go in a rain storm, stomp through tall weeds and grass (checking for ticks later), in heat, in cold, and a lot more.  I can still manage this, and I'll continue until I cannot.

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A Reflective Day for Reflections

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Man and I are in Rockingham County Virginia, home of my families for generations.  I can trace my lines back to at least 1800 (even a bit before).  I spent many summers here as a child, visited here many times as a young married gal with babies of her own.  Rockingham has always had an emotional hold on me.

We arrived yesterday, tired, and decided to just sit in the campground, rest, and rest some more.

Today it rained, all day, no deluges, just a steady rain.  Early afternoon, we headed out.  The mist and the rain suited our pensive moods.

Rockingham is truly beautiful, rolling hills, farms, old homes and new.  It is even beautiful in the rain, you can see a rain drop on Jolly's windshield, or maybe that is a tear - -

My daddy always said, nothing stays the same.  He was so right.  The Broadway Diner is closed.  They even closed a section of road, permanently, near where a number of my clan are buried and where my great-grandfather, Charles Trumbo, grew up.  Babies are born, our elders pass.  One of the reasons Man and I are so pensive and reflective is because this is our first visit back after cousin Nancy Trumbo Bodkin died, unexpectedly and much to soon.  Nancy was a spit fire, a wild woman, a giving woman, a great cook, a dear dear friend. Nancy was my partner in crime during the search for the ole Charles Trumbo house.  I wrote about it here and here.  Seriously, if you have not read those posts, you should.  Yea, Nancy was always getting me in trouble.

So, today in the rain Man and I drove to the cemetery to say "Hi" to Nancy and tell her how much we miss her.  The rain helped cover our tears.  Rockingham will never be the same.

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Learning Curve, Diesel Fuel, Really 20 % Bio?

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Man is still in a serious learning curve with Jolly and all it's toys, fuel requirements, and so much more!

A new experience we are facing is fueling Jolly with Tana in tow at the truck lanes at the big ole truck stops.

One of the issues that Man tries to remember to check out is the quality and specifications of the fuel.  For example while we were in Moab Utah last year with Big Butt (gas engine) we discovered that the "cheap" gas was actually below 87 octane, Big Butt could not use that fuel.  If we had fueled up without reading that very small sign, would have meant nasty results for that gas engine.  It was a close call, he had almost started pumping.

Jolly has similar issues, the documentation clearly states Jolly can run a bit of bio-diesel mixed into the regular diesel, UP to but, NOT to exceed 5 % mix.  That percentage is important.

So, we pull up to a TA truck stop around Richmond Virginia,

Here is all the info from the pump:

Let's look real close, paying close attention to the part that chats about bio-diesel blend:

Yes indeedy, it says between 5 and 20 percent.

Man chatted with several employees, managers and truck drivers at that TA truck stop.  The employees, nor the manager could tell us what percentage of bio-diesel would be pumped into Jolly.  They told Man they get several truckloads of fuel delivered every single day and that they have no idea what the percentage of any given load may be.  It could be no bio, it could be 10%, it could be 20%.  

One of the long haul truckers Man discussed this with told him that there is a premium paid to the manufacturers for the bio stuff they are mixing in.  The reason this trucker gave for the mix was that there was not enough diesel being produced to meet the demand.

Now, did this trucker know what he was talking about??  Your guess is as good as ours.  He did say that his truck will stop dead in the road if he uses 15% bio-diesel.

Is there a mix at those pumps, again, your guess is as good as ours, we are betting there is, and we are not taking any chances.

Buyer of diesel beware.



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Tuesday's Tip, What Happened to the Event Numbers

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

While researching at the Library of Virginia I went looking for documents, marriage records, death records, a few obits and miscellaneous other records.

One such record I decided to make a copy of was for a great uncle. I did not have a copy of his marriage record.  Actually, I did not even have the date of his marriage, or place.  I did find his name on the index to marriages.

The index said it was, for example, record # 350 in 1913.   There was no date other than the year, 1913. I pulled the film and then discovered, that the record numbers were cut off the pages.  The column to the far left is supposed to be the record numbers.  See, the column was chopped off, SIGH.

Ok, I will admit it, this frustrated me a LOT!  I was not about to do a line by line search for this marriage record, I did not want the image or the date THAT badly.  I looked at lots of pages, there were no record numbers anywhere.

So, I had a little brainstorm, how many records per page??  Counting them, I discover, for the most part that a page has about 35 records per.

I divided, found the record should be on page 10, went to page 10, and guess what, there he was!

My hint(s), always look for another way, the easy way if possible, and counting records per page might just help.




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Trifecta!

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Well, I can hardly believe it, today was another fabulous day.

Well it was after the campground got the water running.  We did some reality day cleaning, Tana got swept, dishes and lunch done, took showers and then - - - - -

I got a message that blogger Cynthia Shenette of Heritage Zen was going to be able to make a short meetup we had been hoping to pull off.  We had been fiddling with times and days and every time we thought we had something worked out, ooops, little flaws in the plan popped up.  I am not sure how she managed it, but she got hubby to take their son downtown Richmond to a favorite museum after he had dropped her off at the local truck stop near our campground (now, don't you laugh at us, we worked hard to make this work!  LOL)

After another small trip-up, we found each other and spent a couple of fab hours sharing, laughing, talking, table researching, just enjoying ourselves.

We had a great time, and I have to say, that the last 3 days have been so much fun I am not even going to try pinching myself.  First my special genie angel, then our friends Kim and Steve here at the park and Renate of Into the LIGHT, and now Cynthia.

I am outta words of delight, so I'll fall back to something some of the gals say on Google + when they are super delighted:

SQUEAL!!!

Thank you all so very much for making this an 'over the top', special, memory laden week. I will remember it for a very very long time.

Ya, over and over again:

SQUEAL!!!

Tomorrow is my last research day here in Richmond. Tuesday it will be time to head this gang north to the Shenandoah Valley.  In another week or so, we will head back to SE Michigan, our winter escape of 2011-12 coming to an end.  It has been quite the winter.

SQUEAL!!!

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I Am Blessed, Friends Everywhere

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Yesterday it was my genie angel, it was such a wonderful day, did I tell you how much I enjoyed it??  Yea, I did.

Last night I got back to Tana and found that RVing friends Kim and Steve (full timers originally from Alaska) were in THIS very campground.  No, we did not plan it, it just happened.  WOOT!  Man and I always enjoy visiting with them, and I get to blame Steve for pushing Man over the cliff with regards to a certain truck purchase, yeap, Steve gets some of the blame too, err, thanks, for our purchasing Jolly.

And, today, at the end of a normal research day (means, I was tired, hot, frustrated from the misses and elated from the hits), I was giving up the reader/scanner, heading back to my computer to review what I had when I almost literally ran into blogger Renate, from Into the LIGHT.   Renate and I have had several wonderful discussions, she resides near Norfolk and has given me some insight into the area now and then.  She is a delightful gal, we were both so surprised to see each other.  A truly delightful few minutes.  She was grabbing a couple of certs and was due at the symphony and I was running to meet Man at the front steps of the library, we probably could have chatted for hours, but only had those few minutes.  Delightful minutes.

I tell you, I am one blessed gal this week!  I put some chinks in the Dews brick wall and have friends falling out of the woodwork!  Or something like that!  LOL.  Enjoy the symphony Renate, I am so glad I almost ran into you and we met like that.

Blessed and fun!

I did indeed work some today on that Dews clan, I found the death certificate for another brother, Robert Lee Dews, read it and weep folks, mother, DK, as in "Don't know".  RATS!

Another sibling, a sister, died 10 months after the records stop in this collection.  Another brother, John, disappears from the records after 1900, a non-reporting time for many vitals in Virginia.  Another sister, Mary who married William J. Banks, also disappears, after the 1880 census, I want to review her research, it has been a while since I looked for her or hubby William.  Elizabeth, yet another sister, married Franklin Creekmur, and she goes MIA after about 1880, I have traced Franklin a bit further. I even have a suspect death date for her, in June of 1898, again, no death record has been found.

I found a few other records that I scanned while I had them in the scanner.  I also found a marriage for a great uncle that I was unaware of, ooooooooooo Henry!

I will spend some hours over the next 24 hours reviewing what I have and what I would like to still find.  I have pretty much given up on obits here, the papers are here, but the process is time consuming, no open stacks.  I may chat about that in a future blog.

But, right now, I am gonna relax a bit (I hear ya snickering, I know, it probably won't happen, but, I need to try!  LOL).

The blessed one is gonna go spoil the fur kids, later - - -




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My Genie Angel and Mary WHO??

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

What an interesting day at the library.  You see, I have this genie angel, she lives around Norfolk, she researches many of the areas I do, she helps me, she gives me heads up on new resources to use in my research, she even does look ups for me.  And, tee hee, she reads Reflections!  (Waving at my genie angel - - HI!!!!)

Anyway, she drove up from Norfolk today to Richmond and we met.  What a nice day I had!  We shared some stories, lunch, and shared files. Well, she shared a LOT more than I did, but, we shared.  (Oh, dear genie angel, I did peak JUST a little tonight, you knew I would, you knew I could not resist!  LOL)

After lunch we both did some research, I went for a long shot on one of the Dews clan I have lots of walls in, yes, the same one as that Chancery case I took all those photos of.  I had a note about a burial in 1932, could that be one of the MIA's??  Yes, indeedy it was!  WAHHHOO.  Even better, it has a maiden name for the mother, who is a MNU in my data base (maiden name unknown).  Now, if I could read that name, eh???

So, dear readers, if you want to take a guess at Mary's maiden name leave comments!

And, dear genie angel, I am working on the Dews now, and thank you SOOOOOOO very much for coming to Richmond, it was so wonderful to meet you in person.  Thank you for being so kind to a fellow researcher, you are good people!


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The Camera, The To Do Lists and Today's Research

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

My advice, from today's research stop at the Library of Virginia, said advice goes for any research facility:

1.)  Take your camera.  In this Archives facility they will photocopy records for you (read this well, I am talking the ARCHIVES, not the LIBRARY collection, HUGE difference).  The Archives is for the most part, original records, ya, the one that your great so and so actually held in his hands and maybe, signed.

So, here at the Virginia Archives they will only run 25 photocopies ON paper for any one patron on any one research day.  I believe they said the copies are 50 cents, per, but, I won't swear to that.  But, by signing my life away,  (just kidding), I was able to use my camera to take as many photos of the documents as I wanted.  I took 97 photos of 2 chancery cases from Princess Anne County and 2 other photos of another set of records.  So, what did I get for my 95 chancery case photos?  One case was not that exciting, it was great, don't get me wrong, but, compared to the second case I pulled, it was not that exciting.  Case # 2 turned out to be the HIT of the day, maybe the week.  It was the settlement of my great great grandfather's estate and included the signature of my great great grandmother and of my direct line great grandfather (see his below).

2.)  Use your family history data base program's power of the to do list.  Now, believe me, I am not the best at this, but, I will put items on a to do list while I am researching, even if I don't think I will ever get to the depository.  I add stuff, leave it sit there, and if it gets done some time, great, if not, it sits there.  I have items on this Virginia Library and Archives to do list that are well over 4 years old.  I don't let them haunt me, but, there they sit.  This AM I printed off the to do list for the Virginia Archives and Library and found I have more than 16 pages of items, well over 85 items.  Well, I'll be danged!  One of the things on this list was to get a copy of these chancery cases.  Well, I'll be danged!  I did not remember those items, but, I went digging and found them.  DANG!  It was a good research day.

Tomorrow I go back, taking that to do list AND the camera.  Yipee!




* Chancery Chancery Records Index for Princess Anne County Virginia 1881-004, Plaintiff John Dews and Wife, Defendant William Banks, etc. Indexes for Chancery cases for Virginia can be found at the Library of Virginia web site.

** On edit, I do not believe they allow scanners of any kind at the ARCHIVES.  They let me use Sony, but NO flash!

*** Hope this reads right, I am not proofreading, as you can probably tell!  LOL
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