Gene Notes

Some random and some not-so-random thoughts on family history.

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Too-Too Thursday - The Copy Clip

I have had this copy clip for years and years, cousin Carol over at Reflections from the Fence, will recognize this as she had one identical that I think disappeared in Fort Wayne. There is a crack in the back of it, and I tried taping the clip side to help hold copy there. Finally, last night I got the idea to add clips to it. Slight overkill, but it now holds copy again.

The sad thing is that this can't be replaced. Believe me I've looked. All the new ones use adhesive to attach to the monitor. I'm just not willing to do that. So until it completely shatters, I will use it like this!

Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Wedding Wednesday - Bowman & Withers

On February 27, 1873 in Lincoln county, Kentucky, David Bryant "Bryan" Bowman, son of Dudley Mitchum Bowman and Virginia Smith and Mary Withers, were married.

Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Finding a LOT!*

In my pages and pages of missing place details for Lexington (KY) Cemetery, I am discovering quite a few people who are also missing the cemetery record as a source. The online cemetery database is helpful, but there are a few who can't be found in the database. They can't all be memorial stones, can they? And then there are the people who died before 1848 and were buried after 1848. My Bowman and Todd and Parker lines are among these. How can you tell they were disinterred from the original burial grounds and re-interred in Lexington Cemetery? By the date of course and the interment number. They tend to all take place within a few days of each other and the interment numbers are sequential or very close to being sequential.

Then there are the people for whom I have obituaries and the last line will say "Interment tomorrow at Lexington cemetery," yet no record of them online is found. When I am done with my 11 page project, I am going to print out that record and see if they were somehow skipped during indexing. There aren't too many of them thank goodness.

One of my families, the Todds, are a real good example of multiple interments. In some instances, just the last name appears in the index. It can be very confusing since my relative General Robert Todd died in 1814, yet his record shows he was buried there in 1856; the same for his wife, Ann Todd (she was his cousin.) There are headstones in the cemetery in Section F for a lot of the Todd family. A good number of them rested elsewhere, probably in family burial plots. The Bowman line also is a transplanted line. In this instance, the heads of the family Col. Abraham and Sarah Henry Bowman were not transplanted until April 19, 1912. Abraham died in 1837 and Sarah followed him in 1845. They have a nice monument and family buried around them in Section H, lots 50 and 51 with scatterings in other lots in the same section.

And yes, since we are talking Lexington, Kentucky, they are also related to the Mary Ann Todd who married Abraham Lincoln. My own great-great-great-great grandmother was Isabella Todd who married John Parker.


Back to work now before Miss Mouse decides to come in and lay on top of my list, after she knocks it off the copy clip.

*Actually, the pun was unintended.

Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Monday, February 25, 2013

The Laugh is on Me! Oh No!

I was just about to congratulate myself on a completed project, when I thought I should double check and make sure I got everyone .. everyone being all those interred at the Lexington, Kentucky Cemetery. Way back when I started using the cemetery's database as a source I was entering the section, lot and grave in the source details, which was fine. Then.

Now, however, my RootsMagic 6 (and 5 too) allow place details. And it has a nifty list called "Who Was There," which I thought was the perfect tool to print out a list of people buried in Lexington Cemetery missing the "place details." I started this a while back before the "Who was there list" was available and at the time could only print out those who were buried there regardless of the place details.

So I printed a report which seemed to coincide with what I thought was a reasonable amount of people .. until I went to double check it and saw that I had failed to clear a date from the date field. Rerunning the report yielded 11 pages.

No congratulations are appropriate at this time. It's gonna take a while to sort this out. I just added rather than subtracted from my work pile.

Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Sympathy Saturday - John Klijewski

In the above picture are four generations of the Siekierski-Klijewski family, from right clockwise: John Klijewski, Tomasz Siekierski, John's grandfather; Rosemary Klijewski, John's daughter; Mary Klijewska nee Siekierska, John's mother. John was my husband's granduncle.


Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Friday, February 22, 2013

Wading Through the paper.

Well, it seems, slowly but surely that pile of paper is getting just the teeniest bit smaller. I've been slogging through it most of the evening and trying to make sense of the small stack that is left. This evening I am left without the assistance and company of Mouse. I think she is playing vulture up on the kitchen cabinets. Usually she is sitting on my shoulders or looking out the window, and sometimes she just curls up and keeps me company ... while sitting on the pile of papers I am working on.  Somehow I get a little bit more done when she isn't hanging all over me trying to get at my keyboard or the computer screen. She just loves watching me move the cursor around! And she hates when I disturb her bird-watching or cat-napping!

Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Too-Too Thursday: Slowly it Goes .. and Grows!

Yeesh! I've had the same pile of paper on my desk for ages, even though it has shrunk to half an inch in size. I just can't seem to deal with it fast enough before I look at it and think I should research further, adding to the pile.

And then there are the other projects that seem to creep up, and housework, and company. Sometimes I feel like I am moving backwards.

Today, Mouse the cat is feeling particularly needy. So she is allowed to jump up on my lap, desk, and said pile of paper. And I am still trying to organize. For the most part it is going pretty fast and I try to stick with it, knowing in a few weeks I'm going to have to drop everything and help clear out the storeroom/craft room and the living room bookcases to make room for new cabinets.

In the meantime, remember all those 1940 census reports? Yeah, they're still sitting there waiting to be entered. I try to work on a few at a time but for some reason that pile keeps growing too!  Back to work!

Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Wedding Wednesday - Bescher/Basher & Schwarz/Schwartz

You gotta love records that muddy the waters of surnames. Such is the case for today's Wedding Wednesday.

On February 20, 1887 in Lancaster, New York, William Bescher (or Basher as the family was known) and Josephine Schwarz/Schwartz were married. Although the bride and groom were not related by blood, William's father George Bescher was married first to Marianna Zimmeth. Josephine Schwartz's mother was Marianna's sister, Josephine Zimmeth.  So William Basher was a half brother to his wife's cousins. After Marianna Zimmeth died, George married Mary Ann Kunz or Kuhn. William is from this family. It gets a bit confusing!


Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

A Breakthrough - But Not for Me!

My cousins from Knoxville drove over yesterday for lunch, chatting, and for J's wife E to pick my brain on her genealogical brick wall. In E's convoluted family history (her father was married at least 4 times and her mother probably had a child out of wedlock at age 16 or 17 and her adopted father is not to be found on the 1940 census,) are a pair of twins, Judy and Jerry Hemming. The twins along with older brothers Julius Creighton Hemming and Ritchie Hemming were taken away from their parents and put in a children's home. Julius Creighton Hemming, Sr., however, was able to get the older boys back, without taking the two younger (both less than 2 years old in 1940,) claiming they were not his. So, E would like to find her possible half siblings.

In searching for her family, she found a daughter of Julius Creighton Hemming's first wife, Marjorie, who was also looking for them. She had a note that they were adopted by a couple in Kansas City, Missouri. This is where I came in.

First, we were looking for Lannie or Lennie Duncan, a doctor.  He married Reba -- and here is where the problem came in, we weren't all that sure what her maiden name was. After going through the notes this daughter of Marjorie's sent, and cousin J's transcription of them, we were able to narrow it to Gloves or Glaves. I simply did a search on Ancestry.com using Reba Gl?ves. We found her in 1930 living with her brother in Illinois. On the 1920 census (Reba was born in 1910 in Missouri) we found another family living down the street from the Glaves in Lewiston, Missouri, that Marjorie's daughter named.  The daughter also stated that Reba and Lennie/Lannie were in California.

Another search of Ancestry.com brought up the California Find-a-Grave index and there was Reba, buried next to Frank L. Duncan. Both were found on the California death index and they were from Missouri and Illinois. Ok. Unfortunately we were not able to scare up an obit for either, and E will work on that. But now she has something further to go on.



Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Monday, February 18, 2013

Learning Curve - PhotoShop Elements and The GUIDE!

 For years I've used the same Arcsoft photo-editing program. It came with my old Canon lide 30 scanner that I used to take on genealogy research trips. It was really an easy program to use, and though I used it for many years, I can't say I was really knowledgeable about photo touch up.

Enter 2012 and a new laptop with Windows 7. My old scanner was no longer compatible. And it mattered even though I had a Canon all-in-one. I ended up buying one of those cute little Flip-Pal scanners, which really is more powerful than its size.

But I digress a little. With the new laptop came Adobe PhotoShop Elements 9. It is the "consumer" version of Adobe PhotoShop and I hoped it would be adequate for what I needed. Or that I would be adequate to learning the new software.

I've bumbled along for almost a year with it, until I saw a review of  Photo Restoration KwikGuide: A Step-by-Step Guide for Repairing Photographs with Photoshop Elements. No where in the review did it say which version of Elements was necessary, but I took a chance .. and won!

Really, the version used is version 11, and it's not so different than my version 9. Whew. I ran through the first 3 chapters relatively easily and learned some basic stuff.

I've been scanning photos for years and know I have some that are pretty bad: wrinkled, torn, blotchy, faded or dark. I'm hoping to fix some of that stuff. The great thing about this program are the photos you can download and work with to see how the different functions work. That to me, is worth the $17.95 purchase price.

You can buy the book here. I got it from Amazon so I could get it fast.

Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Sympathy Saturday - Anna Percival

Born March 24, 1864 in Boone county, Kentucky Anna or "Annie" Percival was the daughter of Henry Shattuck Percival and Susan Roberts. The only newspaper article I could find for her was when she won a spelling bee in 1875. Her sister Emily came in second.

Anna died on February 16, 1949 due to a fall in her home, which caused a subdural hematoma. She was buried in Highland Cemetery.

Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Friday, February 15, 2013

Freaked Out Friday - Print! Print! Print #@*& It!

Ever get through a project and then go to print your update? And it won't print? This happened to me the other day when I wanted to reprint a page from the workbook of Lexington (Kentucky) Cemetery records that I have been working on for years. And years. The Darn thing would bring up a print dialog box and a print to file dialog box at the same time.

I had to sit back and figure out the last time I successfully printed this file. Well, it was more than a year ago since we didn't take any genealogy trips last year due to my knee replacement in June. The last time I printed this was in November of 2011? Really?

I had to think what was knew in my configuration since November of 2011. The answer was my windows 7 Dell laptop. Duh. After 2.5 hours of puttering around on Microsoft and on my laptop, I discovered a simple fix. Choose any other printer other than my Canon MX860 and then go on to choose my Canon Printer. Dang if it didn't work. Whew! Crisis averted, nerves shot!

Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Too-Too Thursday - Filing, Filing!

You know it's time to file when every lateral surface in your office is covered with the results of your research. I love the hunt for records. I like entering the information. I detest filing. So it usually sits for a while. This last pile I did? I'm ashamed to say I transcribed this pile of obituaries, marriage and birth notices in November 2011. No, that isn't a typo. Over a year it sat waiting for me to put it away. Like I said, I love the hunt. The filing just reminds me of those days many years ago, when I had to file regularly. And, even though I got paid for it, I hated doing it. Since no one is paying me to do my own filing ... it just doesn't get done as often as it should!.

Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Wedding Wednesday - Percival & Ball

On February 13, 1806 in Lee, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, Anna Percival, daughter of Elisha Percival and Abigail Smith, married John Ball. 

Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

That Last Half Inch of Paper

Wow! That last half inch of paper on my desk is going away very slowly. This was the problem pile. I wouldn't be surprised if  this pile hangs around for another year while I try to sort it out. My usual routine is to look at it, research it some more for more clues and then to dig and dig and then put the date last researched on the sheet. Unfortunately, on some of the Kentucky Probate sheets, I neglected to put the Kentucky county where I found them. Duh. And also unfortunately, I can't find them in the index. What's up with that? A check of family search shows that only 12,429 of the 600,000 + records have been indexed. I might have to wait a while. Blah. Not that I am totally against waiting, but I really like to finish projects. And it would be nice NOT to have this pile on my desk anymore.

Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Monday, February 11, 2013

Monday - Monday: The Weekend Was Successful!

I've been cleaning my office up and reorganizing. I do this two or three times a year, but this year with a special goal in mind, to replace the old desk. As you can see it's a very narrow desk - only 19 inches deep and one small drawer.  Everything overlaps and I hate working in this kind of chaos.

 I saw a desk at Staples - from the Martha Stewart Collection - and loved the shape of it and the fact that it has three drawers. The center drawer can be used for a keyboard, but I needed the drawer space. It was simple to assemble, which I did myself. DH helped me flip it upright and get furniture mover pads under it.

You can see that I have the printer behind me now. The nice thing about a wireless printer!

The desktop is 4-3/4 inches deeper than the old one and has three drawers. It sure is nice to have some place to store my stuff since the desktop storage was getting full!  It also helps that my 3 inch pile of records to transcribe, file, link, etc. has now shrunk to a half inch. 

So what have I been working on? Besides cleaning and organizing? Probate records from Kentucky. I've typed a will for g-g-g-g grandfather William Chinn, g-g-g-g grandmother & grandfather Ann (Bohannon) and Elijah Kirtley probate records and some other miscellaneous probate records. It's a lot easier to work when you aren't surrounded by chaos!














Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Sympathy Saturday - ELijah Kirtley Inventory & The United States circa 1835

In the inventory of my great-great-great-great grandfather Elijah Kirtley's estate, there is the following

"1 Carpet 1 Hearth Rug and Map of U. States    - value - $15.00 for all three!  What a bargain.

Being the curious researcher that I am, I looked up an 1835 map (that is when Elijah died, don't have a year for the map) and found this.


 At this time the Kirtleys were living in Boone county, Kentucky. Elijah at one time ran an inn. However, the inventory is proving interesting and it looks like they were quite wealthy.

The map is from the David Ramsey Map Collection.
Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Friday, February 8, 2013

TGIF - Making Labels

 Since I've been organizing my office, I've discovered multiple uses for the labels that I can print with our old Casio label printer. It sure makes highly readable file folder labels. And I am contemplating buying a 6 mm cartridge to print labels for my piles of CDs in my little cabinet DH bought for me eons ago. It's amazing what you collect over the course of a few many years of research.

The problem is I have one drawer in my desk. It's very shallow and not very good for storing all the office stuff I need to keep in there. I have to pull it out of the desk to find anything. Consequently, everything is stored in containers on the desk, which only has a desktop area of 20 x 48. Most desks are at least 24 x 48. I know I bought it because of the limited space (6 x 10 ft) of my compact office. And the matching printer table and lateral file!

DH and I have been kicking around the idea of a new desk for me and re-arranging my two large file cabinets.  Whether or not this happens depends on coughing up enough boxes to transfer the files so we can move the cabinets!

Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Too-Too Thursday - Too Much Transcribing!

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a friend and fellow family researcher pulled, copied and emailed me an article from the Arkansas Historical Society bulletin about the Weaver family in Little Rock Arkansas. The family was descended from my great-great-great grandparents Jabez Percival and Elizabeth Stearns so I wanted the 'story' so to speak.

So I transcribed it from the images she sent using Transcript, my go to program for doing transcription. It was ten pages long. I thought I'd never finish. Even our cat, Mouse, thought I'd never finish as she kept coming in to play with me. But it's done! Except for adding the additional genealogical information that I gathered from it.

Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Wedding Wednesday - Webb & Webb

On February 6, 1861 in Lexington, Missouri, Mr. John S. Webb to Lucy Jane Webb. He is my second cousin four times removed and is the son of John Vivion Webb and Almira Griffen Buford.  She is the daughter of Garland Webb and Jane Smith. Since my great-great grandfather's name is John Garland Webb, and Garland is a family name,she is related to me as a second cousin four times removed. and also is a first cousin to her husband.  The above John Vivion Webb is a year older than my John Vivion Webb who died in 1855. It's made researching in Lafayette and Saline counties, Missouri very interesting.




Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

My Brick Wall Redux

On October 12, 2010 I blogged about the brick wall in my 6 generation chart here.  Since then I was able to break one of those brick walls in respect to the parents of my great-great grandmother, Elizabeth Carter Webb. That still leaves me with two major holes.

The first one actually starts in the 5th generation with the missing marriage date of Christian Kleesaat at Christine Wilhelmine Zabrack. And the births of their children, not to even mention her parents and birthplace. After all "Prussia" is sort of vague. I've definitely not found them in Mecklenberg-Schwerin, which is where Kleesaat was from.

The second one is the mother of Philomina Beckmeier (or Beckmeyer or Bergmeyer) Meyer, daughter of H. H. Beckmeier. I have a reference to a birthplace, but I've never found a record for her. I would hope if I ever do that I'd find out who her mother was. I'm also missing a death place and date for her father. And a name other than H. H.

So I keep plugging away at it.

On the hubby's side? Well, let's just say we only have half of his great-great-great grandparents. And some of  their information is incomplete. Again, I will keep working on it. There is always something to do.

Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Monday, February 4, 2013

Relatives in Cemeteries and Other Places ...

Older daughter thought I should mention meeting relatives in cemeteries. So here is my story.

Hubby, both daughters and I made a return trip to the old Burlington Cemetery, in Burlington, Kentucky to take another look for relatives. And to revisit great-great-great grandma's grave. We met another couple there, who were also looking for headstones  for their family members. Turns out we were related through the Kirtley line.  That was probably the most enjoyable visit our kids ever had to a cemetery.

Quite a few years earlier, we made a trip up to East Tawas, Michigan where my mom's paternal ancestors and aunts and uncles were buried. Older daughter took pictures for me. She did a good job, too!

One time, we went to visit a cousin of my dad, an elderly woman who lived in Richmond, Missouri. Well, we found her house all right, but didn't find her. We knew she was expecting us. What we didn't know was that she was expecting us to stay with her. While we had never met her before, my parents had met her and one of her nephews a year or so before. Fortunately, while we were parked out front, the relative's step-daughter drove up and had us follow her to the hospital where our cousin was a patient. It seems she hurt her back while cleaning house preparatory to our visit. 

One of the purposes of this visit was to return pictures to her which she loaned my dad. As a young teenager, my dad would spend summers with her uncle, Mansur Oliphant. We had a really nice visit with her and unfortunately never got a chance to visit her again before she passed in 1999.

Also on this trip, we visited MachPelah cemetery in Lexington, Missouri, where my dad's mother, grandparents, etc. were buried. I had made a copy of the plot at the Family History library in Michigan, but apparently forgot to take it with us. We went to the cemetery not knowing where the graves were. I tried calling my dad from our cell phone (1996 era cell phone) and he wasn't home. Fortunately the little history library in Lexington had a copy of the same book and I was able to get a section plan. So we parked -- in the same place as the day before and there they were. Now I always try to go prepared.

Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Sympathy Saturday - Marcelline "Marcie" Brasher Webb

Fortunately, the death certificate tells me the who of this death notice. The subject was Marcie Brasher who married Buford Webb in 1860 in Lexington, Missouri. Buford Webb was my fourth cousin 3 times removed.

Marcie was January 21, 1839 in Kentucky. She died February 2, 1911, in Kansas City, Missouri. The notice was from the Kansas City Star, Kansas City, Missouri, death notice, 3 February 1911, p4 c5.



Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes

Friday, February 1, 2013

Oh, Those Wonderful Records

The Missouri 1962 Death certificates went live on Monday, and I've combed my database for possible deaths in Missouri. Sometimes, one record will lead to another, such as a marriage record or a Find-A-Grave memorial. My count is up to 16 found and one not. Not too shabby. It felt good to work on some of my stuff for a change!

Copyright 2010-2013, ACK for Gene Notes