Bad, Bad Blogger

I've been such a bad blogger! I can't believe it's been three months since I posted last! My personal journal has been very neglected as well! I'm terrible at New Year's Resolutions!

I do have some exciting news, though. I got to spend an entire afternoon at the Fort Worth Public Library! They have an awesome genealogy section. I thought I was going to be looking through reels of microfilm of the Texas death certificates they have on file, but the librarian set me up on a computer and showed me http://pilot.familysearch.org. They have Texas death certificates online from 1890 through 1976. I had no idea these were online. I was working on my husband Gary's families (biological: Sallings and adopted: Dillingham). Both families have been in Texas for quite some time. I printed death certificates for William Wesley Sallings, Gordie Emerline Baker Sallings, Fannie Bell Gaskey Sallings, Jessie Lee Gaskey, Ralph Marion Dillingham, and Mary Tennie Conditt Dillingham Smith. Others that I wanted I will have to order because they are much more recent.

I also searched ancestry.com and printed some census records I didn't have. I found my husband's maternal great grandfather Ulysses Stanley Bitner in the 1900 Census for Lyon Township, Dickinson County, Kansas. He was 5 at that time. Ulysses' father is a mystery to me. He seems to have disappeared after the 1900 Census. I'm not sure if he died or divorced. There is a lot of research to be done there.

Well, the grandbabies are up from their naps. Gotta run!

Wordless Wednesday: American Soldier Cemetery in Homne, Luxembourgh

 This photo was taken in 1960 by a friend of my grandmother while she was visiting Luxembourgh.  It is the cemetery where my dad's father is buried.

Happy New Year!

I know I'm a day late, but I just want to wish everyone a very happy and prosperous 2010.  It's hard to believe 2009 is already gone.  It's been a pretty good year for me and my family.  We have 2 new additions, Haydyn and Austin, to be thankful for. I'm also thankful for discovering genealogy blogging and have set a goal of posting at least once a week for the coming year. It may not seem like much, but I've only posted 21 articles since I started blogging last year. Not a very good record I'm afraid.  :-(  I've also decided I'll be doing more research at the library this year.  We have a wonderful genealogy department at the Fort Worth Public Library, and I plan to be using it a lot in the coming year.  I'll also be taking the free genealogy classes offered there.  I think I'll be having a GREAT 2010.

Tombstone Tuesday: Karl Herman & Caroline Scheider Mosch

These are my 3rd Great Grandparents on my dad's side.  They arrived in America in 1870 from Eppendorf, Sachsen, Germany.  This picture was taken by my cousin Carolyn Mosch Busch when she was in Germania, Pennsylvania this summer.  I thought is was interesting that there is a bee hive on the marker.  He raised bees as a hobby and to make a little extra money.  I'm still learning about this family.  My Uncle Paul scanned all of my grandmother's photos (over 6,000!) and there are plenty of pictures of Karl and Caroline's decendants.  Following are photos of sketches of Karl and Caroline.  I'm not sure if these are the only pictures we have of them, but they're the only ones I've seen so far. (So many pictures, so little time...)

Well, lunchtime is over.  More on this family when I get the chance.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Who is your MRUA?

Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings has issued another Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Challenge.

1) Who is your MRUA - your Most Recent Unknown Ancestor? This is the person with the lowest number in your Pedigree Chart or Ahnentafel List that you have not identified a last name for, or a first name if you know a surname but not a first name.




2) Have you looked at your research files for this unknown person recently? Why don't you scan it again just to see if there's something you have missed?



3) What online or offline resources might you search that might help identify your MRUA?



4) Tell us about him or her, and your answers to 2) and 3) above, in a blog post, in a comment to this post, or a comment on Facebook or some other social networking site.


Let's see if I can find mine!

The MRUA in my tree are #34 & #35 the parents of Elizabeth Ann Wrean/Wren.  According to the 1880 Census of Brown, Lycoming, Pennsylvania, Elizabeth's mother's first name was Minnie and she was born in Scotland.  Minnie was 75 and living with Elizabeth and her husband William N Gamble. (My 2nd great grandparents)  I don't have a first name for Elizabeth's father.

I haven't looked for these people in a long time.  I suppose the first place to go would be my local genealogy library and see if they have any Canadian birth records. Elizabeth was born in Nova Scotia, Canada.  If there are birth records at the library for Elizabeth, then they SHOULD have her parents' names on them. I might also try FamilySearch.  I've not come up with anything on Ancestry.

I have lots of work to do.  I hope I can get some library time in soon.  Thanks for the nudge, Randy.

Struggling...

I've been struggling with my feelings about a family website I belong to.  I've been using Ancestry.com for a few years now and have been building my tree there.  Unfortunately I no longer have a paid subscription, so the sources I have through Ancestry are not available to me.  Anyway, I posted a picture of my great-great grandparents Solomon Turpin Abrams and Louisa Edmonds Gadd which had been sent to me by a cousin of my grandfather.  This cousin got REALLY upset that the picture was posted on Ancestry without her permission.  She wrote a post on the family website letting everyone know how unhappy she was.  Other members of the website chimed in about how people on Ancestry were "pirating" information from others and posting it as their own.  They stated specific names that they had "mentioned" to others that showed up on Ancestry.  They assumed that the people who posted information on Ancestry didn't do any research of their own.  It seemed to me that they thought they were the only ones who'd done any research on this particular branch of my family.

I took the picture off my Ancestry site and posted an apology for posting it without permission.  I owed my cousin that much.  I also had to answer the accusations against people who use Ancestry.  I realize not everyone who uses Ancestry is able to do research outside what they can find on Ancestry, but there are those of us who have done other research.  I live in Fort Worth and there is a wonderful genealogy department at the local library.  I've spent hours there looking at census records and books about the counties where my ancestors lived.  I've tried keeping my tree on my home computer and ended up losing my information more than once because of hard drive crashes.  Even with back-ups, the genealogy program I was using, failed me.  I was using the Millenium Edition of Generations.  If I try to edit a person in that program, it erases the person completely from my file.  I was able to save a GEDCOM file from this program, but I still lost information.  :-( 

Anyway, I explained in my post that the main reason I use Ancestry is to keep from losing my information again.  I also let them know that I don't hold my tree as the final word on ANY of my families.  I have in no way completed my research and I don't represent my tree as being 100 percent accurate.  I have plenty of names on my tree which I've not researched.  The way the others talked, no one should put any names in their tree without doing exhaustive research and making sure the tree is 100 percent accurate.  They also assume anyone who has a name in their tree without any sources is "pirating" information from them.  I've seen the names they were talking about on familysearch.org and other websites.  It really upset me!  Maybe I'm taking it too personally... I don't know.  The only replies to my post talked about using CD's and flash drives to save my data.  No one ever addressed the fact that I apologized or my comments about the "pirating".  Am I wrong for being upset?  I've tried to blow it off, but for some reason it just keeps eating at me.  In fact, I was so upset at one point that I almost took my whole tree off Ancestry.  I'm glad I didn't.  I have had distant cousins contact me to share information because of my tree being posted on Ancestry.  I've gotten close to a couple of them.

I'm not opposed to constructive comments or a personal email telling me I was wrong for posting a picture without permission.  I think I was hurt the most because it felt like a public bashing.  I didn't even get a private acceptance of my apology....

I'm finished ranting now.  If anyone can help me sort out my feelings or has any suggestions about what, if anything, I should do please let me know.

My Husband's Blog

I just wanted to plug my husband's blog.  He's a Ford Mustang enthusiast and we have a 1995 GTS that he is going to restore.  It's a long term project, but if you're into cars you'll enjoy the posts.  His blog is http://www.mustang-fever.blogspot.com/.  Enjoy!!!

SNGF - Ahnentafel Roulette

Randy @ Genea-Musings has come up with another great Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

1) How old is your father now, or how old would he be if he had lived?  Divide this number by 4 and round the number off to a whole number.  This is your "roulette number".

2) Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ahnentafel.  Who is that person?

3) Tell us three facts about that person with the "roulette number".

4) Write about it in a blog post, in a Facebook note or comment, or as a comment on this blog post.

5) If you do not have a person's name for your "roulette number" then spin the wheel again - pick your mother, or yourself, a favorite aunt or cousin, or even your children.

Here goes!

My dad, Thomas Edwin Gamble, is 66.  Divide that by 4 and you get 16.5 so that rounds to 17.  Number 17 in my ahnentafel is my great-great grandmother Elizabeth Ann Wrean.  She was born in 1829 in Nova Scotia, Canada.  She married William N. Gamble about 1851 in Pennsylvania.  They had 6 children, the youngest being my great grandfather Ulysses Grant Gamble.  She died in 1911 in Cedar Run, Lycoming Co., Pennsylvania.

I don't know anything else about her except her father was born in Scottland and her mother's first name was Minnie.  Unfortunately, I don't have any photographs of her either, at least not that I know of.  I have a whole bunch of unidentified photos on DVD that my uncle gave me.

Thanks for the great blog topic tonight, Randy!

Tombstone Tuesday-William F and Flossie Baker Abrams

William Franklin Abrams

and

Flossie Baker Abrams

These were my maternal grandfather's parents. William Franklin Abrams was born 31 Dec 1887 to Solomon Turpin Abrams and Louisa Edmonds Gadd Abrams in Jackson Co., KY. He married Flossie Baker about 1910. He died 29 Feb 1968 in Franklin, OH.

Flossie Baker was born 7 Aug 1896 to William Houston Baker and Mahaley Jane Malicoat in KY. She died 10 Aug 1982 in Middletown, Butler Co., OH.

I was not quite 3 when William died so I don't remember him. I only remember meeting Flossie once in 1979.

I got this photo from http://www.findagrave.com/ . If you've never been to their website, you should go. I've found pictures of some of my ancestors' tombstones there. If there is not a picture of the tombstone, you can sometimes find the name of the cemetery where your ancestors are buried.

Tombstone Tuesday: Emil E Mosch & Wilhelmina Kortz Mosch

My recently found cousin Carolyn Mosch Busch sent me some tombstone pictures that she took when she went to Pennsylvania this summer. The resolution is wonderful! Carolyn contacted me on Ancestry.com. I was so excited to talk to someone from my dad's side of the family, especially the Mosch side. I don't recall meeting any of them in person except my great grandmother Hertha Mosch McElroy. I might have seen them at my grandmother's house at Thanksgiving, but there were always so many people there! Besides, when you're a kid you just want to hang out with your cousins that you don't get to see any other time.

Anyway, Emil Ernest Mosch was born 8 May 1864 to Karl Herman Mosch and Caroline Scheider in Saxony, Germany. The family came to the U.S. in 1870. (I still have lots of research to do on this family, but I did find out they came over on the ship the Saint Louis. I understand it was lost at sea on it's way back to Germany after my ancestors got off. I'm going to have to find the history of the ship!) Emil died of cancer on 25 Oct 1937 in Coudersport, Potter Co., PA.

Emil married Wilhelmina in Wellsboro, Tioga Co., PA on 21 Sep 1885. They lived in PA for the remainder of their lives.

Wilhelmina Hedwig Kortz was born 27 Apr 1866 in Germania, Potter Co., PA to Jacob Kortz and Katherine Pflugfelder. Her parents came to the U.S. in the 1840's or 50's to escape the Kaiser's war. I don't have any information on the ship they were on. Wilhelmina died on 12 Feb 1940 in Coudersport, Potter Co., PA.

Thanks again for the pictures, Carolyn!