Marriages or Unions – Proof in the Census?
Marriage records are not all retrievable. When you are frustrated about the lack of information regarding a marriage; when civil marriage records can not be located, sometimes the reason is easy, obvious and still unsolvable: The Big Lie to...
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Favorites – Genealogical Research Libraries
Favorite Top Ten Genealogical Research Libraries in the United States My favorite research libraries in order from East to West: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. D.A.R. Library, Washington, D.C. Western Reserve Historical Society Library, Cleveland Allen County Public...
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Top Ten Favorite Genealogical Libraries
My Top Ten Personal Favorite Genealogical Research Libraries I love libraries and try stop by to visit even the smallest library when I travel. If the library is having a book sale that day, all the better for...
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Truth or Myth – Born at Sea
Born At Sea A couple of weeks ago, a television commercial by Ancestry caught my attention. The actor wondered why his grandparents never mentioned they lived next door to the Wright brothers. How could that fact, amongst all others,...
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Is it Censorship if You Just Don’t Buy the Book?
Censorship or Not Is it parental censorship if you don’t buy the book? Maybe, but I doubt it. Last year on 4 June 2011, Meghan Cox Gurdon wrote a thoroughly provocative article in the Wall Street Journal about young...
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Spierling – Chicago, Cook Co., Illinois Research
Large City Research Sometimes researching in a large city is problematic, too many people with similar names, hard to differentiate. Various immigrants with strong accents made the census much harder to use. The Soundex program was a huge help...
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Three Bags of Books
A Good Friend Knows I recently broke three bones including one in my wrist and was so aggravated by the idiocy of the whole situation, I couldn’t believe it. A good friend went into her study and piled three...
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Death Certificates – Sources Created under Stress and Grief
Last month to the shock of his family and friends, my brother-in-law, Paul Shea Zak passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack. He was the youngest; we were stunned. Unlike his brothers or me, Paul was gregarious, hundreds of...
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Was William Phillip Breitenstein Really Skipped in Both the 1880 and 1910 Census?
William Breitenstein of Louisville, Kentucky Genealogical research into the federal census of Jefferson Co., Kentucky brings up a couple of questions. William Phillip Breitenstein was enumerated with his father Jacob Breitenstein and mother Maggie in 1860 and 1870 in...
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