In the past, I’ve done a lot of work on my cousin Evie’s Welsh ancestors. Unfortunately, I never found much on her Italian ones.
Today, I decided to do something about that and rode my bike to the Family History Center in Lancaster to look up her grandfather’s birth again.
His name was John Fiumefreddo. I remembered finding him on the Cook County birth microfiches there and I had the certificate number with his birth certificate and his date of birth in Chicago as being 3 Sep 1892. With that information, I thought I could find his actual birth certificate on the Family Search website, but no such luck. It was not there.
At the Family History Center, I again looked up the birth certificate. The certificate number had “DS” in front of it. One of the helpers at the FHC suggested I look in the Family History Library to see what “DS” stood for. That told me that “DS” meant the certificate was delayed and that the Family History Library did not have it, which explained why it wasn’t on the website. Instead, it said to contact the Cook County Clerk’s office.
While I was in the FHC, I went to the Cook County Clerk’s website and found that they have records available online. On their Cook County Genealogy page, you register and then enter names to search under births, marriages, and deaths. If you click on a name that appears, it puts that record in your “cart” and then when you “checkout” it charges your credit card and you can download the certificate on-the-spot. Pretty cool, huh?
(more…)
May 5, 2010
There’s a relatively new website from the LSD Church that has many new online databases called FamilySearch Record Search. I found a lot of new information there!
The most helpful databases on the Pilot website are the Chicago marriage licenses and birth certificates as well as the Texas death certificates.
I’ve added all this new stuff to the database.
April 11, 2010
A few weeks ago, I was at the Family History Center, using the center’s account on Ancestry.com to search the 1930 census. Looking for great-granduncle Harry Greenberg, I not only found him, but also his mother Esther Levin, sister Jennie Greenberg, her husband, and son.
Before this, I had no idea who Jennie married or what her married surname was. On the census, it showed that her husband was Maurice A. Galitt born in 1900 and her son was Calvin Galitt born in 1925.
I was thinking this was all good and that I could search further with this information, but it turns out that Galitt is not exactly a common name. There are no Galitts on the Social Security Index and none on the Illinois Death Database.
Interestingly, on the Illinois Death Database are Jennie Gale and Maurice A. Gale, and on the SSDI is a Calvin Gale. So, maybe I’ll send away for information on the Gales and rule them in or out.
(more…)
July 3, 2008
For years, those of us researching Dawson Seals and his family have been trying to find Dawson’s wife Elizabeth’s surname and family. It has been a mystery. Cousin Jay Seals had told me years ago that Elizabeth was a Brewer, but I hadn’t found anything that proved this.
Recently, I did a Google search on “Dawson Seals” and one of the links that came up was to a page on the Ontario Vital Records Project:
5803-86 Charles Brady SEALS, 40, widower, Baptist minister, Tennessee US, Indianapolis, s/o Dawson SEALS & Elizabeth BREWER, married Frances MATTHEW, 21, Clinton twp, Indianapolis, d/o James MATTHEW & Amelia GATES, witn: Mr. & Mrs. David WADDELL of Plympton twp., 3 Sept 1886 at Chapman House, Sarnia.
(more…)
April 5, 2008
For many years, I had a website online called “Genealogy Tales,” but when money got tight, I took it down. I’m glad to say that today I’m resurrecting the website in this blog format, but you will still be able to see the stories and database by clicking on the links in the Pages section to the right.
I’ll be entering the old stories from the old website as I have time and energy, but I’ll be posting new blog entries as I collect more information. I’m using The Master Genealogist to enter data and publishing it with John Cardinal’s Second Site.
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to contact me or post a comment on the blog. I look forward to hearing from you.
April 3, 2008
Next page
