The Chula Vista Genealogical Society Research Group had its first meeting at the new time (second Wednesday, 12 noon) at the Library today. We had 11 members in attendance.
Randy briefly reviewed the Genealogy News for December 2007. Then we went into research problems that people have. Randy had the only one presented - he received a manuscript about his ancestor Ranslow's Smith's house/inn in Burnett WI written for the Old World Wisconsin museum, which has the refurbished inn on its property. The manuscript gave the first clue to Ranslow's parents - Russell and Esther (--?--) Smith, which was obtained from newspaper obituaries for Ranslow's brothers, Lyman and George. It said that the three sons were born in Oneida County NY, and that Russell was born in RI and Esther in CT. Randy asked for help with resources in Oneida county NY. The group suggested researching in town and county history books, surname books, RevWar pension files, state censuses, deeds, wills, birth records, newspapers, town historians, historical or genealogy societies, museums, church records, etc.
Dave M. described his trip to see cousins in Georgia. One of them gave him part of a book on the Garrett family of VA/GA and pedigree charts. The cousin will send a FTM file with more family information.
Rita described her trip to New York City where she obtained birth and death certificates for her parents. She had written previously to the Vital Records office, with the appropriate identification information, and had been turned down previously. At the office, she was treated with respect.
Joan showed the denial letter from Social Security to her query asking for the death date of John Robinson Hall based on his SS number. She will write a letter to try to obtain a Work History from SSA.
Bob P. is trying to track a great-aunt from Wales who was emigrating to Australia with her brother. He got conflicting information from a cousin in Australia, who said she never left and was killed in a train crash in England. He will look for records at www.AncestorsOnBoard.com and the London Times for news of the train crash.
Shirley B. told a tale of woe - her computer crashed and she's been sick. She wanted help from the group about what subjects to cover in her New York State Research talk. The group gave her a list, including geographical divisions, government entities, records held at different levels, town historian functions, settlement patterns, canals and railroads, land records, etc.
This was a lively meeting with lots of comments. Several sets of papers were passed around to illustrate the results obtained.
No comments:
Post a Comment