CVGS Research Group Summary - 10 August 2011

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The Chula Vista Genealogical Society Research Group meeting had a lively group of 15 participants. In the first hour, the group watched a Legacy Family Tree webinar by Leland Meitzler who presented "Chasing Women: Finding Your Female Ancestors," which Randy obtained at the SCGS Jamboree in June. We passed the handout around and attendees signed up for a copy of it. In the presentation, Leland used examples from his own research to show which documents are useful to find the maiden name of female ancestors.  

 We had an open sharing in the second hour, with research highlights, questions and answers, etc. The highlights:

 * Karen shared her good luck at Carlsbad Library finding books on the Geoghagen and LeCompte families of colonial Dorchester County, Maryland. She learned a family story too - that a native put a curse on Anthony Lecompte, the immigrant, because Anthony killed some natives. One of Anthony's sons, Moses LeCompte, went blind in early adulthood, and nine of his 11 children did also. A recent study identified the blindness as retinitis pigmentosa. Karen also shared finding a cousin who had wills, letters and patents for Grass Reeden, a Geoghagen ancestral home. The cousin also has found gravestones in a swamp, saw several ancestral houses and found Grass Reeden. There is a line of gravestones on the edge of the Geoghagen homestead property.

  

* Kris received her grandfather's military records from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. John looked them over and gave Kris advice on what they documented. Kris is up to five binders of family history material, and has found many contacts on Ancestry.com.

  

* Shirley found her ancestor Daniel Miller on two different 1850 census pages in New York and Pennsylvania and wonders how that happened. She also found that her ancestor Thomas Graves enlisted twice in the War of 1812, and has a pension file. The file enabled her to find his family in the 1810 US Census in Minden, New York. John Graves, the father, enlisted in the War of 1812 also.

  

* Gary found a writeup in the book Memoirs of Lenawee County, Michigan for an uncle of his great-grandfather, which had information on the family. He has also found Philip Roff in the 1790, 1820 and 1840 censuses in different places.

  

* Cynthia asked about cousin relationships and the "removed" terminology. The group explained it by diagramming a typical family tree.

  

* Connie has her grandfather's life insurance papers, and wondered if the application was available from the insurance company. The group thought that the company considers those private and probably destroyed them some time after the insured's death.

  

The next meeting of the CVGS Research Group will be Wednesday, 14 September at 12 noon in the Conference Room in the Chula Vista Civic Center Branch Library. Gary will lead this meeting, since Randy will be on vacation. The group will watch the "Backing Up Your Genealogy Data" webinar featuring Thomas MacEntee, followed by group sharing.