The September 10th meeting of the Chula Vista Genealogical Society (CVGS) Research Group had 21 attendees.
In the first hour, Randy reviewed upcoming CVGS meetings, the SDGS seminar on 27 September, and noted that the FamilySearch Obituary Collection now includes GenealogyBank obituaries.
He described helping CVGS member Dorothy, who is going to Demanrk in late September, with her Danish genealogy research. After writing a post on his blog, there were several helpful comments from readers and Facebook members, including offers for help from researchers in Denmark. The blog post provided a list of websites to check for Denmark resources.
In the second hour, the research challenges, questions and successes were highlighted by some of the attendees, including:
* Jean asked for help finding probate records of Nehemiah Tompkins, who died in Ontario County, N.Y. in 1836. Randy showed to find this record in the New York Probate Records collection on FamilySearch, but there was no entry for him in the Probate record index.
* Sally wanted help finding information for the ancestors of her husband's second great-grandfather, Julius Schaefer (1866-1968). She had a 1966 Wichita, Kansas newspaper article celebrating his 100th birthday. The article said his birthplace was Schramberg in West Germany. The group suggested finding all possible records in the United States that might name his parents, such as a death certificate, the Social Security Application, a passenger list, and a naturalization record. Then look for church records in Germany on FHL microfilms.
* Diane found a family coat of arms and wondered what the difference was between a crest and a coat-of-arms. Karen explained that the crest was part of the coat-of-arms. A Wikipedia article was found to explain it.
* Helen is still researching her Burleson family in Arkansas. She found land records in Clark County, Arkansas in 1858. A recently found correspondent has more records to share with Helen.
* Sylvia's great-grandfather immigrated in 1857, resided in Fargo, N.D., and then moved to Tulare, Calif. She found a naturalization record in Tulare, but it was not the declaration of intent. She asked if there might be more records. The group suggested checking the National Archives branch near Fargo to determine if one is available.
* Ana asked if FamilySearch has removed record images from some of their collections. The group noted that every collection has contractual obligations, and some contracts expire. The removed images might be available on microfilm at the FamilySearch Library.
* John was contacted by a lady in Spokane who had been adopted. Due to a change in records access law for adoptees, she found out her birth mother's name, and found it in John's Ancestry Member Tree. After she contacted him through Ancestry, John's response to her was "I'm her brother, and I've been waiting for your call for a long time." John's family knew about the baby that his sister had as a teenager. He has shared more family information and is looking forward to meeting his niece sometime soon.
The next Research Group meeting will be on Wednesday, 8 October at 12 noon in the Conference Room at the Chula Vista Civic Center Branch Library.
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