December 2011
29 posts
8 tags
Ask Ancestry Anne: Who Are Ethel's Parents?
Question: For years I was under the assumption that my grandmother, Ethel Hall Burtchell, was the child of Wealthy Hall Burtchell and Walter D. Burtchell. Ethel was born on October 13, 1895, presumably in Brooklyn, but I have not had any luck in finding a birth certificate for her with either the name Hall or Burtchell. What makes this more complicated is that I found a newspaper announcement of...
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Irvin's Story: Standing by the Oklahoma
I got temporary duty to the mine school. It was for two months, and then I was to report back to the Oklahoma. That was my key toward getting over to the Asiatic Fleet. This was November 1941. I stayed at the mine school barracks right by the submarine base. To me, those were beautiful barracks with neat rows of bunk beds. The barracks were right above the mess hall. There must have been fifty...
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Ask Ancestry Anne: How do I find records on Native...
One of the most common questions that I get in my Ancestry Anne mailbox is:
How do I find records on Native Americans? How do I prove so and so was a Native American?
Well, I’m going to cheat. :-)
Check out Crista Cowan’s discussion on this very subject at:
Native American Ancestry on Ancestry.com
Happy Searching!
Ancestry Anne
6 tags
Arriving on December 7
My mother and her three year old daughter arrived in Pearl Harbour on the SS Dickenson just as the first bombs fell in the harbour. She had been evacuated from Fanning Island in the Line Islands due to the risk of Germany attacking the island as they did in WW1.
The crew and passengers on the Dickenson were watching the events, wondering if the U.S. Air Force was being too enthusiastic
in their...
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Hey, I was there!
In 1941 my family lived in the town of Kalehe in Honolulu, Hawaii. My dad was a Chief Petty Officer stationed at Pearl Harbor.
On December 7, 1941 about 7 a.m., my sister Ima Jean and I were playing outside on the roof of a neighborhood taxi stand waiting for our dad to come home and join us for breakfast. He was port duty officer and had to stay on board to hand out liberty passes on Sunday...
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Pearl Harbor Clinched It
My father was a medical officer on a ship patrolling the west coast of South America when Pearl Harbor was bombed. His ship was harbored in Callao, Peru.
He had been dating a woman who he hoped to marry. Pearl Harbor clinched it. He called her at her family’s home in Manhattan and proposed.
Dad’s ship was headed for Vallejo later in December. My mother did not want to miss Christmas with...
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Watching from a Kitchen Window
I was 23 days short of my 5th birthday on December 7, 1941. My father, Oren S. Blennerhassett, was stationed at Wheeler Field.
My mother first saw the hangars down the street burning. We then saw the Japanese planes flying overhead from our kitchen window. Being so small I could see the pilots in their leather helmets from where I was in the adjoining room. We had a very large picture window...
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How Pearl Harbor Changed My Family
My father, Adrian Gerard Sira, moved to Hawaii from New Jersey in 1934 during the height of the Depression in search of a job. He was a widower with an infant daughter named Elaine whom he left with his first wife’s parents on Long Island to raise because he could not cope with being jobless. His intention was to bring Elaine out to Hawaii with his second wife, my mother, as soon as he got...
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Grandpa Enlisted ... and the Japanese Quickly...
My grandfather, Marion Berness Brady (left, with brothers Elwood and Keith), never talked about his war experiences … with one exception. This was a story he took great delight in retelling and always in the third person: “On the 6th of December, 1941, Berness and Elwood Brady joined the United States Marine Corps. The next day, the Japanese retaliated.”
I always doubted that Grandpa and his...
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Adopted and Found Biological Family!
My name is Elizabeth Ann now JoAnne Leavitt-Thomas. I was born to Natalie Moccone and Lawrence Raymond Leavitt Sr in 1957. They were not married. My mother gave me up for adoption and I was adopted at age 5 months. My name became JoAnne Scollay from my adopted parents. As I was growing up I always knew that I would one day find my biological family. What better place to start then in my hometown...
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The unknown family of Hannah Stokes and Samuel...
25 November 2011
My grandmother Bess Hall Pearce (1893-1986) was doing genealogy in the 1920’s. She worked mostly on her own lines but was also interested in following her husband’s lines enough to interview her his mother and aunt before they died in 1931. But until recently I didn’t know this. When she died I inherited all her notes and books but, because I had a young family and was...
November 2011
38 posts
7 tags
I would have not known any of my Italian...
I have been interested in family genealogy since my teen years. I have spent most of my time researching my maternal family tree where some of my ancestors go back to the 15th century or earlier! Much of the work had already been done by my grandmother but I have enjoyed meeting new “cousins” and confirming information and sources through ancestry.com.
My paternal family history has...
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Cross Relations
I am a big genealogy nut and have been researching for several years. Imagine my surprise when during my research I discovered my ex-husband line and mine are intertwined not only by marriage but through our grandmother’s. His grandmother and my grandmother were 2nd cousins.
I also discovered my current husband’s 2nd cousin is married to my 1st cousin. It is a small world when you...
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Ancestry Anne: An Alternate Way to View Results
If you start on the search page or the home page and do a search, you’ll see results come back as a list of records you might want to look at.
But there is an alternate presentation of results that you can display. Instead of Sorted by relevance choose Sorted by category
And we will present a list of data collections you may want to explore.
Note, that this option is what we...
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Ask Ancestry Anne: How do I Verify a Unsourced...
Question: The only evidence I have for a date of death for my great-grandfather comes from other family trees. When I look at those trees, there are no sources given for the date of death. How do I know which was the first citation and how do I validate the information? Details are: Nathan Shaw: 6 members show his date of death as Apr 14, 1878 in Union Mills, LaPorte County, Indiana. ...
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Ancestry Anne: Finding Local Histories
Local Histories can be full of great information. Information on what the area was like at a specific date and time. Snippets of family trees. You just never know.
My favorite trick to find family trees is to go to the Ancestry.com Card Catalog.
Once there, filter down to Stories, Memories and Histories.
Then type in a city or county name into the keyword box. This will search both...
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Ask Ancestry Anne: These census dates don't match...
Question: In 1910 my father’s family is listed. My Uncles Jessie & Henry McWilliams are the same age, yet in the census before one was born in 1888 and the other in 1894-95. This is so confusing. The names of the family members are the same but they are correct. What am I to believe? What to do? Answer: Just because someone writes it down, doesn’t make it true. And here is a...
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Ask Ancestry Anne: All it takes is a name, date...
Question: Can you find Edwin W. Johnson born around 1871, in Saline Co. Missouri? - Dolly Answer: I picked this particular example, because it helps illustrate an important point, the three most useful pieces of information to find someone are:
Names
Birth Date
Some location
Where do I begin? I go to the 1880 search page because that will be the first U.S Census Edwin will be in. I enter
...
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A Hyphen Becomes a Halpin
My mother always said that my great-grandmother’s name was Lula Mae Captolia “hyphen” Lucinda Ladow. It’s said that the hyphen was added because Great-Grandma was adopted at age three and kept both of her names. But years later, I discovered that it wasn’t a hyphen in her name; it was a different name entirely – Halpin.
I learned this fact by looking at my great-grandmother’s marriage license,...
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How my family met my husband’s family a century...
In an effort to introduce my 4-year-old son to his family’s history, I began researching my husband’s family on Ancestry.com. My husband’s stepmother is Italian, and her maiden name is DiDio. I’m half Italian, and my maiden name is Santagati.
While I was researching my husband’s family, I naturally started looking up my own family’s history as well. As I searched through the...
