Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Lewis county, NY Revolutionary War Burials

Just posted my Lewis county list to my homepage.  The list is a compilation of all the hints and leads I could find on line augmented by some burials I found in Lewis county cemeteries. 

My website is coded in HTML and I was afraid I would have to write the code for a 6X131 table but the rootsweb Freepages-Help list directed me to Tableizer!.  The site is free.  Just copy the cells from your spread sheet and drop it in the box.  A few seconds later it produces the code.  Very nice and a great time saver.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Weather and Rev Vets

The damp weather has stopped and now the hot humid weather begins.  A unpleasant years.  The wild berries have put on a poor show but the nuts trees are loaded to the breaking point.

Have spent some time working up virtual cemeteries on FAG for Revolutionary vets buried in Jefferson, Lewis and St Lawrence county.  Now to find a way to post it to rootsweb.  There must be a easy way to code it.  Meanwhile check out the cemeteries on FAG.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

A quick update.  I have added the new obits from Tamaqua to the Friberg page of my homepage.  Also have updated the tree on rootsweb but have as yet not combined the Taves and Coyne2010 trees.  The Taves/Tews in Allentown seemed to switch at will between the two names but I have decided to go ahead with Rieka Taves marred to Charles Tews.  Tews was used in their obits and when Rieka came over in 1893 with all the children, they used Tews.

Friday, May 3, 2013

Post Boot Life

The boot came off last Saturday.  The foot seems OK but stiff and hard to walk on.  Hopefully this will change over time.  I see the Doc on Monday.

The PA certificates of death started showing up, 4 months after they were ordered.   That's about when they said to expect them.  Very informative especially with dates of birth and sometimes names of parents.  They seem to be filled out by the funeral home.  The name of the informant is usually the spouse or a child.  Amazing how many don't know the names of their grand parents or in laws. Overall, well worth the $3 and the wait.

Finally sent requests for obit look up to the Tamaqua Public library in Tamaqua, PA.  They found 8 out of 12.  HURRAY!  Turns out The Tamaqua Evening Courier was the paper of choice for obits among my PA ancestors.  That explains why the other libraries couldn't find much. 

I haven't completely absorbed them into my tree but it does add a son who went by himself to Oshkosh, WI.  I had found him in the WW I draft registrations but couldn't tie him in.  Best of all it ties the Taves/Tews family to the rest via Hannah Rhode's obit mentioning a sister in Allentown.  This had been mentioned before in the obit for August Friberg but I couldn't find other support for it until now.

Bought a Celestron 100mm scope for bird watching.  Great for star gazing also.  Haven't quite mastered it yet.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Trip and Fall

Some more PA obits from Jim Thorpe, PA.  The German's who came over either didn't believe in obits or couldn't afford them.   I received a few from Dimmick Library.  The Allentown library found three obits for me and I found several recent ones on funeral home sites.  The Pottsville Library is sending me 10 or so Rhode obits but I'm not sure if they are related.

About 2 weeks ago, while working on my Ford 1955 NAA tractor, I managed to trip while going into the garage for a tool and popped the Achilles tendon off my left heel.  I'll be in a corrective  boot for a few months while we wait for the tendon to reattach.  The doctor didn't want surgery as it is difficult because of the lack of skin in that area and results with the boot are just as good.


Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Pennsylvania Progress

I was able to find more  dates of death for relatives in Carbon county PA and the researcher at Dimmick library in Jim Thorpe is looking them up for me. 

The search has been broadened to the Pottsville Free Public Library, Pottsville, PA.   They not only provide a search service but have many obits already found and indexed in the  Republican Deaths file.  I am awaiting several obits from this file, mostly Rhode in Tamaqua.

Another family that interests me and may or may not be related is Taves in Allentown.  The Allentown Public has a search service that has found 3 obituaries for me. 

There are a lot of helpful libraries in PA but not all of the obituaries have been found.  Either they didn't have obits or they were in newspapers other than those searched.  Perhaps the dates I obtained from the PA vital records site are inaccurate.  Most of the people have death certs on order, when they arrive , in 3 or 4 months, things may be clearer.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Rough December

My wife and I were both out of action all of December and some of January with colds.  I also discovered that I have gout in my right foot.  The snow is almost gone but it's not over yet. We'll get more, I'm sure.  The warm weather has ended and we expect it to go  below 0 at night for a while.

Returned to research on Rhode/ Rohde/Rohda/Roady , Farhman and Friberg in Carbon county, PA.  I discovered the PA Death Index and was able to pin down a lot of dates of death.  It's well worth your time to download the explanation of the Soundex system before you start searching.  It turns out that instead of searching for Rhode, I should have searched for R 300.

Armed with seven death dates I hired a researcher at the Dimmick Library in Jim Thorpe, PA but she has only been able to locate one obit.  Oh, well.  Genealogy is full of ups and downs.

Had a lot of success with the federal census on ancestry.  I added Olson, Gibson, Fabian, Jenkins (new branch), Balthaser, Freyman, Tippett and Keefer to the family tree.  Up to 3919 people in the tree.