Have made some big discoveries lately – all which of course just lead me to more places for research, but oh well! That’s the fun of it.
First – the West Liberty Public Library has an INDEX of the WL newspapers dating back to the early 1890s or so. The local genealogical/historical society went through all the microfilm and created an index of any birth, death, marriage records in the papers. While you still have to go to the library to look at the actual images, this creates a plan so that you know what issue you need to look at. VERY helpful. Have made 2 trips already and the pre-work made the actual research so much easier. Every time I get home from a research trip, I find more that I need to go back to WLPL to look up, since I’ve been finding more connections et al.
Second – Have pinpointed 3 direct ancestors of mine that served during the Civil War (in addition to many peripheral relatives). Now I just need to order the actual records from NARA. Did you know that those are as expensive as they are? I will spend about $300 before it’s all said and done to get all 3 records. So, needless to say, now that I know WHAT to do and HOW to do it, it’s a matter of WHEN and with what money.
Third – Jason’s grandma called us last night and wanted me to find an immigration record for her great aunt. She had when they thought she came from Germany (sometime between 1919-1922), how old she was, etc. She was needing to find where in Germany she came from, b/c they have to get a birth record (this woman is STILL alive, can you believe it?). Anyway, I get on EllisIsland.org this morning and within 5 minutes I had the record of the aunt AND her mother, including pictures of the ship, etc. Ended up she came from Poland, not Germany. But it was so fast and so easy. WHY can’t immigration records from the 1880s be that simple? So, now I have to direct Grandma to the citizenship/naturalization records, b/c that will probably be the best source material. I doubt they’d find any birth/christening records in Poland that survived both world wars.
