Watch out, laleo. This is how it starts. You'll be hooked before you know it.
There are tons of genealogy Web sites, and given Philadelphia's long history, I'll bet it has a robust historical society. Some such societies have pretty extensive records to search. Philadelphia's most likely has a Web site and if it does, it might have a genealogy section.
The main site I use is Ancestry.com, but I also use genealogy.com, rootsweb.com, and familysearch.org, which is affiliated with the LDS church/libraries. A couple caveats about familysearch: Its search engine is rather cumbersome to use, and it contains tons of undocumented data from lots and lots of amateur genealogists. However, I have found clues there that I've in turn been able to use in searching some of the better sites.
Another great source is the National Archives in D.C. Before Ancestry.com had passenger lists online, I found my father's maternal great-grandfather's family on a passenger list after searching through lots of (unfortunately unindexed, in this case) microfilms (warning: they have the clunkiest old microfilm readers you'll ever encounter). They also have volunteer genealogists (at least they did the first time I went there) who are happy to offer suggestions on where/how to search.
I can't think of any shortcuts, per se. You need persistence, creative thinking, patience, and sometimes luck. A fun example of the latter: My dad, who worked for years on our family history and then passed the mantle to me, always suspected one of his great-grandfathers was a bigamist, because when Dad had written to the National Archives in the 70s for the man's Civil War pension records, he discovered that two women had filed for his widow's pension and that there was a dispute. He had never sent for the full record (probably because of the rather hefty cost--the price for a record is the same whether the document has 1 page or 500, and you don't know how much is there until you fork over the cash unless you're searching in person), so bigamy was just an educated guess.
Lo and behold, a couple years ago, my cousin (also a genealogy buff) came across a newspaper clipping that some kind soul had transcribed and posted on one of the genealogy Web site's message boards (more on this in a minute). The article, from a newspaper in some dinky little town in Iowa where this ancestor had settled with his second wife, outlined the whole scandal, which unfolded after his death when the two wives discovered each other's existence. I've since obtained, through a distant cousin who sent for it before I had a chance, the entire 200+-page file on the pension dispute, including written depositions from my great-great-grandmother, my great-great-grandfather's siblings, my great-grandmother, and others. A goldmine of clues.
Back to the message boards: Even if your "brick wall" relative, in this case your grandmother, has no other surviving descendants and you and your dad are the only ones searching for info about her, someone, somewhere might have already come across her info in the course of their own research and posted it on a genealogy Web site's message board. Ancestry.com has such a board (under "Ancestry Community"), as does genealogy.com.
Genealogists, generally speaking, are extremely generous when it comes to sharing information. Of course you have to sift the wheat from the chaff, because not all researchers are careful about documenting said info. I have another cousin (whom I've never met and haven't yet corresponded with) who has a whole Web site mostly devoted to a bogus genealogy that my mother's Great-Great-Great-Aunt paid to have done back in the 20s by an unscrupulous company that was trying to convince anyone by the name of Webber that they were the rightful heirs of a big chunk of Manhattan!
Back to your grandmother: Another thing that's helped me when I'm stuck (which is often) is to search names of family members who aren't in my direct line. You'd be surprised who shows up living with whom on the census records and what rich clues you can find that way. Did your grandmother have any siblings? Does your father remember any of his cousins' names? Clues, you're always looking for clues.
Which brings me to rule number 1 of genealogic research: Start with your oldest living relatives (which, unfortunately for you, might be just your father) and ask them questions. I put together a questionnaire for my parents (which I really really wish I'd done for my grandparents and other old folks while they were alive!!). I included all sorts of questions totally unrelated to genealogy (e.g., "Did your grandmother play a musical instrument?") in hopes that they would stir a memory that just might nudge another memory, and so on.
One more thing and then I'll shut up: Get creative with Google. I've found newspaper clippings and other solid info by searching various family members' names, the names of their small towns, in as many combinations as I can think of. It's probably not the most efficient approach, but I have found some great stuff and had fun in the process, reading other people's family history Web sites and such.
OK, I lied...one more thing, which you might already know but I'll mention it anyway. Census enumerators were not always sure how to spell people's names so they took their best guesses (especially if the person giving the info was illiterate--not at all uncommon in the 19th century). Check all variant spellings you can think of. In our family we have found our ancestors on the census as Britton, Brittain, and Britten. I have copies of documents signed by another great-grandmother who signed her own name with two different spellings!
It's an adventure, I tell ya. You'll be hooked! E-mail me if you like, and I can help search if you want me to try. I enjoy the challenge like crazy, even when not researching my own family. I have two families I've researched after buying their 19th-century journals at an estate auction--no success in finding any living (or interested) descendants so far, but it was fun anyway.
Re:"The clerk suggested that I go to the county courthouse in Philadelphia to look through the records."
At least Philadelphia isn't that far away. My mom did all this geneology biz about 25 years ago and had to travel to courthouses all across the South. Come to find out, I'm a direct decendant of Jesus and Mary Magdalene! Oh, just kidding.
But really, We did find out that none of my ancesters fought for the North in the War of Northern Aggression which was a bit of a relief. You never know WHAT skeletons you'll find in closets. Unfortunately, there were no Confederate generals or even colonels in my ancestry. In fact.. to a man.. they were all merely enlisted men!
Linda, I can't get too addicted if only because my genealogy on my mother's side has been scrupulously tracked for centuries, and meticulously recorded. I have a very thick binder -- a gift from my mother's cousin -- as proof. Come to think of it, a lot of it did come from the Philadelphia Historical Society. (Thanks Sudo. I forgot about that. Another avenue.) My father's paternal line has been easy. We've got family stories that match the records we've found. It's his mother that's missing. I'm going to take you up on your email offer as soon as I hear back from my father. He left a couple of days ago, so I just sent off an email to double-check my details, what few I have. I'm interested in hearing more questions from your questionnaire, if you remember what you asked.
I love your bigamist story. It reminded me of a friend from years ago who painstakingly researched her fiance's family history to be sure he didn't have an axe murderer lurking in his family tree. He came up clean, so she married him. As it turned out, she had one in hers, which she found out about years later. We had a huge laugh over that.
I'm reluctant to take on the courthouse thing. I'll have to call on Monday to see what all is involved, and what the chances of success are.
Sudo, I always suspected you came from a fine pedigree. Your heart must have been crushed to learn otherwise. Actually, I didn't think we had war heroes on any side of our family, or on any side of a war, but I think a distant cousin of someone somewhere once fought in the revolutionary war. Just a long line of farmers, ministers, and teachers.
HAPe, Templelady, I hope you chime in. I'd like to hear how you've gone about this, and what you've found.
My father in law is a geneology buff. I'll ask him what helps. He has a website where he can track a lot of information and then share it with others in the family tree.
I asked a lady I know that was into genealogy a few years back. In fact, I copied and pasted your original post and emailed it to her. Here is her reply:
Not much help here. I haven't done the genealogy thing in a couple yrs. And she's covered all the bases I can think of. If she has any death certificates or an idea of where people died/were buried, she could check cemetary records. Someone once told me you can also check thru Social Security because a lot of that info has to be given when applying for it. Sorry I couldn't be of more help!
My neice started working on our family (mother) geneolgy as a high school project..she did the same as others have mentioned here. she continued and got family involved..10 yrs later we have our Geneolgy dated back to 1783 when they came over from Scotland. I did some researching myself a few years ago and actualy found more..since most of the population have come from Europe being the bloodline is connected to early Collonialism, its a direction I took my search in.... On my Dads side, we have a website on Myfamily.com.....they actualy have a geneology tree built in so family can add, and there are ways to post to each other and upload pictures....we have about 40 documents scanned in for others to observe. My fathers Military Certificate, marriage licenses, birth records, etc..It is a awesome family website..Im so glad my dads family took the time to do it...
I imagine it's the Social Security Death Index bowtwi's friend is referring to. The index is one of the things that comes up on an Ancestry.com search. The copy of the SS application form I got for my mother's stepfather didn't have any info we didn't already know, unfortunately--nothing about his parents. But the requirements for the form might have varied from year to year or decade to decade and some forms might have more info. However, if your grandmother was born in 1897, being a woman it's possible she never got a Social Security number, since Social Security didn't start till 1935, I believe it was, off the top of my head.
Sometimes churches have baptismal records. If she was a churchgoer, and your dad knows what denomination, you could direct the search there.
I haven't used the local LDS Family History Library yet, but they have tons of records on microfilm.
Here's another possibility: You can try putting in fewer search terms (e.g., just her surname if it's not a super common name) and see who pops up in Philadelphia with that name around the time she lived there. Then search the men of that line backwards and forward without limiting the search to Pennsylvania. I know this is a hit-and-miss method, but sometimes you get lucky.
And back to her mother's illegible name: Unless it's completely obliterated, you'd be amazed at what an experienced researcher can see in that old-style writing. There might be someone at your local historical society who's adept at that.
Hi all, Linda has given great advice. I just wanted to let you know I am not ignoring this thread, I will get back to it, but am too tired to spout about this passion tonight. For now, CONGRATULATIONS on spelling genealogy right, that is a big step, many think it is ology LOL
The praise belongs to my spell-checker. It took a lot of tries before I figured out what was wrong with "geneology" (which is how it ought to be spelled).
Rest up, HAPe, because I'm looking forward to picking your brain. This is something that would mean a LOT to my dad (and me, too), if I can help him trace this down. When my father visited in October, he was jetlagged (along with having other health problems), so he spent a couple of days recuperating here, and spent the time talking extensively about his family. I grabbed a pen and jotted down a few notes. In the interim, before this more recent visit, he's written down many more memories, along with subscribing to ancestry.com. Any additional help would be greatly appreciated. I'm overwhelmed by it all, but feel a small amount of urgency in finding out what I can, as soon as I can.
doojable, I'm looking forward to hearing your stories.
bowtwi, thanks for looking into it. If you come up with any more ideas, please post.
likeaneagle, the family website sounds like a great idea. It's amazing when the long forgotten names of never known relatives begin to come to life.
I knew this would happen. I called the telephone number of the Philadelphia County Courthouse, given to me by the clerk at the Dept. of Health & Welfare. They told me they only handle marriage licenses, and gave me another number to call. I called that one.
"No, ma'am, we don't provide birth certificates here. You have to go through the state."
"I went to the state. In person. They only have records after 1906. This is prior to 1906. They told me to contact you."
"No, ma'am. The county courthouse doesn't provide records to the public. The state does."
And on and on.
Anyone besides me ever encounter Pennsylvania bureaucracy? My daughter, on a whim, bought a car in Vermont from someone who had it registered in Minnesota, and she wanted to transfer the plates to Pennsylvania. The Vermont auto mechanic she consulted told her that the car would pass inspection without a problem. (It did. Nine hundred dollars later.) The paperwork took (in total) seven trips to the DMV, and three to AAA. Every time she or I went, there was yet another form, or piece of information, that was required, which we didn't have with us, which they didn't tell us about the last time we went. There's this circular bureaucracy thing happening, where paperwork keeps getting shifted to someone else's desk, and no one actually has any responsibility for anything, or the ability to provide a service. After it was all over, I turned to my daughter and asked, "Does Pennsylvania have the lowest rate of car theft in the nation? Otherwise, what's the point of all this?" "They're protecting us from ourselves," she answered. And I think she has it right.
I don't know. I can tell this isn't going to be easy.
Yes, dealing with gov't bureaucracies isn't for sissies, for sure. That's why I recommended the Philadelphia Historical Society. And in the process of noodling around with this a little bit on my lunch hour, I discovered that the president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (another resource) is named Mooney! That and $5 will get you a cup of coffee and a donut at Starbucks, but I found it an interesting coincidence. Maybe an omen...chuckle...just kidding. BUT if he or she (only saw initials, so I don't know the gender) happens to be a genealogy buff, maybe he/she has already uncovered the info you need and it's sitting on a shelf in the society's library. Stranger things have happened.
I'll poke around a bit and see if I uncover any clues. I love a good mystery.
Hey! Noticed something already. Living with your grandmother and her mother was (can I hear a "Bingo!") her mothner's mother. Definitely a German name. If this is the right record, which I surmise it is since your grandmother's month and year of birth are correct and this is the record you told me about.
I've been pondering doing this for quite some time but am too skeered... my sister has done a lot of it but she doesn't really share much with her 'earthly' family if you know what I mean...
IIRC in Pennsylvania, especially Philly, if you need anything done by an employee of the government (city, county or state) the request must always be accompanied by an envelope of $$$!
I am one of the lucky ones who has a family who had at least one person in most generations for the last 380 years that wrote things down and by some bizarre quirk of fate it all has made its way to me over the years with only a few holes to fill on a few sides.
It has always been an incredible gift to me when the pieces come together I find new things and my ancestors become living and real people.
Best of Luck in your search, imo it is a great thing to pursue and well worth all the effort
Linda, I can't thank you enough. I'm starting to have fun, since we're actually getting somewhere. Great advice, on all counts. It's helped me tremendously, especially the idea of going for the alternate spellings. And we found his grandmother!!!! Now we need to find one (from all accounts) volatile, recalcitrant, elusive Tim (Tom? John? Jim?) Mooney (Mahoney? Moony?).
Tom, I think you remember correctly. That's about how it is. Thanks for the good wishes.
mstar, thanks. I didn't give this much thought before, mostly because we do have a family history that, for the most part, is carefully recorded. This was the missing link. Little things in the family stories I grew up with are starting to make sense; those small ironies in the little ways that history repeats itself. Yeah, it's worth the effort.
Does anyone know how a "Morocco dresser" or a "Morocco finisher" makes a living? Is this related to shoes or furniture or something else? I looked it up on google, and all I found were people who were asking the same question.
The definition of morocco in Merriam-Websters is "a fine leather from goatskin tanned with sumac." A "dresser" of leather was one who prepared it for use, best I can tell. Since your ancestor lived in the same household with a shoe manufacturer, that fits perfectly.
I found THIS very detailed description of a parade at the opening of the ?Erie Canal? on November 3, 1825
The parade is grouped together by trades, the Morocco dressers and finishers are mentioned as being grouped in with the Tanners and Curriers and gives some various descriptions of "working of skins and leather', with the Moroccan finishers "finishing skins of various colors'.
It doesnt give alot but I also suspect they were working on shoes, as other parts of the shoemaking trade are mentioned in that part of the article (setting of soles by the tanners)probably ( I am guessing) they were the artisans that 'dressed' it up and 'finished' it off to make them actually appear, wear and fit as a finished and elegant shoe...
Morrocan was apparently the top quality stuff -hence the name
Here's a story from 1845 where the princess wears fine moroccan shoes instead of a crown.
Again, thanks, mstar. I got sidetracked with the tuberculosis outbreak in Philly. Thanks for looking into it. And what a great little story, too. I remember that from way, way back. I think Karen only narrowly escaped the scarlet letter. A moral lesson for all of us.
Linda, you are so right. Now that you explained how to use ancestry.com, I've done nothing else. This is going to turn into a horrible addiction, I can tell. My mind is already creating all sorts of little fictions around these people, based on those tiny facts. Little Jennie raised in a proper, industrious, orderly, methodical German household, whisked away by the young, obstreperous, ex-communicated, and fatally ill Tim Mooney (My father thinks that's his name if only because of the family friend who shook her finger saying, "Tim Mooney will never be dead as long as he [my father] is alive"), with only Helen left to sort it all out.
mstar, what a treasure has been passed down to you!
I have lots of notes from my GG-grandmother and her father, but the info from the early 19th-century and before is highly suspect, having been meddled with by some unscrupulous "professionals" who tried to squeeze one line of the family into someone's royal Dutch lineage, to try to lay claim to a huge inheritance and vast land holdings in Manhattan. It was all BS.
laleo, I knew with your inquiring mind you'd get hooked. Enjoy! And please tell your father the pleasure was all mine. The only thing I enjoy more than the "thrill of the chase" is knowing that what I've found brings a smile to someone.
They are so tricky because up until about 60 (WWII) years ago a woman really had no identity outside of her father and her husband. "John's wife Mary" was considered all that was needful in many cases. I searched for a great grandmother for years who was known to all and sundry as Mrs Willliam Loveland, period end of discussion.
I found one woman and a whole family, a FOWLER, by finding out that her sister-in-laws grand-mother was a FOWLER who came from the same small town as she did. contacted that rsearcher and voila!
Ancestry is great on the way they have their census set up. You can go to the year in question type in a first name and approx birthyear. narrow down by location. and see what you can find. Also they have a magnifying feature that sometimes helps clean up the mud. Genealogy .com has the census too. I find Genalogy.com to be a more shot gun appraoch since they give you a much broader range of possibilities .
Ancestry also has city directories (Polk) and the main library in what ever town you are searching should have them too. If you can pull an address off the census for a given year. do a reverse directory lookup on who lived at that address. I found a great grand uncle that way and discovered the first house he lived in in Spokane before he married my great Grand aunt was a mere 7 blocks from where I grew up.
When searching census on ancestry always check the plus or minus 1 year box.
Depending on the actual birth date and the date the census taker shows up there can be a variation in the actual year shown
Be aware of like sounding letters--as I type I am taking a break -spent 2 hours looking for John E when in actuality it was John V --E, V, B, C, D, G, P, T, V, Z all have that long E sound so they can be substituted. Ditto other letters
If you know where someone was married check the census just previous to the marriage in that locale for the same surname of either the bride or the groom weddings usually took place in the hometown of one or the other.
Look for common places between two lines. If you have two families who originated in Hartford CT for example sometimes going back to those surnames and working forward respective lines will connect with the lines you are working backwards on.
Most sites Have a wild card feature so if you are unsure of the spelling KEN* will net you any name starting with those letters.
Remember any vowel can and will be substituted for any other vowel so mix and match ditto some consonants
KENYON can be KINYAN, KINION, KINGAN
If your ancestor came from another country try to find out how that name would be correctly pronounced in the native tongue then think of ways an English speaking census taker might transcribe it when he heard it pronounced with the accent of the speaker. PFANMUELLER becomes PONDMILLER
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Linda Z
Watch out, laleo. This is how it starts. You'll be hooked before you know it.
There are tons of genealogy Web sites, and given Philadelphia's long history, I'll bet it has a robust historical society. Some such societies have pretty extensive records to search. Philadelphia's most likely has a Web site and if it does, it might have a genealogy section.
The main site I use is Ancestry.com, but I also use genealogy.com, rootsweb.com, and familysearch.org, which is affiliated with the LDS church/libraries. A couple caveats about familysearch: Its search engine is rather cumbersome to use, and it contains tons of undocumented data from lots and lots of amateur genealogists. However, I have found clues there that I've in turn been able to use in searching some of the better sites.
Another great source is the National Archives in D.C. Before Ancestry.com had passenger lists online, I found my father's maternal great-grandfather's family on a passenger list after searching through lots of (unfortunately unindexed, in this case) microfilms (warning: they have the clunkiest old microfilm readers you'll ever encounter). They also have volunteer genealogists (at least they did the first time I went there) who are happy to offer suggestions on where/how to search.
I can't think of any shortcuts, per se. You need persistence, creative thinking, patience, and sometimes luck. A fun example of the latter: My dad, who worked for years on our family history and then passed the mantle to me, always suspected one of his great-grandfathers was a bigamist, because when Dad had written to the National Archives in the 70s for the man's Civil War pension records, he discovered that two women had filed for his widow's pension and that there was a dispute. He had never sent for the full record (probably because of the rather hefty cost--the price for a record is the same whether the document has 1 page or 500, and you don't know how much is there until you fork over the cash unless you're searching in person), so bigamy was just an educated guess.
Lo and behold, a couple years ago, my cousin (also a genealogy buff) came across a newspaper clipping that some kind soul had transcribed and posted on one of the genealogy Web site's message boards (more on this in a minute). The article, from a newspaper in some dinky little town in Iowa where this ancestor had settled with his second wife, outlined the whole scandal, which unfolded after his death when the two wives discovered each other's existence. I've since obtained, through a distant cousin who sent for it before I had a chance, the entire 200+-page file on the pension dispute, including written depositions from my great-great-grandmother, my great-great-grandfather's siblings, my great-grandmother, and others. A goldmine of clues.
Back to the message boards: Even if your "brick wall" relative, in this case your grandmother, has no other surviving descendants and you and your dad are the only ones searching for info about her, someone, somewhere might have already come across her info in the course of their own research and posted it on a genealogy Web site's message board. Ancestry.com has such a board (under "Ancestry Community"), as does genealogy.com.
Genealogists, generally speaking, are extremely generous when it comes to sharing information. Of course you have to sift the wheat from the chaff, because not all researchers are careful about documenting said info. I have another cousin (whom I've never met and haven't yet corresponded with) who has a whole Web site mostly devoted to a bogus genealogy that my mother's Great-Great-Great-Aunt paid to have done back in the 20s by an unscrupulous company that was trying to convince anyone by the name of Webber that they were the rightful heirs of a big chunk of Manhattan!
Back to your grandmother: Another thing that's helped me when I'm stuck (which is often) is to search names of family members who aren't in my direct line. You'd be surprised who shows up living with whom on the census records and what rich clues you can find that way. Did your grandmother have any siblings? Does your father remember any of his cousins' names? Clues, you're always looking for clues.
Which brings me to rule number 1 of genealogic research: Start with your oldest living relatives (which, unfortunately for you, might be just your father) and ask them questions. I put together a questionnaire for my parents (which I really really wish I'd done for my grandparents and other old folks while they were alive!!). I included all sorts of questions totally unrelated to genealogy (e.g., "Did your grandmother play a musical instrument?") in hopes that they would stir a memory that just might nudge another memory, and so on.
One more thing and then I'll shut up: Get creative with Google. I've found newspaper clippings and other solid info by searching various family members' names, the names of their small towns, in as many combinations as I can think of. It's probably not the most efficient approach, but I have found some great stuff and had fun in the process, reading other people's family history Web sites and such.
OK, I lied...one more thing, which you might already know but I'll mention it anyway. Census enumerators were not always sure how to spell people's names so they took their best guesses (especially if the person giving the info was illiterate--not at all uncommon in the 19th century). Check all variant spellings you can think of. In our family we have found our ancestors on the census as Britton, Brittain, and Britten. I have copies of documents signed by another great-grandmother who signed her own name with two different spellings!
It's an adventure, I tell ya. You'll be hooked! E-mail me if you like, and I can help search if you want me to try. I enjoy the challenge like crazy, even when not researching my own family. I have two families I've researched after buying their 19th-century journals at an estate auction--no success in finding any living (or interested) descendants so far, but it was fun anyway.
Really shutting up now.
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Linda Z
Oh, and I forgot to mention, TempleLady is a genealogy buff, too.
I hope she and HAP will chime in here, too, because I'd love to hear what they have to say!
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Sudo
laleo,
Re:"The clerk suggested that I go to the county courthouse in Philadelphia to look through the records."
At least Philadelphia isn't that far away. My mom did all this geneology biz about 25 years ago and had to travel to courthouses all across the South. Come to find out, I'm a direct decendant of Jesus and Mary Magdalene! Oh, just kidding.
But really, We did find out that none of my ancesters fought for the North in the War of Northern Aggression which was a bit of a relief. You never know WHAT skeletons you'll find in closets. Unfortunately, there were no Confederate generals or even colonels in my ancestry. In fact.. to a man.. they were all merely enlisted men!
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laleo
Linda, I can't get too addicted if only because my genealogy on my mother's side has been scrupulously tracked for centuries, and meticulously recorded. I have a very thick binder -- a gift from my mother's cousin -- as proof. Come to think of it, a lot of it did come from the Philadelphia Historical Society. (Thanks Sudo. I forgot about that. Another avenue.) My father's paternal line has been easy. We've got family stories that match the records we've found. It's his mother that's missing. I'm going to take you up on your email offer as soon as I hear back from my father. He left a couple of days ago, so I just sent off an email to double-check my details, what few I have. I'm interested in hearing more questions from your questionnaire, if you remember what you asked.
I love your bigamist story. It reminded me of a friend from years ago who painstakingly researched her fiance's family history to be sure he didn't have an axe murderer lurking in his family tree. He came up clean, so she married him. As it turned out, she had one in hers, which she found out about years later. We had a huge laugh over that.
I'm reluctant to take on the courthouse thing. I'll have to call on Monday to see what all is involved, and what the chances of success are.
Sudo, I always suspected you came from a fine pedigree. Your heart must have been crushed to learn otherwise.
Actually, I didn't think we had war heroes on any side of our family, or on any side of a war, but I think a distant cousin of someone somewhere once fought in the revolutionary war. Just a long line of farmers, ministers, and teachers.
HAPe, Templelady, I hope you chime in. I'd like to hear how you've gone about this, and what you've found.
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doojable
My father in law is a geneology buff. I'll ask him what helps. He has a website where he can track a lot of information and then share it with others in the family tree.
I'll get you some funny stories soon.
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bowtwi
I asked a lady I know that was into genealogy a few years back. In fact, I copied and pasted your original post and emailed it to her. Here is her reply:
Not much help here. I haven't done the genealogy thing in a couple yrs. And she's covered all the bases I can think of. If she has any death certificates or an idea of where people died/were buried, she could check cemetary records. Someone once told me you can also check thru Social Security because a lot of that info has to be given when applying for it. Sorry I couldn't be of more help!
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likeaneagle
My neice started working on our family (mother) geneolgy as a high school project..she did the same as others have mentioned here. she continued and got family involved..10 yrs later we have our Geneolgy dated back to 1783 when they came over from Scotland. I did some researching myself a few years ago and actualy found more..since most of the population have come from Europe being the bloodline is connected to early Collonialism, its a direction I took my search in.... On my Dads side, we have a website on Myfamily.com.....they actualy have a geneology tree built in so family can add, and there are ways to post to each other and upload pictures....we have about 40 documents scanned in for others to observe. My fathers Military Certificate, marriage licenses, birth records, etc..It is a awesome family website..Im so glad my dads family took the time to do it...
I know surnames are vital in tracking info...
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Linda Z
I imagine it's the Social Security Death Index bowtwi's friend is referring to. The index is one of the things that comes up on an Ancestry.com search. The copy of the SS application form I got for my mother's stepfather didn't have any info we didn't already know, unfortunately--nothing about his parents. But the requirements for the form might have varied from year to year or decade to decade and some forms might have more info. However, if your grandmother was born in 1897, being a woman it's possible she never got a Social Security number, since Social Security didn't start till 1935, I believe it was, off the top of my head.
Sometimes churches have baptismal records. If she was a churchgoer, and your dad knows what denomination, you could direct the search there.
I haven't used the local LDS Family History Library yet, but they have tons of records on microfilm.
Here's another possibility: You can try putting in fewer search terms (e.g., just her surname if it's not a super common name) and see who pops up in Philadelphia with that name around the time she lived there. Then search the men of that line backwards and forward without limiting the search to Pennsylvania. I know this is a hit-and-miss method, but sometimes you get lucky.
And back to her mother's illegible name: Unless it's completely obliterated, you'd be amazed at what an experienced researcher can see in that old-style writing. There might be someone at your local historical society who's adept at that.
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HAPe4me
Hi all, Linda has given great advice. I just wanted to let you know I am not ignoring this thread, I will get back to it, but am too tired to spout about this passion tonight. For now, CONGRATULATIONS on spelling genealogy right, that is a big step, many think it is ology LOL
~HAP
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laleo
The praise belongs to my spell-checker. It took a lot of tries before I figured out what was wrong with "geneology" (which is how it ought to be spelled).
Rest up, HAPe, because I'm looking forward to picking your brain. This is something that would mean a LOT to my dad (and me, too), if I can help him trace this down. When my father visited in October, he was jetlagged (along with having other health problems), so he spent a couple of days recuperating here, and spent the time talking extensively about his family. I grabbed a pen and jotted down a few notes. In the interim, before this more recent visit, he's written down many more memories, along with subscribing to ancestry.com. Any additional help would be greatly appreciated. I'm overwhelmed by it all, but feel a small amount of urgency in finding out what I can, as soon as I can.
doojable, I'm looking forward to hearing your stories.
bowtwi, thanks for looking into it. If you come up with any more ideas, please post.
likeaneagle, the family website sounds like a great idea. It's amazing when the long forgotten names of never known relatives begin to come to life.
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laleo
I knew this would happen. I called the telephone number of the Philadelphia County Courthouse, given to me by the clerk at the Dept. of Health & Welfare. They told me they only handle marriage licenses, and gave me another number to call. I called that one.
"No, ma'am, we don't provide birth certificates here. You have to go through the state."
"I went to the state. In person. They only have records after 1906. This is prior to 1906. They told me to contact you."
"No, ma'am. The county courthouse doesn't provide records to the public. The state does."
And on and on.
Anyone besides me ever encounter Pennsylvania bureaucracy? My daughter, on a whim, bought a car in Vermont from someone who had it registered in Minnesota, and she wanted to transfer the plates to Pennsylvania. The Vermont auto mechanic she consulted told her that the car would pass inspection without a problem. (It did. Nine hundred dollars later.) The paperwork took (in total) seven trips to the DMV, and three to AAA. Every time she or I went, there was yet another form, or piece of information, that was required, which we didn't have with us, which they didn't tell us about the last time we went. There's this circular bureaucracy thing happening, where paperwork keeps getting shifted to someone else's desk, and no one actually has any responsibility for anything, or the ability to provide a service. After it was all over, I turned to my daughter and asked, "Does Pennsylvania have the lowest rate of car theft in the nation? Otherwise, what's the point of all this?" "They're protecting us from ourselves," she answered. And I think she has it right.
I don't know. I can tell this isn't going to be easy.
HAP, now what?
Linda, I sent you an email through your profile.
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Linda Z
Hi laleo:
Yes, dealing with gov't bureaucracies isn't for sissies, for sure. That's why I recommended the Philadelphia Historical Society. And in the process of noodling around with this a little bit on my lunch hour, I discovered that the president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (another resource) is named Mooney! That and $5 will get you a cup of coffee and a donut at Starbucks, but I found it an interesting coincidence. Maybe an omen...chuckle...just kidding. BUT if he or she (only saw initials, so I don't know the gender) happens to be a genealogy buff, maybe he/she has already uncovered the info you need and it's sitting on a shelf in the society's library. Stranger things have happened.
I'll poke around a bit and see if I uncover any clues. I love a good mystery.
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Linda Z
Hey! Noticed something already. Living with your grandmother and her mother was (can I hear a "Bingo!") her mothner's mother. Definitely a German name. If this is the right record, which I surmise it is since your grandmother's month and year of birth are correct and this is the record you told me about.
I'll e-mail you the name and keep poking.
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Tom Strange
Good Luck Laleo...
I've been pondering doing this for quite some time but am too skeered... my sister has done a lot of it but she doesn't really share much with her 'earthly' family if you know what I mean...
IIRC in Pennsylvania, especially Philly, if you need anything done by an employee of the government (city, county or state) the request must always be accompanied by an envelope of $$$!
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mstar1
I'll echo Tom's good luck.
I am one of the lucky ones who has a family who had at least one person in most generations for the last 380 years that wrote things down and by some bizarre quirk of fate it all has made its way to me over the years with only a few holes to fill on a few sides.
It has always been an incredible gift to me when the pieces come together I find new things and my ancestors become living and real people.
Best of Luck in your search, imo it is a great thing to pursue and well worth all the effort
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laleo
Linda, I can't thank you enough. I'm starting to have fun, since we're actually getting somewhere. Great advice, on all counts. It's helped me tremendously, especially the idea of going for the alternate spellings. And we found his grandmother!!!! Now we need to find one (from all accounts) volatile, recalcitrant, elusive Tim (Tom? John? Jim?) Mooney (Mahoney? Moony?).
Tom, I think you remember correctly. That's about how it is. Thanks for the good wishes.
mstar, thanks. I didn't give this much thought before, mostly because we do have a family history that, for the most part, is carefully recorded. This was the missing link. Little things in the family stories I grew up with are starting to make sense; those small ironies in the little ways that history repeats itself. Yeah, it's worth the effort.
Does anyone know how a "Morocco dresser" or a "Morocco finisher" makes a living? Is this related to shoes or furniture or something else? I looked it up on google, and all I found were people who were asking the same question.
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Linda Z
The definition of morocco in Merriam-Websters is "a fine leather from goatskin tanned with sumac." A "dresser" of leather was one who prepared it for use, best I can tell. Since your ancestor lived in the same household with a shoe manufacturer, that fits perfectly.
Fun, isn't it?
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mstar1
I found THIS very detailed description of a parade at the opening of the ?Erie Canal? on November 3, 1825
The parade is grouped together by trades, the Morocco dressers and finishers are mentioned as being grouped in with the Tanners and Curriers and gives some various descriptions of "working of skins and leather', with the Moroccan finishers "finishing skins of various colors'.
It doesnt give alot but I also suspect they were working on shoes, as other parts of the shoemaking trade are mentioned in that part of the article (setting of soles by the tanners)probably ( I am guessing) they were the artisans that 'dressed' it up and 'finished' it off to make them actually appear, wear and fit as a finished and elegant shoe...
Morrocan was apparently the top quality stuff -hence the name
Here's a story from 1845 where the princess wears fine moroccan shoes instead of a crown.
It sounds like a very highly skilled craft to me
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laleo
Again, thanks, mstar. I got sidetracked with the tuberculosis outbreak in Philly. Thanks for looking into it. And what a great little story, too. I remember that from way, way back. I think Karen only narrowly escaped the scarlet letter. A moral lesson for all of us.
Linda, you are so right. Now that you explained how to use ancestry.com, I've done nothing else. This is going to turn into a horrible addiction, I can tell. My mind is already creating all sorts of little fictions around these people, based on those tiny facts. Little Jennie raised in a proper, industrious, orderly, methodical German household, whisked away by the young, obstreperous, ex-communicated, and fatally ill Tim Mooney (My father thinks that's his name if only because of the family friend who shook her finger saying, "Tim Mooney will never be dead as long as he [my father] is alive"), with only Helen left to sort it all out.
This was in my inbox, from my father:
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Linda Z
mstar, what a treasure has been passed down to you!
I have lots of notes from my GG-grandmother and her father, but the info from the early 19th-century and before is highly suspect, having been meddled with by some unscrupulous "professionals" who tried to squeeze one line of the family into someone's royal Dutch lineage, to try to lay claim to a huge inheritance and vast land holdings in Manhattan. It was all BS.
laleo, I knew with your inquiring mind you'd get hooked. Enjoy! And please tell your father the pleasure was all mine. The only thing I enjoy more than the "thrill of the chase" is knowing that what I've found brings a smile to someone.
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kyhills
go to EllisIsland.com
it will give you info on the ships the family came
over on
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Linda Z
Hi kyhills...welcome to GS!
That's a cool site. Unfortunately it's only helpful if your ancestors arrived here in 1892 or later, but it's really an interesting resource.
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templelady
Female relatives ARGGHHH
They are so tricky because up until about 60 (WWII) years ago a woman really had no identity outside of her father and her husband. "John's wife Mary" was considered all that was needful in many cases. I searched for a great grandmother for years who was known to all and sundry as Mrs Willliam Loveland, period end of discussion.
I found one woman and a whole family, a FOWLER, by finding out that her sister-in-laws grand-mother was a FOWLER who came from the same small town as she did. contacted that rsearcher and voila!
Ancestry is great on the way they have their census set up. You can go to the year in question type in a first name and approx birthyear. narrow down by location. and see what you can find. Also they have a magnifying feature that sometimes helps clean up the mud. Genealogy .com has the census too. I find Genalogy.com to be a more shot gun appraoch since they give you a much broader range of possibilities .
Ancestry also has city directories (Polk) and the main library in what ever town you are searching should have them too. If you can pull an address off the census for a given year. do a reverse directory lookup on who lived at that address. I found a great grand uncle that way and discovered the first house he lived in in Spokane before he married my great Grand aunt was a mere 7 blocks from where I grew up.
Good hunting
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templelady
Some other tidbits I've picked up along the way
When searching census on ancestry always check the plus or minus 1 year box.
Depending on the actual birth date and the date the census taker shows up there can be a variation in the actual year shown
Be aware of like sounding letters--as I type I am taking a break -spent 2 hours looking for John E when in actuality it was John V --E, V, B, C, D, G, P, T, V, Z all have that long E sound so they can be substituted. Ditto other letters
If you know where someone was married check the census just previous to the marriage in that locale for the same surname of either the bride or the groom weddings usually took place in the hometown of one or the other.
Look for common places between two lines. If you have two families who originated in Hartford CT for example sometimes going back to those surnames and working forward respective lines will connect with the lines you are working backwards on.
Most sites Have a wild card feature so if you are unsure of the spelling KEN* will net you any name starting with those letters.
Remember any vowel can and will be substituted for any other vowel so mix and match ditto some consonants
KENYON can be KINYAN, KINION, KINGAN
If your ancestor came from another country try to find out how that name would be correctly pronounced in the native tongue then think of ways an English speaking census taker might transcribe it when he heard it pronounced with the accent of the speaker. PFANMUELLER becomes PONDMILLER
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