Happy Valentine's Day (part 2)

Happy Valentine's Day to all my new blogging friends!  Here are some roses just for you!

You can even download it (right-click on picture, Save As Picture, put it in a file where you can find it) and send it to your favorite bloggers or email friends.  Thank you to Randy for this gift to pass along.

My favorite Valentine's Day present is the vase below that my boyfriend Aaron gave me today from the Corning Museum of Glass (made in Ithaca, NY).  The picture does not do it justice, as it is absolutely amazing!  He is also making me dinner and then we are going to the symphony.  I am one very lucky girl!

Happy Valentine's Day to Me!!!

Last night I bought myself a valentine's day present: an external hard drive and a SCANNER!!!

I am so excited that I can now put my pictures on my computer and participate in I Smile! for the Camera, Scanfest and more of the Carnival of Genealogy's.

Now I just need to figure out how it works...

William T. Eichorn on Footnote.com

Footnote.com is currently offering a one-week free trial, which I signed up for today (so much for no research until my sources are in order in Legacy).  This is not a site I have had luck with previously, as my ancestors have not been in the US long enough for most of the files and are in the wrong state (New York) for those of the right time period.

While I still have not found anything on my direct ancestors, outside of SSDI pages, I did make a discovery today!  My great-granduncle William T. Eichorn (Eichhorn) had a WWII army enlistment record page.  This sent me to http://aad.archives.gov for his Electronic Army Serial Number Merged Record, which is a new database for me.  

It has him enlisting  12 Feb 1943 in Buffalo, Erie, NY as a private in the army.  He was born in 1914 in New York, completed 4 years of high school, is a semiskilled routeman and is divorced without dependents.

I previously have William T. Eichhorn in the 1930 census with his father William F., mother Augusta and sister Edna, along with his brother-in-law Friendly Amidon, sister Clara, niece Phyllis C. and nephew John F.  He was 15, born in New York and a student.

He is also listed on his father, William F. Eichhorn's will as William T. Eichhorn, Son, 17 yrs., residing in Buffalo, N.Y.

According to the SSDI he was born 10 Apr 1914 and died in 1983 in Buffalo, Erie, NY.

My to-do list for William:

1. Research WWII army records, as I have not previously used them.
   
2. Check NY vital records index for birth and marriage data and request certificates.
3. Check will and probate files next time I am in Buffalo.
4. Check Buffalo News for death notice/obituary.
5. Hopefully, these will list cemetery of burial and I can find his tomb stone.

Sources:

The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, "Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, ca. 1938 - 1946 (Enlistment Records)," database, The National Archives (http://www.archives.gov : accessed 13 Feb 2009), William T. Eichorn; citing World War II Army Enlistment Records, created 6/1/2002 - 9/30/2002, documenting the period ca. 1938 - 1946.  

1930 U.S. census, Erie County, New York population schedule, Buffalo City, enumeration district (ED) 15-174, sheet 11A, dwelling 154, family 254, William T. Eichhorn; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed Aug 2008); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T626.

Buffalo, New York, Letters of Admisistration, William F. Eichhorn, filed 5 Jun 1931; Surrogate's Court, Erie County, Buffalo. 

Social Security Administration, "Secian Security Death Index," database, Rootsweb (http://www.rootsweb.com : accessed 24 Jan 2009), entry for William Eichorn, 1983, SS no. 070-07-1875.  

   

Bidding on other people's relatives

I went to my first auction on Sunday and was dismayed to see that they were selling photographs and postcards from some one's estate.  The photo's were from the early 1900's and not labeled.  The postcards were from the mid-1900's and all had letters written on the back.

I had wanted to bid on them, but with a small apartment and a growing set of my own genealogical work, I had no where to put them.  It was very sad to me to see these photographs going to people who probably were going to throw them out and just wanted the frames or old photo books.  I just kept thinking about who these people were, what their lives were like and what a shame it was that no family members either existed or wanted them any longer.

My grandmother has always had a problem with seeing people sell photos in frames at garage sales and forbid my family to do so.  She said it was tacky and would prefer we just throw out the photos and sell the frames, if we did not want to keep them.  She also knew people who would buy the old photos in frames and hang them on the wall, telling people it was their ancestor.  Of course, no one would ever debate the statement, but you have to feel bad for the person who decided to pursue their ancestry in this family.

Source time

Following month two of the DearMYRTLE organization checklist, it is time to make sure all of the items I have are properly sourced in my genealogy program.  I have been doing pretty well, but I need to go back through and make sure I have all the father and mother relation filled in for Legacy, as well as citing the information I received from interviews.  I also have to better use the notes section, both for transcribing and my views of some of the information.

I am very well aware of the necessity of sources, due to a couple documents I have that were not sourced and have created some problems for me.

The first of these is a pedigree chart my grandfather created, which I will talk about further as soon as I buy a scanner and can attach images of all the documents he had.

The second is a document created by Estella Nuwer Minderler on December 8, 1974.  Estella is my second cousin, four times removed on my father's mother's side.  Titled "The History of the Nuwers.", I was given a copy of this in elementary school by my grandmother when I was doing a family history project.  

It begins, on page 3, with a "Narrative" as follows:

"Beginning in the 1840's and continuing for the next thirty years, millions of Europeans emigrated to the United States and Canada.  The Nuwers of Alsace-Lorraine were an early part of this movement."

It continues with information on the town of Lancaster, Erie County, New York where they settled, biographical information on several of the people listed and a list of descendants of Anthony and Margarete (Ludwig) Nuwer (my 5th great-grandparents).

This is a wonderful item to have, as the information on the later generations is taken first hand from interviews Estella did.  Unfortunately, none of it is documented and the later generations do not completely match up with research that has been done in more recent years.  The most depressing part of this is that Estella mentions an immigrant relative Christine Nuwer who kept a diary of her trip across the Atlantic.  It is depressing because there never was a Christine Nuwer and no one can locate the diary, to find out who had actually written it.  Further discussion on the diary can be found by Brian Smith.

I want to make sure that all information I write and that gets passed on to other researchers and further generations is correct and documented as such, so that they do not have to redo the work I have already done.  This will probably mean very little new research in February, which will be okay as I am waiting for quite a few New York vital records and my great-grandfather's WWI military records.

Source:

"The History of the Nuwers."  Estella Nuwer Minderler, 8 Dec 1974; privately held by Amanda Acquard, [STREET ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE].

Tombstone Tuesday

Following the jumpstart your genealogy blog week #3. Participate in weekly blog themes: Tombstone Tuesday, Wordless Wednesday, etc. Many genealogy bloggers post photos of grave stones on Tombstone Tuesday or a photo worth 1,000 silent words on Wordless Wednesday. Participate in these informal events or invent your own.

This is the tombstone of my great-grandparents, Albert Emil Nuwer and Edna Agnes Roll, located at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church Cemetery, Alden, Erie County, New York.

The only great-grandparent I remember was my grandpa Nuwer.  I recall cleaning out his farmhouse after his death and being unable to go to his funeral as I was so young (I had just turned 8).

The Happy Dance! The Joy of Genealogy

The theme for the 65th Carnival of Genealogy: "The Happy Dance. The Joy of Genealogy. Almost everyone has experienced it. Tell us about the first time, or the last time, or the best time. What event, what document, what special find has caused you to stand up and cheer, to go crazy with joy?

While interviewing my maternal grandmother about her parents and grandparents, she tried to list her mother's mother's siblings (there were eleven of them).  She could not remember all their names, so she stopped the interview to call her older sister to see if she remembered them.

This turned out to be the best interview interruption ever, as my great-aunt turned out to have a family bible with my great-great-great grandparents, their birth dates and their eleven children's names and birth dates listed.  I did a happy dance that day and will be sure to do another when I visit her in a couple months and get to make copies of it!