FamilySearch Find: Adoption of Walter in 1911

Orphanage from The Pittsburgh Catholic,
April 17, 1924

With the help of a digitized collection of adoptions on FamilySearch, I was able to find additional facts to support my thinking that one of my Pittsburgh cousins was adopted. This file doesn't appear on the site's list of published collections and can only be browsed, but "Index to adoption and change of name, Allegheny County (Pennsylvania), 1865-1917" was a key piece of my research.

Walter J. Klein first appeared with his parents in the 1920 census at age 16. Since Andrew & Magdalena were childless in 1910 (when Walter was 6 years old), I suspected that he had been adopted between 1910 and 1920. But how could I know for sure?

When I was scanning FamilySearch's catalog of records for Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, I came across the adoption collection. While it's just an index of the court records, I did find an Andrew Klein who had adopted a child. The date was November 23, 1911, but no name for the child was provided in the index. Since Andrew Klein isn't an uncommon name, I couldn't assume he was my Andrew. And in order to find Walter in the index, I would need his surname prior to being adopted by the Kleins.

I used the 1910 census to provide me with a list of possible candidates. In Ancestry, I searched for everyone with the first name of Walter who also:

• was born in Pennsylvania between 1903 and 1905, 
• was living in Allegheny or nearby counties in 1910, and 
• was shown as an "inmate," which was often used on census records to describe an orphan's relationship to the head of household. 

There were 7 matches.

I then went back to the adoption index at FamilySearch and searched for each orphan. When I got to Walter Miller, I found that name in the index. Walter John Miller was the name of the adopted child, and the decree was dated November 23, 1911, exactly like Andrew Klein. Bingo! I still need to verify that they are my Andrew and Walter, but it looks very promising.

All I know at this point is that Walter J. Miller was a Pittsburgh orphan in 1910 and lived at St. Michael's Orphan Asylum, which was an orphanage established to take care of the orphans of St. Michael's parish on the South Side. When he was about 7 years old, he was adopted by Andrew & Magdalena Klein and became Walter J. Klein. (Again, I need to verify this last statement.)

I would love to know Walter's story. Who were his biological parents, what happened to them, and did he have any siblings?  Pittsburgh births are also browseable on FamilySearch and provide parent names, but I haven't found Walter's birth record yet. The Diocese of Pittsburgh may have records for his orphanage, so that's another place that might provide the identities of his parents. The search continues...

Related Posts:

• Where Did the Child Come From?
• FamilySearch Find: Deaths in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania

In Pursuit of Pennsylvania Prisoners

If you've found any newspaper mentions of the arrest of an ancestor in Pennsylvania, you may want to search prison records to see if he/she served time for the crime. Ancestry.com has a new record collection called Pennsylvania, Prison, Reformatory, and Workhouse Records, 1829-1971 (subscription required) that may give you some new information about your troubled relative.

Image from Annual Report of the Managers of the
Allegheny County Workhouse & Inebriate Asylum, 1923

Here's the description of this database: "This collection from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) consists of records from the Eastern and Western State Penitentiaries, the Allegheny County Workhouse, and the Pennsylvania Industrial Reformatory in Huntington, Pennsylvania. It includes a variety of records, including inmate registers, bertillon hand books, identification cards, hospital records, and descriptive lists."

My 3rd great-uncle, James Baker, is in the database multiple times for sentences served in the Allegheny County Workhouse. Despite his common name and another Pittsburgh man in the collection with the same name and age, I'm almost certain that I'm looking at the various records for my James since they each contain a note of his "rt arm off." While newspaper articles give more detail on some of his crimes (see post at the end), I did learn that James had 30 convictions by 1919 when he was 58 years old. Yikes! And it's likely there were additional arrests that did not lead to time in the workhouse.

The workhouse records also show that James seemed to spend many years as a homeless peddler. I know this because occupation is listed for all inmates, and James was sentenced for vagrancy on more than one occasion. The majority of his sentences are for disorderly conduct, although it appears that only a fraction of his total convictions are in Ancestry's database.

Each Pennsylvania institution's records are different, so you may learn even more about your ancestor. For example, the Eastern Penitentiary indicates if any relatives are in prison, and the Western Penitentiary provides a very detailed description of each person's appearance, including measurements.

Of course, court records should be explored for more specific details about a conviction, but the records in this Ancestry database give some interesting general information and are definitely convenient.

Related Posts:

• Arrests of My "One-Armed" Uncle
• Photograph: Genealogy Mystery

Don't Ignore Signs of a Genealogy Mistake

In 1904, a publication about the Cowden and Welch families indicated that a man named David Sloan was the father of Annie Sloan Cowden. David was a Revolutionary soldier who was killed at the Battle of Long Island in 1776. It turns out that David Sloan did have a daughter Annie, but she was not the woman who married John Cowden.

The Canonsburg Daily Notes (Pa.),
November 2, 1925

More than 25 years after that publication was printed, my husband's 2nd cousin three times removed, Lyda J. Cowden, sent a letter to the U.S. government, trying to locate the grave of this assumed Patriot ancestor. She was a member of the Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and even held DAR meetings in her home in the 1920s. I found Lyda's letter dated October 11, 1930, in a bounty-land warrant application record for David Sloan on Ancestry.com:

     "Dear Sir, Is it possible for you to furnish me with the information of the burial place of Lt. David Sloan who was killed in the Battle of Long Island Aug 27, 1776.
      Left a widow Mary Sloan and a daughter Ann. I am a member of D.A.R. through Lt. Sloan, and am seeking the location of his grave. A pension was granted to Mary Sloan widow of David Sloan Feb. 8, 1785 but I can not find any record of his burial place. Sloan served under the command of Colonel Miles First Penn Regiment.
      If you do not know or have records of his burial place please tell me if the bodies at that time were returned to their respective homes or buried on the battlefield."

The response she received is also part of this Ancestry record and makes it clear that Annie Sloan Cowden's father was not the Patriot David Sloan:

     "Dear Madam, You are advised that the Revolutionary War records of this bureau show that the widow of Lieutenant David Sloan was Mary and that his daughter Ann married Robert Hunter. In 1806, said Robert and Ann were of Salem Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.       
     The location of the burial place of the soldier is not shown and the bureau is unable to advise you further in regard to same."

Did Lyda choose to ignore what the letter was saying about her DAR connection? Or did she skim over that part and just take away from the response that David's grave location was unknown? Hmm. I do know from a newspaper article that Lyda continued to meet with her fellow DAR members for at least five years after learning that David Sloan was not her ancestor.

The mistake was still circulating in 1935 when a Welch cousin contacted the government to request the pension file of David Sloan. Like Lyda, she had submitted a DAR application and became a member through her connection to Lt. David Sloan. There are more than a dozen DAR members who claimed this inaccurate connection between Annie Sloan Cowden and David Sloan.

Fortunately, the DAR eventually caught this mistake, and all of these incorrect applications are now flagged with this message on its website: "Problems have been discovered with at least one previously verified paper." The explanation given is that "Annie who married John Cowden is not the dau of this man."

This is a good reminder to read everything carefully and to correct genealogy mistakes even if it's painful to remove a high-profile person from your family tree. Accuracy is more important than bragging rights.

Female Writers in Pittsburgh, 1897

A search in the Digital Public Library of America led me to Book of the Writers, published by the Writers Club of Pittsburg (Pennsylvania) in 1897. Among the men, you can find nine women profiled in the book, including Mrs. Ida L. Easton:

Ida L. Easton

     "Of much more than local literary note is Mrs. Ida L. Easton, or to use her social name, Mrs. Andrew Easton. Although she is comparatively a new comer into the world of the newspaper scribe, to the readers of the Pittsburg Dispatch, the Florida Times-Union, the Saturday Review, and a number of other publications her name is a familiar one and her pen is as versatile as it is tireless.

     In wide spread charities, moral reform movements, philanthropic ventures she has always been a leader. With a true heart in close touch with the joys and sorrows of humanity, she possesses a courage that never recognizes failure and many an abuse has been brought to light and ended by her daring struggle in behalf of justice and kindness.
  
     To a large number of friends among the younger newspaper workers she is a genial, sympathizing mentor, and not infrequently terms herself the grandmother in the Womans' Press Club, of which organization she is treasurer. Mrs. Easton is an active member of the Writer's Club."

The other female writers included in Book of the Writers are Mrs. Dallas Albert, Jeannette Barbour, Roberta Bradshaw, Janey M. Coard, Marie D. Coyle, Sarah H. Killikelly, Dorothy Richardson, and Miss A.R. Stratton.

Note:  Ida Lois Reed Easton died in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at the age of 61 on August 24, 1916. Her newspaper obituary indicated that she married Dr. Andrew Easton in 1871 and left two children, Dr. John S. Easton of Pittsburgh and Mrs. C.L. Martin of Philadelphia.

Another Tale of Online Tree Errors: Wrong Photo

This is NOT John George Fischer

How exciting it is to find a photograph of your ancestor! Somehow that black-and-white image makes the person more real to us, not just a bunch of dates and places. But when the photo is attached to the wrong person in an online tree and then added by others to their trees because they assume it's accurate, it actually bothers me more than a wrong fact. How awful to share the wrong face!

Last week, I was following a lead to see if I could tie a Stenglein woman who died in 1910 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to my Stenglein branch. She had married a man named Johann Fischer in Bavaria before they came to the U.S. As I searched for as much information as I could about the couple and their children, I stumbled across multiple family trees with an incorrect photo of Johann's brother.

Johann Fischer remarried after his first wife died in 1910, and a trip was planned in 1922 to return to Europe to visit family. His brother also planned to go since both men completed passport applications. If you've looked at these documents on Ancestry, you know that a photograph is included on the more recent applications. The photo appears (and I stress this) on the second page.

When you find a match in this collection and view the image, you see two pages side by side. The page on the left is not related to your match; it's the previous person in the collection. The right side is your person, and it's important that you advance to the next image to see the second page of that application (which includes a photo). How very sad that the trees I saw last week used the photo that first popped up when they viewed their match, instead of looking at page 2.

The photo at the beginning of this post is attached to multiple family trees as the face of John George Fischer, Johann's brother. It is actually a man named Abraham Jeremiasz. Unfortunately, these people don't realize that below is the real face of John George Fischer with his wife Theresa and son Joseph:

This is the correct photo of John George Fischer and family

Note: I added a comment to the incorrect photo in each tree, and one person has already replaced it. I don't feel any glee in pointing out mistakes, but I had to try to right this particular wrong. Hey, we all make mistakes, and I must say it's nice to see that we can work together to improve each other's research.

Isabella Couldn't Vote But Still Had Great Influence

Isabella Jeffry was born in Ohio in 1839 and was living in Kansas when she married Hugh Kirkendall, my husband's 3rd great-uncle, in 1862. They moved to Montana Territory by 1870 and were described by newspapers decades later as pioneer residents of Lewis & Clark County.

Although Isabella and women throughout the country couldn't vote, she was certainly active in the community. The Montana Historical Society says that Isabella "was one of Helena's little known unsung heroes. No woman was more active in the community, nor more sensitive to the needs of the less fortunate." Here are some of her accomplishments that I've found:

1881 - Founding Member, Ladies' Aid Society of the First Baptist Church of Montana at Helena
1883 - Charter Member, Helena chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union
1884 - Finance Committee, First Baptist Church of Helena
1891 - President, Montana Women's Relief Corps
1892 - named by the Mayor as Chairman of raising funds for Mississippi flood victims (her leadership helped raise money for starving Russians earlier in the year)
1893 - Leader, Women's Helena for the Capital Club
1894 - Supervisory Board, Associated Charities of Helena
1900 - President, Florence Crittenton Home, a refuge for women and girls in need

Isabella's role in the Women's Helena for the Capital Club was especially noteworthy as it showed the importance of women with respect to political issues. "Denied the vote, but far from devoid of influence, Montana's women readily took sides in the capital fight of 1894."

The Archives West website explains this historic vote: "The question of a permanent location for the capital of Montana was submitted to the voters in the general election of 1892. Seven cities entered the contest: Helena, the temporary capital; Anaconda; Butte; Bozeman; Great Falls; Deer Lodge; and Boulder. The two cities receiving the most votes, Helena and Anaconda...entered a run-off campaign two years later. The capital question overshadowed all other political issues in the 1894 election."

"The Women's Helena for the Capital Club, led by Isabella [Mrs. Hugh] Kirkendall of Helena, was a state-wide group that solicited help from women in every county. Although unable to vote, the women in the local chapters exerted pressure on the men with voting privileges through letter writing campaigns, distribution of leaflets, newspaper advertisements, and speeches. Helena won the election by a narrow margin: 27,024 votes to 25,118 for Anaconda."

Although unable to vote in the 1894 election, Montana women won the right to vote in 1914, five years before Isabella died. I'm so glad she lived to see it happen.

FamilySearch Find: Deaths in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania

Are you overlooking some online records at FamilySearch? Here's one example of a digitized non-indexed collection that isn't on the site's list of published collections.

Image from end of death register book,
Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, 1891

Allegheny City in Pennsylvania wasn't annexed by Pittsburgh until 1907, so deaths for both cities were recorded separately prior to that time. That means if you look at the FamilySearch collection "Pittsburgh City Deaths, 1870-1905," you won't find my Uncle Emil's 1903 death record. While there doesn't appear to be a similar death record collection for Allegheny City, it is in fact on the site and available for online viewing.

My French 3rd great-uncle, Emile Wey, arrived in the United States in 1871. Known as Emil in America, he would marry, have 6 children, and build a life in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. Emil died in Allegheny City on May 4, 1903, which was provided by his newspaper obituary. Knowing exactly when he died is fantastic, but I wanted to know why he died at the young age of 54.

If you click on "Browse all published collections" on the FamilySearch site, you won't see a record set for Allegheny City deaths. But FamilySearch actually does have these records digitized and available to browse in its collection called "Registrations of deaths in the city of Allegheny, 1876-1907." Each listed record group with a picture of a camera under "Format" means it can be viewed online. (A reel means you have to order the microfilm for viewing at your local Family History Center.)

Glancing at the thumbnail images will give you a sense of where the handwritten surname index starts for each volume; it's usually somewhere in the middle and not at the beginning or end due to the way the book scans were saved. And sometimes there's a second index further down in the same file where the next book of death records begins. You can use these indexes to locate the page number of the death record.

My Uncle Emil did indeed die on May 4, 1903, due to "abcess [sic] of liver." The record also states that he had resided at 707 Middle Street in the 3rd Ward for 30 years and that he was buried in St. Peter's Cemetery on May 7th (although a photo of his headstone on FindAGrave indicates that he's in Highwood Cemetery).

By browsing for other relatives, I found cousin August Huber who died in 1882 at 7 weeks of age due to eclampsia, as well as another cousin's father-in-law who died in 1903 of "mania a potu" or madness from drinking. I had their dates of death from other sources (church record for the first and a newspaper obituary for the second), but now I have more details, including where they are buried.

Be sure to search the FamilySearch Catalog for your ancestors' towns to see if digitized images are available. As this example shows, some online records don't appear on the published collections list.

Note: "Registration of births in the city of Allegheny, 1878-1907" is also available on FamilySearch, although five years are missing.

West Virginia State Police Records

From Flickr: Police Officers, 1889

The West Virginia Division of Culture & History has posted some online State Police records that caught my eye. Since one of my great-grandfathers was a police officer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I had to take a peek at "West Virginia State Police Payroll Records, 1919-1924."

If you already know from census records that one of your ancestors was with the West Virginia State Police, these browse-only files may not provide any critical information. But there are still some interesting items: officer's rank, date of enlistment, and total amount of pay for the month. In January 1922, privates in Company B made $100 for the entire month! There is also a page for "Changes Since Last Pay Roll" that shows those who were discharged or resigned.

This website also has searchable births, marriages, and deaths (which are on FamilySearch as well), so if you have West Virginia relatives, this is a key resource for your genealogy research.

Kansas Connections

My husband has several relatives with connections to Kansas, including the surnames Cowden, Lee, Dawson, Kirkendall, and Klingensmith. Using the Kansas Historical Society's name search, I found this item of interest about Orville A. Lee, the husband of 3rd great-aunt Martha Jane Pollock:

"O. A. LEE, city weighmaster, is a native of Pennsylvania, and was born in Erie County, December 22, 1817. His father, Stephen C., was a pioneer in Erie County; he had been Captain in the army during the war of 1812. The paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch was a soldier in the Revolutionary war. O. A. received the advantages of what was considered a liberal education in the common schools. He adopted and pursued for several years the vocation of school teaching, in Alleghany [sic] County. He eventually embarked in the coal trade and was identified with that branch of industry for fifteen years, doing business in Pittsburgh and McKeesport. In 1858 came west, went to Pike's Peak, was at what is now Denver City before there was a house built; was engaged in mining and speculating until the spring of 1862; came to Kansas, locating temporarily in Jefferson County; came to Atchison County in January, 1863, engaging in farming four miles south of Atchison; for a number of years was closely identified with the agricultural development of the county. A few years ago removed to Atchison, and was the first to open a coal yard in the city which he did in connection with a feed store which he still operates. Mr. Lee is a well-informed gentleman, thoroughly conversant with the important issues of the day. He is one of the most public spirited citizens in the city - one who aims to keep pace with the progress of time. He was married in 1843 to Miss Martha J. Pollock, of Elizabeth township, Alleghany [sic] County, Pa. They have by this union three daughters - Mary A., now Mrs. Hanson; Lizzie and Ella. The last mentioned ladies are favorably known in Atchison as educators, being teachers in the city schools for the past ten years. Mr. Lee, wife and family are members of the Presbyterian Church." (Source: William G. Cutler's History of the State of Kansas)

There seems to be some good information on the site so, if you have Kansas ancestors, you should definitely take a look.

Related Posts:

• New to Kansas during the Civil War
• A Brother's Visit to Kansas

Free Search of Montana Newspapers

As you may already know, updates to Cyndi's List can be viewed directly on the website by clicking "Browse New Links," or you can sign up to receive regular emails showing newly added resources. In the April 12th update, Cyndi indicated that she had added a link to Montana Newspapers.

The Montana Newspapers site says: "This full-text searchable database contains 353,220 pages from 44 Montana newspapers dated 1885-2014, which were formerly made available on the Montana Memory Project. An additional 257,000 pages from Montana newspapers can be found at Chronicling America. There is no overlap between the two sites."

My husband has a Montana connection. His 3rd-great uncle, Hugh Kirkendall, was born in 1835 in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. During the Civil War, he was a wagonmaster at Fort Scott, Bourbon County, Kansas. By 1870, Hugh was in Montana Territory. He died in 1897 at the age of 61.

A search on Montana Newspapers provided many mentions of Hugh, but the best find was his obituary from The Dillon Tribune:

    "Hugh Kirkendall, a well-known horseman, and one of the oldest pioneers in Montana, died this morning at his home in Helena of pneumonia after an illness of one week. His death was a surprise to most of his friends, for his condition had not been considered serious up to Saturday noon.
     Mr. Kirkendall was born in Pensylvania [sic] in 1835. When a youth he removed to Leavenworth, Kan. Most of his life was spent on the frontier. He visited Montana in 1858 with Colonel Rollin's expedition, sent out by the government to explore the source of the Yellowstone. During the war he was train master of the army operating in Kansas. In 1866 he came to Helena and engaged in the business of freighting and contracting. In 1871 he organized the H.K. Fast Freight between Corinne, Utah, and Helena. He had charge of the transportation of General Gibbons' army in the famous campaign of 1876, and was present at the battle of the Big Hole. He helped to build the Northern Pacific, Great Northern and Montana Central lines, having large contracts from each of these companies. His fast running horses have won many a race in Montana. The dead pioneer leaves a wife and four children."

A big thank you to Cyndi and the Montana Historical Society!

Search for Other Cemetery Sources

Yes, FindAGrave.com is our go-to source for cemetery records, but it's a long way from having every burial. There are other websites that can be used to search for relatives that may be missing from FindAGrave. Here are just a few, but you should try to find other sources that may be useful for your research:

National - The National Cemetery Administration of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs provides a Nationwide Gravesite Locator. A search for my father-in-law shows that he is buried at section 1, site 776 of the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies in Bridgeville, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. It also provides his rank, branch of service, birth date, and death date.

Regional - For the Pittsburgh area, the Catholic Cemeteries Association provides a Search Burial Records page for their 14 cemeteries: All Saints, Calvary, Christ Our Redeemer, Good Shepherd in Monroeville, Holy Savior in Gibsonia, Holy Souls in Coraopolis, Mt. Carmel in Verona, Our Lady of Hope in Tarentum, Queen of Heaven in McMurray, Resurrection in Moon Township, Sacred Heart in Monongahela, St. Mary, St. Joseph in North Versailles, and St. Stanislaus.

Both sets of my grandparents are in Queen of Heaven Cemetery, and I also have Stern cousins in Calvary Cemetery. All of them can be found by searching the Catholic Cemeteries Association, but only half of them are in FindAGrave. The Catholic Cemetery site seems to be up-to-date since a family burial from last September is in the database.

Individual Cemeteries - My 2nd-great aunt and her husband, Clara & Joseph Carr, are buried in Grandview Cemetery in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Their burials weren't in FindAGrave until I added them. Grandview Cemetery provides an Interment Lookup page, as do many individual cemeteries, which could be helpful to your research. In addition to interment date, Grandview Cemetery also provides place of birth and age at death.

For each of these examples, no gravestone photographs are provided. However, they do provide section and lot information which can then be included in a photo request for FindAGrave's great volunteers. Including this detail will increase the chance that the grave can be found and your photo request will be fulfilled.

The "Odd" History of Pittsburgh

Many of my readers have a Pittsburgh connection, so I wanted to make sure you're aware of an interesting Facebook page called The Odd, Mysterious & Fascinating History of Pittsburgh. Its founder was featured in last week's issue of the Pittsburgh City Paper:

"A skeleton key to the Schenley Hotel. Blueprints for a new jail from the 1920s. A token from the 1877 Pittsburgh Exposition. Souvenirs from the Duquesne Garden and the Schenley Park Casino. An original 1795 map of Pittsburgh. These are just a few of the nearly 100 historical artifacts owned by John Schalcosky, a 33-year-old Ross Township resident who runs the Facebook group The Odd, Mysterious & Fascinating History of Pittsburgh.

There was a time when discussions of Pittsburgh’s history were reserved for historical societies. Now, they’re the stuff of online forums and Facebook pages: To date, Schalcosky’s group has more than 50,000 followers."

I've been following him on Facebook for a while now, and you should too! Check out the entire article: "Pittsburgh history lives on, online."

Wonderful Westmoreland County Deeds

Online county deeds are not created equal. In Pennsylvania, for instance, some counties allow you to search back to the 1970s only. At the other extreme, Westmoreland County provides access to records going back to the late 18th century. Fabulous!

An initial Simple Search of this county's deeds will only show results from 1918 to the present. For those dated 1943 and onward, a "Display Doc" link takes you quickly to the actual image. As an example, here's the first page of a deed from 1943:

Westmoreland County (PA) Deed, 27 Aug 1943,
Hattie Belle Ambler to Panfilo and Helen DeChellis
(CLICK TO VIEW LARGER)

For results dated 1918 to 1942, you will need to write down the volume and page numbers and then do a second Archive Search that will take you to the image. (Please note that this Archive Search doesn't seem to work on mobile devices.)

For deeds older than 1918, they've been scanned and are available but, because they aren't indexed, they can't be searched. But they're there! Here's an image of a record from the county's very first deed book:

Westmoreland County (PA) Deed, 5 May 1790,
William Todd to John Parker
(CLICK TO VIEW LARGER)

I don't have many relatives who lived in Westmoreland County, but I just had to share this resource with you. If you find anything interesting or helpful in these deeds, please post a comment.

Freedom Papers Filed in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania

The Recorder of Deeds for Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, provides a link "to search for Historical Deeds, Chattel Mortgage Book and Feme Sol Trader Offices; for the period 1792-1857." I tried various random name searches and didn't find any property deeds, but there are numerous images of Freedom and Indenture Papers for that time frame.

Here's a freedom paper, which was recorded on March 4, 1842, for a man named Edward Robinson, who was born in Kentucky:

Freedom Paper for Edward Robinson, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
(CLICK TO VIEW LARGER)

"I, Chas. H. Israel, a Notary Public by Authority of Pennsylvania duly Commissioned and Sworn residing in the City of Pittsburgh do certify that I have satisfactory Evidence that Edward Robinson a young man of Color who is now Present is a Free man and was born of free parents in the State of Kentucky and was bound by Indenture to the late Benjamin Page in Pittsburgh State Pennsylvania. Said Edward Robinson is about five feet six inches high 27 years of age and upwards stout built scar under left eye. Said Edward has been personally known to the subscriber for many years as a free person and further the said Edward Robinson has subscribed his name in his own proper hand writing on the margin of this paper. ... I do further certify that the said Edward Robinson is a free Citizen of the State of Pennsylvania entitled to all the privileges of a free White man of said State." 

This record collection is very interesting. If you've used it for your genealogy research, please post a comment.

The Value of Google's Newspaper Archive

Washington Reporter (Washington, PA),
April 26, 1845

The Google newspaper archive is no longer adding newspapers, but it's still a very valuable resource. For example, it has historical publications that are useful to my genealogy research such as the Washington Reporter (Washington, Pennsylvania), which goes back to 1845. GenealogyBank has the same newspaper, but I don't have a subscription to that site. I took a look at Chronicling America, Newspapers.com, and NewspaperArchive, and I didn't see this title in their lists of newspapers offered. So if there's a particular newspaper that could help with your research, don't forget to check out Google's list.

Searching the Google newspaper archive may not be as easy or effective as the subscription newspaper sites, but Google is free and may be the only way to access some publications or issues online. I found some great tidbits about ancestors who lived in the Mt. Washington section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, by browsing issues of The Mt. Washington News in the Google newspaper archive. It's a publication that the subscription sites don't have, so I was thrilled to have access to it for free.

So once you've determined which newspaper(s) may help with your genealogy research, don't forget to check Google's newspaper list to see if the publication is there. I still use this resource often!

Received! Railroad Pension Record

You've probably read from other bloggers that the Midwest Genealogy Center website has a free index of US Railroad Retirement Board pension records that's available for all of us to search. These records include employees who were working for a railroad in the year 1937 or later.

After I became aware of this resource, I immediately thought of my 2nd great-uncle, Joseph Carr, who spent most of his life in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and had definitely worked for a railroad. I searched the index for him and then contacted the National Archives at Atlanta to request his file. In less than a week, I received the information via email.

Of most interest to me were: (1) the list of Joseph's occupations with The Pennsylvania Railroad Company as shown in the image below; (2) the discovery that the two middle initials of his wife Clara M.A. Carr, my 2nd great-aunt, stood for Marie Antoinette; (3) the confirmation that his parents' names were John and Martha Storm Carr; and (4) the N.J. address of the son of Joseph and Clara in 1955.

If you think these records might help with your family research, here are the steps for requesting this information:

1. Search the Midwest Genealogy Center's free index; try searching using only the initial of your ancestor's first name since it appears that many are recorded that way;
2. Print the page that matches your ancestor, or make a note of the information provided;
3. Visit the National Archives at Atlanta website for an overview of these records and then send an email to atlanta.archives@nara.gov giving the details you found in Step 2 above;
4. The National Archives at Atlanta will confirm the existence of the file and provide an estimate of the cost of copying the file; they gave me the option of the entire file or just 25 of the most genealogical relevant pages; they also gave me the option of receiving the pages via email.

If you have a railroad worker in your family tree, you may want to find out if these records have any great information for you!

Record Browsing Has Benefits

We all may groan when we learn about a new record collection that hasn't been indexed yet. But wait, there are some benefits of having to browse record images:

• Learning an Interesting Detail - When you're forced to browse, you actually look at the image, instead of finding a match from a search and just attaching it to your family tree. This may lead you to see on the page an interesting detail about your ancestor that you may have missed. Even for indexed collections, it's good to get in the habit of opening the image and reviewing it thoroughly.

• Spotting a Different Relative - You might find a familiar name that you weren't looking for. When I searched for my 2nd great-grandfather in the 1890 Census of Union Veterans of the Civil War on FamilySearch and didn't get a match, I decided to browse the pages in case his name was botched. I still haven't found him even though he was alive at the time, but I did find two other distant relatives, including one who I didn't know had served in the Civil War.

• Finding Bonus Material - You never know what you might find attached to the record book. At the beginning of scanned burials records for St. Patrick Parish in Caledonia, Haldimand County, Ontario, the following clipping from 1862 had been pasted: 

Surnames of "the undersigned" at the bottom of this clipping (not included in the cropped image) are Brennan, Brown, Carroll, Collins, Conboy, Cullen, Cunningham, Dalton, Daugherty, Delaney, Donnelly, Downey, Doyle, Duffy, Evoy, Farrell, Hannan, Harris, Hayes, Higgins, Hogan, Hurly, Keating, Kelly, Kennedy, Lamond, Lennon, Madigan, Mangan, Mannix, McCarty, McGill, McGuill, McDonald, Meir, Murphy, Murray, O'Brien, O'Riley, Phillips, Reip, Ryan, Shea, Shehan, Smith, Sullivan, Sweeney, Walsh.

Browsing records is relaxing and fun for me (weird, I know!), and I enjoy reading interesting details about people even though they aren't in my family tree. So don't ignore collections that haven't been indexed or you may miss a great record for one of your ancestors.

Wow! Washington State Pioneer Interviews

My husband's 2nd great-uncle, Harvey Stewart Kirkendall, had moved from Saltsburg, Indiana County, Pennsylvania to Helena, Montana by 1890 and then on to Spokane, Washington by 1894. The Washington State Genealogical Society would consider Harvey a "First Citizen" because he was living there between November 11, 1889 (when Washington became a state) and December 31, 1900.

Somewhat hidden in a FamilySearch collection called Washington, County Records, 1803-2010 are some interviews of early Washington state residents that are extremely interesting to read. While it's saved under Spokane County, "Pioneer Interviews, 1933-1937" also includes people who settled in other counties. It isn't indexed, so you can only browse the 278 images but, if you have ancestors who moved west to live in Washington, it may be worth your time to take a look. The number of interviews isn't very large, but you never know who you may find!

Interview questions included name, birth place, birth date, parents' names, parents' birth places, date he/she came west, reason for coming west, mode of travel, early employment, and names of neighbors. The total questionnaire is three pages, and some individuals also have additional pages with more detailed memories and stories. There are no Kirkendalls included in this project, but here's a brief look at just 10 of those who were interviewed:

1. Alice M. Bradley Horton - moved from Minnesota to Daisy, Washington in 1890 "on account of my father's health";
2. Mary Emma Hall Clinton - born in Maine, she moved West in 1883 "to obtain work" and settled 5 miles from Colville in an area called Spanish Prairie; 
3. David M. Coonc - born in Nebraska, he moved to Daisy in 1902 "on account of the cyclones in the East";
4. Louisa M. Rivers Damp - born in Canada, she came to Colville with her uncle for a visit in 1881 and felt she was needed, so she stayed and "taught the Indian children school and music";
5. Robert T. Downey - from Ireland and then Ontario, he moved in 1907 to Rice because he "had been traveling from place to place and heard that Washington was a wonderful place in which to live so decided to go there";
6. Oliva Ruff Farquhar - born in Iowa, she and her husband moved to Spokane in 1906 "for the betterment of their boy. He wanted to learn the printer's trade and they felt that he would have more opportunity than at the towns in the east";
7. Charles R. Fish - he was from New York and moved to Kettle Falls in 1889 "for experience and to find work";
8. Elmer J. Gifford - moved from Michigan to Pullman, Washington in 1884 "just for a different location";
9. Ben C. Gregory - born in Indiana, he moved in 1890 to Elma as part of the great migration from Kansas; and 
10. John Hobson - from Iowa and Kansas, he moved to Waterville in 1887 because he "had the 'West fever' for the fresh air and mountain scenery."

This is another example of what you can find by looking at all of the collections on websites like FamilySearch. Focusing on just surname searches could mean that you're missing some records from your ancestors' locations that can only be browsed.

Digital Records of the University of Pittsburgh Archives

If your family tree has Pittsburgh connections, you should definitely take some time to check out the extensive record collections held by the University of Pittsburgh's Archives Service Center. Here are just 10 of the items you can view online:

• First Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church (Pittsburgh, Pa.) - baptisms, confirmations, marriages, deaths
• Birmingham United Church of Christ (Pittsburgh, Pa.)- baptisms, confirmations, marriages, deaths
• Ridgelawn Cemetery Company at German Evangelical Lutheran St. Peter's Cemetery (Pittsburgh, Pa.) - burials
• Bellevue Methodist Episcopal Church (Avalon, Pa.) - membership, baptisms, marriages, deaths
• First Congregational Church (Etna, Pa.) - baptisms, confirmations, marriages, deaths
• Building Permit Dockets (Pittsburgh, Pa.) - building permits, 1877-1916
• Rolling Rock Training Camp (Ligonier, Pa.) - complete roster, 1917
• Tax Book of Pitt Township (Allegheny County, Pa.) - names and property, 1795-1798
• Hotel Schenley Register (Pittsburgh, Pa.) - visitor names and residences, 1908
• Criminal Photograph Album (Pittsburgh, Pa.) - suspect names, details and photographs, 1919-1920

But don't just focus on the digital records. Make sure you search the collection guides for any records that could help you with your genealogy research. Many haven't been digitized, but you may find a gem that is too good to ignore.

Gather Clues from Geneanet

One of the websites I like to turn to when I get stuck with my genealogy research is Geneanet. The European family trees there--in fact, the family trees on many websites--can give you some great clues to locating a possible town or names of parents for an ancestor. I consider them to be clues only because most of the trees don't provide sources to back up the information.

For example, I recently learned from church marriage records (which I'll write about in a future post) that the names of my 4th great-grandparents are Clemens Steimer and Barbara Eid of Wiesbach, Germany. I know I just stated that in a matter-of-fact manner, but I was definitely doing the happy dance!

After that great news, I didn't want to stop there, so I quickly searched for Clemens and Barbara on FamilySearch. No luck. Ancestry family trees? Nothing. So as I said at the beginning, my favorite go-to website is Geneanet. I'm not even a paid member, and I still love it. I did pay for a year or two but decided to take a break and use the money elsewhere. With some patience, you can still get to some of the same information, particularly the family trees. When you're a free member, you can only search on surname (not given name), so you usually have a lot of results to sort though. That's where the patience comes in.

Anyway, I found a tree that lists Clemens Steimer with his birth and death information, along with his second marriage to Barbara Eid. And the tree goes back another six generations to 1600. I would still need to locate the German records to verify these names, but it's an exciting thought that this information could be accurate.

You can also set up surname alerts in Geneanet, which works best for less common names. The site will email you a list of any recently added matches so you don't have to sift through the entire database again. You should check it out. And don't ignore information just because the contributor didn't provide sources; it may help you pinpoint where you need to look for your family's records.