FRUSTRATION OVER LOST PHOTO

Source: Bing clip art

FRUSTRATION OVER LOST PHOTO

Many years ago, my grandma gave me an old newspaper article about great uncle John W. APPLEBACH. It was a neat article with a write up about his chair caning business, and his singing at church revivals in the area.  It also had a photo of him.

I have spent all week looking for this article.  I am sure it is here but where is the question of the week.  I have carefully checked all the APPLEBACH/AFFLERBACH paper files. I have been going through the computer files of documents and photos.  Nothing.

Today I finally just said enough - I will stumble on it unexpectedly down the road.  I wanted to add the photo of him to his memorial on Find A Grave, which is how the search started last week.

What I did discover is a computer file that my hubby spent a lot of time scanning in old photos.  Instead of a file name, there is only a date.  None of the scanned images have names or titles only the scanning number.  I am thrilled for his help and am not complaining.  But I am not thrilled to not have noticed this file before or changed all those scan numbers to real names.  Sheesh.....another project.

Note to self: follow your own advice. See this post on cleaning and organizing.

Source: Unknown relative

So, before I go any further into research I now need to go back to this file and get the scans named and organized by family and person. 

PLEASE NOTE: 
ALL PHOTOS AND WRITTEN CONTENT ARE MY OWN UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.

 

DEATH AFFIDAVITS INVOLVING JOHN W. APPLEBACH 1878-1943

DEATH AFFIDAVITS INVOLVING JOHN W. APPLEBACH 1878-1943

I was recently able to get the death affidavits for both of John APPLEBACH's two wives from the Lancaster County Archives. Death affidavits can give more information about the death of the named person, even if there is a regular death certificate. 

Since I personally do not have death certificates for either wife, getting these was helpful - even if only for the dates.

See this post for more info on the archives:  Lancaster County Family Ties : RESOURCES AT THE LANCASTER ARCHIVES . I would encourage anyone looking for info from Lancaster County, PA to view the indexes of documents available.  The archives have a treasure trove of stuff for family historians.

John was blind.  He supported himself as a chair caner. He also was well known in the Lancaster area for his singing at churches and revivals.

I do not know when he married his first wife Elizabeth, but she died in Jan. 3, 1926 and is buried at Millersville Mennonite Cemetery.  No children have ever been mentioned. Her death affidavit is below and John signed it with a mark.

John then married Katie FOX who was a widow since Oct. 1924.  She was the daughter of Conrad and Magdalena OLLENDORFER/OTTENDORFER. Their marriage license is #5079 and occurred in June 1926.

The bottom of my copy of the marriage license is cut off too - what you see is what I have.

Katie shows up the Lancaster City Directory after this listed as John's wife. They live at the same address. John's mom, Elizabeth APPLEBACH, apparently lived with them and shows up in the directories at the same address (647 High Street) until her death.

John died in 1943 and is buried at Millersville Mennonite Cemetery. Here is his obit and death cert.  To see his memorial on Find A Grave, go here.

Katie APPLEBACH did not remarry after John's death. She made up a will in 1946 giving everything she owned to friend Catherine DANZ (married last name HERR). From this I would say there were no children from either of her marriages to leave anything to.

Here is the death affidavit of Katie APPLEBACH in 1948.

She is memorial #15467189 on Find A Grave.  She is buried in Zion Lutheran Cemetery in Lancaster. 

PLEASE NOTE: 
ALL PHOTOS AND WRITTEN CONTENT ARE MY OWN UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.

TAKING TIME TO CLEAN UP MY DESK

 Taking Time to Clean up my Desk

Source: Bing clip art

 I doubt that I am the only family historian who has a file cabinet full of files all neatly labeled. Or filed neatly in alphabetical order in a drawer in a file cabinet.

Source: Bing clip art

I also have neatly labeled files on my computer for all those digital records that have been saved from email attachments, archive downloads, and great finds from Google searches.

So why is there a 15" deep pile of family documents on my desk?  They are not neat, not really organized (unless you count the ones with the same name that are paper clipped together). At this point I am really pretty disgusted and discouraged at having to clean up this mess.

I have been researching one family line on Ancestry, Find A Grave, and Family Search. 

Found all kinds of really cool stuff.  Got really excited about the chase. Kept collecting info.

Source: Bing clip art

Now I have a stack of stuff to file because I did not keep it up as I was working on it.  Plus, part of it is saved on the computer, and part is printed.

I get that it is my mess, and so it is my responsibility to clean it up. 

I took yesterday and today to organize the papers by name, put them in labeled files, and file them correctly.  

I know better.  If I file items (paper or digital) as I find them, I do not have to waste two days putting these items away where they belong and should have put them away in the first place.

If you have a pile (or piles) of papers on your desk (this includes messy digital files on your computer) please stop your research and clean up the mess before anything else genealogy related.  

I am setting the goal of having this mess completely cleaned up by Friday so that Saturday I can delve back into the world of Ancestry and Find A Grave to find more great family things.  

I need to do better about my filing as I go too.  I hate clutter (normally I am really good about keeping all things cleaned up and put where items belong), intensely dislike having a messy desk, and hate wasting paper by making more copies of documents than I need because I did not realize I had already made a copy of that article (3 times before!)

Happy searching and filing.

Source: A helpful relative

PLEASE NOTE: 
ALL PHOTOS AND WRITTEN CONTENT ARE MY OWN UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.

USING FIND A GRAVE (FAG) IN YOUR FAMILY RESEARCH

USING FIND A GRAVE (FAG) IN YOUR FAMILY RESEARCH

 I have been asked several times recently what I think of the website Find A Grave (FAG)for helping with family research. Honestly, I think it is a wonderful tool. 

Plus if you have a desire to volunteer on your own schedule it is a great way to give back by taking photos in cemeteries or adding your own research.

However, just like on-line family trees, be careful.  Some people are very careful with the content and photos - others seem to just put anything on the memorials.  I personally think some people "collect" memorials like baseball cards.  Use the information on any memorial as a clue for more possible information.

I strongly recommend that if you will be using this site a lot to set up a free account.  While you can look around all you like without an account, if you want to add photos, request corrections, or ask that relatives memorials be transferred to you an account is necessary.  

This is how the homepage looks today (below).  The photos change based on the season. Beware that there are a lot of genealogy related ads on this site, which can slow down how long it takes to load.

Basic searching: 

Searching for a memorial can be done several ways.  I usually start with a name, death year (options are exact, before, or after) and a place (such as county and state).  Below is a very basic search for my grandfather, Ralph Groff GARNER.

This is what comes up from that basic search:

If I click on the listed memorial, this is what I see: 

This memorial has burial info, family info, photos, and connections to other family member's memorials.

Sometimes you will have to do a broader search and you will get a list of memorials instead:

If I am looking for John GROFF in Lancaster County, PA who may have died before 1840 the list will look like this. Remember this may not be a complete list as the list is based strictly on memorials that have been made based on gravestones or known people.  Not everyone has a gravestone or even a memorial.

 According to the above screen there are 6 "John GROFF's" buried in Lancaster County, PA who died before 1840.  Now I (or you) can look at the list and make some choices based on years or cemeteries. 

I (or you) look over the list and find the one "John GROFF" we are looking for.  Great! Check the info with what you have or know. Use the links to various relatives as clues for more research.  I tend to screen shot the images into a Word document and put with my research.  

What if I can't find my "John GROFF" in Lancaster County, PA?  I usually will drop the county out the search first and just do the state.  People tended to be buried close to home or at their church's graveyard which may actually be in another county. In the case of "John GROFF" when I searched for all of them in PA who died before 1840 I still only got the same 6 as the above screen.  

So I will broaden the search again to include all of the US:

This time I got 11 memorials. Besides PA, burials were in NJ, Maryland, and NY. So you can see that changing the search criteria may bring other results.  Keep trying different spellings, years, and locations.

Some tips:

• Try different spellings of the name.
• Remember that not everyone has a middle initial, or uses their first name (maybe he/she used a middle or nickname instead).  Be flexible when searching.
• Be generous with the years.  If you are looking for someone who you think died in 1842 put in 1845 and before. 
• Be flexible with locations.  There are options to search for actual cemeteries.  Or you can search by county and state, or just by state.  Thanks to volunteers around the world, there are also some non-US cemeteries on here now.  Explore and see what you can find.
• It is possible to request a correction to a family memorial.  Be polite, supply the correction, and  always explain the source for the info. 
• Remember that with the exception of the FAG staff, everybody else is a volunteer or a family member.  They have lives and may not get to your requested edit as quick as you would like.  Be patient.
• Also remember that the person who has your relative's memorial does not have to change the information on the memorial.  If you feel the info is important, it is possible to contact the staff at FAG and have them look into it.  Always be polite and patient.
• The more you explore FAG and learn, the more information you will find.

Happy Searching.

PLEASE NOTE: 
ALL PHOTOS AND WRITTEN CONTENT ARE MY OWN UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.

AUNT MARY GARNER – the scandalous relative we do not discuss

 AUNT MARY GARNER – the "scandalous" relative we do not discuss 

Every family has at least one. The relative we do not discuss…

 I recently had a chance to do some research on my Gr-Aunt Mary GARNER.  I did not find her to be particularly a scandalous person, but for her time I can just imagine the gossip.

 Mary’s parents were Ben & Cora (GROFF) GARNER, who married in April 1906.  (See my blog for that story: https://lancastercountyfamilyties.blogspot.com/2020/05/garner-ralph-hoopla-around-his-birth.html ). The children of this union were:

**Ralph 1906-1986

**Mary 1908-1966

**Ella 1910-1994

**Clyde 1913-1956

**Lester 1915-2012

I do not find many photos or papers for gr-aunt Mary in either my mom’s or grandma’s photos or papers.  However, my mom had a lot of memories of visits with her, so I did not get the feeling Mary was some sort of social outcast. At least not an outcast at my grandparent’s home (which should surprise no one considering the family gossip about my grandfather). Two siblings that were close in age, and both the butt end of gossip.

I only have one photo of young Mary.  She is among numerous other GARNER relatives at a reunion in June 1923.  She would have been in her mid-teens. She had a profoundly serious look about her.

Source: my personal collection

    Growing up I knew Gr-Aunt Mary was married to Ben KREIDER and that they had no children.  But anything else was hush hush.  She was dead before any of my own memories, but I can think of many questions I would have liked to ask her if I had had the opportunity.

According to a clipping from the Lancaster New Era, Ben KREIDER and Mary GARNER married on March 24, 1928 at the parsonage of the First Methodist Church by Rev. A. M. WITWER.

Source: Ancestry & Lancaster New Era newspaper

According to some military documents that I found on Ancestry; Ben was in the Army from at least 1941-1943. Was their union already in trouble prior to him going off to war, and this was the final straw?

Going back to the Lancaster New Era newspaper, Ben KREIDER filed for divorce in Oct. 1942 on grounds of desertion.  They separated in 1940 so I would have to say there were already obvious problems before Ben went off to war.

Source: Ancestry & Lancaster New Era newspaper

    Whatever happened divorce-wise, Mary took back her maiden name.  My impression from comments made was that Mary was truly angry and bitter toward Ben until she died.

The Ben GARNER family was together on the farm in Quarryville during the summer of 1943 and took time to pose for a photo.

Source: my personal collection

This photo was taken in the mid to late 1940’s at my grandparents’ home in Lancaster, PA. Obviously Mary was welcome (despite her scandalous behavior) and was part of the family group.

Source: my personal collection

Here she is with her parents, probably on the family farm in Quarryville, PA circa 1950.

Source: My personal collection

Ben & Cora GARNER celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in April 1956. The family had a professional picture taken.  Clyde was sick with cancer at this point and would not live out the year.

Source: My personal collection

Mary died in 1966, also of cancer.  She is listed in her obit as “Miss” Mary GARNER.  There is no mention that she ever married. She worked at Hamilton Watch Factory for many years.

Source: My personal collection

Obviously, Gr-Aunt Mary worked and supported herself.  She had gotten some education and was a member of a church.  She was welcomed by family for at least some family functions.  Why did she and Ben divorce really?  She deserted him why? I do not remember her name ever mentioned with another man when she was discussed.  Whatever happened between Ben Kreider and Mary was known at the time, but not discussed to those of us who had no reason to know.

Let’s face it, every family has those relatives we do not discuss.  Sometimes why is kept quiet, other times it is common news in the papers for all to see.  Let me encourage you to just keep asking questions and keep searching. 

Before social media, people tended to regard personal privacy as a normal thing.  The why of happenings is not going to be easily found, but that does not mean the answer is not out there.

As for Mary, I am going to keep looking on Family Search and Ancestry to see what other information is available.  I will also try to order the divorce papers from the Lancaster County Archives too – who knows what information will turn up in that……

PLEASE NOTE: 
ALL PHOTOS AND WRITTEN CONTENT ARE MY OWN UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.

MY THOUGHTS FOR ON-LINE FAMILY TREES

 MY THOUGHTS FOR ON-LINE FAMILY TREES

I have been asked several times recently what I think of on-line family trees and how do I personally use them. 

First we all need to remember that on-line family trees are done by people - some do the research, and some just put on whatever they feel fits, with no research or sources.  

Second, I do look at on-line family trees, HOWEVER, I use them as clues for where to look for sources. They are great to find clues and tips, but do not take them as "fact" until you do your own research and have found enough sources to back up what is there.

Obviously, some trees are well done and have sources attached - this is very helpful.  Sometimes it can even confirm your own research. Just as obviously, some trees are just thrown up there with no research and what appears to be little thought. I recently saw one for my own family where one set of the great grandparents had married when they were in the single digit ages - obviously there is a big problem.

Below is a print off from an on-line tree for Ben MUSSELMAN I recently found on Ancestry. It actually correlates pretty well to sources and research I have done for myself. There are reliable sources attached to the tree and even  a few photos. 

However, I questioned why there would be two daughters with basically the same name - my gr-gr-grandma Lizzie MUSSELMAN (1864-1925) and another sister Lizzie (1868-1942). The second Lizzie will need some research since both grew to adulthood and had families, it is unlikely that parents would recycle a name for a living child.  

In my documentation there is a daughter named Flora who would fit in this slot so maybe Lizzie was a nickname or maybe it is a mix up on an otherwise helpful family tree. 

So what can I glean from this family tree?? Obviously there are names and dates.  I personally was struggling with the dates for Ben's parents - this tree gave me better dates to look at.  I also did not notice before that his parents died in the late 1840's, as did another set of my gr-gr-gr-grandparents who were in Lancaster County at that time.  

The death dates of Ben's parents plus another set of 3 x gr-grandparents tells me I need to do some checking on epidemics going on in Lancaster during that time. 

The photo of Ben is him in his Civil War uniform.  I already have the documents for his military service, but if I did not this would be a clear clue to be looking for those records.

I print them off and put the print-offs in the binder or folder of that person.  I write notes on them and use them as a "working" paper.  Several months later, I will go back to the same tree on-line and see if corrections or additions have been made since I last looked. 

It is even possible to contact the owner of the tree and ask questions or make (kind) comments.  I have been able to trade info with other shirt tail relatives this way.  It can be very helpful.

No, I do not maintain an on-line family tree.  I tried years ago to do one on Family Search.  What I put on there was documented.  However, others could add info and soon it was full of stuff that had nothing to do with me.  I gave up arguing with the contributors and the website, and have not looked at it in a couple of years.  One good thing about Ancestry is that the trees cannot be changed by just anyone.

I encourage you to take a good long look at on-line family trees.  Do not take them as "gospel" but do use them as a way to get clues, and to complete or even confirm some of your own research.

PLEASE NOTE: 
ALL PHOTOS AND WRITTEN CONTENT ARE MY OWN UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.

RESSLER, DANIEL 1801/02 - 1901

RESSLER, DANIEL 1801/02 - 1901

Daniel RESSLER was the son of Jacob and Susanna (BOEHM/BEAM) RESSLER.  At the bottom of this post are several links to other posts on this blog with more info on them and their family.

I wanted to share a photo that I found posted on Ancestry this week titled "Daniel B. RESSLER before 1901".  I have never seen a photo of Daniel.  I wanted to believe it was really a photo of him, but I am all about "proving" it. 

Source: JD Ressler Ancestry family tree - titled Daniel B. Ressler before 1901

After comparing the photo to his son John both as a young man and as an elderly man, I do think that this is a photo of Daniel RESSLER.  Wow, what a find - thanks so much to the person who posted it.

To see his memorial on Find a Grave, go here.

Here is a photo of Daniel's son John both as a young man, and then as an elderly man with his living children in 1915.

Source: my personal collection (previously in the possession of Reba (RESSLER) GARNER)

Source: Personal Collection (previously in possession of Reba (Ressler) Garner)

Other posts with info about Daniel RESSLER:

https://lancastercountyfamilyties.blogspot.com/2012/11/resslerrossler.html

https://lancastercountyfamilyties.blogspot.com/2017/12/dar-application-accepted-ressler.html

https://lancastercountyfamilyties.blogspot.com/2019/01/revisiting-jacob-susanna-boehm-ressler.html

PLEASE NOTE: 
ALL PHOTOS AND WRITTEN CONTENT ARE MY OWN UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.