You learn a lot when you attend a genealogy event but I had no idea that I was going to learn something that changed my understanding of a situation that personally happened to me in childhood.
Recently I served as a Summer Judge Assistant for our local 4-H organization in the Genealogy category. I was in both Girl Scouts and 4-H in my youth but in neither organization did I participate in any genealogy badges or projects.
My parents were divorced so my mom was my Assistant Girl Scout Leader for my Brownie Troop 345 and my step-mother was a 4-H Leader.
In 4-H, I participated in the sewing category at the Porter County, Indiana Fair in the mid-1960s. I can’t recall exactly what the item was; I think I sewed an apron but that might be wrong. What I strongly recall is that I received a Blue Ribbon.
Over the years the item I sewed and the ribbon has been lost but I remember receiving the ribbon. I was proud of earning that award.
Imagine my surprise when I just discovered that EVERYONE who enters a project on time receives a blue ribbon. Um, this seriously burst my bubble! My family thinks this is hysterical.
Now I’m not even sure that my item was entered at the Fair, which I didn’t attend. The ribbons are awarded by a judge at a pre-fair event, which is what I assisted with. My now local Fair is not until September. The items will then be brought back for the Fair display. I now suspect that I didn’t have visitation on the day that the item was to be judged so my step-mother must have just submitted it on my behalf. Since I never spoke with a judge it didn’t go to the Fair. Sigh. At 9 years old I would have had no understanding of the rules or the ability to get myself to the judging event alone.
This brings up something we must all think about. When we are recording our memories, even those we personally experienced and didn’t just hear about, we must keep in mind that we didn’t have the full understanding of the situation as a child. When looking through an adult perspective the events are colored. Compound that with remoteness to the event and like me, not really remembering what I sewed, the event becomes less historically accurate.
Think of how that impacts the oral history that has been passed down to you. Yes, there is truth in it but it is likely not the whole truth.
Dr. Charles Landfair’s home once sat between the two trees in Bluffton, Indiana. Photo by Lori Samuelson
I’m positive you’ll laugh at how I ended up on a genealogical journey that was unintended.
My car needed service and I was asked to drop it off for the day. Since I no longer live close to the dealer my husband decided to follow me in his car. Our plan was to stop at a few stores and then return home, waiting for the mechanic to call to inform me that the work was done. Then, we’d go back and retrieve the vehicle.
Our first shopping errand was to purchase a few garden tools for a family member who was working and couldn’t take advantage of a very good sale. Unfortunately, the hoe was not available and the great computer in the clouds found only one, in a town called Bluffton, about an hour and a half from where we were.
My husband and I visited there last year when we were searching for a new home but hadn’t been back since. It’s on my list of places to research, however, and since there’s no time like the present, I thought I’d try to fit some research into my schedule.
I Googled the historical museum address as soon as we had the hoe in the trunk. Unfortunately, it’s only open on Sunday and Wednesday and it was Tuesday. Sigh. The next stop was the Wells County Public Library.
We arrived at the Genealogy Department on the second floor and were immediately assisted by Jason. I was totally unprepared – no thumb drive, no notes, not even a research question. I asked for any information on Dr. Charles Landfair who had resided in the city from the late 1800s to 1936, with a break for jail time in Michigan City.
Yep, Charles is one of my black sheep ancestors that I always wanted to learn more about. My father was quite proud of his great-uncle who had been a physician. What no one in the family conveyed to me was the character, or lack thereof, of the man known as Uncle Charlie.
Charlie had serious addiction issues and was a violent alcoholic. His patients loved him, though, and after his jail stint, re-established care with him as their doctor.
This fascinates me and I wanted to learn more about him and his brother, my great-grandfather, who shared many of the same characteristics as Charlie.
Jason readily asked me if I’d like a copy of the obituary which I believed I had. He helped me sign on to a computer so I could bring up my tree info as I was having difficulty seeing it on my phone. While I was doing that, Jason was looking on a microfilm index for newspaper records that aren’t available online. Small-town newspapers have the space and the knowledge of their community members so the articles provided me with much richer details of Charlie’s life. I hadn’t known he had first been a schoolteacher, where he attended and purportedly the date of his graduation from medical school, and other towns where he had practiced medicine. I had guessed which medical school he had attended, however, they had no record of him. Hmm, now that I have a graduation year I plan on rechecking with them.
Jason also found burial records that listed medical conditions I also hadn’t known about.
Jason didn’t stop there; I had the census records and therefore, addresses of Charlie’s home. Jason checked Sanborn maps and then helped me find the addresses by using Google Maps as he was aware that the addresses had changed since 1920-1930. The picture you see at the top is where the house, long gone, once was and where Charlie died. I confirmed with the business in that back that now owns the lot that was once the address I was searching for. Charlie lived right across the street from the Wabash River and what is now a city park. The business behind where the house stood was there when Charlie was alive and the founder likely knew his neighbor. After Charlie’s death, the neighbor purchased the lot and tore the home down as it is in a flood plain.
I wish I could get Jason a raise, as he is a valuable asset to the Bluffton Library, however, we all know that for some reason, money for pay raises for librarians and teachers is hard to come by. My blog today is to celebrate Jason and all those other librarians out there that work tirelessly and respectfully to those unprepared patrons who like I did, walk in looking for what they don’t even really know what they want. Thanks, Jason, I greatly appreciated your help!
And I can’t wait til the next time I need an oil change; no telling what genealogical discovery I’ll make.
Newspapers.com Hammond Times,3 Feb 1941 p. 2. c. 6
I’d like to pass on this awesome tip provided by Andrea during a recent Genealogy Club meeting at the Garrett, Indiana Public Library. Andrea was informing the group about Newspapers.com, which is free in Indiana through local public libraries.
Andrea suggested searching by address. I never tried that before and thought it was a novel idea. I immediately put in my childhood address and was shocked to learn that my grandparents had placed an ad in the real estate section of a local newspaper in 1964 to rent out the home that I lived in. I had no idea!
I recommend also typing in your old phone number. That showed up in the classified ad.
I also discovered the clip above about my uncle who had been involved in a car accident in 1941. I would have never found that without the address as the article misspelled his last name.
When I entered my husband’s home address, up came his father who was a political delegate in 1971. By law then, delegates names, addresses, and phone numbers were publicized.
I tried the tip with chroniclingamerica.loc.gov but wasn’t as successful. I’m planning to use it with other sites, as well.
Give this a try and let me know of your wonderful finds!
What I thought was John Duer’s Tombstone in Kessler Cemetery
Last week I blogged about two gravestone preservation products I recently tried. After cleaning the stone I thought was for my third great grandfather, John Duer, I still couldn’t read more engravings on the stone than I had before I cleaned it.
The next step was to use the rubbing paper I had purchased and this is what I uncovered:
Still largely unreadable but I had a complete death date and age – 11 m 10 d. This was a tombstone for an infant and not my 3rd ggrandfather. Sigh.
The tombstone did have a memorial on Findagrave and by using the death date and the cemetery, I was able to read what I could not from the rubbing:
Photo courtesy of Cousin Becky on Findagrave.com
My goodness, has the tombstone deteriorated since 2008!
I’m glad to know the stone was saved on Findagrave before it became unreadable. You may have to use the technique I just described while visiting a cemetery and locating a stone you can’t decipher.
The question remains, Where is John Duer buried? Both of his wives are buried in Kessler as are some of his children. According to a text in the Allen County Public Library he was buried in row 15 but when the information was recorded, about 1987, the rest of the stone was unreadable. Kessler Cemetery’s records are incomplete and does not show him buried there.
One of my adult children who accompanied me pointed out that all of the older Duer adult stones on the south side have the same shape so we began looking for stones that matched but found none that said John Duer.
According to the 1987 book, he once had a stone but there was no description or picture of it. Perhaps it was a different John Duer as that name is used in each generation by everyone having children. Perhaps it was my John Duer and the stone was somehow destroyed between 1987 and 2007 when the Findagrave photos began to be taken. Perhaps he was never buried there.
All I know is that I’m back to square one! I went on Findagrave, removed the photo I had attributed to him, and left an explanation as to why.
The link was sent to me by Carla Mans who is involved with the Fields of Honor, a non-profit in the Netherlands. Check out their memorial pages and if you have a photo of a serviceman to contribute, please share it with the organization.
Last month I attended a Findagrave presentation by a local volunteer, Chuck Johnson. I have been a member of Findagrave for over 14 years and have blogged about hints using the site in the past. I learned from Chuck, about an option I didn’t know was available and might be helpful to you.
After logging on to your free account at Findagrave.com, click on “Cemeteries” on the ribbon. On the new page, shown above, look at the middle right side and you’ll see a link called “My Virtual Cemeteries.” I never noticed that link, nor the one above it, “Favorite Cemeteries.”
When I lived in Florida I often volunteered for this organization to fulfill photo requests for individuals who wanted to see a tombstone picture but lived too far or were unable for health reasons to visit the cemetery and take a photo. I haven’t yet done that in Indiana and learned from Chuck that there are a number of volunteers in my new locale who have been fulfilling photo requests.
If you are a volunteer, you may be interested in adding the cemeteries which you frequently visit for photos under the link “Favorite Cemeteries.” You’ll save time that way when you need to access the cemetery info.
What I found most fascinating about Chuck’s talk was the option to create your own virtual cemetery. Why would you do that? Like me, you probably have relatives buried in a number of different cemeteries in several states and countries. By using the My Virtual Cemeteries link, you can create a cemetery for each of your ancestral lines, thus, connecting your family memorials in one location. For example, my Duer line goes from Devonshire, England to Bucks, Pennsylvania, to Sussex, New Jersey, to Trumbull, Ohio, to Mercer, Ohio. By creating a virtual Duer Family Cemetery Line – I could have the individual Duer memorials for those who are buried in those locations listed together so I can readily access their information without having to remember their assigned Findagrave number, how their names were entered in the database, or where they were buried.
Initially, I wasn’t sure this was a great idea as I didn’t want to confuse other users who might come upon my virtual cemetery and think it was an in-person burial location. Chuck emailed me after the lecture that the virtual option can be either public or private, sort of like Ancestry.com does with family trees.
This leads me to another reason why you might want to use this feature . . . it costs to have an Ancestry.com subscription and I’m not sure, after I’m deceased, my adult children would pay to continue accessing all of the information I have placed in my tree there. Sure, I have it also saved to RootsMagic, however, as I’ve blogged about, the software updates have been problematic and the version I’d be using at my death might not be available for my future family to be able to open. I also save to Legacy Family Tree; I haven’t blogged about their issues but since they were bought by MyHeritage.com, I’ve been unable to update that software.
Findagrave is now owned by Ancestry but it has remained free to use. I have no crystal ball to know if it will always be free but I’m fairly confident that Ancestry realizes they have a cash cow with the Findagrave website – lots of volunteers putting info there that Ancestry links to their other paying site. So, Ancestry.com is getting a lot of info for free and then charging others for the work that the volunteers did.
I’m sure you’re thinking, “Wish I had thought of that!” but you can cash in by using the Findagrave feature on a memorial you control by putting information in the bio section. If you don’t have memorial control, you can click on “Suggest Edits” and hope the owner agrees to your suggestions. You can also contact the memorial creator and ask that they turn the rights to the memorial over to you. If they don’t respond, contact Findagrave. I have personally known of a couple who died and had created memorials for some of my family. Findagrave turned the memorials over to a cousin who was closely related to the memorials created by the deceased volunteers.
Once you have updated the bio info on Findagrave and you’ve created a My Virtual Cemetery, you have the genealogical information for a line available to you for free. This means your family can also access it by 1) creating a free account on Findagrave and you giving them access to your created cemetery or 2) you making your created cemetery public so they can just go to Findagrave.com and view the information.
Sure, you could do this for free on FamilySearch.org, however, your information may be changed as it is a world tree so everyone has access to making changes that you might not agree with.
Also, keep in mind that Ancestry.com will be charging others to use your bio information. Personally, that does not bother me as I make my tree on Ancestry.com public. You may have another opinion, however.
A special thanks to Eckhart Public Library and Chuck Johnson for providing information on this Findagrave feature.
My last two blogs have focused on tips for researching your emigrant’s native archives and planning an excursion to visit your ancestor’s hometown. In both situations, tech will enhance your trip. Here are my recommendations for how to prepare:
Check with the archive to see what tech is permitted – I was encouraged to bring a thumb drive to transfer records found on the archive’s computer. The thumb drive had to be clean of any data. I could bring a laptop in but could not use it to search the archive’s records. I chose to leave the laptop in my hotel room as I wasn’t sure how secure the area where I would be researching would be. If I had to get up to request more records, I wasn’t confident it would be wise to leave a laptop unattended. Turns out that wouldn’t have been problematic but I tend to err on the side of caution. I was also permitted to bring a cell phone but I had to mute it. I could bring a camera and use it on records that were 75 years or younger. Older records were recorded on the thumb drive. Every archive is different so check the website before you go and send a query if the directive isn’t clear.
Have a plan to back up your tech – There is nothing worse than returning home and finding out that your thumb drive didn’t save or your phone didn’t upload or your camera battery died and no pictures were taken. Don’t wait until you’re home to back up! My plan was to predominately use my phone as I can back up to Dropbox by using an archive or hotel wifi. The bus I traveled on even had wifi so I would upload to Dropbox frequently. I had a digital camera with me in case something happened to my phone – several years ago I had climbed to the top of a Mayan Temple in Mexico and upon looking down, realized that the klutz I am might not make it without breaking a leg. I put my phone in my back pocket, sat down on the top step, and scooted all the way to the bottom. Duh! The phone was broken but I thanked the gods as somehow, the pictures had all been uploaded to Google Photos. Not sure how that happened as there was no cell service in the remote area we were in but I was really glad it happened.
Be prepared for tech to mess up – I’ve blogged about why I stopped using Google Photos to upload which is why I now use Dropbox. I’m not sure why or how Google Photos turned itself back on but two days before I departed for Croatia I went on a local scavenger hunt which involved taking photos of various landmarks and uploading them to an App. I suspect when I downloaded the App it reactivated Google Photos as I found that they had been saved to Google. On the third day of my trip, I got a Gmail warning that I was out of space. Of course, Google wanted me to purchase more space. I ignored the warning and continued to take photos. I didn’t have time to troubleshoot and emails did continue to come in even though I hit the threshold. As a quick fix, I deleted everything in trash and spam which gave me just a bit of space. On my last day, I received an email that 122 photos did not upload to Google Photos, which was fine with me as I never wanted them to go there anyway. When I got home I looked at Google Photos and found the clip I posted at the top – I have no idea why Google Photos duplicated over 100 times that one photo. When I uploaded to Dropbox it didn’t do that. Removing the duplicates would have given me ample space. Tech is awesome when it works but awful when it doesn’t. Be prepared for anything to happen.
Sharing photos – I wasn’t the only one on the trip taking photos. My husband used his phone as did many others who were also on our group tour. I had difficulty with a video of my husband doing a hat dance as a waiter kept walking in front of me. No worries, another group member was filming her husband so she shared her video with me via email. One night we stayed in a brand-new hotel in a village that has no inhabitants as the 1991 war had destroyed most of the homes. Two members of the group had gone exploring and taken some somber photos of bullet holes in buildings. My husband wanted one of the pics so it was shared. Do a quick check of your photos each night. If there is something you wanted but missed, you might have another opportunity before you leave the location or you can ask a fellow traveler to share with you.
Back up when you get home – Dropbox, or whatever you use, is lovely but make sure you back up the backup. I also save to a portable hard drive. If the internet is down I can still access whatever I need.
Mary Kos’ Birthplace, Dubranec, Croatia. Photo courtesy of Google.
Last week I provided recommendations on best practices for using archives in other countries. This week I’m focusing on making the most when visiting your ancestor’s hometowns.
I always wanted to walk in the village my maternal grandmother had told me about when I was young. She had described the neighborhood church with its cemetery, a family garden, and her maternal side living in the next village.
My grandmother, Mary, emigrated with her mother, Anna, and younger brother, Joseph, in July 1913 when she was 12 years old. She would become a teen a week after arriving in the U.S. My great-grandfather had come 3 years earlier and settled in Chicago after crisscrossing the country working for the Pullman Company.
I had photos of the apartment where they lived in Chicago and the houses they rented and bought in Gary, Indiana, but I had no visual of the home she resided in as a child. Grandma had returned to visit Croatia in the summer of 1960 with her singing group, Preradovic. I have a picture of her with two village women, unnamed, who she said were cousins. Truthfully, Grandma called everyone cousins and she was probably correct as the village in which she was born had only 349 people in 2011. Her mother’s ancestral village, Jerebic, only had 41 people in 2011. If they weren’t cousins, they were called kum or kuma (godfather or godmother). Definitely supports the importance of Elizabeth Shown Mills’ FAN Club! With such small numbers, everyone was connected.
There were 99 houses in town, which one was Grandma’s? For that, I turned to a genealogical report written by Sanja Frigan for my second cousin in 2008. Sanja had gone to the local church and spoke with the priest who shared records. I was able to identify the location as house number 40. This was confirmed through the only FamilySearch.org Dubranec record for my grandmother – her baptism record shows the family living in house number 40. Through the Association of Professional Genealogists, I contacted fellow genealogistLidija Sambunjak to discover if house numbers were altered since the church record was made in 1900. I highly recommend contacting a local genealogist, historian, or archaeologist as they know details of communities that aren’t available online. Lidija was able to find the new house number. She also found a record that showed the home had been built by 1861 when a census had been taken. Lidija also discovered the home was now a tavern so there was a strong possibility I could go inside and even eat in the location my grandmother had taken her first bites of food!
Getting to Dubranec was an issue; it was outside the city limits of Zagreb so no bus was available. I could Uber/taxi but I didn’t want to just get dropped off. I needed a driver who could take me to all the places I wanted to see, wait while I explored for a bit, and answer questions that might arise from what I was seeing. I was not comfortable with renting a car as I was unfamiliar with the area and there were avalanche and flash flood warnings – not something I wanted to tackle on my own. Plus, I don’t speak Croatian well and a translator would be helpful.
Lidija recommended a colleague, Nikolina Antonić, who was a historian and archaeologist. We agreed on a price for the day and in our email exchanges, she shared with me her dissertation which just happened to be in the area my family resided. Finding a knowledgeable professional might take some time so start looking as soon as you book your trip.
I shared with Nikolina my family stories regarding defending a castle, building a church, going on a pilgrimage, and being titled a nobleman. Her dissertation was about the land records for the area beginning in the 1200s so she was an expert with location and history.
Nikolina met us at our hotel at 9 AM sharp. After reading her dissertation I had questions about how my family fit into the culture of those times. Her answers helped me put the records I had found the day before into perspective. Our first stop was a recreated home that would have been typical of a noble family. Although we couldn’t go inside, we were able to walk the grounds, peer in the windows and my husband found pottery shards in the freshly turned garden. Nikolina identified them as the late 1800s. A few days later we toured a castle in Bled and in the museum was an identical pottery piece labeled the late 1800s. It helped me imagine that my two times great-grandparents likely used a similar jug.
Our next stop was a recreated castle where my family tale says we fought off Turkish invaders. I’ll be writing more about this next week.
As we climbed the mountain through a forest I could visualize my ancestors hunting in the woods. It was breathtakingly beautiful – spring green leaves budding on the trees, a deep blue sky with puffy white clouds – a picture postcard.
The village Dubranec was larger than I expected. From the land records discovered the previous day I knew where some of my family’s property began and ended. The lots have been subdivided over the years and now, many more buildings were housed on what was once farmland. I was disappointed to find the home where my grandmother was born that had been turned into a tavern closed. A man walking down the street informed us that the owner had recently died. The picture at the top was from Google; the building has changed somewhat and for privacy, I am not displaying the photo I took.
Next, we went to the village Jerebeic where my great-grandmother’s family was from. It was about a 5-minute drive further up the mountain. The village was exactly what I had envisioned – all old wooden buildings. The well, unused now, was still there, roosters still roamed the yard, and hay was stored in the barn. I was surprised to learn that my family had been known for their vineyards and some very old plants still produced grapes. Which great grandfather had planted them I don’t know but I still have the recipes. We spoke to the farm’s present owner who knew it had once been owned by the Grdenic family. He kindly let me take photos.
Back down the mountain, our next stop was Our Lady of the Snows Roman Catholic Church. The earthquake had damaged the structure so we could not go inside. I was shocked to see the cemetery intact and with just a few older stones. I learned that rental needs to be paid annually and when it is not received, after a time, the body is dug up, the bones collected, and placed in a group grave. Nikolina was not sure what happened to the old tombstones. The beautiful day had turned rainy and with thunder and lightning overhead, we did not stay long among the graves. I plan on writing to the current priest to obtain more information.
We then drove miles to visit Marija Bistrica, a pilgrimage site. On our way, we saw a group of pilgrims with walking sticks making their way to the church high on a mountaintop. I’ll write more about my great-grandmother’s reason for the pilgrimage next week. I was amazed to see how far she walked over such difficult terrain. I know I come from a strong line of females but this discovery really surprised me.
It was time to return to our hotel as our Gate1 tour was meeting that evening. I will never forget this emotional experience and I believe I would not have gained such insight into my family’s background had it not been for Nikolina’s expertise.
If you are planning an excursion to your ancestor’s home turf, do your research first, then check out transportation options, and hire a guide who is familiar with the area’s history. Although most people in Europe speak English, if you are going to a rural area it is best if you have someone who can translate for you. Don’t forget your camera or phone charger!
Next week I’ll be giving you some tech tips for your ancestral experience.
L-R Genealogists Sanja Frigan, Lori Samuelson, and Lidija Sambunjak at the Croatian State Archives
It was time for me to cross the pond to search for family information. You might, like me, have reached that place in your research.
My maternal line is all Croatian and when I began my genealogical journey over 50 years ago, I thought I knew everything there was about those lines. I was so wrong!
Over the years, I interviewed my maternal grandmother, mother, and one of my aunts. I wrote down the stories they told, made sure the people in the photos they left behind were identified, and diligently added their U.S. made records in genealogical software programs. When DNA came along I tried to connect with family that had scattered across the world – Russia, Ukraine, Germany, Great Britain, Australia, and throughout the U.S. I visited the FamilySearch Library twice hoping that records from the small villages outside of Zagreb would be available. Only one currently is and last month I was informed that there were no new films that would be available to search anytime soon. If I wanted more I had to do boots on the ground.
In January I discovered a Gate1 tour with a special price for Croatia as the country began accepting Euros in 2023. My husband and I booked a 10-day tour and decided to extend it by two days so I could research my family in an archive and visit their villages. I have researched cemeteries in the Caribbean, South America, and Central America but I have never before researched in an archive outside of the U.S.
Here are my recommendations if you are planning a genealogical journey abroad:
Identify the area where your ancestor resided – Check immigration, census, vital records, obituaries, and family member recollections. Mugbooks and family genealogies may also be helpful. You need to know where they were and under what flag when they lived there to discover where records are housed. My family lived for generations in what is now Croatia but at the time they were there, it was under Austria-Hungary. Step 2 will help you figure out where some of the records reside and who ruled the land at the time your ancestors lived there.
Use FamilySearch.org Wiki– After logging in, click on the ribbon “Search” and then “Research Wiki.” Either enter your location in the search box or click on the map. My villages are not an option so I selected the biggest city to the villages of Dubranec and Jerebic which was the capital, Zagreb. The information provided will give you some knowledge of what records are available and where. Look at any records for the country that are online, even if they are not for your desired location. Often the headings will be similar so you can familiarize yourself with what the information will look like. I took headings from the only document available for Dubranec (1895-1900 baptisms) and transferred them to an Excel doc. Under the Croatian headings, I wrote the translation. I then filled in all the info I knew for each individual. This way, when I entered the archive, I had the child’s name in the correct category, along with a time frame (the birthdate), and the parents’ names. I knew ahead of time what lines to scan to find what I needed. I also had the info in chronological order which speeded up the research as the microfilm is by years.
Check out archive websites – Don’t worry that you don’t speak or read the language, most websites are easily translated into English. Look at the top and bottom of the home page for a translation button. Every archive has different rules and regulations. Knowing what is required ahead of time will save you grief. Things to think about – Do they accept credit cards or cash only? Can you take photos? Do you have to make a reservation? Can you bring a laptop?
Book your trip – Some folks like to be independent and others like a canned tour. I prefer a little of both. There are many tour companies online and deciding which can be daunting. Look at ratings, talk with family and friends, and read the fine print. I highly recommend hiring knowledgeable locals to assist you in the archives. I used the Association of Professional Genealogists website, of which I am a member, to find a genealogist. Via email, she advised me what archive I needed to visit and which record sets would be helpful to search. She accompanied me to the archive, stepped me through the process to obtain a pass, and sat nearby so I could get clarification and translation. I had trained my husband on using the one available FamilySearch film so we were able to go through all the record sets in one day. And for my long-time readers, you know weird things happen to me when I do boots on the ground! Also in the archive the day I was there was another genealogist who my second cousin had hired 16 years ago. Her report had been on records housed in the village church which has since been damaged by an earthquake. Those records are no longer available and I’m so thankful to have that report. It was a confirmation of names and dates I was given verbally and allowed me to delve further into the records housed by the state.
Remain calm and flexible – Traveling today is not as easy as it once was. I had hoped to spend a day and a half in the Croatian State Archives but because Lufthansa was incompetent (I’ll spare you how rude they were in Munich) our flight was delayed 5 hours. By the time I reached the hotel, the archive was an hour from closing. In hindsight, I was jet lagged so I wasn’t in the best of shape to research in a new place with a language I wasn’t proficient in. Still, I was disappointed that I lost valuable time. Go with the attitude that you are grateful for finding something instead of thinking you must find everything. I was astounded to discover that my family owned so many plots of land. I would need many more days to go to the courthouse to pull all the deed records. A volume I needed for information on the nobility of my Kos family was missing so another archive needs to be contacted to obtain that record. I also learned that military officer records are housed out of the country. For now, I’m content with what I did discover and can plan to either go back in the future or hire a genealogist to pull the records for me.
Next week I’ll write my recommendations about visiting your family’s ancestral home.
Ohio, Trumbull County, deed records, John Orr and Wife Deed to the Widow & Heirs of Thomas Duer, digital image; FamilySearch.org: accessed 20 March 2023, citing film 005492829, images 3-4, p. 2-3.
Last week I went to FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City, Utah with one main goal – to prove that John Duer (Circa 1803 PA-1885 IN) was the son of Thomas Duer (1775 NJ – 1829 OH). I’ll blog next week about researching in the renovated library but for now, this story is just unbelievable!
I have long wanted to prove that I am a descendant of Patriot John Duer (1748 NJ – 1831 OH). I’ve written two analyses on indirect evidence linking Patriot John to his oldest son, Thomas, who died intestate, and Thomas’s son, John, who was of age when his father died and therefore, not named in probate.
Early on in my research, I was advised to check land records and I did. The problem was that some early deeds for Trumbull County, Ohio are missing. Both Patriot John and Thomas lived next to each other from 1809 until Thomas’s untimely death at age 54 in 1829. Since Thomas died before his father he was not named in his will, however, one of Thomas’s daughter’s husbands was named in Patriot John’s will as receiving land. All of the rest of Patriot John’s children were noted in the will. He had one other child who had predeceased him; for that child, the grandson was named as receiving cash.
In Salt Lake City I was looking at volumes written by Henry Baldwin in the mid-1800s. I found the information I needed to prove that Thomas was the son of Patriot John. The books didn’t help, though, by showing Patriot John’s grandson, John, was Thomas’s son.
I asked several AGs and research specialists for ideas. I had looked for records that included Bibles, Presbyterian Church, cemeteries, obits, probate, wills, deeds, tax records, court records, identifying census tic marks, journals for pioneers/circuit riders, genealogy society records, mug books, and contacting people who had online family trees. One AG recommended checking Masonic Lodge records as he noted that many Presbyterian farmers were members.
FamilySearch has New York Masonic records but not Ohio so I reached out to the Public Library of Youngstown, Ohio, and was referred to Warren County Public Library. I sent an email request noting I was looking to prove a relationship through Masonic records.
The following day I received a wonderful reply – no Mason records but someone once left 4 pages of typed research notes on the family in the surname files. The librarian scanned them for me. Those notes were undated, the library had no idea who had left them or when. I had contacted the library for various help over the years and no one had ever mentioned these 4 pages of notes.
I figured the Masonic records were a long shot but I admit, I was initially disappointed when I looked at the notes. I began reviewing the attachments and on page 3, almost fell out of my chair. The individual who had left the information had abstracted deeds. I had seen every deed at FamilySearch.org but one. The one that was not listed in the index was the one that had named the wife of Thomas and all their children, shown above. It neatly sold land that was mentioned in Patriot John’s will to another of Thomas’s children. The husband of that child sold the land to the named son of Thomas.
I had looked page by page at early deed books but stopped at the end of 1832 as that was when the estates were finalized. I used indexes going forward. This one transaction wasn’t indexed. The land was sold in 1832 but not recorded until 1833.
It never dawned on me to go page by page for the following year AFTER the estates were closed. I could have solved this problem years ago if only I hadn’t relied on the index and remembered that deeds are not always recorded when they were made. Lessons learned!
I finally found the tombstone of my 3rd great-grandfather, John Duer, in Kessler Cemetery, Mercer County, Ohio! Last Saturday my husband suggested we drive to Ohio to check out the cemetery in the hopes of finding John’s gravestone.
I’ve blogged many times in the past about my Duer family and the frustration of not being able to find where John was buried. I had probate from Adams County, Indiana so I knew John’s date of death but have never found an obituary and the probate didn’t disclose a burial location.
No memorial was ever made on Findagrave or Billion Graves.
When I lived in Florida my resources were sparse and I didn’t find the information when I went to Salt Lake City in 2015. I contacted organizations in both Adams, Indiana, and Mercer, Ohio but nothing was found. Sue Thomas, a trustee of Kessler Cemetery had sent me records for rows 1-7 and there was a John Duer, but it was the son of the man I was looking for. I wasn’t aware at the time that the records were incomplete.
Fast forward to June 2022 when my husband and I visited the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the 2nd largest genealogy library in the country. I didn’t really think we’d find John’s burial location as the 1st largest genealogy library in the US didn’t have it. I was shocked when I handed my husband a book of Mercer County cemetery inscriptions and he found an entry for Kessler Cemetery, row 15, on the last page of the book that noted “John Duer – unreadable.”
As soon as we had settled into our new home winter hit and I had to wait for spring before I could resume my quest to find John’s burial site. Last Saturday, the snow had melted, the sky was blue and the sun was shining. I had a meeting to attend in the morning so when I arrived home the last thing on my mind was John’s tombstone but my husband thought it was a good day to go look.
The cemetery is in a rural location in Ohio so we had to use coordinates to find it. It is accessible from a county road and surrounded by a field. There is a farmhouse visible to the north and a rooster doing his singing the entire time we spent there.
There are 331 memorials on Findagrave and it’s noted that the cemetery is 92% photographed. Of course, John was one of the 8%! This man left behind a few records so it is fitting.
As soon as my husband turned into the unpaved U-shaped drive I was ecstatic. I immediately spotted my 2nd great-grandparent’s tombstone and another of my 3rd great-grandparent’s tombstones. There were Kables, Kuhns, Bollenbachers, and Duers as far as the eye could see.
I’ve certainly visited many cemeteries over my genealogical career but I have never visited a small family cemetery that belonged to my family. There are no words to describe the feeling of knowing that everyone in this location was my kin. Best of all, I knew their stories. Seeing, touching, and walking among the stones made them real. The documents, stories, and photos I’ve amassed were connected to the individuals lying right below where I stood.
Even my husband got excited, shouting “Look, there’s a Kable, oh, there’s a Kuhn, there’s another Kuhn.” He had heard me speak of these people for over 50 years and now, he too, felt they had become real.
He parked in the field and the hunt was on. It was obvious the older stones were on the south side of the drive so we began there. Several were completely unreadable. I knew from the book that John was buried in row 15 but it was difficult to determine where the rows began as the graves were not dug in lines beginning at the same point. From the records that Sue Thomas had sent me I could tell that Row 1 was where the newest graves were placed. Even counting from there was difficult.
Cold and frustrated, I said aloud, “John Duer, Come on. I’ve been searching for you for years and I’m tired of this. Where are you.” I turned and looked down and there was the stone pictured above. Standing back from and just at an angle, the late afternoon sunlight clearly showed John and 1885, his death year. The rest of the stone was unreadable. Yes, I did thank him!
I was disappointed that I couldn’t read the entirety of the stone as nowhere is John’s birthdate recorded. It appears that it could be calculated from the stone but no longer. My husband, laid upon the grave to get as close a look as possible as the stone is tilted downward.
My husband is not interested in genealogy so his actions spoke volumes to me about how much he understands my passion. Think about this, the ground was damp, it was freezing, and he was lying on my 3rd great-grandfather’s grave to get a better look at me. I told my kids if that isn’t love I don’t know what is.
I had one more mission which was to find his first wife, Jane’s grave. I’ve blogged before about the possible error on her stone giving a death date as 1866. John had married again in December 1864 and had a child with his second wife by 1866. No divorce document has been found. He wasn’t likely a polygamist as he was raised as a Presbyterian. Lastly, Jane’s grave states she was the wife of John Duer. If they had divorced she wouldn’t have been his wife. Interestingly, when his second wife died, she too has the “wife of John Duer” on her stone. He must have been something!
We couldn’t find Jane anywhere and a stiff wind began to blow so we went back to the car to look up Findagrave to see if we could identify background stones to help us find Jane. We then realized we had no cell service. Yep, this cemetery is remote. Husband stuck his phone out of the window and finally, we got a signal. Although there are two photos on Findagrave only one would display and it was the closeup with little info in the background. We got out and looked again.
I was standing catty-corner from John’s grave and my husband was in the last row before the field, about 3 rows from me. John was considered in row 13 and Jane was in row 14 but there was a large space where I was standing with no stones so I turned and immediately was facing Jane. What had happened was Jane’s top stone portion had come loose and it looked like someone had turned it 90 degrees so it was now facing John’s row. In 2007 when the Findagrave photo was taken, the stone was facing south as John’s was. When I was reading stones in row 15 I thought Jane’s stone was just another stone that had become illegible. Instead, I was looking at the back of her stone. I was beyond euphoric at finding her final resting place.
Although I certainly never met her in person, I know that she was a strong woman who used a small inheritance from her father to purchase land in Killibuck, Holmes, Ohio so she could take her garden produce to town to sell. I love her entrepreneurial spirit, unusual for a woman in the 1840s. She lost several children, one as a child, several to the Civil War, and one to a mental illness. The family moved from eastern Ohio to mid-Ohio and finally to the border with Indiana. It must have been difficult leaving her family behind as they moved west.
I’ll be doing many more cemetery visits as the weather warms as I expect you will, too. Don’t give up your search! Your ancestor is out there just waiting to be found.
