Seneca County Cemeteries

In yesterday's post, I mentioned my visit to some of Seneca County's cemeteries this past weekend. If you have relatives or ancestors who lived in Seneca County, you will certainly want to visit Kristina Kuhn Krumm's Seneca County graves Web site, http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~ohio/seneca/list.htm. She started the project in 2001, and thanks to the aid of many volunteers, it has grown to its present size.

It also offers a search engine that you can use to locate where your ancestor was buried in Seneca County. The nicest part for me — she has included maps taken from the book, “Seneca County Ohio Cemetery Inscriptions” (Tiffin, OH: Seneca County Genealogical Society, 1987). Each township has a map showing where each Cemetery is located. 

This turned out to be a lucky thing for me, because, while I was familiar with two of the cemeteries that Lois and Dawn wished to visit, a third, Bethel-South Bend Cemetery (see picture above) was one I had never visited. 

Bethel-South Bend is located near McCutchenville, and is not an area that I know. The signpost for Township Road 54 was no where to be seen, so unfortunately, I missed my turn, but thanks to the able map reading of Lois, my co-pilot for the day, we were able to get ourselves oriented and find the cemetery. 

Kris also maintains a homepage with additional Seneca County information, including Township plat maps of 1874. She also has a link to other cemetery sites she has put on the Web including those in Crawford County, Wyandot County and some in Sandusky County. 

Kris's homepage is http://kriskuhn.net/. Thanks Kris!

 Until Next Time — Happy Ancestral Digging! Note this post first published online, October 23, 2007, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02 

© 23 October 2007, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder

Fulfilling A Grandmother's Wish

I spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon with two charming cousins and their husbands wandering through some of Seneca County's cemeteries. Lois and Dawn, like me, descend from Joseph and Magdalena Good (the couple I talked about in my Ague Fever post). Their grandmother had always wanted to find and visit the grave of her great-grandmother Rosetta Good. Rosetta, the daughter of Joseph's son John Good and his wife Sarah Baker Good, died of typhoid fever in 1869, along with a younger brother Joseph and a sister Sarah Florence. Their common gravestone sits in Liberty Center's Cemetery that is located on State Route 635 just south of Bettsville. 

Rosetta left behind a 9-month-old son, John Heckman Jr. Apparently, the grandmothers of little John both wanted to raise him. A story handed down in the family of Lois and Dawn told of John's paternal grandmother sending a wagon down from Michigan, plucking him right off the school grounds and spiriting him back to Branch County, Michigan, where he would grow up.

I'm not sure of the accuracy of the story because John is clearly listed in the 1870 census in Michigan living with his grandmother. However, a court case involving the settlement of his great-grandfather's estate in 1874 does open the door for the possibility that John was living in Ohio at the beginning of the case, but was in Michigan by its resolution. (John has a 1/49 claim to the estate.) It may well be that young John had been passed back in forth between Ohio and Michigan more than once before he ended up in Branch County permanently. 

John's descendants knew that he had been born in Seneca County near Tiffin, but they had no idea where his mother, Julia Rosetta Good Heckman, had been buried. To complicate matters further, she is listed in the cemetery as Julia R. Good. This is how she is also listed in the 1870 mortality records, but in the Seneca County Probate Record, she is Rosetta Heckman, which makes the mind dance with all kinds of speculation. 

In any case, though their grandmother was never able to make the trip, her granddaughters fulfilled her wish, paying a visit to Rosetta's grave. It was nice to play a small part in helping them complete their grandmother's wish.

Until Next Time — Happy Ancestral Digging! Note this post first published online, October 22, 2007, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

©22 Oct 2007, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

A Little Husbandly Concern

My husband has known for a month or longer that this Sunday I will be meeting with Internet Cousins and showing them some cemeteries in Seneca County. Yesterday, he decided that he m-a-y-b-e should express concern about me meeting up with four total strangers who could or could not, for all he knows, have nefarious (nefarious is my word of the week) reasons for driving from Michigan and Indiana to see a few graves. This little bit of concern didn't originate from his own brain. It took my daughter, who TRULY loves me, to poke the thought into his head. Even at that, his grilling me about the upcoming Sunday events didn't transpire until a full 24 hours later.

“Have you ever met these people?” my suddenly concerned spouse asked. 

 “Nope.” 

 “But they're related to you, right?” he said, being comforted somehow by some tenacious familial link. (Hello, honey, you've met my relatives. Do you really think they are the barometer of SANE?)

“Ostensibly, two of them are.” 

“Do you want me to come with you?” 

And here is where my husband gets his good husband seal of approval award. Because he knows, and I know, that the very last thing that my husband wants to do this Sunday is to go grave hopping with strangers. Strangers who, along with his wife, will be yammering about dead relatives. Good grief, NASCAR is racing Sunday, and my husband's devotion to NASCAR is about one notch above my devotion to genealogy. In other words, the man loves his NASCAR. Besides, time has not yet dulled the memory of our little Labor Day fiasco. But I also know, as does he, the moment he says the words, “Do you want me to come with you?” that he means exactly that. If I want him to be there with me on Sunday, he will do it. Which is why, sweetheart, when you make that totally inane comment, “I don't know how you can stand to live with me” I always look at you as if you were crazed. This is exactly why I can stand to live with you, bucko — that and you give a really good foot rub.

So it will be just me meeting with the Michigan and Indiana folks on Sunday. Who knows, maybe I will get an interesting post out of the deal. And my husband will get to watch his race in blissful peace and HAVE THE HOUSE TO HIMSELF. 

Until Next Time — Happy Ancestral Digging! 

P.S. — For any relatives reading this post, it goes without saying I was talking about OTHER relatives when I made that sanity crack. Note this post first published online, October 19, 2007, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

©19 Oct 2007, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Forum Diving — Searching the Census

Dawn, one of our forum regulars (can you have forum regulars for such a small forum?) received as a gift the Family Tree Maker Program. I'm not sure which version she was given but it came with a FREE YEAR OF ANCESTRY.COM. Okay scoff if you want about this being some nefarious plot to enslave her by the big bad corporate giant of genealogy subscription services, but I for one am completely jealous — in a quasi sort of I'm happy for you Dawn kind of way. It sounds from her posts that she is already making good use of her time.

One of my favorite things about Ancestry is their every name index for all the census years. In my opinion, there are two kinds of people in the world — those who come close to swooning with joy at the words, EVERY NAME INDEX, and those who don't. I'm a do.

One of Dawn's family lines is Maenle. She searched high and low for them in the census. Fortunately, she knew where they should be living and finally found them with the last name indexed and written as Manley. Dawn made the observation that either the head of household or the census taker couldn't spell. Either case could be true. Prior to the twentieth century, many people could neither read nor write. On the other hand, census takers would sometimes forget to ask for a proper spelling, and would spell a last name phonetically or assume a more common spelling. Sometimes, the head of household wasn't home, and they interviewed a wife or child. Even if their husbands were literate, the wives might not be — a lot depended on the society in which they had been raised. Other times a neighbor might end up giving the census taker the information about the family, when the family members themselves were unavailable. You can imagine how many problems that could create.

An additional problem, even when you have something as wonderful as an index available, is that the writing on the census isn't always legible or the quality of the microfilm isn't the best. That means the person responsible for creating the index had to give it their best guess — so you wind up with Jacobus indexed as Jacobs, Smathers indexed as Smothers, King indexed as Ring etc. 

Jana Lloyd, in her article “Leonis or Lewis? Some Quick Tips for Finding Your Ancestors in the Census” addresses these very issues. You can find the article at http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=11803. Pay particular attention to the GETTING AROUND THE ERRORS part of the article. “

Top 10 Search Tips for Census Success” by Kimberly Powell at http://genealogy.about.com/od/census/a/census_search.htm is also helpful. In addition to issues that I've already raised, she talks about the use in the census of nicknames, looking for neighbors when you can't find your target family, and of taking advantage of the every name index by looking for siblings or children when you can't find that elusive head of household. 

If you are having problems finding your ancestors in the census records, these are two articles well worth your time.

Until Next Time — Happy Ancestral Digging! Note this post first published online, October 18 , 2007, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

©18 Oct 2007, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Genealogy Quick Notes — Internet & Genealogy Class and Forum Diving

INTERNET & GENEALOGY CLASS 

Some things I learn by reading. Some things I learn by listening to someone's explanation. Some things I learn by a hands-on approach of doing them. But I find, for me, the best way to learn something new is when I use all three senses — sight, sound and touch. Attending the Internet Genealogy class at the Hayes Presidential Center Library this Saturday, October 20 will allow you the opportunity to do all three. The class is from 9:30 to 11:30 and is taught by Head Librarian, Becky Hill. It is an overview of genealogical Web sites useful to the family genealogist. The cost of the class — free! Call (419) 332-2081 for more information. 

FORUM DIVING

I don't know how many of you are reading the comments in the Desktop Genealogist forum, but right now, there are eleven different threads going on. I thought it might be a good idea to shine a spotlight onto some of the topics being addressed and the questions being asked. Until I can come up with something better I will be calling these posts FORUM DIVING.

 If you are new to genealogy, you might be surprised to learn that as a whole, family genealogists are a very helpful bunch. I'm always amazed at the lengths individuals will go to aid another. I've seen that trait in many of the posts that people have left on the forum. I'm hoping that this is something that will continue. I am encouraging you to fill in any blanks that I might leave when I put in my two cents. I also hope that if you feel that I am dead wrong about something, you will add YOUR two cents. 

The cool thing about genealogy is that while it can be an individual “sport,” It can also be a group endeavor. I hope we learn something from each other — kind of a group picking of the brain. Okay, that didn't come out the way I wanted, but you get the general idea. 

Tomorrow, I hope to post the first of these forum diving topics. 

 Until Next Time — Happy Ancestral Digging Note this post first published online, October 17, 2007, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

© 17 October 2007, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder

How to Use the Social Security Death Index

Yesterday I wrote about the Social Security Death Index. Today I want to show you some ways you can access the information. I'm using Rootsweb's Social Security Death Index as the example (http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi).

1. BASIC SEARCH

In the basic search, you have the following fields:
LAST NAME, FIRST NAME, MIDDLE NAME (INITIAL) AND SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER.

Let's look for the Social Security record for Owen K. Lynch, my grandmother's brother. I fill in LYNCH for last name, OWEN for first name and K for middle initial. I don't have Owen's Social Security number so I leave that blank. Then I submit the information. I get one hit, but I know from a family bible entry that Great Uncle Owen was born June 16, 1883. I also know he died in Texas. This Owen K Lynch was born in 1911 and his last residence was Bronx, New York. Obviously, this isn't the correct Owen K. Lynch.

Next, I try putting in just the last name — LYNCH, and submit the information again. Wow, that gives me 40, 728 hits — no way can I sort through that amount of information.

Let's give it one more try with the basic search. This time I put in LYNCH for
last name and OWEN for first name and submit. Now I get 24 hits — a more
manageable list.

I'm looking for someone whose last residence was Texas and who was born in
June 1883 (there's always a possibility that the actual birth date might not match).

On the second page of hits, I find him. Owen Lynch, birth date June 16, 1883, death date November 1970, last residence was Kerrville Texas (which now that I see it, I remember that Kerrville is a place where the Lynch's lived) and a surprise, his SSN was issued in Missouri. This tells me that at some point, Owen lived in Missouri. Interesting — this is something I will want to follow up.

Moral of this search: Searching is a lot like the story of the three bears — you can input too much information or too little information — it's important to put in just enough information to find the individual you are looking for.

2. ADVANCED SEARCH

To get to the advanced search click on the button that says, Advanced Search, located next to the Clear button.

The fields on you can search on this screen are the following:
LAST NAME, FIRST NAME, MIDDLE NAME (INITIAL) LAST RESIDENCE ZIP, LAST RESIDENCE STATE, LAST RESIDENCE COUNTY, LAST RESIDENCE CITY, LAST BENEFIT ZIP, LAST BENEFIT STATE, LAST BENEFIT COUNTY, LAST BENEFIT CITY, BIRTH YEAR, BIRTH MONTH, BIRTH DAY, DEATH YEAR, DEATH MONTH and STATE where the Social Security number was issued.

In the 1900 Census, my grandfather's family is listed. He has three sisters, the youngest of whom is listed as Nina Dorcas Hoy, age 1, birth month November, birth year 1898. (The 1900 census is the only federal census that has been released that includes the birth month and year, making it the first census I check whenever possible.)

I want to try to find Nina's married name so that I may add her and her husband to my family tree.

I fill in the first name NINA, the month of birth NOVEMBER, and the year of birth 1898 and I am going to put the state her SSN was issued as OHIO. One match — a Nina Tanner, birth date — November 27, 1898; date of death — December 1980, Last Residence — Winter Haven, Florida, Issued SSN — Ohio.

This could be her. My next step is to go to the Hayes Presidential Center Obituary Index (http://index.rbhayes.org/hayes/index/index.asp) to see if a Nina Tanner is listed. I find a listing for Nina Tanner with a December 1980 obituary listed in the Tiffin Advertiser Tribune. The obituary is in the Tiffin Seneca Public Library and I can either order the obituary to see if I have the right individual or I can visit the library myself and read the obituary free of charge.

Of course, there is no guarantee that you will find the individual you are looking for when you are doing one of these types of inquiries. But I have had enough success to keep this as an option. In this case, I have found the correct Nina. Her obituary lists her husband as John Tanner. And so, another piece of my family puzzle snaps into its proper place.

Until Next Time — Happy Ancestral Digging!

Note this post first published online, October 16, 2007, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

Genealogy Tip — The Social Security Death Index

Want to have access to Social Security's Death Master File and have it updated quarterly? No sweat. You can get the complete file and quarterly updates with an annual subscription courtesy of the folks at National Technical Information Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The cheapest method is to get your information on DVD or CD-Rom. If you live in the U.S., Canada or Mexico it will cost you $6,900. For those wishing a subscription with a quarterly update living anywhere else on the planet the price is bumped up to $13,800. Think that's a little too pricey? And just what kind of information does this master file contain that would make a family historian interested? Well, it's a list of over 80 million deceased individuals who have been reported to the Social Security Administration. It may have some or all of the following: 1. Decedent's name 2. Decedent's Social Security number 3. Decedent's date of birth 4. Decedent's date of death 5. State where Social Security Number of the Decedent was originally issued 6. Decedent's Last Residence or zip code of last residence 7. Zip code where Decedent's lump sum payment was sent Sound like information that a genealogist might want to tap into? Well, no worry, there are several genealogical Web sites that have this information and get it updated on a regular basis. My favorite one to use is the Social Security Death Index on Rootsweb's Web site: http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/. There are two reasons that the Rootsweb Web site is my favorite. First, it's free to use and no registration is required. Second, the index features a basic search and an advanced search, which I find very useful. Social Security records were not computerized until 1962, so the majority of deceased individuals listed are from that point forward. Some reasons that you might not find a deceased individual in the index include: 1. The death wasn't reported to Social Security 2. The individual didn't have a Social Security number. 3. Human error — it could be yours or the person who originally input the information into the file. (For example, the last name Vescelus may have been input Vescelas. Or you may have input incorrect information in your search.) 4. The decedent's benefits are still being paid to a spouse or child. Besides looking up a specific individual, I can sometimes use the index to find siblings of my ancestor. In tomorrow's post, I will give an example of how I might use the Social Security Death Index to find a sibling of my grandfather and how I can use the index to find my grandmother's brother. Until Next Time — Happy Ancestral Digging! Note this post first published online, October 15, 2007, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02 ©13 October 2007, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder