Jackpot!

I'm sending a great big thank you to Familysearch.org and all of their indexing volunteers for getting the 1905 New York state census indexed and placed on their website. Last night I was able to find my Great Grandma Ward with her parents and her brother living in Manhattan thanks to the index. I've searched city directories and the 1910 federal enumeration with no luck; George Ward is just too common of a name and I was never sure who was who. Thanks to the index and being able to find them in the 1905 state enumeration, I now have an address to work with to help sort the same-namers out.

The state census for 1905 New York does not provide a heck of a lot of info, but can be helpful just for the sake of being able to locate people, at it is in my case. The house number and street are given, as well as the name of the head of household and the relationships of those living with him. Age, gender, race, place of birth (however this is only given as country of birth, states are not given on the section that I was working with so only "US" is given as POB), whether citizen or alien, and occupation are also given for all in the household. So it's a pretty standard enumeration but since it falls in between two federal enumerations, it can really help you out when you're trying to locate people and not succeeding with the federal censuses and city directories.

It's also nice to have one more enumeration with the whole family together before things start to get dicey. My Great Grandma's mother dies in October of 1905, just a few months after the June enumeration date of the state census, and none of the other members of the family have been found in the 1910 census. In fact, my Great Grandma goes missing until 1930 when she turns up in IL with my Grandma, who is aged 18. So this 1905 enumeration is now the last appearance for most of this family group until I can manage to track them down elsewhere. It looks like things really changed after the Mother in the family died because they seem to just disappear. Getting this address is a great start though because now I can sort through the city directories again to try to see if there was a Ward living at the address from the 1905 enumeration. I'm wondering if perhaps after the death of his wife, the family may have moved from Manhattan though since none of them seem to show up in the 1910 census. I may have found Raymond living as a boarder in one of the other boroughs, but I'm not completely positive that it's the same person. So for now it's a mystery. But I'm very happy to have been given the use of the index to locate them in the first place so that my research can continue.

My gene-presents from Christmas

My Christmas wish list this year was full of gene-books and boy did Santa deliver. Well, not so much Santa as my family but they did a great job. I got several books that I've wanted for quite some time and just haven't been able to spring for. Here's what I got:

The Great Wagon Road by Parke Rouse

Lord Dunmore's Little War of 1774 by Warren Skidmore

North Carolina Research by Helen Leary (If you haven't checked this out yet, you really need to do so. It's not just an NC book. The info it contains holds true for just about every locality so it really works as a general reference and information manual rather than just a locality specific reference.)

Old Title Deeds by N.W. Alcock

Monongalia County (Virginia) publick claims by Janice Abercrombie

Map Guide to American Migration Routes by William Dollarhide

Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses by William Thorndale

Whew! That's a long list and I'm so so so happy to be able to dive into these titles whenever I want now. Some of them, like the books by Thorndale and Dollarhide and Leary and Skidmore, have been on my wishlist for a looooong time. So now it's time to cross them off the list and start looking for new ones! :)

Still working but I can almost see the light

Hi all, just a quick post to say that I haven't gotten lost in all the paperwork. I have successfully completed all but one assignment for the NGS HSC Home Course and just need to get my notes for the final assignment out of the notebook and typed into the computer before turning it in. The holidays kindof threw a wrench in my plans since I had a ton of things to do, like everyone else I'm sure, school has been out for 2 weeks, and some car troubles were thrown in for good measure (ugh!) but I am nearly finished now. The final assignment for the course is to write a biography for one of your ancestors. The most difficult part of the assignment was choosing who to write about. Even with most of my assignment written down in my notebook, I'm still wavering of maybe switching subjects and starting over with someone else. That's pretty much why I haven't gotten the thing turned in yet; I can't decide who to write about. But with IGHR registration looming in the background (it begins on Jan. 18th) I don't have a lot of time to dilly dally. The NGS HSC course, graded option, is a requirement for getting in to the Advanced Methodology course at IGHR at Samford University taught by Elizabeth Shown Mills and it needs to be completed before I can attempt to register for the IGHR course. So it's time to put the pedal to the metal and get this thing done.

Are you keeping a research log?

After sitting in on the ProGen 11 chats this week (I'm the coordinator for this group and it was their first week of official assignment discussion chats), the topic of research logs came back up. This is sort of a hot-button issue for most people because it seems like folks are either meticulous about it or it's something they strive to get better about. One of the blogs I follow, Rootdig.com, also brought up the topic of keeping track of your searches this week and the post is one that I really wanted to share here. Hopefully it will give everyone some inspiration!

http://rootdig.blogspot.com/2010/12/tracking-your-searches.html

Update

I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth, yet that is. I'm finishing up the NGS Home Study Course this week...hopefully. I have 2 1/2 assignments left to finish up and have the notes ready to be typed up for one of those. So I'm almost there. Whew! I'll be back as soon as I'm caught up! Wish me luck!