What I've Been Up To Lately and Other Things ...

Well, as you all have probably noticed, I haven't posted very much in a long time. Up until a couple of days ago, I had been extremely with school work, and therefore, I didn't have very much time to keep up with what has been going on in genealogy lately. Unfortunately, I am unsure as to when I will be resuming my normal posting schedule since I will still be taking a couple of classes this summer, and I will only have a few weeks break before I begin the next school year. Thus, blogging is probably going to be pretty light into the foreseeable future.

On a lighter note, I've noticed as everyone else has that FamilySearch's Record Search has added or updated quite a few databases, and I've done a little searching in some of the databases. I believe I have found some useful information on a few of my ancestors, and so, I have a few new leads to look up. Of course, I don't know if I'll be able to follow up on them this summer, but sometime in the future, I will pursue them.

I also wanted to list a few links that might help other people in their research. The first link is for some digitized parish books from Austria and Germany, which I learned about when I happened to be looking the website for the historical society of Gelnhausen, Germany for ways to further my research into my Kees ancestors. Only some of the parish books for the locations listed have been posted, but at the moment, it is free to view the images online. If you want to download any of the images, though, you would have to pay.

The other two links deal with genealogy research in Lancashire, England. The first link has transcriptions of parish records for churches in Lancashire, and are free to view. Transcriptions are added frequently, so if you don't happen to find transcriptions for the churches you are looking for, they might be posted eventually. The other link is for an index to the Birth, Marriages and Death records recorded in Lancashire county in 1837 and later. The index is also free to view, and the site lists information on how a person can order a certificate for the record. This site also frequently updates the index as well.

I hope these records might be useful and helpful for others in their research. Enjoy!

Updates On Researching My British Ancestors ...

Over the past couple of weeks I've received some answers on a couple of my British ancestral lines. A birth certificate for an ancestor and a marriage certificate for another ancestor arrived in the mail a couple of weeks to about one-and-a-half weeks ago, and I was able to confirm my suspicions about the ancestors' parents. The birth certificate confirmed the maiden name of my ancestor's mother, and the marriage certificate confirmed the bride's father's name. Also, I received an e-mail a couple days ago from a distant cousin from another line, and he sent me images of my the 1911 census for my ancestors and the images of another relative's World War One records.

As you can imagine, I'm excited by both of these events, and I do plan on writing about the World War One records of my ancestors and relatives on Veteran's Day. Enjoy and stay tuned for that post ...

Family History Center Visit 14

Earlier today, I visited the local Family History Center, and with the help of my grandma, I looked at the three microfilms. Two of the microfilms were church records for Manchester, Lancashire, and the other microfilm was of church records in Weisenheim am Berg, Germany.

One of the Manchester microfilms was of baptismal records, and my grandma was able to find my ancestor in the baptismal records. When she looked at the other microfilm, which contained marriage records, she was unable to find the marriage record for that ancestor's parents. It turned out that I ordered the microfilm, and thus, did not get the right years of the marriage records. I'll have to order the right microfilm, although I am not sure when I will be able to do that.

As for the microfilm of German church records, I was able to find the baptismal record of my Klippel ancestor. I then tried to look for other siblings in the baptismal records, but I was only able to find a couple of other siblings. I was able to find the death records of his parents, but I was unable to find the marriage record of his parents. The microfilm was missing some of the years of the church book, so I'll have to look and see if they are on the other microfilm listed in the LDS catalogue. Until then, I cannot do too much research into my Klippel ancestor's maternal side. I was able to find out who his paternal grandparents were, and hopefully, I'll be able to do a little bit more research before I go back to school. So, I guess my research today was somewhat successful. Stay tuned ...

Family History Center Visit 8

Earlier today, I visited the local Family History Center, and I took a look at the new microfilm that had come in earlier in the week. As I suspected, it was a microfilm of church records (Bishop's transcripts, to be specific) from Wigan, Lancashire, but unfortunately, after looking through the film, I realized that I had ordered the wrong microfilm. So, the next time I visit the local Family History Center, I'll have to order a different film for the area.

After not having any luck with the Wigan film, I went through the Huntingdon, Pennsylvania microfilm again, but as with the first film, I was unable to uncover any more information on my ancestors. So, I did not have any luck with that film either.

After not having any success with those two films, I did take another look at the Luton microfilm I had looked at before, and this time, I did find the marriage of my great-grandmother's older brother. (I didn't find her younger brother's marriage, but I couldn't remember the year he married.) When I looked at the witnesses to the marriage, I was surprised to see my great-grandparents listed as the witnesses! Since I did not know how they met or for how long they knew each other before they married, I was thrilled to find their signatures on the record at least three years before they married!

So, for this visit, I really did not have any success, other than when I looked at the Luton microfilm. I did not order any additional microfilms at this visit, but I am hoping to visit the center next week. I might order a few more microfilms at that visit. Stay tuned ...

Family History Center Update

I received an e-mail from the local family history center earlier today informing me that my other microfilm had arrived. This microfilm is of Church of England church records from Lancashire county, although I do not remember if the records are for Wigan or another city in the county. Well, I hope to go to the center soon, so I'll refresh my memory about which location is on the microfilm. Stay tuned ...

Family History Center Visit 7

Yesterday, I visited the local Family History Center, and started to take a look at the two microfilms that had come in. I had only about an hour to do research, so I wasn't able to get too far into my research.

The first microfilm that came in happened to be of marriages from St. Matthew's Church in Luton, Bedfordshire, England. I had hoped to find my great-great-grandparents marriage record in this microfilm, since it was the church where my great-grandparents got married. Although the records went back to the time of my great-great-grandparents' marriage, their marriage was not recorded in this church. I'll have to take a look at other church records in the area, and order another microfilm. (Of course, before I return the microfilm, I will double check to make sure that I haven't overlooked any of the marriages of my great-grandmother's siblings as well.)

So, after quickly determining that my great-grandparents were not in that film, I decided to look at the other microfilm. This microfilm contained the records of Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania's cemetery, church and bible records, and I quickly discovered that the microfilm contained a typed transcript of those records done by the local DAR branch in Huntingdon county. Despite being disappointed at not viewing the originals, I still decided to go through the film and see if I could find my ancestors mentioned. Unfortunately, I only got through about a third of the microfilm, so I'll have to make another trip to the center to finish going through the microfilm. Hopefully, I will get lucky and uncover more information on my ancestors on my next visit. Stay tuned for future updates ...

Family History Center Update

I just received an e-mail from the local Family History Center and learned that two of the microfilms I ordered have arrived. I know that one of the microfilms is of the church and bible records of Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, but I am unsure of what the other microfilm is because I only ordered one microfilm from Pennsylvania this time around. I did order two microfilms of church records from England, so it is possible that one of the microfilms is from England. Either way, I'll find out which microfilm that one is the next time I go to the center.

Geography Awareness Week: Going To England

Yesterday, I did a geography post on Germany due to the fact that this week is Geography Awareness Week, and for today, I have decided to continue do posts on the geography of other countries. For today's post, I have decided to visit England. (I will also cover Scotland and Wales as well, but in other posts. Lisa has already done on a post on Ireland, so I won't repeat a country she has done.)

So, here are a few quizzes for England:

Cities in England

Counties of England

I hope you have fun with these two quizzes and the ones for Germany. And I hope you do better on these quizzes than I did. Enjoy!