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Wed, March 12, 2008 12:51:03 PMFrom:
Rootsweb Review
Subject:
Rootsweb Review, 12 March 2008, Vol.11, No. 11
 12 March 2008, Vol. 11, No. 11
Table of Contents
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National Burial Index Available on FindMyPast.com
Now you can find the National Burial Index for England and Wales on FindMyPast.com. The National Burial Index is an ongoing project of the Federation of Family History Societies. To date there are about 13 million names in the index, transcribed from various parish and civil records by member societies.
For more information about the index and the individual records it contains, visit FindMyPast.com. Searching is free, but you must pay to view the full results. |
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Publish Your Blog
Do you keep a blog? Want to publish it? Visit Blog Books to see how you can turn your blog into a book. |
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Book Notice
Some Descendants of Ralph Braddock of Maryland and Virginia, ca. 1695-1766 This book will be published in late March by Gateway Press. It traces six generations of Braddock descendants through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and elsewhere. It includes information on more than 1,800 individuals and has more than 3,000 citations, a bibliography, and an index. It is 240 pages, with a laminated cover. The price, including shipping, is $35.00. To order, send checks or money orders to Allen Beatty |
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By Mary Harrell-Sesniak, "Genealogy is just not a pastime; it's a passion."
Obits and Tidbits: The Obituary Daily Times and Other Newspaper Resources
Want to find an obituary for your ancestor? Not sure how to start? Maybe some RootsWeb resources can help you out.
OBITUARY DAILY TIMES Founded in 1995, ODT has more than 13,000,000 indexed obits, and the list is increasing at the staggering rate of 2,500 a day. It is entirely supported by volunteers, numerous submitters, and a host of moderators.This free index is among the largest in the world, and searching is easy. You can also subscribe to the related Obituary Daily Times Mailing List for a regular index update. To subscribe, send an e-mail to GEN-OBIT-L-request@rootsweb.com. VOLUNTEERING The Obituary Daily Times does not record full obituaries—it is only an index to names found in newspaper obituaries. You will have to use the date and publication information from the index to order the full obituary from a library or from the newspaper itself. However, volunteers are encouraged to keep all obituaries they index for ninety days and volunteers can make requests of one another for full obituaries. This is one of the privileges of being a volunteer. NEWSPAPER MAILING LISTS ABSTRACTED NEWSPAPER OBITS The West Briton and Cornwall England Advertiser Newspaper Abstracts from County Clare, Ireland (The Clare Freeman) Taylor County, Iowa, Newspaper Extracts Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Newspaper Abstracts Old News Abstracts from Early Frederick County, Maryland, and Surrounding Areas Orleans County, New York, Newspaper Abstracts Abstracts of Newspaper Articles for Hyde County, North Carolina Morgan County, Ohio, Newspaper Abstracts Wyoming County, Pennsylvania, Historical Society Newspaper Abstracts Pages from the Past, The States-Democrat of Brownsville, Tennessee |
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Finding Our Family in Norway
This is a short note to tell you that through the RootsWeb message boards, we located our extended Norwegian family for both of my mother's parents. My mom is eighty-three and had the joy of connecting with huge numbers of relatives that none of the family had been in contact with for generations. One of her first cousins was still alive at age eighty-eight. I met many second cousins and, despite growing up across the ocean, there were many family similarities. It was thrilling to find that my grandma's family has been on the same farm since medieval times. Here is a family reunion photograph with some of our Norwegian family members.  By Carolyn Vincent
Did someone find your genealogy query on the message boards and come to your rescue? Did you find five more generations of your family in WorldConnect? We want to hear your genealogy success stories. Send your family history triumphs to Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com. |
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Found Graves
I had information that my great-grandfather was buried in the Cameron, West Virginia, city cemetery, and the funeral home records agreed, but the plat at the city hall did not show the grave. I looked on two different occasions for the stone with no luck. I decided to make one more try, and when I got to the cemetery there was a crew cleaning up downed limbs and cutting up trees that had fallen during a recent storm.
While talking to one of the workers, I told him I was looking for a lost grave and he told me they had found several headstones when clearing out some of the big cedar trees that the storm took down. He led me over to one sight and there, all cleaned up, was the headstone of my great-grandfather, great-grandmother, and their daughter. There was another unmarked grave right next to theirs that we later discovered in the funeral home records was my grandfather's grave—according to the same records, my grandmother did not opt to have a gravestone installed. By Jim Smith |
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Question About Vulnerable Cemetery
I'm very concerned that my family's overgrown cemetery in Macomb, Pike County, Mississippi, will be a casualty of sprawl. There are just a dozen or so graves with headstones there dating from the 1870s to the 1940s. All are for African Americans and some are for former slaves. One was a country physician with a degree in medicine. One was a minister with a degree from Jackson Seminary (now JSU). And one was a very prominent Mason with a beautiful headstone. I think that gives the gravesite some kind of protected historical status. Only a few people know about this cemetery and it's not registered with anyone. I'm the only one that will do something to protect it. How do I get it protected so it is not accidentally (or deliberately) razed to build homes? It is in the middle of a forested area on my family's former land and the only way to get there is by following the emergency tape we tied to the trees as a trail. Every time I visit (every three to five years), it is harder to get to as the surrounding forest is growing more and more dense. I appreciate any thoughts or suggestions. By Joy Downs-Young, Southfield, Michigan |
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Four Clues and 140 Years
Four small clues, apart from his parents' and siblings' names, were all that my father, John Joseph McDonald, born in Apple Hill, Glengarry County, Ontario, in 1888 left about his ancestry when he died in 1942. For years my mother kept those few clues to our Scottish Catholic roots in Glengarry County alive. Those precious clues were as follows: 1) that McDonell/McDonald ancestors were buried in St. Raphael's Parish Cemetery in Glengarry; 2) that our grandfather, Angus Hugh McDonald, had been a mule skinner in California; 3) that Angus had at one time been associated with the town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin; and 4) that there was a man named Dougal McDonald somewhere in our ancestry. After receiving those clues as a young boy in the 1940s, I retained them for more than forty years without taking much action. We did walk the Raphael's Parish Cemetery several times but were never able to find any of the headstones. Most local folks suggested the stones had been removed and lost forever. We also wrote numerous letters and made calls to several Dougal McDonald families, but found no relationships. In 2002, my daughter wanted to tell her children more about her roots and after she nagged me for several months, I sent her all the information I had. Within a brief time she discovered the family graves at St. Raphael's; the stones read "McDonald," rather than "McDonell," which our name had been changed to. There was Grandfather Angus Hugh; Grandmother Mary Ann McPhail; my father's young brother, Duncan John; Grandfather's second wife, Annie McLelland; and an elderly Hugh McDonell, deceased 1883, whom we had never heard of. It was not much, but it was a start, and thus began a series of daily updates and conference calls between me and my daughter. Using census and marriage records we soon found out that Hugh McDonell was my great-grandfather, and that he was married to a Catherine McDonnell. We also found the name of all of Angus's siblings. With this information we thought we would soon be in contact with descendants of my grandfather's siblings. However, for two years we were at a dead end. Hugh's grave was in St. Raphael's Cemetery, but Catherine's was not and there was no sign of her after the 1881 census. Where was she buried? And what had happened to Hugh's siblings? We could find no records for his nine brothers and sisters anywhere in Canada. In 2003, my daughter entered all of the information we had accumulated on a RootsWeb message board, but no one responded. So, it was a deeply emotional morning in early 2005 when a lady from Wisconsin sent an e-mail to my daughter wondering if it was possible that the Hugh and Catherine and their children named in her 2003 RootsWeb query might be her great-grandparents, who had originated in St. Andrews West, Ontario, and arrived in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, in 1866. My daughter phoned me at work with this exciting news. The names and dates matched too closely to be a coincidence. However, we still needed more proof to be certain of our connection. We soon found Hugh and Catherine and their children in the 1871 U. S. census in Peshtigo, Wisconsin. A brain cramp must have prevented us from previously searching out the Peshtigo clue left by my father, but it had never seemed to be that important. Final confirmation was made when a descendant, while going through the effects of her recently deceased father, discovered a handwritten document dated 1971 that provided the details of Hugh and Catherine's children, including their spouses, children, and approximate whereabouts, all in the United States. The document even indicated that the eldest child, Angus Hugh, my grandfather, had remained in Canada. We soon located and contacted a few living descendants in the U.S. Most knew of their origins in St. Andrews West, Canada, but had no details. We also found Catherine McDonell's grave, along with several of her descendants' graves, in Seymour, Wisconsin. In June of 2006, my son and I visited the homestead worked by Dougal Hugh—my great-uncle—near the McDonell Hills named after him. We also visited his grave. And, finally, in the fall of 2006, a descendant of my grandfather's sister met me in St. Andrews West for a weekend reunion. On that Sunday descendants of Hugh and Catherine McDonell attended mass together in the same church their ancestors had worshiped at 140 years before. By Gerry McDonald
Have a story, question, genealogy resource, or tip you'd like to share with RootsWeb Review readers? Send it to Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com. |
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REQUEST A SEARCH FOR YOUR ANCESTORS AT WORLD'S LARGEST GENEALOGICAL LIBRARY
ANCESTOR SEEKERS researchers at the Family History Library in Salt For a no-obligation research assessment visit For help from professional genealogists in England or Scotland visit www.britishancestors.com/research/ |
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New User-contributed Databases at RootsWeb
NEW JERSEY. Cumberland County. Millville High School Class of 1935. 147 records. Contributed by Paul Christensen. |
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New/Updated Freepages by Individuals
No New/Updated Freepages by Individuals
If you have a new or substantially revised freepage at RootsWeb and would like to see it mentioned here, send the URL, the title, and a BRIEF description, including major surnames, to Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com. If your genealogy- or history-related site is located somewhere other than RootsWeb, you can add the link to RootsWeb here. |
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New/Updated Freepages by Counties, States, and Historical Societies
USGW = USGenWeb U.S.A.
Some of these Web pages might not be accessible yet. They are created by volunteers, so if one that interests you isn't up yet, please check again in a few days or next week. |
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New Mailing Lists
New Surname Mailing Lists New Regional Mailing Lists
New Ethnic or Special Interest Mailing Lists
Find archived posts to RootsWeb's 30,000 genealogical mailing lists or find and subscribe to a list To find or subscribe to a mailing list, or to search archived posts to more than 30,000 RootsWeb-hosted genealogy mailing lists, go here. |
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 My grandfather, Henry Ladd Stickney (1871-1948), is the soldier on the far right. He was stationed at Camp Greenleaf in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1917, during World War I. While there he visited Lookout Mountain and Umbrella Rock, shown in this photo. Submitted by Anonymous For a chance to see your ancestor's photo in the RootsWeb Review, send it to Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com. Make sure to include your name and a brief description of the photograph. |
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Driver Family Name
My mother's maiden name is Driver. Needless to say, it is a hard name to research on the Internet. I kept looking around and getting all kinds of sites for every kind of driver imaginable. Finally, I went to a genealogy list server and sent a message asking if anyone had any information on a Driver, not specifying that it was a family name. The coordinator of the site sent me an e-mail saying that she was going to take me off the list because I was asking computer-related rather than genealogy-related questions. I e-mailed her back and explained that my mother's maiden name was Driver and I was asking for information on the family name. I laugh every time I think about it. Thanks to Audrey Burba |
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Cemetery Swap
I am omitting the names and place to protect the guilty in this story, which I heard about ten years ago. It seemed that a religious congregation was growing and needed to expand their building. It was an old one and was surrounded very closely by its cemetery. When they applied for a town permit to build their extension, the congregation learned that regulations required at least twenty-five feet between the building and the nearest grave. On measuring, they discovered that there would be only eighteen feet available if the new extension was built as planned. So, in the wee hours of the morning, a group of stalwart members of the congregation crept into the burial ground with shovels and flashlights and moved the first two rows of tombstones eight feet back. When you look for ancestors' graves, you never know quite what you will find. Thanks to Joy Weaver
Found a funny name or humorous tidbit in old records, or an amusing entry in census, parish, church, or other records? Send these and other genealogy-related humor/humour items to Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com. |
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Subscriptions If you use a spam-filtering program, in order to receive the RootsWeb Review please make sure that you're allowing e-mail from rootswebreview@email.rootsweb.com. The RootsWeb Review is a free publication of The Generations Network, Inc., 360 West 4800 North, Provo, UT, 84604 Submissions RootsWeb Review welcomes short (500 words or less) articles, humor, stories, or letters, and reserves the right to edit all submissions. The announcement of books and products is provided as a community service and is not an endorsement in any way. Pictures for "The Darkroom" should be at least 72 dpi, preferably jpgs. All mail sent to the RootsWeb Review editor is considered to be for publication—send in plain text (please, no attachments) to Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com and please include your full name and e-mail address in the text. RootsWeb Review Advertising contacts Reprints
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