Family History Scavenger Hunt - Day 5

Overview & Purpose

We all love scavenger hunts, hunting for the clues and discovering new things. This scavenger hunt will occur during the month of June and will include daily prizes for a lucky winner who gets all the answers correct in the allotted time.

The clues will be posted each morning on the Indian River Genealogy Conference Facebook page (www.facebook.com/IRGConf), Friends of Vero Beach Family History Center Facebook group (www.facebook.com/159642411143167), and my Facebook page for genealogy (www.facebook.com/milesgenealogy/).

The tasks will introduce you to a variety of online sources and help you learn new research sites and how to use them effectively to discover your ancestors. Those who get the answers correct will be entered into the daily drawing for prizes.

Join in the fun, discover new sites, and learn how to research on sites that you may have never used before.

Answers will be submitted using a Google Form found at https://forms.gle/b2cTEW2McG63szKHA.

Today’s Challenge

Maps are a great way to learn about where your ancestors lived and who their neighbors were. Today we will take a look at Historic Map Works (http://www.historicmapworks.com/). This site has some really great old maps. We will be looking for the 1875 and 1900 plat maps for McLean Township, Shelby County, Ohio.

Questions

1. On the 1900 plat map for McLean Township, who owns Green Island?
2. Who owned Green Island in the 1875 plat map?
3. Look at Sherman S.S. District in the 1900 plat map. Who owned the southeast quarter of section 10 and how many acres was it?
4. Who owned the southeast quarter of section 10 of the Sherman S.S. District in 1875?
5. What Township is directly south of McLean Township?

Bonus Points (Optional)

• What was the name of the road that formed the north boundary of August Wise’s property in the 1900 plat map?

Hints

• You may have some difficulty finding specific maps so I recommend searching for the county (Shelby County, Ohio) to see the variety of maps that are available.

Action

Answers will be submitted using a Google Form found at https://forms.gle/b2cTEW2McG63szKHA.  All answers received before 8:00 pm on June 5 will be considered for the prize. Today’s prize is a 3-month subscription to HistoryGeo.com (https://historygeo.com/).

Answers

Family History Scavenger Hunt - Day 4

Overview & Purpose

We all love scavenger hunts, hunting for the clues and discovering new things. This scavenger hunt will occur during the month of June and will include daily prizes for a lucky winner who gets all the answers correct in the allotted time.

The clues will be posted each morning on the Indian River Genealogy Conference Facebook page (www.facebook.com/IRGConf), Friends of Vero Beach Family History Center Facebook group (www.facebook.com/159642411143167) and my Facebook page for genealogy (www.facebook.com/milesgenealogy/).

The tasks will introduce you to a variety of online sources and help you learn new research sites and how to use them effectively to discover your ancestors. Those who get the answers correct will be entered into the daily drawing for prizes.

Join in the fun, discover new sites, and learn how to research on sites that you may have never used before.

Answers will be submitted using a Google Form found at https://forms.gle/Vdu25zPqNYct4uLC8.

Today’s Challenge

The Chronicling America website (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/) contains the newspaper collection for the Library of Congress. There are a large number of newspapers from 1789 to 1963 available on this website. For this task, you will need to find Francis Epps Harris from Ocala, Florida mentioned in C.L. Bittinger’s retirement letter and answer the following questions. This will take a little more investigating than the previous tasks.

Questions

1. What was Francis Epps Harris’ occupation?
2. What was the name of Francis’ eldest and talented son?
3. Why did Mr. Bittinger leave his job?
4. Advertising can provide some insight into life during a specific time. What is the name of the dish washing powder advertised on this page?

Bonus Points (Optional)

There appeared to be a rivalry between several newspapers in the area. Name one of the competitors to the Ocala Banner.

Hints

• Chronicling America can be found at https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/.
• Extend your search to other stories on the same page.

Action

Answers will be submitted using a Google Form found at https://forms.gle/Vdu25zPqNYct4uLC8.  All answers received before 8:00 pm on June 4 will be considered for the prize. Today’s prize is a 1-year subscription to Billion Graves (www.billiongraves.com).

Answers

Family History Scavenger Hunt - Day 3

Overview & Purpose

We all love scavenger hunts, hunting for the clues and discovering new things. This scavenger hunt will occur during the month of June and will include daily prizes for a lucky winner who gets all the answers correct in the allotted time.

The clues will be posted each morning on the Indian River Genealogy Conference Facebook page (www.facebook.com/IRGConf), Friends of Vero Beach Family History Center Facebook group (www.facebook.com/159642411143167) and my Facebook page for genealogy (www.facebook.com/milesgenealogy/).

The tasks will introduce you to a variety of online sources and help you learn new research sites and how to use them effectively to discover your ancestors. Those who get the answers correct will be entered into the daily drawing for prizes.

Join in the fun, discover new sites, and learn how to research on sites that you may have never used before. 

Answers will be submitted using a Google Form found at https://forms.gle/h4GXSmX2RJu3Rsfp7.

Today’s Challenge

Billion Graves (www.billiongraves.com) is a great website to discover burial information for your ancestors. One of the benefits of this site is that it uses GPS to locate the graves that are submitted so you can see generally where they are located in a cemetery. For this task, you will need to find the memorial for E. Herbert Walker in Duval County, Florida and answer the following questions.

Questions

1. According to the headstone, what was his birth date?
2. What is the name of the cemetery where he is buried?
3. How old was he when the Beatles made their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show?
4. Using the link to his record on FamilySearch, what did the E stand for in his name?
5. What major world event happened when he was 15 years old?

Bonus Points (Optional)

• What is the name of the park located southeast of the cemetery?

Hints

• Billion Graves can be found at www.billiongraves.com.
• Use each part of the website, including the map, to find the answers to these questions.

Action

Answers will be submitted using a Google Form found at https://forms.gle/h4GXSmX2RJu3Rsfp7. All answers received before 8:00 pm on June 3 will be considered for the prize. Today’s prize is a 1-year subscription to Billion Graves (www.billiongraves.com).

Answers

Family History Scavenger Hunt - Day 2

Overview & Purpose

We all love scavenger hunts, hunting for the clues and discovering new things. This scavenger hunt will occur during the month of June and will include daily prizes for a lucky winner who gets all the answers correct in the allotted time.

The clues will be posted each morning on the Indian River Genealogy Conference Facebook page (www.facebook.com/IRGConf), Friends of Vero Beach Family History Center Facebook group (www.facebook.com/159642411143167) and my Facebook page for genealogy (www.faccebook.com/milesgenealogy).

The tasks will introduce you to a variety of online sources and help you learn new research sites and how to use them effectively to discover your ancestors. Those who get the answers correct will be entered into the daily drawing for prizes.

Join in the fun, discover new sites, and learn how to research on sites that you may have never used before. 

Answers will be submitted using a Google Form found at https://forms.gle/RphpwJCfibaBGrUH7. 

Today’s Challenge

Find A Grave (www.findagrave.com) is a great website to discover burial information for your ancestors. For this task, you will need to find the memorial for Vernon Westerheide and answer the following questions.

Questions

1. In what branch of the military did Vernon enlist?
2. What is the name of the cemetery where he is buried?
3. What was his infant daughter’s name?
4. What was his father’s name?
5. What war was he a veteran of?

Bonus Points (Optional)

• Which of his siblings was the leader of Minster Little Women 4H Club?

Hints

• Find A Grave can be found at www.findagrave.com.
• Make sure you look at information for other family members.

Action

Answers will be submitted using a Google Form found at https://forms.gle/RphpwJCfibaBGrUH7. All answers received before 8:00 pm on June 2 will be considered for the prize. Today’s prize is a 1-year subscription to Billion Graves (www.billiongraves.com). 

Answers

Family History Scavenger Hunt - Day 1

Overview & Purpose

We all love scavenger hunts, hunting for the clues and discovering new things. This scavenger hunt will occur during the month of June and will include daily prizes for a lucky winner who gets all the answers correct in the allotted time.

The clues will be posted each morning on the Indian River Genealogy Conference Facebook page (www.facebook.com/IRGConf), Friends of Vero Beach Family History Center Facebook group (www.facebook.com/159642411143167) and my Facebook page for genealogy (www.facebook.com/milesgenealogy/).

The tasks will introduce you to a variety of online sources and help you learn new research sites and how to use them effectively to discover your ancestors. Those who get the answers correct will be entered into the daily drawing for prizes.

Join in the fun, discover new sites, and learn how to research on sites that you may have never used before. 

Answers will be submitted using a Google Form found at https://forms.gle/E1t2s1j4zkcqzFyR9.

Today’s Challenge

Charlotte Hirschfeldt lived in New Bremen, Auglaize County, Ohio in 1940. She is listed in the 1940 US Census which can be found on FamilySearch.org and other sites. Using only the 1940 US Census answer the following questions.

Questions

1. How old was Charlotte Hirschfeldt in 1940?
2. Where was Charlotte born?
3. What was the street address where she lived?
4. What was her occupation and annual income in 1939?
5. Who was the informant for this information?

Bonus Points (Optional)

• Which member of the family was unemployed and how many weeks was this person unemployed?

Hints

• The 1940 US Census can be found online at https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/2000219.
• The FamilySearch Wiki has information about the 1940 US Census at https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/United_States_Census_1940.

Action

Answers will be submitted using a Google Form found at https://forms.gle/E1t2s1j4zkcqzFyR9. All answers received before 8:00 pm on June 1 will be considered for the prize. Today’s prize is a 1-year subscription to Billion Graves (www.billiongraves.com). 

Answers

TheirStory - A Unique Way to Record Oral Histories

It's hard to belive that less than a month ago more than 30,000 of us from 55 countries were attending the world's largets genealogy conference at RootsTech. Now we are all self isolating and watching as many of our upcoming conferences are being cancelled or going virtual. Is virtual conferencing the way of the future or is it just a survival method for today? One benefit of virtual conferencing is that you can attend without the costs of travel but many people in our genealogy community may not have access to the equipment to attend these virtual conferences. Another problem caused by social distancing is that we can't go to our archives and other brick and morter collections and we are restircted to online data. Additionally, we now have to use different methods to collect information from our families since social gatherings are being restricted.

My last couple blog posts were covering some of the things I learned at RootsTech and the products that are being developed. In this post I will be presenting a site called TheirStory. The idea behind TheirStory is to provide a platform to assist you in gathering family stories through virtual interiews with family members. Their slogan is "Everyone has a story to share."

TheirStory screen shot

The site is not built around a software package so there is no need to download a program. The process is very simple and can be used to interview anyone with a computer or mobile device (phone, tablet, etc). The first step, once you have a subscription to the service is to set up a group where you can invite your family to see the stories. These groups can be organized any way you want, by topic, family, location...you are able to add the stories to each group after the interviews occur. Once you have your groups set up you can launch a session from your account and send the link to the person you want to interview. The link can go to email, messenger, or any other method that the user can access on their device. You will be connected to the call when they access the link and then you can begin recording. The recording is saved to your account and you can associate it with the group(s) that it fits into. These videos are stored in your account but your family can also download them to their computer or sync them to their Google Drive so they have their own copy available at all times. To see a demonstration of how this works, check out their video of a live interview here. You can also set up a group with questions for people to call in at anytime. To see a demo of this click here.

I tested this product during a video call with Zack Ellis, the Founder and CEO of TheirStory. We had a seemless call while I was walking around in my back yard and he recorded the interaction. When our call was done, he just hit stop recording and then we ended the call. It was as simple as that.

For individuals, for a limited time you can set up a family subscription through a one-time payment which is currently $350 (regularly $500) for unlimited lifetime access across your family and live technical support. They also have monthly subscriptions for $12 and annual subscriptions for $120.

In this time of social distancing, collecting your family's stories is a great idea for passing the time. Check out their website and begin collecting your stories today.

RootsTech2020 Follow Up - Vintage Aerial

Sometimes we don't have to look too far back in time to find interesting items to include in our family history. Vintage Aerial is an example of this. Their booth at RootsTech gave people the opportunity to look through their collection to find pictures of their farms and rural homes.

The collection contains 18 million aerial photographs from 41 states. Photographs in their collection date back to the 1960s and cover a large part of the rural eastern US. The area of coverage varies by year, so you may not always find a picture of the property you are looking for.

You can search by address to see if there were any flights in the area. Your search will produce a series of film rolls which you will have to scroll through to find the images you are looking for. Once you find the image you can like, share on Facebook and add a comment about the property. You can also order a variety of prints of the image for your own collection. The people who visited them at RootsTech were given a 4"x6" print of the image at no cost.

How are these images important to your family history? They show how a family's land has changed over time. Did your family add to their home? Did they clear more land? Is there something in the photo, such as a car, that brings back a memory that you had forgotten?

I would like to include a set of the pictures of the house where I grew up as an example of how these can help tell the story of your family's life.

1974 - This is the house I grew up in. We didn't own the house in 1974 but we knew the owner, Kenneth Filburn. He died in an auto accident which occurred on October 21, 1976. The house is up on blocks.

 1979 - We moved into the house around 1977 and survived the Blizzard of '78. It took a lot of work to plow our driveway and the one lane road to our house was snowed in for several days. Looking closely at the picture you can see a cleared area next to the barn. That was our garden. There are also several sheds along the tree line where we stored our wood for the fireplace. We had also added the utility room to the back of the house by this time. There is also a small flower garden and bird bath near the corner of the house. The patch of trees between the driveway and barn was our buckeye grove. The underside of the house has now been closed in.

1982 - There have been more changes by this time. The most noticeable is the pond. All of the material removed from the pond was placed in the clearing to create a hill that gave us more elevation for the pond. There is also a chicken coop in front of the barn. We raised a variety of livestock including chickens, rabbits, sheep, pigs, and ducks. The sheep pen runs along the fence line by the cornfield.

1990 - In this photo you can see that we had added a room to the front of the house as well as a garage between the house and barn. This garage was a 2-car garage with a sunroom on the side where my mom spent much of her time. She had furniture, a small library, and a stereo in that room. There are also rows of pines and Russian olives that we planted along both sides of the pond. I also noticed a picnic table in the area between the pond and woods. Another change is the removal of the green aluminum siding and the addition of white vinyl siding.






Based on those four photographs I was able to cover nearly 20 years of my childhood and write this short story. Imagine what you could do with your family's photos and how that could provide a start to an interview with a grandparent. Check out the site and see if you can find your homes.