Sharing Memories Week 13: Broken Bones & Other Accidents

Olive Tree Genealogy offers weekly prompts, called Sharing Memories, to "help all genealogists with writing up memories of our ancestors and our childhood." Her prompts actually encouraged me to travel home this past weekend so I could copy some of my mother's photos! I scanned about 200 of them, but I still have a LOT more to do.

This week's prompt is "Broken Bones & Other Accidents." I immediately thought of an accident I had when I was about seven years old. And, I'm excited that I have a photo of my resulting injury... because of the scans I just did!

Pioneer Woman Statue in Ponca City - from Wikipedia

This is the site of my accident. Along with most of the girls in my class, I was a Bluebird (which is a younger version of Girl Scouts.) One day, we took a field trip to the Pioneer Woman Museum in Ponca City, Oklahoma. For a group photo, we climbed up on the base of this statue to pose. Well, with all those girls, I somehow got bumped... and fell off the step... and landed on my head. Ouch!

Here's me with the scratch on my forehead! I guess it's road rash. This injury took a long time to heal. In fact, it finally healed... only to show up again in the summer looking like a scar! But, after that summer, it finally went away for good.

I find this photo kind of humorous. I've cropped a Polaroid photo to just show myself and the kitten I'm holding. It's Christmas and we are at my cousin's house. He lived in the country and always had a bunch of 'wild' cats and kittens running around. We could rarely even catch them; but we sure tried!

I also can't believe what a mess my hair is... and my outfit is pretty hideous. Out of four people in the photo (my sister, brother, & cousin), my daughter couldn't pick me out; she thought I was a boy! Well, I guess we'd been playing hard!

I also enjoy seeing the elf hanging on the tree in the background. My mother and my aunt both put these on our trees.

Do we share common ancestors? I'd love to talk! Please write me at drleeds@sbcglobal.net

They Appeared to be Brothers

I've really been working on my English ancestors the past few weeks. It's the Eastwood family I mentioned in my last post, "A First Jump Across the Pond." In that post, I shared about Humphrey Eastwood who I originally thought was my ancestor's (James') brother, but I found out he was actually his son by a first marriage.

1841 Census - Prestwich Cum Oldham, Lancashire, England from Ancestry.com

If Sarah wasn't Humphrey's mother, then who was? I next found a birth record for Humphrey Eastwood which shows his mother was named Elizabeth.

Humphrey's original birth record

Then, I found ANOTHER record for his birth. This one was recorded in 1852 when he was 17 years old! And, it lists his 'abode' as Lees. 

Birth Register for Humphrey Eastwood, son of James & Elizabeth

By 1852, Humphrey's mother had died. By looking at Humphrey's birth date and the remarriage of his father, I'm pretty sure his mother, Elizabeth, died in about 1838. I have found a death record that I think is likely hers. The death shows an Elizabeth Eastwood, aged 30, who died in April of 1838 in Ashton under Lyne, which all makes sense. I haven't proven this is her, though.

Possibly Elizabeth Eastwood's death reocrd

I know Humphrey's father, James, came over between 1848 and 1852 because of when and where his children were born. I have found the passenger list where his stepmother, Sarah, and his step-siblings, Elam and Sarah, immigrated in August of 1851. So, why was Humphrey still in England? And who was he living with?

I next found the 1851 England census where Humphrey is living with his aunt & uncle, John & Hannah Ormrod in Lees Field in Lancashire. I don't believe Humphrey's father, James, has a sister named Hannah. So, either John or Hannah must be Humphrey's mother, Elizabeth's, sibling.

1851 Census with Humphrey Eastwood living with aunt & uncle, John & Hannah Ormrod

By 1860, Humphrey has arrived in the United States and is living with his father, stepmother, and step-siblings in Clinton County, Pennsylvania. He is now 25 years of age and working as a clerk. I have not found an immigration record for him. In fact, this is the last record I've found for Humphrey.

1860 Census - Clinton County, PA

I do wonder why Humphrey didn't come over with his father or with his stepmother & step-siblings. He would have been about 16 years old when his stepmother came over. Was it a money issue? 

And, what happened to Humphrey? Why can't I find any more records about him? When did he immigrate and when did he die? And when did his father, James, immigrate?

One last note... I'm so glad I created this blog post! While putting it all together, I came across another record. I thought Humphrey was the only child of James & Elizabeth Eastwood. But, I found out he has an older sister, Hannah!

Hannah Eastwood birth register - same church as Humphrey

Hannah must have died as a young girl as she wasn't in the 1841 census when she would have been about 8 years old. Later, James & his second wife, Sarah, will have another daughter that they will name Hannah which I understand was fairly common in these times.

So, I still have a lot of questions, but I'm finding more and more answers, too!

Do we share common ancestors? I'd love to talk! Please write me at drleeds@sbcglobal.net

Meeting Lisa Louise Cooke

Lisa Louise Cooke has taught me many genealogy methods & tricks online for the past year or so. Yesterday, I got to listen to her in person! I told her how much I appreciated all that she does. And, we posed for a quick photo!

Meeting Lisa Louise Cooke from Genealogy Gems
(at Houston Genealogical Forum's meeting on May 1, 2014)

Lisa was giving three lectures at the Houston Genealogical Forum. She has recently moved to Texas, so I hope we get to see even more of her!

Her first lecture was about newspapers. I have a membership to newspapers.com and have found a few interesting clips. But, I haven't had much luck finding FREE newspapers online! Lisa showed us multiple sites that will help us find newspapers whether they are digitized or not! I'll be digitally digging into the papers over the next few weeks!

Below is an article from 1904 about a party some "young people" attended including my great grandparents before they were married, Myrtle Coppenbarger and Emil Peters. They were married about 10 months later! I love that it says "Many parlor and outdoor games were enjoyed by all." I wonder what types of games these young people played!

Found on Newspapers.com

Her second talk was about Google. I believe I've watched her Google talk online, but I still got a lot out of this. For the past few years, I've used the "+" operator to tell Google I want them to include something in a search. Well, that doesn't work any more! Instead, you need to put a word or phrase in a quotation marks to make sure it's included! I've already been putting that tip to use today!

And, her last talk was about Google Earth. Wow! There is so much you can do with it, but I still feel pretty lost. Thankfully, I have the handout & notes I took. But, I also bought her book & CD's. So, hopefully I'll be using Google to enhance my genealogy soon!

By the way, she said most (all?) of these talks are also available to premium members. I've been a premium member for awhile, but haven't looked at these videos! So, I'll be hopping over there this week & seeing what else I've paid for but haven't used yet!

If you don't listen to her free podcasts, you should give them a try! She has two sites...   www.genealogygemspodcast.com and www.lisalouisecooke.com

Do we share common ancestors? I'd love to talk! Please write me at drleeds@sbcglobal.net

Four-Hundred-Year-Old Find

This is the oldest genealogical record I've found for my family, and I just found it earlier this week! In the past few weeks, I've tracked down the actual village my mother's German (Kaechle) ancestors came from. It's called Grissheim and it's located in Baden-Wurttemberg, though it was just "Baden" when they lived there. I ordered four microfilms from FHL and was able to spend some time looking at them earlier this week.

These church records were amazing! The record above is my ancestor's baptism record from 1616!!! That's incredible!



Here's a close up showing my direct ancestor's record. It is hard to read, but I got help from a site where someone has abstracted these records. Without this site, I wouldn't have been able to find the record I needed... and be able to understand them!

The site page is called "Ortsfamilienbuch fur Grissheim" or "Database of Grissheim families." I believe the person who abstracted these records is Ekke Burde. But, to whomever took the time and energy, I'm incredibly thankful!

Back to the record...

The first thing you see is the date: "29 December". You don't see the year because it was on the previous page. But, you can see that "Anno Domini 1617" starts after my ancestor. That means "in the year of the Lord" and is usually abbreviated "A.D." This is the date of her baptism. My understanding is that Catholics believe that baptism removes the guilt of Original Sin, so it is essential to salvation. Therefore, baptism was often done very quickly - sometimes on the day of birth, but usually within the first few days. So, this ancestor was most likely born between December 27th and December 29th.

Next you have the parents names in brackets. On top is the father, Gallus Grozinger. On the bottom is the mother, Ursula Binhardt. I wasn't able to figure out the mother's maiden name, but the "database" site has it as "Binhardt" and I have found it very reliable.

The center part is my ancestor's first name: Barbara. So, her name was Barbara Grozinger.

The last section lists Barbara's baptismal sponsors. It looks like the top name is Joes Grozinger with "Joes" being an abbreviation for "Johannes" according to my research. The other name looks like Apollonia with a last name I've not been able to figure out. I need to spend some more time with these records and I think I'll be able to decipher it.

I found about twenty records of direct ancestors in the two hours I was able to spend at the library. I had made an Excel spreadsheet of my ancestors by surname before I went, but now I realize I need to make it by date & event (birth, marriage, & death) instead. So, I've got a lot to do as I try to get everything I can out of these microfilms!

Do we share common ancestors? I'd love to talk! Please write me at drleeds@sbcglobal.net