Thursday, August 14, 2008

CVGS Research Group Report - 13 August 2008

The August meeting of the Chula Vista Genealogical Society Research Group was yesterday at the Library. There were 8 attendees at this meeting, and they all had something to share. We started with a brief review of some of the Genealogy News highlights for late July and early August. The sharing included:

* Bob has been checking his wife's great-grandmothers who were from Ireland and Nova Scotia. There was a long discussion about the different sets of Census Records available on Ancestry, HeritageQuestOnline and FamilySearch. It was pointed out that HQO has other resources, including PERSI, the Revolutionary War Pension files, and many out-of-copyright books.

* Dick is investigating his aunt, who was in the Foreign Service and Women's Air Corps during WW 2. She died in 1961. He had no success from the NPRC in St. Louis on her military records. While working in FamilyTreeMaker, he clicked on Web Search and found a passenger list entry for her in the 1950's.

* Shirley is indexing La Vista Memorial Park burials, and is finding interesting causes of deaths in the 1869 to 1887 records. She's also been adding images to her new genealogy computer filing system, and is helping with FamilySearch Indexing.

* Penny is back from a month in Cornwall. She's been active on www.FindAGrave.com. A message board post about her father's brother's adopted name resulted in children of her uncle contacting her and they are sharing information.

* Frances has been writing stories of her family members - she has a notebook almost filled up.

* Dearl has been battling his computer gremlins, which has a date/time problem. He's ready to consult an IT shop.

* John went to the FHC and found a book for a PA County that had information about his Phillips family. The information led to the books Torrey's New England Marriages before 1700 and Austin's Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island on the CVPL shelf, which had much more information about the earliest Phillips generations.

* Randy described his experiences on WorldVitalRecords and Footnote, and passed some examples from their databases around. He also passed the latest Discovering Family History magazine around the table.

The only research problem discussed was Randy's Project M - his friend is searching for information on his father. The friend was born in Chattooga County GA in 1927, but his father left the family in 1930 and the last time he saw his father was in 1943. Randy has found a 1930 US Census record (an Army private in Oklahoma), Georgia Death Index record and an SSDI record - both provided a birth date and death date and probable death locality (Irwin County GA). But what should he look for between 1930 and 1969? There may be a second (or more!) family for this man, who might help the friend understand his father's life. The group suggested military records (a discharge record), obtain the SS5 application, obtain a death certificate, look for an obituary to identify survivors, look for cemetery records, look for probate, land, tax, directory and voter records. Some of these might be obtained from a local historical or genealogical society or library in the death location.

The CVGS Research Group meets every second Wednesday at 12 noon in the Conference Room at the Chula Vista Civic Center Branch Library. Sharing genealogy news, research techniques, family history successes and advice on how to solve elusive ancestors is one way that genealogy societies can reach out to all of its' members, and to community persons interested in and/or frustrated by their family history. The CVGS Research Group is in its' 6th year of meeting monthly.

No comments: