Saturday, November 6, 2010

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Make a Genealogy Wish!

Hey genea-philes, it's Saturday Night - time for more Genealogy Fun!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1)  If you found a bottle on the shore, and it had a genea-genie in it, and rubbed it and you had ONE WISH to make about your genealogy and family history research, what would it be?

2)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a comment or note on Facebook.

Here's mine:

It was hard to choose just one, of course. 

Based on the desire for more research excitement in my genealogy life, I WISH for a clear definition of the parents of Devier J. Lamphier Smith (1839-1894).  I've done a lot of work on Devier, but when I found that he was adopted by Ranslow Smith (per Ranslow's will in 1866, and Devier's name change in 1866 according to the Wisconsin state legislative acts), that stopped my Smith research cold.  I had the Smith line two more generations back, the Bell line two more generations back, and the Bresee line went back into colonial Dutch New York, and I "lost" many ancestral families when I found the adoption records.

The adoption almost certainly occurred in Jefferson County, New York in the 1839 to 1843 time period.  There were several Lamphier (and variant spellings) families residing in towns near to Henderson where the Smith family resided.  The Lamphier line goes back into colonial Rhode Island, and there may be interesting family histories in the collateral surnames too.

8 comments:

Kristin said...

is this the same ancestor you wanted to be present at the birth of some saturdays back?

owlhart said...

No question about this wish; to know specific information about the birth parents of Harry Henry Nelson, supposedly born June 8, 1873 in New Jersey. In a couple of records, he indicates one parent was from England, and the other from Ireland; the parents’ origins were switched in the two records. In one record, he said his father’s name was the same as his, Harry Henry Nelson, and that his mother’s name was Kate. He ran away from home when he was 12 years old. This indicates he lived at home in the 1880 census, but I’ve been unable to find him that year. In 1919, he said that his father had died, and did not know about his mother. This seems to indicate that when he ran away from home, that he did not have any more contact with his family.

VacaGrammy said...

My One wish would be to be able to access ALL the available records for the info I need for verification of "family stories" and governmental records!!! NO MORE PRIVACY ACT FOR DECENDANTS!! EVEN THE COLLATERAL ONES!

Chris Staats said...

Everyone needs to rush to my blog and read about my inventions which will surely be working soon thanks to this great genea-genie that Randy offered up. If you would like to invest in this, go ahead and send money - I'm sure the genie will be along shortly to get it all going for us.

Click to read about the Genealogy Clapper and Omniscient Light Kit!

Kristin said...

My wish would be to find proof that Eliza and her mother came off of the plantation of Col. Edmund Harrison originally of Virginia and later of Montgomery and Lowndes County, alabama.

Ed Hamilton said...

I wish a whole lot of places had kept a whole lot more records -- Ireland, Nova Scotia planters, and early Orono, Maine, for a start.

Bill West said...

No question for me either, it would have to be finding the BMD records of John Cutter West's parents.

M. Diane Rogers said...

I'm a bit late, but... I'd wish for enough time and money for that 'big' genealogy research trip, Manitoba, Ontario, Michigan, Indiana, etc., then on to Washington, DC, and New Jersey/New York, then on to the UK, Éire and Sweden. (I can dream, can't I?)