Saturday, November 2, 2013

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Trick or Treat Edition

It's Saturday Night - 
time for more Genealogy Fun! 



Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to:


1)  For this TRICK or TREAT edition (it's only two days after Hallowe'en), please recount a TRICK (or research tip) that you have recently learned, AND a TREAT (something unexpected or really great that you found or received).


2)  Tell us about your TRICK and your TREAT in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, in a Facebook status post, or in a Google+ stream post.

Here's mine:

TRICK:  Use the "Search Records" link in the FamilySearch Family Tree to help you find records available on FamilySearch to add to your Sources.  I find that doing this uncovers records that I have missed.  See Searching From within the FamilySearch Family Tree - Found a Goodie for an example.

TREAT:  Definitely the biggest treat of the past month was the absolute Genealogy Act of Kindness performed for me by Luin who found three newspaper articles for me and my friend, John, while at the Oklahoma History Library on Thursday.  She obtained images and has sent them to me as email attachments.  Fascinating stuff!  I mentioned her Genea-Musings comment today in Follow-up Friday -- Helpful and Interesting Reader Comments.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/11/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-trick-or.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

Surname Saturday - FOLLANSBEE (England > colonial New England)

It's Surname Saturday, and I'm "counting down" my Ancestral Name List each week.  


I am in the 7th great-grandmothers and I'm up to Ancestor  #731, who is Rebecca Follansbee (1658-1711) 
[Note: the earlier great-grandmothers and 7th great-grandfathers have been covered in earlier posts].

My ancestral line back through two generations in this FOLLANSBEE family line is:

1.  Randall J. Seaver (1943-living)

2. Frederick Walton Seaver (1911-1983)
3. Betty Virginia Carringer (1919-2002)

4. Frederick Walton Seaver (1876-1942)
5. Alma Bessie Richmond (1882-1962)


10.  Thomas Richmond (1848-1917)
11.  Julia White (1848-1913)

22.  Henry Arnold White (1824-1885)
23.  Amy Frances Oatley (1826-1864)

44.  Jonathan White (1806-1850)
45.  Miranda Wade (1804-1850)


90.  Simon Wade (1767-1857)
91.  Phebe Horton (1772-????)

182.  Nathaniel Horton (1730-1819)
183.  Sarah Pray (1734-1819)

364.  John Horton (1696-1796)
365.  Mary Chase (1695-1735)

730.  Thomas Chase, born 25 July 1654 in Newbury, Essex, Massachusetts, United States; died before 25 February 1734 in Newbury, Essex, Massachusetts, United States.  He was the son of 1460. Aquila Chase and 1461. Ann Wheeler.  He married 22 November 1677 in Newbury, Essex, Massachusetts, United States.
731.  Rebecca Follansbee, born about 1658 in probably Portsmouth, Rockingham, New Hampshire, United States; died 27 December 1711 in Newbury, Essex, Massachusetts, United States.

Children of Thomas Chase and Rebecca Follansbee are:
*  Thomas Chase (1680-1756), married 1699 Sarah Stevens (1679-1760).
*  Jonathan Chase (1683-1756), married 1702 Joana Palmer.
*  James Chase (1685-1753), married 1707 Martha Rolfe.
*  Aquila Chase (1688-1714), married 1712 Mary Smith (1692-????)
*  Ruth Chase (1691-1758), married 1716 Nathaniel Miller.
*  Mary Chase (1695-1732), married 1719 John Horton (1696-1796)
*  Josiah Chase (1697-1723), married 1718 Sarah Porter.
*  Rebecca Chase (1700-1769), married 1721 Stephen Moulton (1696-1786).
*  Nathan Chase (1702-1784), married 1723 Judeth Sawyer.
*  Judith Chase (1704-1784), married 1722 David Horton (1701-????).

1462.  Thomas Follansbee, born about 1637 in England; died about 1726 in Newbury, Essex, Massachusetts, United States.  He married before 1658 in probably Portsmouth, Rockingham, New Hampshire, United States.
1463.  Mary, born about 1639.

The children of Thomas Follansbee and Mary are:
*  Rebecca Follansbee (1658-1711), married 1677 Thomas Chase (1654-1734)
*  Anne Follansbee (1665-1708), married 1684 Moses Chase (1663-1743).
*  Mary Follansbee (1667-1736), married (1) 1686 Robert Pike; (2) 1691 William Hook.
*  Thomas Follansbee (1670-1755), married (1) 1694 Abigail bond (1660-1734); (2) 1735 Mary Webster.

Information about the Thomas Follansbee family was obtained from Massachusetts town vital record books and several authored works and websites.

The URL for this post is:

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver





Friday, November 1, 2013

Free GenealogyBank eBook on "How to Search Obituaries to Find Ancestors and Trace Your Family Tree"

Family Tree Magazine is offering a free eBook on How to Search Obituaries to Find Ancestors and Trace Your Family Tree by Thomas Jay Kemp, which will show you secrets to mining GenealogyBank.com for obituaries of your relatives and ancestors.  The Free eBook can be obtained at http://www.familytreemagazine.com/genealogybank-offer.

You have to enter your name, email address and state in order to receive the link to download the free eBook.  As a result of your entry, you will start receiving emails from Family Tree Magazine about their offers (which you can unsubscribe from if you wish).

The free eBook is 16 pages with examples of obituaries that you might find on GenealogyBank:


One of the examples in this book is for an obituary for a person in my database, Sarah (Pray) Wade (1795-1822).  It was from the Providence [R.I.] Patriot newspaper.  I didn't know, or recall, that GenealogyBank had that newspaper in the early 19th century.  Cool!

Who else died in that area in the early 19th century?  The first person I thought of was Humphrey White (1758-1814) of Glocester, Providence County, Rhode Island.  Is there an article in the Providence newspaper for him?  There was!


It's only an Administrators Notice, but if I did not have a probate record for him (I do), this would lead me to look in Glocester R.I. town and probate records.  The notice above was in Volume 12, Issue 33, Page 4, in the issue dated 27 August 1814.

I plugged in several more Rhode Island names, and then tried some southern Massachusetts names. In a search for Alpheus Smith (1802-1840) of Medfield, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, I found two articles in the Norfolk [Dedham, Mass.] Democrat newspaper:


The one above is another Administrator's notice (Volume II, Issue 4, page 2, issue dated 29 February 1840).  The one below is a Commissioner's Notice that persons have been appointed to receive and examine the claims of the creditors to the estate (Volume III, Issue 19, page 4, issue dated 11 June 1841):


Again, both of these notices would be leads for a researcher that there is probably a probate record for Alpheus B. Smith in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, probate records (I already have the probate records).

I have many more ancestral persons to try in these two newspapers!  I look forward to some genealogy fun in the next few days.

Tom Kemp's eBook provides excellent examples of what can be found in newspaper obituaries - names of relatives, mentions of birthplaces, immigration dates, interment locations, social activities, offices held, employment or business information, and much more.  All of those items found in an obituary may lead a researcher to several other records, including vital records, cemetery, military, immigration, citizenship, to name a few.

To be sure, not all newspapers are available in digital format on websites like GenealogyBank, NewspaperARCHIVE, Newspapers.com, Chronicling America, Old Fulton Postcards, California digital Newspaper Collection, and more.  Some of them are commercial sites, and some are free sites.  But many historical newspapers are available in paper, microfilm or digital format - you just have to find them in a library, historical society or a website.  A researcher needs to include newspaper searches in a reasonably exhaustive search to find information about their ancestors.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/11/free-genealogybank-ebook-on-how-to.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

Disclosure:  I have a complimentary annual subscription to GenealogyBank, which I appreciate very much, but does not affect my opinion about the website.  I have not been remunerated in any way for this blog post.



Follow-up Friday -- Helpful and Interesting Reader Comments

There have been a number of helpful and interesting reader comments on Genea-Musings posts during the past week, including these:

1)  On CrowdSourcing Opportunity: When and Where did John Louis Powell Die? (posted 29 October 2013):

a)  Sharon helped:  "Some Oklahoma probate records are available on FamilySearch. They are browse only. I looked at the probate indexes for Payne County and found no likely guy. I checked Logan County and found a 'Burel' Powel, whose estate was probated between 1934 and 1936. Unfortunately, the records themselves are not online, only the index.

"The link for the index page is 
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1961-32125-16428-72?cc=2063710&wc=M9MP-XGQ:1122095691

"This may (or may not!) be the Louis Burr Powell you are looking for. The date does appear to mesh with the find-a-grave entry you found."


My comment:  Great find, thank you!  

b)  GeneGinny asked:  "Have you thought of contacting local genealogical societies? Looks like there's a Cushing Gen. Society at http://cushingpubliclibrary.org/genealogy.aspx and a Payne County Gen Society at http://www.pcgsok.org/. The former does obit lookups."

My comment:  Excellent suggestion!  I had not done it yet, but I will! Thanks.

c)  Anonymous offered:  "The Oklahoma Historical Society has some Oklahoma resources online, including digitized newspapers. It's at www.okhistory.org, and the newspapers are at gateway.okhistory.org . Not sure if they cover the time period in question, but it may be worth a look!"

My comment:  Another excellent suggestion.  Thanks!

d)  Rosemary helped:  "And yet another place to ask for help is the Tulsa Genealogy Center located at http://www.tulsalibrary.org/genealogy-center

"Also, Tulsa Genealogical Society at http://www.tulsagenealogy.org/ which has research services available."


e)  Geolover noted:  "Noting that the 1940 US Census information included that all persons in Ethel's household were in Perry, Noble Co., OK in 1935, that could be a place to look for marriage and newspaper data.

"The note from anonymous regarding OHS's newspapers is apropos. They do have some Perry papers for 1890s, 1910s and 1920s, but possibly not from the 1930s. A query regarding papers from there and elsewhere in the County might gather a more precise list."


My comment:  I saw that in the 1940 census, and forgot to note it in my summary.  Great catch!  Thanks!

f)  Luin gets the gold star and John's appreciation:  "While researching at the Oklahoma History Library today, I browsed the Cushing newspaper around the date of death in the FindaGrave memorial. A small article in the October 20, 1935, issue of The Cushing Daily Citizen states that Louis B Powell died in an Oklahoma City hospital from injuries sustained in a hatchet altercation. The article was datelined Oct 19, Oklahoma City.

"Since the article indicated he was from Drumright, I also browsed The Drumright Daily Derrick and found an obituary in the October 20, 1935, issue, that indicates he would be buried in the Rose Hill cemetery on Monday, Oct 21. The list of survivors include his wife (who was not named) and three children, Agnes Gene, 12, Alfred Nil, 8, and David Lewis, 6.


"I also found a lengthy article in the Oct 8, 1935, issue of The Daily Derrick, entitled "Hulsey Held in Jail Here for Attack with Ax." 

"I am willing to send you copies of these three articles if you desire."

My comment:  BINGO in spades!  Thank you so much, Luin, for taking the time to look for these, and making the extra effort to search more with another lead.  I have emailed Luin requesting copies of the articles and offering to pay expenses.  

Wow.  That made my week, and John will be ecstatic to know the death date and the incidents that caused the death of his grandfather.

Lots of excellent suggestions for Oklahoma resources too from the commenters.  Unfortunately, Ancestry.com and FamilySearch don't have a lot of collections online yet.

2)  On What Facts are Included in RootsMagic Software? (posted 29 October 2013):

a)  RootsMagic provided:  "None-Ending, Other-Begin, Private-Begin, and Unknown-Begin are all fact types from the old versions of Family Tree Maker (2006 and earlier). They had something to do with the beginning and ending of couple relationships (besides Marriage, Divorce, etc)."

My comment:  Thanks, Bruce!  

b)  Geolover commented:  "Should be added: Alt. Relationship, Betrothal, Briss, Circumcision, Marriage Bond, Marriage Publication, Godparent.

"Do you have reasons for having both Baptism and Christening?"


My answer:  The short answer is No.  I have used Baptism for American baptisms/christenings and Christening for English christenings.  Other than that, no, just ignorance a long time ago and no energy to make them all one.

c)  Laura provided a list of the standard "come with the program" Facts in a comment on the blog post.  64 of them.   She also noted: "Any other facts are User defined facts which were either created by the user or facts imported from other programs."

My comment:  Great information, thanks!

d)  Linda Schrieber offered:  "Depending on the denomination and time and place, christenings are generally near or within some months of birth. Baptism could be then, or at age 13, or later."

e)  Russ Worthington said:  "Great listing. I didn't do that because I had entered many user created Facts. From what I can tell, once you create a User Created Fact, it is NOT linked to a specific Family File, but to the Program. That may be at the Version level, but once you open a file from a previous version, that custom facts are put within the new version of the programs list of Facts.  I just counted my list and it was 130 Facts. 

"As to the facts that the Roots Magician made, those listings were from the World Family Tree CD's that were in the Family Archive collections, as I recall. You may remember seeing WFT Dates. Those pre-dated our online trees. There was an over lap of the WFT trees and the ability for Version 16 and earlier to have Family Tree Maker User Home Pages."

My comment:  Great information, Russ.  Thanks.

f)  SearchShack said "I've added facts called 
* Biography Notes - add sources that contain biographies
* Other Researchers - keep a list in the notes section and add a source for e-mails received or notes others posted on ListServes. This 'fact' helps me reconnect and collaborate with others. 

"Would LOVE to learn how to print out a report showing what facts are used as some came over here when I imported my FTM file but to clean that up, I need to be able to create a report showing which fact is used for which person."

My comment:  Two excellent ideas for custom Facts.  You could make the "Other Researchers" Fact a private Fact so it doesn't show up in reports.  I've been experimenting with using the Correspondence feature in RootsMagic to document correspondence, but I can't tie it to a specific family.

You can create a "Fact Report" in RootsMagic for one Fact and see which persons it is attached to.  Do Reports > Lists > Fact List and select a specific Fact and create the report.  

g)  Lisa Gorrell offered:  "I have 130 facts but some of them are really strange and I don't know why I created them. Some of the ones I created that I use a lot:

"Directory
WWI Draft
WWII Draft
Household Examination (Swedish)
Moving In Record (Swedish)
Moving Out Record (Swedish)
Voter Registration

"I was trying to print out the list, and ended up typing it into Word and counting them there. When I tried to print in the list dialog box, I found a way to find out who was attached to the various facts. Some of the facts I would like to consolidate or change and now I have a way to see who has that fact.

"By the way, if you try to delete a fact, you can't if it's a RootsMagic defined fact."


My comment:  The strange ones might be interesting!  The Directory, Voter Registration and Draft Facts would be very useful.  Directory would tell more than just a Residence, you could  include a description of the employment information in addition to street address and other household members.  


a)  John Laws noted:  " l got a snag.  RM6 encourages one to split addresses but then won't geocode them & won't find them in mapping and Bing maps ain't that good and also we are dealing with historical places that are possibly not shown on modern maps . Am l asking too much?"

My comment:  At this point in time, probably you're asking too much.  Hopefully, some sort of database will be instituted with the historical place names on a record date that point to the current place on the map.  

Can you provide an example of a split address?  I use the Place Name field (town, county, state, country for USA), the Place Details (separate field, e.g. address, building, cemetery, etc.) and Description (separate field, e.g.,  for room number or plot number) to separate the information.  The map then shows only the place Name then.  If I put the Address of a place in the Place Name field and click on the Map icon, then select "Online Map" when it goes to the Place List, it shows the address.  

b)  SearchShack noted:  "I had been been putting the source information (i.e. details from a census) in the source detail text field. Not sure I understand why you are suggesting copying this same information into the source note field and the person field - is it because the information will print in different report fields? Does the RM search function also only connect information added to person field to that person (vs connecting found info in a source detailed text field)"

My comment:  I started with them only in the Person notes field in RootsMagic, and they usually had a source in the Notes.  Now I've added Facts, added Sources, and added Media.  I can use the Fact Note to analyze or comment on the Fact itself, which may comprise several sources.  I tend to copy/paste the text for the record transcription or abstract if there is one.  All of those will show up in a "Family Group Sheet" or an "Individual Summary" Report, but are redundant if they are also in the General Person Notes.  In the "Individual Summary" Report they are listed as part of the source citation.  My feeling is that the Fact Notes are best used as research notes, providing comments, analysis, or research ideas for each Fact for a person.  I came to that conclusion after adding hundreds of transcriptions, so I may just leave them there.  

I think that the Narrative Reports print only the Person Notes and not the Fact Notes.  So you can see how a user needs to understand which Note type is used in which report.  I'm just now trying to figure it all out!

Unfortunately, the Report options in RootsMagic don't permit a choice of Fact notes or Person notes, or both if a user has used the different Notes wisely. 

If the information is in the "Source Detail Text" field, then it will print along with the Fact name in the "Research Notes" report, but in nothing else.  

c)  Lisa Gorrell added:  "SearchShack, I think putting the census information in the source note field allows it to be printed out into a different report about the individual. Information under the source note and comments only prints out in the Research Notes report.

"Randy, I add some information about the source before I type in the transcription so I can easily tell with a glance what the source is. I use the comments section a lot to analyse the source information, similar to what I have learned from Evidentia. It's a place to record what I have learned from the record and any discrepancies there may be (misspelled names, wrong birth/death date, etc.)"

My comment:  I think you mean "Source Note" field == "Source Detail Text Research Note" field, and the "Comments" == "Source Detail Text Comments" field for a specific source citation.  Right?   There are also "Source Master Text Source Text" and "Source Master Text Comments" fields for the source itself.    Good idea about using Evidentia analysis results in these fields.


a)  T asked:  "If you have a paid subscription to My Heritage, do you get those documents for free or is there a charge when you get to the source web site? If I were to subscribe to My Heritage, how much money would I end up spending to get documents they have found?"

My comment:  The best information I can find about access to records on MyHeritage is $120 per year for an annual Data subscription. If you have a WorldVitalRecords subscription, that counts as a Data subscription (you might have to call them to make it work).That is on top of your MyHeritage subscription of $75 for a Premium subscription (tree limit of 2500 tree people) or $120 for a PremiumPlus subscription (unlimited number of tree people).

b)  Daniel Dillman noted:  "I've also been doing a lot of this lately, and I've found a problem with using the Census data in this manner. Specifically, when a person is found in more than one Census (US Census in my usage), and you accept the address data for one Census, when you add the next Census in this manner it changes the date but does not allow you to change the address data. It appears to just over-write the existing Census with the new one, although I believe it does add the new citation separately.  Have you tried this? What was your experience with that situation?"

My comment:  No I haven't tried it yet.  I didn't know about that - sounds like a problem.

c)  Daniel Dillman observed:  "I find that the Find-A-Grave matching is excellent, and the records I've matched have supplied a bunch of missing or limited date information. However, the newspaper matching has been rather poor in my experience. The OCR is abysmal, generally. So the success rate is rather hit-or-miss depending on your existing data and which type of records you're matching."

My comment:  I agree with you on all counts.  Apparently the OCR search uses proximity of names or words and cannot discriminate context well.  It's still useful, but a user will have a lot of false positives.  The star system filter might be useful with searching the newspapers to separate the wheat from the chaff.

d)  Gilad Japhet (of MyHeritage) answered the questions:  "Randy, thanks for this post and the answer you have provided regarding subscription prices, which is accurate. I will only add that MyHeritage also allows the purchase of a bundle (data subscription + PremiumPlus) at a discounted price.

"Daniel Dillman, thank you for your feedback. What you describe is indeed a bug, that we have confirmed and will fix very shortly. The 'Extract Info' functionality compares information from the census record to the family tree profile, and currently doesn't let you add residence information from two different census years into the profile. The temporary workaround in this scenario is not to use the Extract page but to edit the profile and manually add the new information. This will be fixed quickly.

"With regards to the newspaper matching, its accuracy is indeed lower than 97% (the avg. accuracy of MyHeritage matching of structured records), as Randy noted and as you experienced. However, it is still the only matching technology for newspapers available on the market; and any correct match it will find for you may be one you would not have found yourself. So despite the errors I encourage you to review your newspaper matches and glean all the value that you can."


My comment:  Thanks for the answers, Gilad, and I'm sure that Daniel will be watching the "Extract Info" problem for his census records.

Where on the MyHeritage site is the Bundle (Data plus PremiumPlus) pricing?  I didn't find it when I looked.  

5)  That's enough for this week.  Excellent commentary from my readers who successfully escaped the Captcha trap and were able to post a helpful and/or interesting comment!


Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver


Thursday, October 31, 2013

Searching From within the FamilySearch Family Tree - Found a Goodie

I wrote Search Records From Within the FamilySearch Family Tree (posted 23 July 2013) three months ago and have been doing it sporadically on my ancestors and siblings of ancestors since then.

While at the FamilySearch Center yesterday (what, you say, Randy went to the FSC?  Will wonders never cease!), I searched from the FamilySearch Family Tree in one branch of my tree.

I was pleasantly surprised by one record I found.  Here was my process and the result:

1)  In the Pedigree view on the tree, clicked on my 3rd great-grandfather, Jonathan White (1805-1850) of Killingly, Connecticut, and saw his Profile:



Over on the right side, under "Research Help," is a link to "Search Records."

2)  I clicked on the "Search Records" link and the search results appeared:


The first result on the list is for the 1850 U.S. Census Mortality Schedule entry for Jonathan White.  I knew that I had not seen that before.

3)  I clicked on the Jonathan White link for that record and saw the record summary:


Okay, that's interesting, but it isn't very helpful.  There is a "View Image" in the right-hand panel.

4)  I clicked the "View Image" link in the right-hand panel and saw the image (only partial in screen shot below):


There is Jonathan White in the third row above the bottom of the page.  And his wife, Maranda (Wade) White is the second one from the bottom.  This record is at https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-12153-4118-68?cc=1420441&wc=MMYD-3CV:n976063414

5)  What to do now?  I plan to:

*  Extract information from the record, and use it in a future Treasure Chest Thursday post.
*  Craft a free-form source citation for it and enter it into my RootsMagic database, adding the record extraction to the Source Detail Text field.
*  Add a Census Fact for Jonathan White for this record, including the transcription of the record in the Fact Note, and adding the Source citation to this Fact.
*  Add the document image to my RootsMagic database and tagging it to this Fact.

I have already adding this record to the Sources for Jonathan White and Miranda (Wade) White.  The Source citation in the FamilySearch Family Tree in the Jonathan White profile is:

"United States Census (Mortality Schedule), 1850," index and images, <i>FamilySearch</i> (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/M9GQ-87W : accessed 31 Oct 2013), Jonathan White, 1850.

The link is to the record summary page in the FamilySearch Family Tree, not to the document image itself.

I found several other useful documents yesterday at the FSC, and had some genealogy fun.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/10/searching-from-within-familysearch.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver


My Cause of Death Pedigree Chart

I think it's OK to be a bit morbid on Hallowe'en...

On the FamilySearch blog, Nathan Murphy posted his "Death Chart" with the causes of death of five generations of his ancestors in a pedigree chart.

Judy G. Russell and Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak have published their cause of death pedigree charts also.

Here's mine (done by creating a new tree in RootsMagic, and putting the cause of death in the Name field):


I added lifespan to all of the entries, but the Pedigree View in RootsMagic shows them only for three of the five generations.

The grim totals for cause of death include:

*  Cancer (all kinds) - 9 out of 31
*  Heart problems - 4
*  Stroke/cerebral hemorrhage - 3
*  Prostate problems - 2
*  Kidney problems - 2
*  Gall bladder problems - 2
*  Colon problems - 1
*  Ataxia - 1
*  Typhoid - 1
*  Pneumonia - 1
*  Anemia - 1
*  Arterial sclerosis - 1
*  Abscess - 1 (cancer tumor?)

That's kind of scary, isn't it?

Awareness is the best path to prevention or treatment, isn't it?

Have you done your "Cause of death" pedigree chart?

A final thought:

“I don't want my life to be defined by what is etched on a tombstone. I want it to be defined in what is etched in the lives and hearts of those I've touched.” 
― Steve MaraboliLife, the Truth, and Being Free


Me too!  I agree with that sentiment.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/10/my-cause-of-death-pedigree-chart.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

Treasure Chest Thursday - Birth Certificate for Frank Walton Seaver (1852-1922) in Medfield, Mass.

It's Treasure Chest Thursday - time to look in my digital image files to see what treasures I can find for my family history and genealogy musings.

The treasure today is the Birth Certificate for my great=grandfather, Frank Walton Seaver (1852-1922) in Medfield, Massachusetts.


The birth certificate image:



The transcription of the record (blanks underlined, handwritten in italics):


The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
COPY OF RECORD OF BIRTH
Town of Medfield

I, the undersigned, hereby verify that I am clerk of the Town of Medfield
that as such I have custody of the records of births required by law to be kept in my office; that
among such records is one relating to the birth of
                                                      Frank Walton Seaver    
and that the following is a true copy of so much of said record as relates to said birth, namely:
============================================================
Date of Birth    June 5, 1852     Time ----   
Place of Birth    Medfield, Ma     
============================================================
Name of Child     Frank Walton Seaver    
Sex    Male     Color    W  
============================================================
                      FATHER                                                   MOTHER
Name                 Isaac Seaver                       Name (Maiden)    Lucretia ---
Residence           Medfield, Ma                      Residence           Medfield, Ma   
Place of Birth      Westminster                 Place of Birth            Medfield, Ma   
Occupation          Blacksmith                     Occupation             ---          
============================================================
Date of Record   _________________     Date of Amendment  _______________
============================================================

{      }       And I do hereby certify that the foregoing is a true copy from said records
{ Seal  }      Witness my hand and seal of said  Town  of  Medfield
{      }      on this  19th  day of  March 19 91 
                                                                      Nancy J. Preston
                                                                                              Clerk

Year ___________
Vol.  ___________
Page ___________
No. ____________


The source citation for this birth certificate is (using the Evidence Explained template for a Birth Certificate, local level):

Frank Walton Seaver, Copy of Record of Birth - no year, no volume, no page, no number (5 June 1852, obtained 19 March 1991), City Clerk's Office, Medfield, Norfolk County, Massachusetts.


  I don't see any problems with this record other than the record did not state his mother's maiden name (which was Lucretia Townsend Smith).  The list of births supplied by the Town Clerk to the state of Massachusetts for 1852 lists Lucretia as "Lucretia T his wife."

I obtained this birth record by postal mail in March of 1991 from the Medfield Town Clerk's office.  
The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/10/treasure-chest-thursday-birth.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver





Hallowe'en Name Whacking Revisited

There are a number of families in the Rootsweb WorldConnect database at  http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/  that have surnames connected to Hallowe'en. For instance:


1) The GHOST surname - there are 561 entries, including the descendants of Philip Ghost of Westmoreland County PA - see 6 generations here. It looks like at least one GHOST from this family is still living.





2) The GOBLIN surname - there are 51 entries. It looks like there are no real GOBLIN family trees - only isolated GOBLIN women who married men with other surnames.

3) The SKELETON surname - there are 438 entries but few trees with many generations. Methinks these are mostly misspelled SKELTON people (68,129).

4) The FRANKENSTEIN surname - There are 1,342 entries, and most of them are of German origin. One family that settled in Rochester NY is here. There is one Frank N. Stein here.

5) The WITCH surname - there are 139 entries, but no long family lines in the database. Some of those listed were accused of witchcraft.

6) The PUMPKIN surname - there are 73 entries, but no long family lines.  There are 351 entries for a given name of PUMPKIN.  

7) The HAUNT surname - there are only 6 entries, none with a family line.  There are 2 persons with the first name of HAUNT.

8) The SPOOK surname - there are 28 entries, and only one with a three generation family. There are 42 entries for people with a given name of Spook and 28 for the first name of Spooky (at least one dog!)

9) The GHOUL surname - there are 47 entries.

10) The JACKO surname has 333 entries, and there are 99 entries with a given name of Jacko..

11) The LANTERN surname has 297 entries. But there are no people named Jack O. Lantern.  

12) There are 254 CAT surname entries and 11,268 CATT entries. There is one Black Cat name.

13) There are 20 SCARY surname entries - many of them still living. There are 80 entries for a given name of Scary.

14) There are 56 DRACULA surname entries, many of them are related to The Count. There are 50 entries for a given name of DRACULA.

15) There are 536 CEMETERY entries, some of them the name of actual cemetery databases.

16)  There are 4,245 GRAVE surname entries, and 313,214 GRAVES surname entries.  

17)  There are 147,785 entries for the surname COFFIN.  

18) There are 2,498 MONSTER entries. No Monster Mash, though (there are 3,015 surname entries for MASH). There are no "Boris Pickett" persons, but there are 13 entries for BOBBY PICKETT.

19) There are 926 SKULL surname entries.

20) There are 95 SPIRIT entries. There are 3 entries for a Holy Spirit with a spouse named Mary, with a child.

21) There are 544,479 surname entries for WEBB, but only 5 entries for "Spider WEBB" (all nicknames)

22) There are 208 entries for SCREECH surname. And 44 entries for a given name or nickname of Screech.

23) There are 5 entries for HALLOWEEN surname - even a Mary Halloween.  There are 110 given name entries for HALLOWEEN (including maiden names).

24) There are no VAMPIRE surname entries, and 1 given name entry.

25) There are 18,764 BROOM surname entries.

26) There are 149 BAT surname entries, 16,822 BATT surname entries and 10,829 BATTY surname entries.  There are 725 entries for BATTY as a given name.

27) There are no ZOMBIE surname entries or given name entries. Whew!

28)  There are 54,197 entries for the surname BLOOD.

29)  The surname DEATH has 11,225 entries.

30)  The 
TRICK surname has 3,935 surname entries and TREAT surname has 62,237 entries!

31)  he surname WARLOCK has 75 entries, but there are 40 given name entries 

32)  There are 2 surname entries for WEREWOLF, both married to the same Lucky guy!

33)  There are 78 given name entries for BOO.

Enough!! What other Hallowe'en oriented surnames can you think of? Are they in WorldConnect?

Happy Hallowe'en!! Trick or Treat? 
Ancestry.com published a press release back in 2006 with Hallowe'en census entries - see the list here.

The Ancestry.com blog published some entries from death records in Who would name their daughter Halloween? Just check the records.

John D. Reid posted some Hallowe'en names and occupations  in Halloween fun from Ancestry.ca in 2009.

Craig Manson posted Halloween Census Whacking in 2009 for some of the names above.

Chris Dunham did some Census Whacking on Hallowe'en names in Censuswhacking for Halloween in 2005.

Did I miss a post on Hallowe'en names?  If so, please tell me and I'll add it to my list.


The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/10/halloween-name-whacking-revisited.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver