My sure cure for genea-boredom is to go exploring for information about persons in my family tree, or to mine a database on Ancestry, FamilySearch or MyHeritage so I can add content and sources to persons in my tree.
Today I was mining the U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims, 1936-2007 database on Ancestry.com for Seaver folks, and saw a name not in my database:
Who is Gladys Jones Seaver? I don't have her in my database as "Gladys Jones" or as "Gladys Jones Seaver." The record for Gladys Jones Seaver looks like this:
This record has a birth date, birth place, parents names, no death date, and she was Seaver by 1956.
There are also four "Suggested Records" for her - a death record, a cemetery record, the 1900 census (as "Jones") and the 1940 census (as "Seaver"). I checked them all.
I didn't know who she was married to, so I clicked on the 1940 U.s. Census record on Ancestry:
Further down that screen it says her husband was Frank Seaver, age 49 (in 1940), and there were two children on the census - "daughter" Dorothy deGarmo (age 22) and "son" Crawford deGarmo (age 19). They may have been Gladys' children by an earlier marriage.
Here's Frank's record summary in 1940:
He has three "Suggested Records" for the 1910 Census (as Charles Seaver), a World War I Draft Registration (as Chas Franklin Seaver) , and a City Directory (as Frank Seaver). I clicked on the World War I Draft Registration entry and saw:
That gave me a birth date for Charles Franklin Seaver (1891-1954) and I found that I already had him in my database, but without a spouse.
There were more "Suggested Records" for Charles Franklin Seaver on the screen above, and I explored them all.
I went back to Gladys, and clicked on her Find A Grave record, and saw:
That gave me her burial location in Chico, Butte County, California.
I looked for databases and newspaper articles for Charles/Frank and Gladys Seaver on Ancestry, FamilySearch, MyHeritage, GenealogyBank and Chronicling America, but found no marriage record, obituary or other newspaper article. Oh well.
I added all of the found information into my RootsMagic database for Frank and Gladys Seaver, and noted that Charles Franklin Seaver (1891-1954) was my 5th cousin twice removed.
There is no other Ancestry Member Tree with this couple, but there are FamilySearch Family Tree entries for both Charles Franklin Seaver and Gladys Jones. I added information there for both of them.
As I suspected, the two DeGarmo children were from the first marriage of Gladys Jones to Robert DeGarmo in 1916. There is an Ancestry Member Tree for that family.
All of this took about 60 minutes to search, find, and enter into the database. Ten years ago, it would have taken months. Twenty years ago it would have taken years. Genealogy in the 21st century is a bit different, and easier, than in the 20th century.
So this was a successful bit of genea-therapy and I feel more energized now to go find out more about the next person on the Social Security Applications and Claims list. Only about 1,000 left to go!
The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/09/genea-therapy-finding-more-seaver-folks.html
Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver
Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.
Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2024.
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