Monday, January 16, 2012

Marriage Certificate for CB Keller and Ella Nora Howard

Well...I ordered a copy of CB and Ella Nora's marriage certificate from Nebraska, and there it was in today's mail!! I was eagerly awaiting this new piece of information so that I could possibly search out CB's birthplace. There is family lore that he came from the Baltimore area, and one census entry lists his birthplace as Maryland, but you never know. Until today.

The marriage license information not only had his place of birth, but listed both of his parents' names, as well as his mother's maiden name. What a treasure trove! Charles Byron Keller was indeed born in Baltimore, Maryland, to William L and Julia E. (Hawk) Keller. Wow!

So now it is off to Ancestry to begin searching the census for William and Julia, and see what I find. I will be busy with that for a few days, until I come up with enough evidence to make any sort of statement, but I will post when I find out anything definite.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Happy New Year

Well, it seems that I got a little derailed there for a while! Sorry for not getting more blogging done. You know how life gets in the way sometimes. :-)

This is a new year, with new goals and - dare I say it? - new resolutions. I have embarked on the next chapter of my genealogical life. I am enrolled in an online certificate program offered by the National Institute for Genealogical Studies, which is affiliated with the University of Toronto. Classes officially start tomorrow, although I received all of the written material for the first class yesterday, so am well on my way to completing that. There are 40 courses that I must complete, however the first 8 or 10 are very basic, and I can probably rely on the knowledge I have already and get through them quickly. For example, the first one is "Getting Started". I have to put together a 5 generation pedigree chart, then family group sheets for that pedigree. I already have all of that information on my software program, and I am not going to go through the hoops of re-writing it all by hand! That would be a silly exercise, and too much of a strain on my right arm. So you see? Almost done with class #1 before it evens starts! The other classes in the "basic" section cover such information as organizational strategies, census extraction and transcription, cemetery research, land records and using the Family History Centers for research assistance, so those should not prove to be too great a challenge! I will end up with a certificate in American Research as well as one in German research. 12 of the classes are electives, and I have elected to take all of the German classes for those choices, so will have a double certification.

As a follow up to my last post, I have not yet made it to the Family History Center in Mesa. I will definitely make it this month, as it is one of the field trips for one of my classes. I am eager to get there and familiarize myself with the system once again. I researched at the FHC in Oakland, CA many years ago, but have not been in quite a while.

I also have not yet received information from Nebraska on CB Keller and Ella Nora Howard's marriage, nor on the birth records of their first child, Juliette (AKA Julia or Juliet). The information has been requested, so hopefully I will have it soon. As to my great-grandfather Gustav August Winter, I did receive a transcription of his death records from Peoria. It lists his occupation in 1899 as a policeman, which is the same information I had found in the Peoria City Directory, and lists his death in the same year from "inflammation of the brain". The death information lists the name as August Winter, while the directory lists the name as Gustav A. Winter. The address listed in both places is the same, so I think I have at last found a solid clue for this elusive man! Now, if I can trace him backward, and end up in Germany, that will be fascinating!

While on my Illinois trip I found such a large connection to Germany, with most of my paternal grandmother's family being born there, that I have decided to have that be the first major European focus for me. My grandmother and her mother were born in this country, but the rest of the family members, including her father, were born in Germany, and came here in the 1850-60's. I am excited about the German research classes that I will be taking; they will give me the knowledge I need to be able to research these families.

I wish everyone out there a very Happy New Year, and wish that 2012 brings happiness, health, love and family connections into your lives.