Yours truly dressed up in red, white and blue before joining the crowd of residents at the Club House. Hamburgers, hot dogs, etc., etc. to celebrate the 4th of July. Moments after I joined the group, a lady-friend approached me and asked: “Are you OK?”  She reads my blog and is concerned when I skip a day or two without a blog message. As you might surmise, I’ve been “climbing the family tree.”

Of no particular interest to the reader but I’m going to share illustrations of my frustration with Ancestry Member Family Trees. There are “sources” available if the “member” would only spend some time with the “search” feature. (Click the pictures to enlarge for a better image.)

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There is such a sense of satisfaction when I can go to a book I published (1989) and add those details to individuals I am documenting. (A surprise around every corner!) Ancestry provides a green leaf as a “hint” for a source. Frequently I find a “hint” in my material that allows me to gather data otherwise not “hinted” on Ancestry. Detective Lorraine here?

Click this link and you go to the website I prepared a couple of years ago. I scanned LaVerne Evergreen Cemetery Tombstone Inscription pages (and volumes of other genealogy) and offer it “free” on the Internet. Recently I mentioned the sudden inspiration to check Digitized Library of Family History for Neher family information. I never dreamed LaVerne Evergreen Cemetery Tombstone Inscription (published in 1989) and Frantz Families–Kith & Kin (published in 1996), and Digitized Library of Family History (published in 2017) would be so valuable (to me) in 2019. Hopefully, other researchers will find the information helpful, too.

Yours truly is dedicated to accuracy in her Ancestry family tree. Every record is studied to ensure spelling, dates, locations, etc., are consistent with previous documentation. You can be assured the information presented here has tweaked my curiosity. Click the images to enlarge for better viewing. In my defense, there are many records stating those birthdates. If only one record, I could understand a transcription error. This mystery will roam around in my brain and I’ll be awake most of the night!!

…and I can’t sleep!!

Yesterday was a potpourri of activities. (1) Another load of laundry, (2) lengthy conversations with two separate visitors, (3) lawn and garden repetitious stuff, etc., etc. Interspersed… time at the computer working on a challenging “family tree” mystery. “Who is Catherine Leedy?”  Ancestry Member Family Trees have copied one another’s erroneous information and list her as the mother of Abraham Miller’s children. She is the second wife after my ancestor (first cousin, five times removed), Salome Frantz, passed away. The second marriage is documented in my book Frantz Families–Kith & Kin (published in 1996) and my information came from earlier printed material. “People” don’t do research any more (?!); “people” copy “the other guy.” Someday I hope my Ancestry “tree” is so well documented, people copy my material. (My legacy?)

I won’t bore the reader with details of my many unique Ancestry searches. Was her maiden name “Leedy”? Was she previously married to a man named “Leedy”? No answer… so I checked valuable old material. Sadly, still no answer! ~~ Most of the time, on Ancestry (or Family Search), I find many “sources” for the individuals in my “tree”; I don’t “copy”….

Enough is enough!! (Right??) Landlady has vehemently dictated I will NOT proceed with a water shutoff (or hot water tank). When frustrated and I want to bury my head in a project and ignore the outside world, I “climb the family tree.”  What better way to “ignore the outside world”  then a search for an obscure woman (women are more difficult to trace because they change their name). This Tuesday morning, I returned to my search for Catherine Leedy and ventured into previously unexplored databases. I’m exhausted (I didn’t get a good night’s sleep) and have resolved to turn my back on the “digging” project. Bye-bye Catherine.