Tech Tuesday... Hand Held Scanner

My new toy is the VuPoint Magic Wand hand held scanner. Think of all the times you've  been at the library looking at an old fragile book or without dimes for the copy machine or all the times the line at the machine as too long and your research time too short. This little gadget is the answer to many a researcher's prayer.
 I bought it over the weekend, played with it for a few minutes and had the technique down pat. The quality is good and it's small, portable, easy to use and comes with it's own handy carrying case and cleaning cloth. Come on! Who can turn down a handy carrying case and cleaning cloth?  My one tip is, scan each page a couple of times to make sure you get a good image. You can't view your scans as you go, you have to load them onto the computer to see how you did. So I scan twice, which takes seconds, and use the best result. In my opinion, this is a must in every researcher's tote bag.

Banner Days

Yesterday was a banner day for my research. I received an envelope from O'Connor Funeral Home in Great Falls which contained records for 4 great grandparents and one great great grandparent. Big thanks to Stephanie who helped to look up the information and sent it to me, free of charge. Now this info wasn't really earth shattering. I did learn the married names of the daughters of one set of great grandparents and I learned the locations of their children at the time Great Grandpa died. I also learned that one great grandfather had 3 surviving siblings in the UK, two sisters and a brother, but no names there. I have the list of the siblings' names and maybe I can figure out who was still living. The fact that nothing really vital was learned here isn't really the point. It's another record of an ancestor to help to track the events of their life and death and it'll be filed with everything else for posterity. It was really interesting to see what the going cost of a funeral was in the 1930's, though; $400 and change, roughly.

In addition to the funeral home records, I received an email from cousin Rainer in Liechtenstein which contained ancestors' names and vital dates going back three more generations than I had found in my research. Not only direct ancestors but all siblings, spouses and children. Using that information I was able to go back one more generation on familysearch.org. Those films, containing church records of baptisms and marriages, are on order and should be arriving shortly. They will be in German, so hopefully I can scan them and email them to Liechtenstein for translation.

Lastly, I connected with one more  relative, a second cousin who lives just 3 hours away from me. He and his wife had found my tree on Ancestry and had accessed some of the files I've attached there. I saw their activity posted and sent them a message to please contact me. We've emailed a couple of times since and I've shared what I have with them. Hopefully, we can meet up some day soon. We live so close. What a fun and fruitful day it was. Reach out, connect, share and reap the benefits of each other's research.

Mystery Monday.....I've found you Andrew!

1900 Federal Census

Today just confirms further why it's so important to search the collateral lines. I've been searching for my great great grandfather Andrew Marxer. I knew he came to the US in the 1880's and that he stayed in MN while his son Joseph, my great grandfather came to MT. I knew there were at least two of Andrew's children with him in MN. What I didn't know is who he lived with in his later years. Through family information and a compiled county history I tracked down his son-in-law, Frank Nascher. Frank married Andrew's daughter Maria "Mary" and I found Andrew living with them until at least 1900. But I had to search for Frank Nascher to get any result. Andrew just wasn't showing up on the indexes. Evidence points to a 1909 death date for Andrew, so now I'll be searching St. Paul city directories for even more information. I've also located a MN death entry for an Andreas Marxer in the FHL catalog. I'll be ordering that film to make sure that it's really great great grandpa Andrew and to glean any more information I can find there.

My Favorite Spot

This is my spot at the local public library. I spend as much time there as possible looking at microfilm and utilizing all the other resources available to me in the Heritage Room. I order my microfilm from the interlibrary loan program and wait, like a kid at Christmas, for the email to come to my inbox. "Your item is ready for pick up". Then I rush down to the library at the first opportunity and while away the hours searching and researching to my heart's content.

Today I spent a few hours looking through the Great Falls Tribune from June 1932. I was actually looking for a death notice for my maternal great-great grandma, but came up empty on that. Instead and unexpectedly, I found a notice that my paternal great grandpa had been released from the hospital on 15 June 1932. I have his death certificate that states 3 Sep. 1932 as his date of death. He had cancer. I hadn't expected to find him in the paper but was happy that I was able to walk away with something of interest to add to my files.

I've ordered more film from the State Library for the death dates of each of my great grandparents. Now I just wait for my notice to come. Merry Christmas to me.

Newspaper Research

I've fallen in love with the digital microfilm readers at the Missoula Public Library. I'm practicing my newpaper research by looking up the birth and death notices of an early Missoula family. For the past three years I've been researching the life and times of Sarah Elizabeth Countryman Woody. She was the wife of Missoula's first Mayor, Mr. Frank H. Woody and she was a force in her own right. I present her story at various events in Missoula and continue to pick away at my research of her life. Looking through old Missoulians Newspapers has been so fun and informative. I recently discovered that one roll of film from the library collection is missing. I ordered a copy of that roll from the State Library in Helena and was able to continue my research. With this newfound knowledge at hand, I'll be ordering, on interlibrary loan, films of the Great Falls tribune. Hopefully, I'll be able to track down some family related stories and information.
The society pages, in the old days, were full of the comings and goings and daily happenings of the community members. It's amazing what you can learn about people by scanning the old papers.
I found an amazing account of the bridal shower, wedding ceremony and reception of one of the Woody girls, right down to the decorations and music selections. Also one death notice gave a detailed account of the funeral service. These are the types of things that give life to our research. I wonder if Santa would bring me my own digital microfilm reader for Christmas.