"Yesterday's Blog Continued"

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Yesterday I told you that I had found some new information on my Dad's Uncle Samuel Lee Phipps and on his mother's Uncle Robert Phipps. I said that I used the "Search the Web" function on my Family Tree Maker software on my computer with my family history database. I went to these two relatives and clicked the search button and ended up on Ancestry.com for much of what was found. Now, remember I have a subscription to Ancestry.com that has an annual fee that I pay mostly to have access to US Federal Census images and some misc. other resources. One source that I have been using lately is the World War I & II Draft registration cards. These are great since every male was required to file one... not sure of the ages, but they are at least 18 to 55. Which means generally every young adult male in the household (sometimes including the father) filed a card! These are great because they provided some great genealogical info. Dates of birth and where they lived on that date. Who to contact in case of emergency; their occupation & where (who) employed. You get their signature. There are categories for physical features color of eyes & hair, etc.

Through Ancestry's search engines I found both of these relatives. One I learned where he had moved... not known before. This meant I could find him in the census & a lot more, including a marriage license. The other one listed contact person as being a sister who had a different last name that I knew of before... she had remarried! Now, I could find her in census, etc.

-Written by JGWest

"Aunt Doris & My Grandma's Family Line"

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A death in the family...

It is always a sad time when family members pass away. As time goes on in our lives, we lose family members and we struggle to learn how to handle each death. We reflect upon their lives and our interactions. Generally, memories of other family come to mind. This is normal for all of us; however, genealogists often think about that person's family line and the missing data & brick walls that exist for that line.

Recently, my Aunt Doris [West] Brophy passed away at age 88. Although she lived a long way from where I have lived all during my life, I do remember being with her in person on 3 or 4 occasions. The last time was when she asked me to take her to where her father and other family members were buried in Christian County, Kentucky. She wanted to know a little more about her family she just barely knew or remembered. Aunt Doris was my father's sister and her family is the half of my family that I have been researching for over 50 years. I gave her a print out of her line from my database. Her father's line has been filled in fairly well, but her mother's line was not as well known. Over the years, much could not be found on the Phipps or Flatt lines that belong to her mother's side. It was always difficult to learn anything new... over the years, I would find just a little more, but it was never easy! Aunt Doris asked me to see what I could learn about these families for her. I tried searching on the Internet, Ancestry.com, USGenWeb & others. I checked county records & cemeteries. Mostly only finding small bits of information that did not advance my research.

This week after her death, I thought about her line some more. I went to my Family Tree Maker program that is now owned by Ancestry.com using its search the web function. I was able to find several new items on her Uncle Samuel Lee Phipps & Great Uncle Robert Phipps... found several documents that gave me additional information on others in the Phipps line. My Ancestry.com subscription is starting to pay off, especially when I come back to siblings of my ancestors. The search engine at Ancestry looks for all possibilities & variations. I found each of these uncles by checking the variations and then I knew where to look for more. Both moved to other places and I found where they had been hiding from me! I have found a lot of missing data and I have removed a couple of bricks from that brick wall in my Phipps family. I need to go for now, found a few more loose bricks!

- Written by JGWest

"Uncle Dudley dies at 86"

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Chet Behrman...
Evansville Local TV Pioneer,
died Tuesday 25 Jan 2011.

He was one of my heroes growing up with that new thing called TV back in the days when everything was still black & white. Behrman played a noon, lunch time character to cover for the non-existent national shows during that time of day. He was Uncle Dudley to every kid from 1956 thru the early 1960's. He had a metal polka-dotted lunch bucket and between cartoons, he would announce birthdays of kids. Really cool to hear Uncle Dudley wish you a happy birthday on Television!!! Of course what we remember most were his miniature-sized toys of a worm & a giraffe (& others): Juan Worm & Jerry Giraffe. I remember as an adult working on the J. Jeff Hays campaign for Evansville Mayor. Jeff asked me to deliver a press release for that day to the TV & radio stations. I walked into NBC-WFIE Channel 14 and Chet Behrman took the news package... all I could say was "you are Uncle Dudley!!!" He was both pleased & embarrassed, but he was my hero and he knew it.

- written by JGWest

"Historic Evansville Newspaper Online!"

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The Evansville Argus...
... an excellent local African-American newspaper that was published for about 5-6 years from 1938 to 1943. It is a very interesting paper that should be of great help to historians & genealogists. It can be found on the David Rice Library at the University of Southern Indiana.

My good friend, Taneya Koonce, sent me a "heads-up" on this new data online. She has a great blog that she calls - "Taneya's Genealogy Blog" that you can visit to learn more about this great news. I met with Taneya a couple years ago at Willard Library. She is a medical librarian with 1 0+ years in information management & organization. She holds a Masters of Science in Library Science – University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC – 1999 and a Masters of Public Health – Vanderbilt University School of Medicine – 2010. Taneya applies her professional experience in the identification, selection, evaluation, & critical analysis of information resources to her genealogy hobby pursuits. Her own quest in family history research started in 2006 after rediscovering family tree notes taken during interviews with her grandmothers approximately 10 years earlier. Already an active volunteer with the national USGenWeb Project and dedicated to helping others locate additional information to enrich their own family history knowledge, she is also an active blogger and participant in the Internet genealogy community. Her particular interests lie heavily in technology and historical newspaper research. Taneya has contributed a lot of great blogs & information to the TSGS Cruiser Blog! Thanks, Taneya!

- Compiled by JGWest