Sunday, October 31, 2010

Narrowing down a date and place

So I have been trying without luck so far to find when and where my great grandparents on the Blom line. 

My great grandmother Jeanette Moes is found under her maiden name living with a different family in the 1920 US Federal Census.  In the 1930 US Federal Census she is found living with my great grandfather John A. Blom and their daughter. 

So at least I have narrowed down the decade.  Now I just need to find the date and place. 

Friday, October 29, 2010

Double the Records... Double the Fun

Well, it has been a few days since I last posted and since then I have researched the other two records I found over at familysearch.org.  After consulting my Uncle Mike, it seems I have found the digitized birth records for my great-grandmother Jeanette "Jennie" Moes.  Not only did I find the birth certificate, but the site also had the digitized pages from the birth registry so I was able to save a copy of the birth register page for her as well.  The register page was a little harder to read but it is still fascinating to have nonetheless. 

Here is the birth certificate, and the reason I know it is hers is because not only does the birth date match the information I already had, but so do the parents names and parents birthplaces.


And here is the page from the Register of Births.


I highly recommend that if you have not tried searching over at familysearch.org that you start now!  I never thought the site would have anything useful on my lines but boy was I wrong.  I am definitely glad I started looking there.  

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Marriage Record found!

I was browsing the familysearch.org site last night and I was looking through records for my paternal line, the Blom surname.  Well, I managed to uncover a marriage record for my great-great-grandfather and great-great-grandmother and I now finally have the date and place they were married.  Below is an image of the marriage license with the date the marriage occurred also.



So now I have some new information to process and more research to do in the Chicago area. 

I also found a couple of other documents but I am waiting until I can confirm they are for the ancestors I think they are before I will post them here.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Some background...

I've been researching my family history off and on since about 1996.  When I was a junior in high school, one of our assignments in our English class was to research our family tree as much as we could within 2 weeks and write up a report on it.  Even after I was done with the project, I kept going for my own personal research and have been working on it ever since. 

A few months ago, I dived back into my research after receiving information on one of the surnames I've been researching from my grandparents. They had been sent this information from a distant cousin and it got me to digging out all my research from the boxes it was packed in from our move last January.  I've even managed to get my youngest sister interested in genealogy I think.  She at least wants her own binder full of research on her family tree like what I have. 

Some of the surnames I'm working on for my own research right now are: Blom, Vestal, Swets, Hazlett, Moes, Van Royen, McDonald, Wallace, Shipman and others.

I am also researching for my siblings paternal lines: Riggins, McCourt and Strater so far.

Well that's about it for this post.  I am going to try to post when I can but I'm making no promises as to how often this blog will be updated.