Death Certificate received!

Today's mail finally had what I have been waiting for from the State of Indiana.  My great-great grandfather, Arie Blom's death certificate!

There was a note attached to the receipt regarding the fact that many of the older records were printed on very porous paper and that due to the age and condition of the orginal document, the above certificate was the best reproduction they could make.

So, in addition to the ships passenger list, I now have a second source listing Jacob Blom as his father, but still no documentation of who Arie's mother was.

Small Brick Wall torn down

So I have been researching my great-great grandfather, Arie Blom Sr., and had gotten stuck on getting his death certificate.  I had sent away for it in the state of Illinois based on the following newspaper posting I found on Ancestry.com

So with the above article, I had decided to search in Cook County, Illinois for his death records since the article had mentioned Lansing as where his daughter and her husband were going to.  I also checked the date of the newspaper and looked up a calendar for 1943 and found according to the article his date of death was July 19, 1943.  

Well, I sent off for a copy of his death certificate from Cook County, and was surprised when I got a letter back stating no records found for the information I gave him.  Especially since I found an entry on interment.net for him and his wife buried at Homewood Memorial Gardens in Homewood, Cook, Illinois. 

I called Homewood Memorial Gardens and asked them to send me a copy of his burial record and the first one I sent was actually for his son, Arie Blom, Jr.   When I finally got the right record, I figured out why Cook County doesn't have a death certificate for him:

At the very bottom of the record, under remarks... "POD: Hammond, In.  No int order, too old".  So now, I am waiting for the State of Indiana to do their search and hopefully within a week or so I will have my great-great-grandfather's death certificate in my hands.

Absent no more

I had pretty much abandoned the blog for awhile because life just got in the way.

I am back now and am working on a post about my great-great-grandfather, Arie Blom Sr. that I am going to be posting a little bit later today.

Yes, I am alive!

It seems like it has been forever since I've written here.  Working full time has kept me busy and I haven't had much time for my genealogy research. 

Since my last mailbox waiting game post, I have received my grandfather's death certificate and my great-great-grandfather's naturalization documents.  I've been having a hard time trying to successfully digitize the naturalization documents as they are on larger paper than my scanner can handle.  I did take some photos of them with my digital camera but it's not as clear and sharp as it could be if I had scanned them.

I am still waiting on the death certificate for my great-great-grandfather.  Hopefully by the end of this week it will be in my hands. 

Update for the mailbox waiting game

So a couple of weeks ago, I sent off for a copy of my grandfather, Wesley John Blom's death certificate.  I also sent off for my great-great grandfather, Arie Blom's death certificate and naturalization documents.

I still have not heard anything back regarding the death certificates, however one of the checks I mailed off has been cashed so hopefully I will see the one for my grandfather soon!

I did, however, get a letter today from the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County Illinois's office regarding the naturalization documents.  They found the documents and were sending me a letter detailing the cost of photocopies and mailing fees, a total of $17.94.  So once again I am playing the waiting game as I mailed off the check this morning before going to the grocery store.  At least now I know the process a bit more so that when I go to order the naturalization documents of my great-great grandfather Henry J Moes, his wife Gertrude Hillegonds and Henry's mother Jennie, I will be better prepared. 

Ancestor Approved Award

So back in November, I was nominated by Alice Keesey Mecoy (author of John Brown Kin blog) for the Ancestor Approved blogging award.  I was still getting into the swing of posting blogs and kinda set it on the back burner so to speak as I hadn’t really thought of homework aspect of the award much. 

Part of receiving the award is to “list ten things I have learned about any of  my ancestors that has surprised, humbled, or enlightened me and to  pass the award along to ten other blog writers whom I  feel are doing their ancestors proud.”

Well, I was also given the award on the 12th of January by Jenny Lanctot (of her blog Are My Roots Showing).  I work full time so I hadn’t really given much thought (again) to the ten items list.

I figured this week, however, since I took a couple days off from work so I wouldn’t have to be out in the snow, I would go ahead and work on it.  My list of ten things I have learned will be in an upcoming post.  I just wanted this post to recognize the two great bloggers who had given me the award with this one!

Mobile Monday - New ancestry app for the ipod touch, iphone, and ipad

There's a new post on Ancestry's blog regarding the newly updated Ancestry app for the ipod touch, iphone and ipad.  This new update to their mobile app Ancestry (formerly Tree to Go) brings the app in line with the way you view member trees at ancestry's website.

To me, this update is just what I was looking for with their mobile app.  As soon as I saw the blog update in google reader, I immediately grabbed my ipod touch to update Tree to Go so I could see it for myself. 

I went into my main tree and after it finished the sync, I was presented with the tree view.  I flicked right to left in the top half of the screen until I got to my great-grandfather, John A. Blom

After selecting my great grandfather's little card, I was then brought to this screen:

Here is the family view:

And here's the photo view:

And last, but certainly not least... my personal favorite... The Evidence view:

From what I also read at the ancestry blog, they are also considering a Droid app, which would be great for me because then I would definitely have my ancestry tree anywhere I go since I have a Droid phone as well as my ipod touch.  Until the android version does become reality however, if you do have an iphone, ipod touch or an ipad, and you are a member at ancestry, I highly recommend you go download this app.  After all, the app itself is free!

The mailbox waiting game...

Yesterday, before work, I dropped off 4 items to be mailed out at the post office.  One was a few photos I had promised to send to my little brother.  The other 3 were genealogy related. 

I sent in a request to the state of Missouri for a copy of my grandfather, Wesley Blom's death certificate.  I have a copy of his delayed birth certificate already and figured it was finally time to get the death certificate to go with it. 

I also have a couple of requests on their way to Illinois regarding my great great grandfather, Arie Blom.  One is a copy of his death certificate, and the other is a copy of his naturalization record. 

So now, I get to sit back and anxiously await my new-to-my-genealogy-collection documents to show up in my mailbox. I think I am most excited about the naturalization records as it will be the first time I've seen a set of them.

The Ultimate Family History Journey sweepstakes...

I was browsing through ancestry.com message board posts earlier and when I clicked back to my home page, I noticed the ad on the right:

Clicking on the image took me to enter the sweepstakes.  You can enter once each day until April 8, 2011.

Here's what you have a chance to win (and I sure do hope I am a winner!):

If you win the grand prize, you will get:

• $20,000 in travel money
• Up to 8 hours of consultation time with an expert genealogist
• Help from up to 5 experts in fields relevant to your family history
• A yearlong Ancestry.com World Deluxe membership for you and 5 family members

20 First Prize winners will get an annual Ancestry.com World Deluxe membership

So, if I were you, I would be going there every day until the 8th April to sign up for your chance to win!

It's been awhile since I've gotten a chance to write a post here.  Working full time sometimes has the downside of not having enough time for my genealogy addiction.

Today I was thinking I would check the stats and see some of the searches that have brought people to my blog in the last 30 days.  There's only a few but it's still pretty neat to see that people are being directed here through searching for things.

Here are the search keywords from the last 30 days or so:

hillary vestal longton kansas - I wish I knew who this person doing the search was, as this is my great-great-grandfather and perhaps we are somehow related.

mygenresearch.blogspot.com - Wonder if this one was typed in the search bar instead of the address bar instead?

tackling brick wall - I've managed to do this a few times since August when I got back into my genealogy research again.

to my great great grandfather - I wonder who your great great grandfather was?  One that we share as a common ancestor perhaps?

1900 US Federal Census handwriting...

I've been catching up on my source citations in my rootsmagic database, and I am struggling to figure out what the occupation of my 2nd great-grandfather Henry Moes is for the 1900 US Federal Census. 

The image I found on ancestry.com is below:

Year: 1900; Census Place: Chicago Ward 34, Cook, Illinois; Roll: T623_290; Page: 5A; Enumeration District: 1115.


Anyone out there who thinks they know what the occupation is, I would be really grateful for the help!  

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - My Very Best 2010 Research

This post is in answer to Randy Seaver's posting on his Genea-Musings blog.

From his blog post:

It's Saturday Night again (I know, you just celebrated New Year's Eve - are you home for the night?) -- time for some Genealogy Fun (what else is there?)!!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1)  Decide which of your (many?) genealogy research adventures was your "very best" (your definition). 

2)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Status report or comment on Facebook. 

I think mine would definitely have to be finally finding the marriage date of my great-grandparents John A. Blom and Jeanette Moes.  The Blom/Moes lines have always seemed to elude me ever since I started researching my family tree around 1996 and I had always gotten stuck trying to get past my great-grandparents. 

This past August I recently got back into researching my family with a passion, and after listening to hours and hours of podcast episodes of Genealogy Gems and The Genealogy Guys, I tried going about my research a little differently, using ideas heard throughout the shows I had been listening to.

I initially had guessed that my great-grandparents had been married between 1920 and 1930 based on the 1920 and 1930 US Federal Census Records I had found for each of my great-grandparents.  I had been browsing newspaper articles and on archives.com, had found an article in April of 1926 that had listed my great-grandmother Jeanette Moes under her maiden name.  Well, my grandfather was born on July 4, 1930.  I found my great-grandparents living together in the 1930 census with my Great Aunt Lois, so I knew by 1930 they were married. While browsing further newspaper articles though, I found a birth announcement for my grandfather's oldest sister, Lois from October of 1926.

Using this information I had successfully narrowed down the marriage date to being between April and October of 1926 but I still didn't have an exact date.  Until I found an index online of the Lake County, Indiana Marriage Indexes.  The index only listed up to 1920 but something compelled me to check anyways just in case, and wouldn't you know it... I found them!  Under both bride and groom listings there before my eyes on my laptop screen was the names, date of marriage, date of application, date the license was filed, the book and page numbers of the applications.  So, $3.00 plus a mailed request later, I was able to get my hands on the documents that confirmed that my great-grandparents were married on April 15, 1926 in Lake County, Indiana. 

What I realized after I reviewed the marriage license applications and the marriage certificate and re-visited the newspaper article mentioning my great-grandmother in April of 1926?  Great-Grandma was about 3 months pregnant with my Great Aunt Lois when they got married.  The "miscellaneous" shower mentioned in that April news article must have been in reference to both a bridal and baby shower unless I am mistaken on that.  

I think the above case is my best research of 2010 because I had to use several different sources to investigate and narrow down the exact date that my great-grandparents were married.  It was so exciting when I finally found them in the marriage index, and I'm sure my husband thought I was crazy when I did my little genealogy happy dance the day the marriage documents had finally arrived in the mail to confirm what I had found in the marriage index and proving just how useful the research techniques I had learned from the podcast episodes were.