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Find A Grave

      

Left, Thomas Hartford (1826-1911); Right, Isabel (Rafferty) Hartford (1824-1901)

Both are my great-great grandparents on the maternal side

Photos used with the permission of Find A Grave member Silentarcher99     

When I first started getting interested in genealogy (around 2003) I discovered Find A Grave, but had absolutely no luck at all, and never went back - at least to look for family members.  Occasionally I would check out the some of the famous graves, but would never again use the site as a genealogy resource since those first couple of times in 2003.

This morning, while playing around with the search function on World Vital Records, I came to a Find A Grave record (with headstone photo) for my second great grandfather.  Then I searched again (this time without going through WVR) for "Hartford" in New York, and discovered six family member records (the last six listed) with headstone photos taken by the Find A Grave member cited above.

I'm really amazed how Find A Grave has evolved since 2003.  The main page says it has "27 million grave records."  I looked for a couple other surnames of interest (Agazio, Zaring, Cone) and found results that weren't there in 2003 - in fact there were a couple of new leads I can follow.  I even found a few other grave records of ancestors and requested photos of the headstones.  Of course, I will now volunteer to take a few photos at graveyards near me as time permits. 

I'm sure most of you have used Find A Grave for years so this is probably old news, but since I've now rediscovered the site, I figured what the heck...might as well write about it.

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Tombstone Tuesday - Anna C. Hartford Fields (1904-2002)

 

When I was in Denver last September, my brother and I walked a few cemeteries so I could get photos of some family tombstones.  One I wanted to get belongs to my maternal grandmother Anna C. Hartford (the name Fields is from her second husband) - she died at the age of 97 in 2002.  My grandmother was born in the Rock Mountains and spent most of her life among them.  When my brother and I were kids we'd spend weeks during the summer in the mountains with her, and she actually taught us the finer points of trout fishing in streams and lakes.  My brother found this stone and it originally had a man fishing, but got it changed to look more like a woman - we thought this was a fitting stone for her grave. 

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Genealogy Surprises - Jennie W. Cone (1869-1934)

I've learned a couple of valuable lessons during the last month or so.  First, don't get discouraged about not finding people you're hunting for, and second, genealogy success will happen in the places you least expect.  Early in October, I wrote about the Dumb Luck involved in finding my paternal grandfather's immigration paperwork in (of all places) the Washington State Digital Archives.  Well, a similar kind of dumb luck struck me again.  I was checking out Family Search for recent updates and, like I said in my  "Dumb Luck" post, started entering in my surname list.  When I got to the "Cone" surname, I found the death certificate for one of my maternal great grandmothers Jennie Cone Zaring (1869-1934).  The exciting part of this find was I discovered she died in Ohio...I had no idea she ever lived there and never would have thought of looking in Ohio for a death certificate.

I knew when Jennie died and where she was buried (Colorado Springs, Colorado), but the big mystery for me was I had no idea where she died.  I assumed it was Colorado Springs, but couldn't find her death certificate in Colorado despite paying about $30 for a search.  I knew Jennie was in Colorado at least up to the mid 1920s because I have photos of her with my mother (born in 1920) who was five or six at the time.  I also found her in the 1930 census living with her daughter in Northampton County, Pennsylvania.  I looked for Jennie's death certificate here, but after paying another $30 or so, I found out there was no record. 

Finding her in Youngstown Ohio was quite a surprise.  According to the death certificate, Jennie died of a cerebral hemorrhage while living with her son Walter Zaring in Ohio.  She had 11 children and (wouldn't you know it) Walter was one of two I never research so I had no idea he lived in Ohio.  It's kind of sad, but it appears Jennie was being passed off from one child to another in her old age (her husband abandoned her in the early 1920s).

With all of the online databases being constantly updated it really pays to keep your surname list handy.  Every now and then just plug your list in to sites Family Search/Ancestry or whenever you find a new one.  Who knows, maybe you can have the same dumb luck I've had recently.      

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Do You Really Know Who Your Great Grandparents Were?

Some of the responses to the recent meme going around were very interesting.  When asked to tell what they were doing 10 years ago, some people said they either did or didn't know who their eight great grandparents were.  Knowing who these ancestors were is dividing line of sorts between those who are serious about genealogy and those who are only casually interested.

Let's see...I can name them all:  Domenico Aggazio and Teresa Barberio; Pasquale Rota and Fortunata Leonetti; William E. Zaring and Jennie W. Cone; and finally John T. Hartford and Mary E. Lamping.  (I have to say I impressed myself by writing all eight without any references!)  I can name them, but I really don't know who they are (or were).  I probably know a bit more about my American born great grandparents than the Italians because of the availability of records, but I'm still disappointed about the small amount of information I've gathered.  Right now most of what I have consists of the basic vital record dates, but not much more.  I'm at the point where I could probably write short (very short) biographies of my grandparents so maybe I need to focus a little more on the eight folks above.  I think one of my new year's resolutions for genealogy will be to get to know my great grandparents a little better.

I know most of you can name your great grandparents, but do you really know them?

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Tombstone Tuesday

On my recent visit to Denver I spent a lot of time walking around Fort Logan National Cemetery and found a number of relatives.  The headstone above is of my infamous grandfather Franklin Earl Zaring.  I started my genealogy quest looking for this guy mainly because I knew so little about him, but after a couple of years hunting, I discovered aspects of his life that no one in my family ever really talked about.  This man had some demons and I detailed what I know about him in a post last June.

Find Your Family Name in Historical Documents

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Dumb Luck - Again

So....I was surfing the Internet Monday evening and somehow I ended up on the Washington State Digital Archives page.  My brain is still a little fuzzy on how I got there, but when I saw the search box I started plugging in my surname list as I routinely do when I find sites like this.  I didn't get very far because after I entered "Agazio," I got a hit...and this is what caused my brain to get a little fuzzy.

I clicked on the one result under naturalization records, and I saw the name Antonio Agazio.  Hmmm...this was my grandfather's name.  Now before I clicked again I thought this couldn't be him.  Why would there be a naturalization record for my grandfather in Washington with a date of 1901 when I already have the petition for naturalization (1925) and declaration of intention (1922) he obtained in Colorado?  There have been so many false positives in my hunt for how this man came to the United States, but there was his name staring at me...so I took a breath and clicked.

As my luck sometimes seems to go in these matters, it was him.  Here's the record page and the actual declaration of intention my grandfather signed in 1908.  The exciting part about this find is the new information this document gives me.  I learned that he traveled from Italy to France; then to Liverpool, England; then to Quebec, Canada on a ship named "Lake Michigan."  Up to this point, I had no idea he was in France, England, or the name of the ship he sailed on to Canada.  I need to study the document closer and I will write more about what I find later.  I wonder why he went through the declaration of intention process twice?

The weird part of all of this is I wasn't really looking for him...it just kind of happened.

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