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Best Laid Plans

This spring has been an exciting time for me. After years of planning, our house remodel got underway. We moved temporarily while the bulk of the work was quickly finished. Most of our belongings got boxed and stored in our bedrooms. I boxed up all of my genealogy items with a grand plan. I was going to work each morning for an hour to sort, organize, catalog, and properly store my genealogy related items. I even brought a Gaylord Archival catalog for easy ordering. I would move all my genealogy stuff back to our home beautifully boxed and cataloged.

Unfortunately, this is not what happened. I grossly underestimated what was involved with our construction project. Instead of my genealogy project, most mornings were spent at my house making decisions or running to different vendors for orders/pickups. I will not lie – I am completely okay with my project failure. We were able to move back in quickly (in construction time) and I absolutely love everything we have done to our home. From a genealogy prospective, it is time to just pick up and try again .

Genealogist Janine Adams has a great blog (The Organized Genealogist) and a great podcast (Getting to Good Enough). I am an avid podcast listener and subscribe to Janine’s podcast. There have been several episodes I have completely identified with. The theme of these episodes usually deals with getting back on track after falling off a habit or backsliding. It is like Janine and Shannon are speaking directly to me. It is great to be reminded the most important thing is to keep trying when things do not work out. Good enough includes letting go of the guilt.

Where does that leave me? Well, the 7 boxes of genealogy that left my house got moved back in the exact way they left. Brown moving boxes. Some reorganizing as we unpacked our home has led to a dedicated genealogy bookshelf in our office closet. Most of the items in the boxes have been moved to the new shelving. I still plan on cataloging and properly storing everything I have. I am carefully planning this time so I can be successful in completing my project. If I tried to start now, my attempt would be interrupted by kids, dogs, and vacation since school is out for summer. Being honest with myself about time management puts my project off until late August when my girls go back to school.

The follow up to this post will not be “Try, Try, Again” but instead read “Mission Accomplished.”

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Another Year To Celebrate

I was surprised to see today is the 8th anniversary of this genealogy blog! It seems like just last year I started writing about my family history. I guess I should not be too surprised since I was pregnant with my 2nd child when this blog started. Note to self – #2’s birthday is coming up.

I do not write as often as the first few years of my genealogy blog. I still keep trying and that is what makes fewer posts okay for me. I have more stories to tell and I look forward to getting them out in the universe!

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Adding A Face To A Name – Louis Radvanyi

Last week I was preparing a presentation I was giving at my local genealogy society. I was trying to locate a photo I wanted to include in the presentation. The photo was from 2004 so I was pretty sure it had been printed and placed into a photo album. The big question? Where was the safe place I put the photo album?!

I started tearing my office apart and flipping through all of the photo albums on the bookshelf. One album caught my eye. It is a photo album my husband’s grandmother had created for him. What made me stop and look was a photo of Grandma June and one of hubby’s best friends from college. The caption had me laughing out loud. I called my husband over and we began to flip through the album together. Most people know I am easily distracted by fun things!

Let me pause here to give you history about hubby’s family. Hubby’s great grandfather, Louis Radvanyi immigrated to the United States from Hungary. He lived in Whiting, Indiana where he worked as a painter at Standard Oil. He married Maria Nagy and had six children. Unfortunately, Louis passed away in his forties when he was hit by a car. Louis left very little documentation during his life in the United States.

My mother in law has told me a photo of Louis hung in her home as a young girl. Her memory is her Aunt Angie (One of Louis and Mary’s children) had taken the photo in order to duplicate it for all the siblings. The photo did not make it back to her childhood home. My mother in law did not know where the photo was located. Only that it was the only representation of her grandfather that existed. Over the years, I have reached out to a couple of my mother-in-law’s cousins to try to locate the photo.

Back to my crazed search for a photo. The funny caption from Hubby’s grandmother made me pause to flip through the rest of the photo album. I wanted to see what she had included. There were photos of my husband spanning his entire life. Most photos were a either of Hubby or Hubby and Grandma June.

Then there was the photo of a picture! It is a picture of the painting of Louis Radvanyi!!! We have finally added a face to the name. Apparently at some point before giving the photo to Angie, Grandma June had taken a photo of the picture of Louis.

Grandma June passed away in November 2017. She had moved out of her house about eight years before her death in order to received more care. I believe we came into possession of the photo album about that time as her house was cleaned out. I cannot believe we had a copy of this photo for so long and did not even know it!!

Good news about my presentation! I eventually found the photo I was looking for. The photo album was with my genealogy books and notebooks on the bookshelf. Right where it was supposed to be.

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{Treasure Chest} Maria (Nagy) Radvanyi Death Certificate

Maria Nagy is my husband’s great grandmother. She was born 7 March 1888 in Jablonca, Abaúj-Torna, Hungary. After immigrating to the United States with her parents as a 1 year old baby, the family lived in Lake County, Indiana. Mary married Louis Radvanyi and raised her family in the same area. Maria passed away 6 April 1950 in Whiting, Lake, Indiana.

This is her death certificate:

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Aloha 2019!

I hope everyone had a happy holiday season! To start the New Year I decided to update my WordPress blog to the new 5.0 update. There is a completely new editor in this version that works very differently than the prior versions. Think moving from Word to something totally not Word.

I am up for the challenge and in some ways the new format makes sense. I will be spending the rest of the week trying to find some how to videos to make sure I am using the new editor correctly. I also need to learn how the plugins work with this new setup because I already see that my spell checker seems to be missing.

In the near future, if you see something that looks funky, not to worry, I will figure it out soon enough. Mahalo!! (I am full of Hawaiian spirit because we just got home from a great trip to Maui!)

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{Treasure Chest} Gwendolyn June Fuller Birth Certificate

My husband’s grandmother was known to everyone as June. The only person who called her Gwendolyn on a regular basis was my husband. He did it just to push her buttons. I think he got away with it because he was the oldest grandson.

June passed away 6 November 2017. June was born 4 February 1925 in Havelock neighborhood, outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. At the time, Havelock was part of the county of Lancaster, Nebraska. Today Havelock resides within the city limits of Lincoln, Nebraska.

June’s parents were Percy Fuller and Lauretta Palmatier. June was born 17 and 15 years after her older brothers (Raymond and Marshall). Her parents were 38 and 36 at the time of her birth.

I realized in 2018 I did not have a copy of June’s birth certificate. With help from my mother-in-law, one was ordered. When the certificate arrived, I was so surprised to see that June was almost not June’s name! I wish I knew the story of how her middle name changed at the last moment. It was a good choice because the name June fit her.

  • Fuller, Gwendolyn June, birth certificate number 3668 (local) and 0391649 (state). Department of Health and Human Services, State of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska.
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{Treaasure Box} Amner Caroline (Ramsey) Flock Death Certificate

Amner Caroline (Ramsey) Flock (1840-1933) is my 3rd great grandmother.   She passed away in Enid, Oklahoma while living with her daughter, Adeline Martha (Flock) Tharp.  I have written about the final resting place of Amner and her husband John Flock.  You can read about it here.

After I transcribed the death certificate, I noticed two items that needed further analysis.  The first was the birth date for Amner Caroline.  It was listed 1841 on the death certificate.  This did not match with the date of 1840 I have in my software.  The next box on the death certificate listed that she would have been 92 years, 3 months, 4 days old at death.  I also noticed that my genealogy software said Amner Caroline would have been 92 years old with a death date in 1933.  I found an online date calculator and input the death date and subtracted the 92 years, 3 months, and 4 days.  Sure enough, the answer it calculated was 1840.  The person who filled out the death certificate made an error in the birth year.

Also, the informant is listed as Addie Thorp. The name Addie is a nickname for Adeline Martha Flock. A closer look proved her last name was misspelled.  Addie Flock married Frank Tharp in 1897 in Oregon.  All records in Oregon use the Tharp spelling. Addie had followed some of her siblings to Oregon before her marriage.  After her husband left her a widow, Addie moved into the same home as her mother in Enid, Oklahoma.

Amner Caroline (Ramsey) Flock Death Certificate

Amner Caroline Flock Death Certificate, 4 March 1933, registration district no. 24250, Primary Dist. no, 2401, Enid, Garfield, Oklahoma.  Bureau of Vital Statistics, Oklahoma State Board of Health, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

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{Treasure Box} Syllabus Handouts

I have a stack of handouts from different speakers I have seen over the years.  Today I spent time to digitize these and keep them in my Genealogy Education folder.

Why?  These handouts are full of amazing information.  I can review them for the information I learned at lecture.  Most of these handouts include additional articles and resources.  The books and articles are a great way to increase my genealogy education.

The additional resources can be extremely helpful.  Such as a speaker at my local genealogy society that included links where to find tax lists available online for many states.  I once heard Judy Russell speak about “The Fair Courts.”  Her handout included information about Chancery Courts in Virginia.  Using that additional resource, I found a court case where my 3rd great aunts  sued my 3rd great grandfather to stop dragging his feet and settle the estate of their father.

I know have all this information saved in my cloud so I can review it when I have time for some genealogy education.

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{Treasure Box} Barbara (Frick) Gamble Obituary

Barbara Frick is my 4th great grandmother.  I have written a previous blog post with a transcription of her obituary.  You can read it here.   I have also written a blog post about her burial with her husband, John Gamble.  You can read it here.

Here is a copy of the newspaper obituary I received from the Butler Area Public Library. There are some interesting details. It sounds like she may have suffered a stroke.

If you have any ancestors in Butler County, Pennsylvania, I would highly recommend checking out their Obituary Index.

Barbara Frick Gamble obituary