Genealogy

[Eleven]

Anyone ever work on their family tree? I have had decent success with the exception of 1 direct ancestor.

I had a 1 month membership to ancestry.com (I can't stand paying for stuff like that) and even there I could only find limited info on my great-great-great grandfather. There is no one left alive in the family that has any info, and even others who have my lineage in their own family trees have the same very limited info on him.

At this point I am stuck. I picked up some more info from a cousin tonight but it had almost zero info on my direct lineage.

I have his year of birth, year of marriage, wife's name and lineage, 1880 census info that showed him still in this area, and of course most info on his children, but that is it. The date of death and burial info is driving me crazy. I even found the plots he owned at the cemetery where most everyone else in the line is buried, but one plot remains empty and the other has someone unrelated to the family in it.

Any advice on what I should do next to find out this information? It looks like my online and family resources are tapped.

Here is what I have so far if anyone has the magic touch or resources I do not:

Lewis Baker born 1838 most likely in Clark County Ohio to John Baker and Barbara Friermood. He was married to Elizabeth Baldwin Dec. 9th 1860 in either Shelby, or Shelby County Ohio (2 distinctly different areas of the state, my guess would be Shelby County, its closer). They had several children including my great-great grandfather, Albert Baker, born Nov 27 1871.

I think that is the extent of the info I have on Lewis himself. The 1880 census showed him living in Clark County, and after that, no further info on him in the census.

Throwing this out here because I am at wits end on this one link in my family line.

[DMK]

Some times you hit a brick wall that you will never get through. I'm at the samr point with my fathers side of the tree. I can only find info back to when they arrived in Canada from Hamburg Germany, nothing in the old country.
I have recently had luck finding a relative, he's my grandfather's brother's decendant. But again he is no help with any European connections.
Try posting on a few of the gen boards, that is how I found my recent stuff.

Good luck !

[Bruins Fan]

Yes I have sort of, my father had a falling out with his brothers and sisters well over 50 years ago so I never had any contact with any of them, you can't imagine how stubborn Italians are :D

My wife kept bugging me for information about them, I had nothing to tell her.
So after all the pestering of me I put up a post on Ancestry.com and in two days I got a reply from a cousin I have never met.

We exchanged phone numbers and set up a meeting. My cousin is a retired police chief and defective and just happened to be working on the family tree.

At the meeting he presented me with three big louse leaf binders with the family tree dating back to the early 1700 in Italy. My cousins made several trips to to the old country researching the family tree, the information and documents he collected was incredible. :tu

[hotreds]

Spent many hours doing this type of work, with fair success. One place to go is your local LDS library(Mormons) and, if you are really interested, the DAR(Daughter's of the American Revolution) library in Washington, DC. Google the names you are interested in and see if there are any societies active.

Good luck!

[Starz26]

When I was researching my family tree I spent a lot of time in the library researching old microfilm of newspaper and census information. They also had section dedicated to genealogy. I traveled to cities where the information led and found a lot. I even found a note from another person searching the same person and contacted them and ended up with 100 additional years of information.

It was a lot of leg work but I was able to learn and find out a lot...

[Alarmguy1]

you can't imagine how stubborn Italians are :D



:tpd: Oh do I ever know

[Eleven]

I noticed the LDS seemed to be the keepers of the history, so much leads back to them.

The thing that makes me disheartened is so many others have my family in their tree and they all have the same limited info on Lewis.

Google is a dead end, I may try ancestry.com again for a month and see if there is anything new, as well as a trip to the library. Maybe even a trip to Shelby County and their library. Had no luck so far with Cemetery lists from Shelby County.

Thanks for the advice so far, gotta keep on looking!

[Rabidsquirrel]

I noticed the LDS seemed to be the keepers of the history, so much leads back to them.

From what I understand, their version of the bible states that people can only get to heaven if they pray for them, and by keeping track of everyone, that ensures that they don't miss anyone in their prayers.

BTW, every deceased person who has a S.S. number has it listed on that page.

[shark]

I did some looking through Ancestry dot com as well. I was amazed at how far back I could trace just a few people on my mom's side of the family, but then again I'm unsure as to how accurate the info really is. I do know that my great grandfather from my dad's side of the family came over here from Poland and settled in Minnesota; he had some siblings who stayed there.

[mosesbotbol]

Our family use www.geni.com and it's pretty cool.

[Eleven]

I have info back to the late 1600's in Germany. Haven't tried to go farther back yet but I have some pretty detailed info back to the point where the first generation of my family changed their name and moved to America, I even know the ship they came on, the captain and where they went the day the came off the boat.

But I can't find where 1 dude is buried from less than 150 years ago :)

[Rabidsquirrel]

Got lucky on the Later Day Saints webpage with my grandmothers maiden name, and got back to 1797 so far.

[McSmokey]

I have info back to the late 1600's in Germany. Haven't tried to go farther back yet but I have some pretty detailed info back to the point where the first generation of my family changed their name and moved to America, I even know the ship they came on, the captain and where they went the day the came off the boat.

But I can't find where 1 dude is buried from less than 150 years ago :)

Sounds like your in my boat getting screwed by the loss of the 1890 census. I have a G-G-Grandfather (my fathers side if course) who is limiting my research from the same period but the civil war has also thrown some kinks into that research

[Ashcan Bill]

Any advice on what I should do next to find out this information? It looks like my online and family resources are tapped.


You may have already tried these but if not they might be worth pursuing.

First, the Ohio death records from 1908-1953 are available on-line. Have you searched them?

Second, if you know anything about the family's religion, you could contact churches in the county and see if they have any records. Churches can be a good source.

Lastly, are there any old newspapers in the county that may have obituary records you could search through?

Good luck.

[Eleven]

Update:

Found 3 hits on Ancestry.com with an actual date of death for Lewis, but no burial info. Looks like 1 person entered it and the other 2 just copied. But its a start!

I broke down and started paying for Ancestry.com, and have added 2 more generations to my line, going back to 1610.

The 'Hints' on Ancestry.com are great, you can fill up an entire family in a couple clicks. I think I will keep the subscription a while and see how far I get. Of course the wife also wants her family tracked so I should be at this for a while :)

[TheTraveler]

In NC, KY and AR you'll find death certificates recorded at the Register of Deeds office (sometimes called something else like County Clerk). The clerks will help you search for what you need. A trip out there, or sometimes even a 5 minute phone call, could get you a fax, email or snail-mail photocopy of the death certificate you're looking for.

[jonharky]

I know our local library here has ancestry access for free you can only use it an hour at a time though

[Lucky_Hippo]

You could also check with the Mosonic Lodge in the area where he lived to see if he was a member. Most lodges have been around for a very long time, and can at least give you some dates/time frames that he was active in that lodge. I joined a few years ago, and found that my great grand father had also been a member, but in Kentucky.

[galaga]

I don't know if you used it without success or if you don't know about it, but have you tried Genweb? http://usgenweb.org/ Each county has a web site and you should be able to post a request there for info from people that are doing a similar search. A search for Lewis Baker on the Clarke county Ohio site turned up 700+ hits, although "Lewis Baker" returned none. Another free site that lists multiple resources is Cyndi's http://www.cyndislist.com/ . If you don't find anything at first, keep at it through the years and sooner or later you may just run into someone with overlapping branches and get a windfall. I got lucky by finding a self published book on my lineage through contacts on a county Gen Web page. Good luck.

[BlackDog]

I can trace my ancestry back to Adam. :r