where2look4ancestors

Category: Genealogy

  • Chicago Illinois Inquest Record

    Obtaining inquest records from Cook County requires persistence. On July 30th I requested my paternal 2nd great-grandfather’s 1912 inquest record in a letter that said; “To whom this may concern, I would like a copy of the inquest record regarding Herman Mangels, my 2nd great-grandfather. Enclosed please find a copy of…

  • Chicago Research – Batavia Illinois

    Batavia Illinois is a lovely suburb about forty miles west of Chicago. The oldest city in Kane County, Batavia was founded in 1833 and many old buildings remain, giving visitors a sense of the community’s rich history. The Fox River runs through the center of town and shady well-kept parks are located along…

  • Chicago Research – Home Again

    Husband and I just returned from a genealogical vacation in Chicagoland. We explored records at the Gustafson Research Center in Batavia Illinois and at the Chicago History Museum, Harold Washington Library and Newberry Library. We visited several cemeteries including West Batavia, Rosehill, Graceland, Jewish Graceland and Wunders. We spent a day…

  • Pieces of String

    “Human lives are not pieces of string that can be separated out from a knot of others and laid out straight. Families are webs. [It is] impossible to touch one part of it without setting the rest vibrating, impossible to understand one part without having a sense of the whole.”¹…

  • Old Letter, New Clues

    What happens to us between “woo hoo!!” and “I’ll come back to this”? Why don’t we take the time to process documents the second our heart rates return to normal? The following letter has been in my Mangels’ file folder for years. It was penned by a distant cousin and postmarked September 2,…

  • Who wants my stuff?

    My stuff is stored in the basement and the family room and the office and the garage. There are folders and files and papers and books and pictures and maps and binders and notes that are kept inside envelopes and file cabinets and banker boxes and plastic totes and stackable…

  • Gardens and Genealogy

    I’m a late bloomer. I didn’t start gardening until I was, well, a mature adult. But now that I have a little dirt under my fingernails, I notice some similarities between gardens and genealogy. Flexibility is a virtue in both hobbies. I tried unsuccessfully to grow columbine for years, using different soil…

  • They Make My Heart Race

    Are all ancestors created equal? Not so much, no. I don’t have any fancy-dancy ancestors. No one I know of (yet) signed the Declaration of Independence, was an Indian Princess, or held court from a throne wearing a diamond tiara. Most of the people from whom I descend were pretty…

  • Half Right means Half Left

    Genealogy can be challenging enough without libraries adding practical jokes to the mix. Particularly the Family History Library, an entity I always felt was on the side of the genealogist. But this latest experience left me shaking my head. I was looking for the 1859 baptismal record of my grandmother’s…