Indiana Historical Society visit

Yesterday, I dropped in at the Indiana Historical Society to see the library on the second floor of their building.  After signing in and locking my belongings in a locker, I asked at the desk for some pointers on researching my Bavarian ancestor, George Buchter.  He lived in Indianapolis from the 1860s until 1879.  I am still working on determining his year of immigration to the United States, but I thought I'd try to learn a little more about his life in Indiana and Indianapolis.

Two More Genealogy Road Trips

I've been feeling a bit guilty because I haven't made any major breakthroughs with immigration research in my family tree.  Several of my lines are once again at brick walls, so instead of dwelling on this, I've been focusing on exploring local genealogy collections.  Last week, I visited the Columbus Family History Center, and today I dropped in at the Edinburgh Public Library. Both have great resources and unique collections.

Three Indiana libraries

Within the past week, I visited the Allen County Public Library, the Fayette County Public Library, and the Plainfield-Guilford Township Public Library.  The first two visits were for my own genealogy research purposes and the last visit was to participate in the Hendricks County probate papers work session.

Find A Grave = Find Your Ancestors

Ever since I visited Crown Hill Cemetery in September, I have been wanting to discover new information about my ancestors who are buried there.  I also want to share the information about their birthplaces and specific birth and death dates. 

I have been aware of the usefulness of the website Find A Grave for a while, and I know that some of the library volunteers at the Johnson County Museum add photos and contribute information to the records.  After learning from them about the process of getting memorial records transferred to them, I thought that I should give it a try. 

Clues hiding within arms' reach

Do not assume anything when you are researching your ancestors.  I know that I have been told this at the many genealogy workshops I've attended over the years, but did I heed this advice? Not exactly.

I have been volunteering in the genealogy library of the Johnson County Museum of History for almost one year.  I have enjoyed helping library researchers find documents and information about their Johnson County ancestors.

Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis

IMPORTANT UPDATE (8/11/2024): The Genealogical Society of Marion County, https://genealogyindy.org/ has microfilm copies of some Crown Hill lot books and Crown Hill day books. Please contact them for visitors' hours and how to access these records. 

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IMPORTANT UPDATE (11/3/2017): The Genealogical Society of Marion County is no longer located at Crown Hill Cemetery; they have a new location at Memorial Park Cemetery, https://genealogyindy.org/ The burial permits, lot books, and day books that I accessed remain at Crown Hill. Please contact the Crown Hill Cemetery Office, Indianapolis, Indiana.

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The Genealogical Society of Marion County has a research library in the Waiting Station building at Crown Hill Cemetery.  I visited the cemetery to photograph tombstones a few years ago, and I knew of other family members who were buried without markers in a plot there.  The online burial locator is useful: http://www.crownhill.org/locate/. 

Genealogy for Night Owls

I had an opportunity to attend an event, Genealogy for Night Owls, at the Indiana State Library on August 15th.  My plan was to try out some databases, to look up some obituaries during the open research time, and to learn more about preserving documents and photographs. 

Visit to the Cincinnati Public Library

On July 3rd, I had the opportunity to accompany two other genealogy enthusiasts on a trip to the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.  As far as I knew, I did not have any ancestors who lived in the Cincinnati area, but I thought I could at least see what the library collection had to offer. 

Brick Wall?

I feel relieved that I got the S.S. Volendam passenger list out on the blog.  Now I'm wondering what genealogy problem I should tackle next. 

SS Volendam - Complete File & Scanned Images

I've finally figured out an easy way to present the passenger list from the SS Volendam.  There is now an embedded spreadsheet: http://makinggenealogywaves.blogspot.com/p/testing-excel-data.html

You can scroll through the entire list, or if you know a name, you can search the text using your browser's "Find" function (Ctrl+F).

Historical newspapers - You'd be surprised!

Recently, I decided to re-run some searches on Ancestry. On a recent episode of Who Do You Think You Are, I was impressed by the wealth of information that they found in historical US newspapers. With the rate that Ancestry keeps adding new digitized sources, you never know.

Traces of my immigrant and overseas ancestors

I started this blog as a way to organize and share the information that I've found so far in my genealogy research.  I will summarize some important immigration events that I've been able to trace on my paternal line.

My gg-grandfather Sidney DAVIE, born in Wales in 1863, resident of County Devon, came to the United States from England in 1879 on the SS Devon.

Passenger List, S.S. Volendam, Holland-America Line, August 1950, Rotterdam to New York - Part 3

Here is more of the transcription/text version of the list for Passengers with Last Names Beginning with E & F.  This portion already appears on the images I've posted.  Please click the tab near the top of my blog to access the images. 

Digitized Passenger Lists

Sources of digitized passenger lists from steamship lines:

1. Gjenvick-Gjønvik Archives (http://www.gjenvick.com/)

Great archives, great site! They have a number of passenger lists already transcribed, and are currently working on adding more transcriptions.  I love seeing the artwork on the covers of the steamship lines.

Creating a passenger list database (maybe?)

I'm putting the passenger list posts on hold for a bit. 

What I really want to do with the Holland-America Line Passenger list of the SS Volendam, 8 August 1950, is create a *simple* database that is searchable.  I've been researching which free database hosting sites are out there.

Image Set

Click the link to see images of pages 3-7 from the SS Volendam Passenger List: Image Set

Passenger List, S.S. Volendam, Holland-America Line, August 1950, Rotterdam to New York - Part 2

Please click these links to access the images and complete passenger list.

SS Volendam - Complete Passenger List

SS Volendam - Passenger List Images

Today will be a quick post.  Here is the next part of the list - last names beginning with C and D.
I don't think that the search bots have found my blog yet, so I'll wait and see.

Passenger List, S.S. Volendam, Holland-America Line, August 1950, Rotterdam to New York - Part 1

My second post! Here is the first installment of the passenger list for the S.S. Volendam, sailing out of Rotterdam on August 8, 1950, via Le Harve, to New York City.  Because there are over 1400 passengers, I've decided to publish the passenger list in chunks.

First post and first sighting

Here it is--my first blog post!  I've been pursuing my genealogy interests for over a decade.  It's been quite a learning experience for me.  Recently, I attended a workshop on how to create a genealogy blog, so I decided to jump in feet first.