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.