Where are you Harry Hill?

     Where are you Harry Hill? You frustrate me to no end! I know you're there. Couldn't you have left a few more bread crumbs about where you came from and where your parents came from? That would have been so helpful. Don't get me wrong. I'm so grateful for what I DO have. But I want to know where your family came from in Ireland. Is that too much to ask?? I'm going to find you. And your family. I'm good at puzzles and I was good at "Where's Waldo?" You are my modern-day Waldo. Blended in with all the other Harry (Henry) Hill's out there. But I will find you. There will be a distinction. You will finally stand out. And that day I will shout, "There's Waldo!"

    Yeah so as you can see from above, I am frustrated. I am trying to locate my 2nd Great-grandfather, Harry Hill in New York. Which is proving to be an arduous task. I have no link to an area in New York. I assume it was New York City. I don't see the family moving out of the city unless they had a reason. But I have no proof. I have written about Harry Hill before, as he is my Immigrant Ancestor. Now that is not entirely true as he was born in New York. BUT both of his parents were from Ireland. So while he didn't immigrate, he is full-blooded Irish. 

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Read about Harry Hill here

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    I am still trying to trace some leads here in St. Louis to hopefully help me narrow down my search in New York. Until I get a response though, I am forging on. I have begun my research in New York. I have located a Harry Hill in New York City in the 1870 US Federal Census that matches the age of my Harry Hill. But that's all that matches. So I have no proof it is him. There are a few Harry Hill's in New York City in 1870, so I need to narrow it down. Which will include tracing ALL the Harry Hills I find to rule them out.  Oh boy... this is going to be a long process.

What I know about Harry Hill

• He was born in New York (multiple sources back this up)
• His birth date is approximately 24 May 1845 (based on age from Death Certificate; 53 years, 6 months, 9 days)
• At the time of his death, he was a painter; owned his own business for years. In keeping with that, he could have worked in trades related to this (Laborer)
• Came to St. Louis around 1877 (according to info on Death Certificate)
• His parents immigrated to New York before 1845 (based on age from Death Certificate)
• He was married at Holy Ghost Evangelical Church in 1879 (a German Protestant Church, not a catholic church)

    Knowing this information will help me narrow down and eliminate other Harry Hills. That's the best way to try to find someone. Eliminate who they can not be based on what you already know to be true. So let's get started.

Beginning Research in New York
   Thanks to a friend in the Genealogy Addicts Anonymous Facebook group, I have access to New York City Directories. So I started with those. I looked up all Harry Hills from 1869 to 1880. Since we know that Harry Hill came to St. Louis around 1877, we can eliminate Harry Hills that were at the same address past that year. I included all the way up to 1880 as I don't have a guarantee the year he came to St. Louis. But since he was married in 1879 in St. Louis, we know he was definitely there around that time. Also, City Directories are taken a year before and released a year after. So an 1880 City Directory includes people who lived in the city from the year before.

    So I began looking up all the Harry Hills from each year. While looking those up, I noticed a few repeat entries from year to year. Except they were listed under "Henry" instead of "Harry". Oh, this complicates things. So I also looked up all the Henry Hills that were listed in the city directories as well. 

1873/1874 NY City Directory Source: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/	1874/1875 NY City Directory Source: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/

    I created tables in my research log notes to organize and coordinate my research. Once I went through those city directories, I color coordinated similiar entries from the different years based on the same information.

Research Log

Harry Hill

City Directories

    As you can see, I have crossed through a few names. Those are people I've already ruled out. After I listed out all the entries and color coordinated the matching people, I went to the 1870 Census and looked up all the Harry & Henry Hills I could find. Then I worked on matching up those in the census to the city directories. I used the same color for the entries in the 1870 census as I did for the city directories.

Research Log

Harry Hill

1870 US Federal Census

    Based on some criteria, I was able to rule out a few more people. But I still have a few options that I just can not rule out officially. The next step will be looking further back to the 1860 US Federal Census. Harry will be 15 and he might be living with parents. But going back will hopefully help me eliminate more options. 
    This might take a while and it might be the long way of going, but I don't know what else to do. As I said before, tracing the others is the best way to rule out who is not your ancestor. I've used that technique before when tracing my Helfrich line. But I was researching in a familiar area at that time. I have not researched in New York before. Plus this will only work as long as the family stayed in New York City. I don't see a quick end in sight, but I'm not done researching yet.

This is just the beginning...

Stay tuned for more updates on my research about Harry Hill.

Week 18: Social

     When I think of the word "social", the first ancestor that comes to mind is my grandma, Ruth Wheeler. She was a very social person. She belonged to many organizations and groups that required quite a bit of socializing. I can't even begin to name all the organizations she was a member of (mostly cause I don't know all of them haha). But there was one group that she was a part of that I participated in every once in a while. Card Parties.

Me and my Grandma

    Yes, you read that right. Card Parties. What's that you ask? It's a gathering of a group where they play cards all day. Playing cards was a very popular pastime. It still is in some circles, but it was something women (majority of the time) would do during the day (in the 50s and 60s) while the men were at work. Ex. Bridge Club. But playing cards to pass the time has been around since the early 19th century.

    If my memory serves me correctly, my grandma's group would get together for big card parties once a year. They would rent out a hall, set up tables everywhere for the members to play cards, serve food, and even have door prizes and raffles. Those were my favorites. I would scan the tables of prizes to see what I would pick if and when my number would be called. Mom and grandma would give me (and my friend if I brought one) their door prize tickets as well. I know what you are thinking. That the prizes were the only reason I attended these card parties. Well, you would be very wrong. 

    Believe it or not, I loved playing cards from a young age. Especially Canasta. That was my game of choice. My mom and grandma taught me how to play so we could have great times when we would visit my grandma. Grandma loved playing cards. Especially Gin Rummy and Bridge. I have to admit, I never got the hang of bridge. But Canasta, oh I would go nuts over. We would go and stay with my grandma overnight (or for a weekend) and we would spend hours playing Canasta and eating Cecil Whitikers Pizza. Great times!

Canasta
Source: Wikipedia

    So when grandma started inviting Mom and me to her card parties, I was THRILLED! We would sit for the whole day playing Canasta. Grandma got to socialize with all her friends too. The ladies loved having a younger generation in the group that enjoyed playing cards just as much as they did. It shocked many of them when they learned I knew how to play Canasta and was good! Some of the ladies would even give us their door prizes just because. I wish I could remember the ladies my grandma introduced me to though. And I wish I had pictures from the card parties we attended.

    It became more fun when I taught my best friend Crystal how to play. Now there were four of us! She would come and stay at my grandma's with us and she would even go with us to card parties as well! I miss those days so much. Going to visit grandma and go to her card parties. They were such a great social event. I looked forward to them every year. 

    I do have one item that I won from one of the raffles they had. It is a rug that my grandma had made. She told me I should pick something I wanted, and I did. I wanted that rug. One, it was pretty, and two, my grandma had made it. Even then, I was a very sentimental person. That small rug is packed away at the moment, mostly because I don't know where to put it. But maybe one day I will get it out.

Great times. Great memories. I did teach my husband how to play Canasta so every once in a while we will play. I beat every time. Well, almost every time. He did beat me once. Haha! We did play once with his parents. And I never realized how much of a shark his mom is haha! She is excellent at Canasta. Beat the pants off me for sure.

    Card parties were a great social event. Did you ever attend a card party? Do you know how to play Canasta? Oh, you just became my new best friend haha!

1950 Census - New Finds & Surprises

     Ancestry.com has finally released the indexes to the 1950 Census. A SEARCHABLE index. While the hints haven't shown up yet as of the publishing of this blog post, you can search for your ancestor and then add the census to your tree. Oh, I've been so waiting for this! While I've found the majority of everyone on my list there were still a few family members I had yet to locate. Either because they moved somewhere I wasn't aware of or they traveled a lot and I couldn't track them. There are some of the family members I found and some surprises as well.

James Benjamin Francis Wheeler
    J. B. Wheeler is the father of my grandpa, Les Wheeler. I had a few address options for him, but neither had panned out when. He was one of the first names I searched on Ancestry to see if he would pop up. And he did!

    Surprisingly, he was living with his oldest living son, James Enoch Wheeler, and his family. They were living in Oakland, Missouri at 961 Big Bend Rd. I hadn't even attempted to look for James E Wheeler when I originally made my list. I figured I would look him up later after the index had come out. I never guessed J. B. Wheeler would be living with his son.
    Something exciting I found was J. B. was on the final line of the census, which means not only is he on a sample line, he has extra questions. More than everyone else. I learned a couple things about J. B.  I learned he attended school up until past 7th grade. He finished 7th grade but did not go any further. I also learned the last job he held was in construction. One of the questions did ask how long he had been married last and he put 20 years. He also selected "yes" that he had been married more than once. If I didn't know this already, this would have been helpful. But these weren't the most surprising facts I learned by locating this census.

1950 US Federal Census
James Wheeler & Family
Oakland, St. Louis, Missouri
ED: 95-269; Lines 24-30
Ancestry.com

   

As I was looking at this census, I had one question: Where was Pearl? Lucy Pearl was J. B. Wheeler's 3rd wife. They were married in 1930. The family was well acquainted as both their children from previous marriages had married. But, where was she? She wasn't living in the household. Then I looked a little to the right and noticed under the "Marriage" column, "Sep" was written, which means separated. Interesting! A quick search for Lucy Pearl Wheeler brought up a census record where she was living as a lodger. She was also listed as "Sep". This shocks me as there was no indication that they had separated in the information I had. J. B. Wheeler died in 1957 and he was listed as still being married. Lucy Pearl Wheeler died in 1967 and she was listed as a widow. Even J. B.'s obituary states, "Wife, Lucy Pearl Wheeler" so they never officially got divorced. It is unclear if they ever moved back in with each other. Almost a year before he passed, he moved into a nursing home where he lived out his life. 

1950 US Federal Census
Pearl Wheeler
St. Louis, Missouri
ED 96-599; Line 30
Ancestry.com

Ruth Kelley    

    Ruth Kelley is my grandma's Aunt. I grew up with her and knew her well. She was married to James Howard Kelley, but he died before I was born. He was a general contractor who traveled all around the US working on projects. One being the space needle in Seattle, Washington. Mom has memories of him sending special gifts back from his travels which included an Eskimo doll.
    With all the moving around and traveling he did, I knew it would be difficult to find them in this census. I did try using addresses I had for them but wasn't successful. So I was waiting, impatiently, for the index to be released to find them. And I finally DID find them! Although, I was slightly disappointed.
    They were living in the area I thought they were, but just at a different address. So it really wasn't as exciting as I thought it was going to be, but I am still glad I found them. Aunt Ruth was working in a cafeteria at a high school which Uncle Howard traveled around. I wonder if her picture would show up in a yearbook from around that time. Hmmm... Anyway, I'm still glad to have found them.

1950 US Federal Census
James H Kelley, Ruth H Kelley
ED 98-672; Lines 1-2
Indianapolis, Marion, Indiana
Ancestry.com

    Those are the two ancestors I was unable to locate by address and ED districts alone. It took the index being finished for me to locate them. I did learn some new information about my family so it was definitely worth locating. I will search for more ancestors later, but these are the more important to me.

Have you tried using the index on Ancestry yet?
Who have you found? 

Week 17: Document

     I really struggled with this prompt. It is such a simple prompt, but because of all the different possible avenues to take, I got tripped up. Nothing immediately stood out. Then it hit me. Why not write about what I am working on right now; which includes many documents. Perfect.

    I am currently in the process of digitizing a box of documents that belonged to my mom and dad. Something you might not think about digitizing. And more than likely, it's not in your collection anyway. What's that you ask? Tax documents. I know what you are thinking. Why wouldn't I digitize tax documents? Well, most of the time, people do not keep copies of their taxes past 10 years, or even less. Why would you? There is no need for them anymore. That's why I said it probably wouldn't even be in your collection anyway. Well, when it comes to my parents, as I've stated in the past, they don't get rid of ANYTHING!

    When I cleaned out my dad's filing cabinet, one whole drawer had tax returns going back to the early 1980s. I pulled them all out of the drawer and put them in a box to go through later. Later was a few months ago. As I started going through the envelopes, not only did I find their tax returns, I found receipts, canceled checks, notes, and more. Details about their lives for that year. Do you know how much information you can glean from these? It was at that moment that I decided to save the box to digitize. As much as I'd like to keep the originals, I just don't have room. So here I am now. Digitizing my parents' tax returns.

Receipts from 1985

    I will be writing another blog post later talking about the information you can learn from these documents. Some obvious facts and some not-so-obvious facts. And as the years went on, the requirements changed. As we get more currently, there are fewer and fewer extra documents. As I stated, some of the envelopes had returned checks. I scanned each one. It may be overkill, but I would rather do the extra work now than regret not doing it later. 

Drug Store Receipt
Jennifer Fuchs - 1985

    It is fun looking through receipts and such from when I was just a baby. Trying to learn more about my parents and their struggles trying to make ends meet. There were even medical receipts in these envelopes. I took the time to convert the income figure to today's amount to understand more. 

    So that's what I am currently working on. Pouring through many documents. Digitizing. Analyzing. Reminiscing. Definitely keeps me busy. I've been laid up with some health issues, so this works. What kind of documents are you going through right now?

1950 Census - Reviewing names on Family Search

     The 1950 Census has been available now for 21 days. After the excitement of finding ancestors on the NARA site, the focus has now been on indexing and reviewing names. It's amazing how fast this is all going. Thanks to the new software being used by NARA and Ancestry, names are being indexed faster than previous census records. And especially thanks to all the volunteers who are reviewing all the data over on FamilySearch.org. They have been working around the clock to complete this project. You can help too!

How Do You Do It?
    I've dabbled a little bit in helping review names on FamilySearch.org, but yesterday I jumped right in and went crazy reviewing names. You see, Missouri became available yesterday! Yay!! While I have found pretty much everyone on my list, there were some I hadn't found yet. So I dove right in.

1950 Census Community Project

Reviewing Names & Indexing

FamilySearch.org

    As you can see they are coming along fairly nicely. You can choose which state you want to work on either from the drop-down menu or the map. After that, you a box comes up giving you a couple of options. As of right now, the only choice available for Missouri is "Review Names" at the bottom. Once the indexing process gets a little further, other options will be made available. See the images below. Utah is further along in the indexing process so they have more options available.

1950 Census Community Project
Review the Census in Missouri
FamilySearch.og

1950 Census Community Project
Review the Census in Utah
FamilySearch.org

    Since the only option available is "Review Names" that's what I clicked on. And it brought up another box that gives you the options of either searching for specific surnames or just diving into the state. I did both. First I started with the surnames in my family. I wanted to review my family names and I wanted to see if any missing family members popped up.

1950 Census Community Project
Review Individual Names
FamilySearch.org

    When I searched for the surnames in my family, many pages were brought up that were NOT my family, but that's ok. I was happy to review the similar names and help other families. I was pretty impressed it picked up hard to recognize surnames like "ILG". If not written correctly, it could resemble other words. 

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Read my blog post:

52 Ancestors: How Do You Spell That?

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    Searching the surname "ILG" brought up my great-grandparents Joseph and Margaret Ilg in St. Louis, Missouri. I had already located their census page on the NARA site with the help of the SteveMorse.org site. But I was so happy to be able to review the name and identify that it was correct.
    I was able to continue to review the page they were on if I wanted. A continued search of the surname "ILG" brought up other people with that same last night, but no other families like I thought it would. That either means one of two things: 1) The surname wasn't recognized as being "ILG" or 2) The other "ILG" families were already reviewed. Which works for me. We are all working together to help each other and get this project done faster. You can see below what it looks like to review names.

    

1950 Census Community Project
Reviewing Names
FamilySearch.org

    Right now, they are only reviewing first names and surnames on the census for Missouri. If it matches, you click match. If it's incorrect, you can edit it. If you are unsure (and that's ok) then click unsure. Better to be honest than to be incorrect. There are other options to choose from such as if there are other words besides names or if something has been scratched out or other anomalies. I have not worked with the other options available to other states yet such as reviewing groups, but when I do, I will write another blog post.
    There are still some bugs to be worked out in the system so be patient. If you have any questions or want to know about updates to the project, click the link below.

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1950 US Census Project:

Updates, More Information, and FAQ

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    As of this date, Missouri is at 2% for reviewing names. But I know that won't last for long. I will be contributing more as will so many other volunteers. Maybe I will come across some more surprises. Check out a couple I have already found.

Surprises
    As I said above, there are still some family members I have not found yet for various reasons. So I'm waiting for the indexing process to be complete. While waiting, I searched for their surnames for reviewing. I came up with a couple of surprises but not the ones I was expecting.

    First, I searched for the "Rickards" surname to see what would come up. I did bring up my father-in-law and his parents, which I had already found. So I verified their names while I was there. But there was one person missing from that census, which I knew would be. My father-in-law's brother, Keith Rickards. Due to some complications during birth, he was born with severe mental disabilities. He was at home for a few years, as shown in the 1940 Census and in some photographs I have from my father-in-law. But he was not with them on the 1950 Census. As I said, I already knew he wouldn't be.
    I was informed years ago that Keith had spent most of his life in a special facility for his mental disabilities. He thrived well as far as I understood. Lilly, his mom, worked at the facility in the gift shop. According to a newspaper article, Keithie (as his mom would call him) lived at Bellefontaine Rehabilitation Center. I wrote about him for the 52 Ancestors prompt: Bachelor Uncle.

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Read about Keith here

52 Ancestors: Bachelor Uncle

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    Even though I knew the name of the Facility, there was no way for me to track it down in the 1950 Census. And I learned why while I was reviewing names. While searching for "Rickards" surnames, a page popped up with a whole bunch of unrelated names in alphabetical order. And there he was, right on that page. I scrolled to the top and noticed the name of the facility was not the same as what I had. It's possible they changed the name sometime in the years he had lived there.

1950 Census Community Project
Reviewing Names
FamilySearch.org

    The name of the facility was St. Louis State Training School in St. Ferdinand, St. Louis, Missouri. Oh, I feel some more research is going to happen soon and another blog post going more in-depth. That is if I find more information. So I was excited to find this surprise. But this wasn't the only one.

    While still reviewing "Rickards" surnames, I came across a name I recognized: Len Rickards. I know that name because he contacted me a few years ago. We are distant cousins on my husband's side. I didn't realize he would appear on this census! So I downloaded a copy of the census and emailed it to him. Can't wait to hear back from him.

    Going from my hubby's family to my family, I searched for the surname "Strawhun" to see what would come up. My Grandma Fuchs' brother and his family popped up! Wilbert Strawhun was a fireman in Rock Hill, Missouri for years and I hadn't located him yet on the 1950 census. So that was a fun surprise. I continued searching but no other Strawhuns showed up.

I know as the days go on, I will find more surprises popping up as names get indexed. What surprises have you found? Are you helping index? Who are you hoping to find once the index is complete?