Thursday, July 02, 2015

Update

I logged into 23andMe this week and realized it had been awhile, I had over 125 new relative matches on my dad and mom's results.  Reached out to them to see if we can find the connections.

Haven't been doing much in the way of genealogy research due to work commitments and house-seeking.  We put our house on the market and have been looking for the past couple of weeks.  That is an experience.  The last time we moved was 13 years ago, and we only moved two blocks away. 

I've made this community my home for almost a third of my life and it seems weird on the one hand to leave but on the other I'm excited about the opportunities.  You have to move where the jobs are.

Hopefully, we some time off over the next few days I can post some updates.

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

John Metzner seriously sick, 1887

Portland, Indiana Commercial
December 22, 1887, page 1
Mr. John Metzner, who lives northeast from this place is seriously sick.

This newspaper notice from 1887 captures the mention of my paternal 2nd-great grandfather, John Metzner (1805-1888), being on the sick list at the end of 1887.  Unfortunately, he didn't survive too long into 1888, passing away on January 10th in Jay County, Indiana.

John was a farmer in Noble Township and a native of Saxony.  He emigrated to Licking County, Ohio where he married Catharine Young in 1839.  By the time of the 1850 census, he was living in Noble Township, Jay County, Indiana.

Monday, May 25, 2015

Research Notes : May 25, 2015

Research has been limited lately due to work commitments and working on the getting our house ready for market.  On this Memorial Day weekend, I spent more time outside on yard work and painting than doing much in the way of genealogical research.


  • Explored how RootsMagic and FamilySearch work together by matching up those in my database with individuals already in FamilySearch.  Concentrating on those ancestors within four generations, have been adding to the information at FamilySearch from my RootsMagic database.  It will be interesting to see if by doing this, it generates more contacts and "cousin bait".

  • Over the weekend, I updated how my Dropbox files, primarily family photographs and census images, are named.  My plan is to make sure that I have everything named in a sensible format, and then to make sure that I have taken the time to add these images to my RootsMagic database as well as to the tree I have at Ancestry.

  • While cleaning out my garage and burning some old files (from 2006!), I came across some genealogical correspondence that I had misplaced regarding the Groenendyke and the Lambertson families.  Will be sorting through this hopefully in the next few weeks and adding the information to my database.
Somedays I find I spend more time organizing or cleaning up my database than I do in actually researching.