Relatively Speaking... Resource!

Sunday I took a break from the Pennyslvania prep work to do some prep work in NE Ohio - more specifically Medina County, Ohio.

I had compiled a list of obits I wanted to see if I could find there at the Medina County library. I knew about their library from past visits, and one of their great resources is the Medina County Obituary index.

They have a great bunch of volunteers who have put together this fabulous index. I've found obituaries on this site from as early as 1881, although they do say they have much earlier in some cases. It appears to be pretty current as well, although most of the ones I've needed were pre-1940's. After you put a name in the search box it comes up with a list for you. It gives the name of the individual, name of paper, date of publication (including page number) and very clearly states, obituary, death notice, probate notice or whatever.

They do offer a service so that you can request the obits and have them mailed to you - this of course comes with a fee. For those who can not get there, the fee really is not bad. I did call them & when I go there in a few weeks, I can use my flash/thumb drive to download the obits instead of printing! Does it get any better than this?

Needless to say I put it all to good use, and so far I've come up with a total of 47 obits that I have found on their index. Now if I could just find a way to leave a few weeks sooner... oh Mark.....

Happy Researching!
Karen

Research Trip - Research Notebooks

In yesterday's post I mentioned that in order to better prepared for my research trip I put together research notebooks.

So today we're going to talk about my research notebooks.

Part of the prep for my trips begin with pre-trip research. What families I am going to work on? Where did they live? What do I know? What vital information am I missing?

So I go into my data base and I determine the answers to those questions. At this point my questions & answers look like this:

• What families am I going to work on? Gish, Early, Gebhart, Kreitzer, Wenger, Huber
• Locations? Lancaster & Berks County, Pennsylvania - with a bit of wandering over the county lines at points.
• What do I know? I actually know quite a bit, but I do have holes that need to be filled in on the direct lines.
• What vital records am I missing? There are marriage records I need to find & I'd love to get into some baptismal records as well.

Now with that information I go into my data base and gather together the families I want to locate information on. Depending on your software, you should be able to "publish" a book of sorts. My software allows me to put in descendancy charts, time lines, family group sheets and a narrative on the line. You could also add a copy of your to do list if your software allows you to keep one. I make sure to allow it to index it all for me.

I print that all off, supplementing with the pages I printed from both the historical societies I want to go to, and a few maps I found on line. Organizing it all I then get out my handy comb binder and bind it all together, using card stock for the back & front covers. You could use a regular notebook if you wish. The reason I suggest binding it - have you ever dropped a folder of loose papers? 'Nuff said!

By keeping everything neatly bound its nicely organized and everything is at your fingertips. No shuffling through folders. I even toss in a few empty pages so I have places to write as well. I don't use the notebook with the sheet protectors is I hate having to take pages out of the sheet protectors to jot down my notes. And boy can I take notes.

I take weekends off so we'll talk more about the research prep perhaps next week? With this being the final weekend of tax season it will be busy here for sure! I'll try to get some pics taken of the research notebook and get that post up one day next week. Till then I'd love to hear any comments or suggestions on HOW YOU PREP for a research trip!

Happy Researching!

Karen

Pennsylvania - The Prep Begins

As I am sure many of you noted, I mentioned that our research trip this year changed from Kentucky to Pennsylvania. As the countdown for this trip is in process I'll be blogging at times about my prep and how it is progressing.

In my opinion the best prep you can do for a trip is to research before you go. That's right, you don't need to go back and read the sentance again. I said, "research before you go!".

No, I am not crazy, but I do believe that a good foundation is important when you are taking a research trip. I think just going in blind is a big mistake.

SO a few early steps that I think are esential.

1. Decide which lines you want to focus on
2. Determine what you have & what it is you want
3. Locate "repositories" located in area that can provide resources for research
4. Put together research notebook(s)

A few notes of explanation. #1 & #2 are pretty self explanatory. #3 - I went on line and found two historical & genealogical societies that have holdings that I feel would work very well with the lines I've decided to focus on for this trip.

I am going to Lancaster & Berks County, Pennsylvania - so I've gone into my data base and found my DIRECT lines in those two counties. I have four surnames of interest to me. I've taken those four surnames and did "research notebooks" on them. A descendancy book for four generations - from that families oldest person in that county down for four generations.

I've bound them together and now I can start my pre-trip research.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Comment - I'd love to hear from you!

We'll continue this tomorrow.

Happy Researching!

Karen