Heartland Genealogy

What Was I Doing in 2001? It’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun time! This week’s challenge asks: Do you recall what you were doing in 2001? Family, school, work, hobbies, technology, genealogy, vacations, etc.? At first, I wasn’t sure how much I could remember about 2001. After all, that was 25 years ago! But once I started thinking about where I was working, what technology I was using, and what I was doing with genealogy, pieces of that year began falling into place. And, appropriately enough, I used today’s technology to help me reconstruct my life with the technology of 2001. Work and School In 2001, I was the librarian and technology coordinator at Nemaha Valley High School in Seneca, Kansas. By then, technology was a major part of my job. I managed the computers throughout the high school along with a network of Novell servers. One of those servers handled our email. Think about that for a moment. Today we take cloud-based email, Google services, wireless networks and Internet acces...

Pauline Mentzer and the Class of 1913 Sometimes the most interesting genealogy finds aren't vital records, census records, or deeds. Sometimes they are the little pieces of everyday life that help us picture an ancestor at a particular moment in time. This week's digging takes me back to the school days of my grandmother, Pauline Mentzer . Among the family materials I have is a program for the Coffey County Rural School Commencement , held in Burlington, Kansas, on May 31, 1913, at 2 p.m. The program lists the members of the county's Class of 1913 , organized by rural school district. And there, among the graduates, is my grandmother: District No. 9 Hattie Carroll Glenn James Pauline Mentzer Teacher: Bertha Werts A County-Wide Commencement The program is interesting because it wasn't simply a graduation program for one school. It brought together graduates from rural school districts scattered across Coffey County. The long list of students and teachers gives us a gl...

28 April 1845 – 27 January 1927 Early Life and Parents Rachel Elmeda Christy was born on 28 April 1845. Her family group sheet gives her birthplace as Clinton County, Indiana. However, there is conflicting evidence about where she was born. The 1850 and 1860 censuses identify Ohio as her birthplace, as do numerous later census records and her obituary. Thus, although the family information gives Clinton County, Indiana, the records created during Rachel's lifetime generally point toward Ohio.  Rachel was the daughter of Samuel Henry St. George Christy and Lyda Gallimore. Samuel was born 11 September 1819 in Indiana, the son of Ebenezer Christy and Rachel Elizabeth Dawson. Lyda was born 25 March 1824 in Ohio, the daughter of Isom Gallimore and Judith Bentley. Samuel and Lyda married on 3 March 1842 in Fayette County, Ohio.  Rachel's childhood appears to have included moves between Indiana and Ohio. In 1850, five-year-old "Elmedia Cristy" was living in the household of ...

Marjorie Louise Machado Today's find from my CRAWFORD files is another obituary from a Dodge City newspaper, this one for Marjorie Louise Machado . Marjorie was the daughter of my great-aunt Helen Marjorie Crawford Horton, making Marjorie my first cousin once removed . Like much of my early genealogy research, my file contains a handwritten transcription rather than a copy of the actual newspaper article. The notation "KHS Newspapers" on the page tells me that I viewed the Dodge City Daily Globe on microfilm at the Kansas Historical Society. Marjorie H. Machade—Rites Here Monday A.M. Graveside services for Mrs. Marjorie Horton Machade, formerly of Dodge City, who died last week in Phoenix, Ariz., will be conducted by Rev. Arlon G. Ebright at 10 a.m. Monday in Maple Grove Cemetery. The body will lie in state at the Hulpieu-Swain Funeral Home until 9:45 Mon. Besides her parents and her 2 children, Mrs. Machade is survived by a brother and a sister. Mrs. Josie Crawford of ...

Following the Land Through Generations Have you ever wondered what happened to your ancestor's land after they died? Did the farm pass to a son or daughter? Was it divided among several heirs? Or was it sold to someone outside the family? One of my favorite tools for answering these questions is a county range index. Most Kansas counties kept range indexes, although Doniphan County did not. I've used these indexes extensively to track land owned by my ancestors. I find them particularly useful when an ancestor was an original landowner, since they provide a way to follow the property through subsequent transactions and, sometimes, across several generations. Unlike a traditional deed index, which is organized by the names of buyers and sellers, a range index is organized by the land itself. That difference makes it an incredibly useful tool for genealogy research. What Is a Range Index? A range index, sometimes called a tract index, organizes recorded land transactions accordin...