Archives: January 2017

My Military Service in the Cold War

On January 10, 1962, I boarded a Lockheed Constellation airliner at Cleveland Hopkins airport and flew to Philadelphia with a packet of papers firmly in my grasp. The packet included the one-way ticket for the flight and instructions for reporting to the U.S. Coast Guard training facility in Cape May, New Jersey. I was met

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World War I Research: Training Millions of Soldiers

With the 100th anniversary of America’s entry into The Great War (aka World War I) fast approaching, I have begun doing some research on events leading up to the war, training of troops, and the service of blood and shirt-tail relatives. On April 6, 1917, “two days after the U.S. Senate voted 82 to 6

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Free Genealogy Class Series at the Brecksville Branch Library

If you are interested in learning how to do genealogy and you live in Brecksville or nearby, you might want to take advantage of this class series: Last summer, the Brecksville branch library asked Cuyahoga Valley Genealogical Society to present a series of genealogy classes. This March, Vice President/Program Chair Jane Gramlich will teach this 3-part

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Do You Know About FamilyTreeNow.com?

Yesterday (12 Jan 2017), Judy Russell blogged about FamilyTreeNow.com in her blog, The Legal Genealogist. She strongly suggested that you “opt out” of allowing this public information aggregator website to present your personal information. I follow her blog, but I only caught up with “Suggestion: opt out now” today. On its home page, this website

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Who Was that Little Girl Buried Next to MJ’s Grandmother

In discussing our family history, my wife, Mary Jane (MJ for short), has mentioned many times that her paternal grandmother was named Mary Margaret Caroline Heinselman Butcher Van Court. She was somewhat unusual for having two middle names and three family names. Heinselman was her maiden name, and Butcher was the name she assumed when

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A More Complete Timeline for Grandma Grace

On 15 Dec 2016, I posted a timeline for my Grandma Grace that I found on my computer. I had forgotten that I had created it and discovered it during a search for other timeline documents. Today, I found another document in timeline format about Grace Green Dingman in which I had compiled some additional

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Wallace Dingman–My First Relative To Be a Railroader

My maternal grandfather, Wallace Betts Dingman, b 1881 – d 1920, was the first of several relatives to “escape” from life on the farm to working on the railroad. He grew up with his twin brother, Walter, on the farm of Andrew and Mary (Betts) Dingman in Williamsfield Township, Ashtabula County, Ohio. The family is

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Surnames in Finland

Today, I accessed the wiki page on FamilySearch.org labeled “Finland Surnames.” It was quite helpful as it very clearly explained the surname practices in Western Finland versus those in Eastern Finland. Eastern and western Finland have different naming traditions. Both naming customs date back to the earliest written sources. There was frequent overlap of these practices

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