Posts Tagged: New York

FamilySearch Pushes Record Match to My Email

Sometimes genealogical records come to you. FamilySearch.org recently sent me an email with several possible matches. One of them involved my Uncle Frank Nikkari, who married my Aunt Edith Huskonen on 12 Apr 1915. I knew this fact from Frank’s obituary in the Ashtabula Star Beacon. I was happy to learn this date, but I

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My Parents Were Wed in a “Gretna Green Marriage”

During his presentation on “Until Death Do Us Part: An Examination of Marriage and Divorce Records” at the Cuyahoga Valley Genealogical Society meeting on May 6, Tom Neel, Ohio Genealogical Society library director, mentioned “Gretna Green marriages.” He cited marriages that occurred in locations other than where you might expect, often involving young couples. Specifically,

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Why I Joined NYG&B Society

While attending the Federation of Genealogical Societies annual conference in Pittsburgh just before Labor Day, I joined the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. I have many ancestors who lived in New York state and I aim to bear down on learning more about their lives and times. Here are some of the benefits of

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Hooray! Ancestry.com Adds New York Death Records

If you have ever tried to research death records in New York State, you know it was a big pain. The state death index existed only on microfilm and was accessible only in a half dozen libraries across the state. You had to know the year of death to be able to browse these records

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Learning about German Genealogical Research

While attending the Monday (7 Aug 2017) evening meeting of the East Cuyahoga County Genealogical Society,  I announced that the Cuyahoga Valley Genealogical Society would be holding a FREE seminar on German genealogical research on Saturday, 9 Sep 2017, at the Independence (Ohio) Civic Center. I mentioned that the presenter was a representative the Palatines to

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August Scheppelmann: His Two Arrivals in New York

On 11 Aug 1922, August Scheppelmann, grandfather of my wife, Mary Jane Van Court Huskonen,  arrived in New York on the SS George Washington. The passenger manifest provides some important details: August’s home address was simply RFD Linesville, PA. He was a U.S. citizen by naturalization, which took place in District Court [Federal] Pittsburg [sic]

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Generational Suffixes: When Junior and II Are–and Were–Used in Families

Today, I was double checking my “Dingmans of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio” family tree on Ancestry.com (it actually has a URL, which is http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/70859843/family), and I noted that the Junior suffix was used after the name of a son of Jacob (b 1788 in Schodack, Rennselaer, New York). The son, however, was Peter Jr, not

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In Memoriam — Russ Cooper, One of my Early Mentors in Genealogy

The other day, I received an email advising that Russ Cooper had passed away. I remember meeting Russ at an Ohio Genealogical Society (www.ogs.org)  conference held in Independence, Ohio, during my early days of getting involved in genealogy. He was at the conference representing the North East Ohio Computer-Aided Genealogy Society (aka NEOCAG — see http://neocag.net/), of

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Three Kellerman Mystery Writers Featured at Book Fair

Last evening, I attended a session featuring Jonathan, Faye, and Jesse Kellerman at the opening event of the Book Fair Month at the Mandel Jewish Community Center in Beachwood. The event required me to pay a fee of $20 as a JCC non-member for the one-hour discussion by the three Kellermans about their books and

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