interesting finds in family research

Thanks geally, I might give this a go when I have some money.

I did look at some Ellis Island records online once and was able to find the list with my great grandfather's name on it. He came over from Finland and changed his name when he got there. Even that was kind of neat to see so I'd love to start tracing the family tree.

www.familysearch.org is a great free resource that's run by the LDS.

I have found some minor scandals in my family's history.  I've also found some sad stories.  As a 14-year-old teenager in the early-1900s, my grandmother's brother was playing with his father's shotgun.  He accidentally shot himself in the hand.  For fear that he'd get into trouble with his parents, he hid.  He died of lockjaw (tetanus).  My grandmother never met her older brother.
One of my most bizarre family stories is one that I found in a copy of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from the 1890s.  Some of my relatives owned and operated a small pub.  One night, the pub was hosting a big anniversary celebration.  Some neighborhood boys were outside causing a ruckus, trying to join the party.  A 10-year-old boy was outside on a ladder, and he was peeping through the window.  The pub-owner sent one of his teenage sons to investigate the disturbance.  The son flung open the window's large wooden shutters, knocking the peeping boy off the ladder.  The boy died.
Bizarre stuff.

I found out on my maternal grandmother's side of the family:

~One of the first families to settle in Knoxville, Tennessee
~Decendant of Martha Washington (George Washington's wife)
~Somehow, I'm related to the woman who wrote The Secret Garden

My maternal grandfather's family owned a plantation in South Carolina until the civil war. They managed to hang on to the land after, and my grandad didn't have electricity until he was 11 years old. He grew up farming, had to plow the land with a mule, etc.

On my dad's side of the family:

My great-great-great-grandparents couldn't marry legally. She was full-blooded Cherokee, he was white. It caused quite a scandal back then

. . . and my grandad didn't have electricity until he was 11 years old.

My DAD didn't have electricity or running water when he was growing-up, and this was in Canarsie, Brooklyn in the 1930s and 1940s. 
Storytime. 
In 1939, the local government of New York City set-out on a project to photograph every building, both residential and commercial, for tax purposes.  For a small fee, you can now order glossy 8"x10" reprints of these old photos.  I wanted to get a picture of the house where my dad grew-up, in order to surprise him for his birthday.  Well!  The reply that I received from the Department was not good, but it was so gently worded.  It read something like "we didn't photograph this particular area because, at the time, we felt that it was an extremely impoverished area, and the homes that were located there did not constitute suitable dwellings."  Aww, my poor dad.
Here's more info if anyone is interested:  http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/html/taxphotos/home.shtml

It's always interesting for me to find living relatives.  Two weeks ago, I was contacted through a genealogy website by a woman tracing her husband's family.  It turns out that his grandmother and my great-grandmother were sisters.  Originally, my immediate family didn't know anything about that branch of the family because my great-grandmother died when my grandmother was just a little girl.  Her father took her to live with his relatives, and so they seem to have lost contact with his deceased wife's family.  However, since I had done quite a bit of research on that branch of the family, I knew exactly how the woman's husband was related to me, even before she explained.  It has been amazing comparing notes with her and learning more about my heritage.  We're also exploring new leads together, since, as they say, "two heads are better than one."

My husband's family actually has a book with all known members of the family, goes back around 150 years. It has not been updated in the last couple of generations but is very interesting, even has his family crest and everything (his ancestry family is English/Scottish).

My Mum-in-law is into geneology and has traced her mother's family back quite a ways in the Newcastle area.  In sorting through some papers my Mom had that my Grandma had kept, I found my great-grandparents naturalization certificates from when they became US Citizens in the 1930s.

I've been researching my great-great-great grandfather, who emigrated from England to NYC sometime during the 1830s.  From various censuses and directories, I've learned that he was a pianomaker.  I recently wrote to a piano appraisal company to see if they had heard of his work, and here's what they wrote back:

". . . your Great Great Great Grandfather was a builder of pianos and harmoniums (Spinet pump organs) listed as Henry A. Leamen of New York est., 1835. . . .  Listed below is a little excerpt of the Leaman history:
 
(Mr. Henry A. Leaman established his Piano and Organ production in 1835., 1841 he produced a special piano for his friends Zachary and Margaret Mackall Smith Taylor giving his company a great notoriety for more production because of his friendship with Taylor many well known people at the time were purchasers of Leamans pianos. Zachary Taylor became our 12th President in 1849 he died in office of stomach complications in 1850)."

A pretty neat find, I thought!

That is really, really cool!  What a great story.  Wouldn't it be great if you could track down that piano!! 

My great grandparents were both musicians in Birmingham.  She was a pianist and worked in a music shop playing sheet music for customers.  He was a violinist.  He went into the music shop to buy a violin string and that is how they met.  Their musical genes run very strong in our family.  All of the branches of my great grandmother's parents have several musicians in them and in our branch alone, of the 5 cousins, three are professional musicians.  (i'm among the two who aren't but I try!)

My family -- father's side -- is full of Eastmans.  I'm not quite sure of my relation to him but George Eastman founded Kodak.  One of my relatives set up a website about the American Eastmans (after our ancestor emigrated) here http://home.mchsi.com/~george.eastman/  One of my long term goals is to find out more about the British side of the family.  Did Roger have any brothers or sisters that didn't come to America??

Yes he did.   I met someone here (neighbour) who's grandparent(?) was the only child NOT to have immigrated to North America. 

I learned that my great-great-great grandmother's brother served for the Union army during the Civil War; so I requested a copy of his full military pension file.  I just received it, and the documentation included is absolutely amazing. 

It includes copies of letters in his own handwriting that he had written to his parents and sisters back home in NJ.  In one letter, dated 26 December 1861, he was telling his family about the bread and butter pudding that his unit made for Christmas dinner. 

There was also a copy of the "Internal Revenue License" issued to my great-great-great-great-grandfather for the shop that he owned. 

One of the funniest things is a copy of the family's tax bill for "the fourth ward" from 1867.  Among the taxes it lists:

Dog Tax
School Tax
Lamp and Watch Tax
Road Tax
City Tax
City Special Tax
First Ward Special City Tax
Second Ward Special City Tax
County Tax
Special County { ^Poll_Property
State Tax
Interest
Costs

And their total bill is $7.00.

Lamp and Watch Tax

Makes our tv licensing fee seem normal!

Fascinating stuff, StuzMrs!

StutzMrs, that gave me chills.  How cool. 

We did a search a few years ago, looking for DH's maternal grandmother's elusive brother.  The rumour had it that he had narcked on his gang  in LA and they had shot him in the head.  Grandma would not come clean so DH and I conducted a bit of our own research.  She did tell us where he was buried so we had a very interesting day out in Inglewood, in LA... found his grave, got his dates.  We ordered his death certificate and when it came ohhh-boy!

He died of complications due to a gun shot wound to the stomach after being shot by a police officer in a cafe.  Well, the story was getting juicier by the minute so we went to the library and looked it up in the LA Times archives. 

And there it was, front page.  He and his gang had held up a card club in Gardena, they had lined all the patrons up against the wall and were taking all of their jewellery, money etc.. when one of the patrons, an off-duty police officer, pulled out his concealed weapon and shot Uncle Orville in the stomach.  Orville blew his head off with a sawed-off shotgun. 

They escaped the card club and were holed-up (my favourite part..) in the apartment of a circus bare-back rider!

Someone ratted them all out and Orville died in hospital a few days later "The hand of justice delivering a swift blow.." and some other 1940s Hedda Harper talk.  The story ran for 4 days.  Great Stuff. 

BTW  it is still the family secret. We have only shared it among those who have asked.  It is cool to be the only ones who "really know"!

That should be made into a movie!!