Family History Part 2

I'm still on the lookout for Grand Aunt Dorothy's final resting place, so that project is in the works.

In May 2011, I finished entering all 3,000 names into ancestry.com from the Waterston book my grandmother had given me so long ago.  If people lived in Ohio or any other states that makes public records accessible it was easy to find more descendants.

In June 2011 I make my annual pilgrimmage to visit my family in Toledo, Ohio.  This time I spent many days making my mother drive to Williams County Ohio, where she is from and where most of my family history is located.

I was able to meet with a few people/distant cousins that I had met on facebook while I was there.  I met Janet Duvall (Boyer lineage) at the Old West End Festival.  I met Rick Sickmiller (Haines, Waterston, Bauer, and Shaffer lines) and his sister, Ronda Roose in Montpelier, Ohio.  Rick was visiting from Texas, so it was perfet timing.  And I met with Marilyn McCrea Smith (Waterston, Bauer lines) the following week.  Marilyn had the most amazing photo of Simon and Cyrena Waterston and their grown children, spouses, and children.  My great grandfather, Lloyd Hays was in that photo as a young boy.  I don't know what it is but I am just fascinated by it.

Anyway I was able to give Marilyn a few things she didn't have and she was able to get a copy of that photo to me.  I love it when I have other information that others are looking for.

My father drove up to Toledo, Ohio from North Carolina where he retired to and brought a lot of my grandmother's genealogy information.  I now have thick bound books of Bauers, Haines, and Hamps to add to my ancestry family tree.  I also found an old family record book that didn't have much in it, but I'm so glad I finally took a closer look.

My 3rd great grandfather, Lorenz Bauer, was the only one I had information on until I read in the book that his sister, Mary Barbara KRAFT died ...  I added her and voila, records from census information in Carroll County, Ohio came up.  Little questions that I had were being answered.  Apparently his father and mother had traveled to Williams County to visit and his mother died.  Then his father died back in Carroll County.

I also found their headstone/grave marker on the Find A Grave website.  I LOVE that website.

I think that is about where I am right now.  I joined the Williams County Genealogical Society and the Ohio Genealogical Society.  I have access to searches in the OGS library but I haven't found anything useful yet.  I also joined archives.com but I cancelled my account since nothing was coming up for me and I already ancestry.com - not much can beat that!

When you are on ancestry.com it connects you to other people who seem to have the same person in their family tree.  I found someone in Fresno, California who was so happy that I had Bauer information.  And I was just happy she wrote back!

I also just recently found someone whose family came out to Oregon, then his grandparents moved to Arizona, then his mother moved back to Oregon, so I might get to meet him sometime since he still has family in AZ.  He had photos that I wanted to add to my family tree, so it was great for me to meet him.  And both of these people are on facebook so I can connect with them that way until we meet.