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Friday, August 08, 2008

Friday Findings: Black Sheep Ancestors, McARTHUR Graves & Obit, WILKINSON Kin, ROBBINS Cousins and DeVRIES Info

Because of all the busy-ness relating to the Genea-Blogger Games, I'm not publishing any related images to this post at this time. Maybe I'll add them later.

Black Sheep Ancestors
Found my black sheep 4th-great-grandfather Uzza ROB(B)INS (convicted and hung for murder in 1850) in a book I ordered through Inter-Library Loan after seeing a mention of him in snippet view on Google Book Search: Centennial History of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania: Reprinted with an Added Foreword, Biography, and Index to Names by Rhamanthus Menville Stocker (published by Regional Pub. Co., 1974). He's in a list of 1836 taxpayers for Liberty (formerly Lawsville) Township, along with an Isaiah Robins. This makes sense, since Uzza was enumerated in Lawsville in 1830. I photocopied all the pages recording the history of Liberty Township, and I figure I need to track Isaiah to see if he's a relative. I also photocopied the map and pages of the index that had lists of surnames that connect to this family.

Hired a professional genealogist to obtain the entire military file (what may exist of it) for my WWI great-grandfather, Howard Merkle YORK, while she is in St. Louis, Missouri. He was living in the Disciplinary Barracks of Ft. Leavenworth during the 1918 WWI Draft Registration, served time in a Michigan prison for forgery, and was listed as a WWI Veteran on the 1930 Federal Census. While I know I can order his military record myself, I'm hoping that she can request some things onsite that I might not otherwise think of or have sent to me via a written request.

McARTHUR Graves & Obit
The McARTHUR cousin who contacted me last week made it to the cemetery where our mutual ancestors are buried (Daniel J. McARTHUR and Martha JOHNSON) and took photographs. She has also been in contact with another cousin (one I met when I visited Michigan last, in 2000), who mailed us both a copy of Daniel's obituary. I'll be adding the obit to my website, and the photos can be viewed here.

WILKINSON Kin
I heard from the wife of a descendant of William WILKINSON, brother to my 3rd-great-grandfather, John WILKINSON, Sr. She sent me a descendant report, and wouldn't you know it, William's descendants left Canada for Michigan, too (like John), but they settled in East Michigan, whereas John and his descendants were in West Michigan. I'm hoping to exchange copies of primary documents with this new cousin!

ROBBINS Cousins and DeVRIES Info
Looked for and found two first cousins on my ROBBINS side on Facebook, both much younger than me. Added them as friends, then asked each to verify and complete birth information I had for them. No responses yet.

Contacted my mom's brother and asked him to complete some of the locations I was missing for his immediate family members. I can always count on his information as being complete and accurate!

P.S.
This isn't really a "find," but I got a call from DialAmerica, which sells magazines at a discount from the newsstand price, giving 12% to charities. I'd ordered magazines for my daughter through them in the past, and this time, I asked if they had any genealogy magazines. To my surprise, they did: FamilyTreeMagazine. Their price was the same as what I can get online, but it makes me feel good that part of my cost will go to charity. Plus, this is a magazine I've had a subscription to in the past and always loved. I signed up for 10 issues (not quite two years).

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