where2look4ancestors

  • Trimming the Family Tree

    I print three calendars monthly from Family Tree Maker. One is for all the births in my family tree that occur in that month, another is for marriages and the last is for deaths. The font has to be very small in order for the names to fit in each…

  • Linking Landstroms

    I gathered eight Landstrom-related certificates during my recent library lock-in; six death certificates and two marriage certificates. I worked my way through the death certificates in chronological order: Gustaf Adolf Landstrom 1855-1890, Oscar Frederick Landstrom 1870-1913, John Peter Landstrom 1824-1914, Kenneth F Landstrom 1908-1914, Charles Werner Landstrom 1863-1935, and Olive…

  • Looking for Landstroms

    One of the death records on my to-do list for the library lock-in was for the wife of my 3rd great-uncle Johan Willhelm Landstrom. Olivia Carolina Wind is special to me because decades ago I connected with a mutual cousin of ours in Sweden. Lars Wind and I formed a…

  • Library Lock-In

    I was today years old when I went to my first library lock-in. What a fun experience! Hosted by the Grand Rapids History Center and the Western Michigan Genealogical Society (WMGS), the Grand Rapids Public Library was open from 6-10pm last Friday evening exclusively to those of us who had…

  • Three Generation Wedding Day

    My paternal grandparents Harold Clarke Mueller and Frances Lois Mangels were married in Chicago Illinois 94 years ago today ~ August 24th, 1930. Harold’s parents, my paternal great-grandparents Alfred Jacob Mueller and Ellen Gertrude Clarke were also married in Chicago, also on August 24th. Their wedding took place in 1907.…

  • Is DNA the Way to Jacob?

    I recently attended an interesting webinar about doing DNA research. The presenter proposed that one step toward identifying cousins who might lead back to our MRCA (Most Recent Common Ancestor) was by finding our grandparents’ siblings, their children and grandchildren, and then finding our great-grandparents’ siblings, children and grandchildren. Despite…

  • A Week of Ancestors 5/19

    May 19 to May 25 BIRTHS: What is about Jennie that makes me want to know more about her life? She appears in several other family trees on Ancestry, but the fact fields tend to be incomplete and sources are scarce. Eugenia Schmitt was born in Cincinnati on 21 May…

  • A Week of Ancestors 5/12

    May 12 to May 18 BIRTHS: Although there are a number of births on this week’s calendar, the name that caught my eye first was that of John Nicholas Schmitt. Six years older than my great-great grandmother Elisa, big brother John was born in Hellimer, Moselle, France on the 16th…

  • A Week of Ancestors 5/5

    May 5 to May 11 BIRTHS: Was it fun I wonder, when a child was born on her grandmother’s birthday 157 years ago? Or did people not make as much of those events as we do today? Maria Josephina Karlsdotter was born on this day in 1867 in Hökhuvud, Uppsala,…

  • Making Real Connections

    I ended this post saying, “To learn more about Anders Gustaf, his wife Elise, and their children, I’ll follow them through the Swedish records at Riksarkivet.” Those online records were great resources for facts about the children of my 4th great-grandparents, but I learned much more about my family history over…