GFH Alumni Association – Meeting Recap

September 2007

Thank you to everyone who attended the Saturday, September 8, 2007, meeting at the Shoreline Regional Library. It was a great turnout and definitely showed support for our association as well as for our first time guest speaker and fellow alumni member, Mary Roddy.

Mary’s lecture selection, Bagging A Live One, was very interesting and educational. Mary has very kindly provided the Association with her handout (see below). Thank you Mary for sharing your knowledge and experiences, as well as for braving the Alumni Association lecture circuit. ShEveryone agrees you did a fantastic job!

Several members met for lunch and casual conversation at the Canyons Restaurant. It was a great time for all.

Thank you to all those who have actively participated in making the Alumni Association a success. See you at the November meeting!

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BAGGING A LIVE ONE
Mary E. Roddy

Bagging a live one is often a bigger rush than finding the dead ones. Bagging a live one that knows something about genealogy is gold.

The theory is to look for somebody between 25 and 90 who might know something or want to learn something.

Who are the live ones?

Probably not first cousins – generally I find I know these.
Usually they are 2nd or 3rd cousins – offspring of grandparents siblings or great-grandparent’s siblings.

How do you find them?

Start with the census

Look in 1880 – 1930. Plan of attack is to piece together a family. You see the kids, they grow up, get married, have children. Hopefully you can find a family unit in 1930 with people in it born between 1915 and 1930.

Also look at various state birth indexes – it is a little easier to find someone if you have the exact birthdate – the 1930 census will get you close, but try the following for birth dates:

Vitalsearch.com -
Has various states, including California. The California birth index thru vitalsearch is a really hard one to use unless you have a very unusual surname – it lists the entire state from 1905-1995. Tried to find PETERSEN and got 45000 hits, at 30 a page - you do the math.

SF genealogy has index for 9 Bay Area counties here.

Ancestry.com has CA birth index which is more searchable than Vitalsearch

Then what?

Check to see who is dead-

Social Security death index -

I usually use advanced search – Issue state seems to be a good help
One issue is that before, say 1987, you only get month and year – having an exact date makes it easier to get an obituary

Other Indexes:

Vitalsearch – this is free, you can pay, but I have done well with the free parts

California has a great index, Texas seems to be good. Florida not so great. Play around. Use wildcards.

Ohio death index – 1913-1944
Beware of OCR – RODDY may OCR as BQDOY. Play with county

Illinois - 1916-1950

– 1940-1997

Ancestry also has various death indexes for various states. Sometime you will hit on a mother’s maiden name, which can help in using these indexes.

Google “State Death Index” – you may hit on one you want.

The Dead Ones – You can’t bag ‘em. But they still might tell you something.

Techniques-

SSDI – put in same zip code and surname. You might find a spouse or child

Obituaries – get them using death dates you found from above work

* Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness –
* Suzzallo library at UW has lots of newspapers on microfilm, particularly big city ones
* New York Times Historical Backfile thru library
* Google “Online obituaries” and you will find tons of sites
* Ancestry.com
* Newspapers online – many have archives from late 1990s to current (San Francisco Chronicle, etc)
* Some libraries will do a look up of an obituary – check out the library website for details
* Newslibrary.com

You’re looking for that magic “Survived by Prunella Hildegartner of Elmira, New York.” She’s one of the live one’s you can bag. (“Survived by John Smith of Los Angeles” will be a little harder.)

Make a List of Live Ones –

The 1930 toddlers who you haven’t found on a death index (so are likely still alive), the survivors mentioned in the obits, these are the people we are looking for. Where do you look for them?

PEOPLEFINDER

www.peoplefinder.com
Put in name, city (if you can/want) and state – it will come back with Name, Age (sometimes), Previous Cities and Relatives. You can pay to see more, but often that will be enough. I find the age column often particularly helpful to know if I’ve got the right one. If I’m looking for a guy who was 5 in 1930, I want somebody that people finder says is 75 or 80, not that 45-year-old one (though keep him in the back of your mind, he may be a relative).

As far as I can tell, this Relatives column seems to be made up of people who lived at the same address as the subject person – maybe culled from DMV records, tax return records, not sure, plus people who are property owners with the person, maybe people in a family trust. Lots of times it might have maiden names, or women’s siblings which helps to get maiden names.

GOOGLE

Google someone – you may find them listed as a donor in a charity or alumni publication, maybe you’ll get an e-mail address, maybe you’ll get a hint as to profession.

ANCESTRY

Ancestry has the U.S. Public Records Index and U.S. Phone and Address Directories, 1993-2002. Often you will get a phone number from here. Sometimes they are still at the same number, but it may be that the area code has changed, so just check what the current area code is for the city.

WHITEPAGES.COM – use this site the following ways:

* Put in the names you got from www.peoplefinder.com in here to get a phone number .
* Take the phone number you got from Ancestry and do a reverse address look up.
* Sometimes an obit will give you an address where a person resided when they died, - check out who owns it now, maybe it will be a relative.
* Click button to find neighbors

If the town is small enough and the name is unusual enough, just call up and say who you’re looking for. You might not hit on the one you want but people with the same surname in a city often know each other or at least know of each other and can direct you to the person you want.

What about the unlisted ones?

Property Records – Google the following:
County Recorder for the county you want. Often the deeds are available on-line for download in PDF format – you can get an address of the property. Maybe you just get a tax parcel number and you go to the tax assessor’s website to get the address.(On King County Assessor e-Real Property System). Most places keep property records on a county basis – Connecticut (maybe others) keeps them on a town basis.

Deeds will give you seller and purchaser – perhaps they are related.

Sometimes the deeds will give you spouses and place of residence. I found cemetery plot left to 4 people – value of $10 on the plot, but I got 4 heir’s names, their spouse’s names and their city of residence.

“Deed of trust” is one of the terms you are looking for.

ZILLOW IT!

The website Zillow will give info about where the property is, sometimes a picture, value (if the home has been in the family for decades you can get a feel for your ancestor’s economic status). You can tell when the property was last sold.

Other techniques –

City directories – if you can find a series of them, follow thru in an orderly fashion. The man born in 1920, grows up, gets listed in a city directory in 1941 at some address and in 1962 you may find his child, now employed and therefore listed in the directory living at his same address. That gives you another name of another live one to bag.

What do you do with this information?

I’m a caller. (My children think I’m a stalker!) Most people want to talk a few don’t. You can also write, maybe send a copy of an obituary or a photo to pique their interest. Including a SASE will sometimes help. I called and called one person and never got an answer. The phone had been disconnected because they moved, but the mail was still being forwarded and a month or so later my SASE came back with a letter and a new friend!