Using my Genealogy Skills to return a class ring to it's owner

 

My neighbor told me that in a box that she picked up at either a garage sale, estate sale or auction has a class ring from a nearby town. She said the woman's name was engraved on the inside and she wasn't able to locate her.

So I volunteered to try to find the who this ring belongs too. I first took some pictures of the front of the ring and the inside of the ring because my eyes aren’t what they use to be.

I saw that she graduated in 1983 and her name was on the inside engraved.

The first thing I did was look up in Newspapers.com and the woman’s name and put the year of 1983 and the county that the high school was located in. it returned on match and the woman’s name shows that she did graduate in 1983 at that high school.

Next, I went to Ancestry.com and did a general search for the woman using her first and last name and I estimated her birth date base on her graduation year and put in location as just my county and state. This brought back a couple of matches, one for a marriage that occurred in Dec 1983 and another for a divorce in 1988. It also had a newspaper index that was for the divorce and listed a town she was living in at the time.

I decided to google her married name with born 1965 and listed the town and state that she was living in at the time of her divorce. My “people search” websites came up and one I could see had her maiden, married and another married name.

I returned to Ancestry.com and using the card catalog, I decided to find the Wisconsin Marriage records, and clicked on the one for 1802-2015. I put her new married name in the first last name field, and then under the spouse I put her first name. The result was her marriage to her second husband showing her maiden name that match her previous marriage record.

I brought up the hint, and click on her spouse’s name and saw the US Index to Public Records, 1994-2019 database. I clicked on this hint and it gave me their last address as living there from 2018-2020.

I went back to the previous “people search” result and it also reported the same address.

I used Google once more and put in the address from above. Zillow reported that this house was last sold in 2018. Therefore, I could write her a letter and tell her I have her class ring. However, I decided to see if I could find her on Facebook. I typed her first name, her current married name and the town she lives in. This brought back only one result and what I could see in her “about me”, this was the correct person.

I reached out through Facebook messaging tell her I am looking for “gave the name on the ring” who graduated in 1983 from “gave the name of the school” and informed her that my neighbor has possession of her class ring. I asked if this was her and if she wanted her ring back, please reply. I also included the three pictures of the ring that I took, two were of her engraved name.

Within an hour, she replied that was her ring. We messaged back and forth a little more and are planning to meet next weekend to return the ring.

It is very rewarding to know that my genealogy skills was able to reunite a class ring back to it’s owner. Also, that my skills actually found the person I wanted to find.

Remember to have fun and just do Genealogy!

Find A Grave Glitch, or was it?

My husband and I were on a mission to clean the gravestones of his paternal aunts and uncles. When I could not find a Find A Grave memorial for his aunt (in-law), I asked where she was buried. I knew when she died, a week after my first child’s birth and thus I didn’t go to the cemetery, but vaguely remember what cemetery it was. My husband, who has a terrible memory could not verify that was the correct cemetery.

Therefore, I went to the library where I knew there were cemetery indexes that were done by the local genealogical society. I found his aunt’s name and made note of the section and location of the grave.

My husband and I went to the cemetery, cleaned the stone and I photographed it so that I could create a Find A Grave memorial.  I added her memorial and did a little research and found out who her parents were from the 1930 US Census.  I added them to her memorial along with the link to her husband, my husband’s uncle.

Then I noticed that her parents had five children listed, besides my husband’s aunt-in-law. I reviewed the 1930 US Census to see if they were the same children. They were not, so I click on her father, and reviewed the 1920 US Census and saw more children.

My mission, was to find the children that were not linked to their parents and add the parents to their memorial pages. After I was done, I realized that one child, John was showing on the parents memorial pages but not on the siblings pages.

I went to a Facebook group for Find A Grave, there is more than one. I asked if they every seen this. One member quickly responded that on John’s memorial the parents were in the wrong position. WOW, I didn’t catch that. 

It should have the father on top and the mother listed below as follows:

Remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy!

Is your Family Tree Maker tree well-trimmed?

Do you have a well-trimmed tree? What do I mean by this? Does your tree just have your relatives or do you have a lot of extra people?

My tree is a little of both and perhaps your tree is too. One thing I like to do is keep track of in-law spouses' parents. If my cousin is married, I want to know who their spouse’s parents are. Why? I have found that my tree, and perhaps yours is similar is like a spider web, where they connect in more than one spot. For example, there is a family who had 10 children, and about 6 of those children have married into my family on various branches. Some have married siblings of one branch, others have married their first cousins or even another branch that isn’t related to the sibling’s branch, and so on.

Therefore, I have changed the way I am keeping these people in my tree. As in the case of the Biel family who had six of their ten children marry into my family, I have that family’s parents and all twelve of their children in my tree. Those branches that connect back to the six children who married into my family is easier to identify because when looking at my tree, I can see the spouse’s parents are entered.

What about the spouse who doesn’t connect to anyone else in my tree? I have decided instead of entering them as additional people in my tree, I use the birth description to enter the following sentence “He/She is/was the son/daughter of father’s name and mother’s name (using the mother’s maiden name). Thus, is might read as follows: He was the son of John J Smith and Jane S Doe.

I am doing this to keep my tree a little better trimmed and visually pleasing, I can see that spouse doesn’t tie back into my tree on another branch, in the tree view above and by the birth description.  Plus, I have been generating books using Family Book Creator, and for the spouse, it will print that birth description as a separate sentence after listing their birth information.

When I enter a spouse, I always check the Index and see if I already that surname in my tree and I quickly check out who their parents are. If I find two siblings in my tree, then I add their parents into my tree and attach each existing child to the parent and clear out the birth description field. If as I am checking for who their parents are and nothing is filled in, then I do a quick search to see if I can figure out who their parents are and determine if they are related to each other.

What do you do to keep your tree well-trimmed?

Remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy!