Saddleback Valley Trails

South Orange County California Genealogical Society

Vol. 19 No. 6

P.O. Box 4513, Mission Viejo, CA. 92690

June 2012

Editor: Gary Schwarz

Monthly meetings are held on the third Saturday of each month from 10:00 a.m. to Noon at the Mission Viejo Family History Center Institute Building, 27978 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo, between Medical Center Drive and Hillcrest Drive. Membership is open to anyone interested in genealogy. Individual membership fees are $20 per calendar year, $25 for joint membership.
SOCCGS is not affiliated with the LDS Family History Center.

The 1940 Census released, but, since it won’t be completely indexed for some months yet, how do you find your ancestors? There are ways, and this presentation will give some hints to making your browsing experience with this records series a little less frustrating. Also included: some history of the census itself (promising a few laughs).

About the Speaker: A Board Certified genealogist, Jean Wilcox Hibben has been involved in family research for over 30 years. She is a member of the National Genealogical Society (NGS), the Genealogical Speakers Guild, the Association of Professional Genealogists, and the Corona Genealogical Society. Jean maintains a website with information about her presentations, CDs, projects, etc.: www.circlemending.org. She is the Director of Corona California Family History Center, and is also an occasional volunteer at the Pacific Region Facility of the National Archives in Riverside County. Jean says "My goal is to assist others in their efforts to connect generations (past to present), completing the family circle."

Safari News

The Huntington Beach Library will be our destination for the June 27th safari. We will leave the LDS Church parking lot at 9:30 a.m. This library has a nice genealogy collection of over 18,000 books, maps, some micro-fiche, etc. They do not have computers for searching online in the genealogy area. So, you might bring a laptop if you have one. You may bring lunch or utilize the library sandwich, snack, and beverage area. Don’t forget $$ for your driver. There are no plans for dinner on the way home. Contact Bill Bluett to reserve a spot.

Go to their research page for additional information regarding their fabulous genealogy collection at: www.huntingtonbeachca.gov/government/departments/library.

President's Message

~Bill Bluett

We have now had access to the 1940 census for a little over two months. Many folks around the country are volunteering their time to help with the indexing process. This will take some time to accomplish. In the meantime, we need to find creative ways to find our family members between now and the completion of the indexing project.

It isn’t too difficult to find our families or ancestors if they lived in a lesser populated region. Small towns and farming communities do not have too many pages to browse through when looking for a family. My wife, Helen, began her life on a farm outside of Iowa City, Iowa. So, it wasn’t too difficult for me to find her with her parents and brother. Helen was just 3 months old when the 1940 census was taken in Solon, Iowa. Her father was renting and working a small farm while teaching in a one room schoolhouse at the time of her birth. I believe it will be much easier for me to find many of Helen’s family members in this same general area of Iowa than it will be for me to find my families in the metropolitan area of Los Angeles.

The population of L.A. in 1940 was 1,504,000. It was the fifth largest city in the U.S.A. Fortunately, I had information as to where my family and I were living. But, I didn’t know which enumeration district (E.D.) to look for. I could be looking forever through the listings available on "Ancestry.com". I decided to go to the "SteveMorse.org" website to assist me in locating the correct enumeration district. This website has been created by Stephen P. Morse, PhD, and Joel D. Weintraub, PhD. These two gentlemen did a similar thing when the 1930 census came out 10 years ago. You can go to their website and select a State, County, and City. Then, you can enter a street (or street address if you know it) and adjacent cross streets. Their program will narrow down to one or two enumeration district listings. Click on the district that is listed and the program will give you a listing of viewers to select from (Ancestry, FamilySearch, NARA, etc.). The first page for that enumeration district will come up. You will have to look through all the pages listed until you find the family you are looking for. It didn’t take me long to find myself (Billy Bluett) and my parents. Yes, Billy Bluett is the way I was listed as an 8 month old child. Wouldn’t you think they could have listed me as William R. Bluett? I can’t wait to see my name on the 1950 census! So, there I am with my parents Ralph and Betty. We were living behind my grandparent’s home in a small residence over the garage. I have home movies that were taken about this time in front of the grandparent’s house and down the driveway in front of the garage area. Now that I think about it, the home movie I have is nearly as old as “Gone with the Wind”.

I thought I might try finding another relative in the Los Angeles area. Warren and Viola Ingersoll were my great aunt and uncle. I didn’t have any information on their residence location. So, I put Warren’s name into "Ancestry.com" to see what might come up. Even though he was 58 years old, Warren had filled out a World War II Registration Card. There were nearly 6 million men between the ages of 42 and 64 that registered in 1942. Of course, the “Place of Residence” was indicated on the card. The chance that the address would match the 1940 census was a strong possibility. So, I used the address on the "SteveMorse.org" website and went to the enumeration district listed. Low and behold, there they were at 1649 Rockwood Street – just a few blocks from Echo Park Lake! Viola’s 86 year old father, Ernest Fontaine, was living with them at this time. Her mother, Nellie, had passed away in 1921.

There are ways to find many of our relatives in the 1940 census even before the indexing is completed. We may need to be creative in figuring out how to do that. I hope that the examples I’ve given you can be of some help. You may have other suggestions that might be helpful to our membership. Let us know by sharing at our monthly meeting or by submitting an article to our newsletter editor. Something that you know or have tried out when searching the 1940 census might be helpful to many of our society members. Please share your knowledge with us!

May Meeting

Speaker: David Flint, our current SOCCGS Vice President, gave his first genealogy presentation ever to our group in May and did a superb job! His topic was "Finding Your Ancestors in English Parish Registers". David showed us some interesting examples of baptism/christening records as well as marriage and burial documents. His handout showed how and where to find the right Parish Register locations.

Guests introduced at the meeting were: Dan Andrews, Judy Davin, and Vanessa Milburn. All three guests joined our society.

Members who provided refreshments were: Mary Jo McQueen, Mary Jo Nuttall, Linda Dibble, and Lorna Irey.

Membership

We welcomed five new members in May:

Judy Davin of Mission Viejo, CA, [email protected]. Judy is searching for: Woodson - IL, Sporleder - MO, Bassett - MO, Higgins - CA, MN.

Vanessa Milburn of Laguna Hills, CA , [email protected]. She is searching for: Mott - Canada/ IL, mid to late 1800's, Angulo - Mexico mid 1800's, Haney and Selvidge - Tenn mid to late 1800's,  Glenny - Ireland early 1800's, Francis, Cornellus, Bray - Cornwall, England early 1800's.

Arlene O'Donnell of Irvine, CA, [email protected]. Searching for: Scott - NC, Faw - NC, Harrison - NC, Nuse - NY, Smith - Bronx, NY, Williams & Belcher - Ireland, Smith - Yorkshire, Eng, Pfau – Switzerland.

Dan Andrews of Laguna Hills, CA.

K. J. (Jo) Silva of Laguna Woods, CA, [email protected].

Brick Walls & Genealogy Research Suggestions

Francie Kennedy waited too long to interview one of her oldest living relatives (her uncle) who now has memory problems. But, she did receive some boxes of his research that included some WWI letters that were written by her grandfather.

Verl Nash had an ancestor (Captain John Underhill) that was involved with Major John Mason in the war against the Pequat Indians in 1637. In more recent times, the tribe had gained wealth from casino and reservation gambling. At one point, each Pequat was receiving over $100,000 per year from gambling revenues. But, Verl has recently heard that they are now $2 billion in debt and sliding back into the poorhouse.

Kathy Mauzey wanted to remind our group about the Memorial Day Celebration at the El Toro Memorial Park at 11:00 AM on May 28th.

Gary Schwarz reminded us to use the graphical reports of our genealogical software to help us visualize where we need further research and to use reverse research, i.e. follow our descendants, to find second, third, and fourth cousins that may have loads of passed down documents.

Interview with Family Search Arbitrators

~Barbara Taylor & Jim Thordahl

Q: What got you started with indexing on Family Search?
Barbara: I was on FamilySearch.org one day last year and clicked on the website link for the indexing section just to see what it was about. I got a message saying something like, “Thanks for signing up” before

I knew what I had done. Shortly after that, I got an email with instructions for doing the training, so I did the training and indexed a few batches here and there when I had time.

When our society signed up to help with the 1940 census, Herb Abrams asked for people to be arbitrators, so I looked at that training and decided that I could do if I was careful.

Q: What kind of records have you indexed or arbitrated?
Barbara: For the 1940 census, I have done something (either indexed or arbitrated) on at least one batch from each of the 48 states, plus Washington DC, Hawaii and Alaska.

I have also indexed some of the 1871 England, UK and Wales Census, WW I and WW II draft registrations, California Voting Registers (1866-1910) and Texas death certificates (1890-1976).

As of today, I have indexed 2,597 records and arbitrated 24, 254 records.

To view the complete interview go to: sites.rootsweb.com/~casoccgs/interview.html

War of 1812

June 18th, 2012 is the bicentennial of the day that the United States of America declared war on the British, the official beginning of the War of 1812. A treaty is signed on 24 December 1814 but the Battle of New Orleans is fought in January of 1815 which is the last battle of the war.

We have met the enemy and they are ours.

~Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry

THE COLLECTORS

~Diane Walters Hearne

"Where do ya want me to put dese jelly glasses, lady?" the man with the heavy Boston accent asks my mother while I’m trying to help the movers, in the summer of 1963, by carrying a few couch pillows and other small items. Mother tells them to be very careful with her "goblets" and to put the barrel in the dining room. She believes in unpacking everything as soon as possible. An experienced mover, Mother wants to begin the process of filling out insurance breakage forms before the salesman from the moving company, who promised such a great experience, retires or otherwise disappears.

Mother is the only descendant of the Schrader family of southern Ohio which included her father Will [George William Schrader (1879-1962)] and his three sisters Clara [Clara Vaugn Schrader Fichter 1877-1968], Mila (1881-1963) and Gray [Sarah Gray Schrader Smith (1890-1958)]. Each sister became a collector.

Aunt Clara, the eldest, collected souvenir spoons. Regular sized teaspoons from different parts of the United States that commemorated special occasions such as the Chicago World’s Fair. I now own all 66 spoons and enjoy using them for company and listening to people share: "Mine says Indianapolis, what do you have?" The family didn’t travel far so most spoons came from the Midwest.

Four of my favorites are: One with an Iris on the handle engraved Lawrenceburg, Indiana CVS 1877 (Clara Vaughn Schrader was born in 1877 in Lawrenceburg, Indiana); Three faces in a bowl – Memphis, Tennessee 1903; World’s Columbian Exposition 1893 Mary Schrader (Mary Elizabeth Steele Schrader (1846-1920) is my great grandmother); Masonic Temple, Chicago C.V.S. (Clara’s initials)

In later years, we still tried to add spoons to Aunt Clara’s collection during our travels. We thrilled at the opportunity to cross off a Christmas or birthday gift for our elderly relative. Finding any but little demitasse spoons in foreign gift shops proved difficult, however. Practical-minded Aunt Clara, always very sweet in her thanks, fitted our latest petite contribution into the wooden rack (a gift from us) in the dining room, but I know that, for her, those little spoons weren’t the same.

Aunt Gray, the youngest and most personable of the sisters, collected milk glass (named for its "milky" white color). This opaque glass was intended to look like porcelain, but not be as expensive to produce and formed into vases, bowls, sugars, creamers, drinking glasses and "rooster" dishes for candy.

Mother, an only child, inherits the milk glass as none of the sisters have children. She doesn’t like it and is about to sell it off when a revival of fake glass shoots down the value of the real stuff. Unsurprised, I find a National Milk Glass Collector’s Society on the net with an extensive website including current meetings and a description of a newsletter called the Opaque News.

While Aunt Gray praises her roosters and Aunt Clara exclaims every Christmas and birthday over her newest piece of silverware, cranky Aunt Mila, the middle sister, unwraps her newest, heavy, pressed glass goblet. These goblets were also very popular in the early 1900s. Most are clear glass with a few in shades of blue, yellow and red. In reading parts of Early American Pressed Glass by Ruth Webb, I discover that pressed lead flint glass was made before 1830 giving the glass a "clear bell-like tone" when tapped. I remember my parents tapping their goblets, thrilled to hear that sound. The goblets were made by machine in molds.

After the Civil War, the bell-like ring disappeared. By then, due to the expense and scarcity of lead, the glasses were made instead with lime.

My father accepts a position at Boston University and, even though they’re now empty nesters, my parents move from a three story, five bedroom house in Columbus, Ohio to a charming colonial three story, eight bedroom house in West Newton, Massachusetts. An old maid schoolteacher, embittered, grouchy Aunt Mila conveniently dies just before the move. Once settled, my parents begin taking driving trips on weekends to see the countryside, visiting antique stores and adding to the collection. By the time they move back to Columbus (after a few years in St. Louis) in 1978, they have over a thousand different "jelly jars."

They use the goblets at their frequent dinner parties and I get some notion of the value of certain ones as I choose the prettiest to set the table. My father comes along after me and, even though he must realize my disappointment, selects a few to carefully return to the shelf.

The bulk of the collection now resides at the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus, part of a special exhibit for a time. Mother, in her infinite wisdom, set aside two dozen duplicates for my brother and me. I still use mine, along with the spoons, when I entertain. I keep a few token pieces of milk glass in my study. They serve as tangible proof of the story of the three collecting great aunts. I sometimes wonder what I would do if their brother Will (my grandfather) had enhanced his hobbies. Where would we possibly display old, large cameras, Cincinnati Reds’ baseballs and a bunch of antique rose pruners?

We had to play to some mighty tough audiences.
~Arthel "Doc" Watson (1923-2012)

We do too in genealogy when it comes to citing sources.

Southern California Genealogical Society - 2012 Webinar Series

June Webinars:
20 Jun2 2012, 6pm PDT - Rick Crume; Genealogy Hacks: Tricks to Crack the Top Gen. Web Sites
7 July 2012, 10am PDT - Ugo Perego, PhD; Native American Ancestry: A DNA Standpoint

The live broadcast of each session is open to the public and FREE to all (space is limited to 1000 attendees). Webinars are recorded, archived, and available for the next twelve months day or night to SCGS members, in the members-only section of the SCGS website.

Info: www.scgsgenealogy.com/JamboreeExtensionSeries2012.htm
Schedule: http://www.scgsgenealogy.com/storage/Extension/ExtensionSeriesTrifold.pdf

Ralphs Community Contribution Program

Jim Thordahl – Ways & Means Chairman

Online registration instructions are at sites.rootsweb.com/~casoccgs/ralphs.html. If you have questions, call: (949)-492-5334 or e-mail: [email protected].

Library Genealogy Research Center

The Mission Viejo Library Genealogical Research Center needs you. Sign up today to be a volunteer docent in the Genealogy Section of the Library. We have a Monday night shift from 5:30 to 8:00 pm available. Summer is coming and we will need lots of substitutes. One of our Sunday afternoon docents will be on vacation for three months. What better way to spend a quiet Sunday afternoon than in the Library working on your family history. We are ready to sign you up. You need to make the first move. Call or email Bunny Smith (see her contact information on page 7) and she will arrange your training.

The Totes are Here

~Jim Thordahl – Ways and Means Chairman

That’s right; if you missed the announcement, the totes are here, and they will be available at the SOCCGS meeting again in June. These stylish totes are a handy size and sport our logo in a pretty blue color. What a great way to "show our colors," and for you to tell the world about your participation in genealogy with the South Orange County California Genealogical Society. Also, take note of the story behind our logo that you will find on a card in your tote.

Massachusetts Research Site

Massachusetts researchers may want to check out the website at: www.sec.state.ma.us/mhc/mhchpp/townsurveyrpts.htm. It provides access to Massachusetts Historic Commission’s Town Reconnaissance Survey Reports. A town’s history, topography, boundary changes, etc. are included in each report.

The Homestead Act

~Kathy Mauzey forwarded from Fold3.com

President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act on May 20, 1862 which allowed a homesteader to receive up to 160 acres by applying for a claim, improving the land, and filing for a land patent after successfully living on the land for five years. Fold3 has been digitizing the "homestead records" for Nebraska. (www.fold3.com/title_650/homestead_records_ne/).

The files, from the Records of the Bureau of Land Management, consist of final certificates, applications with land descriptions, affidavits showing proof of citizenship, register and receiver receipts, notices and final proofs, and testimonies of witnesses. They sometimes contain unique records for a person or family, used to verify their right to make the claim. More details and some intriguing examples are on the "Homestead Records description page".

Free access to Fold3 is provided at the Mission Viejo Library Genealogy Research Center.

South Orange County California Genealogical Society Membership/Renewal Application

 ( ) New   ( ) Renewal      ( ) Individual, $20/yr.      ( ) Joint Members, same address, $25/yr.
 
 Name(s)_________________________________________________________________________________________
 
 Address_________________________________________________________________________________________
 
 City_____________________________________ State_______ Zip _____________ Phone__________________
 
 Email address:__________________________________________________________________________________
 
 Make check payable to: SOCCGS
 Mail with application to: SOCCGS, P.O. Box 4513, Mission Viejo, CA 92690

SOCCGS ‘2012’ Seminar Registration

 Name(s) ___________________________________________________________ Registration: ______ @$20.00
 
 ___________________________________________________________________ Box Lunch:    ______ @ $9.00
 
 Address: __________________________________________________________ Total:   $__________
 
 City & Zip: _______________________________________________________
 
 Telephone: _________________________ E-mail:____________________________________________________
 
 Mail to: SOCCGS, P.O. Box 4513                               Information: (949) 492-9408 or
          Mission Viejo, CA 92690-4513                https://sites.rootsweb.com/~casoccgs/