Mysteries and Broken Limbs . . . .

Combing through online newspapers lead me to examine the too numerous mysteries and dead ends that occur in every family tree. With little effort I compiled a list of names or events that I've researched but have had little or no success either locating graves, documenting ancestry, or constructing the details of a life event. I've searched all the big online databases: Ancestry.com, Find-A-Grave, Familysearch.com, and the newspaper databases too.

1. George J. Mathews burial location and ancestry. My 3X great grandfather was the focus of my 2013 research. I made some spectacular discoveries about him, his sibling Mary, and in-laws, but could not find his parents nor his place of interrment. 
2. The Baldwin Brothers (Alleged) Murder of Rosana McKeown.
   
   Discovered a few weeks ago. I have these same Baldwin brothers as first cousins, four times removed in my family tree.
3. Sarah J. Criss's maiden name and ancestry. My 2X great grandmother, originally from Alabama. I have her death certificate and have photographed her grave. Cannot find anything on her parents or siblings. 
4. John Criss's death/burial and ancestry.
   
   My 2X great grandfather and husband of Sarah (see number 3). I've found nothing on his parents or siblings. I discovered him via an 1895 Galveston, Texas city directory of his widow, Sarah, which recorded his name in parenthesis.
5. The Murder of Sam Book. I have good documentation on his death and burial, but the circumstances of his death are unknown. Family oral history records him being shot by the husband of a woman with whom he was having an affair. That's murder, which usually gets space in the newspaper, but I've found nothing. C'mon Kansas City Star!
6. John McKittrick Death/Burial. My 2X great grandfather. I discovered his death date from the obituary of his wife Parlee McKittrick. I don't know his burial location, or any details of his life.
7. John Daniels Ancestry. My 3X great grandfather, born in Virginia 1808 and migrated to Missouri via Indiana (and perhaps Ohio). Don't know anything of his parents or siblings.
8. Carl and Elizabeth Schiebel. Children of Odelia Abts, my great grandmother, and her first husband Robert Schiebel. Family oral history claims that Carl drowned as a child. Elizabeth Schiebel died of scarlet fever in Nebraska. I cannot document either of these people, they exist only via oral history (Carl), and from a letter written by Frances Book to an unknown recipient that mentions Elizabeth and her circumstances.
9. William Abts. My 2X great grandfather died in Nebraska between 1880 and 1885. Can't find a grave, obituary, or any other documentation that would provide a specific date and location. 
10. Levi B. Thomas Ancestry. My 3X great grandfather. I've found documents and newspapers that refer to him as LB, Levi, and Louis. I've search all of these derivatives to no avail. No information on his siblings or parents either. 
11. Flora A. Mathews. Family oral history claims she was Miss Colorado (unknown year), and that she succumbed to the elements in a cabin near Conifer, Colorado (also unknown year). She's in the federal censuses, but I've found nothing to corroborate the oral history.
12. Robert Schiebel. The first husband of my great grandmother, Odelia Abts. Her obituary records his death as 1899, but I've not found an obituary or grave to confirm, nor have I found him in any of the censuses.

Plenty of fun to be had here. I strongly suspect that these are mysteries due to the limitation of the internet. Most of these might be solved by visiting the local museums, libraries, courthouses, churches, and cemeteries where each person lived.

Obituaries, Clippings, Snippets, and Broken Wireless Modems . . . .

Research was stalled for about a week due to a failed wireless modem. Back up and running strongly today.

This week I bring more discoveries from a different newspaper site. This one is free and comes to you from the Library of Congress (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov). Much like Newspapers.com, this database doesn't contain every edition of every newspaper, but serves as another great research tool to supplement all the others. As with previous research, my best hits came from searching for those ancestors living in Iowa, Missouri, and Nebraska in the 1910s and 1920s. Colorado newspapers are, again, underrepresented, but I did discover this site (http://www.coloradohisstoricnewspapers. org) and it produced a few articles on my great grandfather, Harry A. Snow.  Be advised, this site does not work well with Mozilla Firefox. I used an old version of Explorer to get my results. Here is one example from the September 9, 1921 edition of the Littleton Independent.

Typical genealogy data such as birth dates, the census, and headstone photographs are nice, but they don't deliver the sort of information included in this article. Before this discovery, I'd been told that Harry owned a stable, a bowling alley, and dance hall in Boulder County, Colorado. This clipping adds a little more flavor to what I know about the man. Here's a few more examples.

This one comes from the Abts family, ancestors from my maternal line who lived in Nebraska. This snippet came from the January 23, 1916 edition of the Omaha Sunday Bee. A good wedding story that adds detail to the framework of birth, census, and death dates.

The third clipping concerns Robert McKittrick, one of my great grandfathers on my paternal side. It deals with an application to transfer guardianship of Robert, from Parlee McKittrick to Joe N. Ferguson. This article appeared in the April 12, 1918 edition of The Evening Times-Republican in Marshalltown, Iowa. Robert fell from a train and apparently became physically and mentally incapacitated.

Interesting that Parlee, Robert's mother, did not transfer guardianship to Robert's wife, Mamie. Gender roles being what they were in the early 20th century, perhaps it was expected for a male (in this case a male in-law) to assume guardianship as opposed to any female. I can only speculate.

From here, I'll supplement my tree on Ancestry.com with information teased from these articles. There are plenty of names and dates that will make nice additions, and might even help another with their own research. Sharing and collaborating . . . . .