Jackpot!

Huge props to Muriel, whom I encountered on Ancestry, and who pointed me in the direction of Closson Press, a tiny publishing house that prints collections of all kinds of fascinating and obscure records. Like, for example, the one I ordered that came in the mail yesterday: Collected Church Records of St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church and Jacob's or Howerter's Lutheran Church, now St. James Lutheran Church. Probably sounds like a snoozefest to 99% of you, but for me, whose ancestors came from Schuylkill County and worshipped at St. Paul's, this is gold! Gold, baby! I've already discovered extra children for several Maurer ancestors (who, sadly, probably did not live long enough to be counted on the census, which had been my only source of info before this) and some other interesting tidbits. I had no idea things like this ever got published anywhere. Oh, what an age we live in. ;)

Catherine Reese Altvater

Let me just say how much I love Find-A-Grave's newly activated photo volunteer project. Now when you visit any virtual grave, you can click the button that says "request a photo," and it will be listed for photo volunteers in that area to take pictures. They "claim" requests and have seven days to "fulfill" them. So I requested a bunch of my Reese relatives in Maryland, and some nice fellow went out this weekend and took pictures. He sent me the snap of Catherine Altvater, and said he'd have to go out and redo the rest, as his pictures didn't come out. It was a great feeling to be able to "see" Catherine's grave. Here's the picture that Ron sent me:



Yay for photo volunteers! I'm planning to claim some out in Media Cemetery and go this weekend or maybe next Monday.

Martha Jane Reese Schwartz

Martha is one of the four sisters of my great-grandfather, Amos Reese (the other three are Elizabeth, Florence, and Gladys). I had information from someone I met on Ancestry that she died in Carteret, NJ in 1940. I wanted to find her burial place, so I ordered a copy of her death certificate. Turns out it's the wrong Martha Schwartz.

Mine was born in Hazleton, PA in 1874 to Benjamin and Sarah Jane (Wildman) Reese and was married to Philip Arthur Schwartz.

The Martha Schwartz who died in NJ in 1940 was born in March 1878 in Hungary. Her parents' names are listed as "unknown." She was married to Samuel Schwartz, who pre-deceased her. She was survived by her daughter Mrs. Daisy Pearl from Perth Amboy, and buried in Baron Hirsch Cemetery in New York. I've created a listing for her at Find-A-Grave.

And the moral of this story is: never take anything from another genealogist at face value, even if they seem like they know a lot about this person. I'm sure my source searched just enough to find the death listing, but never took the step to verify that it was actually the right person. So it's back to the drawing board for me, concerning Martha.

One odd note: the State of New Jersey blocked out the section listing the cause and place of death when they made me the copy. I wonder why? I've ordered several death certificates from PA, and I've never had that happen.

Why this blog exists

I decided to create a little blog to post updates about things I've discovered during the course of my genealogical research. A recent discovery (which I'll post later) gave me the idea for this. Each post title will be the name of the person that the post is concerning.

And in case you were wondering, here's my genealogy page.