Save Iowa's History

I often grimace when people state that they are not “political”. Whether you are vocal or not we are all political by our actions. By not being vocal or not voting basically is saying that one is happy with the status quo. Whatever politicians do is fine by them. They don’t want to be bothered or really care.  Unfortunately, there are politicians that have their own agendas and are finding ways to use our laws to meet those agendas. By not speaking up it's giving them free reign to do whatever they wish to do.

Recently, as most genealogists know, Indiana’s history was in danger and now Iowa’s history is in danger of being lost or made unavailable. Other states have made it extremely difficult to nearly impossible for genealogist to obtain information on their ancestors. We are all dealing with the loss of the Social Security Death Index.

To say, you are not political is basically saying you just don’t care. Please care and sign the petition to save Iowa's history. 

https://www.change.org/p/iowa-department-of-cultural-affairs-terry-branstad-state-historical-society-of-iowa-save-iowa-history-restore-funding-for-the-state-historical-society-of-iowa-libraries-and-archives-keep-physical-records-of-iowa-history-accessible-to-all

Naming Patterns...Who is Who?

Researching our families can be difficult enough as it is but when you also take in consideration naming patterns it can get darn right exasperating. I became aware of naming patterns when I was researching my Scottish families. Names that kept repeating themselves in my family were: Alexander, William, and James for the males and Henrietta for the females. There's no set rule but this is one variation I found:

Male children in order of birth: father's father: mother's father; father; father's oldest brother; father's second oldest brother; or mother's oldest brother.

Female children in order of birth: mother's mother; father's mother; mother; mother's oldest sister; mother's second oldest sister; or father's oldest sister.

Other naming practices: Often times when a child died the next child born of the same sex would be named after the child that had died. Sometimes when a wife died and the husband remarried the next female child might be named for his deceased wife. Other nationalities often used naming patterns, too.

Figuring out if your families followed a naming pattern just might aid you in finding more of your family.

Link of interest: http://genealogy.about.com/od/naming_patterns/

An Unexpected Find

Today, I visited the Cordova, Illinois library looking for an obituary for my great uncle William Thompson's first wife Mahala Jane Durbin (1907-1972). I found while researching online that the Cordova Public Library had an obituary collection and the collection included an obituary for Mahala. Unfortunately no one knew anything about an obituary collection. The good news was that the library had published a history and genealogy book, "Cordova Illinois Then & Now Revisited 1836-1976-2001". Its a 125th anniversary commemorative publication of the town. In the book there are 5 pages about Mahala Durbin's family and even pictures of Mahala when she was young. What a find! The book was free and it contains 346 pages of family information and local history.

Cordova is located in Rock Island County on the banks of the Mississippi River. It's a neighboring county of Whiteside where most of my ancestors lived. At one time people would travel up and down rivers much like we do today on highways. I've learned that it's always a good idea to check neighboring towns for ancestors. So one of my goals has been to learn more about towns in my area. Cordova is one of the towns that I didn't know very much about so I was thrilled to find this book.

I may not have found what I was looking for today but to me the book is far more valuable than an obituary would ever be. It contains a wealth of information on local history and the photographs are really priceless.

I haven't given up on finding Mahala Jane Durbin's obituary. It's just going to take a little more researching. Stay tuned...


Link of Interest: http://cordova.lib.il.us/roots.htm