Round Robin

(What I did this summer.)

Several members told us what they did this summer with regard to their genealogy. None, however could top Esther Long who went to seek her roots in Poland. Here's her story.

Esther Long
Esther Long, her brother, Walter Bugalski and his wife, Connie (Kendall) Bugajski; and second cousin Robert Goralczyk left Chicago and flew to Warsaw. Poland. They first visited the village of Loje where they found the parish books written in Russian. From there they went to Ruda, on to Brochow and finally to her roots in Blazkow with most interesting stories to tell about each place. To read more of Ester’s interesting search for her relatives and genealogy in Poland with the pictures that she took along the way, click here.

Dick Baxter
Dick found an obit of a cousin in the Pastfinders' obit card file (located in the Library) and that it was a big help in tracing the family.He then found cousins buried in the Oakland Cemetery at the corner of 50 and the Turnpike exit in Oakland.

He also mentioned that he had the PERSI CD if anyone would like to borrow it.

Dick also purchased FTW Upgrade 11.0 and that it had a new feature that allows you to burn a CD backup with one click.

Joan Gathings
Joan has spent most of her summer using her genealogy skills in tracking down school classmates to notify them of an upcoming reunion. Through the use of Internet searches, especially Switchboard, she's been able to locate nearly all of them.

Dotty Dill
Dotty spoke about how she was finally able to locate her great grandmother with the help of an internet contact who was kind enough to look up a city directory for her. Dotty suspected that the great grandmother was living with a daughter and son-in-law in Philadelphia but couldn’t locate them in the 1920 census. The city directory verified that the son-in-law was living there and gave his address. In checking the 1920 census by address, not name, the family was located. The son-in-law’s name was very badly spelled and the grandmother was listed only as Mrs. C. Learned.

Bob Dill
He used the same photo that Dotty had used as a computer tip to show how to identify people in the photo to indicate a baby in the picture that was born in April of 1900 dating the photo to probably July 4, 1900. A very distant relative in California contacted Bob about his genealogy that he saw on the Internet and Bob emailed him a copy of that photo. Subsequent contacts were from the son of the baby in the photo who's father had identified all of the family members on his copy the photo. Small world.

LaVonne Wettering
LaVonne attended the National Genealogical Conference that was held in Orlando. She was particularly impressed by Dr. Schweitzer and provided information on his next local appearance. The Florida Genealogy Society will present renowned speaker George Schweitzer, PhD, ScD at the Lake Mary Marriott on April 17, 2004. Cost is $40 ($45 after March 1) and includes lunch. You can get more information at http://cfgs.org/schweitzer.htm . Early registration is advised.

Marylin Knight
Marilyn pointed out an interesting site about States and Capitols. The URL is http://50states.com