Week 8: Genealogy Resources - Ancestry Library

Between bronchitis, the holiday, and the fact I was relishing a five-day break, I must say, I became a bit disgruntled to discover I was unable to access the Ancestry site from home.  However, it all turned out for the best in the end (although I am now catching up on last week's assignment).  Yesterday, after school, I drove into Treat Memorial Library.  As I was parking, who came whizzing by me for a parking spot?  My cohort from the middle school.  We actually were seated at adjacent computers by the head librarian, who also happens to be taking this class!!!

When I typed in my name, birthday, etc., I found no results.  However, loving a mystery and thinking that perhaps my former married name might bring something.  Well, there I was in three listings.  One had me there at an address I had never lived, but the other two showed all three addresses I had lived in Wilton (I lived in the same house for 33 years and the address kept changing).  I'm thinking it is time for an update as I remarried 5 and a half years ago and have lived in my new home now for almost seven years!

I chose to insert the name of my paternal grandfather and discovered a 1940 United States Census record.  I quickly saw he was the second one listed by the name of his spouse, my grandmother.  I guess I didn't know they lived in New Vineyard back then (but I'll be sure to let my little brother know as he just happened to move there a few years ago).  I was a bit horrified to discover my grandfather was 38 and my grandmother 23, a 15 year difference in age.  More horrifying was the realization that she had given birth to 6 children (only five were listed, but I was recently made aware there had been a baby who died very young) and the oldest was nine.  One of the most dear people in my life had given birth at the age of 14.  The birthdays, years, ages, and names were all listed and you could actually click  to see who the neighbors were that lived in their neighborhood!  This was very cool and I got a bit side tracked and looked for my maternal grandparents as well.

When performing the search under the "Photos and Maps" tab and typing in Maine as the keyword, 212,144,029 results were found.  There were 17 links for Professional Baseball Players and School Yearbooks listed first.  In hopes of finding my my maternal grandparents in a Livermore Falls Banner, I found numerous volumes (several were the multiple copies of same years) but nothing before 1949.  The grab and zoom feature to view contents was cool. but it was through a great deal of trail and error to figure some of it out! 

I was very grateful to have my cohort beside me as we continued to bounce off each other, and together we did a very nice job learning to navigate and discover (and we didn't get kicked out for being too noisy :).

In closing, I am very glad we had this assignment and that I didn't opt out.  It was fun, and I was extremely impressed with Ancestry.com (and if I win the Power Ball tonight, I just might become a member)!!!