Challenge #9: History & Genealogy Resources

1.  I searched my name in AncestryLibrary and found two results that were actually me and a lot that just shared all or part of my name.  One result was from the U. S. Public Records Index, Volume 1.  It showed my married name and my maiden name and provided my birthdate (and a birthdate that was one day off from my husbands for some reason) and an address in Tennessee, which was where I lived when I obtained a marriage certificate.  It also showed two later addresses in Tennessee, but no more addresses.  Then, I revised my search for Kentucky and found U.S. Phone and Address Directories, 1993-2002 which provided my name, my spouse's name, and our address and phone number in 2002 when we lived in Mt. Sterling, KY.  A neat thing provided on this was an opportunity to "view neighbors" which I clicked on and was rewarded with names (along with fond memories) of old neighbors.  When I tried searching for my name in Williams, AZ and Custer, SD, I didn't find any results that were actually me.

2.  I searched for Doris Green, my Mamaw (that's Hillbilly for Grandma), on AncestryLibrary.  I found two results:  1.  a Social Security Death Index showing her Social Security Number, last residence, date of birth, date of death and the year her SSN was issued.  2.   a U. S. Public Records Index, Volume 1 showing her name, phone number, and address (pre and post 911).

3)  I searched for South Dakota under Pictures with 3,615,253 results.  The majority of these pictures were from U. S. School Yearbooks.  I decided to look more closely at just pictures from the Library of Congress Photo Collection.  I saw lots of old photos of Indians from the Dakotas, an old photo of the Corn Palace, several of the ship S. S. Dakota, and a lot more.  I then refined my search to Custer, South Dakota.  There were 78,569 pictures in the Library of Congress Photo Collection, many of which were of Custer State Park and Wind Cave National Park.  I then searched for South Dakota under Maps, Atlases, and Gazateers with 842, 669 results.  When I refined the search to just Custer, there were 4,951 results, many of which were from the Indexed County Land Ownership Maps.  I wanted to see if there were some recent maps, so I refined the search by entering 2000 in the year.  However, most of the results were from 1913 for some reason.  Perhaps AncestryLibrary does not include recent maps.  Maybe those should be searched for at another location. 

4)  In HeritageQuest I chose to look at Books and search the People section for Jehu Stokely, one of my ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War and also served on a ship with John Paul Jones (My Mom is a geneaologist, so I've read stuff she has written about him).  Unfortunately, I also did a search in Revolutionary War and couldn't really find anything.  Maybe he was not considered to actually serve in  the military since what he was involved with was considered privateering.  Anyway, when I looked in Books, I found one called A Burnett Family of the South, which had several hits for Jehu Stokely.  However, this was a descendent of the Jehu I was researching because this Jehu was in records from the  mid-1800s.  Jehu was married to Jane Burnett, a daughter of a wealthy Burnett man, and was named executor of his father-in-law's last Will and Testament.  Other hits on this name were actually of a grandson, who was also named Jehu.  When I get more time, I'm going to go back into HeritageQuest and try to find out more.  But, if I don't move on, I'll never get my homework and other duties done.

5)  In the Sanborn Maps, I looked at Custer in 1891.  I found the Courthouse, which still exists today as the 1881 Courthouse Museum.  The present main street is called Mt. Rushmore Rd., but was called Custer Avenue in 1891.  I also think that a bakery stood in the same place that Baker's Bakery occupies today.  I wish the map would have been oriented with the north of town at the top of the screen instead of to the left.  I had to read maps a lot in my previous career as a Forester, so I was used to north being the top of the map on quad maps.  I plan to go back later and take time to look at Custer for all of the years offered.  But now, I need to leave the fun stuff and get to work.