52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Earl Leslie Nickell

I’m a little behind on the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge but I’m going to jump in with ancestor #1 and play catch up.  This week I'm highlighting my husband's maternal grandfather.

Some basic facts:

Name: Earl Leslie Nickell

Born: 24 July 1918

Parents: Delbert A. Nickell and Allie (Maiden Name Unknown) Nickell

Spouse: Shirley Bowlby

Marriage: Date Unknown

Died: November 1965

Earl was born 24 July 1918.  World War I was raging in Europe though, unknown to most of the world, it would end in a few months.  He was born to Delbert A. Nickell and Allie (Maiden Name Unknown) Nickell.  He married Shirley A. Bowlby sometime before 1943.  Earl and Shirley had children but in the interest of privacy I won’t list their information.

Earl lived most of his life in Kansas.  I believe he was born near Long Island, Phillips, Kansas because he’s listed on the 1920 census with his family at the age of one in Long Island, Phillips, Kansas.

1920 U.S. Census for Delbert Nickell and family

Earl served in the military during World War II.  His enlistment date is shown as 4 November 1943 and enlistment location was Denver, Colorado.  From his enlistment record on Ancestry.com I can see that he completed four years of high school and was skilled in woodworking occupations.

Earl died in November 1965.  He’s buried next to his wife, Shirley, in Resthaven Cemetery in Wichita, Sedgwick, Kansas.

Earl L. and Shirley A. Nickell Tombstone
Located in Resthaven Cemetery in
Wichita, Sedgwick, Kansas

I don’t have much more information than that on Earl.  Here’s my genealogy list for Earl:

Have:

• 1930 U.S. Census 
• 1920 U.S. Census
• Listing from U.S. World War II Enlistment Records from Ancestry.com 
• 1925 Kansas State Census
• Find-A-Grave Listing 
• 1940 U.S. Census

Need:

• Birth Certificate 
• Death Certificate
• Marriage Certificate

Challenge Accepted: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Challenge Accepted!

 

I’m a member of several different genealogy groups on FaceBook.  You might not normally think of FaceBook for genealogy but it’s a great platform for communicating with other genealogists!  While browsing the posts of the Genealogy Bloggers group, I ran across a post from one of the members talking about this blog challenge she was going to join called 52Ancestors in 52 Weeks.  Someone else had linked to their blog in the comments and I wandered over to her blog and found the link to the original poster’s challenge post.

The premise of the challenge is to have a weekly blog post devoted to a specific ancestor.  The post can contain anything: a research problem, photograph, stories or a combination of anything focusing on that ancestor.  And it’s not just limited to blogs!  In her challenge post on No Story Too Small, Amy Johnson Crow encourages people who don’t have blogs to post on FaceBook, send an email to family members, write something in a journal or anywhere else for that matter.

After reading some of the blog posts I was inspired to participate in this challenge.  My "blog fodder" for 52 Ancestors is going to be my husband's family, who I've just begun researching.  I'm excited to be participating in the 52 Ancestors challenge.  Why don't you take the plunge and join me?  Anyone can participate in the fun!

Surprise!

With the time off from work I had around Christmas time I devoted some time to beginning work on D1's genealogy.  I had no idea what I would find or if it would be difficult to find information on his family but I was prepared for some quality time on different genealogy sites in search of information.  I was pleasantly surprised with my first foray onto Ancestry.com to discover there were others out there who had done quite a bit of research into different parts of his family.

Like a good genealogist I began entering the information to prove into my database.  I'm always hesitant to use GEDCOM files I find online.  I'm just a little overly cautious, so I choose to re-enter the information manually.  It's more time consuming but it also allows me to get to know each and every person I enter so I can usually remember one or two things about each person I add, plus I can verify the information I add.  In my opinion, those reasons alone balance out the time and effort it takes to enter the information manually.

I spent hours each day on my time off looking at different family trees on Ancestry, checking source documents and adding names to the family file.  D1 thought the amount of time I spent doing genealogy over Christmas break was pretty humorous and he began to joke about it with his family.  It's all good though, because I got the last laugh.  I made it back to his 10th great grandfather and began entering the information and was surprised to get the following error message from Family Tree Maker:

Whaaaaa?????  What was this??  This was an error message I'd never received before!  No, there was no way we shared an ancestor.  I was sure I'd made a mistake in my entry of individuals.  So I checked the list of children for each Caleb and Hannah Knapp...and they matched.  To the name, date and place of each event listed for each child.  So I checked the source documentation to make sure these were the correct connections.  And they were.  Unbelievably, my husband and I share a common relative from the mid-1600s!  My 8th great grandfather was his 10th great grandfather.  I couldn't help it, I started to laugh.  Poor D1 didn't really find as much humor in it as I did.  He just didn't get why it was so funny, but it was hilarious for me.  The maternal unit thought it was pretty funny and dear brother thought it was pretty funny, so maybe it's a genealogy humor thing.

I haven't done any research into the Knapp side of my family but after I told the maternal unit about my discovery and the possibilities of additional Daughters of the American Revolution patriots, she mentioned she had heard they were a pretty large and prominent family in early American history.  I'm having a very hard time focusing on just one genealogy project right now, LOL.  I want so badly to start working on supplemental patriots for DAR, even though I haven't even received notification of acceptance of my initial DAR paperwork.  On the other hand I really want to see what else I can find on D1's family.  His 2nd great grandfather died in France during World War I and is buried in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery.  I definitely want to look into him a little more and see what I can find out from the National World War I Museum's research center.  Then there's the rumored Native American connection in D1's family, the woman who lived in the dugout that my mother-in-law remembers, and the part of the family my mother-in-law would like to know more about.  I feel so ADD right now, LOL.

So many projects, so little time for genealogy...what surprises have you found in your family?

Genealogy Basics: The 1940 Census

Census records.  Every genealogist uses them at one point or another.  They're a great source of information as long as you keep in mind the possibility for errors to be found within the census records.

The United States has taken a federal census every 10 years since 1790.  The first census enumeration contained a limited amount of information.  Each following enumeration asked for a little more information each time.  Today we're going to take a look at some information you can find in the census records.  Since you always want to start with the latest record available we're going to start with the 1940 census and work our way back.

The 1940 census was enumerated in April.  Let's look at a copy of a census record for my family.  I know my grandfather was living in Kansas City, Missouri when the 1940 census was enumerated.  Here's a copy of the record, broken down into two parts so it's readable:

First half of 1940 census listing for Edward Conwell, Jr. and family

Second half of 1940 census listing for Edward Conwell, Jr. and family

Columns #1 and #2 are the location information:

• Street, avenue, road, etc.
• House number (in cities and towns)

The house he's listed at is still standing and I was fortunate to spend summers there growing up as a child.

Columns #3-#6 are household data:

• Number of household in order of visitation
• Home owned or rented
• Value of home, if owned, or monthly rental, if rented
• Whether the household is on a farm

It surprised me to discover that grandpa Edward's house is listed as rented and he was paying $18 per month rental fee.  I was always under the impression that he was purchasing the house.  Add finding out when he purchased the home to my list of things to research.
Column #7 is the name of each person who's residence was in the household at the time of enumeration and column #8 is the relationship of the person to the head of household.  Grandpa Edward is listed with his (first) wife, Ada J., and...SURPRISE!...mother-in-law, Stella (so if I didn't already know Ada's maiden name, I could have gotten it from this census).  Grandpa Edward didn't talk much about his first wife, so I never knew that mother-in-law resided with them.

Edward Conwell listed with wife, Ada J., and mother-in-law, Stella Correll

Columns #9-#12 are the personal description fields:

• Sex
• Color or race
• Age at last birthday
• Marital status

Grandpa Edward and Ada were 35 and 36, white and married, while mother-in-law, Stella, was 58, white and widowed.
Columns #13 and #14 are questions regarding education:

• Attended school or college since March 1, 1940
• Highest grade of school completed

While Grandpa Edward completed high school, Ada completed seventh grade and Stella completed fourth grade.  None attended school during the year.
Column #15 is the person's place of birth and column #16 is whether the person is a U.S. citizen or foreign born.  The whole family was born in Missouri and they were all U.S. citizens.  Columns #17-#20 are questions regarding the residence:

• The city, town or village having 2,500 or more inhabitants or "R" for all other places
• County
• State or territory/foreign country
• Whether the residence was a farm

I can't say these columns were very informative since they were either left blank or filled in with the words "Same Place".
Columns #21-#34 are all questions about employment status (for persons 14 years old and over):

• Was this person at work for pay or profit in private or non-emergency government work during the week of March 24-30?
• If not, was this person at work on, or assigned to, public emergency work (WPA, NYA, CCC, etc.) during the week of March 24-30?
• If not at work or assigned to public emergency work were they seeking work?
• If not at work or assigned to public emergency work did they have a job, business, etc.?
• If the person answered no to any of the previous questions, indicate if they were engaged in housework, school, unable to work or other
• If at private or non-emergency government work (from column #21), number of hours worked during the week of March 24-30, 1940
• If seeking work or assigned to public emergency work (from column #22 or #23), duration of unemployment up to March 30, 1940 - in weeks

That last section is pretty large.  Sometimes the columns are fully completed, sometimes they're not.  In this case, the columns are mostly filled in and I learned that Grandpa Edward was working for pay and Ada was keeping house.  Yet another surprise, Stella is listed as working for pay as well.  As we move down the census form we discover that Stella is working as a seamstress in the wholesale clothing industry and Grandpa Edward is working as a plumber in (of course) the plumbing industry.  Both Stella and Edward are listed as "PW" under class of worker, which meant they were a wage/salary worker in private work (a chart of symbols/explanatory notes for the 1940 census can be found here).  

The final columns are questions regarding income:

• Amount of money wages or salary received (including commissions)
• Did this person receive income of $50 or more from sources other than money wages or salary?
• Number of farm schedule

It's interesting to see that Grandpa Edward was making just over $1300 per year in 1939.  Stella wasn't doing too bad as a seamstress at just over $575 per year.  They were not included on a farm schedule.

The 1940 census contains a wealth of information for genealogists.  There are several ways to access the census records, from using Ancestry.com (if you don't have a paid subscription to Ancestry, check out your local library or Family History Center for free usage opportunities) for indexed images to using some of the non-indexed sites and paging thru the census record pages one by one.  I prefer the indexed version, however, going through page by page can wield treasures of its own.  Additional family members have been discovered in this manner and it can also give you a picture of who was living around your ancestor.  

Have you made any surprising discoveries about your ancestors from the 1940 census?  What piece of information are you glad the government included on this census?

Next up, what's on the 1930 census?

Genealogy Basics: Death Certificates

Over the last couple of weeks we've talked about birth records and marriage records, which can be used in your genealogy.  Today I want to talk about death records.

Before getting started I want to rewind to last week's post about marriage records.  In that post I neglected to mention a valuable piece of information.  If you're searching for a marriage record by the bride's last name and you're unable to locate it, consider the possibility she may have been married before and didn't use her maiden name on her new marriage license application.  This happened to be the case with my grandparents' marriage record.  It was a good thing I was able to provide the names of both the bride and groom when I requested the record copy because my grandmother used her last name from her previous marriage (Woods), not her actual maiden name (Brown).

Edward B. Conwell, Jr. and Edith M. (Brown) Woods' marriage license

Now, back to the intended subject of this post: death certificates.  Now, keep in mind that prior to 1900, many states had incomplete vital records.  Most birth, marriage and death records were kept by churches prior to when standardization occurred in the U.S.  A good resource to refer to when trying to determine if you'll find birth or death records in the state you're looking at is the ProGenealogist website.  You can pretty much assume the East coast states are going to have earlier standardized records than the Midwest or West coast states, simply because of when the states and state governments were formed.

So what type of information can you find on a death certificate?

• Name of deceased
• Age of deceased
• Date of death of deceased
• Place of death of deceased
• Time of death
• Cause of death
• Place of burial
• Date of birth of deceased (if known)
• Place of birth of deceased (if known)
• Name of parents (if known)
• Birth locations of parents (if known)
• Spouse's name (if spouse is a wife it may include the maiden name)
• Current residence
• Occupation
• Marital status
• Name of physician or medical examiner
• Name of informant and relationship to the deceased

Let's take a look at an actual death certificate.  We'll be using my great-grandfather's death certificate as an example:

Death certificate for my great-grandfather, Edward Bell Conwell, Sr.

This death certificate is a veritable gold mine of information.  It shows most of the information on the bulleted list above.  The only thing I don't see on the certificate that is listed above is the place of birth of his parents.  In addition I can tell that he only resided in Kansas City, Missouri for 6 months and the time between the claimed onset of the cause of death and his actual death was 2 months.  This would lead me to believe he moved from his prior residence to the place of death for health reasons.  I happen to know the place of death was the house my grandparents owned at the time, so he died while living with his son.

Something that stuck out at me on this death certificate was the answer to his marital status at the time of his death.

The answer itself is not odd.  Great-grandma Zella died two years before in 1948.  What's interesting to me is that it looks like the number two is listed in that box with his widowed status.  I'm possibly reading too much into that because I've never heard of great-grandpa having been married before he was married to great-grandma Zella, but stranger things have happened.  I also double checked the family history book my grandparents made for me when I was a child and nothing is listed there for a second wife so I suspect it may have just been a notation of some sort but I've added it to my list of things to ask the parental unit in the future with the hope that she'll know for sure (just in case I'm wrong).

The other thing that was included with the scan of this death certificate was the statement by licensed embalmer.  However, as you can see it wasn't actually completely filled out.  I wonder if they chose to not embalm him or if the embalmer just didn't bother to fill out the appropriate blanks on the form?

Statement of licensed embalmer from Edward Bell Conwell, Sr.'s death certificate

Great-grandpa Edward Bell Conwell, Sr.

Typically death records are some of the first records genealogists will try and locate.  This is because it's usually the most recent record of the research subject and can contain a great deal of information.  But genealogists should always make an effort to verify the information provided on the death certificate before assuming it's correct because the information being provided isn't being provided by the subject of the record but by a person who knew the deceased and that person may not have all the information or completely accurate information.

It's also important to remember that information included on death certificates may vary by location so the information you would find on a Kansas death certificate may very well be different than the information you would find on a New York death certificate.