Ford Genealogy Club January 11, 2001 Meeting

George attended for the first time.

Reports:

• President: Chuck Oslund
  Auto show tickets for sale at $7 per ticket
  The club received $42.40 in FERA ticket sales rebates for participating in Summer 2000 theme park ticket programs
• Vice-President: Mike Saulsberry
• Treasurer: Mark Krugman
  Dues for 2001 are $12.00 per year. Membership includes a spouse or relative.
• Secretary: Diane Oslund
• Newsletter: George Newton distributed 2 Newsletters at the meeting

Old Business:

• Send any Queries and Articles for the Newsletter to George Newton

New Business:

• Select Nominating Committee to select candidates for the election of Officers.
  Mike Brautigan is our nominating committee. He will be contacting people. We need new officers. Who will offer to run for these positions.? President, Vice President, Treasurer, possibly Secretary. The secretary does not have to step down but is willing to do so if anyone else wants the job. Hopefully so. Not only Ford employees are needed for these positions. We have discussed this in the past. Any family member, Visteon employee can run. We need to adjust our constitution to reflect this change in Fera.
  
• Determine how to implement FERA membership rules:
  FERA will allow clubs to suspend club rules regarding officer eligibility and selection if no ford employee wants to run for office - Any person eligible for A-Plan can become an officer (this includes spouses of and relatives)
  We need a group to deal with rewriting portion of the constitution to reflect the election changes we’ve discussed over the last few months. Bob Beiting volunteered to change the constitution to reflect these FERA changes. Bob Beiting is also retiring. We extend our congratulations to him.
  
• April meeting is just before Easter weekend:
  Elections are normally in April however there was a motion to change elections to March as the April meeting is the Thursday before Easter. The motion was carried so elections will be held in March.

Presentation:

• Karen Krugman gave a talk on More Than 8 Ways to Find Your Female Ancestor's Surname
  1. Marriage records. Find the marriage using the grooms name. Usually you will find the brides maiden name. Information on marriage records vary by time frame. Remember that bondsmen on older marriage records are usually related to the bride or groom
  2. Census records. Sometimes a daughter with her husband are living with her or his parents. This can help with either the maiden or the married name for the female. Check neighbors on the census for possible future relations. Daughters and sons sometimes live next door to families they marry into. Or they live several doors down.
  3. Birth records. Sometimes they give the mother’s maiden name. If you don’t find it on the first birth record you look at, look at the rest of the children’s birth records. Because some may have the information and some may not.
  4. Obituaries. Some obits give loads of good information including women’s married and or maiden names. Not always but sometimes. [secretary note, sometimes the husband’s obit will give his wife’s maiden name]
  5. Death Certificates. Don’t check just the person you are working on. Check her children and her brothers and sisters.
  6. Legal documents. Such as court records, land, probate, wills, guardianships, etc. Check out all names listed and follow their relationships. Or research their relationships. Look at the actual records if you can not just a transcription or extraction of the record. There might be a difference.
  7. Published biographies. If a biography was published on a member of your family, that biography might give married or maiden names, relationships, dates, etc. Always check them out.
  8. Church records. Especially German, are good about giving full names for both the men and women.
  9. Tombstones. They can give all kinds of information. Some do have maiden names. [secretary note; I’ve seen this more often in Ontario then in Michigan, so it’s more likely to happen in some areas than in others]
  10. IGI. This is a great starting point but verify every thing as it’s NOT all accurate. You MUST verify anything you find there. But then please verify everything you find.
  11. Bible records. If you can find any old family bibles they can be a great source of family data. Remember however that if you find different styles of writing things were added at different times and hopefully it is all accurate but something could be recorded wrong.
  12. Social Security Death Benefits. The SS5 document usually gives the person’s mother’s maiden name. The SS5 is the document that people fill out to get their social security card.

Round Table:

• Diane found a great obit with all kinds of dates and maiden names for both the lady and her mother.
• Mike Saulsberry has a new book on his Gish line a relative sent him and Karen wants copies of some of the pages as her Gish line is in the book too. He’s found that many Gish are researching their families and are collecting documents on these people.
• Jerry got medical records and is learning medical things on his family. He found heart problems running in one line.
• Dave has not researched much this past year. He’s had deaths in the family.
• Ray has multiple marriages in his family and is dealing with half brothers and sisters. He has family lines from Ohio
• Andrea went to some cemeteries of relatives (last month)in New York and found no headstones on most of the graves. She also went to Ellis Island but they didn’t have any records. At least she got there just before the big snow fall.
• George Newton worked on the newsletters and that’s about all he’s had time for. He needs more articles for the next two newsletters. He’s asking for any size articles to be sent his way. Subject of article must be genealogy related but other then that, it’s your choice what you write. [secretary note; QUERIES too would be appreciated]
• Mike Brautigan had a hit on the internet and is corresponding with a couple people who gave him information but no sources. He had some questions on Ontario research and on German names. He has a microfilm reader/printer he’d give to the club but it’s too large and heavy for our portable library. He will likely donate it to the LDS library in Westland.
• George lost his grandmother recently. At her wake he met the sister of his grandfather. She’s written him a one page email daily since Christmas. Dealing with family data. Now he’s met another sister and brother of his grandfather who all have some interest in family research. They are delighted as they could not find any family interested in the family history until meeting George.
• Donna purchased a subscription to Ancestry.com. Now she hopes to have the time to use it.
• Bob got his Ford computer up and running. He had a problem with ice water shorting the line ‘outside’ that comes in and is used by his modem. Bob is retiring and hopes to have more time for genealogy, perhaps for the club.
• Karen in December took time to work on her personal research of Isreal (various spellings) Johnson or rather the five of them. There seems to be five in a row. She found a book in Lansing (Library of Michigan) of newspaper clippings on Decatur county Georgia and that helped with her Johnson’s. She’s getting ready to go to Salt Lake City in February and has two family books she’s writing.
• Mark went skiing. He has updated the links on the FGC web site.
• Chuck plans to do some research in PA on his Johnson’s who lived near Pittsburgh in McKeesport, PA.

Minutes submitted by Diane Oslund, Secretary

Ford Genealogy Club - January 11, 2001 Meeting Last updated February 3, 2001. Comments?