Last night I wanted to post an image of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s death certificate as part of my Surname Saturday post, but I (embarrassed frown) couldn’t find it. I went through my poor excuse for a filing system, and the certificate wasn’t in the folder it was supposed to be in… or anywhere else for that matter. I’m basically a poster child for all those talks given at genealogy conferences (or blog posts from DearMyrtle and others) about getting yourself (and your genealogy records) organized.

On the Bright Side…

Fortunately, in the course of my search, I came across a bunch of records (birth, marriage, and death registers from Massachusetts, mostly) that my son had retrieved for us when he was attending college in Boston a few years back. As it happens (and it happens to me a lot!) they’d ended up in a big pile, then gotten cleaned up into my genealogy catch-call box, and as a result, I’d never gotten around to putting them in sheet protectors, assigning document numbers to them and placing them in binders.

A New Find

For the most part, these documents offered closer-to-primary source info that confirmed secondary sources I already had. But in going through a death register for Andrew Guilford today, I came across something completely new: a possible maiden name for his mother, Sally _________, wife of Ebenezer Morris Guilford. The register listed Sally’s parents as Erastus and Philinda Brown. A few quick google searches unearthed histories and vital records compilations for Conway, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, and just like that, I had info that could (if verified further) push me back another generation.

It’s amazing what you can find when you’re looking (unsuccessfully) for something else!

I appear to have two Zimmermann ancestral lines, since both Jacob Jourdan and Johann Peter Kissel had spouses with the maiden name of Zimmermann. The problem comes in determining where (or whether) the two lines ultimately connect.

Here’s what I think I know about my ZIMMERMANN line through Margarete Zimmermann:

1. Dean Richardson

2. David Richardson (1935-1998)

3. Margaret Jourdan / Jordan, born 01 June 1903 in Erie, Erie County, PA; died 25 January 1982 in Erie, Erie County, PA

4. Friedrich Jourdan, born 08 February 1864 in Walldorf, Starkenburg, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany; died 03 May 1951 in Erie, Erie County, PA

5. Margarete Zimmermann, born 25 November 1837 in Walldorf, Starkenburg, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany; died 31 August 1806, also in Walldorf.

6. Wilhelm Zimmermann, born 08 December 1796 in Walldorf; died 10 January 1841, also in Walldorf.

7. Louis Henrich Zimmermann, born 28 April 1760 in Walldorf; died 10 November 1817, also in Walldorf.

8. Jean Zimmermann, birthdate unknown; died 01 August 1759 in Walldorf. The time between his death date and Louis’ birthdate is a bit suspect, but we’ll go with it for now.

My source for #5-#8 is “Das Walldorfer Familienbuch, 1699-1875″ by Wilhelm Klink and Jean Becker, published in 1974 by the “Working group for Walldorf history and  genealogy” and the city of Walldorf.

Here are the basics on my ZIMMERMANN line through Elizabeth Zimmermann. Margaret Jourdan’s mother and Friedrich Jourdan’s wife was Amelia Kissel:

4. Amelia Kissel / Kissell, born 28 Aug 1867 in Theresa, Jefferson County, NY; died 09 Sep 1929 in Erie, Erie County, PA.

5. Elizabeth Zimmermann, born 01 December 1832 in Walldorf; died 28 March 1897 in Theresa, Jefferson County, NY.

I have several (contradictory) sources for Elizabeth Zimmermann. The first is her death certificate. It specifically gives her birthplace as Walldorf and states that she died 28 March 1897 at age 64 years, 3 months, 27 days, implying the 01 December 1832 birthdate. Additionally, Church records for the Redwood German Church in Redwood, Jefferson County, NY indicate that Elizabeth was born 19 December 1833 in “Waldrof, Germany.” Elizabeth’s tombstone, found in Oakwood Cemetery in Theresa, Jefferson County, NY, also gives her birth year as 1833.

However, the closest the Walldorfer Familienbuch comes to mentioning an Elizabeth born around 1832/1833 is Elizabeth Katharina Zimmermann, born 14 November 1831. Elizabeth Katharina is the sister of Margarethe Zimmermann, listed above as Friederich Jourdan’s mother. If that connection proved accurate, it would mean that Friederich Jourdan married his cousin Amelia Kissel. But I’m a long way from ready to conclude any such thing. If you have any insights to offer, I’d love to hear them.

Tim’s was among the first blogs I subscribed to via RSS back when I first started blogging in July of 2008. I figured with a title like “Genealogy Reviews Online“, his blog would be a good model for what I hoped mine might eventually become.

Since then, though I’ve written the occasional genealogy-related review, I’ve mostly ceded that blogging topic to better-qualified writers like Tim who are willing to spend the time it takes to really explore a website or software package and give it an in-depth treatment.

Giving “Contrarian” a Good Name

Tim’s blog isn’t just about reviews. He spends a fair amount of his posts talking about his own research efforts, and as a result talks a lot about military history, Italian records, and DNA/Genetic research.

What keeps me coming back to his blog, though, is his willingness to take a somewhat contrarian view on genealogy-related topics. Most of the geneabloggers I encounter (Tamura Jones and Randy Seaver being the obvious exceptions) post reviews of new genealogy sites or services (or reality TV shows!) that they like, but Tim’s quite happy to write about resources and commercial entities that he *doesn’t* like and offers well-articulated reasons for his opinions.

Credibility and Authenticity

Tim also writes about blogging as a source of income and offers a tasteful selection of advertising/affiliate links on his site. That’s not something I see myself doing, but his implementation of it is one of the most innocuous I’ve seen.

Something about his writing and his content selection gives off an air of credibility and authenticity that is common to the best blogs I’ve found. Others seem to think so too… he’s got way more RSS subscribers than I do and he gets a consistent stream of thoughtful comments on his posts.

If you don’t already read Genealogy Reviews Online, I’d recommend you do — Tim’s unique take on genealogy and the web in general will leave you better-informed than you were when you came.

I tend to check Google Analytics way too often to see how many visitors stop by Genlighten on a given day and where they’re coming from. Occasionally I’ll notice an interesting keyword someone entered into Google to find our site.

One keyword phrase jumped right out at me a few days back — it’s #5 in the screenshot shown here. What was this person thinking, I wondered?

Were they annoyed by something they’d encountered on our site? Had they had a bad experience with one of our providers? Did their credit card fail to go through? These are the kinds of things that keep Genlighten’s founders up at night.

After a little research and a conversation with my lovely co-founder/VP Customer Support, I decided that the site visitor who’d typed this into Google fit into one of two categories. Either:

1. they’d been frustrated by something on Genlighten that didn’t work for them and wanted to see if others had experienced something similar and written about it on the web, or
2. they were thinking of using our site but were wary, and wanted to check us out first by seeing if anyone had posted a complaint about us somewhere.

Google Analytics doesn’t tell me much of anything specific about the identity of the site visitors it tracks. Most all of the data it provides is completely anonymized (and that’s a good thing.) But I’d very much like to help the person who typed “complaints genlighten” into Google become a satisfied Genlighten customer. If you’re that person, and you fall into category #1 above, I hope you’ll email us at support@genlighten.com or use our “Feedback” tab. And if you fall into category #2, I hope your search reassured you somewhat.

We’re new, and we’re small, and our site’s still in very early beta, but we’re determined to earn your trust and your business. Please let us know what you like about Genlighten and how we can serve you better. Thanks!

I talk with many Family History Center patrons who are leaving no stone unturned searching for the birthplace of an Irish ancestor. I’m fortunate. Birth places for my 5th great-grandparents–John and Ellen Cohen–were recorded in the 1901 English census.

Abraham Trafford was born 31 December 1804 in New Jersey and died 27 August 1871, also in New Jersey. He married Basilea Harmer. She was born 28 October 1814 in New York and died 13 September 1894. They’re buried in the Rumson Burying Ground in Rumson, Monmouth County, New Jersey. Also buried in the family plot are five of their children.

Both photos are from the Monmouth County New Jersey GenWeb site, and are credited there to Lisa Caruso.

I guess I got started doing genealogy by finding the answers to questions that family members had. I then moved on to answering queries on message boards and volunteering to take cemetery photographs.

I don’t think I have any genealogy “superpower”. I realize that the solution to a genealogy problem often involves trips down side paths in order to find answers.

One of my first clients was trying to find out what happened to a great great grandmother. He said he had all the information on her children, census, birth, death records, cemetery locations etc. I took him at his word. I then had an aha moment when I realized he didn’t have any obituaries for anyone other than his great grandmother. The great great grandmother was mentioned in one of her other child’s obituaries. It turns out her disappearance was a result of name change caused by remarriage. I guess this problem stood out for what I gained from it. The importance of not making assumptions and communication between researcher and client.

A well formulated query is specific in what the researcher is seeking. A well formulated query provides all relevant information. A well formulated query when providing location details, is detailed: giving as much geographic information as possible. If necessary do some homework first before making a query. For example it doesn’t make sense to ask for a birth certificate a hundred years before vital records were even kept for a particular state.

I am fortunate to have access to the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, IN. Its Genealogy Center contains the largest public genealogy collection in the United States.

To scan documents, I use a Canon CanoScan N1240U. It’s light weight and runs off a USB cable, which makes it ideal for taking to the library. The software I use to adjust images is usually PhotoFiltre or Irfanview. For annotating .pdf files I use PDF-Xchange Viewer.

At the moment I am not considering offering more lookups. But I am open to suggestions.

Consider doing free lookups in the areas that you are familiar with to gain experience.

I enjoy playing tennis.

Lookups Timothy Offers

• City Directory Lookups, Various cities, Any Range
• Atlanta Constitution Obituary Lookup, June 17, 1868 to January 20, 1985
• Chicago Tribune Obituary Lookup, April 23, 1849 to the present
• Fort Wayne, Allen Co., IN Obituary Lookup, Abt. 1841 to the present
• Huntington, Huntington Co., IN Obituary Lookup, Abt. 1848 to 1986
• Indianapolis Star Obituary Lookup, August 16, 1961 to the present
• Los Angeles Times Obituary Lookup, January 1, 1972 to the present
• Pittsburgh Courier Obituary Lookup, March 25, 1911 to December 31, 1987
• San Francisco Chronicle Obituary Lookup, January 16, 1865 to December 31, 1985
• Washington Post Obituary Lookup, July 1, 1904 to the present
• News-Tribune Hicksville, Ohio Obituary Lookup , 1881 to 1887, and Mar. 1907 to Dec. 2004
• Virginia Birth Registers, 1853 – 1896
• Virginia Death Registers, 1853 – 1896
• Virginia Marriage Registers, 1853 – 1935

We’ve gotten a bunch of new lookup offerings submitted for our approval by potential providers over the past few weeks. Some of them we look at and immediately say to ourselves “Wow…this [guy/gal] gets it!” Others give us a little more pause. In this post, I hope to share the things we think make for a highly-appealing lookup listing — one that will get potential clients clicking “Add to Cart”. Here goes:

1) Offer to Lookup Records That Aren’t Available Elsewhere Online

Genlighten is about helping people find offline records from local repositories. Try to avoid offering lookups for documents that your clients could easily find online at Ancestry or FamilySearch. Of course, if a record is offered online for $40 and you can profitably offer to look it up offline for $10, go right ahead!

2) Craft a Concise Headline Referencing the Locality

Here your goal is to get clients to click on “Get Details” from our basic search results page. Limit your headline to about 50 characters so it doesn’t get truncated.

Good examples: “Jefferson County Kentucky Probate Records”, “Bloomington-Normal Obits from the Pantagraph”. You don’t need to include the date range covered in your headline. Just put it in the “date range” field and we’ll insert it at the end of your headline automatically.

3) Don’t Forget to Put Details in Your “Detailed Description”

“Key Lookup Details” should include these elements:

• The archive or repository where you’ll perform the lookup
• How often you visit (and the resulting turnaround time clients can expect)
• How you’ll perform your search (including the information you’ll need from the client)
• An online index the client can search to obtain an index entry or certificate number for you to reference (if available)
• What a “found” and “not found” result will mean for the client
• What information the client is likely to obtain from the record
• Limitations on the scope of the search you’ll perform (a single individual, a certain range of years, etc.)

4) Set Realistic Yet Affordable “Found” and “Not Found” Prices

Pricing your offerings is difficult, we know. Only you can decide what your costs are and what you need to earn for the time and effort you’ll spend. Set a price that seems fair to both you and your clients. If in doubt, ask yourself, “What would I be willing to pay for this lookup?”

5) Use the “Client Instructions” to Spell Out Exactly What You Need

Your job as a lookup provider will be easiest when you can reduce the process to a repeatable algorithm that takes specific known inputs and produces the desired record on a consistent basis. This obviously won’t work in many cases, but it’s a goal worth striving for. As you compose your instructions to the client, reduce the data you ask for to the absolute minimum necessary. Tweak this based on the queries you receive.

Summary

The main thing that sets the best lookup offerings on Genlighten apart from others is the level of detail they include. Details show that you’ve thought through the lookup process and that you know what you’re doing. They also inspire confidence in potential clients and yield requests that you can successfully fulfill. We’ve had site visitors tell us that they’ve seen lookups they’re interested in but they haven’t ordered because the descriptions were too vague.

We’re happy to offer suggestions and guidance with this process. Please feel free to contact us for help by e-mailing support@genlighten.com.

Here’s what I know (or like to think I do) about my GRANT line.

1. Dean Richardson

2. David Richardson, born 17 Nov 1935 in Erie, Erie County, PA; died 16 Oct 1998 in Stanford, Santa Clara County, CA

3. Owen Richardson, born 02 Dec 1899 in Baltimore, Baltimore County, MD; died 05 Dec 1993 in Edinboro, Erie County, PA

4. Louise Grant Smith, born 01 Apr 1861 in Detroit, Wayne County, MI; died 01 May 1941 in Saybrook, Ashtabula County, OH

5. Margaretta Ballenger Grant, born 09 Apr 1839 in St. Louis, St. Louis County, MO; died 29 Jun 1918 in Tiffin, Seneca County, OH

6. David Miller Grant, born 03 Feb 1801 in Philadelphia (or Scotland!); died in 1848.

David seems to have been a ship’s captain for numerous boats traveling the Mississippi River. Family lore has him born in Scotland, Church records for Philadelphia seem to place his birth there, but neither are conclusive.

The obituary shown here is for Margaretta Ballenger (Grant) Shelly. She married (first) James Thomas Smith. After James’ death in 1863, she married (second) William Kern Shelly on 24 Dec 1866 in Chicago, Cook County, IL. The Mrs. Louise Richardson mentioned in the obituary as one of Margaretta’s three surviving daughters is my great-grandmother.

If you have any information on David Miller Grant of Philadelphia / St. Louis / Peoria, I’d sure be grateful to hear from you.

Recently on Genlighten we’ve had an influx of new users registering for the site and posting lookup offerings. While most of them represent exactly what we have in mind — local researchers visiting nearby repositories to retrieve and digitize records that are only available offline — some have gone in a different direction than we’d like to see.

These “lookups from online sources” have offered to look up records for a fee that are already available on Footnote or the FamilySearch Record Pilot for free. We see nothing inherently wrong with this (presuming the client is made aware of the free alternative should they wish to search it themselves) but it doesn’t really fit the vision we have for Genlighten.

Genlighten is all about Offline genealogy records

Just as Footnote calls themselves “The place for original historical documents online” we’d like to be, in part at least, “the place to get help retrieving original offline historical documents”. That’s how we’d like to position/differentiate ourselves relative to our competitors. It’s become obvious that we need to spell that out more clearly on our site and in our promotional materials, and you’ll see us doing that in the weeks and months ahead.

In the meantime, one of the things we’re now doing is reviewing each new lookup offering we get before letting it go “live” and making sure that the records the provider offers to search aren’t already available online for free. A great place for us to go and check this out is Joe Beine‘s marvelous sites listing birth/marriage records and death records available online. [He has several other sites worth checking out for other record types as well.]

Joe’s performed a tremendous service for genealogy researchers everywhere. He’s constantly updating his sites; when he does, he lists those updates on his Genealogy Roots Blog. You won’t find a lot of posts here about Joe’s own research or on the usual geneablogging memes — just high-quality links and actionable advice on places you can find the records you want (usually for free!)

If you’re not already following Joe’s blog, I encourage you to do so… you’ll come back again and again and find stuff you never would have guessed was online.