Louisiana
I Love Ancestry’s Expanded, Updated City Directories
Last week, Ancestry.com updated and repackaged its U.S. Directories and U.S. Public information databases. These are now all a part of Ancestry’s “1940 Census Substitute.” Part of the upgrade was acquisition of what Ancestry VP for Content Gary Gibb called ” a huge collection of city directories.” I was excited about this from the outset. I’ve long understood the value …
March 22, 2009 Sunday at 6:45 pm
Names, Places & Most Wanted Faces
I started this with a note on Facebook and it was suggested that it would make a good meme for bloggers. The idea is to publicize your surnames and locales to see if anyone elseknows something about them. For me on Facebook, I got several research-helpful replies. So how much better to take it to a wider audience. List the …
February 26, 2009 Thursday at 8:29 pm
Surname Distribution Analyzed
Before we analyze the data to comprehend its meaning, let’s do a bit more research to see if we can validate the existing data. Let’s check in with the United States Census Bureau which has analyzed names by frequency of occurrence from the 1990 census. When we search for Gines and then Guynes, the following values are produced: GINES 0.001 …
February 11, 2009 Wednesday at 9:58 pm
Happy Dance Days Are Here Again!
65th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy: The topic for the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy is: “The Happy Dance. The Joy of Genealogy. Almost everyone has experienced it. Tell us about the first time, or the last time, or the best time. What event, what document, what special find has caused you to stand up and cheer, …
January 28, 2009 Wednesday at 7:34 pm
Back to Some Hard Genealogy . . .
Seems it’s been a while since we did any hard genealogy here. The best way to handle that is simply to just jump into it. Our subject today is one of my most resistant brickwalls. I’m going to describe my research and solicit ideas about how to proceed. So as they used to say on that early 1960s game show, …
January 25, 2009 Sunday at 11:25 am
Another Bowie Mystery
As I’ve written about from time to time, my Bowie line descends from one James Bowie (c. 1795-1832), a so-called “free man of color” who resided in Louisiana. My cousin Steve Bowie has set out the history and genealogy of the James Bowie FMC descendants at his excellent site, http://www.jamesbowiefmc.com/. We don’t know where James Bowie was born nor who …
January 12, 2009 Monday at 10:02 pm
2009: Day 3
Is the honeymoon with the new year over already? I’m betting that by Monday morning, that’s what of us will be thinking! But I’ve had a good first three days! On the one hand, I missed the Carnival, which broke one of my resolutions, but it was unavoidable. Plagued by connectivity problems all week (which are now solved), I was …
January 3, 2009 Saturday at 9:53 pm
Elias Bowie (1910-2005)
Elias Bowie (Jr.) was my father’s uncle. He was the the brother of my grandmother, Jessie Beatrice Bowie (1909-1973). Their mother was Hattie Bryant (1888-1944). Hattie had been born on the Texas Gulf Coast. After a marriage at age 15 and another relationship, she headed for San Antonio with her infant son Herman Walker (1906-2002). In San Antonio, Hattie found …
December 4, 2008 Thursday at 9:40 pm
Family on Television
My families will be getting some television exposure this fall. First, on Tuesday, November 11, ABC Family Channel presents the two hour season finale of Lincoln Heights, which stars Nicki Mischeau as Jennifer Sutton, wife of police officer Eddie Sutton. Nicki is part of the “French Negroes of Illinois” families that settled in St Louis. An experienced character role player, …
November 8, 2008 Saturday at 9:31 pm
Woo-Hoo! Louisiana Death Records Now Online!
UPDATE: [9/20/08 at 5:08 PM PDT]: The problem with the order page alluded to below is that my pop-up blocker was on. The page does not alert you to this issue, but beware: that’s the stopper.] Joe Beine has posted that Louisiana Death Records 1911-1957 are now online! Terrific! I’ve tried the site and it generally works well, but can …
September 19, 2008 Friday at 11:05 pm
