Russell Family Update

One of the byproducts of requesting a photo of a grave site on Find A Grave (FAG) is that the volunteer who fulfills your request frequently will take and post additional photographs. Thus it was when I requested a grave site photo for Lucy Jane (Booth) Russell.

As it so happens, the Russell memorial has a double stone and the volunteer (Sarah Carter) posted the information for Thad Allma Russell...notice the middle name change from Allan to Allma. The bonus? The grave stone includes a marriage date, which means yet another piece of paper to chase.

Getting corrections like Thad's middle name (or at least a new fact like a marriage date to ponder) is another benefit to supporting and participating in FAG. Anyway, for anyone searching for Thad Allma Russell, you can find him at Tuscola Cemetery, Tuscola, Taylor County, Texas. His FAG memorial is  87398568.

Now the fun part. I've found a newspaper article indicating that Lucy and Thad were divorced. Here it is.


The Abilene Reporter-News, Abilene, Texas, 22 Jun 1962, Page 36
Thad A. Russell v. Lucy J. Russell, plaintiff granted divorce. 

And yet, they have a double stone and are buried as man and wife with nary a mention of a divorce.

So what's the story? Did they reconcile? Did they remarry? Do you know? Will you tell? 

Winfred Eugene Henderson d. 28 Feb 1976 Eugene, Lane County, Oregon

After several repeated attempts at getting a Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness volunteer to send me a copy of Ira Henderson's obit, I finally received a copy that I could see and read. I used it to update Ira's Find A Grave Memorial (46526701). I already had his wife's obit (Eula); however, one child Winfred had died before Eula, which was the reason I was pursuing Ira's obit.  I was hoping it would provide some leads on Winfred, their oldest child. It worked.

Winfred Eugene Henderson (went by Fred)
b. 9 Sep 1916 Texas (probably Clarendon, Donley County)
d. 28 Feb 1976 Eugene, Lane County, Oregon
m. 27 Dec 1934 Kansas City, Jackson County, Missouri
Bertha Agnes Briggs
b. 19 Sep 1915 Kansas City, Jackson County, Missouri
d. 7 Jan 2008 Eugene, Lane County, Oregon

Winfred was born in Texas, a grandson of Lucinda Ann (Booth) Henderson, a great grandson of Mary Jane (McKee) Booth. A year after Winfred's birth, in 1917, his father, Ira, registers for the World War I draft, listing his home as Clarendon, Donley County, Texas.

About 1920, Winfred's grandfather  (Hezekiah Othnell Henderson) moves his family to Kansas City, Missouri. Most of the Henderson family follows Hezekiah. Hezekiah dies in Kansas City in 1933.

Because I had contact with a member of the Henderson family, I knew to look for later records in California, and I found lots of records in California. In Winfred's case, this knowledge did me no good. However, with his father Ira's obituary, I found that I should be looking in Eugene, Oregon. With that piece of information, tracking Winfred became an easy task.

Through my research, I've found that I can't overstate the value of obits. For the subject of the obituary, you frequently get confirmation on parents' names, date and place of birth, who they married and when and where the marriage occurred. The survivor lists provide married names for daughters and place names for everybody. Lots of obits provide interesting details like occupations and hobbies, which you can use to locate more information. These invaluable leads are the reason that I pursue every obit I can.

Corbitt Marie (Collins) Knopp went by Marie

I've continued to pursue death dates and obituaries for everyone in my list with a custom ID of D (dead or probably dead based on their date of birth). It's been slow going as I've been tracking down local libraries and contacting them to see if they offer an obituary lookup service.

In addition, I've added a few requests to Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness. RAOGK volunteer Raymond in the Dallas, Texas area responded almost immediately with an obituary for Marie.

Marie already had a memorial on Find A Grave; however, it was under Marie. Most of the records I have found for her were under Corbitt. Therefore, I added a second memorial and cross-referenced it to the first momorial. See 6734531 and 67581124 on Find A Grave.

Raymond also told me that he couldn't find an obituary for Marie's husband:
Donald Richard Knopp
b. 12 Jun 1926 Minneapolis, MN
d. 18 Mar 2005 Irving, TX

Marie is buried in a national cemetery. Therefore, I'm assuming that Donald was also buried in the same cemetery. I've requested a photo of Marie's gravesite in the hopes that the F.A.G. volunteer will notice and take a photograph of Donald's gravesite too. We'll see.

In the meantime, I'm still in hot pursuit of the right library. When I'm successful, I usually end up making a donation to the library when they don't have a fee for the service. I figure if I have to go back to them a little bit of cash will grease my way into their good graces. After all, many times, librarians are looking up obits for me in their spare time...time that they could use for their own pursuits.

Custom IDs and Barbara Jean (Boyce) McGuire

I've written before about having a custom ID that I use to code my files. Here's a list.

F = I've made an entry on Find a Grave.
O = I've found an obituary. The ideal custom ID is FO.
D = The person is dead or probably should be dead. I may or may not have a date. If I don't have a date, I have to look for one. If I do have a date, I need to find an obit.
L = The person is getting older and I should be searching the Web for an obit.
- = The person is most likely living and not about to die anytime soon.

The genealogy world with its vitals can sometimes have a bit of a ghoulish aspect to it. My brother-in-law fell over laughing when I told him that L stood for lurking and that I routinely lurk on the Web looking for obits. He immediately demanded to see the custom ID on his entry in my database. He's not quite old enough yet to have earned an "L" status.

All of this leads to Barbara. I was lurking on the Net...looking at all my L people...when I came upon Barbara's obit. As usual it provided all sorts of information that I didn't have before. Click here to see the obit.

Unfortunately, the obit doesn't include a burial location. So I've changed Barbara's custom ID to O. If a memorial doesn't turn up on Find A Grave in the next few weeks, I'll have to decide whether to contact a family member. I can use Pipl.com to get contact info for the people mentioned in the obit.

Find A Grave Success

I’m an advocate for advertising research projects. One of the best ways to make contacts is to advertise, advertise, advertise. To that end, I write articles about my family and have them published in society journals. I post queries to message boards. I maintain a family website. I started this blog for just that purpose.

Another advertising activity I engage in is adding memorials to Find A Grave where I'm Pam (#47140371). I try to always complete a bio for each person I add, many times adding details from the person’s obituary. My current count is 264 memorials in one year and seven months.

Well today all the work paid off. I received an email from Bryan, a member of the Alexander McKee line (Child 6 in the family list on the left). I’ve got pretty good info for this line starting from Alexander. My info begins to get sparse as it comes forward…the more recent the date, the less info I have. So being able to work with Bryan has the potential to answer so many questions.

I’ve heard great stories about contacts that were made thru Find A Grave, and now, I might just have my own story to tell. So Bryan, if you’re reading this post, email me again! We have lots and lots to correspond about.