Afternoon

I have come upon a dilemma of sorts.    I like to read the comments that people leave, as long as they are they are not the sort of thing a person would have to report as objectionable.      But, how do I reply to comments that people make except to reply in the body of this journal.

How I got started in genealogy.   This is something I wanted to do for years.  I  always had an interest in the lives of others and tales of people coming to this shore yearning to be free.....to paraphrase Miss Liberty.....My biggest regret is that I didn't get started till my parents were dead.   Why did I wait???  I haven't figured that out yet.  Guess I had some fantasy thinking that they would live forever.  I can remember my grandmothers and parents tales but I can only remember so much information in my childhood brain.  

When my father died (March 2004) we went thru his things and uncovered a treasure trove of cached  ancestory information.     I guess it reallu started from this.   The first thing to be done is write down what you know.   My mother and father had no living siblings.   My mother was an only child....The next thing was to go to the library and check to see if they have:

 Search Birth Records, Death Records, Marriage Records and US Census Records - Ancestry.com 

This is a paid site and a lot of libraries have them.   If you have an idea when they came plug in the nearest census.    It is hard on many accounts;  1)   you may not know the maiden names of female relatives, and 2) the 1890 Federal census was destroyed by a fire.    I was also looking in Ireland and the old census were destroyed in 1922 in Dublin  3) many records were destroyed during wars and lastly 4) the borders changed in Europe with the wars. A lot of records are kept by the churches and a lot of them are on microfilm and kept by the Church of the Latter Day Saints in Utah.   You can see where the nearest church and peruse their index and order them for your inspection.   I haven't doesthis yet.  Most people who have extensive information have been working on this for years.    I have only been working on this for about a year,  I think I have gleaned a lot of information in that short time.     I think I could have done a field in research or being a detective.

The county governments have saved a lot of information.  Will, death, marriage and birth certificates.   Some of the church records are in Latin; and a lot of records were not religiously kept before the late 1800's.   So the best place to start is the federal census.

I have names of three of four of my great grandparents.   I have a picture of the Schridde ancestors but I do not knew their names, except for my grandfather.     I have written to the officials in the town where he was born to request a birth certificate but haven't heard from them; I guess it is time to write another email or even letter.