Challenge #9 - History and Genealogy Resources - Ancestry Library, Heritage Quest and Sanborn Maps


Basic Discovery Exercise:

#1 - AncestryLibrary

 I have my own subscription to Ancestry so am comfortable with it.  My family tree does hide living people so it won't pull up unless I log in.  So, I did the search for my name using Patricia M. Andersen and Rapid City, SD as my search terms.  The first record is a U.S. Public Records Index, Volume 1 (1993) and has my previous address in Rapid, with a correct date of birth.

#2 - AncestryLibrary

I searched Anders Richard Andersen, my grandfather.  Since he is the father of 10 (my father was 2nd), there are a lot of records including WWI Draft Registration, Iowa Birth and Christenings, U.S. Public Records.  Because he was always called Richard Anders Andersen I checked for both names.   I clicked on Census records to narrow the search down.  I get better hits with Richard A. than with Anders R.  Found him in the 1910 Census, he is living in Clinton, NE with his parents (Fritz and Camille) and six of his siblings.  He is around 9 years old.  Only two siblings are older, the rest are younger.  (And there are more to come!).  I clicked on his name and get some more suggestions for the 1920, 1930 and 1940 census as well as his draft card (again).  The draft card is the only record that shows his name as Anders Richard.

#3 - AncestryLibrary

Got back 5,000+ images, clicked on one for Dr. Dr. G.W. in Vermillion.  It does take quite a while to load, even when on a high speed connection like on campus, my first attempt the Adobe reader crashed.   Kept crashing so couldn't get any pictures to open.  Might be a problem with my computer I'll try at home tonight to see how it goes.

#4 - HeritageQuest

I tried a couple searches in HeritageQuest books, didn't get any direct hits on Andersen or Grace as a last name.  Did a place search and found one family history for Rapid City, SD  It is a Genealogy and Family Histories of the Lighter and Wilhelm Families.   I opened it to the page image and it looks pretty readable and easy to use for people needing that family.

I have used HeritageQuest to see if their scans of the Census are clearer than those of the AncestryLibrary.  It is always best to check both because they scanned them at different times and can have drastically different results.  I did a search by name and also browsed some titles.  I think my family is too young for a lot of this, I have a hard time finding anything relevant.  However, I need to spend some more time with it while on my Ancestry pages to get more names to search.

#5 - Sanborn Maps

Chose Rapid City, 1915.  First page shows a mill on the corner of Omaha and 5th.  There is still a mill there, maybe slightly different buildings but it has been here at least that long.  I also tracked down the Elks Building which still houses the Elks Theatre, where we show our Nostalgia Night film series every year.  It was built in 1912 and modernized several times but still has a 50 ft. screen and a balcony for watching movies.  Great fun.

I have referred several people to this recourse over the years, they really like it and use it when they need it.  Students aren't too interested but our historical researchers in the area are certainly happy to have it.



Advanced Challenge

#1 - AncestryLibrary

Found the listing for passenger ships and searched for Titanic in 1912.  There are pictures of all the White Star Ships, Olympic, Titanic, Britannic (no picture here), Majestic and Republic.   I opened the Olympic (1911-1934) and got the number of funnels (4), masts (2) and a description of how built it, and the history of the ship.  Fascinating reading.  Couldn't open the image to full size but did get a thumbnail. 

#2 - AncestryLibrary

Found Newspapers & Publications under  Stories and Publications.  Search Hindenburg.  Limited it to just newspapers.  Got a lot of Obituaries so redid the search saying Hindenburg dirigible, mostly to get rid of people named Hindenburg.   That got me 517 hits, a lot of which are for The Stars and Stripes, talking about the disaster in the past since most of the articles are in the mid to late 1940's.  I selected the LeRoy Gazette of LeRoy, New York to see if I could find anything closer to the time of the fire.  Since I can't open images I can't read what is said, but it appears that they did cover the story in their May 23, 1934 edition.  The airship went down on May 6th of that year.  There are also several other stories that follow that date. 

#3 - HeritageQuest

I searched Pennington County, SD but got no hits so switched to Woodbury County, Iowa (my home state).  The first hit is a Woodbury County history, out of Sioux City, IA.  Pulled lots of other counties in Iowa as well.  I think adding a name would narrow that down but I didn't for this search.

The whole history thing fascinates me, I enjoyed this "lesson" a lot.