4:00 am…it’s not the first time I saw that hour. But, what started as an, “I can’t sleep, so let me just put a few family members into the family tree until I get tired,” became an, “OH MY WORD! I’M TALKING OUT LOUD TO MYSELF AT 2:00 AM!” That became the theme over the next 2 hours. I finally started my “free trial” membership on ancestry.com. I got the program “Family Tree Maker” this past year. So far, I have 1324 names in the program. I heard that #1325 was born yesterday to one of my cousins! (Yay!)
I wanted to get a huge start before heading online. I’m SO glad I did!
I’m too tired to get into all of the treasure that I found in detail. But, here’s one highlight:
1) I discovered that my Mom’s Great-Grandfather’s name was Harry J Hovey. He and his wife, Ida, had 11 children! I’m still working on it, but through a random google search, I found a woman who has done extensive research on her family tree. It includes HARRY J HOVEY! ‘Turns out that Harry’s father was Henry Hovey. He was listed as a baker in the 1870 census. Yum. His Mom was Amanda Hovey.
Long story short…Harry’s sister, Althea, married a man named Earl Francis Bartling. Any descendents of Althea can trace their family back to the 1500′s in Prussia (now Germany). Even though this isn’t my bloodline, it’s still a jewel that sometimes comes up. So neat! Here is the blog post where I found this info: Nanasgoldenphone
The thing that actually made me tear up a bit was reading the names of all of my Great-Great Grandparent’s children for the first time. Here they are (minus one…which I’ll work on):
Lurnine
Ulbert
Arde
Gilbert L
Lillian
Pearl
Merton E
Harold Columbus (my great-grandfather)
Althea
Emma E
Would you like to see the “house” they lived in? This is what I believe was their home (before it was a business)! 
http://goo.gl/maps/eOP74 (If anyone knows how I can save that as a jpg, let me know. I’d love to put the pic right here.) Use the arrows to look around the neighborhood. I “assume” that it looks a lot different than it did then.
Don’t stay up until 4:00 am, folks. It’s not good…rewarding in some ways, but not good.
JMF
Wow, I love that you could find a pic of the house at the address!!! I never thought to try that!!
I just thought of it the other night. So, I can’t wait to go through everyone’s census records and take a peek. It’s hard if the family had a “rural route”. But, suburbs and cities…no problem!
Hi Jennie! This is very cool to be able to follow along with you in this adventure. I’m going to pass your blog along to my mom, too. She’s been following my family line for some years and her husband has traced his back to Germany in the 1500s I think.
To save the picture of the house I’d try pressing Ctrl+Print Screen (upper right of your keyboard). Open paint and press Ctrl+V and crop it down as you see fit. Let me know if you need any further assistance.
Thank you!
That helps a lot!
Jennie