One of "those" genealogies

While using the book search at HeritageQuest Online for a surname in a sister-in-law's and nephew's ancestry, I came across a succinct little treasure of names and dates for several generations in a book that, from the title, appears to be something you'd find in a library and think, "This looks legit." So, I went to the beginning of the chapter to see whose ancestry was being written about. The first sentence read:

"**** ******** ***** is of Swiss, German, Dutch, French, Scotch, Irish, Welsh and English ancestry, which has been traced back several centuries on many different lines, and on one line back to Adam and Eve, naming the direct ancestor in every generation back to the Garden of Eden."

I was relieved to find that the surname of my interest is not connected to the supposed Adam and Eve line — which wasn't even listed in detail, by the way — but I'm still going to use what I found as a road map. Thankfully, the info for the family I'm researching appears to be plausible.

Yeah, about that idea ...

Ding, dong, the checklist is dead ... at least in paper form or as a spreadsheet. What I'm going to do instead is create a new page on ShowMeAncestors.com for each individual with the same template as my checklist. I've been doing this for a few weeks. It's going to be a long process, but no longer than doing it as I had originally planned.

I'll still be able to print out the web page to see what I've done and still need to do and take that hard copy on the road, but I felt that having my database(s) (still working on the eternal plan to combine them), a web site and a paper trail was too much redundancy. And, hopefully, this will attract others to share their research on the site by filling in the holes I don't have time to research.

Cook Co. records online; let's see how long the server holds up

John at Transylvanian Dutch has found that the Cook County Vital Records site is now live.

I just purchased and downloaded a marriage certificate a few minutes ago. The site is fairly easy to use. One minor complaint: wild card searches aren't an option. Instead, soundex is supported. (Why? The Missouri State Archives has shown how to make an effective search tool that isn't overly complicated.) Not a big deal, though. This site will likely become hugely popular and, hopefully, this shows other counties that digitization projects can and should be done.

Great find, John!