Friday, March 9, 2012

History and Genealogy Resources—Ancestry Library, Heritage Quest and Sanborn Maps

Ancestry
Tried a number of different ways, both maiden and married name, but didn't find myself in Ancestry.

This is the 1910 Census record I found for my grandfather:

Edward Meylor


Age in 1910: 9

Birth Year: 1901

Birthplace: Iowa

Home in 1910: Marcus, Cherokee, Iowa

Race: White

Gender: Male

Relation to Head of House: Son

Marital Status: Single

Father's Name: Robert Meylor

Father's Birthplace: Wisconsin

Mother's Name: Margart Meylor

Mother's Birthplace: Wisconsin

Neighbors: View others on page

Household Members: Name Age

Robert Meylor 50

Margart Meylor 46

Patrick Meylor 23

Robert Meylor 20

Teresa E Meylor 17

Ellen V Meylor 15

Leonard Meylor 13

Raymond Meylor 11

Edward Meylor 9

Clifford Meylor 5

From this I know his father's and mother's names and their birth places and the names of all of his brothers and sisters.  I used Ancestry recently to verify birth years for a family photograph.

This is one of the photos I found by searching "South Dakota" in photos.


Prairie chicken shooting in the South Dakota wheat fields a stereograh taken between 1900-1910.

Heritage Quest
Tried looking up some of my family names in books but didn't find any matches so decided to try my home county, Cherokee County, Iowa.  I found an interesting WPA publication that hadn't read before -
The Iowa Writers' Program of the Work Projects Aministration for the State of Iowa. Cherokee County, Iowa. Des Moines, Iowa?: unknown, 1940.
I found this excerpt interesting



Besides the description of the sod house, I found this interesting because part of  the old wagon trail to O'Brien County was  in the pasture on the farm where I grew up.

Sanborn Maps

I haven't taken time to look at the maps yet so this was interesting.  It would take some time and a lot of patience to figure out what your actually looking at.  I looked up Ft. Pierre.  Moving around on the maps is kind of frustrating but they are interesting. 

I tried inserting a portion above and printing a section.  I was viewing the map at over 200% but it didn't seem to want to print or save the view at that size so it's kind of hard to read (although I just made it bigger in edit here).  I did find a old bank building on the corner of Deadwood and Main that is still there. 




This is my neighborhood in 1927.  Number 128 should be the block where my house is but really can't tell from this what is there.

Ok, now I'm all caught up with lessons. 


1 comment:

Jane Heitman Healy said...

Yes, you are all caught up, and a fine job done here. Great find in Heritage Quest. You can spend a lot of time here learning things that would be hard to find elsewhere. Thanks for your comments, Jean.