Cousin Acquitted in 1903...The Troutfetter story continues

I made a neat little find in the newspapers at World Vital Records today. I learned that my relative was acquitted by a Colorado Springs Court on embezzlement charges in 1903. A search for "troutfetter" at World Vital Records pulled up several results in the Small Town Newspapers Collection, including one from the Valley Springs Vindicator in Valley Springs, Kansas, of 21 August 1903, page 2, which reads in part:

"Philip Troutfetter...has been acquited[sic] of the charge of embezzlement at Colorado Springs. Troutfetter was accused by his mother-in-law...."

The orginal posting about Troutfetter can be viewed here. It is really a colorful headline.

We'll be posting more about Philip as the research is complete. His father, Christian Troutfetter, was a pioneer of Colby County, Kansas, and was a first cousin of my ancestor John Michael Trautvetter of Hancock County, Illinois. A very interesting family and Philip appears to have lead an interesting life.

Those unfamiliar with World Vital Records can view the their current offers here .

A Presidential Pension

One of my recent discoveries on the Civil War Pension Index at Footnote.com was the index card for Ulyssse S. Grant, who would later be United States President.

Our earlier post about this index made mention of the fact that there are pensionsers from other periods of service included besides the Civil War.

Ordering US Civil War Pension Records

There are two ways to order pension and military records from the US National and Records Administration:

1) Order online


2) Request an Order Form (NATF85) sent to you by mail. There are several options to do this

Give your name and mailing address, the form number and the number of forms you need (limit five per order).

• Request the form (NATF85) using the Order Form
  
• Request the form (NATF85) using email inquire@nara.gov
  
• Request the form (NATF85) using US mail- Write to NARA at this address:
  The National Archives and Records Administration General Reference Branch (NNRG-P) National Archives and Records Administration 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20408
  
• Request the form (NATF85) by telephone (202) 501-5652

There is more information on pensions and what they contain on our site.

Footnote's searches...

Footnote.com has improved its search. Unfortunately, there's a slight problem--at least for me.

I try and search for Samuel Rhodes. Footnote also includes Rhode in my search results, giving me numerous results for the state of Rhode Island, which I do not need.

I try and search for "Samuel Rhodes NOT Rhode" thinking that I will eliminate all the hits on Rhode Island. Unfortunately when I search using that approach, I get no results.

The database I was using was the Revolutionary War pension files at Footnote.com . I know there are results in there for Samuel Rhodes as I located them before the search changed. And now I can't find them without paging through every Rhode Island reference....

If I'm missing something, hopefully someone can enlighten me.

Carl Sandburg's Passport Application

In 1918, poet and Galesburg, Illinois, native Carl Sandburg applied for a passport to travel to Europe. His application and the documentation contained therein are extremely interesting. (Note to view the complete application of Sandburg requires an Ancestry.com membership). released These US Passport Applications and images 1795-1925 have recently been released by Ancestry.com.

Included in the application of Sandburg is a portrait of Sandburg, shown in this post. Also included is information on Sandburg's travels outside the United States (only to Puerto Rico), why he is travelling to Europe, and information on his place of birth and his father's citizenship status and nativity. Letters are included from Sandburg's employer at the time and his mother. Parts of those letters are included in this blog post. Sandburg even includes the place of birth for his father.

Sandburg, like others, signed an oath of Allegiance.






Part of the letter from Sandburg's employer is shown here. The rest of the letter summarizes Sandburg's employment history and discusses his time in Puerto Rico.


Sandburg's mother even signed a letter in his behalf. In the first part of the letter she discusses Sandburg's date and place of birth and information on his father.

Sandburg's application for a passport can be viewed on the Ancestry.com site.

These US Passport Applications and images 1795-1925 have been indexed by the name of applicant by Ancestry.com and are searchable. Those without Ancestry.com access can obtain a free trial to Ancestry.com to experiment with this database and others.

Passport Application sample

This passport sample from 1922 indicates that the applicant was born in Switzerland and provides the name of his father and the date of immigration. Also included is the reason for the trip and a picture. Earlier applications do not give pictures and as much information, but is it possible that your ancestor made a return trip "home" to visit family? I'm going to be spending some time this evening taking a look at the recently released US Passport Applications and images 1795-1925.

US Passport Applications at Ancestry.com 1795-1925

Ancestry.com has released US Passport Applications and images 1795-1925. We'll post more information and a sample or two after I've had a little time to play with the database. But give it a try.

Footnote's searching....

Ok, this is just about like a disease, I can't stop.

I searched Footnote.com's "Civil War Pension Index" for "ufkes," expecting nothing. It did bring up "Fikes" as a result. Not the person I was interested in, but a reasonable "sounds like" variant.

A search for "cawiezell" brought no results. No real surprise there--although Cawiezell is a real last name.

A search for "ulfert" brought two results--the last name "Elfert." I was really looking for "Ulfert" as a first name.

I searched the Revolutionary War pension files at Footnote.com as well for

wicksier (an accidental typo) and got wickiser

Hopefully we'll get word of how the search now works, because I don't remember it working this way the last time. This new search (or at least new search to me) is good news, but now I'll have to go back and search for some names again. Making the very important point of tracking your research and when you search a site and what names you search for when searching.

Back to some other work, I'm going to get wayyyyy to distracted with this if I'm not careful.

Footnote's Improving their Search?

It might be just a fluke, but I noticed when I searched Footnote.com's "Civil War Pension Index" for the last name of Troutfetter, it brought up the result Trautvetter. Nowhere did I see any options for "Soundex" or similarly spelled names, but I was pleased to see these broader results.

Footnote must not be doing a "Soundex" search because my search for Neill only brought up Neill and NOT Neal, Niel, etc.

But my search for Habben did bring up Haben.

This is nice, and hopefully someone will post a response on how this is working---but I like the change.

We've included a screen shot of Footnote.com's search tips and saw no mention of any kind of "sounds like" feature when reading through it.

Footnote's Civil War Pension Index

Footnote.com calls is the Civil War Pension index, but it is worth remembering that there are references in this finding aid to other individuals besides Civil War veterans and their widows. Those who take the time to READ on Footnote.com will find the following statement:


"This publication contains index cards for pension applications of veterans who served in the U.S. Army between 1861 and 1917, including wars other than the Civil War." The majority of these pensioners are Civil War veterans, but there are others.

The card that is a part of this blog post comes from Footnote.com's "Civil War Pension Index." The index is nearing completion and those who have put off searching it, may wish to give it another try.

Torn Manifest Article

Ancestry.com's blog ran my "torn manifest" article yesterday and it can be viewed in a printer friendly version on their site. It analyzes the manifest, discusses how I made my way around the "tear" as best I could and additional follow up that needs to be done.

Andreas Schulmeyer is my wife's 4th great-grandfather and he died after the 1870 census, likely in Scott County, Iowa. The line of descent is as follows:

1) Andreas Schulmeyer
2) Elizabeth Schulmeyer Freund Wachter (1840 Beberstedt, Germany-1899 Davenport, Scott County, Iowa)
3) George A. Freund (1858 Davenport, Iowa-1928 Davenport, Iowa)
4) Caroline Freund Mortier (1884 Davenport, Iowa-1981 Rock Island, Rock Island County, Illinois)
5) Grace Mortier Johnson (1913 Bowling Township, Rock Island County, Illinois-2000 Rock Island, Illinois)--my wife's paternal grandmother.

I'd be happy to hear from anyone researching the Schulmeyers in Scott County, Iowa.

Watch those toes and shadows

This picture taken by my daughter a few years ago makes two important points. Watch your shadow and avoid getting it on the stone. Of course, photoediting software can help in getting rid of the shadow, but that may take more time than avoiding it in the first place and you don't want your photo to look "doctored."

And watch the feet. There are toes in the bottom of this picture. Those are easily cropped out.

Get Some Perspective

I've been reviewing several tombstone photographs we took several years ago. There are a few things I would do differently:

• take a picture of the entryway, sign, or something identifying the name of the cemetery if possible.


• rename all the pictures so I know whose stone is in the picture and the cemetery it was taken in.


• take "far off" shots showing relative positions of stones, particularly when there are several family members buried together. I did this in some cases (shown below), but not all.


• review all the photographs as soon after taking them as possible and add a text file to my folder of pictures containing notes and other information on the cemetery and the pictures.

Pictures taken in this post were taken in Holy Family Cemetery, Davenport, Scott County, Iowa.

Additional suggestions are welcome.

Phone Registration Open for Genealogical Computing Week

Phone-in registration for our 10th annual Genealogy Computing Week at Carl Sandburg College in Galesburg, Illinois has begun.

Our offerings include:

Overview of Free Genealogy Online—Monday 3 March 2008
Using Footnote.com—Tuesday 4 March 2008
RootsMagic---Wednesday 5 March 2008
Family Tree Maker 2008—two days---5 and 6 March 2008
Using Ancestry.com---Saturday 8 March 2008

More information can be found at http://www.rootdig.com/sandburg.html.

To register by phone, call 1-877-236-1862 (ext. 5260). Nancy in the college's office will be happy to process your registration. If she does not pick up, leave name, number and best time to call (during 9-5).

We'd love to have you join us.

The Importance of Going One Step at a Time

There is a reason that genealogists are told to work from the present to the past and not to "skip around."

My wife's great-grandfather is William Apgar, born around 1888 in Chicago. I spent hours looking at Apgar families in 1880 and in 1900 (and in city directories), trying to get an idea of who his parents could be.

Turns out Apgar was not his last name after all--it was a last name he took upon his marriage for reasons I am not entirely aware of. His marriage record and a 1910 census enumeration, along with some other information made it clear that his name at birth was actually William Frame. All that time spent looking for Apgars was for naught. Had I worked on him in more detail initially in the 1909-1920 time frame, I would have realized this and not spent so much time looking for the wrong family.

And for those who wonder if Apgar was a name in William's background, the answer is no. It appears he simply chose the name from somewhere other than his own family history.

The baby died at sea

The screen clips here are a little small, but parts are shown of two pages from the manifest of the Hermann, which arrived in New Orleans on 13 Oct 1857. The families of Herman and Ulfert Behrens are shown, along with their unmarried brother Claas. There is a notation on the entry for Heinrich Behrens that he died at sea (his entry is one of the last ones--with the lines drawn through it and with a comment in the last column). Clicking on one of the images will pull up a larger image.

This manifest is nice because it shows the last residence in Europe for the Behrens family--Ilowferehn--actually Ihlowfehn. Had I not known where they were from in Germany, this would have been a significant help.

Checking out those multiple marriages

I had the date and place of the marriage from an index, but I had never seen the original document. I obtained a copy during my last trip to the Family History Library in Salt Lake.

The first image on this post is a copy of the marriage record of Conrad Haas and Barbara Haas in Ft. Madison, Lee County, Iowa in June of 1882 (Marriage record volume 5, page 470). The record gives the ages of Conrad and Barbara. Nowhere is it indicated that this was the Haase's second marriage (they were divorced this time, too....).

It is always good to obtain marriage records for marriages of your ancestor besides the one from which you descend. Sometimes records of these additional records may contain significant clues. And in my case the divorce records contained other clues as well.

And of course, while at the Family History Library, I scanned the records from the microfilm, including the "title page" so I knew where the document was from.

Why it pays to search all the siblings

Even when you think you "know everything" on a certain family, searching for information on the siblings is still a good idea. The 1860 census image from this post comes from page 89 in Pea Ridge Township, Brown County, Illinois. I was searching for Anke/a Taletta Mueller Adams, sister to my ancestor Heipke Mueller Dirks. Heipke and her family have been fairly well documented with records in the United States and in Germany. I could not find a death record for her parents in Germany, but just figured they had moved to a neighboring parish I just had not found them you.

I was right that they moved. The "missing" parents in Germany were living with their daughter Anke Adams in 1860 as shown in the image that is a part of this post. Had I not done my census work on Anke, I might still be looking for the parents.

The Muellers were natives of Etzel, Ostfriesland, Germany.

Comparing Civil War Pension Index Cards

Ancestry.com has a Civil War Penions index. So does Footnote.com. There is a difference.

The Ancestry.com index comes from the National Archives and Records Administration. Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934. We've posted a sample card in this post. It is the card for George Rothweiler that lists his widow's name (note that not all cards list the name of the widow, even if there was one who received a pension).

The Footnote.com index comes from National Archives and Records Administration Publication Number: T289 Organization Index to Pension Files of Veterans Who Served Between 1861 and 1900. The sample card from that database is for George Rothweiler as well...the card that does not list a widow's name.

Many of the same men are listed in each index, but each index served a different purpose. There is another finding aid for pension records in this era which is also on microfilm, but has not yet been digitized. That index consists of the pension payment cards from 1907-1933. These cards have been microfilmed and are at some larger genealogical libraries, including the Allen County Public Library (website) and the Family History Library (website).

The card for Nancy Rampley is one of the payment cards. It is a PARTIAL scan of her card.

Rothweilers in St. Louis-Wilhelmina and George

This is the 1860 census entry for George and Wilhelmina Rothweiler in St. Louis' second ward. George is 35 years old and Wilhelmina is 29 and a half. Wilhelmina's maiden name was Hess and she was the daughter of Ernestine Trautvetter Hess (dates unknown), a sister to my ancestor John George Trautvetter (1798-1871). The Trautvetters were actually from Thuringen, Germany.

Nancy Jane Newman (1846-1923)

They must have made them sit forever to have their picture taken.

Nancy Jane Newman Rampley (1846-1923) is pictured in this post. The photo appears to have been taken not too long before her death. At the time of the picture, Nancy was living in West Point, Hancock County, Illinois, but it is possible the picture was taken elsewhere. Nancy is known to have occasionally visited her daughters in southern Minnesota.

Nancy was born near Milroy, Rush County, Indiana, in 1846, the daughter of William and Rebecca Tinsley Newman. The Newmans came to Hancock County, Illinois in 1863, initially settling in Walker Township. This is where she met her husband, Riley Rampley whom she married after the war. The Rampleys spent their married life on a farm in Walker Township and Nancy retired to nearby West Point. She and Riley are buried in the Buckeye Cemetery in Walker Township.

Oil portrait from the 1860s

I not certain when it was painted or who painted it, but the picture here is one taken of oil portraits of John George (1798-1871) and Sophia Elizabeth Derle Trautvetter (1808-1877). The Trautvetters were natives of Thuringen, Germany and immigrated in 1853, settling in Rocky Run Township, Hancock County, Illinois.

Sophia is buried in the Bethany Cemetery, Tioga, Hancock County, Illinois. John George is buried in Bad Salzungen, Germany.

Looking for Clark Sargent of Winnebago County, Illinois

Clark Sargent purchased federal land in Winnebago County, Illinois on 1 March 1848. I think he died shortly thereafter and the Mrs. Mary Sargent that married in Winnebago County, Illinois to Asa Landon on 6 January 1849 is his widow. I have tracked Mary and Asa in the 1850 (Winnebago County, Illinois) and 1860 census (Christian County, Missouri), but am trying to find out if Clark Sargent who purchased the property is the Sargent who was the husband of Mary. One of the Sargent children living with Landon is Ira, born ca. 1844. I lose the Landons after 1860.

Declarations of Intent pre-1906

When I was in Salt Lake last May, one of my goals was to search for some declarations of intent and other naturalization documents on a few of my ancestors.

Like other documents, declarations of intent to become a citizen can vary greatly from one location to another and from one time period to another. Those familiar with naturalization research and history realize that records before 1906 are less detailed and less uniform than records after the 1906 reform.


There are two declarations of intent included in this post. The first one comes from Adams County, Illinois in 1856. Bernard Dirks is simply stating his intent to naturalize. It is not known (yet) when he immigrated, but it was likely close to the time this declaration was filed in April of 1856.





The second declaration of intent (partially shown in this post) comes from 1853 in Hancock County, Illinois, just north of Adams County. This form is significantly more detailed than the 1856 form for Bernard Dirks. In this declaration, George Trautvetter indicates his date and place of birth in Germany and his date and place of landing in the United States. His declaration was filed on 4 January 1855, a year and a half (approximately) after his immigration in July of 1853. Why the delay is not known. George did settle in Hancock County, Illinois, pretty much immediately after his arrival in the United States as he is listed as a resident of Hancock County, Illinois, when he purchased property in the fall of 1853.

Unfortunately, declarations of intent are not always preserved at the county level and as we have seen here there can be inconsistencies in how much information they contain. However, they should still be included as a part of any research plan for immigrant ancestors. And don't forget that before 1906, any court of record could naturalize.

Living after death?

You have to love the entries you find in some online files. While searching for an ancestor, I found the following entry. I've changed the name and the place and the dates slightly, but the error still remains the same. The person is question is listed as being alive 36 years after his death. Minor detail. I know some will disagree, but errors like this make me wonder about the accuracy of other material in the file. And frankly, if my ancestors have come back from the dead once, I wish they'd do it again. I have some questions, I'd like to ask them.

Name: Tom Jones
Sex: M
Birth: 22 APR 1808
Death: 1846
Burial: 1846
Event: Resided 1880 Rushville, Schuyler, Illinois, USA