Genealogy Jottings

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THE genealogist at the Denver Public Library, James Jeffrey, advises one to die in a small town to get a good obituary. Small town newspapers usually provide detailed write-ups when a resident passes away.

My mystery aunt in Biwabik, MN died in that small town in 1917. I thought that if I could find an obituary for her, I might be able to verify that she was indeed a member of my Mattila family and perhaps learn the names of family members who remained in Finland.

The first thing I learned is that Biwabik is too small to have a public library. Surrounding towns belong to a library consortium, so I contacted them to learn about possible old newspapers from Biwabik. Their librarians have been extremely helpful, but they have been unable to uncover any useful information about Ida Parks. The Biwabik newspaper did not carry an obituary for her. According to the librarian, Finns were looked down on at that place and time, so it was not unusual for them to be excluded from the obituary page.

They did suggest some other sources for me to try, and I will pursue those. But dying in a small town did not get my aunt a good obituary.

Over the past couple of months, I have been searching for the identity of an unknown family member. I can recall my mother talking about an aunt in Biwabik, Minnesota, but neither of Mom’s surviving siblings recalls any such person. Was this aunt real, or did I just imagine this conversation?

I do know that the woman was likely not my mother’s aunt, but probably my grandmother’s. To the best of my recollection, they would mention her when they spoke of the Mattilas who had immigrated from Finland at the turn of the last century–my great-grandfather Alexander Mattila, and his sisters, Mrs. Anderson, Mrs. Silberg, and “the aunt in Biwabik”. How could I identify this woman if she did exist?

I began with my grandmother’s address book, which I  have kept since she died in 1977. She used to correspond with a Mrs. Eliot Haberlitz in California. Women never used their first names in those days, but I thought I remembered that Mrs. Haberlitz was named “Dee” and was Grandma’s cousin. Since the Andersons had no children, and the  Silbergs had only a son, could Dee Haberlitz have been a child of the Biwabik aunt?

I consulted the family tree section on Ancestry.com to find anything I could on Eliot Haberlitz. There he was, married to Bertha Parks. Bertha, not Dee? I thought I had the wrong person until I looked at Bertha’s family information. I found that her nickname was “Dee”, her maiden name was Parks, she was born in Minnesota, and her mother was Ida Mattila!

So now I had a possible name for the mystery aunt, Ida Mattila Parks. Sure enough, there she was in Biwabik on the 1910 census. Bertha had not been born yet but there were other children in the household named Elsa, Martha, and George. Now I remembered Grandma talking about these cousins, too. This was likely the correct family.

So, what happened to Ida, and why wasn’t she named in Alexander Mattila’s 1945 obituary? I looked for her on the 1920 census but could not find her.  Ten-year-old  Bertha Parks resided in Biwabik with her sister, Elsa (Mrs. Edward Glass). Where was Ida, and why wasn’t her young daughter living with her? Could Ida have died before 1920?

I went to look at the Minnesota death index on Family Search. There I found that Ida Parks, daughter of Antti Mattila, passed away in Biwabik in 1917.

I hypothesize that this Ida Parks was the missing aunt from Biwabik, and a sister to my great-grandfather Alexander Mattila. Mom’s brother and sister did not remember her because she died long before they were born. So how can I confirm this relationship?

My next step is to search for Ida’s obituary. I have contacted the library system that serves the Biwabik area, and they are searching the newspaper archives for me. I will be thrilled if they locate something. I want to verify that this Ida Parks was the “aunt in Biwabik” whom I heard about as a child.

I really do not like modern technology, mostly because I do not find it to be intuitive to use. Computer workings just make no sense to me. This week, to my irritation, I had to spend time re-learning things I already knew how to do. I wish they would  quit with the constant “upgrades”, which I prefer to call “worsifications,” and spare me this tedious waste of my time. So what is sending me on this rant this week?

First, my husband/technical adviser changed the software I use for this blog without checking with me first. Although I do like what he did, I wish it had been my decision to make these changes, not his. The timing for doing this was not great with lots of family stuff going on. The new screens look different,  and I have to take extra time to figure out how to use them.

Secondly, I encountered trouble when I tried to do my genealogical duty and volunteer for the effort to index the 1940 U.S. census that will be released shortly. The tutorial for downloading and installing the necessary software made the process look simple. Not! Where I was supposed to see icons and installation wizards, I faced a blank screen.  Had the download gone wrong? Should I try again? After taking time to consult with the same husband/technical adviser, I find that during the past year, my computer had been “worsified” to suppress the icons and wizards I needed. How is that helpful, and why did the folks who wrote the tutorial not know about this new security feature of Windows 7? Or do they expect only people with old equipment and operating systems to help with the census?

It all made for a frustrating week genealogy-wise. I tend to be an independent sort of person, and I resent constantly having to ask for help with computer issues. I am looking forward to focusing back on my genealogy research (pun intended), and using technology as a tool, not an impediment. I just wish we could stop with the constant worsifica–, er upgrades.

Welcome to to the new location.  Thanks for visiting.

Because of some travel and family commitments, I had little time for genealogy during the past week. Now I am home and ready to resume my Finnish research.

The Mattila family arrived in America mostly in the early 1900’s, and I have been working to locate them on the U.S. census. I do not have a complete census survey yet, but I have identified four (out of a reported nine) Mattila siblings who immigrated: Ida, Anna, Olga, and Alexander. This census work has been difficult because of recording errors made by the Minnesota census takers. I have not yet found Olga on the 1910 census nor have I located Ida in 1920 or 1930. The 1940 census will be available very soon so I will need to take a look at it, too.

What is the deal with Ida? Perhaps she died early although I have not found a burial record for her in Minnesota. I cannot recall much conversation about her other than vague references to “the aunt in Biwabik”. She was married a couple of times, so I should be able to locate a marriage record for her in the United States.

In fact, there remains much American research I can do on the this family before I can even begin with Finnish records. Time to get back to work!

Yesterday was Leap Day.

What interesting events might have occurred in my family on Leap Day in years past? Our online genealogy program, PHP Gedview, has an anniversary calendar feature that I can use to find out.  So I navigated to the site and pulled up the calendar for February 29. The answer is, nothing of importance to my family has ever happened on Leap Day as far as I know.

By February 29 this year, I had 2282 people listed in my family tree. Most of them have several life events documented (births, marriages, deaths, etc.), yet not one event has occurred on a Leap Day. Nobody planned such a memorable wedding date, and we have no Leap Day birthdays. Looking at my family tree, one would never know that February 29 even exists.

I am not a statistician, so I do not know the odds of events landing on a day that occurs only once every four years. I think the chances are probably small, but I really thought I would find something. On every other day of the year I usually find more than one event. Why not Leap Day?

It is now too late for 2012, so how about planning something for the next Leap Year in 2016? If someone would get married on Leap Day, we could finally fill in that space on the family anniversary calendar.

My Dad’s family has lived in America since Colonial times. Whenever I work on one of his lines, I can find several other researchers pursuing the same family tree. I really enjoy collaborating with them, and the exchange of information moves my research along at a good pace.

I do not find this kind of help when I research my mother’s family. As I work on her Finnish line this year, I have not found another soul researching the Mattila family. No one has replied to my postings on the genealogy message boards. I cannot find family trees on Rootsweb, Ancestry, or personal websites.

It is clear that no one will be providing me with any helpful hints on my project for this year. I must be the lone wolf. So I am working along in the tried-and-true way of collecting census data for Alex Mattila and the sisters I know about. I already have a few vital records and obituaries for some of these people, and I will order more. Once I have collected all the American records that I can find, I will begin the search for Finnish ones.

I remember working alone this way in the days before the internet. I may not have research partners, but I do have internet resources that were not available before. I can do this!

Every year from about February through May, the genealogy societies offer seminars featuring prominent genealogical speakers. These allow people like me to learn about new sources and research approaches. I could spend a lot of money to attend something like RootsTech in Salt Lake City or this year’s NGS conference in Cincinnati. But I am fortunate to live in a large metropolitan area where local societies bring in national talent. For example, this season we have Dick Eastman coming to the Computer Interest Group seminar and Hank Jones will speak to the Palatines. In lean years, I can avoid travel to a conference and still attend something nearby. Time to get signed up!

Recently we upgraded our genealogy software to Version 8 of The Master Genealogist. My husband did the installation, and it seemed to go smoothly for him. As I began working with it, I encountered no difficulty, and most of it looked very similar to Version 7. I did have to re-create my customized screen layout, but I could immediately begin working in the software.

I did find one problem though, and I do not know whether to blame myself or the software. It ate one of my sources, the Alex Mattila Estate. This source, which I have cited 13 times, has disappeared from the Master Source List although the associated tags continue to show that they do have a source. Where did the source information go, and how do I get it back? Via an internet search, I cannot find anyone else who has experienced this problem. I cannot find any information on how to recover source information.

Rather than trying to do a repair to the data, instead we opted to re-install Version 8. I will have to redo the small amount of work I had done after the initial installation, but at least the data set is intact. I hope my experience with the data-eating vampire was my own fault and not a bug in this new product.

Last week I spent time in upstate New York caring for my grandchildren. Not much opportunity for doing genealogy that week, but it offered precious time to know the youngest generation of the family. After all, I pursue my research in order to hand some family history down to them someday.

This year I will reach my goal of documenting for them the lives of my great-grandparents, except for one great-grandfather whose identity may remain unknown. These people are great-great-great grandparents to my grandchildren, just 8 of the 32 ancestors they have in that generation. Their lives spanned a huge time period from the birth of Samuel Harvey Reed in 1845 to the death of Ole Bentsen in 1976.

It is the story of immigrants and of homesteaders, and how they came to live in the American West. It explains so much about who we are today. How I wish I had received this much information on my own third great-grandparents!