Tombstone Tuesday - Mary Ferris Burlingame

Mary (Ferris) Burlingame is our fourth great-grandmother. Daughter of John and Hannah (Black) Ferris. She was born on this day in 1817 in Eaton, New York. On April 5, 1840 she married John Milton Burlingame and on June 26, 1842 she gave birth to a daughter (our third great-grandmother) - Mary Selina (Burlingame) Haymaker. She died shortly after on August 31, 1842. Above is a picture of her gravestone in Newbury Center Cemetery, Ohio.

Illinois Genealogy - John Michael VanDerAa

**** Update - My grandmother let me know that the picture I posted below is not actually of John VanDerAa - it's of his father Michael! She's given me other information to follow up on - so I'll write a new post soon (with an appropriate picture). ****

I've struggled for years to find time to do my genealogy research. And when I do find a piece of time - I often do a very bad job of documenting what I've done in order to try to find whatever piece of information I am searching for. So - I've decided to use this blog as a place to organize my thoughts on pieces of research that I find time to do. So for today - I'd like to talk about doing research on family in Illinois.

On this day in 1921 my great-great-grandfather, John Michael VanDerAa passed away.


The information that I have on John comes from an old family tree that my mother filled out in April of 1982. The information that she has on her mother's family came from my grandmother. It says the following:

John Michell VanDerAa
Born: May 6, 1878 in South Holland, IL
Married: July 27, 1900 to Agnes Santifort
Died: February 27, 1921 in South Holland, IL
Parents: Michell and Johanna VanDerAa

My first step was to log on to Ancestry.com and do a search for John VanDerAa. I found four different census records that began when John was just 2 years old and ended the year before he died in 1920.

The 1880 census shows him living with his parents - Michael and Johanna in Thorton, Cook County, Illinois.

The 1900 census shows him married to Aggie with a 5 month old daughter - Johanna. It confirmed that he was born in May but listed his birth year as 1877. It also gave a year for his marriage - 1899. Given that the census was done on June 16, 1900 and he was already married with a young daughter - I would say that my marriage information for him may be off by a year - and it's most likely that his marriage was July 27, 1899 - not 1900.

The 1910 census shows him living with his wife and six children (one of whom is my great-grandmother - Cora). It says he's been married for 11 years, is 31 yrs old and is a farmer.

And finally - the 1920 census shows him living with his wife and 9 children. This was just the year before his death.

So far the census information has reinforced the information that John was born in the month of May and has told me that he was most likely married in 1899 and not 1900. But I need to know more to confirm the dates that I have for his birth, marriage and death.

Ancestry.com had one other record for John and that was his WWI draft registration card. It was filled out September 12, 1918 and confirmed that John's birth date was May 6, 1878. So - I have some additional confirmation of his exact date of birth.



Next I did a Google search for "Illinois Cook County vital records" since it appears that John lived his entire life in Cook County. I found that Cook County has a website specifically for genealogists to retrieve vital records. You can do a search online and then request copies of the records to download to your computer and print. The website reminds you that it was not required for any records to be registered with the county until 1916 - although they have many records dating back to 1872. Unfortunately all records before 1872 were destroyed in the Chicago fire of 1871.

I tried searching for John's birth, marriage and death records, but did not have any positive results. I even tried searching using the Soundex Index instead of his exact last name. The Soundex is a single letter followed by 3 numbers that represent the consonants in the name. Unfortunately I had no success. You can fill out a form to request a physical search of the records. This has to be mailed to the county clerk's office and you have to pay $15 for the search (whether it is successful or not). I'm considering doing this for John's death certificate since it occurred after the 1916 date and should be filed in their office.

My next step was to search for information on FindAGrave.com. This website allows you to search for graves by name or browse by cemetery. When I couldn't find John listed by name, I decided to try to find a cemetery name where he may have been buried. I again returned to Ancestry.com and searched for records on his wife - Agnes. I found her name mentioned in some obituary records for a family member that was buried in Oak Lawn Cemetery in South Holland. Unfortunately when I looked at Oak Lawn Cemetery on FindAGrave.com - there were only a few graves listed and none were any family members.

It's now an hour past when I was supposed to go to bed - and I've made some progress - but my next step will be to follow up with my grandmother about other details she may know to help me find both a marriage and death record for her grandfather (Grandma - if you're reading this send me an email!!)

- Susan

Wordless Wednesday

Sentimental Sunday - Lamb Barbeques (Update)

Above is my grandfather's cousin Marko and his wife, Iva, barbequing a lamb in Croatia circa 1971. My mother was given this picture when she visited Croatia in 2009 and found her second cousin (Marko's daughter).

Week 8: Technology

Natalie trying to decide if she wants to read or use the iPod

Week #8 – Technology Week. What are some of the technological advances that happened during your childhood? What types of technology do you enjoy using today, and which do you avoid?

The most obvious technological advance during my childhood revolved around computers. However, since my knowledge of anything even remotely technical is limited, I don't know if I can even describe in any concise or meaningful way the changes that occurred in computer technology during the 1970s and 1980s.

So, instead, let's talk about technology related to music. Memories related to music played fairly prominantly during my childhood. I have vague early memories of dancing around the family room with a Fleetwood Mac album playing on the record player. I still love the song "Say You Love Me". A little later, probably throughout the 1980's I remember my parents playing albums on a reel to reel player, most often, or maybe just most memorably, Billy Joel, Elton John and Jim Croce. As kids we found the song "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" particularly funny. We referred to it as "the junkyard dog song".

I remember the night that we all went downtown to Sears (back when there were actually department stores downtown) to buy our first CD player. I think that I was in 8th grade. I know that we were one of the first of my friend's families to buy one as they were just starting to become popular. My parents let us pick out a CD to buy and we chose, of all things, the TIFFANY album! My parents also chose one or two but I can't remember what those were (maybe Billy Joel was one?). If anyone remembers(Mom?)leave a comment please!

As for today and technology, I'll stick to the music theme. I'd guess that Ipods/mp3 players are the one of the most popular recent advances related to music. I got an iPod touch for Christmas last year (thanks Lauren) and I love it. Unfortunately my car is too old to have one of the built in iPod adapters so I can't really listen to it while driving but Natalie LOVES to listen to music and watch videos on it. I don't know how I would go grocery shopping with Natalie without it. She's such an addict that when we get in the car together she reaches toward me waiting for me to get it out for her - funny girl!

-Jeanne

Wordless Wednesday

Week 7: Toys

Week #7 – Toys Week: What was your favorite childhood toy? Is it still being made in some form today?

Discussing this with my sister, we were having trouble coming up with one favorite childhood toy. We vividly remember a lot of the board games that we enjoyed playing as children but no toys really stood out.
That is, until I remembered Cabbage Patch Kid dolls! Since we never actually owned one maybe we should rename this post "favorite childhood toys that we never actually had but really, really wanted"! Most of the kids in the neighborhood had one of these and although we were a little on the older side for playing with dolls (except Heather), Cabbage Patch Kids were popular even with older elementary school kids like us. These dolls, created by Xavier Roberts in 1978, were so popular in the early to mid-1980's that people would stand in long lines and even get into fights in stores over them. Since our Mom is not the type of person to go crazy over a toy fad and she did not really have the extra money to buy one for each of us at that time, she did what any kinda hippy mom with sewing talent did - she made us a homemade version of the cabbage patch doll! Just like the originals, she even signed her name on each of their little homemade butts and made birth certificates for each of them. At the time it was a little (maybe a lot)disappointing to not have a REAL Cabbage Patch Kid, but we later learned to appreciate the gesture AND it makes for a great story. By the way, she also made us homemade Care Bears..I know, you are all so jealous!
Please, other children of the 80's, tell us about your Cabbage Patch Kids memories.