MICHIGAN FAMILY TRAILS : FHL finds

Showing posts with label FHL finds. Show all posts

Monday, March 20, 2023

ROOTSTECH/FHL FINDS ~ The death certificate for James F. Forsyth (1864-1951)

Now...where is that film?

It wouldn’t be a trip to the FHL if I wasn’t looking for records from my birth state, Michigan. So many ancestors were born, married & died there. It seems I never run out of records to look for. As we know, not all are available online.

As always, I prepared ahead for my trip. Finding which microfilms I needed to look at. I had located the index for James’ death online. However, you never get all the details in an index. And, you run the risk of a mis transcription.

Here is the index record.

Michigan, Death Certificates, 1921-1952

Name: James Ferris Forsyth
Event Type: Death
Event Date: 01 Feb 1951
Event Place: Detroit, Wayne, Michigan, United States
Gender: Male
Age: 86
Marital Status: Widowed
Birth Date: 01 Mar 1864
Birthplace: Michigan
Birth Year (Estimated): 1865
Father's Name: John Forsyth
Mother's Name: Catherine Ferris
GS Film number: 001973236
Digital Folder Number:005363696
Image Number: 01330

You can see the film number listed with other details, like the digital folder number and image number. #1,973,244 (Michigan, death certificates, 1912-1952). Easily located and placed onto the microfilm reader. The additional details of the digital folder number and image number help us find records on a microfilm.

These records were arranged by date, so all I had to do was scroll through the film and find the year or years I was looking for.

I soon located February 1951 and found the certificate for James Ferris Forsyth who died on 1 Feb 1951 in Detroit, Wayne, Michigan. James is the husband of my maternal great grandaunt, Louise Gillespie. They were married for about 63 years.

NOTE: In writing this post I realize that I don’t have their exact marriage date, nor have I looked for any newspaper articles that would have announced their 50^th or 60^th anniversary. Writing blog posts invariably leads me to look for more information on my ancestors. I will have a look for these items later.

Here is James’ death certificate. You can enlarge it or zoom in to see details more clearly.

I now have further details, which confirm that I have the correct certificate (occupation, marital status, names of parents). I can now record these details in my Legacy program and site this certificate as my source.

Another successful day at the Family History Library. Yes, I found other records that day, but I’ll save those for another post.

If you are related to or connected to anyone in this blog post, please get in touch. Let’s exchange information.

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST

FRIDAY FINDS ~ Newspaper article for death/possible suicide of Ralph Gillespie Forsyth ~ 1952 (this was James & Louise’s son)

FOLLOW UP ~ Why did Ralph Forsyth jump from a 9th story hotel window to his death?

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Wednesday, March 15, 2023

FHL FINDS ~ The marriage of Johann Talarowski & Bertha Keller - 1884 in Germany

Time to begin my posts about the finds I made during Rootstech 2023, at the Family History Library.

It is Wedding Wednesday so let's begin with the marriage record for my husband’s maternal great grandparents, Johann Talarwoski and Bertha Keller.

This record was on my long list of “To-dos” for this trip. I had prepared for it by looking on the Family Search website and locating the microfilm number. This film is not available online, but only in person at the library in Salt Lake City.

When you are on the Family Search website you can search the catalog by microfilm number, which I did. This is an International Film numbered 245767 and image group number 7946025. On the website I viewed the film notes. The little camera icon that has a small key above it, means I cannot view these images from home.

The first day that Pam and I arrived and went over to the FHL, we set up our work stations and went to work. We always “park” on the 3^rd floor, where the books are. With the upgrades to the workstations at the library, it’s extremely comfortable and offers us multiple monitors.

Just getting set up here

Very shortly after we got there I went to B1, the International Research/Microfilm Floor at the Library. I went to the microfilm rows, found the film and set it up on the wonderful digital viewers the library now has. This allows us to view the films on a computer monitor instead of the huge film viewers we used to use.

One of my favorite views - row after row of microfilm

I have been viewing microfilm for over 20 years. I know that the key is to find some sort of index or other indicator to determine how the film is organized. Is it organized by date, place, name etc.? In this case there was an index at the beginning, listed by year.

I believed the marriage had taken place in 1884, based on the 1900 census and the birth of the first child. These are starting points and we proceed from there.

I scrolled to the place in the film that listed the names, the year and the page in the document that this information might be located.

You can see the year – 1884 and the names Talarowski & Keller and the page number is 4.

I located page number 4 in the image records and

FOUND THE RECORD!

I realize this record, like so many others, is not necessarily easy to read. BUT, you can usually spot a name or something that looks like the name you are seeking. In this case the 3^rd record on the page easily reads Johann Talarowski under der Ehemannes (the husband) and Bertha Keller under der Ehefrau (the wife).

If you have questions about words in a language other than the one you speak, it’s easy to go to Google translate and try to figure things out. In this case, I was somewhat familiar with the words, having viewed German records before. And, I have been teaching myself German, online for over 2 years.

I certainly cannot read every word on this record, not even good enough to try and translate it. But, the basic information is there. The marriage took place on 7 Sept 1884 (Tag der Trauung). The date in column 5 may be the civil date of the marriage, but I’m having trouble translating the words other than Jahr u Tag (year and day).

If any of you read German script well and can translate the column headings for column 5 and 6, I’d be grateful.

Next, I took photos of the screen and downloaded the image to a flash drive.

Fairly shortly after that I sent a copy of this image to my husband’s first cousin once removed, as she is also researching their family.

This was a successful first day. I did research other items, but this was one that I absolutely wanted to locate and I did.

One thing I almost forgot....here is a photo of Johann & Bertha, with their daughter Freada, who became my husband's grandmother.

Johann Talarowski & his wife Bertha Keller with their daughter Freada - circa 1900, Buffalo, New York

More posts to come on my Rootstech/FHL findings. Stay tuned.