Follow Friday: Lisa Louise Cooke, my genealogy hero

Lisa Louise Cooke and her podcasts, especially, Family History Genealogy Made Easy, inspired me to create this blog. Her detailed instructions, friendly suggestions, and caring attitude caught my attention when looking for the perfect genealogy podcast for my hour ride to work. I've only made it to Episode #43, averaging 3-4/day, but have learned so much.

I finished Episode #43 "How the Calendar Changes Through History Affect Your Research" today on my way to work, and out of all of the podcasts I've listened to so far, this one has been the most educational and helpful. Episode #43's topic was about the historical calendar and how the calendar has changed over time.

I never knew the calendar change affected records in the United States! I learned that in 1752 the calendar went from March 25th being the first of the year to January 1st being the first of the year. I always thought 1735/6 meant my ancestor was born in 1735 or 1736, no one really knew which year was correct. Now I know that 1735 indicates the old system (OS) and 1736 indicates the new system (NS). An ancestor with a birthdate of 12/18/1733 would have actually been born February 18, 1733 (February 18, 1734 in new system), not December 18, 1733. I'll have to go back and look at all of my ancestors that have dates before 1752.

To make matters worse, I also have family from Italy, but they changed their calendar back in the 1500's, and I haven't found family that far back.....yet.......

A big thank you to Lisa Louise Cooke and her great work in the genealogy field. If you are new to the genealogy field or just want an excellent podcast about genealogy, I would highly recommend her podcast, Family History Genealogy Made Easy.

Touchdown Thursday: Finding tombstone of Paul K Joyce

I'm creating a new daily genealogy blog theme, Touchdown Thursday.

Touchdown Thursday is dedicated to those yay! and hooray! moments in my family history search....those ancestors that seem to hide from me but somehow I find....those brick walls that I can finally take down....

I'd love for you to join me on Thursdays, and tell me how you managed to tear down a brick wall, find a missing piece, hit a homerun, or score a touchdown.


This week's touchdown moment was finally finding the grave for Brenden's uncle, Paul Keith Joyce.

From his obituary and family attending his funeral, I knew he was buried in Spring Lake Cemetery in Aurora, Illinois.

• I left messages on the cemetery's voicemail 5 times (office only open a couple hours during the week) and never got a call back.
• I searched Kane County's cemetery index online and found a liitle more info....he was buried in the RG section. I took a ride to the cemetery and found all the sections marked... Except for RG section. The other sections were marked east and west, so where was this mysterious section?
• I checked online for a map, no luck.
• I tried the cemetry office, closed.
• I found an internet posting saying that RG stands for Rear Grotto. So, I took another trip to the cemetery and went to the rear. The rear of the cemetery was being renovated and there were dirt piles everywhere, I got upset thinking they had dug up Brenden's uncle!
• Brenden was also upset so he called his dad. His dad told us we were looking in the wrong section...sigh of relief....he was near the front of the cemetery about 100 yards from the fence.
• We got excited and went to take a look, it just happened to be Memorial Day weekend and Paul was a veteran.
  

Paul Joyce wasn't 100 yards from the fence near the front, as his dad had promised, he was in the middle of the cemetery in the Rose Garden (RG).

The only reason we finally found him was by searching for graves with American flags in unmarked sections of the cemetery. A lot of searching, but it finally paid off!

Touchdown, score one for me, I found Paul Keith Joyce!

Picture by Melissa Brown, May 30, 2010, Spring Lake Cemetery, Aurora, Kane, Illinois, Section: Rose Garden (RG)