New Facebook group

 News

I started a new Facebook group for sharing family and unidentified photos.  There are a lot of FB groups for doing that but I wanted to limit the group somehow so there were less photos to look through so I limited it to New York State.  

It's been a lot of fun seeing all the old photos and getting some of my unidentified photos finally identified.

More to come at:

New York State Unidentified and Family Photos

Also new, I rejoined WikiTree after have been inactive there for a long time.  When I rejoined I was unable to just pick up all the stuff I had left there; I had to create a new account.  Unfortunately, that meant that, as I added things, I was duplicating profiles that I had left there.

Fortunately, they have quite a staff and bunch of volunteers who were alerted and everything (I hope) is fixed.  My old account and new account have been merged as well as old profiles of ancestors with new ones so now I can continue.

There are new features there including DNA matches.

It's a completely FREE site so I recommend it if you want to post your family tree somewhere.

Their aim is to create a single family tree connecting everyone around the world.

Join me @ WikiTree

More Unsolved Mysteries

 In My Odell/O'Dell family line:

Joseph Odell -- No death date for Joseph Odell, Sr.  who appeared on the 1870 census, in Rockland/Morsston P.O., age 60.  Nobody in the family appeared on the 1875 NYS census in that area.  The 1880 census in Rockland, shows Katie Odell, Joseph's wife, in the home of their son, Reuben, and widowed.  

So, Joseph died between Sept. 5, 1870 and the 1880 census.  Official birth, marriage and death certificates were filed as of 1880, so he, undoubtedly, died before it was "required" to file a death certificate.  I've found no newspaper notice.

I have no parentage for Joseph.

Birthplace - 1850 census says PA.  1855 NYS census says Delaware Co. (NY or PA?)  1880 census says NYS as well as his parents.

I have no documentation for Joseph other than the censuses.

=================

Catherine M. Odell -- Joseph's wife.  Several family trees on Ancestry have maiden names for her.  One of them, Catherine Lawrence, is definitely incorrect.  Dates don't match.  Children don't match, etc.  Another is Agner.  Nobody, so far can tell me where that surname came from but in each of those trees, with that maiden name, her death date is incorrect.  She died in the poor house in Delhi, Delaware County, NY in 1892.

I have no parentage for Catherine.  

I do have her death certificate and a list of internments in the county cemetery (paupers field) from Delaware County.

=================

Joseph and Catherine had 5 children, that I know of:  Reuben, William, Hannah, Anna and Charity.  I have family information from most of them.  

=================

William Odell, born about 1832 in, possibly PA, according the 1850 census.  He was 18 in 1850.  

He is not with his parents on the 1855 NYS census.  He would have been about 23 then.  The only William Odell, nearby, that I've been able to find in 1855 was a William Odell, age 21, in Monroe, Orange Co., NY.  I don't know if it's the same William Odell.  

The best way to find out if it is the same William is to follow him forward, with his family, through the censuses, until his death and hopefully find his death certificate which might give his parents names.  

He would have been married too early for there to have been an "official" marriage certificate which might have had his parents names.

So, work to do to try to find if this is the correct William.

================

Charity Odell, born approximately 1843, again in PA as shown on the 1850 census.  The 1855 NYS census says she was born in Greene Co., NY.  She was 12 in 1855.  The family was living in Liberty, Sullivan Co., NY.

The 1860 census has a Charity Odell, 16, working as a domestic in the home of Darius Oliver and Hannah Odell Oliver, in Liberty, who was her sister.  I'm assuming this is the correct Charity.

There is no Charity Odell found in NYS on the 1870 census.  She would have been about 26 yrs old.

One of the things I learned to do in the case of women is to calculate their age on the next census and search in the general area for all the women about that age (give or take a couple of years) with that given name.  Sometimes, you'll find the correct person married but it requires further research to verify that it's the correct person.  I do find several Charitys in the area but I haven't verified, yet, that any of them are the Charity Odell I'm looking for.  

Back then, Charity, last found at age 16, could easily have died from all kinds of diseases but I also have found no death documentation for her.

===============

That's it for now.

If you know anything about any of the  people mentioned in any of my posts, I would very much appreciate whatever you know.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

My scanner

 Actually a multifunction machine.

Here's the story; or my opinion:

Years ago, I was going into places like Walmart and Riteaid, frequently, to have my old family photos copied.  Finally, I asked an employee at a Riteaid what the scanner inside the box was.  I knew there was a scanner in there.  She, of course, didn't know.  So, I talked her into opening the box so we could find out what it was.  I knew it wasn't some magical thing, but a scanner that I might be able to buy somewhere.

It was an Epson.  I don't remember the model; it doesn't really matter at this point.  I looked it up online and, lo and behold, it could be purchased as a multi-functional printer, scanner, fax machine.  And, I bought one.  

My current printer is an Epson Workforce model.  I never use the fax; it isn't even set up.

The fact is, like automobiles, if you buy almost any of the major brands of multi-function machine:  Epson, Canon, HP, etc. - I wouldn't buy Brother - you should be able to get a good printer/scanner to do most of what most of us want to do.  I have had bad experiences with HP and Panasonic hardware so I won't recommend them.  Brother was originally a sewing machine manufacturer; printers are not sewing machines and Brother sewing machines were not highly rated at that.  These are all the major brands.

I can confidently recommend Epson and Canon.  You would probably be Ok with HP, I may have just had a few bad experiences and it was a while ago.  I recommend staying away from any machine with moving parts obviously made of plastic.

You can now buy a good (now called all-in-one printer) for under $200.  

If you're in the market for a printer, I suggest that you make a list of all the features you want:  wireless connection, wireless printing, able to print photos, color printing (if it can print color, it can print in black and white), will hold an entire ream of paper (100 sheets), can print on both sides, can collate (put pages in order), can print last page first so the pages stack and page 1 ends up on top. Can print on legal-sized paper and will hold legal-sized (8.5" x 14") paper.  Can automatically feed pages into the printer.  Most of these features are now standard on modern printers.  Compare costs of the printer and the ink cartridges.  Read reviews of real users, not reviews on the manufacturers' web sites.  Do they tell you how long the cartridges last?  Mine last a long time but I print mostly in black on white, even photo printing is "gray scale" which is black ink; but I print a lot.  Epson has a high yield, oversized black cartridge so I suspect that most others have also.  I do occasionally print in color.

I don't recommend refill cartridges but I haven't tried any in over a decade.  My experience in the past wasn't good.

All machines that have moving parts have possibilities for problems.  These manufacturers should work for you for a long time.  I haven't replaced my printer in years.  At some point I will have to because my printer drivers will no longer be compatible with my computer.  You may feel comfortable buying an extended warrantee when you buy a printer of any kind; I don't currently have one.  Printers are the weakest part of computing in my experience; they give you the most trouble although I can't say I have much trouble; the scanner software that came with mine is a little Hinky but I manage.

Most stores that sell printers can help you with answering questions and in making a final choice but don't let them sell you a no-name anything.

That's it....

Consanguinity: Blood Relationship

 

Taken from Kinship:  It's All Relative by Jackie Smith Arnold, first edition, 1990.

Even in this format, it's not always easy to follow