Archives: April 2016

The Question of Writing Dates

In an online article “Data Entry Standards for Genealogists & Research,” there is a section on Dates. Here is what this guide says about entering dates: The most readable and reliable format for presenting dates is day, month, year; this style is least likely to create confusion when entering, matching, or merging data. Abbreviate months

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Online Guide to Historic Maps of Cleveland and the Western Reserve

Did you every wonder if a map was available for a specific location in the Cleveland area and for a specific time period? Well, there is a website for that: Cleveland Cartography at http://www.clevelandmemory.com/speccoll/maps/clevmaps.html The website was created and is maintained by Bill Barrow, head of special collections at Cleveland State University. You can read about

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August Scheppelmann: His Two Arrivals in New York

On 11 Aug 1922, August Scheppelmann, grandfather of my wife, Mary Jane Van Court Huskonen,  arrived in New York on the SS George Washington. The passenger manifest provides some important details: August’s home address was simply RFD Linesville, PA. He was a U.S. citizen by naturalization, which took place in District Court [Federal] Pittsburg [sic]

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Grandpa Huskonen Becomes a U.S. Citizen

My paternal grandfather, Evert Huuskonen, immigrated to America in 1902. He arrived in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, on the SS Tunisian, and entered the U.S. at Buffalo, New York on 29 Oct 1902. He left behind in Finland his wife, Ida Maria, and four children: Edith, Emil, Wilma, and Mary. They would join him the

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More on Grandma Huskonen’s Alien Registration

As I posted yesterday, my grandmother, Ida Maria Huskonen, was required to register as an alien during WWII. As it turned out, she was one of more than 4.7 million people living in America who registered as aliens. In my grandmother’s case, I’m sure that my father, Walfrid, took Grandma to Jefferson, the Ashtabula County

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Grandma Was An Alien!

The Alien Registration Act of 1940 (aka the Smith Act) was enacted by the 76th U. S. Congress on 29 Jun 1940. It required all non-citizen adult residents to register with the government (It also set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government). Registrations began on 27 Aug 1940, and the newly

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Doing Catholic Cemetery Research in Cleveland Area

We just learned of a very important research tool for genealogists searching for information about Catholic ancestors (and non-Catholic family members buried with them) in the Cleveland area. The Catholic Diocese of Cleveland has been putting online a database of all burials in the cemeteries of its Catholic Cemeteries Association. The association started out with

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Finland’s Marimekko Is Bringing Style to USA at Target

I was watching television the other day and a commerical from Target came on with a bold title that appeared to be to be in Finnish. I was immediately intrigued, being a good Finnish-American. Finally today, I was able to do some online research and found that the title was Pöytä Juhlavaksi, which apparently is

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Learning About My Seventh Great Grandmother from Holland

This is a followup from my post of yesterday: Ancestry.com Providing Thousands of Hints for My Research . My maternal seventh great grandmother was  Eva Albertssen Bratt, b 9 Jan 1633 in Amsterdam, Holland. When I reviewed my entry for her on my Huskonen-Dingman-Van Court-Scheppelmann Ancestry tree, I found that I only had a paltry two

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