Ancestry.com's blog ran my "torn manifest" article yesterday and it can be viewed in a printer friendly version on their site. It analyzes the manifest, discusses how I made my way around the "tear" as best I could and additional follow up that needs to be done.

Andreas Schulmeyer is my wife's 4th great-grandfather and he died after the 1870 census, likely in Scott County, Iowa. The line of descent is as follows:

1) Andreas Schulmeyer
2) Elizabeth Schulmeyer Freund Wachter (1840 Beberstedt, Germany-1899 Davenport, Scott County, Iowa)
3) George A. Freund (1858 Davenport, Iowa-1928 Davenport, Iowa)
4) Caroline Freund Mortier (1884 Davenport, Iowa-1981 Rock Island, Rock Island County, Illinois)
5) Grace Mortier Johnson (1913 Bowling Township, Rock Island County, Illinois-2000 Rock Island, Illinois)--my wife's paternal grandmother.

I'd be happy to hear from anyone researching the Schulmeyers in Scott County, Iowa.

Labels: schulmeyer

This is part of the manifest for the Ernst Moritz Arndt which landed in New Orleans on 13 June of 1853.

There is a reasonable chance that the 53 year old Andreas Schollmeyer is my wife's ancestor of the same name. There is only one problem: the tear in the manifest. The entry before Andreas Schollmeyer appears to be that of Frederich Schollmeyer and his family (including wife Catherine and children Nicodemus, Dorothe, and Elisabeth). The problem is that one transciber thinks that the Schollmeyers are from "Lohr" which is the village of residence which is partially shown in the upper right corner of the first image.

The second image contains a larger view of the "Lohr" above the Schollmeyer's town of origin and the column for the destination. I think that the blob is large enough that it easily could cover another location.

The column for destination (which contains "New Orleans") in the entry for the family before the Schollmeyers, clearly contains something other than "New Orleans" and does not contain ditto marks in the column for Frederick (the third line in the image shown). I think it might be "Iowa" for reasons we'll announce in a future entry.

Labels: schulmeyer

Scanning the microfilm was infinitely easier than other copying processes. Of course, scanning the "title" page of the record (also shown in this post) was an integral part of tracking where I obtained the information.



I also like to write down notes I take while making digital images of the microfilm. Those notes I then take to one of the book scanners in the library. That image goes in the same folder as my digital scans from the microfilm. I make notes about what image numbers are from what record, what year, etc. In many cases European church records have no page numbers and these notes help me keep track of what is actually on each image. My notes always contain the name of the film to prevent confusion as well and I try and scan them as soon after creating the images from microfilm as soon as possible.

I really enjoy using the scanners while I am at the Family History Library, but one has to stay organized or your files can become extremely unorganized.

Labels: schulmeyer