Addicted

This week I discovered FamilySearch Indexing. If you don't know what it is, basically all you are doing is looking at a scanned version of some records and entering the data digitally.  Once this information is entered and checked and checked again it will be made available online for anyone who is searching for their family tree.

If you know me, then you know that I have always been fascinated by old things. For instance, when I see an old house as we drive down a road to the middle of nowhere, I can't help but study it for as long as I can and wonder; why was it abandoned? who lived there? is there anything left inside that will give me a clue? If I could, I'd stop and explore every one.

Now I have discovered Indexing which allows me to read old documents that gives me a bit of a glance into lives of people who lived long before I ever existed. Mostly I have been doing census records for New York for the year 1930. I love the info that is there. It tells me who lives in the house and their relationships. Weather they own or rent and how much the house cost or how much rent was. It tells me their occupation. Where they were born, Where their parents were born. Weather they are single or married or widowed. How old they are and how old they were when they got married. And if they came from another country it tells me when they came over to America. That is a lot of information. Each sheet contains about 50 names that make up a little neighborhood. It gives me a glance of what that particular neighborhood would have been like. Some neighborhoods, most people own their own home, others must be apartment blocks where most people are renters. In these renting neighborhoods it is interesting to see how people of different ethnic backgrounds sometimes tend to congregate. Other times it is a real mish mash of Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, English, and Italian and then a few born and bred New Yorkers that are young and have only been married for a short time. In this one neighborhood most of the houses were rented, but there were a few that were owned. Most of these homes were owned by born and bread New Yorkers. And then there was this 60 year old widower who owned his own home worth $10,000(the most expensive one on the sheet). He was Polish, had come to America in 1896. He was a grocery store owner. It was just so out of place on the sheet. But I found myself intrigued by this man and wished I could learn more.

Yesterday I was indexing some WWII draft records from Pennsylvania. I started with the name "Sporer" and continued on alphabetically. There were a lot of men with the name "Sporer", and mostly from the county of Lackawanna. I wondered if they were brothers or cousins, and how sad to be sending so many of them off to war. I felt for their next of kin that was listed on the card as the person to contact. And then today I started indexing 1930 census records from Pennsylvania, and it just so happened to be from the Lackawanna county. As I went along I came across the name "Sporer" and immediately wondered what the relation might be. I started to look closely at the ages. Most of the men on the draft cards had been between 40-55years old. the first family of Sporer's were a husband and wife in their 60's living alone. I wondered then if some of the men had been their sons. The next family was again a husband and wife in their 50's with children in their mid to late 20's still living at home. Was it possible that these names that I was reading from 1930 were to be the same ones that I had read the day before while doing the WWII draft cards? They looked somewhat familiar...but with names like John and Richard there is now way to tell for sure.

I can't get enough. I could seriously just sit and do this all day long. If you haven't tried it yet, you really should. It will totally be worth your time.