Tag Archives: Genealogy

A Hayward Moment

In honor of National Grandparents’ Day, which is held the first Sunday after Labor Day, we though we’d share this lovely Hostetler Studio photograph of William Phelps Kimball with his grandparents, Major Eugene Hayward and Ellen Phelps Hayward. Eugene B. … Continue reading

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The Colorful Wedding Announcement of Miss Helen Watts

Included in our Hostetler Photograph Collections is a set of glass negatives  showing the former Miss Helen Kelsey Watts in her wedding gown, in which she married Mr. Homer Brown Payne. While researching these images, we located a wedding announcement, … Continue reading

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Found it in the Archives!

Imagine….. A donor brings historic documents, written in French, to the Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center at the Davenport Public Library that were passed down through the family. Having no sentimental ties to the brittle, fragile papers, they bring them to … Continue reading

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Genealogy Night Approaches

October 14 – SECOND SUNDAY – The Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center of the Davenport Public Library offers Genealogy Night 4 – 9 p.m. Evening meal and refreshments included. A fee of $10 payable in advance secures your reservation. Funds raised … Continue reading

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Cool Resource: Widows’ Pension Records

One hundred years ago, there weren’t a lot of options for widowed mothers who needed help caring for their children. In Iowa and parts of Illinois, if a judge felt that the mother could not provide for her family, the … Continue reading

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Just Shelved: Quad-City Times Newspaper Index to Social Events

One of the first things a genealogist learns is how to find obituaries, which usually appear in the local newspapers within two or three days after the date of death, if the deceased was a current resident. One of the … Continue reading

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The 1940s Census is here! And it works!

Ancestry Library has finished uploading all of the 1940 Census images to its database.  They are now working on indexing—at this posting, Delaware was finished and everything else is pending. Meanwhile, you can find your relatives by browsing the right Enumeration … Continue reading

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The 1940 Census — a two-for-one!

 One of the questions asked on the 1940 Federal Census was the location of the person in April of 1935.    A decade is a long time and people didn’t always stay put—and some moved more than once.  The Census Bureau wanted to … Continue reading

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Uncovering the past: African-American Genealogy

Are you having trouble researching your African-Americans ancestors before the 1870’s?   Here are some tips for tracing hard-to- find ancestors back to the Civil War and earlier: The first suggestion is to locate your family in the 1870 Census. … Continue reading

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Say (and spell) What?: Tricky research words

Genealogy words can be tricky—ahnentafels, anyone?—and words that look or sound alike don’t help much. In order to facilitate communications and understanding—and humor, of course—we’ve collected a few of the most frequent mix-ups we’ve encountered, with definitions and examples: ____________ … Continue reading

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