Tag Archives: Local History

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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Davenport, Iowa: A City In Which To Live

The Greater Davenport Committee, a precursor to the Davenport Chamber of Commerce, was founded in 1910, with E. P. Adler as its first president. Its purpose was to advertise Davenport and bring new businesses to the city. For one of … Continue reading

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Titanic Fashions, Midwestern Style

The entire world was shocked when the Titanic sank in April of 1912.   A hundred years and several movies later, we’re still fascinated with every detail of the doomed voyage—especially the passengers.  We want to know who they were, where … 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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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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Auld Lang Syne . . .

2011 has been a good year around here. We’ve received many new resources from family histories to land records, Shakers to Palatines.  We’ve even added a few new databases to our arsenal. We’ve had great programs, like our Specifically for … Continue reading

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Turkey Notes: a four-line Davenport tradition

It’s Thanksgiving Week!* Some of our readers already know about The Turkey Note tradition, either because your family writes them, your children write them in school, you make children write them in school, or you caught our previous posts about … Continue reading

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A History Mystery Solved: The Disappearance of the Lindsay Lagoon

Once upon a time, there was a Mississippi River lagoon in the area near Lindsay Park Marina in the Village of East Davenport.  The lagoon was used for swimming and fishing.  Pretty nice place, from what we hear. It’s not … Continue reading

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Davenport Inventors: Patently the Best

Davenport has had its share of inventors over the years, including Alexander F. Victor, who held almost eighty patents for his film projecting equipment; William Voss, whose washing machines brought laundry to a whole new level, and Otto F. Rohwedder;* … Continue reading

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Happy 175th Birthday, Davenport!

The year 2011 marks the 175th anniversary of the founding of Sofa City – that’s right! In February of 1836 the official “Articles of Agreement” were drawn up, land was purchased from Antoine LeClaire, and a town was platted in … Continue reading

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