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By Bob Jones, on July 8th, 2010
I have been attempting Genealogy (notice I said attempting not doing) for a number of years. One thing I noticed when looking at information other people had put together was the differences from one to the other for the same family member. I think this must be due to records that other people created from word of mouth information or inaccurate records in things like family Bibles and note books. I’m sure that the people compiling the data did the best they could with the information they had to work with.
A few years ago I was trying to think of a way I could help others get the correct information for people that had lived in this area. One of the requirements would be to supply them with a copy of the actual records. You know how things go, the important ones get put off and the fun stuff gets done. I’m no different, until about three years ago. About three year ago I decided to locate the records for the cemeteries in Le Claire, Iowa (the town I live in) and put them on the internet along with documenting photographs. That was a lot easier said than done, let me tell you.
Continue reading Indexing and Photographing Cemeteries is a lot of work
By Bob Jones, on July 8th, 2010
About 5 miles North of Princeton, Scott County, Iowa is an ancient cemetery. It’s known as the "Nowlin" Cemetery and it is kind of hidden away down a dirt, one lane road. I knew exactly where to find this cemetery since I went to a one room school right across the road from it way back about 1952. I was the smartest kid in my class. I was the only kid in my class.
This is another one of the "I’ll do it someday" projects that finally came to pass. This one however was a problem from the very start. A young lady named Darlene had volunteered to assist me and on her day off we went out to clean and photo the thirty one headstones. The first thing that happened was a BIG Black Lab from the house across the road decided he wanted to say "Hi" and jumped on the side of my new Dodge Grand Caravan. He was so friendly I couldn’t get him to stay down. He left one or two scratches on the side of my door. I didn’t even have 2000 miles on it yet. Not a good way to start a day. No sooner did we get started and a light rain began. We stood under a tree and waited for it to clear up and every time it stopped we got one or two more stones done. After about three tries we gave it up and I would have to come back later.
Continue reading Nowlin Cemetery, Princeton, Iowa Photos
By Bob Jones, on July 8th, 2010
About 5 miles North of Princeton, Scott County, Iowa is an ancient cemetery. It is known as the "Fessler" Cemetery and it isn’t easy to find. When I first heard of it I looked it up on the USGenWeb Project for Scott County, Iowa. This is located at www.celticcousins.net/scott/. I located it on their Driving Instructions/maps for Scott Co Cemeteries and knew just where it was. After about two hours of searching I went back to my computer and started searching for it on Google. After a while I located the coordinates for it. Yes, right where I thought it was. Why can’t I find it? I located a site that shows the area from the air and allowed me to enter the coordinates. OK, back to the search. At last I found it. The cemetery is behind a farm house that is a long distance from the road. It is very small and I’ll come back to it later.
Later turned out to be two years later. My Beautiful and Usually Charming Wife and I returned to take a closer look. Fessler Cemetery has twelve headstones. The stone with the earliest date of death was Norman Morgan who died on August 5, 1853. The headstone with the last date of death was Magdalena M. Faessler (Rudolf) who was born on August 22, 1823 and died on September 10, 1884. Notice that her name is spelled "Faessler" and the cemetery name is spelled "Fessler". This was not a typo.
Continue reading Fessler Cemetery, Princeton, Iowa Photos
By Bob Jones, on July 8th, 2010
About 7.5 miles West of Buffalo, Muscatine County, Iowa is an ancient cemetery. It is known as the "Nye" Cemetery. It’s the final resting place of the first white settler in Muscatine County. To get to the Nye Cemetery start at the intersection of Highway 22 (W. Front St.) and Clark Street, Buffalo, Muscatine Co., Iowa. Note: there is a Casey’s store at this corner. Travel West on Highway 22 for 7.5 miles to Wildcat Den Road. Turn North (Right) and go 0.5 miles to the Cemetery which is on the right side of the road.
There are most likely graves that have no headstones. This is a list of names of people buried here. I am listing them in hopes that search engines will provide them should anyone do a search. I hope it helps someone find a long lost relative. Comelia C. Davis, D.L.C., Adeline Kidd (no marker), Azubah Nye, Azubah A. Nye, Benjamin Nye, Benjamin F. Nye, John O. Page, Mary Shelley, Nancy M. Shelley, A. Webster, George Whittier, William Raymond Whittier, William C. Whittier, Edward Wright, Haveyriah Wright, Lucinda Wright (no marker), Mary E. Wright (no marker), and Rachel Wright.
Continue reading Nye Cemetery, Muscatine County, Iowa Photos
By Bob Jones, on July 8th, 2010
I have searched, Googled and a number of other things trying to find a way to get Microsoft Office Excel to allow me to input dates prior to 1900 as dates. I want to be able to sort them and do everything with pre 1900 dates that I can with post 1900 dates. I even gave in and thought about it myself, instead of trying to find what other people had already done. That was a real chore. I can’t find any way to enter pre 1900 dates and be able to manipulate them using MS Excel.
Why is this important to me? I am into genealogy and a lot of the dates I deal with are pre 1900. Also, I photo headstones and index cemeteries. You can imagine how may pre 1900 dates there are there. So, as you can see, this poses a problem for me.
Continue reading Why Can’t MS Excel Handle Pre 1900 Dates
By Bob Jones, on July 8th, 2010
I recently ran into a problem when I created a file with OpenOffice Calc and later tried to read it with Microsoft Excel. I had this problem before and for some reason I didn’t associate it with OpenOffice. Since I have had the below described problem two times now I thought I would alert you to it so you can be careful if you do anything similar.
The last time the problem arose was when I created the data file for Nowlin Cemetery. I find OpenOffice easier to use than MS Office so I was using it to create the data file for the cemetery. I always save the cemetery data files in the MS Excel format so other people can use them when I’m done. Everything looked great in OpenOffice Calc, the files were done so I prepared the DVD’s to give to the various genealogy groups and people that wanted them. I delivered the DVD’s and for some unknown reason I opened the file in MS Excel. BIG PROBLEM. None of the dates, which were formatted as Dec 31, 1999, were there. They were all shown as "##########" instead.
Continue reading Problem Reading OpenOffice Files in Microsoft Excel
By Bob Jones, on July 8th, 2010
Charlie Chandler Lives Through A Tornado
I would tell you a couple of interesting stories about my Great Uncle Charlie Chandler. Uncle Charlie’s full name was Charles Franklin Chandler and he must have lived a very interesting life. I don’t actually remember him, since he died when I was two years old. However, the stories about him were always very interesting. I thought you may like to read about the two that I remember best.
First, a couple of facts about Uncle Charlie. Charlie was born in Princeton, Scott County, Iowa 3 March 1886 and he died in Douglas County, Oregon 16 January, 1943. His death is one of the interesting stories I remember but first things first.
When he was young Charlie lived outside of town somewhere between Le Claire and Princeton, Iowa. That is the location of my first story. This part of Iowa has always been a Tornado alley of sorts. We still get some every year or two. That’s another story and I don’t want to get sidelined so back to Charlie. In the early part of the twentieth century it was the common practice in the rural areas to have a "Root" cellar which also served as a place of refuge when severe storms approached. Charlie’s family was no different. The root cellar was nothing more than a hole dug in the ground with some steps going down to it, a door that could be shut and a roof made out of dirt and sod. For the purpose of keeping food cool during the summer and keep it from freezing during the winter it worked very well. It’s second function was to provide a place to get underground when a tornado approached. That’s where our story will start. Please remember, this is a story that was handed down from my Grandmother to my Mother and finally to me. Is it true? Who knows.
Continue reading Charlie Chandler – 1886 to 1943
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