Robert Haitz and Virginia West - Marriage

Ohio, County Marriages, 1789 - 1994, page 267, Robert Haitz and Virginia West, 21 May 1934; digital images, Family Search, Ohio, County Marriages, 1789 - 1994 (https://www.familysearch.org : accessed 24 June 2015); original records found in county courthouses.  

Robert Haitz married Virginia West on his 29th birthday, Monday,  May 16, 1934. The marriage most likely took place at St. Michael Catholic Church in Ripley, Ohio, although this document only states that Father Anthony was the priest at the church.  

Robert was the second child and first son of his parents, Joe and Henrietta (Koehler) Haitz.  He was the proprietor of a restaurant in Ripley.  His bride, Virginia, was the daughter of Thorton and Ivy (Eagle) West with whom she made her home in West Union.  She was stenographer.  

This document has at least one mistake in it.  Henrietta's last name is spelled incorrectly. It should be Koewler.   I also am wondering if Virginia's father was Thornton instead of Thorton.  

From the Pages...My New Series

I love old newspapers!  I use them to find tidbits about the lives of my ancestors that records and documents do not reveal.  As I hunt through the pages from the past I often run across pieces that are just plain interesting, funny, or even shocking.  Without television or radio, newspapers were often the tabloids and cable television of their day.  Not only did they inform, they also entertained their readers.  This is the start of my new series, From the Pages, where I share some of the more interesting, but not exactly genealogical items I run across.  The newspaper sites that I most often use are Chronicling America, Genealogy Bank, and Newspapers.com.  

I love this one!  Only with the little blurb after the "birth announcement" does it become clear that the writer for The Ripley Bee was indulging in a little word play for the entertainment of his readers.  Well, I certainly hope that was the case anyway!

The Highland (Hillsboro, Ohio) Weekly News_Jun 16 1870_pg 1 col 8
http://www.newspapers.com

Here's another one that was originally published in The Ripley Bee.

The Evening Bulletin (Maysville, Kentucky) Jan_15__1904
http://www.newspapers.com

My grandfather and my father-in-law raised pigs, but I don't remember any of them to be nearly this size!  Now, I could be wrong and I hope someone will correct me if I am.  If pigs do get this big though, I want to know why the cost of bacon and pork is so high!  

By the way, I tried to find this lucky pig owner in the 1900 census, but had no luck.  I even tried different spellings of his name because I don't think it's spelled correctly in the article.  

I hope you enjoyed reading these as much as I did.  If so, let me know in a comment!

copyright 2015 Lynn Ann Wayson Koehler.  All rights reserved.

Death of Joseph Haitz

The Ripley Bee

Joseph, or Joe as he referred to himself, died on Valentine's Day in 1960.  He was 82 years old while I was three and half months shy of being just 3 years old.  I have no memory of him.  At the time of his death, his sixteen children had given him 37 grandchildren, and I was just one of his 10 great grandchildren!  He was the patriarch of a very large family and, in fact, they had been photographed and featured in local newspapers as one of the largest in the area.    

Joe was no stranger to large families.  He was one of ten children born to Frank Haitz and his wife, Elizabeth Germann.  A devout Catholic family, they attended St. Michael Catholic Church in Ripley, Ohio where Joe would later become a member of the Holy Name Society and the Ripley Council of the Knights of Columbus.  Of his siblings, there remained only one sister, Anna Serwna, to mourn his passing.  She would live three more years reaching the grand age of 100!

A requiem high mass was intoned on February 17 in St, Michael's by the Reverend Father Charles Moore.  Joseph was  buried in Maplewood Cemetery, Ripley, Ohio.  He lays to rest with his wife who followed him just three years later.

Maplewood Cemetery, Ripley, Ohio

2015 - copyright Lynn Ann Wayson Koehler.  All rights reserved.

Joe Haitz - World War II Draft Registration

Joe Haitz missed not having to register for the World War II draft by only sixteen days.  On April 27, 1942, almost five months after the United States entered World War II, the fourth, or Old Man's, draft registration took place.  All men who were born between April 28, 1877 and February 16, 1897 and who were not already in the military were required to report to their local draft board and complete the cards that would be put into use if needed. 

Front of Card

Reverse Side of Card

Information learned from his card:

1.  Joe did not have a middle name as he was obviously asked for it and must have replied "None".  

2.  The family's address was R.R 2 in Ripley, Brown County, Ohio. 

3.  The family had a telephone though Ohio Bell and their phone number in the Ripley exchange was 123 W1.  

4.  Joe's birthdate was 13 May 1877 and he was born in Ripley, Brown County, Ohio.

5.  He must have called his wife by the nickname of Nettie.  This is the only place I have seen this.

6.  His occupation was a self employed farmer.

7.  He was 5' 9" tall and weighed approximately 155 lbs.

8.  He had blue eyes, gray hair, and a ruddy complexion.

9.  He had no physical characteristics that could be used to identify him.  

10.  Margaret V Blatter was the registrar for the local draft board.  

Along with the information, Joe signed the card so we also have an example of his handwriting.

Images - "U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942," digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 16 June 2015), Joe Haitz, Serial Number 458, 27 April 1942, Brown County, Ohio; citing Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. Records of the Selective Service System, Record Group Number 147. National Archives and Records Administration.

2015, copyright Lynn Ann Wayson Koehler.  All rights reserved.

The Switch To Roots Magic

Before my wonderful husband bought my Mac, I used Roots Magic software on a Toshiba PC.  I really liked Roots Magic and was so sad to find out that I couldn’t transfer it to my Mac.  That was in 2009.  Later, Roots Magic came out with a program called MacBridge which allowed the software to run on a Mac, but you had to pay for it in addition to the genealogy software.  By that time, I was very familiar with Family Tree for Mac, or Family Tree 3 as it is called now, and so I left the Roots Magic alone.  Well, earlier this week I discovered that Roots Magic 7 could be downloaded onto a Mac without needing MacBridge.  I don’t know how these things work, but I think the software program contains within itself a program that makes it compatible with Mac.  I downloaded the free version, played for a while, then bought the full version.

A Partial Screen Shot

I downloaded a GEDCOM file from my FTM which wasn’t very large since I am still in the beginnings of my Do-Over and imported it into Roots Magic.  It is still the great program I remember, but has some downsides that I am going to tolerate only because the developer is working on a genuine Mac version that I will get when it is ready.  Right now, the look of the screen is not what I am hoping it will be in the future.  The font is very “dot matrix” looking and the working environment is a very retro Windows looking one.  For example, the print dialog box looks just like I remember it looking on my Toshiba and I had no way to get my two page report to print double sided unless I just missed something.  Like I said, I can live with it until a Mac version comes out, but I hope it is soon!

The Roots Magic 7 Mac Print Dialog Box

I also encountered an error box today that I was warned about on the Roots Magic Users‘ Facebook page.  It seems to appear when I let the program sit idle for too long while I went to fetch a glass of water or looked something up on Google, Ancestry, or the like.  The error message is something about an encounter with a floating point, whatever that is!  It isn’t a terrible bother since all I have to do is click “okay” and keep going.  I haven’t lost anything or it hasn’t crashed...yet.  Knock on wood that it doesn’t start that!  

I love the source templates in Roots Magic and I am in the middle of working with them as my wonky Family Tree Maker citations all transferred as Free-Form and I want them as they should be!  The citations that you create in Roots Magic are the ones that you find in Evidence Explained and they are so easy to write!  All you have to do is pick the correct template from the list, put the information in the boxes, and there you have a correct citation.  There is even the Evidence Explained page number for you to reference if you need more explanation.  

The functionality of Roots Magic just makes sense to me, and it is very intuitive.  I have only used the Help file once or twice, although I do need to take a good look at it so that I am able to take advantage of all it offers.  Adding people and facts is simple.  There is a built in To-Do list and you can create Research Logs for as many people or things as you wish to use one for.  The program is also connected to Family Search and Heritage Quest if you want it to find possible records for you and a little light bulb will display itself  next to a name to indicate it has found something.  

I am very glad I bought Roots Magic 7 and I think I am going to really enjoy it as much as I used to.  I will miss the syncing to my Ancestry online trees that Family Tree Maker allowed and I will have to decide what to do about that.  I might look at the tree on Family Search or I might even try Tribal Pages.  We will see, but for now, I am just enjoying the program!

The Genealogy Squirrel - The Disappointing Part 2

Well, it seems that maybe Maisie and Montgomery finally caught a squirrel.  I just wish it wasn’t the one that I was chasing on Newspapers.com.  If you don't know who Maisie and Montgomery are,  I introduced them in my last post which you can find here.  

There we all were enjoying ourselves, doing the happy dance, and finding our family in the newly updated Cincinnati Enquirer database on Newspapers.com when, as quickly as the update appeared, it disappeared, leaving us wondering what had happened.  No explanation, no notice, no nothing!  Some people emailed and others, including me, left questions and comments on their Facebook page letting them know about our disappointment.  We were all given the same answer - “The content was mistakenly posted and was removed due to license restrictions. We are hoping to make this content available in the future but it requires coordination with the publisher.”

Major disappointment!  I don’t know how the newspaper archive/website system works, but obviously the Cincinnati Enquirer is digitized and ready for researchers to dig into.  I’m sure the problem has something to do with money as that seems to be the bottom line on all things these days, and I doubt the problem is on Newspapers.com’s end since the inclusion of the images would only benefit them.  

I am usually one to pretty much go with the flow, but I sure hope things get settled between Newspapers.com and the Gannett Company, the publisher, who is blocking the update.  I would be happy even if the update didn’t include recent issues.  Something, just give me something and I will be happy!  

Genealogy Squirrels In The Newspaper

Montgomery

I have two Scottish Terriers, Montgomery and Maisie, who love to bark at and chase squirrels.  It doesn't matter what they might be doing, if someone just mentions the word "squirrel", they will stop whatever it is and investigate to see if it is a viable sighting that requires barking or running out the door after them.  Maisie, especially, has been known to stop in the middle of her meal if she thinks there is the possibility of a squirrel sighting.  I, myself, have found my own "squirrel" that has taken me from my Genealogy Do-Over tasks.  Newspapers.com has added to the Cincinnati Enquirer collection on their website!  

Maisie

Newspapers.com has had the Cincinnati Enquirer for a while now and I have found several nuggets of gold within the issues, but the newest additions now go from the previous middle of the 1920’s all the way up to 2015!  How am I supposed to pass up taking a peek, entering some surnames, and poking around to see what I find?  I’ll be honest, I can’t, so despite the fact that I am supposed to be working on my do-over project and that I promised myself I would straighten up this craft / genealogy room today, instead I played researched in the newspaper.  And...just so I could say that I was, at least, trying to stick to my original genealogy task of proving and entering all the Haitz information I have in my possession, I searched the surname and found several little articles, a couple of which concerned my great-aunt Hestel (Swearingen) who was married to my grandfather’s brother, Joe Bill Haitz.

I do not remember Hestel and if I ever met her, I must have been very young.  I have heard that she was a good cook and, as a testament to that, some of the food at the annual Haitz family reunion is made from her recipes.  Several of the articles I found in the Enquirer were submissions of recipes from Hestel so in the spirit of the do-over, I am sharing one of the articles that has a recipe that she sent to the Enquirer which, if I stretch it, still fits into my task list for the day!  

You just have to love a “squirrel” that sends you on a great chase!  

"Timely Recipes Requests Spur Readers' Response", The Cincinnati Enquirer (Ohio), 29 August 1973, page 52, column 4, digital images, Newspapers.com (http://www.newspapers.com:accessed 1 June 2015).