Taking Down More Brick Walls, Part 2

Eureka!  I found another reference to the address on Harold Olson's birth certificate, and the rest of the wall came tumbling down.

After the post of Part 1, I went online and made a comment on Ancestry about the wrong address for the 1910 census related to my family member. I hope that will help others.  I felt good after my bit of detective work to determine that 6000 Hachmuch should be 6050 N Hermitage.  Yesss!

I went back to looking for the address on Harold's birth certificate.  I couldn't seem to go any further.  I looked at the 1920 census for Howard and Gertrude, the parents of Harold.  They had moved between 1916 and 1920.  I thought I had reached a dead end that lead to that small pile of bricks and mortar around my dad's birth certificate.  I was so close.

One last try at something.  I got out my green "Vitals" binder.  That's where I keep an extra copy of  important documents such as birth certificates.  They are sorted alphabetically by last name then first.  It's easier to look through that one binder than a dozen or so binders for various individual family members.

I went to the 'Os" for Olson.  Right off the bat I found a death certificate for Irving Olson, my dad's brother.  He was born in 1914 and he died in 1916, just a few months after my father was born. The address given on his death certificate was the same as the address given on Harold's birth certificate.  Finally!  I was 100% sure that Harold Olson and my dad were the same person.

One problem solved.  One wall entirely knocked down.  Now, however, I'm left wondering why my father's name changed and when it changed.  I may never know.  I think anyone who may have known is gone.  I have a theory.  My grandfather's uncle was Harry Gerold Jensen.  The first 3 letters of Harry and the last 3 letters of Gerold = Harold.  Coincidence?  Maybe.  I doubt that I'll ever find out for sure.

I'm not too concerned though.  I can comfortably move on to another brick wall.  I can't get beyond my dad's maternal grandfather. Who were his parents? That will be the next wall I tackle.

Taking Down More Brick Walls, Part 1

Woody, 11 June 2001 to  10 August 2016

We just put our Border Collie to sleep this morning so I needed something to occupy my mind.  I decided to work on my family tree.  I have some partial brick walls impeding my progress.  I need to clean up some bricks and mortar so that I can break through to the other side.  I thought I might be able to finish that cleanup now that I have the right tools and better skills than when I started this journey down the Olson Family Lane.

I have a partial brick wall surrounding my father's birth certificate.  There was a time I couldn’t find the birth certificate for my father, Robert Harold Olson born 13 September 1916.  Then, as luck would have it, I came across a Harold Olson born 12 September 1916.  I decided to take a chance and order the document for immediate download from Cook County Illinois.

I ordered and paid for the document, and I downloaded it to my computer’s hard drive.  I looked at all of the information on the certificate.  Here’s what I was able to determine: 

• The handwritten birth date of 12 September 1916 looked as if it was really 13 September 1916.  I compared the writing of the numbers to others in the document and the 2 appeared to be a 3.  Not enough, however, to verify that it was in fact my father.

• The father’s name was Howard A Olson.  That’s the name of my paternal grandfather.

• The father’s age at the time of the birth was 34.  That corresponds with the age of my grandfather based on his birth year.

• The mother’s name was Gertrude H Minor.  That’s the name of my paternal grandmother – except for the middle initial.

• The mother’s age at the time of the birth was 28.  That corresponds with the age of my grandmother based on her birth year.

• There is a reference to the number of children – the answer is four.  My dad was the fourth child born to Howard and Gertrude.

Even with all this information I wasn’t 100% sure it was my father.  Was it possible there was another set of parents of the same names and ages?  I thought it was a remote possibility so I was only 99.7% sure that Harold was my dad.  I’d never heard of his name being any different from how I knew him, but it was certainly possible.

Just this morning I decided to do more research.  I wanted to see if the addresses on the census reports agreed with the address on the birth certificate.  If not, was the address on the birth certificate in the same neighborhood?  My paternal ancestors were from Norway and Sweden so most, if not all, lived in the area of Andersonville on the north side of Chicago.  I may have researched the addresses years ago but I don’t remember.  My investigative skills have improved over the years so I thought it was worth another try.

I started with the 1900 census even though it was 16 years before the birth of my father.  My grandfather Howard was still at “home” with his mother Josephine and his siblings.  The address was on North Clark St.  I went on to the next census.

I pulled up the page for the 1910 census.  Howard was still at home with his mother and his siblings.  The address shown was now 6000 Hachmuch.  I’d never come across that street name for anyone in my family.  I decided to take a closer look at the document.  However, the details got a little fuzzy as I enlarged the image.  The street number of 6000 looked as if it could be 6050.  Since the family had a home at 6050 North Hermitage in the early 1900s, I thought that the street name as shown on Ancestry could be wrong. What?!?  Yes, it happens.  That's why it's important to question and check information.

I went to the information at the top of the census report.  The ward was #26, and the Enumeration District was 1108.  I did a search online for wards in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois during the 1910 census.  Bingo!  I found a site with maps of the wards for various census years.  The Ward & Enumeration District seemed to be within the neighborhood of the old family home on Hermitage.See the link below.  Just change the year in the url to see other sets of maps.  It's a great source of information for those of us from Chicago.

http://www.alookatcook.com/1910/

I did an online search for the address of the family home.  Bingo again!  The home was within the Enumeration District of the 1910 census.  One piece of information found.  I’ll report the issue to Ancestry or leave a comment so others know of the transcription error.  However, I’m still looking for more addresses to see if I can further verify my father’s birth certificate.  That will be Part 2 of this post. 

Only An Amateur Sleuth

I've been working on my family tree for over 30 years.  I got started because of  Dr David Warren, retired humanities professor at Sacramento City College.  I took several humanities classes from him, and they were all wonderful. He dressed in period costume for some of his classes, and it made the history come alive.

In one of the classes, we had to work on a family tree.  He didn't care if it was fancy, complete or even accurate.  He just wanted us to start work on our family history.  I still have that rough "draft" of my early notes and research.  It's just hand written notes on lined paper in a 3-ring binder.  That was before I got my first computer in the early 1990s and long before the Internet as we know it today.  I can’t bring myself to get rid of that binder.

I am thankful to David for that assignment.  Yes, I call him David because we went on to be friends.  Not close.  He and his wife Lois had many, many friends.  I went on field trips with David and Lois and I even went on a trip to Egypt, Jordan and Israel with the two of them. That was quite the adventure. Sadly, Lois passed away early last year.  As far as I know, David is still alive.  I now live across the country from him. 

Although I've been working on my family tree for over 30 years, I have taken some long and short breaks.  I worked full time, went to school part time, traveled to other countries, had family to visit, and I had hobbies that kept me busy.  That early "draft" is a reminder of where I started.  I have come a long way since then but, I am in no way an expert.  I help friends by researching their family history for free.  I am, after all, only an amateur sleuth.  As far as the history to still be discovered, I feel that I have a long way to go.  I think it is never-ending, and I like it that way.  It gives me something to do - in between the many other tings that keep me busy.

 PS - I hadn't posted in over a week so I felt the need to write something.  Hope to have something with more substance later this week.  Today, however, we're putting our 15-year old Border Collie to rest.  He's a sweet boy.  I'll miss him.