Family History Websites

Many, many, family history and genealogy websites are available on the Internet. Some are free; others vary in cost from inexpensive to very expensive. If you choose to join one or more of these sites, make sure that it will meet your needs before you spend a lot of money.

www.familysearch.com is a great place to start. I have shown you some examples of the site in this blog, and will continue to use this as my main family history site. FamilySearch is free to all -- it always has been and will always continue to be free. No obligation. No unwanted advertising. FamilySearch is provided by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (www.lds.org, www.mormons.org).

One of the first large databases available online is Ancestry.com. Established in 1996, it quickly became a "go-to" site for genealogy enthusiasts. The first time I sat down at ancestry.com, I found my maternal grandmother's line back to the Mayflower. I was so thrilled that I immediately paid for a year's subscription, and remained a paid subscriber until recently. I now get a free membership :)

Ancestry and FamilySearch have some shared information, and some different information. The two search engines are also different. I don't know enough about search engine technology to explain, but often a search will fail on one site while being successful on the other. Using the two sites together give you the best source of information. I record all of my finds in FamilySearch, however, because I like the family tree interface better on that site.

Several months ago, Ancestry and FamilySearch became partners, meaning that they will be sharing their databases. If you are a member of the LDS Church, you can become a free basic member of Ancestry. See https://familysearch.org/partneraccess for more information.


www.findmypast.com has a lot of newspaper records and vital records that are searchable. A quick search for "Karl Vetter" finds his marriage record: http://search.findmypast.com/record?id=r_650820078%2f1. Using the newspaper record search, I found this tidbit:

Why was my grandmother listed as "Lois Carstens" instead of "Lois Field"?  Why was my grandmother, a life-long resident of Iowa, listed as "From Mitchell, SD"? How did they meet? Genealogy often raises two questions for every one answered. More on this tomorrow. At least we now know that they were married in Havre, not Helena, because Karl was "managing the Larson Show hospital." Later research will show that shoe making was a family trade for the Vetters.


If you have Washington State ancestry, check out http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/Home. Many Washington State records are available for free here. A quick search through marriage records found this (http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/Record/View/05B47F47936C5FC1A6CF5FE0B80B4431).
This is my sister's marriage license. It contains my father's signature as a witness. I also notice that the license was not filed for six months -- does that mean they weren't legally married? :) It also shows that Donna and Laif will celebrate their 43rd anniversary tomorrow. Happy anniversary!

Tomorrow: More about Karl Vetter and Lois Field.

Leonard Otte and Mary Gordon Simmons

I knew that my grandfather, Leonard Otte, was born in New Jersey, and my grandmother, Mary Gordon Simmons, was born in Iowa. With research that I have already described, I found that they were married in Tacoma, Washington in 1902. But, how did they meet? What possessed them to move to a barely-civilized area (Washington only became a state in 1889)?

There are many types of records available on the Internet besides US Census. Some of these records are found on sites besides FamilySearch. Some records are only available in libraries and dusty archives, but these are slowly being indexed and entered into FamilySearch.

A note about indexing: Indexing is fairly easy to do, especially if you are fluent in cursive writing. You can find instructions here: https://familysearch.org/indexing/. This week, FamilySearch has an indexing challenge: https://familysearch.org/blog/en/week-thousand-volunteers-fuel-find-world/. Join with us in making more records available for searching.

Let's first see what we can find out about Leonard Otte through FamilySearch.

When I search for him on Family Search, the first record that appears is the 1910 census. But, wait! He is in neither Tacoma nor New Jersey: He and Mary are in Toppenish, on the east side of the Cascade Mountains. He and Mary have been married for 7 years, and have just one child, Richard, who is 7. Leonard is listed as a "house carpenter," which is no surprise -- the Ottes have been carpenters of some type or another for many centuries.

While living in Yakima, I found some city directories for Toppenish in a local archive. Here, Leonard was listed as a "rancher." I asked my father about this, and he recalled a story told him by his mother. Leonard wanted to do something different with his life, and bought an apple orchard in Toppenish, probably in 1907 (http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=10400). After a couple of years working the orchard, the irrigation line broke above their fledgling crop and washed all of the trees down the hill. They returned to Tacoma just in time for their next child, Horace Taylor Otte, to be born June 18, 1910.

We still have not discovered how Leonard and Mary met, although we do have an inkling of their lives.

I visited the Tacoma Genealogical Library and found Tacoma City Directories for many years. The 1902 directory listed Leonard Otte as a boarder in the home of Robert and Nellie Jamieson. Nellie Simmons, a widow, married Robert Jamieson on 18 Feb 1899. I just found my great-grandmother whose maiden name, "Gordon" has been passed down as a middle name through the generations since (my grandmother, her daughter, and my sister all have "Gordon" as their middle name. When I gave the middle name to my son, my sister thanked me).

So, how did Nellie end up in Tacoma? This took a lot more research. Family history is not easy.

I found Nellie Simmons in the 1880 Census with her husband, John Simmons. They were in Kansas, apparently because Nellie's brother lived there. What happened to John?

In the early 2000's, a lot of genealogical databases began to show up on line. I became involved with one -- the Rootsbweb cemetery project -- at that time. It was through this project (now part of ancestry.com) that I found John Simmons' grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=23817028&ref=acom

Tacoma City Directories showed me that John's widow, Nellie, moved to Tacoma where another brother, Franklin Gordon, lived. She soon met and married Robert Jamieson, and had a son, but died when the son was just a few years old.

We now know how Mary found her way to Tacoma, but how about Leonard? The most likely reason was the "Fire of 1902" in Paterson, NJ. http://www.patersonhistory.com/events/fire1902.html. This fire put 300 trolley car carpenters out of work. Leonard most likely took the first train out of town to Tacoma, where he would build rail cars. He needed a place to stay, and a coworker -- Robert Jamieson -- offered him a room. Robert lived with his wife, his baby son, and his stepdaughter, Mabel. Leonard fell in love with Mabel's identical twin sister, Mary, who actually did not live at home at the time.

This research wasn't done in a few hours or even a few days. But, we finally have a glimpse of Leonard and Mary's lives, how they met and married, and where they lived during the short time they had together.

I wish I had some pictures to post of Leonard and Mary, but have yet to discover any. Today, we take pictures of our children every minute of their lives; in the early 1900's, photography was only available to people with much more money than these families had.

Next: I will post a generic description of awesome databases that I have used to research my family.

Lenard (Leonard) Otte

I knew nearly nothing about my grandfather when I began this journey. I knew he died in a tragic accident near Tacoma, Washington when my father was a baby -- late 1917 or early 1918. I knew his name, and that he was born in New Jersey. I knew the name OTTE was Dutch.

I spent many years researching the old-fashioned way -- lots of letters and legwork. I got a copy of his death certificate from the State of Washington. I found a small obituary in a Tacoma paper. And I scrolled through miles of the 1880 census from Patterson, New Jersey, hoping to find him as a baby. Nothing worked.

I didn't even know where my grandparents were married -- she was from Iowa, and somehow they ended up in Tacoma. My father thought they were married in Montana. One day, while in a Pierce County archive office, I stumbled on their marriage license. Here is the first clue to my great-grandfather's name: Richard Otte. Wow! The same as my uncle and my brother. Both went by the nickname "Dick". I searched again through the census, and found nothing.

One day, I was going through a microfilm containing city directories from Patterson. When I viewed the last city directory on the microfilm, I hit gold! Two men with the last name of Otte were sharing a room -- and one was Dirk Otte! Suddenly it all made sense to me: in America, people thought his name was Dick and assumed his name was Richard. Now, let's search for a Dirk Otte, instead.

By this time, the census was available on computer. I used a Soundex search. Since the family pronounces the name with a short "o" and silent "e" (ott), maybe they spelled the name wrong on the census.

Boy was it spelled wrong! I found the family here:

A four-letter last name, and only two letters were correct. The father was recorded as Richard, and it included Leonard and Cornelius, and uncle my father had once met. Finally I had a lot of information!

But, I still felt the first name was Dirk, not Richard. Let me use FamilySearch and see. 

I went to the Records tab and searched for Dirk Otte who lived in New Jersey from about 1860 to 1920. 

The first entry I found was the 1885 New Jersey census, with a listing of "Derrick Otte." I am feeling confident that Dirk was the first name.

Where else can I search? Let's try www.findagrave.com. This site has improved greatly since the first time I used it. It now has 132 million grave records, with more being added each day. Volunteers will "adopt" a cemetery and place pictures of the graves, along with related information when known.

Although I found Dirk listed as "Richard" in FindAGrave, I have been to the cemetery and know that he is buried as Dirk.

I also have a picture of Dirk and Lena (Helena), my great-grandparents. 

Tomorrow: Using public records to piece together the life story of Leonard and Mary Otte.

David Grant Otte

My father, David Grant Otte, was born in Tacoma, Pierce County, Washington on August 2, 1917. He died  on May 8, 2001, in Port Townsend, Washington. He is buried in the National Cemetery in Tahoma, King County, Washington.

My father never knew his own father -- Leonard Otte died when David was 3 months old. He knew very little about his father's life, and never even saw a picture of him until late in life. In addition, his mother died when David was 20, and left little record of her life.  How can I possibly find out anything about his ancestry with so little to do on.

It was 30 years before I found Leonard's father's name. Today, it would have take me minutes using the Internet resources available.

Let's start with FamilySearch. I put my information into my FamilySearch account, including what I know about David Otte. Today, I logged in, selected my Family Tree, and selected to view David Otte as a "person." Always work from the Person view within FamilySearch.

When I open the Person view, I see a lot of information:

Family search thinks they have found him in three different places! Click on these links to see if they are him. You would see that the first is a list of addresses from phone books; the second is his Army enlistment record (he served in India/Burma/China in World War II, and the last is his listing in the 1940 census, 

The 1940 Census gives us our first insight into his life. David was 22 years old and had been unemployed for a long time. He was living at the YMCA in Wenatchee, Washington, and working as a janitor in exchange for rent. In 1935, he was living in Tacoma, Washington.

After reviewing each hint, and either accepting or rejecting (if your ancestor has a common name, these hints might not be useful), other hints may appear.

The 1930 Census has David living with his stepfather, mother, two brothers, and a sister.

The 1920 Census has David living with his widowed mother and his two brothers. 

Maybe we can find something about his father searching another way. Next entry: Using FamilySearch.org to find records.

First steps in family history

I was born Diane Lois Otte on November 4, 1952, in the small town of Enumclaw, King County, Washington. I am the second of seven children of David Grant Otte. I am not going to spend a lot of time in this blog on my mother, siblings, children, or grandchildren since they are all living and creating their own legacies.

Shirley Jean Vetter (now Bliss)

Daryl Butcher Gordon (was Daryl Gordon Butcher)

The first step today in researching your family history is to create an account at www.familysearch.org. This is an absolutely free site available to anyone. Along with family histories that have been stored there over the years, there are over 1.3 billion records that have been extracted and placed into a database for easy searching. https://familysearch.org/indexing/. Every day, new names are added to the database. I have found many of my records there. Other sites are available as well, and I will show you some of these as we get started.

For now, go to https://familysearch.org/register/ and create an account. Then, set up your family tree with the information that you currently know. Most people know their father's and mother's names; most people can guess the birth year of their parents. For example, I was born in 1952. My father had a daughter from a previous marriage who is 10 years older than me, so I would guess that my father was 35 when I was born. That would make him born in 1917 -- which is exactly right! I know that my father had a brother 14 years older than him, so I would estimate his father was 40 when my dad was born, or about 1877. This turns out to be a good estimate.

Tomorrow, we will look at my father and the information I found about him from the US Census.

In the beginning...

I started my journey with genealogy when I was 15 years old. I was able to earn a "badge" for completing my four-generation chart, and asked my parents what they knew. My father knew almost nothing about his family; my mother found two family group sheets that has been completed by her parents some time after my family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in March of 1958, and before my grandfather died in December of 1960.

In the 45+ years since this humble beginning, I have researched my family back to the 16th century, and farther back in a few cases. My story isn't unique -- I never had any rich or famous ancestors, and no immediate family members helping me in my work.

Today, I am a Family History Library Director, who helps people every week to find their own ancestors. Why is this so important to me, or you, or anyone? A recent article in the Ensign noted that oral history fades after just three generations: http://media.ldscdn.org/pdf/magazines/ensign-august-2015/2015-08-00-ensign-eng.pdf. An article in the New York Times explains that knowing our history makes our families stronger: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/fashion/the-family-stories-that-bind-us-this-life.html?_r=0

What is the difference between genealogy and family history? Genealogy is "just the facts"; the names, dates, and places for our ancestors. Family history includes stories -- things we have learned or heard from our ancestors.

My goal for this blog is to publish my family history, a bit at a time. While doing this, I will also explain the many resources available today for ANYONE to find their own family history.

I dedicate this blog to my grandchildren: Tyler, Avery, Harper, Emery, and Luke, and hope they find joy and happiness in learning of the awesome genetic legacy that has come together to make each of them unique.