December 1998

12/25 - Christmas Day

Made another major family find today. Was researching the GenServ databases for the upper limits of the currently known Held ancestors and I discovered another whole arm of the family, associated with the Wanner branch. The contributer was Roy L. Cordingley of Boise, ID. The link is at Hans Jerg Wanner, b. 18 APR 1714 in Holzgerlingen. Roy has done considerable research of our ancestors here and back. His line deviates at this generation, but he has considerable data of our cousins. I have entered all of the ancestor data, but the cousin data is a little slow coming. I'm trying to get in contact with Roy to see if he'll send me a GEDCOM.

I had sent Roy a note, along with Terry Sappah, Nancy Plowman, and Lena Peters because of a couriosity that I discovered in the GenServ databases yesterday. All of these contributers have Widmann family data within a 13 mile radius of Stuttgart. (Ours are from Mönsheim about 10 miles away.) There were no matches found yet, but the possibility is high.

The reason I looked at the GenServ databases, after not looking for some time, was they sent me a dunning notice that I needed to pay up. The $6 a year is such a chore, so I sent $12 for two years. This database has been a source of many of my Armstrong County family finds, including my Riggles and Allshouses.

I suspect some of the other Armstrong County ancestors are listed there. Send me a note with the name and time period and I will look to see if they are listed. Just go to GenServ to see what it is about.

Another large database I subscribe to is Ancestry. They have many research books digitized and online. The same goes here. You can see what books they have available by going to Ancestry. If you ask to search the database you need a login, but you do not need one to see what volumes of books they have digitized.

12/31

Roy Cordingley has sent me 2 up-to-date GEDCOMs of his family. One was his (3484 members) and the other his brother Carl's ( 3142 members). The data clearly mesh with ours at the level of Johann Georg Wanner (b: April 18, 1714) and Anna Katarina Bausch (b: March 10, 1715) of Sindelfingen. Roy's data also indicates there are other Wanner families in the same area at the same time, but his data did not have a connection between them. His line shows no less than 4 seemingly different Wanner familes he is related to from that area. Roy and his brother are my 7th cousins, once removed.

In a few weeks I'll update the Helds in Germany data to reflect these new data.

Link to January 1999