Research by State : Arizona

Hello again.

I just reviewed two sites that are incredible.  Who knew that Arizona would have such great research guides?  Need some birth and death information?  Arizona has a searchable database that is fantastic.

Let's start with Arizona Genealogy Birth and Death Certificates found at genealogy.az.gov

Currently on this site, you can search births to 1939 (at least 75 years ago) and deaths to 1964 (at least 50 years ago

Images are in pdf format for both birth and death certificates.  Fantastic? You betcha!

The Arizona Memory Project found at azmemory.lib.az.us

I found this site to be really neat for that information that you never learned in school.  There are collections covering a variety of topics and subjects....Architecture, Education, Maps, Military, Native Americans, Photographs, ....just to name a few.

I love to read about people who have a whole different taste of life....usually for the absurd or purely wacky (not to be critical or anything like that). So, I did some browsing in the Crime and Law section.  There was a topic called Murder and Mayhem.  Just what I like to read. Look what I found...

Murder & Mayhem - The Strange Saga of Winnie Ruth Judd

http://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/cdm/landingpage/collection/ahfmur

Contributed by Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records: State Archives

This is the story of Winnie Ruth of Indiana.  At the age of 19, she married Dr. Judd, a man 22 years her senior.  While living in Los Angeles, her husband became a drug addict.  She was diagnosed with TB and decided to move to Arizona for the drier air.

Winnie got a clerical job at a clinic, and soon made friends with two other women.  They became roomies.  She began dating a new man in her life....and yes, she was still married....and, oh, by the way....he was married too.  She moved out of the girls place and got a place of her own.  However the three women still met up each week to socialize.

Well, one day, Winnie went to visit the ladies.  An argument ensued, someone pulled out a gun, and all three were shot.  Winnie was injured in the hand, but, unfortunately, the two other young women were fatally wounded.

The body of one of the young gals was stuffed into a suitcase.  The other was too large to fit into a case, so her body was dismembered, and she was stuffed into multiple suitcases.

Winnie left Arizona with the suitcases, headed back to Los Angeles.The trunks began to smell and leak body fluids while on the train ride through California.  The train inspectors asked Winnie to open a trunk.  She told them that only her husband had the key, and with that, she ran off.

Train inspectors forced the suitcases open and the bodies were found.  

Winnie's trial began in 1932 in  Phoenix.  The "Trunk Murderess" claimed self defense.  That idea didn't work.  She was found guilty and sentenced to death.  However, not long after, she was found to be insane, as was sent to the state mental hospital for 38 years. She escaped seven times from the hospital, and managed to get as far as northern California where she found employment as a nanny.

Police finally caught up with her, and she was extradited back to Arizona. In 1969, she demanded to be reexamined to determine her sanity. Her parole was denied, but in 1971 the governor signed her pardon.  She returned to California, now going by the name of Marian Lane.

Marian died in California in her sleep, at the age of 93, in 1998.

Now, where else can you find a story like this?  Newspapers!!! My favorite research resource....until I reviewed this Arizona Memory Project site...which is running a close second place.

I hope that you take the  time to browse these Arizona sites to help you with your family research, or just to read about the lives of people who do strange things.

Speaking of that, don't forget to visit my other blog...Friday's Fallen Acorns and Other Nuts found at www.fridaysfallenacorns.blogspot.com

State By State Research : Alabama

I want to tell you how wonderfully the writers of Family Tree Magazine fill their pages with such useful information.  For those of us who need that extra help with researching the archives of individual states, they have published a listing of websites that can be the portals to helping you with your historical and genealogical research.  I am going to review each of their picks by state.

Let's start with Alabama.

The Alabama Department of Archives and History  archives.state.al.us

This site has a search feature to look for names in the Civil War service cards.  It also has a search feature for the 1867 voter registrations.

Interested in microfilmed newspapers?  Well, they are listed in the catalogs, and some are available through interlibrary loan.

There are also links to find church records, local and county records and maps.

The Alabama History Timeline is quite fascinating.  It has quips of what was in the vicinity of Alabama going back to 10,000-7,000 BC.,,featuring information on Russell Cave in Jackson County which is a fine example of prehistoric geology.  Going forward, several Spanish explorers made their mark in the area, and the development of the Native American Creek Nation, along with other tribes formed from the earlier Mississippian peoples. There is information on schools, cities, forts, legislature, et. al.  Truly a go to spot for Alabama history.

Multi Media is not lacking on this website.  You Tube videos are abundant and cover a wide range of subjects.

This is certainly a website that I will bookmark, and I hope you do, too.

The Life of an Inventor : Lavonious Kenworthy Wynn, OR Don't Believe Every Family Story to be Correct

In some families, there is usually a child that is named for an ancestor; be it a parent, grandparent, great grandparent, or other person that family wished to remember and honor.  My late father-in-law was named Kenworthy Henry Reif.  I knew that his grandfather was Henry Jacob Reif, so there is the repeated "Henry".  But, I did not know where "Kenworthy" had it's origin...was there someone of that name in the family?

After months of working on my husband's family history, I decided to do what I do best....think outside of the box, and work outside of the crate.  This type of research never fails me.  I always come up with something, and indeed, this time I uncovered someone with the name of Kenworthy.

I knew that great grandmother Eliza Hessler Reif had a sister, Emma.  But that was as far as I had gotten into the Hessler family.  Searching  the Illinois State Marriage Index Database, I came across the marriage of Lavonious K. Wynn - Emma Hessler in 1888.  Hmmm.  And the marriage occurred in northern Illinois, in Whiteside County.  Hmmm.  Well, this certainly looks like it could be interesting.  Now I have yet another name to research. But, this wasn't just any person.  It was THE person that I needed to follow through the many records available on-line.

http://www.ilsos.gov/isavital/marriageSearch.do

Sterling Gazette, 1888

Taking this information, I searched on Ancestry.com for Mr. Wynn.  The first result came from the Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths Index, 1916-1947.  

http://search.ancestry.com/

Lavonious Wynn was born in Ohio, and died and was buried in Sterling, Illinois.  He was a widower in 1946 at the time of his death.  His occupation is listed as President of a Laundry Company.  This is little more information than I had before, but what I found on the rest of the page made me jump.  There were a few suggested records that Ancestry.com thought might match this gentleman :

Do you see what I see?  L. KENWORTHY Wynn...... Here is the Kenworthy in this family that I was looking for, listed in the 1910 U.S. Federal Census.  I clicked the link, and BINGO, Lavonious Kenworthy Wynn was married to Emma, living in Sterling, Illinois.

Apparently, my father-in-law was named after his great uncle, brother-in-law of his grandmother, Eliza Hessler Reif.  He must have been an important person in the family to be honored over everyone else in the family when it came to naming my father-in-law.  Now that I found him, I needed to discover what made him so special.  Back to the list of on-line databases that I frequent, I diligently searched for Mr. Wynn.

Lavonious was too young to serve in the military in the Civil War, but he may have served in later years. I searched Fold3.com to uncover more data results.There were no military records, but he was listed in a Cleveland directory of 1880, salesman for F. Bassett Company.  Mr. Wynn did appear in city directories of Des Moines, Iowa from 1892 to 1904.  He resided at The Iliad Hotel, which is no longer standing.

In addition, the name of  L. K. Wynn in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, in the 1914 September 7 edition, page 13, volume 38, number 113.  A full page is dedicated to the proof of business prosperity in America, with highlighted comments by leading business men in the United States.

http://www.fold3.com/image/257361646/

My Goodness....it appears Mr. Wynn was a business owner in Sterling, Illinois in 1914...Black Silk Stove Polish Works.  More to research.  How did he get from being in Des Moines in 1904 to Sterling in 1914 as a business owner?

Newspapers are my favorite resource for researching into past lives.  I usually find very interesting information that is not noted in vital records.  ChroniclingAmerica.loc.gov, NewspaperArchive.com, Genealogybank.com and Newspapers.com are my favorite websites for newspaper research.  There are so many others, far too many to name.  For ephemera, I search Mocavo.com.  Additional searching may include Archive.com and InternetArchives at archive.org.

According to a 1963 obit of a nephew of L. K. Wynn, Lewis Wynn,  brother of L. K. invented the polish, but L. K. operated the company, as he had much more experience in sales and marketing. Lewis Wynn passed away of cancer at his home in October of 1904.


Many ads for the Black Silk Stove Polish product were found in so many newspapers.  Here are a few from 1910 posted in the Bemidji Daily Pioneer, Bemidji, Minnesota :

The trademark for the Black Silk Stove Polish was first used on October 9, 1909.  On November 23, 1909 a U. S. Federal Trademark registration was filed for the logo pictured here :

 trademark serial number of 71046083,  currently expired

Note the trademark had been renewed in 1950, as Mr. Wynn passed away in 1946.  Mr. Prescott took over the Black Silk Stove Polish Works in Sterling, Illinois. This trademark became expired on November 3, 1992.

In the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Patents for the Year 1903, Mr. Wynn is listed as having applied for a patent on a cabinet : 

 Friday, January 1, 1904  

Publication: Serial Set Vol. No.4607;  

A patent application was noted in Google.com/patents for Mr. Wynn.  It included an image, dated January 25, 1927, patent number 1,615,319,  of the container product sketch which was submitted for the patent : 

An article from  the Rockford Daily Gazette featured L. K. Wynn and his Black Silk Polish :

Date: Saturday, September 23, 1911  

Paper: Daily Register Gazette (Rockford, IL)  

Page: 11

In other articles, Mr. Wynn was listed as a member of the Executive Committee of the Illinois Elks Association in 1916. The Sterling Illinois Industrial Association, organized in 1907, selected L. K. Wynn as chairman of the committee on Home and Foreign Industries. 

My husband had repeated a story to me, to the best of his recollection, years ago.  It was something about a grandfather or great grandfather who had invented a "shoe black", or black shoe polish, and that a patent had been obtained for the product.  I had dabbled a bit into his ancestors' lives, and found that there were a few German shoemakers, German carpenters, German house painters and German farmers. But, I found no record of a patent for black shoe polish with a connection to this family.

I guess the story became skewed, and the black shoe polish was actually Black Silk Stove Polish.  And, it was not invented by Lavonious Kenworthy Wynn, a great uncle....not a great grandfather, but his brother, Lewis Wynn.  Nevertheless, it is an interesting story, to say the least.

Finding a Home of Ancestors in Lincoln, Nebraska with Today's Technology

Today I checked a family tree that I had listed on my Ancestry.com, www.ancestry.com,  member page.  A "shaking leaf" was hovering over the name my husband's great grandmother, Lizzie Hessler Reif.  My heart always leaps when I see one of those leaves, even though I have conditioned myself to keep calm, because most of the time the referenced information does not belong to my specific family member.  Hate when that happens.

I took a deep breath and clicked my way to the hint that Ancestry.com thought should be attached to Lizzie.  Well, this time they were correct.  It referenced a listing in the Lincoln, Lancaster County, Nebraska City Directory of 1929.

1929 R. L. Polk & Co., Lincoln City Directory,  page 444

So, I see that the home address was listed as 3093 Vine, and Lizzie was correctly noted as the widow of H. J. (Henry Jacob Reif).  Now that I have an address, I can use today's technology to find the location of this house.  I used Zillow.com, www.zillow.com,  to find the location by typing in the address on the home search page.  The location of the home quickly appeared on my computer screen.  This address is on a corner lot.

http://www.zillow.com/homes/3093-Vine-Street,-Lincoln-NE_rb/

I noticed that the home was currently not for sale, but the statistics of the home were available, including the number of bedrooms, number of baths, square footage of the home and the lot, and it's current value (according to Zillow statistics).  

On the right side of the page, a general information box repeats the same information, but lists the date that the home was built....1910.  OK, now this is getting interesting.  

I clicked on the "County Website" link and was able to view the current information from the Lancaster County Assessor / Register of Deeds.  There is a GIS tab to view the current photo of the home:

3093 Vine Street, Lincoln, Lancaster, Nebraska as of 2014

close up of the home address, 3093 Vine Street

Wonderful! What a great looking house.  But, I wonder what it looked like in years past.  After all, it was built in 1910, and I'm sure that it didn't always look this good.  Let's see what I can find by reviewing more information from the County Assessors website.  

Property image dated 2005 - 9 - 7

So this is what it looked like in 2005, before the latest improvements were made to the property.  The owner did a fine job of rehabbing this home, and should be very proud of their efforts.  

The property was last sold in 2009, and the County Assessor has posted the recent sales history of the property.

http://orion.lancaster.ne.gov/appraisal/publicaccess/PropertyDetail.aspx?PropertyNumber=1719302001000

By selecting the instrument numerals by sales date, you will be able to see the details of the sales, from both 2009 and 2005, which include the names of Grantors and Grantees.  I won't post those on this blog, due to my personal feelings about privacy, but they are a matter of public record and can be viewed by the public, free of charge from the Lancaster Assessor report. In addition, the Lancaster County Treasurer has posted the tax payments for this parcel by the owners since 1998, and can be viewed at http://lincoln.ne.gov/aspx/cnty/cto/property.aspx?vParcel=17-19-302-001-000.  I guess you can't hide anything anymore.  

A property status sheet is included by the County Assessor, which shows a history of building permits and inspections for this property :

http://orion.lancaster.ne.gov/Appraisal/PublicAccess/PropertyDataSheet.aspx?PropertyID=90570&PropertyOwnerID=469654&NodeID=11

All of this information about the home of Lizzie Hessler Reif, which started from a shaking leaf on the family tree from Ancestry.com has given me a glimpse into the neighborhood of this woman who was the great grandmother of my husband.  Hmmm. I wonder what he will think when I show him what I've uncovered for his family tree.  

Lesson : check each shaking leaf.  And, take what you have to the unlimited resources on the Internet.  You just might uncover some really neat stuff.