I continued to surf and found remembrances of him scattered around the Internet-- a recollection from a fellow who grew up with him in Aldan, Pennsylvania, and a series of messages, some left by others who also wore his bracelet.

Evelyn Fowler Grubb
But I quickly discovered something that saddened me even more. Newk's widow, Evelyn Fowler Grubb, had recently passed away. A remarkable woman, she was apparently one of the founders of the National League of POW/MIA Families, and as its national coordinator in 1971-72, she played a part in creating the league's "You Are Not Forgotten" black-and-white flag.

I felt terrible that I had taken this long to look into the story of Lt. Col. Newk Grubb and missed my chance to communicate with his amazing widow. This is especially ironic, given that I work with the U.S. Army's Repatriation project, locating families of those still unaccounted for from Korea, Southeast Asia, and WWII. I told my husband about this discovery, and in one of those strange coincidences life hands us, he came to me later that same day with the May/June 2006 issue of The PennStater, which featured an obituary for Evelyn Grubb on page sixty-six. Apparently, both she and her husband had attended Penn State, as did my husband. Fortunately, Evelyn had shared her experiences with author Carol Jose, so I should be able to read about the family in an upcoming book, which will probably be called You Are Not Forgotten.

Get Out Your Pow Bracelet Now
What can you do? Don't waste another day. With Memorial Day approaching, what better time to dig through your belongings and find your POW bracelet. Then you can research your serviceman on the Internet. You can leave a remembrance for him on The Virtual Wall. You can even see if someone in his family is looking for his bracelets at the POW/MIA Bracelet Information Exchange--although you'll want to be sure to that you're giving the bracelet to a genuine family member. Sad to say, there are bracelets for sale on eBay and elsewhere, so use your genealogical sleuthing skills to make sure yours is going to someone who will truly appreciate it. And finally, take a few minutes on Memorial Day to reflect on the sacrifices of "your" serviceman, his family, and those in your own family who have served their country.

Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, coauthor (with Ann Turner) of "Trace Your Roots with DNA: Using Genetic Tests to Explore Your Family Tree" (as well as "In Search of Our Ancestors," "Honoring Our Ancestors," and "They Came to America"), can be contacted through www.megansrootsworld.blogspot.com, www.genetealogy.com, and www.honoringourancestors.com.

Upcoming Events Where Megan Will Be Speaking
• Roots in the Boot
(July 15, 2006, Pittsburgh, PA).

Details and links to upcoming events
http://www.honoringourancestors.com/schedule.html

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by Juliana Smith

After last week's column, I was determined to go back and find my Kelly family in some missing census years. I decided to focus on pre-1850 records, which I often find myself shying away from, and since I had found part of the family in 1850, I decided to move back methodically and began with 1840.

Since these earlier census records (pre-1850) only list the head of household (and identify other householders by age group and occasionally some very basic information), locating your ancestors in them can be challenging to say the least. In today's column, I thought I'd share some tips I've found helpful in using these early enumerations.

Set Up A Sample Census Entry For The Family
In last week's article, I referred to a form I created in a spreadsheet to keep track of census records I found for the family. I used the estimated ages for the family from that form to fill in a blank 1840 census form showing what the family's entry in the census might look like. (Blank forms for all U.S. federal census years can be found online).

So for example, using the estimates I had, I would expect to find under males, one in either the "5 and under 10" or the "10 and under 15" listing (his birth year is estimated as 1830), one in the "20 and under 30" listing, and one in the "50 and under 60" listing, doing the same with the females in the family. This sample entry can be used as a guide now when I browse through the entries for James Kelly in New York City that year. Much easier than trying to do the math for each entry!

Here's The Tricky Part
The proverbial fly in the ointment comes in trying to figure out what family members were still at home at the time, or whether there was more than one family in the household.

With my Kellys, I found a potential match that would seem to indicate that the latter was the case. The match was in the same ward where I found part of the family in 1850. To sort out who may have been included, I transcribed the entry into another census form and then below it added the names of the family members with their estimated ages marked in the appropriate fields. As I tallied the results, I found that all of the children in the household fit neatly into their categories. There are discrepancies as to the age of the head of household, but only by a few years. In another conflict, his wife doesn't appear in any of the columns, although there is a much older woman (aged eighty to ninety) enumerated with them. There are also additional children in the house, one matching the age of a known grandchild of the head of household. There are also several "extra" males in the house with ages ranging from around twenty to forty. These could be spouses of the grown daughters or perhaps cousins.

City Directories
For my Kelly research, I have gathered city directory listings for the 1830s through the 1850s. For many of those years, our Kellys are easy to pick out because of their occupation of manufacturing artificial flowers. (The 1840 census entry mentioned above also notes that six of the individuals were engaged in "manufacture and trade," which would seem to fit.) Using the directory entries and plotting them on a map for census years is helpful in narrowing down my search and determining whether I have the right ward. I'm also looking at other Kellys who share that address to try to identify the extra people in the enumeration.

More Follow-Up
Clearly, I will need to locate more records to identify my Kelly relatives, but locating them (or at least some likely suspects) in these early enumerations will help me to determine where to begin my search during those years. I'll be looking at churches in the area and doing more extended research on individuals who share a connection, whether it is an address, a workplace, or an occupation found in directories. I'll be looking for these individuals in both earlier and later enumerations as well. With a little patience, I will hopefully be able to sort out the pieces for this interesting family. Sure, it's a challenge, but the thrill of finding them at last and filling in those blank spots makes it worthwhile!

Juliana Smith has been the editor of Ancestry.com newsletters for more than seven years and is author of The Ancestry Family Historian's Address Book. She has written for Ancestry Magazine and Genealogical Computing. Juliana can be reached by e-mail at: Juliana@Ancestry.com, but she regrets that her schedule does not allow her to assist with personal research.

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from Sherry Irvine

Access to records has changed dramatically in recent years; the records have not. For this reason I do not throw out the best of my methods books because they tell me the inner workings of records and finding aids and provide good strategy ideas. Here are four old ones I will never part with and the reasons why.

• Discovering Your Family History, by Don Steel, published by the BBC to accompany the 1979 television series Family History. Part one of the book is a fascinating story/case study of the ancestry of the presenter, a BBC news reader, with solid accounts of records in part two--all with an emphasis on the full context of family history.
• In Search of Scottish Ancestry, by Gerald Hamilton-Edwards, published by Phillimore in 1972 (still available), is informative, sometimes amusing, and offers excellent explanations about using less well-known records to build a family tree.
• Irish and Scotch-Irish Ancestral Research, by Margaret Falley was first published in 1960, later by GPC (still available), and is a comprehensive account of Irish records setting them in their historical context.
• Sources for English Local History, by W. B. Stephens, published by Phillimore in 1983, is an example of an excellent book written for local historians that is helpful to genealogists. It explains background and research value of all sorts of records that reveal society at the local level.

Don’t judge a research book by its age or whether or not it is in print. Look at what it tells you about records, their context, and their use. I am convinced that genealogists who have been researching for years, used classic guides, and learned their skills before computers, have an advantage. Experience has shown them the importance of solid research foundations and has given them added insights to take full advantage of computer resources. Ask veteran researchers about their favorite guides and have a little fun; look for old genealogy methods books in shops, at charity sales, and online. Some sites worth looking at for obtaining these types of materials are:

Phillimore
GPC
ABEbooks

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Check For Corner Markers
When visiting cemeteries in search of long-lost relatives, check to see if the particular cemetery used corner markers to mark the lots of families. Local cemeteries in some areas of southwestern Ohio have lots marked at the four corners with the initials of the primary owner. Sometimes you may discover a "new" family member buried within the lot alongside more familiar names.

Cheryl Jordan

Dual Monitors
I work in an insurance agency and recently had a second computer monitor installed on my computer. The second monitor is set up as an "extended desktop." This enables me to work on a client file while viewing other information on the extended desktop. Information can quickly be transferred from one screen to another using the cut and paste function. It took a couple of days to get used to the second monitor, but soon I was thinking of how useful a second monitor would be for genealogical research on Ancestry.com or on the Web.

My home computer recently crashed and I decided to transfer my genealogy files to my laptop computer. (All my files were backed up on CDs.) Since my flat screen monitor was no longer being used, I decided to see if it could be connected to the laptop. My work computer required a new video card to connect the second monitor, but my laptop did not need any additional hardware to use a secondary monitor.

To set up the second monitor, connect the second monitor to the computer. Right-click on the desktop and choose "Settings" then "Properties." There should be two monitor icons. Drag the monitor icons to match the physical arrangement of the monitors. Click on the secondary monitor icon and check the box "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor." I am using my flat screen monitor as my primary monitor, and the laptop monitor as my secondary monitor. The laptop is to the right of the flat screen monitor. It is easier on the eyes if both monitors are on the same level.

Using the extended desktop allows me to open Family Tree Maker and drag it to the extended desktop on the laptop for viewing. (The screen has to be minimized using the middle icon on the top right hand corner of the screen before dragging it to the extended desktop.) I then open a Web browser that appears on the primary monitor. When I find something at Ancestry.com or on the Web, I can quickly compare the information to my family file.

Another use of the extended desktop is for recording information I find on the Web. I have a separate research journal in Microsoft Word format for each family line I am searching. I can open the research journal, drag it to the extended desktop, and then copy and paste information from websites into the research journal without having to minimize the Web page. I record the Web address by copying and pasting it into the Word document so I can return to the Web page by clicking the "link" automatically created in the Word document when I paste the Web address. If I later decide to use this information in my Family File, I can just copy and paste it from the document into the notes.

I have scanned many old family photos to be added to the Scrapbook in Family Tree Maker. I found adding photos to the Scrapbook to be very easy with the extended desktop. I open the file with my photos on the primary monitor, choose the photo to insert, right-click and copy it, then go to Family Tree Maker and paste the photo into the Scrapbook.

I believe I will find more ways to use the extended desktop to make my genealogical research more efficient.

Teresa McGowin

Initials In The Census
In searching census enumerations, I've found using an initial rare, but when all else fails it sometimes works, especially if the person is an apprentice, patient, or prisoner.

Leaving out all names and using place names also works at times. I found a SMALLPAGE family quite by chance as the index listed them as "Sinallfoge," and it was only by using place name with nothing else that I found this family.

This is trickier in the 1841 census, where my GREATHEAD family continue to have amazing variations in interpretation, Ger* and Cre* being two alternatives under which they were indexed.

Kind regards,
Ann Shuttleworth

If you have a suggestion you would like to share with other researchers, send it to: Juliana@Ancestry.com. Thanks to all of this week's contributors!

Quick Tips may be reprinted, with credit to the submitter, in other Ancestry publications, so if you do not want your tip included in a publication other than the Ancestry Weekly Journal please state so clearly in your message.

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The Year was 1941 and it opened with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous Four Freedoms Speech. In this State of the Union address, the president told Congress and the country that “the future and the safety of our country and of our democracy are overwhelmingly involved in events far beyond our borders.” Following World War I, the U.S. had reverted to isolationism, with the majority of the public not favoring involvement in foreign disputes, but the tide was slowly turning as many Americans began to ponder the impact of Axis victories in Asia and Europe and wonder about the extent of their ambitions.

The Four Freedoms Speech would inspire Norman Rockwell to create four paintings depicting these freedoms, which would later be used as posters to help sell war bonds.

In March, Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act into law, which allowed the U.S. “To manufacture in arsenals, factories, and shipyards under their jurisdiction, or otherwise procure. . . any defense article for the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.” This made the way for the shipment of much-needed supplies to Allies like Great Britain and Russia, including food, aircraft, ships and land vehicles. In a press conference, Roosevelt compared the program to lending a neighbor whose house was on fire a garden hose to help extinguish the flames, saying that he wouldn’t want to charge that neighbor for the hose, but rather, he would just like the hose returned when the fire was out.

Also in 1941, Germany attacked and occupied Yugoslavia and Greece, and in June, invaded Russia. After the invasion, mobile units of Einsatzgruppen or death squads followed and performed mass executions of primarily Jewish victims in the invaded areas of the USSR. This year also saw the establishment of death camps in Birkenau and Chelmno, as well as the massacre of 34,000 Jews at Babi Yar.

The year would end with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. declaring war on Japan and Germany. National Geographic has an interesting online exhibit of first-hand accounts, photos and footage on the Pearl Harbor attacks.

In the entertainment world, popular movies included Citizen Kane, The Maltese Falcon and Sergeant York. The USO was born in 1941 and in May, Bob Hope performed in his first USO show. The USO continues to serve as a bridge between Americans and American servicemen and women through USO centers, clubs and shows to boost morale and as a vehicle of American support for troops. Soldiers at the USO canteens would have likely danced to the Chattanooga Choo-choo, Green Eyes, and We Three.

The year 1941 and the U.S. entrance into World War II would bring changes to all families in the U.S. As my dad recalls, in the ensuing war years, his family would follow the progress of the war through newspapers and plot locations on maps, and his coloring books would have a military theme, depicting planes, tanks, soldiers and snipers. His family also grew a victory garden and collected tin cans for recycling.

You can your memories or the memories passed on to you in the comments section of this post in the 24/7 Family History Circle blog.

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If you'd like to see your ancestor's photograph in the Ancestry Weekly Journal, send it to juliana@ancestry.com.

Contributed by Rita Barbeaux, Manistique, MI Already a grandmother several times over, Jeanne Mercedes Salzer served stateside from 1943-45 with one of her duties being to photograph the civilians and process their passports for them to go overseas to entertain the troops - including one Lester T. Hope better known as Bob Hope!

Contributed by Peter Appleton His grandfather, Fred Appleton, taken in 1913 just after he had joined the Territorial Army at age 21 as a Bandsman in the 4th Yorkshire Regiment (better known as The Green Howards). Another photograph featured on the 24/7 Family History Circle blog was taken just four years later, after he had served on the Western Front for two years showing a dramatic change in appearance

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U.S. Military Records: A Guide To Federal And State Sources

Since the earliest days of the United States, millions of Americans served their country in the military. Indeed, most families have seen one or more members serve in America's armed forces. For this reason, genealogists and others wisely look to military records for information needed to enhance their research.

Normally this book retails for $39.95, but today you can buy it in the Ancestry Store for $29.95.