Thursday, March 24, 2011

Thank you, Leland Meitzler

I got an e-mail today, the Genealogy Newsline from Leland K. Meitzler.  I received this newsletter because I was a subscriber to Everton's Genealogical Helper when it, alas, ceased publication.

The Genealogy Newsline was full of all sorts of interesting items, one being a new search engine for genealogy, that I will try later and comment on here.  Also listed were new record groups indexed, and some of them digitized, at the Family Search website.  I decided to try to get through one brick wall, the place of death of my husband's great-granduncle, Richard Keys Russell.  He and his wife, Bessie Monroe Marshall, are buried in Oaklawn Cemetery in Jacksonville, Florida, where some of my family and some of my husband's family are also buried.  I have not yet had the time -- and we live several miles away from the cemetery, in another county -- to go get the record on the Russells from the cemetery. 

I had not been able to find Richard Keys Russell in the Florida death records.  There was certainly the possibliity that he did not die within Florida's borders.  In searching for an alternate death place, it seemed prudent to begin with neighboring states.  Georgia is as neighbor to Jacksonville's location in Florida as it gets.

Within another half-minute, after entering the name and the years 1928-1929 for the approximate year of death, I had the entry for the record.  After signing in to the Family Search website, I had the death certificate coming out of my printer.

Thank you, Leland Meitzler!