Beth Gatlin's Blog – October 2009 Archive (3)

This has been quite a week! Over the weekend my aunt visited and she lent me some photos and documents, which I scanned. She has the most amazing collection of family information. I still can't believe some of the things she has! I am so grateful that she shared it with me. I even found the name of the town in Germany that one of my great-great-grandmothers was born in. Now if I could just read it! I also borrowed my father's baby book, and my grandmother put information in there about other… Continue

For many years there has been a rumor in my family that my grandmother had been adopted from her father's cousin's family in New Mexico. My grandmother wrote a letter to my uncle in 1976 which mentioned this rumor (she never believed that it was true), and the family was discussing the rumor at my mother's Fourth of July barbecue this past summer, so this is something that has been speculated about for more than thirty years, possibly longer. Long ago, when my grandmother needed to get a… Continue

I just found out that ancestry.com has the database Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad, 1963-1974. Ancestry.com's October Monthly Update e-mail newsletter mentioned the database. I was thrilled to find this out, because my great-uncle died in Mexico in 1974. I had been planning to contact the National Archives to get a copy of his death record, but since ancestry.com has the database I was able to get the record immediately and not have to spend extra money for it. And it… Continue