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Showing posts from August, 2012

Millions and Billions of Ancestors

In his article entitled, “Everyone is Descended from Millions, make that Billions, of Ancestors” Dan   Eastman states:    "After all, you have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great-grandparents, and so on in a straight mathematical progression. If you go back 300 years, you have about 4,000 ancestors, assuming no duplicates. If you go back a thousand years, and each of us theoretically has more than a trillion direct ancestors, again assuming no duplicates. Of course, all of us have duplicates." This is a very interesting article, go read it at Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter here Source:   Eastman, Richard W, Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter, dated 30 July 2012, published online.    http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2012/07/everyone-is-descended-from-millions-make-that-billions-of-ancestors.html

The elusive Letitia M Jones (245)

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Sarah Roberts (11) and Joseph (19) Jones’ daughter Letitia M (245) Jones was born May 1898 in Iowa.   Letitia is listed on the 1900 and 1910 censuses, but then she seems to disappear.     Assuming that she married, research was done using her given name, birth year and birth place.   Not ever finding what her middle initial “M” stood for, using her middle name as her given name was impossible.      Marriage records were searched, birth records (for her possible children) were searched, and even death records were searched per chance she had passed away, but absolutely nothing was found.     After extensive research, Letitia was nowhere to be found in Iowa or anywhere else. In May 2012, I was given a tour of the various family graves at the Glendale Cemetery in Des Moines, Iowa.   On the last stop as the car pulled up, I noticed a headstone inscribed, “L. Mae Snider”.   It was Letitia, I just knew it in my heart.      I jumped out of the car and proceeded to as