Roberts Roots & Branches

the 1940 Census Basic information including: name relationship to head of household age place of birth residence citizenship education In addition there will be some new information including: residence in 1935 persons 14 and older will be asked about their employment income for the previous year if a person lived in the home, but was absent on census day, "Ab" will be written by their name Also, for people enumerated on lines 14 and 29 will be asked supplemental questions including: birthplace of their parents if they have a social security number veteran information employment information and for women if they are or have been married previously

1940 Census Release  The 1940 census was taken 1 April 1940 and Federal law requires a 72-year waiting period before being released to the public. There are 4,643 rolls of 35mm microfilm and approximately 3.25 million digital images. The census contains 132 million names You can purchase your own copy of the 1940 census. The entire census is $200,000 for a digital copy or $580,750 for microfilm copies Or you can purchase copies of individual states: New York is $9,000 for a digital copy or $51,500 for 412 microfilms Iowa is $6,00 for a digital copy or $10,250 for 82 microfilms Utah is $3,00 for a digital copy or $2,375 for 19 microfilms Wyoming is $3,000 for a digital copy or $1,250 for 10 microfilms (for a complete price list) For some more information you may visit: National Archives FamilySearch Wiki

This is Percy Roberts, in the middle holding the sign.  Son of Isaac Roberts(10) and Janet Howie(16),  grandson of Hugh Roberts(1) and Margaret(2) Roberts

Jennie Roberts on her graduation day, Rock Springs, Wyoming Jennie is the daughter of Isaac Roberts and Janet Howie, and the grand-daughter of Margaret(2) & Hugh(1) Roberts. Jennie  stood 5’1” tall, and she had extremely black hair and a creamy white complexion .  Jennie’s younger sister Lettie recalls that Jennie had “hair so black it had a blue hue” and she had “china doll” skin .  Her eyes were blue and she was an exceedingly shy young woman .  1900 --birth--Jennie Roberts was born 31 March 1900 Trimdon Grange, Durham, England 1906 --age 6--she immigrated with her family to Rock Springs, Wyoming 1918 --11 days before her 18th birthday--19 March 1918 marries John Buxton in Salt Lake City,Utah 1918 --age 18--28 June 1918   John and Jennie's first daughter was born. 1919 --age 19--14 September 1919 she is widowed as she watches her husband get shot. 1920 --age 19--6 February 1920 Jennie has her second daughter, Jackie.       ...

RootsTech 2012 Records Preservation  excerpts: "Much of that digitization, of course, is of some of the 24 million rolls of microfilm gathered over the decades and stored at the Church's Granite Mountain Records Vault, a facility hollowed out of solid rock near the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon east of Sandy, Utah, Brother Burggraaf said." ". . . the entire collection in the vault could conceivably be digitized, depending on the need, within 10 to 20 years." See the article here in the Church News. source: by R. Scott Lloyd , Church News staff writer, Published: Saturday, Feb. 11, 2012

statue in the Rest Haven Cemetery, Rock Springs, Wyoming 2011 "Those whom we love and lose are no longer where they were before. They are now wherever we are." -- St. John Chrysostom

From the Associated Press: It was a decade when tens of millions of people in the U.S. experienced mass unemployment and social upheaval as the nation clawed its way out of the Great Depression and rumblings of global war were heard from abroad. Now, intimate details of 132 million people who lived through the 1930s will be disclosed as the U.S. government releases the 1940 census on April 2 to the public for the first time after 72 years of privacy protection lapses. Access to the records will be free and open to anyone on the Internet--but they will not be immediately name searchable. See here for the complete article. Published online at KSL.com, 19 march 2012

...and where do you fit in?  Since you are reading this blog, then you probably belong to the Hugh Roberts & Margaret Roberts family.  However, how do you fit in when it comes to doing "genealogy?" To answer that question, you must first ask yourself: How much time do I have to devote to "genealogy"? What are my talents? What can I add to preserving our family history?  In the February 2012 Family Tree Magazine article entitled, Self Improvement, Lisa A. Alzo clarifies: "Identify your Genea-niche.  Some genealogists excel at digging up the dirt.  Others are master storytellers or genea-geeks who love the latest gadgets and tech tools.  Note what you enjoy most about family history research and use that passion to propel your search."  (page 12) Maybe you have an interest in photographs, then begin gathering and putting together Roberts family photographs. Maybe you are talented at putting together parties or get-together's.  Then, h...

If you are looking for a way to be productive and do some family history work, sign up for indexing.  It is so rewarding and I know from research experience how helpful and valuable it is.  It allows indexers a way to be involved in genealogy without the time commitments and knowledge of researching.  I cannot stress how valuable it is to researchers. I look at it this way; researching is like fishing.  You select a body of water, or database, and throw in your line hoping to get a bite, or locate needed information. Indexing on the other hand, is like stocking the lake with fish.  Indexers add the identifying information to the database, or fill the pond with fish.  Both fishing and stocking with fish are important parts of family history. Got a few extra minutes, go sign up.  See the previous blog post about signing up.

What is Indexing: Birth, marriage, church, death, immigration, military, probate, land and other records are gathered from around the world and each record is photographed.   Images are then sent to a storage facility in Salt Lake City.   The images are stored on microfilm and microfiche.   From microfilm and microfiche, each image is then scanned into individual images and the images are then put online for Indexing projects. Why Indexing: Indexing helps records become searchable databases.  Identifying information such as names or dates can then be searched by computers. Indexing also makes records available online rather than the limited previous availability on microfilm at local Family History Libraries.  All of the indexed records are available online at FamilySearch.org . When you search at FamilySearch.org, the records searched are the ones that have already been indexed by volunteers.   How to Index: This past week I finally signed up for in...

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr that is how I feel about all my blogs right now! Last week I went to give my blogs a facelift and add some photographs, but I had met my Picasa photograph limit.  (Surprise, I didn't read the fine print and I didn't realize I only had a certain amount of picture space in Picasa Album!!!  Go figure!!!) The super frustrating part of this is:  over the last several months when I have tried to download a picture, I have had to do it several times because it would not download, OR so I thought.  Apparently, blogger was saving all of those duplications adding to the "max" in my Picasa Album. First thing I did was delete all the cutesy clip art and all those duplicate pictures, however, I could not distinguish the difference between which photo was being used and the duplication photo just being stored in Picasa.  So, it was a gamble on which photo to delete! Hummmm, I could purchase more gig space for a yearly fee or figure out so...

"The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together." -Erma Bombeck, 1987

from here From Wiki : "Saint David's Day (Welsh: Dydd Gŵyl Dewi) is the feast day of Saint David, the patron saint of Wales, and falls on the 1st of March each year. The first day of March was chosen in remembrance of the death of Saint David. Tradition holds that he died on that day in 589.  The date was declared a national day of celebration within Wales in the 18th century." (Thank you Adam for the heads up on this holiday!)