Find me:
Genealogy and Online Research Claudia C. Breland
  • Home
  • About
  • Lectures
  • Writing
  • Services
  • DNA
  • Sample Documents
  • Blog

Traverse City State Hospital on the 1940 census

4/8/2012

 
    One of the ancestors I had on my list to look for was my great-grandfather Henry Hickox Chase.  I knew from family records that he entered the Traverse City State Hospital in 1936 and was there until he died in September 1940.
Picture
    I spent some time on Google Maps and Google Earth, trying to pin down the ED for the hospital.  Turns out I didn't need to go to the trouble, since the State Hospital had an ED all to itself: 28-18.  
Picture
    What I wasn't prepared for was how big this institution was in 1940!  The first four pages enumerated over 160 hospital employees, including physicians, therapists, dentists, psychologists, nurses, clerks, cooks, bakers, kitchen helpers, dietitians, housekeepers, maids, seamstresses, laundry workers, telephone operators, and student nurses.  When at last the roster of inmates began, they were listed in alphabetical order.  I quickly scrolled through page after page until I got to the "C"s, and was momentarily taken aback when H.H. Chase wasn't listed.  Then I realized that they began with the listing of women patients.  This listing of just the females went on for over 25 pages - well over 1200 women.  When I got to the list of men patients, there he was:
Picture
1940 U.S. census, Grand Traverse, Michigan, population schedule, Traverse City, enumeration district (ED) 28-18, sheet 19B, Henry H. Chase, digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 8 Apr 2012); citing NARA microfilm T627, roll 1753.
     He was listed as age 69, although he had actually just turned 70.  He was divorced, and had an 8th grade education.  In 1935 he was living in his own home in Bear Lake, Manistee, Michigan.
     I thought I knew what I was expecting to find on the 1940 census.  But I'm finding out that this census is giving me a clearer picture of the life and times, and the surroundings each of my ancestors was living in.  Where before I may have imagined that Henry H. Chase spent his last years in something approaching a nursing home or assisted living facility, now I have the image of something closer to the truth - of many brick buildings, housing well over 2500 inmates, all of them mentally ill.

Picture
Henry Hickox Chase, 1870-1940

Records you won't find online: Guardianship Papers

11/12/2011

 
     This is the second post in my series about records that are not online, and perhaps never will be.  In preparing to start compiling my portfolio for certification, I decided on the family I want to write about: my paternal grandmother Ruby Chase Reed, her father Henry Hickox Chase and his mother Mary Ann Hickox Chase.  Each of them have fascinating stories, and I'm fortunate to have lots of original records that I received from my grandfather's estate in 1974.  In looking over the records, I realized that I didn't have some basic information - such as wills or probate records.  So I wrote, and then called the Manistee County Probate Clerk to see about getting those. 
     I had known that Henry Hickox Chase died in the Traverse City State Hospital in 1940; what I didn't know was that the Manistee County Clerk had a treasure chest of papers, waiting to be discovered.  She described it on the phone as a packet of guardianship records, and just said that there were "lots" of papers.  It would have cost me $1 per page to have them photocopied, so I emailed my cousin (who lives in Benzonia County, the next county north to Manistee County), and asked if she could do me a huge favor and go the courthouse to take digital photos.  She and her husband drove down that very afternoon, and took 75 digital photos of the papers, some of which were too fragile to be photocopied.
Picture
Picture
     Courthouses all across the country are filled with papers like these!

Getting Hooked Again

9/20/2011

 
     As I said, I'd given up on genealogy.  Permanently.  Or so I thought.  Through the 1990's and into 2000, I refused to get interested, even when I saw books on Genealogy and the Internet on my library shelves.
    In 2003, my 99-year old grandmother, who lived in Michigan with her daughter, my Aunt Ethel, was beginning a long, slow decline.  Aunt Ethel called and asked me if I could do some online research into assisted living or adult family home facilities in their area.  Being the librarian that I am, I immediately went to the Library of Michigan website.  I did find a state-wide review of facilities, and was able to give my aunt some names and phone numbers of places to check out.  In the process of exploring the library website, I noticed a sidebar that said, "Search the 1870 census index for Michigan."  Immediately I thought of my great-great grandfather Stacy Clay Thompson, whom I'd never been able to find, either in Pennsylvania, where he was born, or in Michigan. 
     So, not expecting much, I typed his name into the search box.  In seconds I had my answer - 14-year old Stacy Thompson was living in Blair, Grand Traverse County (where I never thought of looking for him), boarding with another family and attending school.
Picture
     To say that I was impressed was putting it mildly!  Immediately I thought, "Ooooohhhh - this has possibilities!"  So I plugged in another name, that of another great great grandfather, Marshall Jackson Chase, who (according to family notes) had taken his small family from Ohio to Michigan in the 1850's.  Once again the search found him in seconds - living with his wife Mary Ann, their two children George Carlos and Florence, and his sister-in-law and niece, Louisa and Eva Catlin.  I had no idea they ever lived in Lansing.
Picture
     It didn't take me long to swing into action.  I knew I needed an up-to-date genealogy software program, so I went online to read some reviews, and chose Legacy Family Tree, because it was available for download immediately, was user-friendly and a reasonable price.  I decided early on that I would be entering all my information from the beginning, using the binders of original records and family papers that I'd collected.  I subscribed to Ancestry, and started reading online genealogy newsletters.
     I was on my way!

The Holes in My Research

8/30/2011

 
     I've come to the point where I've decided on the families I'm going to write about for my portfolio - for the kinship determination, and for the conflicting evidence report.  In the last few days I have been looking through the binders I've compiled on those families, and I've had the startling realization that there are big, black, gaping holes in my research.
Picture
     What?  I don't have a death certificate for my great-grandfather Henry Chase?  I do have my handwritten transcription  of the death record I found in Manistee County, Michigan when I visited in 1983 (odd, because he actually died in Grand Traverse County), and I also have extensive medical records from the Traverse City State Hospital.  But not his death certificate.
     Off goes an email to the Grand Traverse County Clerk.

     I can't believe I never thought of obtaining the will and/or probate records for several grandparents and great-grandparents.  Probate records for Ruth (Prosser) Chase MIGHT give me information on her daughter Edna Strunk, who was living in New York at the time of Ruth's 1915 obituary, and hasn't been seen since. 
     So I'm writing a request to the Manistee County Clerk for those records.

     A will for John Hickox, who died in Medina, Ohio, in 1835, might reveal the names of his grown children by his first marriage.  It might even reveal names of siblings back in New York, which would enable me to figure out where in New York he lived before coming to Ohio.
     The Family History Library in Salt Lake City has Medina County, Ohio, wills on microfilm; next time I order film for a client I'll order a couple of films for myself, as well.
    
     Yes, it's past time for me to start treating my own research as I would my clients'!

    Archives

    July 2022
    October 2020
    September 2020
    May 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    February 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    August 2017
    October 2016
    June 2016
    March 2016
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    April 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    August 2013
    May 2013
    January 2013
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    June 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011

    Categories

    All
    1940 Census
    Ancestry
    Archives
    Ashes
    Association Of Professional Genealogists
    Beem
    Beulah
    Blogs
    Brick Walls
    Camp Elmira
    Catlin
    Census
    Certification
    Chase
    Christmas
    Citations
    Civil War
    Continuing Education
    Court
    Detroit
    Divorce
    Dna
    Education
    Enumeration Districts
    Estate
    Estate Inventories
    Familysearch
    Fold3
    Forensic Genealogy
    Forgery
    Genealogy
    Genealogybank
    Genealogy News
    Google Earth
    Guardianship
    Hickox
    History
    I'm My Own Grandpa
    Indexing
    Indirect Evidence
    Journals
    Kiker
    Lake Erie
    Land Records
    Learning
    Legacy Family Tree
    Libraries
    Library Of Michigan
    Malcolm D. Lane
    Manistee
    Marriage
    Marriage Records
    Marshall Butters
    Michael Hait
    Michigan
    Microfilm
    Military Records
    Muppets
    Murder
    National Archives
    Newspapers
    Ngs
    North Carolina
    Obituaries
    Online
    Oregon
    Police Case
    Portland
    Primary Information
    Probate
    Probate Records
    Prosser
    Randall
    Records
    Records Not Online
    Reed
    Reedcraft Weavers
    Sanilac
    Sarah Addington
    Seattle Public Library
    Shipwrecks
    Small
    Songs
    State Archives
    Steve Morse
    Stoelt
    Strunk
    Thompson
    Traverse City
    Traverse City State Hospital
    Varran
    Washington Territory
    Weber
    Webinars
    Weddings
    Will
    Wills

    RSS Feed

    All content (c) Claudia Breland, 2022