WikiTree Users Added 78,477 to Tree--I Added 75 Ancestors

During this past weekend's ConnectAThon XIV, the WikiTree community added 78,477 new names to the worldwide collaborative tree.

My personal total was 75 ancestors added over the course of the weekend, including many from my husband's Larimer family tree (which is quite extensive) and dozens of in-laws from my paternal aunts' side of the family. I 💜 in-laws!

Above, a profile I created for little Dorothy Goodfield, a premature baby who only lived four days. Dorothy was the maternal 1c of my aunt Miriam's husband, David Bourstein. I entered Dorothy's name, parents, siblings, and wrote a brief bio with the one source I have, without a lot of detail because I included the informative original source image.

Red arrows

At bottom right, the arrow is pointing to a sticker flagging Dorothy's profile as someone who "died young." She was one of five or six little ones who I flagged in this way, sadly, but with the hope that this helps keep her name and memory alive for the future. WikiTree provides a number of stickers like this to be added to profiles as appropriate. I insert them occasionally to highlight something significant related to the person's life or death.

At top left, the arrow is pointing to a death cert I downloaded for free from the New York City Municipal Archives. The cert names Dorothy's parents and their birthplaces, shows the baby's place of birth/death, details cause of death, and indicates place of burial as Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. This is the only proof I have of the baby's life and I wanted to share it, in full, for anyone interested in learning about her.

At top right, the arrow is pointing to "2 categories." This shows that I categorized Dorothy Goodfield in two ways: First, as being buried in Washington Cemetery, and second, as being of Jewish Roots. So if someone wants to see the profiles of people buried in that Brooklyn cemetery, they can click through and see the description and names here. Similarly, I added the Jewish Roots category because Dorothy's family was Jewish. 

Thank you to WikiTreers for camaraderie and fun during this intense weekend of adding profiles to grow the collaborative family tree in total beyond 41 million names.  

PS: Here's the "how to" page with more info about getting started on WikiTree.

Tuesday's Tip: Try, Try Again--New Clues Come Online Every Day

My most recent research has been looking for Rose Lebowitz Markell (abt 1877-1909, married to Barney Markell), the beauty who died young after having a son who grew up and married my matchmaker aunt. My latest discovery about Rose reminds me to keep searching, keep trying--because new clues come online every day.

Just last week I found Rose's death certificate--only because Ancestry and Pennsylvania have a new arrangement for scanning and making these documents available online. It would have been difficult to find her otherwise, so my timing was good.

Months earlier, I had sent for the death cert of her sister Ella Lebowitz Markell (1886-1965, married to Julius Markell) the old-fashioned way, starting with a Pennsylvania death index and paying $9 (a relative bargain) to receive a paper copy f-o-u-r months later.

But here was Rose's complete death cert, freshly posted on Ancestry! She died in Pittsburgh and was buried in New York City. This makes sense because Rose's mother lived in New York City. Next challenge: There are a LOT of potential burying places around the city. Where to start?

I went to Find-a-Grave, of course, where I've searched in the past. This time I had a death year so I could do a more specific search.

I plugged in the last name, Markell, and the year 1909, and searched in New York only.

Up popped a result that was posted at the end of May by a kind volunteer: Rosa Markell [sic], buried in Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. This cemetery has more than 52,000 burials, but only a small percentage have been photographed or posted online. If I'd checked in early May, I would have found nothing.

Of course some things have to be done the old-fashioned, pre-Internet way. I picked up the phone and called the cemetery. The office personnel had a lot of info to share: Rose was buried one day after her death, in an "independent" plot. A year later, presumably when her gravestone was to be put in place, Rose was moved to the Markell family plot in another area of the cemetery. They also gave me the (new to me) name of the relative who was in charge of that plot.

Timing, as they say, is everything. Who knows what new info will be posted online today or next week or next year?