What Do You Do?

The probate file of Alexander Cole.

This slip of paper informs me that the probate packet for Alex Cole was pulled on 6 December 1917 by a lawyer named Osborn for 10 days.  However, it seems the packet was never returned. I know that Alex's wife, Hester Hall Cole, died 26 October 1917. What do you do when a record is gone or missing? Monday I will post how I reconstructed this probate, but first I'm curious to know what ideas you have about where to turn when a record is absent.

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   Scioto County, Ohio, Alex Cole probate file 8893; Probate Court, Portsmouth. The file was pulled in 1917, leaving this card in its place, and never refilled.

The Jack Pot

I'm so excited I can't wait to share this. In the probate packet of Charles Shaw was a list of all of his children, separated by wife. I've written about him before as my prolific father.

This is a list of the known children living and the children whose whereabouts are unknown. It clears up the part of the mystery of children by his first wife (who's not named) and children by his second wife, who are not all named Ann according to family lore. The notice placed in the newspaper lists his daughter Julia by her married name and names her husband (Jacob Albaugh), allowing me to find them in the 1850 & 1860 US censuses and a possible marriage record. Unfortunately for me there is a five year difference between her age from census to census.

Another piece of paper lists his children who whereabouts are know and their residences. This is helpful since I lost the same people and now I know where to look!

Longevity

I was playing around on Ancestry.com today in the database "U.S. Naturalization Record Indexes, 1791-1992" and found the card for my great-great(-great)-grandmother Leonarda "Eleanor" (Bugica) Spedale. She was naturalized at the age of 92.

Everyone called her Nana. My mom has a few pictures with her. She was a tiny woman (my mom at age 5 was taller). On the card her birth year is listed as 1864, but other records list it as 1863. She immigrated to American from Sicily in 1910 along with her youngest children and her eldest daughter, Irene "Rose" Geraci, and her family. They were met by her husband, son, Luciano, and son-in-law Cologero "Charles" Geraci. Imagine the stories she could tell!