Thankful Thursday - Library of Virginia Staff!

A HUGE shout-out to the staff at the Library of Virginia!

I spent last week in Richmond, Virginia at the awesome National Genealogical Society Family History Conference. The conference was great, but the best part of the week was the research time at the Library of Virginia!

The LVA staff was so very nice, helpful and patient. They were well-prepared for the huge influx of genealogists and family historians (both beginner and advanced). They reminded us when our time was up on the microfilm readers and helped us locate records, resources, documents and more. Thank you all for your friendly assistance so that we could get the most out of our limited research time. I am looking forward to returning to LVA in the future.

More to come on what I was able to find on my husband's Virginia ancestors in future posts!

Thankful Thursday - Thanksgiving Family Photo

In this Thanksgiving photo from my parents' slide collection, I am about 6 and half, my sister is almost 5 and my brother is about 10 months old. My father wore that red vest every Thanksgiving for about five years! My parents took pictures almost every Thanksgiving, some of my dad carving the turkey and others of the family seated at the table. After my brother arrived, there seems to be more of the posed family photos by the turkey. We still take a family photo every year before dinner, but since there are now 14 people in the picture we take the photo by the fireplace. Happy Thanksgiving!

Thankful Thursday - Art's Slide Collection

"Mom, Cork, Jeff Christmas 1953"

This is one of the many images from the slide collection of my grandfather, Art Cubbage. A few years ago, I scanned all of my grandfather's slides, as well as those of my parents and my maternal grandfather. Art had just under 600 images that he took from 1953 (right as they moved into their new home in New Providence) through 1974.

While I am thankful for these wonderful images of my father's childhood and my grandparent's home and lives, I am most thankful that he labeled almost every slide. That's right, my grandfather labeled most of the slides with the name of the person, the location if it wasn't at their home, the month and the year! What a blessing! This has been so helpful as I piece together our family history. Many of the images in my posts are from his collection. Here are a few more of my favorites ...

"July 1955"

This was their home in New Providence, NJ.

 

"Mem & Pap, Pittsburgh, July 1954"

My grandmother Agnes' parents in their backyard on Thelma Street.

"Min's August 1959"

Art and his family were enjoying Maryland crab at his sister Minnie's house in Baltimore.

"Jeff & Cork Thanksgiving 1954"

My father and his brother, ages 13 and 10.

"Harry, Janet, Barbara, Cork June 1959"

My father and friends before their senior prom.

Thankful Thursday - Happy Birthday Nanny!

Agnes Elizabeth Speck Cubbage, my grandmother, was born on 26 September 1915 in Monessen, PA. She was the daughter of Frank Speck and Elizabeth Linneman. This picture was probably taken around 1930 in or near Monessen. Agnes is with her younger brother Frank.

Thankful Thursday - The Monessen Daily Independent

As most of us genealogy nuts know, local newspapers can provide a ton of important, valuable and interesting information about our ancestors. I am thankful for The Monessen Daily Independent, the local newspaper in Monessen, PA where my ancestors lived from about 1912-1945. I am lucky because most of the editions of this newspaper are available on ancestry.com - I can search from my home in New Jersey. I also know that not all of what is found in a local newspaper will be factual or true, and take what I find as a starting point for more research.

Searching for my ancestors in The Monessen Daily Independent has helped me find death and marriage dates so that I was able to request vital records. I have found articles on bankruptcy meetings, car accidents and hospital stays. In the "society" pages, I have learned about the social lives of my family - clubs, church groups, and trips to Pittsburgh.

All of these articles, announcements, obituaries, records, and mentions have helped me to put "flesh on the bones" of my ancestors and fill in the gaps between vital and census records. Adding this information (with a grain of salt regarding all of it's validity) to my other research has helped me see who these ancestors really were, as well as what life was like in the growing city of Monessen. 

For example, I learned a lot about my grandmother, Agnes Speck, as a child: she played the piano and had many recitals, she performed in several operettas and plays, she won second place in a humorous reading contest and went to a national speech competition at Bucknell University, she had her appendix removed when she was 23 years old, and she worked at Page Wire & Steel until she was married.

Below are just a handful of my many "finds" from The Monessen Daily Independent: