This just in – Viewer Mail

Hi Tom,
I really do need to share with you GenealogyBank‘s latest contribution to my family history research!

I really do love GenealogyBank. Without it, I would not know about the accident that caused the death of my grandmother’s youngest brother. Nor would I have known when it occurred. Nor would I have found out the exact date of death of my gr-grandfather’s youngest sister. Nor would I have found so much anecdotal information about my Dad’s family as he grew up. But the greatest find of all from GenealogyBank solved the problem of where did William go.

William was the older brother of my Dad’s father. He married a girl from Pond Creek, and they started on a large family. But William and his family moved around a lot, from Wilkes-Barre to Plains, both in Pennsylvania, to Jersey City, in New Jersey, to Brooklyn, in New York, to East Orange, in New Jersey, and back to Plains by 1950. In 1950, his youngest brother died, leaving William the last of my grandfather’s siblings still alive.

But, he wasn’t buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery, Wilkes-Barre, like his three brothers were. So, he must have moved again from Plains, it seemed. But, in 1950, William was 76 years old, so it didn’t seem likely he was going to do much more moving around.

Then I started finding newspaper clippings on GenealogyBank about William’s family many years ago. On at least three occasions during a 20 year period of time, a young child had died – and, according to the newspaper article, was brought to White Haven for burial.

Since I knew his wife had been from White Haven, I suspected her family might have had a family burial plot in a cemetery in White Haven. It took a lot of searching, since White Haven is a cute little, charming little, community, but it does have two cemeteries, neither of which has an office or anyone in attendance during the day. But I did find the family burial plot of William’s wife’s family – and next to them is a stone with the name KROPP on it.

I was able to find who had the cemetery records, and she verified for me that, among the 12 people buried in the KROPP plot is my elusive and peripatetic William! I even got the date of his death! I still have a lot of work to do on this, but it is so much easier starting with a date of death than with an “uh, I don’t know.”

Yes I do love GenealogyBank, and I owe it to you to let you know how much help excitement it has contributed to my genealogy research. I am thrilled for the newspapers there, covering Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Now, I can’t wait for newspaper coverage of Crawford County (Steelville) Missouri so I can get going on my mother’s genealogy!

Thank you so much for GenealogyBank!

Donna
Peachtree City, GA