• Provide a forum for shared Genealogy Issues;
  
• Provide help and guides for members who request it;
  
• Do selected research for corresponding Genealogy Societies and individuals;
  
• Do peer review of member files when requested.

• Keith Nelson gave a follow up on Russell Siner’s search for his half sister.
• Jeanne Reichenbacher told us about the website: www.Genealogybank.com, which is currently offering a discount on their subscription. She also suggested both publication “The Connecticut Nutmegger” and “Barbour Collection” as good Connecticut sources. These can be found online through www.NewEnglandAncestors.org or www.csginc.org.
  For help in researching ancestors in Norway: www.familysearch.org (for a guide to Danish research), use queries, do a Google search “ Norway Genealogy” for resources.
  
• Stacy Hegeman talked about John Winant, who was Ambassador to England during WW II. Stacy has the ‘Winants’ in his line and is looking for the connection between his family and this man. Suggestions: use family tree connections on www.Ancestry.com or www.rootsweb.com, or perhaps government sites.
  
• Researching by occupations: The railroad keeps its own records, as well as civil service jobs, such as firemen or policemen. Also, it was noted that occupations that are highly educated today, were not necessarily so in the past. Jobs such as doctors, lawyers, or teachers were among those in that category.
  
• For information on newspapers and their histories go to www.Worldcat.org.
  
• Follow environmental clues for why people moved from one place to another.
  
• For English ancestry: try www.freereg.rootsweb.com to search parish registries.
  
• Research using women’s organizations such as women’s church groups or Red Cross volunteers may be helpful.
  

• -Interesting stories of your ancestors
• -Breakthroughs made during research
• -An ah-ha moment
• -Great websites or resources you have used and what you found
• -Regional information about a city, county, or state
• -How you organize your research either in notebooks, files, or even on your computer
• -Digitalizing information
• -Saving memorabilia, what did you find?

Recently a friend told me that there was some information on the internet regarding my son, Frank Louie Freedle, who died in the Vietnam War. When I investigated, I found that one of his friends had named a motorcycle in Frank’s honor. The motorcycle is an unrestored 1952 BMW R25/2 World Record Holder. It was parked in a Motorcycle museum for years when Frank’s high school friend, Rob Billington, purchased it. It is nearly the smallest motorcycle ever made by BMW. No one suspected that the humble R25/2, at the age of 56, would set a world land speed record in its vintage class. The little BMW popped into life on only the fourth kick. It was eager to run. They took it to the Bonneville Salt Flats and raced it in August, 2008. About a half mile out the driver felt a definite power loss. Under the grueling Booneville conditions, the front tire had gone flat, but there was no stopping the little motorcycle. The driver just downshifted and kept the throttle wide open. No one could anticipate the challenge of riding a single cylinder motorcycle wound up over 50 MPH across the slippery salt flats with a flat tire. Yet, the stalwart ‘Freedle Flyer’ carried on, unstoppable, setting a new world record, with an all-original factory built engine.

They set the first ever P_PV Record at Bonneville in the 250cc class at 59.209 MPH. Then just because he could, the driver took it back out and broke his own record moving it up to 61.968MPH. Through it all the ‘Freedle Flyer’ ran like a champ, never so much as leaking a drop of oil.

In an e-mail from Rob I quote, “I am glad you were able to find out about the bike I named after Frank, it was my way of insuring his name will go into a record book (Southern California Timing Association) and hopefully stand there for a long time. I recall all too well Frank’s love of cars, drag racing, and racing in general. In fact, sometimes I still cringe at the two of us taking that English Ford Anglia (Frank’s first car) to the drag races in Salinas and running it, but such is the optimism of youth, where else would two kids pay $5.00 to run the coast’s slowest car down the strip to say they were into drag racing?

UPDATE: Ann checked on the internet and found that on August 11th, The ‘Freedle Flyer’ set a new world record of 69.224MPH. This is the second year it has been raced at the Bonneville Salt Flats.
If any of you are interested you can find more information on the internet. Just type in ‘Freedle Flyer’ or ‘Brooks Motor Works.’

• 1790--US government establishes uniform naturalization rules for white males 21 and older; children of naturalized citizens get automatic citizenship
• 1795--Free white females age 21 and older can become citizens
• 1804--Alien widows and children receive citizenship if the husband or father died prior to filing final papers
• 1824--Alien minors, upon turning 21, can be naturalized if they’ve lived in the US for five years
• 1855--Alien women become citizens upon marrying US citizens
• 1862--Aliens who’ve received honorable discharges from the US Army can skip filing declarations of intention
• 1868--Former slaves become citizens under the 14th Amendment
• 1870--People of African descent may become citizens
• 1882--Government excludes Asians from citizenship
• 1887--Dawes Act entitles American Indians to become US citizens if they’ve accepted a land allotment
• 1891--US establishes Bureau of Immigration
• 1894--Declaration of intention requirement is waived for aliens who’ve received honorable discharges after serving five years in the Navy or Marine Corps
• 1906--Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization Service is established
• 1917--Puerto Ricans become US citizens
• 1922--Married women’s citizenship becomes independent of her husband’s
• 1924--American Indians are granted full citizenship
• 1929--Photographs are required on petition for naturalization
• 1940--Alien Registration Act passes
• 1943--Asian immigrants are allowed to become citizens
• 1952--Age requirement for naturalization drops to 18; declaration of intention becomes optional
• 1990--Courts no longer naturalize citizens
• 2003--Immigration and Naturalization Service becomes US Citizenship and Immigration Services

      Optical Character Recognition is the recognition of printed or written text by a computer. It is the process which libraries and other institutions are using to digitize their holdings. It is a technology that’s allowed me to find numerous little items about my maternal grandparents.
      I’m fortunate that the St. Albans Daily Messenger covered the little village of St. Rocks, Vermont, where my grandparents lived. www.GenealogyBank.com has that paper digitized from 1839 to 1922. I say fortunate because not every paper everywhere has been digitized, though that may be the case one day. So far I’ve found nothing for my father’s side of family.
      Because of what I’ve found I now know that in 1904 my grandfather was “newly fencing his premises,” and in December of 1918, my grandmother went to visit her sister, Gertie, in Sheldon on a Saturday. It was, as a young man said to me the other day, “the Twitter of its day.”
      My grandparent’s surname was Cathrall. In England it was Reeves-Cathrall, but my grandfather dropped the Reeves in this country.
      Putting in Cathrall and narrowing the search to Vermont, I got 23 hits, three of them the same estate notice from different days. Putting in Cathral brought up one item, but interestingly it was spelled with two l’s.
      I tried every variation of spelling I could think of and pulled one more item, under the spelling of Catherall. This was about my aunt, and interestingly, her name appears twice in the article, once spelled correctly, but it never came up in the Cathrall search even when I repeated it.
      I went on to other names and found a school item with the names of three children of one of my grandmother’s sisters, and when I brought up the whole article, there was my aunt’s name again. In this case the letters were a bit broken up, so possibly that was the reason for it being missed.
      I ran the same searches again. Cathrall brought up the same 23 items. But Cathral, which had previously brought up only one item now brought up seven, six of them repeats from the 23.
      This gave me encouragement that I might find my mother’s birth announcement. My uncle’s made the paper, but my mother’s and her sister’s appeared not to.
      I did a search without a name, just on the month and year of my mother’s birth. I narrowed the search to include St. Rocks, and there on Oct 19 was an announcement that a “daughter...was born to Mr. and Mrs. John Cathrall Wednesday morning October 16.” I can’t see that the quality of the printing is any better or worse than the other papers I’ve found their name in. I know I also did a search with St. Rocks, John, daughter, and the month and year of her birth, and nothing came up.
      So far no success finding my aunt’s birth in the paper, but now I know why. Because while searching for it I found another item for my grandfather, announcing the purchase of the farm in St. Rocks, and that he would take possession in November. My aunt was born in September so the story of all three children being born at home in St. Rocks isn’t true. Incidentally, he bought the farm for $1,190.
      Now I’m wondering what else might be there that I’m missing, not just for them but the rest of the family. The thought of browsing every paper is a bit daunting, but a possibility.
      The moral of this I guess is don’t assume the result of a search is all there is, because there might be a lot more if you are willing to dig for it.
~ Jean Arioli