Thursday, February 07, 2008

Wise-Hoffman Research Continues

The past two days have been busy. Thursday I spent several hours entering the information that I'd found at Roann on the family of Eliza Wise Hoffman into my genealogy database. Then I spent way more time on the Internet than I'd care to admit looking for Eliza's sister, Mrs. Ella Mohler in Kansas. But I found her! In all the census years from 1870 through 1930, except for 1880. Also information on her family on several Kansas GenWeb sites. And two separate WorldConnect databases that have information on her two children, Stella Mohler Gilbert and William Peter Mohler. Neither database has parents listed for Stella or William so I'm guessing that whoever submitted the databases is researching the families that they connect with. I've still got to sort through all the information found on the 'net!

Today I went to Peru, county seat of Miami County where Peter and Christina Wise lived. I was hoping to find out what happened to their land after they died. No luck there. And to see if there was a will or estate settlement papers. Nothing for Peter but good news, bad news for Christina. There is an entry of an estate settlement for her in one of the books, but we (the very helpful clerk and I) couldn't find the other court books that were noted in that entry.

Then it was off to the Peru Library and the Wabash Library, a few miles down the road. More funeral home records and a couple death records (published transcriptions) gave me dates for finding obituaries, which I did. Several of the obits were within the last 30 years, so it is possible that the "survivors" listed could actually still be survivors ;-)

After three hours total drive time and seven hours of research, I now have another 40 pages of copies to add to that "Wise-Hoffman" stack! And to review and enter into my database...

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