So last week I am scanning the bible pages I have had in my possession for well over  year so that I can give them back to the owner.  Seems I keep forgetting and I think sooner or later  he's going to send the genealogy police after me for stealing his old crumbly pages that (to me) are worth more than gold and was my holy grail.  Took me 10 years to find this bible and it turned up at a home less than a mile from where I'd been living!!

See, I am unlucky enough to research the surname Adams.  Why do I say I'm unlucky? BECAUSE THERE ARE A BLUE BILLION OF THEM and NONE of them are related to mine lol so looking at other peoples Adams research is pointless to me (though I do it anyway because I can't be a pessimist all the time right?)  This bible is the family bible of ONE of the Adams families in Gwinnett Co Ga and the first birth in there is from 1777 (John Lewis born in SC, his daughter Amanda married Elijah Adams). Col. Adams, the current keeper of the grail, had taken the birth, death and marriage pages out of the crumbling 20 pound hunk of leather and pulp a long time ago to try to preserve them in plastic sheets. He let me "borrow" them about a year ago and of course as things happen they got put aside... I never forgot I had them but I thought maybe if I kept them out of site I wouldnt have to give them back (I'm only 1/2 jesting about that).

Friday before last, I'm looking thru obits in the Atlanta paper for the last couple of months, because Col. Adams is an older gentleman and I'm always trying to keep an eye out to see if he's passed on.  I dont find his, but I find that his wife passed away in July, and well the guilt finally gets the best of me and I call the house to tell him I would like to bring the pages back to him.  Turns out this very nice 89 year old is out traveling and wont be back for several days, but his grandson assures me that he will tell the Col. to call me. I'm thinking great, this gives me a few days to take them to work and scan them with my new scanner.  I get them scanned and Im trying to tweak them for optimal appearance.  I have the birth page blown up 300% and I notice something.  These 10 plus years I've been looking at these I always thought that one of the births listed said Henry John Lewis 7-27-1818.  Well lo and behold at 300% I see the name is not Henry at all its MARY.    All this time I have been keeping my eye's open for information on Henry John Lewis, son of John and Sarah Lewis, talk about feeling stupid (specially when you're a person KNOWN for being able to decipher old handwriting when others cant. This also tells me that the person listed on the Death page as Mary J Martin must be her!!

It turns out that Monday (labor day) is the day that works for everyone for me to take the pages back to the Col.  I get there and his son is there and while we've never met, we've emailed a few times over the years.  It never occured to me to take my "book" of Adams research with me, I just took the bible pages back, and when John starts asking me some questions I totally blank (I'm sure Im not the only one that does that when you're trying to remember something about you research that you normally know backwards and forwards by heart).  Well, I dont live that far from them so I offer to go back home and get my book so we can go through it.

When I get home Im going through my piles of Adams stuff, and out of the corner of my eye I catch a loose copy  of a page of  Franklin Garrett's Cemetery Survey.  Its of a cemetery that Elijah Adams was buried in (thankfully Franklin did this back in 1939 when the stone was still readable, because now all the text is worn off the stone) but the page Im looking at is the page with the M's. I've never needed the M page, but somehow back when I copied the survey I copied the entire cemetery, not just what I needed. On this M page I see the transcription "Martin, Mary John Lewis  b 7-27-1818 married John Martin 1841 died October 1847"

In 16 years I've never known that one of Amanda Lewis Adams sisters married and lived near her in Gwinnett Co. I thought she was the only Lewis here.

Mary John has been found on several census with all her children and they match all the other Martin's listed on that cemetery page!!

Moral to the story.....PLEASE make sure you go back through your old notes every so often because you NEVER know whats going to pop up that never made sense to you before, but does NOW.  Though its not a direct line, I now have a whole new branch of the family to research, simply because of the bible page.

NFB wrote a blog yesterday that was great so make sure to go read it, I wanted to expand a little on it, but didnt want to just do it as a comment on her blog...

I posted this awhile back on my genealogy forum, but for those that have joined up over there, I will repaste it here

http://ancestrallychallenged.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=931

Around here we are always asking if someone has checked a birth/death certificate of someone, when someone has a question. Those of us that have been researching forever know that most states (with the exception of the New England states) didnt start keeping these records until between 1910-1920.

So....I made this list for you so you know pretty much when each state started http://statearchives.us/public/ ....of course some counties in states did this before it became "state law" so always double check the county you are researching in and dont take this as *gospel* but as a guideline

· Alabama Birth – 1908 Death - 1908
· Alaska Birth – 1913 Death - 1913
· Arizona Birth – 1909 Death – 1909
· Arkansas Birth – 1914 Death - 1914
· California Birth – 1905 Death - 1905
· Colorado Birth – 1910 Death - 1900
· Connecticut Birth – 1897 Death - 1897
· Delaware Birth – 1913 Death - 1913
· District of Columbia Birth 1874 Death (except for Civil War) 1855
· Florida Birth – 1917 Death - 1917
· Georgia Birth – 1919 Death - 1919
· Hawaii Birth – 1853 Death 1853
· Idaho Birth – 1911 Death - 1911
· Illinois Birth – 1916 Death - 1916
· Indiana Birth – 1907 Death 1907
· Iowa Birth – 1880 Death - 1891
· Kansas Birth – 1911 Death - 1911
· Kentucky Birth – 1911 Death - 1911
· Louisiana Birth – 1914 (City of New Orleans 1790-1847) Death - 1914
· Maine Birth – 1923 Death - 1923
· Maryland Birth – 1898 Death – 1998 (City of Balitmore have both from 1875)
· Massachusetts Birth – 1906 Death – 1906 (some cities have indexes back to 1841)
· Michigan Birth – 1867 Death 1867
· Minnesota Birth – 1900 Death - 1908
· Mississippi Birth – 1912 Death - 1912
· Missouri Birth – 1909 Death - 1909
· Montana Birth – 1907 Death – 1907
· Nebraska Birth – 1904 Death - 1904
· Nevada Birth – 1911 Death - 1911
· New Hampshire Birth – 1883 Death - 1883
· New Jersey Birth – 1848 Death - 1848
· New Mexico Birth – 1920 Death - 1920
· New York Birth – 1881 Death - 1880
· North Carolina Birth – 1913 Death - 1913
· North Dakota Birth – 1893 Death - 1881
· Ohio Birth – 1908 Death - 1908
· Oklahoma Birth – 1908 Death - 1908
· Oregon Birth – 1903 Death - 1903
· Pennsylvania Birth – 1906 Death - 1906
· Rhode Island Birth – 1899 Death - 1949
· South Carolina Birth – 1915 Death - 1915
· South Dakota Birth – 1905 Death - 1908
· Tennessee Birth – 1914 Death - 1914
· Texas Birth – 1903 Death - 1903
· Utah Birth 1905- Death - 1905
· Vermont Birth – 1857 Death - 1857
· Virginia Birth – 1913 Death - 1913
· Washington Birth – 1907 Death - 1907
· West Virginia Birth – 1920 Death - 1920
· Wisconsin Birth – 1907 Death - 1907
· Wyoming Birth – 1909 Death - 1909

I have been noticing a lot of people may not understand how commenting back to someone works.  Im seeing a lot of people leave comments for themselves when someone has left a comment for them and the other person may not realize they question/comment was answered.

When someone leaves a comment on your page,  and you want to comment back, dont clicke the leave comment link above where the comments are, you need to click the green arrow in the comment that was left for you... like this:

that way the comment will be left on your friends page...not your own and they will know you respeonded :)

Surname Suggestor List is a free program you can download that is really pretty cool. I dont know how many of us have sat using the search on Heritage Quest or Ancestry only to get frustrated because the name doesn't come up in searches, and then eventually we find that its because of how it was transcribed. This program gives you some different ways of spelling the name to try in a search.

http://home.triad.rr.com/combsfamily/sslmain.html