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February 2013 Newsletter


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A Cure for Genea-boredom—GenealogyBank!

By Randy Seaver

Introduction: Randy Seaver writes a knowledgeable and upbeat genealogy blog: Genea-Musings. It features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, and some family history stories. On January 30 Randy posted a blog article explaining how he used GenealogyBank to enliven a dull afternoon he was having, and kindly allowed us to republish his article in GenealogyBank News.

It's the middle of the afternoon, and I am tired and bored...but I need to write an afternoon blog post (to complete my Daily Three)—so what to do?

Go look for something interesting on GenealogyBank!! This rarely fails me. I can usually find something about one of my ancestors or relatives in GenealogyBank—they have so many newspapers and excellent coverage.

So this afternoon I opened GenealogyBank and put in an ancestor's name: David Auble, a second great-grandfather who was a boot and shoe maker in Newark, New Jersey, and Terre Haute, Indiana. David lived from 1817 to 1894.

Here is the search box that I used to limit my matches to his lifespan:


That search gave me 42 matches.


I found several interesting articles that provided information I had not found before, including this article from 1848:


The transcription of this article from the Newark Daily Advertiser (Newark, New Jersey), 8 January 1848, page 3, is:

"DISSOLUTION—The Partnership heretofore existing between the subscribers under the firm of Knapp & Auble is this day dissolved by mutual consent. The business will in future be continued by David Auble, who hopes to merit and receive a share of the public patronage.

SAMUEL C. KNAPP,
DAVID AUBLE"

A similar article was found in 1855:


The transcription of this article from the Newark Daily Advertiser (Newark, New Jersey), 15 June 1855, page 3, is:

"NOTICE—The copartnership heretofore existing under the name of Auble & Gordon, (dealers in boots & shoes), is this first day of June, 1855, dissolved by mutual consent.

"The business will be resumed by David Auble, who alone is authorized to settle all claims and collect and receive all dues of the said late firm.

DAVID AUBLE,
THOMAS GORDON"

So because I did a semi-random search for my great-great grandfather, I found these two articles that gave me some insight into his boot and shoe business. Unfortunately, I didn't find an article saying that he was leaving Newark for Terre Haute (I don't know when this happened; it was sometime between 1860 and 1870). I also didn't find any items in a Terre Haute newspaper, probably because GenealogyBank's Terre Haute newspapers don't cover that decade.

In the 1848 article the partner was Samuel C. Knapp, the brother of David's wife Sarah (Knapp) Auble. I hope that the dissolution of their partnership was friendly!

I wonder who Thomas Gordon was, the 1855 partner? And was this a friendly dissolution, or one due to disagreement?

Sometimes the articles adjacent to the articles about my ancestors are more interesting; to the right of the 1848 article is a whole column about the salutary benefits of sarsaparilla.

There—boredom fixed. Now who else can I search for on GenealogyBank to find interesting family history articles about my ancestors? Or I could go take a nap!