Shannon M. Thomas | Mostly Genealogy

While I was writing Top 10 Blog Posts for 2019 I discovered that my top post was US Marine Casualty Cards from 2014.  Wow!  {There is also an update to the original post here  where I show some more information that was sent to me.}  I went back to read the post and discovered that the links no longer work.  I did a little digging and found a link to the Casualty Card Database at the Marine Corps University website.  At this site you click on the war you want to search and download a searchable spreadsheet.  Once you locate your Marine you send an email to request the card.  There are also links to download information about what the codes mean on the cards. I also found that you can search the U.S. Marine Corps Casualty Index, 1940-1958 , at Ancestry.com.  It gives the casualty date, type, unit, and service number.  There is a link to go to another website from the Ancestry database but that link does not work. {I believe...

Originally posted at Lost Tree Project as a guest post February 2019. Eventually we all hit a brick wall.  My first brick wall was with Joseph Thomas {my husband's 3rd great grandfather} I spent months searching.  Brick walls can last weeks to months to years.  Below are some quick tips to help you break through that brick wall. Research another ancestor for a while and then go back to your brick wall .  You will see your brick wall ancestor with new eyes. Use a checklist to see if you missed any records.  {You can find my Evernote Research Checklist in my shared genealogy notebook.} Revisit your research.  Maybe you missed a piece of information in a document.  Maybe something seemed like it wasn't important but now that you have more information you find it is important. Learn something new.  It does not need to be genealogy related.  When you shift your thinking to something...

Harlan Levi Thomas was born 20 February 1895 in Asbury, Fishing Creek Township, Columbia county, Pennsylvania and he died 9 December 1967 in Orangeville, Columbia county, Pennsylvania.  Harlan was the Great-grandfather of my Husband. {There is a discrepancy between his date of birth on the funeral card and his date of birth on his birth registration.} Funeral Card from the Dean W. Kriner Funeral Home in Benton, Pennsylvania for Harlan Levi Thomas

A copy of the birth registration is below {click on it to make it larger}. Transcription of the record : Registration of Births registered by C. Robbins the Assessor of Fishingcreek East on the 25 day of May 1895 Name of Child -- Levi Harlan Sex -- Male Color -- White Name of Father -- Thomas Joshua E Name of Mother -- Clara B Thomas Residence -- Asbury Occupation of Father -- L {Laborer} Date and Place of Birth -- February 20 1895; Asbury Date of Makeing Record -- May 6 1895 The image below shows the event in my Legacy database. NOTE : I have added USA after Columbia County, Pennsylvania in my citation to keep it consistent with my other source citations.

I have a tree on Ancestry, Wiki Tree, and My Heritage.  The Ancestry tree is my work in progress tree and the others are mainly there for others to find and connect with me.  Recently, I made a connection through Wiki Tree when another member wanted to merge one of my ancestors with hers as they represented the same person.  While looking at her tree I recognized a lot of names in her tree. We chatted through email and found out that we are researching the same area and that many of our ancestors are connected in one way or another. Below is my profile page on Wiki Tree It really pays off having your tree out there for "Cousin Bait!" Who have you been lucky to connect with using cousin bait??

Today, I have been reminiscing about some of my research and remembering our ancestors.  Joseph Thomas was one of the first ancestors that I spent a lot of time researching and wanting to know more.  There is still more to find out and connections to make.  Below is a post I did last year about Joseph. How are you remembering your ancestors this Memorial Day?? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Joseph is my husband's 3rd great-grandfather.   Joseph was born in 1830 probably in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania and he died 3 Apr 1865 in Hopewell, Prince George County, Virginia from wounds received during the Civil War. Joseph married Elizabeth Jane Savage (I blogged about  Elizabeth's burial search  before) 19 June 1854 in Fishing Creek Township, Columbia County, Pennsylvania.  Joseph and Elizabeth had 7 children: Daniel W. Thomas John W. Thomas Joshu...

During the A to Z challenge for April I had a few requests to see more about my sources.  For the next month or so I am going to post about some of my sources in Legacy on Sundays. In the source list name it looks like Baptism--Pennsylvania--Columbia County--Orangeville--Zion Reformed Church.  The citation is as follows: Zion Reformed Church (Orangeville, Pennsylvania, USA), Baptism Certificate, Richard Donald Thomas (1923), issued 1 Jun 1923. Cit. Date 4 Dec 2012. I have a copy of the original certificate.  It is for my husband's grandfather.

I am fascinated by military history, something that didn't happen until after I started doing genealogy. My son is a military buff and he is always happy to help me when I have a military question.  He use to get mad at me when he was little because I was not interested in anything military related and the first time I asked him a question his face lit up {I will forever remember this.} Early in my research I found out that one of my husband's ancestors was killed in the Civil War {I'm still working on piecing all the information together for him.}  Researching more about Joseph Thomas and his family is what got me totally 1000% hooked on genealogy! Joseph Thomas' Event/Fact section.  Joseph is my husband's 3rd great grandfather.  Joseph died on 3 Apr 1865 in Hopewell, Prince George, Virginia.  He almost made it to the end of the war! This is Fred Thomas' military information in his Events/Facts.  Fred is my husband's great uncle.  Fred d...

In the Legacy Virtual Users Group  (LVUG) on Google+ we were going to talk about data entry for our veterans in our month LVUG meeting but internet problems prevented us from having our meeting so I decided to post my data entry here. We are going to take a look at Joseph Eugene Thomas; he is my husband's third great grandfather. ( I have blogged about his wife Elizabeth Jane Savage Thomas  and I blogged about Joseph and shared his Civil War timeline.)   While researching Joseph I added whatever I could find about his time in the Civil War to Evernote.  From this information I was able to put the timeline (shown in image below) together to help me understand my information better and I was able to add a lot of information to Legacy.  The timeline was created in OneNote (shhh...don't tell) and the cells in the table are able to be edited. Screen shot from Evernote showing notes for Joseph Thomas, Below you can see Joseph's family in the Family view in ...

The map below shows the frequency of the Thomas surname; the greener to color the more frequently the surname appears in that state. Name Popularity | FindTheBest According to Find the Best  Thomas is ranked as #14 in the United States.  On Find the Best the meaning of Thomas is  a surname of  Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, and Indian  origin. It is derived from words meaning  twin .

A day or two after I posted US Marine Casualty Cards  I received a follow up email.  They had seen my post and sent me the following email: In response to your post about the code on the casualty card regarding the nature of Sergeant Thomas' death, we can tell you that what you see is a code for inputting into a larger (long since gone) database.  Because the original database that used this code is gone, we have no know way of knowing what the code stood for.  However, we have attempted to locate more information by accessing the muster roll for Company A, 1st Battalion, 24th Marines for March 1945.  The muster roll unfortunately only stated that he was wounded and later died of those wounds. Despite this lack of information, there is still an option left open to you.  The National Archives located in St Louis, Missouri, holds the service of Marines for this time period.  I would suggest that you contact them and obtain a copy of the military ser...