Lesson 9 - Ancestry, Heritage Quest, and Sanborn Maps

Looking up my name in Ancestry, I found a listing for the two residences I'd had in town. My current address is not listed. It's fun to see how many other people in SD share my name. Although I didn't see a listing for the woman in Spearfish who shares my name.

I have used Ancestry before to look up my grandfather on my Dad's side. It was exciting to find his name on the ship's passenger list when he came to New York from Holland. I had gotten a copy of it through the Ellis Island Foundation, after finding this info on Ancestry, and gave it to my Dad. I had also looked up my grandfather on my Mother's side and found out he had been married and had a daughter before he married my grandmother. I wasn't sure I had the right person until I asked my mom about it and then was told that it was him. Interesting!! I have found you have to look for all kinds of spellings for names when you are searching because both of my grandmother's names where spelled wrong. It is hard to read some of the writing.

When I did the search for South Dakota in the photos, there are over 3 million photos! I tried several different searches, but never did find a way that I thought was easy to look up a specific topic. I loved seeing the photos of the Corn Palace from 1909. What an amazing concept!

With Heritage Quest, I tried researching Rowena, SD, since I was born there. I found two listings for that small town. One was a family genealogy that listed some of the people who had lived there. The second was an article that said Jefferson Davis was the person that marked the borders of Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin a short distance SE of Rowena. As I searched the books under letter D, I found some old biographies of Daniel Boone and David Crockett that were interesting.

In Sanborn Maps, I looked up both Flandreau, where I grew up and Sturgis, where I live now. It was fun to see in Flandreau that the courthouse, high school and some of the churches are still in the same place. I also recognized the gas stations and hotel that are no longer in business. The post office and armory have moved and main street wasn't called main street in 1930.  1903 Sturgis is very different from today. The elementary school building is still in the same place, although it is no longer the elementary school. There is a bank on the corner of main street that is still known as the bank corner, although it is now home to a motorcycle apparel shop part of the year. It is fun to look at the maps and see what used to be here!

There is so much information out there. For the serious genealogist, this is great. For someone like me, it's just fun to see what I see!