Pictures and Family History of the Howard and Meeker Families - September 2011
Dear Family,
A few years ago Bonnie Sue Schick Coe sent me a suitcase full of items belonging to our grandmother Mimi (Harriet Annette Howard Meeker Archiable). In the suitcase was an amazing old photo album of the Howard side of the family that Mimi had annotated. It was our intention to scan the old photographs and to put together a CD and distribute copies to the family. That way we would all have access to these amazing pieces of our family history and would allow us to make prints of our favorites.
Because Mimi and others had written names on many of the pictures, the album filled in significant gaps for me in my Family Tree research. Mike and I decided it would help everyone to understand who these people were if we included the most updated Howard and Meeker Family Trees. That, I must say, slowed us down a great deal in putting this together. Also, even though we did not have a Meeker album, we were able to include some pictures of George Delmer Meeker and his family.
Included on the CD are the album pictures; additional pictures provided by Bonnie and ones that I obtained from my mother; the names written on the pictures with comments by me based on research; three interesting documents; and the Family Trees. Also, you are able to enlarge each photograph, and the largest versions are of very high resolution and suitable for printing.
Here is some further information about the Family Tree.
Included are Family Tree overviews for both Howard and Meeker families. There are also the more detailed pages of the children and their spouses if known--covering one generation. These pages can all be easily printed out.
I plan to eventually upload this information to Ancestry.com as well as other Internet Family Tree websites to share my research. This is an ongoing project.
In the majority of cases, I have only included information that has official documentation or a reliable source. I have computer files containing extensive records of many births, deaths, marriages, social security indexes, war records, censuses, etc. Having said that, if anyone decides to pick up this project where I have left off, be sure to check all sources--even mine. There are numerous Family Trees on the Internet that have not based their connections on valid documentation and many are incorrect.
So what is the correct information? There are some mysteries we may never solve. One of the biggest mysteries for me is what is Mimi's actual birth year? There is a birth certificate listing her parents (no child's name) and the date "July 3, '92". Many other sources including the Social Security Index and Mimi's wedding certificate indicated 1893 as her birth year. Is it possible that the birth attendant made a mistake filling out the paperwork? The deciding factor for me was Mimi's Silver Baby Cup. Traditionally, in some families this cup was given on a baby's first birthday, usually with the year of the first birthday inscribed. Mimi's cup is inscribed, "H '94". So I picked 1893 as her birth year. Actually my mother's baby cup followed that same tradition--her cup is inscribed with the year of her first birthday.
Another example of making a decision based on various pieces of documentation was the spelling of George Meeker's middle name, Delmer. Some documents spell it Delmar. I based my decision on WWI and WWII draft cards that George had signed. Plus, I have the actual invitation to my mother's wedding and Delmer is with an "er" at the end. (I feel like a detective sometimes, and it is so much fun.)
Also, don't assume that any one document is the total truth for information. You will find censuses full of misinformation depending on the census taker and who was giving the information, but they are a good beginning source. I have even found cemetery headstones that are incorrect based on all the documentation I have collected on the person--birth, marriage, and death certificate.
As time passes, more and more information is being put online. At this moment FamilySearch.org and FindAGrave.com are excellent sources and free. I have paid for the Family Tree Maker software. It is a great way of keeping my records, and it works hand-in-hand with Ancestry.com, which charges a yearly fee for access to the actual documents.
So here it is, and perhaps some of you may enjoy getting a deeper connection to our family roots and continuing on with this ever-changing project.
Wishing all of you the very best,
Sue &
Mike (super-duper techie person who put this
all together for me)