I road-tripped from Madison, Wisconsin to Columbus, Ohio and listened to genealogy podcasts along the way. I found this not only inspiring, but it also seemed to make the drive time go by so fast! By the time I made it to Columbus, I was more fired up than ever to get to researching.
I spent 2 days at the Ohio History Connection in Columbus. My plan of attack was to go through newspapers that are not available online yet (that I can find!) as well as to look for any Poland's or Houghman's in Highland County, Ohio or Ross County, Ohio from the earliest records to about 1830.
I found myself wearing thin with the newspaper research, so I didn't get through nearly what I wanted to there. I did, however; spend a lot of time pouring through all the books the library had on Highland and Ross counties. I took pictures with my phone of the front cover, any important preface information, the index and the pages of interest for each book. I even took pictures of the front cover and the index pages for those that did not have any Poland or Houghman (or name variations) listed. This way, I could document what I looked at and what I did not find. As we all know, what we don't find is just as important as what we do find!
In the hotel room after the library closed, I downloaded all my photos to my computer. I cleaned them up, gave them identifiable names, organized them into folders on my computer and added them all to Evernote so they would be searchable. This kept me pretty busy until I needed to sleep for the next day. I can't decide if I liked this method of gathering data or not. The pictures aren't perfect, but you can read them. Here are some examples:
After I left Columbus, I drove down to Hillsboro in Highland County, Ohio. This is where my William Poland was married in 1810. In Highland County, I visited the Court House and was allowed to look through all the old marriage returns, wills, court order books, etc. I found a couple of possible items that I didn't already have, but nothing to break down my brick wall yet. I then went over to the administration building and spent several hours obtaining copies of multiple deed records.
After the courthouse, I went to the Southern Ohio Genealogical Society library. I met the most wonderful ladies there. We had such an amazing afternoon. They even hooked me up with another fine lady that opened up the Highland County Historical Society Museum and gave me a personal tour! I got to see items from the area and time frame that my William Poland lived there. Including this chain used to survey Highland County land.
They even had a cabin outside that had been originally built in 1830.
All in all, I had a fabulous time! It would be hard for me to have a bad time while getting to do genealogy! I did come away from the experience with a few lessons learned though.
The lessons I think I learned are:
- I still have not perfected an optimal research plan for trips. I still found myself getting excited and jumping from one thing to the other. I did have a better idea of what I was looking for this time, but putting that into context with all that was available was still challenging. I still need to do a better job of researching the contents of a repositories catalog before I head out.
- Less time messing with files at night and more time re-focusing for the next day would have served me better.
- Reach out more. When I reached out to the local society, I was amazed at the help and comradery I found.
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