Research Trip 2017

I recently got back from my research trip to Youngstown, OH. I went to Tyler Mahoning Valley History Center located in the downtown district of Youngstown. I must say they have a beautiful new facility, the building houses the archival library in the basement. This is where I found my great great grandmother Minnie Belle Stacks in the 1924 city directory and I got to take pictures of old street maps in the of East Youngstown. The archivist was able to show we where Minnie Belle, and Georgiana (great grandmother) lived on the map which I thought was pretty cool. I looked at a few old high school years but I didn’t see my grandmother in any of them (she moved back to Alabama during her 11th-grade year she graduated).

I didn’t get quite what I wanted but I got cool some stuff and got some tips on what my next move should be. All in all I had a good trip, so I encourage you to take that research trip you’ve been talking about for years this summer. Even if you don’t go on your research trip, visit your local archival library, courthouse, cemetery, interview family members or just spend time with you family sharing and creating memories. You never know who or what you might find when you step from behind the computer.

Check out Eventbrite’s online registration software to find and plan local events in your area this summer

Great Grandma Georgiana

Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

I almost shed a tear last night when I found my great grandmother Georgiana Beck’s death certificate. I said a quick prayer and a few seconds later while searching on ancestry.com  I found her death certificate. I know all the information provided by the informant might not be accurate but I felt like I hit the jackpot. Of course I am left with more questions then answers now but oh my goodness. We don’t know much about my maternal grandmother’s mother and even less about her father so any information is a win to me.

I had no idea Georgiana died in Pennsylvania, I didn’t know the name of her father or she was even married. My grandmother was raised by grandmother Minnie in East Youngstown, Ohio. The information we have on my great grandparents is limited, over the years I have found a city directory  and two census records to place Georgiana in Jefferson County, Alabama and in East Youngstown, Ohio but no information connecting to my grandmother’s father James L. Christian. James L. Christian is the big mystery in our family, we don’t believe he was married to Georgiana and we believe there was a bit of an age difference between the two. Georgiana was about 15 or 16 when she had my grandmother in Jefferson county, Alabama. I was told James worked in the Steel Mills and had another child a daughter named Delores or Lois but I don’t know where he was from or his age. Recently my uncle told me he had heard James had property in Sharon, Pennsylvania, that’s not far from East Youngstown so on my next trip to Youngstown I’ll be visiting Sharon to see what I can find. I also found at 1926 East Youngstown city directory for Georgiana, I now have two more records to add to her file.

Madison Street

I was able to visit one of the streets my Great Great Grandmother Minnie Belle and my Grandma Clittee lived on in the mid 1920s and early 1930s in Campbell Ohio formally known as East Youngstown. Campbell is where my grandma spent majority of her adolescent years before heading back down to Alabama. The 1919 steel strike brought hundreds of black southerners to Youngstown, Ohio. This influx of black southerner was part of the Great Migration, most of them settled in East Youngstown which was home to one of the Youngstown Iron Sheet and Tube plants. Edward Stacks, Minnie’s husband worked at the Youngstown Iron Sheet and Tube Company. Its was pretty cool to be able to go back to the place my grandma, great great grandma called home for over ten years.