Monday, July 30, 2012

Calling All Drakes -- I Need Your Help!

I'm going to teach you a lesson today.  Hopefully two things will happen:

     1)  You will learn from my mistake.
     2)  You just might have the information that I'm looking for.

One of the things that happened in my generation was the Internet.  Before that, most of family tree research was spent writing letters, physical trips to the area you were researching and copying.  When the Xerox machine came along, we all thought how much time that was going to save us.  Can you imagine the meltdown the Internet created for the genealogist?  Yeah, I know. I'm still sitting on 6 banker boxes filled with information that needs to be validated, notated and filed.

On one of those pieces of paper is the information that I found -eureka- on a gentleman named Howard Drake.  I remember finding him in a census while tracking down a whole 'nother side of them family.  He was there and his daughter Marjorie.  I have the very minutest of memories but here is what I know.  First off, I'm assuming that his last name was Drake.  The last time I saw him was in June 1967 or '68 at my grandpa -- Don Dee Drake's funeral.  After the ceremony, we all went to his farm.  His granddaughter was named Marti Manigold and she was less than a year younger than me, meaning she was born in 1955 or 1956.  I thought it was way cool to have a cousin my own age that had the same name.  While at Uncle Howard's farm, Cousin Marti Manigold and I rode on a pony all afternoon. Uncle Howard raised trotters.  If he was old enough for my dad to call him Uncle Howard, that would mean he was probably born around 1900.  I believe his daughter was named Marjorie Manigold.  I found an obit for Marti on one of those class reunion sites.  She went to high school in Niles.

I am hoping that one of you out there has information on Howard Drake.

The lesson to be learned?  As tempting as it is to race through the Internet and amass all the information on your family that has ever been printed ... go slow. Make a file folder.  Make a notation where you got that information.  I spent 10 hours today looking for that one piece of people.  I'm exhausted and didn't make any progress on my tree at all.  Don't let this happen to you!






















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