Thursday, June 20, 2013

More info on Alice ROPP's marriage

In an earlier post, I talked about Alice ROPP and her marriage. I got a record from the town office that indicated they were married in 1899.  Here's another record that shows the year as 1898. I thought this could have been a mis-written, but there is a stamp that is difficult to read on this copy that says "RECEIVED Feb 28, 1899"



Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915 > 4332401 > Image 373 of 566
familysearch.org


Then I came across this record on ancestry.com which also says 1898



And this one, also from ancestry.com:



With so many recordings of the same event, it's no wonder we run into issues with conflicting data...

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Marie M. ROPP Gets Married

Some people aren't a fan of ancestry.com, but I am.  There. I've said it.  Sure, it has its problems, but there are also some nice upsides as well.  Here's a document I found this morning...  no shaky green leaf required...














If the typed up "published record isn't good enough and you want to see the actual Town Clerk's entry..  thank ancestry again - And I'm glad both are available.  Why does the typed copy have John's birthplac as England when the written copy clearly says Ireland?  Mental note: you MUST ALWAYS look for primary sources even if you have transcriptions.






This picture of Marie was shared with me by a cousin a few years ago. It was taken in August 1943

Marie Martine (ROPP) CASEY
August 1943

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Ernest ROPP's Death Notice Creates More Questions Than Answers...

Well it's been longer than a little while since I have made a post on this blog, but today was an interesting day.  First I was looking through my ROPP family notes for the first time in months. In the middle of that I actually heard from my Grandfather's sister, who I hadn't heard from in well... many, many months.  After I replied to her I had to jump on a Genealogy Webinar on a web site that I use fairly frequently, GenealogyBank.com. The speaker, Tom Kemp, mentioned having Baltimore, MD newspapers on their web site and I immediately thought. "Holy $*^& "  (yes, I think in grawlixes!) "Why didn't I think of that before"  and I jumped into a search for a marriage announcement for Ernest ROPP.

No Luck!

I didn't come up empty handed though. Take a look at what I did find....  A death Notice for Ernest ROPP from the November 13, 1960 Boston Herald:

Death Notice:
Boston Herald, November 13, 1960 Page 68

What I find interesting about this notice is that it lists his age at time of death at 51. This would mean he was born about the year 1909.  I have my Ernest's birth year as 1877 according to Ship Passenger lists, census records, etc.  But this Ernest has children, Francis D and Helen, which also correspond to the children of my Ernest.  Interesting.

I recall when looking through census information for Ernest ROPPthat I once ran into a situation where there were 2 Ernest ROPPs in the same town, probably Worcester.  Could I have a gap in my research?  Did Ernest ROPP(1877-??) have a child also named Ernest, born in 1909, who is the real father of Helen and Francis D?  That doesn't make sense either, since Helen was born (according to a birth record I was given by her daughter) in 1906.

Wait.. 1906?  I have her mother, Mattie Carolina KELLEYlisted as being born in 1895.  That would make her 10 or 11 when Helen was born.  Hrm....  Methinks me has some re-work to do here.

Any other ROPP descendants have some info they could use to shed some light on this topic. I'm clearly confused :)