THE McCURDY ANCESTOR HUNT

THE YEAR .. 2004

Where do you start when you decide you want to do a genealogy of your family? I had some names and birth dates and death dates from Mom’s many notebooks. Someone, I have no idea who, had left a copy of a 1900 Amanda Township, Ohio census page in one of the big albums on Mom’s bookshelves. This census shows Blanche, Joseph E, and William McCurdy as the stepchildren of John Bowen .. shows his wife as Dollie. Blanche was 18 years old .. the census in 1900 also had month and year for birth for the children … the month and year for Blanche worked out right.

Mom had said at some time that she thought Etta Blanche’s mother’s name was Dollie. Mom had also said at one time that she thought Bowen was Blanche’s maiden name. So now going by this census I discovered Blanche’s maiden name was McCurdy. God bless whoever printed that out and left it in that book!! I was a bit concerned because Mom had said that the only family her mother ever talked about were Arthur and Ernest. Neither of those names were on this census. But I did think that perhaps Joseph’s middle name was Ernest. Didn’t know what to think about why Arthur was not on there. (I have since found out! .. ah ha a mystery solved!)

Mom had told me about Arthur McCurdy’s wife dying and their daughter, Helen, coming to live with them and he remarried and then had a son. When Mom was young and they visited Ohio they went to Uncle Arthur’s house and she played with Helen and Richard. In the 1920 Lima, Ohio census I found Arthur McCurdy with a wife named Hazel, a daughter named Helen who was 6, and a son named Richard who was 1. So I knew this HAD to be the right Arthur McCurdy but still didn’t know why he was not on the 1900 census with Blanche, Joseph and William. This was one of my first mysteries!!! You become very curious about these things!!

I will go ahead and tell you .. this was one of the mysteries I solved on my trip to Lima!! For Helen McCurdy was buried beside her father .. and on his headstone was William A. McCurdy. His obituary has his name as William A. (Mac) McCurdy. SO the William McCurdy on the 1900 census was Arthur .. a mystery solved!!! I have tried and tried to come up with info on Ernest McCurdy but have found absolutely nothing so feel in my heart that Joseph E. McCurdy is Ernest but at this point have not yet proven that. His headstone says Joseph E. and the stories about his death say Joseph E.

Early on in this hunt I typed in Etta Blanche McCurdy and came up with a birth record that had the right name, the right location .. Liberty Township, Crawford County, Ohio and the right date. I had gotten the location from her obituary. It listed her parents as being Haroldson McCurdy and Mollie Voeft. Oh how excited I was !!! But I kept typing both their names in on searches and could come up with nothing on either of them. How disappointing this was. What you have to understand is .. that for this information to get on the internet .. someone has found it in the birth records and typed it as they see it. I eventually went to an Ohio genealogy webpage and typed in a query about McCurdy’s in Liberty Township, Crawford County, Ohio. And was contacted by a lady who had lots of information on the McCurdy family. On her family tree she had a Joseph Donald McCurdy, wife named Dollie A. (she hadn’t looked for the last name because this was not her branch of the family) and a daughter named Bertha M. (I printed out this family tree, just in case it turned out that this is our ancestry.) She told me this was on the 1880 census for Liberty Township, Crawford County, Ohio. Of course I checked it out and sure enough .. there it was.

However, I of course am still not sure this is Blanche’s father and mother. I found out how to contact the Crawford County Ohio courthouse .. and called and found out how to send for birth records and sent for the birth records of Etta Blanche McCurdy and Bertha M. McCurdy. Blanche’s birth record lists her parents as Donaldson McCurdy and Dolly Vough. Bertha’s birth record has her name as Bertha May McCurdy and lists her parents as J. D. McCurdy and D. A. Vought. Here again .. these are the records that are in a book and written by someone in the Probate Court office .. the writing is very curlicue and fancy. The D on Donaldson and Dolly could look like an H and an M to whoever typed it up for the LDS records which Familysearch uses. So another mystery solved!!

I eventually went to the courthouse in Marshall to see the death records of Etta Blanche McCurdy Shrider and her parents are listed as J. D. McCurdy and Dollar!!! I subscribed to Ancestry.com because when you go to the genealogy pages that are free .. they all eventually point you to Ancestry.com for more info. I typed in Dollie Vough and Dollie Vought every way I could possibly type it in on ancestry and came up with nothing. One night .. very late .. I went to familysearch.com and typed in Dollie Vought and WOW!!! I came up with the marriage of J. D. McCurdy and Dollie A.Vought!!! I could have done cartwheels if I wasn’t so blamed old!! Unless you’ve done a genealogy and spent hours digging you probably don’t understand the excitement of finding each little piece of information. But it is fantastic!!!

As I said earlier, I have not been able to come up with the parentage of Dollie Vought. However, today I found a family tree with lots of Vought’s in it. I have emailed the person who created the family tree and told him what information I have and I am waiting to see if any of it “rings a bell” with him.

Tonight, as I was typing this I became curious once again about Bertha McCurdy and began doing research on her. There are lots of Bertha McCurdy’s in Ohio! Even several Bertha MAY McCurdys!!! I can’t wait to see which one is the right one and what I can find out about her!!!! I will be doing a story on her as soon as I get enough info.