Midwest in NGSQ

The 2009 winner of the National Genealogical Society's writing contest, Kay Haviland Freilich, CG, systematically checks out her ancestor's three-page life story and finds it mostly accurate in the December issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly: "Verifying the Autobiography of Mary (Seeds) Haviland." The family moved back and forth in a dizzying fashion, starting and ending in eastern Pennsylvania, but in the meantime frequenting Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, and southern California.

As NGSQ articles go this is a relaxing read in that there are no mind-bending methodologies or convoluted problems of identity. I learned that I had better never assume that when anybody moves, they move west! A nice touch is the agricultural information for the Paschal Seeds family from the 1885 Kansas state census; I would love to have seen how the Seeds family's farm (including a significant orchard) compared to their neighbors'.