Follow Friday ~ Fab Finds for January 20, 2017

NOTE: Thank you for your patience while Fab Finds was on hiatus. Due to family health issues, the hiatus was a bit longer than expected. I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

My Fab Finds for this week are (in no particular order)

1. Define Your Dash: Start Writing Your Personal History with the #52Stories Project by Angie Lucas for FamilySearch Blog
2. Creating Family Photo Coloring Pages with BeFunky by Nicole Dyer, author of The Family Locket Blog
3. Using a calendar to introduce variety in your research by Janine Adams, author of Organize Your Family History
4. To Remove or Not Remove Tape on Documents by Melissa Barker, author of A Genealogist In The Archives
5. Social Media Helps – FamilySearch by Claire V. Brisson-Banks, author of Budding Genealogists
6. Discover What You’re Made of with Grandparent Inheritance Charts by Legacy Tree Genealogists
7. Stories by and about Norwegian immigrants by Martin Roe Eidhammer, author of Norwegian Genealogy and then some
8. Researching Family in Norwegian Records by Genealogy Mom
9. Family Recipe Friday - Spritz Cookies by Anna Matthews, author of Tripping Over My Roots
10. How To Be Cost Effective When Researching Genealogy by Lisa Lisson, author of Are You My Cousin?
11. Timelines for Analysis & Correlation  by Jill Morelli, author of Genealogy Certification: My Personal Journal
12. More on Uncle Wilt by Debi Austen, author of Who Knew?
13. My FamilySearch experiment AND My FamilySearch experiment Part II by Michele Simmons Lewis, author of Ancestoring
14. What can happen, when you share history stories by Dr. Bill Smith, author of Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories
15. Obituaries matter when it comes to genealogy research by Brian Sheffey, author of Genealogy Adventures
16. St. John's Lutheran Church's Records — Online and Free by Caroline M. Pointer, author of Find your family story
17. 7 Key Pieces of Evidence from John Gooch’s Bounty Land Warrant File by Dayna Jacobs, author of On Granny's Trail
18. GeneaBloggers Celebrates Eight Years! by Thomas MacEntee, founder of GeneaBloggers

"May I Introduce To You" Interviews on GeneaBloggers.com

• May I Introduce To You . . . Susan LeBlanc
• May I Introduce to You . . . Ruth Blair

New Blog Discoveries

• Gwen`s Genealogy Blog
• J. Wendell Genealogical Research Co.
• SIM Family of Buffalo, NY
• Twigs + Leaves
• Ethics and the Genealogist
• This Is Us - The Browns & The Moores, A Few Gauffreaus & Gustins
• DO AS I'M DOING
• Binding Generations: Family History & Genealogy
• Genealogy Journey
• Seedlings from Dawning Genealogy

In Case You Missed It….My Contribution to the Blogosphere This Week

Jana's Genealogy and Family History Blog

• Rollin's Been Working On The Railroad

Thanks for reading!

Jana

© 2017 Copyright by Jana Last, All Rights Reserved

Rollin's Been Working On The Railroad

Rollin Waterman Webster

I've written about my maternal great-granduncle, Rollin Waterman Webster, in previous posts. He was one of Watson (Frederick) Emory Webster's brothers. Watson was my great-grandfather, also known as "The Traveling Dentist" here on my blog.

I am in possession of two letters that Rollin wrote in 1951, when he was around 81 years of age. One letter was written to Mr. Harper C. Pendry, who was employed at the Athens Board of Trade and the other was written to my grandfather, Debs Warren Webster. In these letters Rollin talked about his employment in both the Denver & Rio Grand Western Railroad and the Santa Fe Railroad. Here are portions of those letters.

Transcription of cropped letter above (highlighted portion): "I am Retired from the Santa Fe R.R. since 1937 I had 31 years R.R. service as Stationary Eng I worked 10 years for the IC. RR 21 years Santa Fe R.R."

Transcription of cropped letter above: "I started with the Denver & Rio Grand Western, with Debs Father 1890 he was a Coach Trimmer of R.R. coaches, for the Rio Gr R.R. in 1890"

Transcription of cropped letter above (highlighted portion): "I am retired from the Railroad I worked 31 years as Stationary fireman and Engineer an car repairer, I started in Denve, Col, in 1890 then worked for the IC. R.R. 10 years and the Santa Fe 21 years"

As you can see in these letters (above), Rollin mentioned working for the I. C. Railroad for 10 years. I didn't know what those initials stood for so I did a search for them on Google. I found out that they stand for the Illinois Central Railroad. I also found that there is an Illinois Central Historical Society and they have a website.

I found this card (below) on Ancestry.com.¹ It's a railway prior service record index card and is part of the Kansas, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Prior Service Records, 1859-1935 database on Ancestry.com. The card corroborates what Rollin said in his letters that he retired in 1937. This card gives his exact date of retirement.



Information gleaned from this card:

Name: Webster, Rollin W.
Location: Corwith, Illinois
Retired: July 31, 1937

Unfortunately, I don't know what the number in the right side of the column titled Aug., 1935 means. Could that have been an amount paid, such as $80.16?

I'm so glad Rollin wrote so much information in his letters to Mr. Pendry and to my grandfather. They hold a wealth of valuable genealogical information.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

© 2017 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved

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1 Ancestry.com. Kansas, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Prior Service Records, 1859-1935 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. Rollin W. Webster. Image 306 of 974. Accessed 1 April 2014. Original data: Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company Records. Topeka Kansas: Kansas State Historical Society.^↩