Today I will review what I discovered in my online search for additional information. I revisited all the original sites, since there have been some updates to databases that may relate to the family. I also explored some new research possibilities.
Revisiting Ancestry.com
I searched using “Edw* M?rd?n” along with a variety of filters and additional info in hopes of luring him out, but all to no avail. With or without locations and spouses, he is not to be found beyond what I have already uncovered.
Revisiting FamilySearch
I searched the newest Record Search using “Edw* M?rd?n”. I made sure I was logged in, because I saw mention on another blog that not all records are showing up if you are not a registered user. I do not belong to the church so I still may not be seeing everything they have available.
I did locate the Vermont Marriage Record card for the marriage of Edward Marden to Mrs. Lydia Edson of Lowell dated 24-Apr-1851. They were married by a minister named H. N. Hovey in Craftsbury where Edward was a resident at the time. It is important to note this card is not a primary document since the data was transcribed onto the card from the original record and subject to error.
Revisiting Footnote.com
I always get frustrated searching this site but it does seem to be improving. Lots of hits here for his father, but nothing for Junior.
Revisiting NEHGS
Their main site still has nothing. Members also have access to two external newspaper databases so I checked both. In the 19th Century U.S. Newspapers database I searched for Mardin or Marden and Edward in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Wisconsin newspapers. Found references to R. H. Marden in Vermont but no other helpful results. The other database is NewsBank’s American’s Historical Newspapers. Nothing of interest turned up in the time period of Edward’s or his wive’s deaths but they don’t have much for the place and time period in question.
Trying New Possibilities
I continued looking at newspapers hoping for a death notice or obituary for Edward and his wives. I visited HeritageQuest and GenealogyBank with no results.
Since the Annis Genealogy mentions that Edward died in Lloyd, Wisconsin I decided to concentrate on documenting that.
I found a site Richland County, WI Cemeteries that claims to have indexed all the known cemeteries in Richland Co., Wisconsin, but Edward is not there, or at least he does not have a headstone.
The Wisconsin Historical Society has the Wisconsin Genealogy Index (Pre-1907) online which includes death records. I searched without finding results for this Edward.
I found another site with a newspaper index for the region. The site is Richland County, Wisconsin Newspaper Index of Names with Local Interest and the Index is contained in a pdf file. There are lots of other Marden and Mardin names in this index and a large number of them are likely to be Edward’s descendants. It seems I have discovered what I was looking for. Here are the details of the entry.
- Marden, Edward, death, P8 74-03-26, pg.3, Col. 4.
If I understand the entry correctly, the notice appeared in the County Republican, on 26-Mar-1874, pg. 3 col. 4.. I sure would like to see what it has to say! I have decided to write to the Richland County History Room to see if I can get a copy of the death notice. They charge $15/hr plus expenses and have a budget of only $20. If their researchers know their local resources well, perhaps they will find additional information for me.
The Richland County GenWeb site was a real bust. It is such a shame that most GenWeb sites I visit have not been undated for years. This could be such a wonderful resource, but it is useless when links no longer work, new resources are not covered, message boards are not updated, etc.
I played around with a couple of genealogy specific search engines to see if I could find anything.
Searches.Linkpedium.com – A promising site, but too many “page not found” errors. I know all too well how much work it takes to keep links up to date on our Ne-Do-Ba site, so I understand the problem. However, if a site specializes in that sort of thing, a better effort should be made if they want to keep visitors coming back. Nothing useful turned up.
Mocavo.com – Sorry, I am not impressed. There is no way to refine your search or filter your results. It claims it has 295 results for “Edward Marden”. Most appear to be links to this blog. This may be a great site to assist with unusual names but I pity the poor person trying to find John Smith on this site! After the 1st 100 entries (at only 8 per page) I gave up looking. This site has promise but it also has a long way to go before it is very useful.
GenealogyInTime.com – This site offers two search engines and claims “world’s largest free genealogy search engines”. It does allow me to use the *, OR, and – to construct my search terms. However, I ‘m not too confident they work. After reading the “How To” and constructing a simple search “Edw* Mard*n” and “Edward Mard*n”, I received no results which really surprised me. When I searched on “Edward Marden” I received all sorts of results. So what’s up with that! When I used the “Family Tree Search Engine” it produced results from message boards, which is not what I was expecting, but it could be useful. I did not find anything of use to be in my searches.
Ancestorhunt.com – This site has way too many individual search engines and many of them don’t seam to get you anywhere. Probably useful if I am looking for something very specific such as an obituary or a land record and all records are supposed to be free so it certainly could be useful for a person that does not subscribed to sites such as Ancestry.com. If time was of no concern, this site might be useful to me, but it has 3 Bible Records and 2 Obituary search engines. Very time consuming! I moused around a bit and tried the more promising searches with no results.
So, after all my searching I found only 2 useful items,
- a marriage record in Vermont for Edward & Lydia
- a potential death notice for Edward in Wisconsin
That last one could be of real value if it is for the correct man. If Edward died while visiting with his son Joseph, there should be a death record and possibly a burial record in that state and the informant would most likely be his son. There could be some good data there!
The only thing remaining to be done without some financial donations is to prepare a list of FamilySearch microfilm that could be useful and assign an order of priority.
Would any of my readers like to contribute financially?
The Ne-Do-Ba Research Journal 