Enlarging Pictures on the Blog

Ok, time out from genealogy for a little housekeeping. I've stated before that I have been working on getting the pictures on the blog to show up bigger and easier to read. Unfortunately, nothing I've tried has worked, so this has been really frustrating for me.

Imagine my surprise when my hubby was reading my latest post and had a HUGE image of the census on his screen! When I asked how he got that, he looked mildly confused and said "I just clicked on the image." D'oh! Ok, I hadn't tried that.

So for all those of you (if any) who, like me, hadn't figured this out: Click on the image to get a larger view of it. It makes things like the census much easier to read. To get back to the blog, just hit your browsers "Back" button.

And thank you to my hubby for the tip (and not pointing out that I was being a ditz).

Housekeeping: Gone to Oz!

You may not see any more posts this year (2006) because I will be on vacation until Jan. 7, 2007. I will be in Australia (aka Oz) with my family, hunting down those elusive ancestors ~ maybe the ones I can't find moved there? Just kidding. I have no known family there, but I will be taking a much-needed break.

Have a great Holiday Season and a Happy New Years! I will continue to post after I get back (give me a few days to recover from jet lag!)

Housekeeping: Nomenclature to tell people apart

About this time in the Scheel genealogy, there starts to be a lot of similar names. For example, Charles Scheel could be:
(a) the name of Margaret Platt's husband, and Edward Scheel's son;
(b) the name of Edward Scheel's brother; AND
(c) the name of Edward Scheel's father.

All of these would be correct -- and all would be different people! Because adding a middle name doesn't make it any easier to keep track of them, and because many of their middle names are not know to me, I will be designating them by listing their birth years after their name. In the case where I don't know exactly what year they were born, I will put abt for About before the year. Therefore:

Charles Scheel (b. 1898) = Margaret Platt's husband and son of Edward Scheel (b. 1874)
Charles Scheel (b. 1858) = brother of Edward Scheel (b. 1874)*
Charles Scheel (b. abt 1829) = father of Edward Scheel (b. 1874)*
*I'll be posting more about this family shortly.

This works great for the men, but the women in the family pose their own problem. Because of American traditions of taking the husband's name, these women were known by one name for part of their lives and another for the rest of it. So not only will they be listed with their birth years, but also by first-maiden-married name sequence. So:

Margaret Platts Scheel (b. 1902) is the wife of Charles Scheel (b. 1898); and
Margaret Scheel Doyle (b. abt. 1912) is his sister.

This should hopefully make it easier to see which line married into the Scheel line, and who belongs to those lines (I hope).

Blog Introduction

This blog tracks my discoveries while researching my husband's SCHEEL family line. I will be posting photos, documents, stories and anything else I can find! It is a way of sharing this information with other family members as well as allowing others to contribute, correct and discover us!

While there are a lot of Scheels, this blog mainly focuses on the ancestors and descendants of Charles and Margaret Scheel of Niagara Falls, NY. Most postings will be on ancestors due to privacy and security issues.

Comments, corrections, inquiries and contributions are all gratefully accepted.