Recent Ancestry Finds

The other day I logged onto my library account to check on something, and noticed that during this Covid-19 shutdown, we have access to things from home that ordinarily we wouldn't (I guess.)  For instance on the page that shows the books I have on hold, I noticed links to about 6 different things including Ancestry! Granted it's the library version which means my tree and hints don't show up, but it's great in that I can search for a few things that I've wanted to look for in recent weeks, but cannot because I don't want to purchase a subscription to Ancestry in order to do so.


Last August when Ancestry offered free looks at their Yearbook collection, I had fun finding pictures of some family members including my mom, dad, and Andrew's mom, dad, himself and his brother.


This time I looked up my parents' names again, and found this of my mom that either wasn't there last time or I failed to notice.  It's from her days in college when she was in the traveling choir.

I did some screen shots so you can see her better:


Second from left: 

Front row, long dark hair: 

She said she cannot remember why she was posing this way...dramatic! 😎😎

Also I looked up my dad's good friend from his US Air Force days. He and Bill kept in touch for many years afterward, but we never heard from him after 1998 when his hometown of Spencer, South Dakota, had killer tornadoes. We often wondered if Bill died in them. And, he apparently did not, however, his death was just two days prior to their arrival. My dad has looked online for him some over the years, but we never were able to find much. 

For some reason in early March and again a couple days ago, I searched some more. In March, I did regular Google searches, and the other day, I checked Ancestry.  I couldn't open this newspaper because I don't want to give them my credit card information for my free trial, but I was able to see enough plus I found an official record that listed his name, and identifier (namely US Air Force Vietnam) which made us conclude that Bill died in 1998 at age 52. 

Bill used to send us bizarre, but fun packages. I still remember arriving home from school or church or visiting a grandparent and finding a package on our front stoop. Once my mom recalls he sent pheasants on ice! And I wore a Miami Dolphins t-shirt that he sent in one "care package."

I hate that he died so young, but have enjoyed hearing stories about him from my dad. Bill was sent to Vietnam, and my dad was sent to Canada, but they met at an Air Force base in Alabama, I believe.

I also found this death notice about my great-grandmother who died in China when my grandpa was about 4. Report of the Death of an American Citizen.

I found some other stuff about the Kiriazis family which I may post another day.