Back to research – Elmer (of Georgia)

After all the work I put in regarding eliminating Family Tree Maker and looking at various products over the past couple weeks, it is good to get back working on actual genealogy projects again. To document this work, I am using Reunion 11 and am seeing how it works during extended research. So far, I am really pleased with it. I really like the way it allows me to create a source then go to my individuals, create events and facts and associate my sources with those events and facts. I still need to spend some time learning how to better use the logs, but I’m getting there.

Elmer (of Georgia) (1910-bef 2011)

Sometimes there just isn’t anything to find online. That is the case of Elmer (aka Tuggle). He was born in Georgia between 20 Aug 1910 and 27 Dec 1910.

One register I found him in indicates him to be 20 years old on 19 Aug 1931, inferring a birth between 20 Aug 1910 and 19 Aug 1911.[i] Another register I found him in indicates he was 29 years old on 27 December 1910, inferring a birth between 26 Dec 1909 and 27 Dec 1910[ii]. Consequently, I infer his birth between 20 Aug and 27 Dec 1910.
I know that Elmer was in Paulding County in 1931 and in Cobb County in 1939, but I don’t know much else about his life.

1940 Census shows Elmer’s wife widowed.

The 1940 Census indicates that his wife was widowed and living with her parents with the children[iii]; however, the 1945 Atlanta City Directory indicates he and his wife living together in Atlanta and that he was working for the Benton Transportation Company.[iv] This leads to more questions about Elmer and his life. Was he alive in 1945 or did the city directory erroneously carry Elmer and his wife for five years? Did Elmer and his wife reconcile for a while? Lots more to investigate.

Elmer’s death is unknown; however, the obituary for one of his sons indicates he preceded his son’s death in 2011.[v] I will need to further investigate each of Elmer’s children’s lives and see if I can better determine his death.

So, after exhausting my on-line resources, I need to try various other methods to find further information. First, I need to try a microfilm loan. When I lived in Smyrna, GA, I was able to get service copies of microfilm located at the Univ. of Georgia at Augusta for another project I was working on. I will try to order another set of microfilm and see if they will share it with me now that I live in Maine. I hope so. In addition, there are possibly court records in Paulding County, Georgia, which may shed some light onto this family research. I’ve contacted the Clerk of Court regarding that. There are also some other newspaper articles available through Genealogy Bank. I plan to switch to them next year, so I will put this into my queue to work on it once I make the shift.

Future actions:

Trace Elmer’s children’s lives, particularly their obituaries.
Track down documents from Paulding County in 1931.
Track down documents from Cobb County in 1939.
Create family tree islands for all of the families in Paulding with the same Surname and seek to determine if Elmer/Tuggle fits into one of those families.

 Endnotes