Importance of Having a Good Network!

I've been thinking the past couple of days on what subject I wanted to cover in my next blog post. I didn't know until about 15 minutes ago when I decided to check my e-mail. And there it was - it came to me - in a query I posted to my network of genealogy friends. It's very important to have a good network of genealogists to field questions and ideas to. I know which friends to send which questions to. And if I don't I send it to all of them. At least I know I'll get some kind of feedback for my question. I have friends in the northern, western, and central parts of our county that I know if I get a look-up request I can forward it to them. They'll know more about their own neighbors than I would anyway. Also I have a couple of contacts for general Brown County history. And they all know if they get requests for my southern family's histories they can contact me as well.

My first thought for a blog post was a complaint about the lack of volunteers in certain parts of the country that I'm researching my families. I wasn't quite happy with that subject because it had a negative outlook. I still get frustrated on this subject, but then I realize what a good network of genealogy friends I have right here. I hope we can at least help others needing information from our county. And they will always get some kind of answer.

The query that I fielded to my friends was from a photo I had found in our Archives of a Civil War Soldier. On the photo is said "J. T. Eller, R Q M" on the first line and "45th Indiana Vols." on the second line. I had not heard of this surname in our county so I sent the photo to all my contacts and got an answer back right away from three of them. From the three of them we were able to piece together a short biography of this soldier. Now, instead of just a photo of an unknown soldier lost in our Archives I have a piece of written history I can attach to the photo. All will go in our Surname files and I can feature him in our next newsletter in the hope that someone researching this family will find it someday.

I want to thank all my genealogy friends, they are great bunch!



John Thomas Eller, 145th Indiana Infantry, Rank: RQM (Quartermaster)
Born in 1840 and died in 1914 from Monroe County, Indiana