The Passing of Ronald Fullenkamp

Early this past Saturday morning, my uncle, Ronald (aka Ron or Ronnie) Fullenkamp passed away. He had been diagnosed with lung cancer ten months ago. My wife and I were sad to hear the diagnosis and between ourselves, we didn't expect him to last long. A lung cancer diagnosis, in our experience, ends with the person passing away pretty quickly afterwards. We were pleasantly proven wrong. Uncle Ronnie lived another ten months in which he shared his love with his family and his family was able to share quality, loving, family time with him. We didn't want to intrude into the last times the family would be able to share together but from what we can tell, he felt pretty good, albeit tired, up until the last few weeks.

FamilySearch Microfilm Ordering Being Discontinued

The latest big news in the genealogy world is that Family Search will no longer be sending microfilms to local LDS family history centers. This is really big news. If I hadn't been able to obtain the microfilmed church records from Moesbach and Ulm, Ortenaukreis, Baden, Germany by going down to the local family history center, my Panther family research project would never have happened. I would have had to make a trip to Salt Lake City to view the microfilms there. Add in the fact that I ended up scanning in every page from these films and there is absolutely no way I could have accomplished this.

Spur of the Moment Trip to Iowa

My wife and I decided to drive to southeast Iowa at the last minute. While there, I decided to stop by the Fort Madison public library to see if I could find the obituary for my great-grandmother, Philomena Bixenman Miller. When I found it, I looked for others I may have overlooked previously. Would you believe that I didn't have the obituary for any of my Miller grandparents or great-grandparents? We also made it over to Carthage, Illinois to look for records and look around the town. Here's a time-lapse video I took of the Carthage Jail while looking at records at the Hancock County Historical Society: