"The rest of the story..." Walter Maydahl's joyride on July 14, 1920

 

Referring to Jim Kershner’s bit on July 14^th, and as an enthusiastic genealogist, I had to know the rest of the story about young Walter Maydahl who was sentenced to 24 hours in jail for “driving the car 47 miles an hour….with a young woman on his lap.”  Walter was 17 on that July day, the son of Sivert Maydahl (1867-1927) who had immigrated from Norway and was a “motorman on the street railway” according to the 1910 census for Spokane.  On the 1920 census, Walter was single, living at home, and was a “night clerk in telegraph office.” Albin Walter Maydahl married Joy Acoam in 1922 in Vancouver, Washington; was she the lady on his lap?  In the 1930 census, Walter and Joy were living in Wallace (with son Richard) where Walter was a “railroad car inspector.” By 1940, they were living in Salt Lake City (with two more children, James and Maria) where Walter was a “car foreman.” Joy died at age 89 in King County. Walter died in September 1964, according to the Railroad Retirement Pension Index. Have you enjoyed reading what Paul Harvey called “the rest of the story?” Hope so.

Sievert Maydahl rests in Greenwood Memorial Terrace in Spokane. There was no Find-A-Grave listing for either Joy or Walter. 

FamilySearch Collection Update: New Records Added Online for Czech Republic, Mexico, and U.S.

Received May 11 from FamilySearch.org:

Eight new searchable collections were updated or added this week at FamilySearch.org—millions of new free images and records.

This week the complete name indexes for the states of Alabama, Colorado, and Illinois were published online at FamilySearch’s Record Search pilot (FamilySearch.org, click Search Records, and then click Record Search pilot) or Beta.FamilySearch.org.

The Delaware state birth records, 1875 Minnesota State Census, and Illinois, Cook County birth records were also added.

Also released was a digital image collection of church records from Litomerice, Czech Republic—60,000 images! Consumers will see these types of collections more and more online as FamilySearch digitizes microfilms in its Granite Mountain Records Vault. Instead of a microfilm reader in a local family history center, patrons use FamilySearch’s image viewer online to search these high quality digital collections—and they are accessible 24/7.

See the chart below for the complete list of all the newly added or improved collections.

None of this would be possible without the great contributions of many online FamilySearch volunteers. These individuals donate the time and effort needed to make these collections freely available to FamilySearch patrons. If you would like to help by donating a few minutes here and there online with projects of personal interest, become a FamilySearch community volunteer at FamilySearchIndexing.org. Many hands produce great work. Thank you for your support!

Collection Name	Indexed Records	Digital Images	Comments
Czech Republic, Litomerice State Regional Archive Church Records 1552-1905, pt. 03 - WP		60573	Browsable images only
Mexico Census 1930 Index, Yucatan	378550	1061300
U.S Delaware State Birth Records 1861-1922 - FSI	121234	93600
U.S Illinois, Cook County Birth Registers 1873-1908	1240000	33245
U.S 1875 Minnesota State Census	475000	13600	Must be registered to see images.
US Federal Census, 1910, Alabama	1870520	46763
US Federal Census, 1910, Colorado	767680	19192
US Federal Census, 1910, Illinois	5024520	125613

About FamilySearch
FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch has been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org or through over 4,600 family history centers in 132 countries, including the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Spokane Library Genealogy Blog

City Directories
from Library Genealogy Blog by genealogy librarian

The genealogy Librarian recently was asked to find out who owned a certain property in Spokane in 1910. Her first thought was to go to the city directories, but these weren’t cross referenced by address until 1929. She knew the census would have the information but how was she supposed to find an address in the census?! She went back to the city directory and discovered that not only is there a listing for all Spokane Additions and their boundaries, there is an explanation of the five city wards in Spokane as well as their precincts. In 1910 there were sixty five precincts in Spokane, from Ada to Eve. The 1900 city directory also lists the wards and precincts in Spokane, but unfortunately the 1920 and 1930 do not. With the information from the 1910 directory she was able to find the owner of the property, searching about twenty pages of the census instead of the hundreds had she not known the ward and precinct. So if you know where your relative lived but can’t find the magic spelling to bring them up in the census, check the local city directory. You may discover a whole new search option at your fingertips.

This is a great tip, but before the 1910 census was indexed I made a map of the voting precincts and where to find them on the microfilm rolls of the 1910 census. Not all the precincts are put on the microfilm in alphabetical order. Notice she says the precincts are listed from Ada to Eve, in each ward they changed the first letter of the precinct names, Ada through Astor is Ward 1, Butler through Blake is Ward 2, Clay through Custer is Ward 3, Day through Dwight is Ward 4 and Earl through Eagle is Ward 5. The other fun thing that happened in Spokane during 1910 was a lot of Spokane streets were renamed, before that you could name the streets in your own development anything you wanted, and the neighboring development could name the streets in their development, so you could drive down a street and it might have three different names in the span of a dozen or more blocks. Notice the city changed the names in 1910, so on the census you can find people living right next door to each other with a different street name. The voting precincts are listed in the Spokane City Directories till about 1926 or 1927, I made a copy as I was assuming the 1930 census would again use the voting precincts, but they did not, so I downloaded the enumeration district boundaries from the internet and made a map for Spokane for 1930. That map is in the genealogy section of the library. So if your ancestor is not in the 1910 index check the actual census.

Some people saw I had a 1910 map of the precincts and street name changes and wanted a copy of that map, so I made a copy for the library and EWGS sells copies for $2.00 plus $3 postage and handling.