I have decided to look for information at the Family Search Site for my grandfather, Wiley Benjamin Hill, Sr. This is my paternal adoptive line.
Wiley Benjamin Hill, Sr., was born 11 Feb 1881, near Purvis, Lamar County, Mississippi. He died 16 Feb 1954, in the same location.
I will enter in his information, now, into the Family Search "locator".
The results when I listed only his year of birth and his name and where his birth took place: One hit in Ancestral File. This is him! The preliminary screen that lists the hits even tells me that Lamar County was formerly Marion County, MS.
I click on this Ancestral File hit to get more information. First, I want to know who the submitter is, since I've already determined that this is my man. The submitters are my father and Clarence Hunt, who was my Aunt Bea's husband.
I learn from this submission that my grandfather is buried in Coletown Cemtery, near Purvis, Mississippi. This was information that I didn't have, before. I should go and visit the cemetery!
I can click on "Pedigree" to obtain the Pedigree Chart, where I am allowed to download a gedcom. Or I can try to print this information out. First I will change my page properties so that it will print in a landscape format. This didn't work as well as I had hoped, printing out two pages that I had to tape together! I will also try the portrait format, just to see what that delivers and I find out that this page is designed to print out in the portrait format! It is readable and complete.
I will also download the Gedcom to my hard drive and incorporate it into my PAF program (under an appropriate and separate file name).
My grandfather also shows up in the IGI database, primarily because a lot of my ancestors in that line were Mormons and the IGI is the database that is driven exclusively by member submissions. The information listed is the same as I already have.
There were no exact hits on the 1880 Census and since my grandfather wasn't born until 1881, I don't pursue any of those.
Interestingly, though, I do find a "Wiley Hill" on the Social Security Index, whose birth is listed as 1880. This fellow, however, died twenty years after my grandfather in a different state. The birth date is close and he was born in MS, but the other information makes it clear that this is not my grandpa.
The spirit of exploring and celebrating where we came from is the work of genealogists. My Dad, "Bennie" Hill, was the quintessential family historian. He caught the bug later in life but spent the next 33 years making up for lost time. Thanks to you, Dad, I'm hooked!
