User:Skadj

= Why skadj? =

Years ago I bought an aluminum fishing boat, and my kids "knew" that we needed to name her. So, looking around my family of five, I took the first letters of each of our given names and came up with the only arrangement I could find that would even begin to sound like a word in its own right. I had entered the age of acronym living!

= The "j" of the acronym =

I'm Joe Hittle. I grew up in northwest Indiana in a community of change as the trucks taking gravel to the new interstate highway project rolled past our school-room windows on a daily basis. Interstate 65, linking Chicago to Indianapolis and points beyond was being constructed just a mile from where I grew up just south of the Kankakee River. I had 8 siblings and I was #6 of the 9. I graduated from Kankakee Valley High School in 1973, married my childhood sweetheart in 1974 and have been on the move ever since, finally settling in south central Iowa after stops in Colorado, Illinois, Wisconsin and now Iowa.

= My early genealogical upbringing =

My parents were also from large families, even bigger than my own. Mom was the next to the last of 14 children, Dad was next to the last of 15. Dad was from the Calumet area of northwest Indiana, Mom was from just north of Danville, Illinois in Ross Township, Vermilion County. By the time I came along they had settled between the 2 "home stomping grounds." Both had served as their family's "information officer" and Dad was very much interested in knowing more about his family's story.

So, family reunions were an expectation, and both sides had BIG ones. Dad had a penchant for cemetery exploration as well, and I was introduced to both the IOOF Cemetery at Poplar Grove (Marshall County, Indiana) and to Leonard Cemetery (Newell Township, Vermilion County, Illinois) at a very young age. These 2 pioneer burial grounds held many of my 2g-Grandparents and even one set of 3G-Grandparents, and took me back into the 1700's for ancestor birthdates.

Dad recorded everything he could find. His large brown-leather zippered notebook has been lost along the way, and so I find myself frequently retracing those early childhood memories.

Mom was 40 when I was born. Dad turned 40 five days after I was born. Likewise they were about 40 years younger than their parents. In those 80 years where many families have as many as 6 generations, I have 3, grandparents, parents, me. My mother's father was born in 1867, the same year as Laura Ingalls Wilder.

= My introduction to genealogy research =

With my father's penchant for exploring the family past, there probably was never a time in my life when I wasn't "in training." After getting married in 1974 I settled into my career years, preparing for pastoral ministry and working my way through college and then also serving as a bi-vocational pastor for several years following my college days. I set genealogy aside until about 1986, when I visited my dad who was beginning to fail noticeably at that time. I began to ask questions and he got out the old notebook, and I began to record as he showed me the "stuff" he had accumulated over the years, taking my all the way back to my immigrant forefather, Georg Michael Hittel, who had come to America in 1738. Unfortunately, that was the last time I saw my father's notebook.

He died in 1990. About 6 years later I began to get "the bug" again, and pulled out the sheets I had written that summer day some 10 years earlier. My older brother heard about those sheets, and requested copies which he then forwarded to Prudence Groff Michael. Prudence was one of my father's "heroes" and was more than just a little credible within the field. She was also a double cousin, connected by blood relationship by both my Hittle and Pontius branches of my ahnentafel. When I got those copies back, with Prudence's notations included, I was off and running, again!

= Internet as an aid =

Prudence was a "real genealogist." Older than my father by about 10 years, she had established a credibility in Northern Indiana and within the state genealogical association. She also did not live long after sending back those notes I had taken, so again, my ability to ask questions was cut short. My older brother had become her prodigy, and she had a deep respect for his efforts and his dilligent work.

I decided to rework the process she and my brother had established. In that I have found very little upon which they did not have a good grasp upon what the documentation provides. But, I have found more documentation, and have established things with which Prudence would have been gratefully astounded.

The internet is now rife with gedcoms. Many of them follow Prudence's legwork very closely, including areas in which she had only hazarded "hunches" but have been shown to be misdirected. But, to her credit, when one reads what she actually wrote, they were not details which she claimed as fact at all, and were always accompanied by a line similar to "I think it's possible that..."

But, beyond gedcoms, the internet now makes research much more available. State databases are now coming at faster and faster speeds, and commercial sites like ancestry.com and others have "stuff" that is simply amazing. The field is opening wide and fast. The advent of sites like familysearch.org is making the quest more accessible every day.

= Getting to the sources =

While the internet can provide various different clues and "roadmaps," nothing is better than getting the "lay of the land" first-hand. With that, I've dedicated, since 2006, at least one week every year to return to the "stomping grounds" of my early American ancestors. While Pennsylvania is definitely an area which comprises much of my ahnentafel, so also do other seaboard states: New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina are all areas of needed exploration for me.

Old musty courthouse "dungeons," disrepaired and overgrown cemeteries, and even city fountains and various war memorials contain the information that I continue to discover. And, let's not forget old churches. All of these are part of me, my background, my story as an old-school American family member.

And so, I've had to expand the research trips (which are part of my annual vacation from "real work" time) to 2 week ventures.

= Beyond personal family research =

I enjoy "the hunt." I enjoy helping others enjoy the hunt. With that in mind I'm now looking to begin to establish myself within the field, not only as a credible personal family researcher, but as a reputable investigator for others. If you think I might be able to help you in your quest, please feel free to contact me via the information I've provided on my profile here.

skadj@yahoo.com works