Coming Around Full Circle

My first blog post on LongLostRelatives.net was on Sunday, December 13, 2009. I had written blogs before and knew of their ability to show up in online search results. That is the reason I started the blog - because I wanted to see if some long lost relatives might find the blog and be able to provide some missing information for my family tree.

That first blog post was titled Obituary for Evelyn Gibbons of Atlantic, Iowa. She was the former Evelyn Bellinger, daughter of Henry Bellinger and Alvena Johansen. She was my mother's first cousin. I had found a listing in the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) for Evelyn Gibbons, but I wanted to confirm that this was the same person as my family member. An obituary was needed.

In March of 2011, her great granddaughter discovered the blog post and left a message confirming some information. The obituary, however, was still elusive.

Until yesterday.

I was at the Omaha Public Library yesterday for a talk by my friend, Gail Blankenau, and had planned a few lookups to do in the Genealogy Room on the third floor of the W. Dale Clark Library. I grabbed the "Gi -" card catalog of Omaha area obituaries and there it was - Evelyn's obituary - at long last.

Evelyn Bellinger Gibbons' Obituary
Omaha World Herald
March 27, 1995
Omaha Public Library

I snapped a photograph of the obituary, then used an iPhone app called Genius Scan, to create the following image:

Evelyn's obituary as seen by Genius Scan

The card catalog also had obituaries for Evelyn's two sons, John and Bernie Lee. I had previously discovered the obituary for her husband, Clifton.

At last, there is some closure to my very first blog post.

The link to this post is http://longlostrelatives-smp.blogspot.com/2012/08/coming-around-full-circle.html