Doing the Family History Happy Dance!

Charlie Brown (of the comic strip "Peanuts") used to say that "Happiness is a warm puppy!" I beg to disagree! Happiness is finding out that a new source THAT YOU NEED has been digitized and is available at FamilySearch.org. A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for something altogether different when I saw a listing for Pennsylvania, County Marriages 1885-1950. That would fit my grandparents, a bunch of aunts, uncles and probably a partridge in a pear tree! I was excited!

I bravely typed in my grandfather's name, Peter William Brunski, and this is what I was rewarded with:

This is the scanned original of my grandparents marriage license docket, complete with parent's names and places of birth! For the parent's place of birth, it also gave me a clue as to where they were born. Because Lithuania has been independent for very short periods of it's history, the documents that I find either say Russia or Poland as a birthplace. This was helpful to me to see that they considered themselves born in Russia. Although my great grandfather was dead at this time, my great grandmother was still alive and could have provided this information (I'm assuming). Not perfect, but pretty close!

Another example:

This application for Marriage License is for my Uncle Pete and Aunt Theresa! I got lucky in that it is even typed! I didn't have Aunt Theresa's parents names or their birthplaces. I also didn't know where exactly they were married. This document provides lots of info for me! Happy, happy!

By the time I got done searching in this database, I had 22 marriage-related documents for my extended family. I have never hit big like this! What a wonderful day! Thanks FamilySearch.org and your great team of volunteers!