These came to me by e-mail after I put the page up in June. I've trimmed some for length and fixed nothing
else. On genealogy lists you sign with your name and the surnames you're researching, in capitals, so that
anyone chasing the same family can find you. Everyone asked to be signed that way here, so I've kept it.
Sheldon would have liked that. It was how he found half of the people he helped.
If he did a look-up for you and you'd like to add something, write
me. — Eileen
I worked thirty-eight years on the railroad myself, as a brakeman and then a conductor, so the first time I
saw "73" at the bottom of one of Sheldon's messages I knew exactly who I was dealing with. We
traded railroad stories for four years in between look-ups. He found my grandfather Schiff in the 1910 census on
a homestead in eastern Montana that nobody in my family knew existed. He found it, he told me, because he
recognized the name of the siding where the family got its mail. He'd sent train orders through it in 1951.
Robert Engelbrecht, Grand Island, Nebraska
Researching SCHIFF, WISNER
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My great-aunt went west to homestead in 1912 and my family lost track of her completely. We didn't know if
she'd married, or died, or come home. Sheldon found her in the 1920 census, a widow running a claim near the
North Dakota line with four children under ten. He typed up the whole household and then added a note at the
bottom: [she must have been quite a woman]. She was. We have found her grandchildren since. One of them
lives forty minutes from me.
Diana Scarlett, Knoxville, Tennessee
Researching HOLLANDSWORTH, HEDRICK
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My grandfather came to Butte from China in the 1890s and ran a laundry. For years I couldn't find him in any
census because nobody, including me, could guess how an enumerator in 1900 would have spelled a Chinese name.
Sheldon went through the whole Chinese section of Butte line by line, two reels, and sent me every possible
match with the ages and dates of arrival, nine households in all. The fourth one was my grandfather. He never
once suggested it was too much trouble. He said it was the most interesting week he'd had since he retired.
Raul Chang, San Jose, California
Researching CHANG, NAVARRO
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My people were Germans from Russia, who came to the Dakotas and Montana from the German villages along the
Volga and the Black Sea. In the census they are listed as born in Russia and speaking German, which confuses
everybody. Sheldon didn't know a thing about them when I first wrote. Two weeks later he'd read up on the whole
history at the library and sent me a list of the counties where they had settled and which reels to start with.
He was sixty-five and he was still learning every single day.
Bobbie Litchfield, Bismarck, North Dakota
Researching BRANDENBURG, BERNER
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Sheldon couldn't find my family. He sent me a long, careful list of everything he had checked and apologized,
and I thanked him and forgot about it. A month later I got another message from him, out of the blue. It had
bothered him, he said, and he had kept looking on his own time. The little town they lived in sat right on a
county line, and the enumerator for the next county over had counted half of it. There they were. I hadn't asked
him to keep looking. He just did.
Sheryl Dejesus, New Britain, Connecticut
Researching BERARDI, MUCHA
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The genealogist in our house was my husband, not me. He sent Sheldon a request in the fall of 1997 and died
suddenly that November, before the answer came. When Sheldon's reply arrived, I wrote back to tell him why there
would be no thank-you. He wrote me the kindest letter I received from anyone that winter, and then he finished
the whole line my husband had been working on, four generations, and sent it to me printed out by mail, so I
could give it to our children. I've since joined the list myself. I'm not very good at this yet. But I'm trying.
Elizabeth Hardin, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Researching McDANIELS, PRICE
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We were nearly the same age and both grew up in the Depression, so our letters wandered. I told him about my
father losing the farm and he told me about riding the train to his first depot job with a cardboard suitcase.
I believe I'm the only person on the list who ever got his home address, because I insisted on sending him a jar
of huckleberry jam every August. Every year he sent back a picture postcard of the Billings rimrocks with
"73" on the back and nothing else. I have five of them. I'll keep making the jam.
Mary Morgan, Spokane, Washington
Researching JOURDAN, HARGER
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A note from Sheldon's daughter
Eileen asked if I'd like to add something. I didn't really understand what Dad was doing all those mornings
until I posted that message in May and the letters started coming. When I cleaned out his desk I found three
fat binders next to the computer. He had printed out every thank-you note anybody ever sent him, and three-hole
punched them, and filed them by state. I read them all one weekend. I want you to know he kept them, every one,
and that they meant the world to him. Thank you for the reader. I went and sat at it in August and cried in the
library, which he would have found very embarrassing.
Jo Lehner, Missoula, Montana
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