Bill & LaVonne Lee
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The
Baseball Necrology
ACHENBACH
AUGHENBAUGH and AUGHINBAUGH 
HAPNER in the West
143 pages, double-columned, every-name index, softcover (8 1/2 X 11) 2004.
The four W's of family history are Who did it? What did they do? When and Where did they do it? These four W's are covered in detail in HAPNER in the West for the states listed below. This book is not a family history, as such, for any specific HAPNER family, but most assuredly could provide some missing links to your particular HAPNER, or related families. As a matter of fact, relationships can be found for almost every HAPNER found in this book as the HAPNERs disbursed across the country. This material was gathered by the Lee's during a ten-year search throughout the Western United States (from Ohio to the Pacific Ocean) for information on the name HAPNER. This book is the next best thing to actually going to each of hundreds of county courthouses to research the records yourself.
The HAPNERs were among the earliest settlers in Ohio and Indiana, settling in Preble County, Ohio, as early as 1805 and in Elkhart County, Indiana, in the 1830s. From these early times this same family fanned out across the West, and can be found in almost every Western state. A link to these early settlers can be found for almost every HAPNER documented in HAPNER in the West, extending over 200 years and eight generations.
Records in this book include, literally, every county in the states of Arizona, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. Only selected counties in Ohio and Indiana were searched, but a large portion of the information in this book does come from those two states. Information in California includes only records furnished in the California State Health Department Marriage and Death Registries for the period of 1940 to 1992. Only a few counties were searched in the states of Oklahoma and Illinois.
Be sure to inform other HAPNER researchers who would like to benefit from this easy to use, informative book, and keep in mind that HAPNER in the West would make an outstanding gift for any HAPNER family tree researcher.
The cost of HAPNER in the West is $24.95, including shipping and handling. You may order directly from the Lee's by clicking Order Form, printing and completing the form, and sending with a check or money order to:
P O Box 321
La Feria TX 78559
All orders will be sent via USPS Media Mail
Introduction To
HAPNER in the West
LaVonne's maternal grandmother was a HAPNER. In 1987 she and her husband,
Bill Lee, began traveling from county to county in the Western states,
doing research on a number of family names, HAPNER among them. The end
result has been a great deal of information accumulated on HAPNERs from
county records, libraries and directories. Wishing to share this
information with others who are interested in HAPNER history, we
have published this indexed book.
In gathering information for HAPNER in the West we have searched for records involving HAPNERs in literally every
county in the states of Arizona, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North
Dakota, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and
Wyoming. In these states we searched marriage records, civil and criminal
court records, probate records, birth and death records (where available
and open to the public) and military discharge recordings for any occurrence
of the name HAPNER. In any of the states listed above, if a county is
missing it is because we found no HAPNER records there.
In California we
used records furnished on microfiche by the State Department of Health for
death information from 1940 to 1988 and for marriage information from 1960
to 1988. We supplemented this death information with Social Security
records provided by the federal government. (Aren't the so-called public
and private record laws a joke as one wanders from one jurisdiction to
another.) Even though the California state-provided records are only
skeletal in content, the full records are available at the respective
county recorder's offices, and open to the public, depending upon each
county's administrative procedures and rules.
In Oklahoma and Illinois
only a few counties were searched, so information from these states is
sparse, at best.
Then we get to Indiana and Ohio where a large portion of the
information in HAPNER in the West was gathered. In Indiana we searched
marriage, court, probate, birth and death records for HAPNERs in Brown,
Carroll, Dubois, Elkhart, Fountain, Henry, Huntington, Kosciusko, Lake,
Noble, Parke, Vermillion, Wabash, Warren, Wayne and Whitley counties. Once
again, if any of these counties is missing from the book it is because
we did not find any HAPNER records there. Information from any Indiana
counties that are not listed above probably came from the WPA record
extracts made in the 1930s and is only skeletal in nature.
In Ohio the
only county we worked in was Preble County where a gold mine of
information was available. There we exhausted the marriage and probate
records and have some birth, death and court records, but not to any
degree of completion. There is much more research left to be done in
Preble County and in nearby Darke and Montgomery counties where,
unfortunately, time did not allow us to do more. There is a wealth of
HAPNER information in these three counties that is not included in this
book. Before leaving the description of Ohio records, it must be
mentioned that death record information from 1909 until the early 1940s
was gathered from death certificates controlled by the state Department of
Health and available at the State Historical Society Library in Columbus.
Even though we recognize the genealogical value of these records, we did
not include land records in this book because of the volume of this
type record. We also did not include court records from anything but the
highest court in a jurisdiction. Records in city courts and lower county
courts are too voluminous and contain such things as minor (and some not
so minor) traffic violations. Not only does searching these records take
an inordinate amount of time and book space, the maintenance of these
records is inconsistent from one jurisdiction to another, and are often
not available. However, the presence of HAPNERs in a particular area can
be determined from the records we have included in the book, and
further research in a specific area can be performed if one desires.
The
book is divided into four main sections. The first section contains
selected articles from local histories and newspapers (mostly obituaries).
These are copied verbatim except in a few instances where we felt
compelled to correct atrocious grammar (ours isn't that perfect either,
but occasionally we had to interfere) or obvious errors in content. These articles are presented chronologically by date of publication.
The
second section contains abstracts of county records from each county where
we did research. This section is in order alphabetically by county within
state postal code, with the exception of California where we have
abbreviated San to S and Santa to Snta, which confuses the record
sequencing somewhat - but you can figure it out. Within each county we
have presented marriage records first, court records next, then probate
records, military discharge recordings, births and, lastly, deaths. Each
group is in chronological order by date of occurrence or date of
recording. On occasion you will discover the same person married two or
more times in the marriage records, then later in the book, the person's
divorce in the court records. Then still later his or her birth record.
Obviously, the birth occurred first, and the divorce actually happened
between the two marriages that appeared earlier, but appears afterward
because of the grouping of the records.
The next section of the book
contains directory information - street address and phone number. We make
no claims that these names include every HAPNER living in the country, or
that the names, addresses or phone numbers are current. We only hope that
the listings, which we took from switchboard.com on the internet, are
relatively accurate. This section is presented alphabetically by name
within city within state.
The last section of the book is the index.
Our index is, literally, an every name index, and then some. Every person
in the book is indexed, including both the married name and pre-married
name for brides, making the assumption that the bride has followed the
traditional custom of taking the husband's surname. We have also indexed
the maiden name and married name of those women where both names are
obvious. Some examples: Susannah HAPNER married Charles
LOCK. We indexed
Susannah under both HAPNER and LOCK. Michael HAPNER married Jane
BITTLE.
Jane is indexed under both HAPNER and BITTLE. George M HAPNER's parents
were Thomas HAPNER and Henrietta CONNER. Henrietta is indexed under both
CONNER and HAPNER.
A few words need to be said about research at county
courthouses. First, a researcher is totally at the mercy of the personnel
working in the various courthouses. Some counties have personnel who are
both knowledgeable and helpful, while other counties have personnel who
are neither. The norm is somewhere between these two extremes. We have
been in courthouses that were so enjoyable that we hated to leave, and
in others where we were sorry we ever went. Research of our public records
is a challenge! Secondly, the quality and content of county records vary
widely from one jurisdiction to another and also over time. In general,
the counties included in this booklet had reasonably good records, but a
marked difference can be seen in the content of marriage records from the
earlier times to more recent times. In a few cases we were denied access
to records, some for valid legal reasons, others because of
misinterpretation of a law or clerk indifference, or sometimes because the
record in question could not be found. These are indicated in the book.
We have made every effort to report the data as we saw it. However, some
of the source material is sometimes in error, and other times difficult to
interpret. In some instances the same name is spelled differently on the
same form (for instance HAPNER and HEPNER), and there are occasions where
someone is obviously the same person, but has a different name from one record to
another. We have made some effort to correct these discrepancies when we
recognize them, but there are times that we did not know which name was
correct. Some examples - BEEVER, BEVER or BEAVER and
LOCKE or LOCK. There
are also times where we have introduced errors in transcription of the
data, although we have attempted to minimize this type error. Some of the
records list a great deal of information, others very little. We have
attempted to report all the information contained in the original records. Some of the court records are subject to individual interpretation. We
are not attorneys, and have only attempted to summarize the content of the
court cases. Any individual interested in more detail on any of these
cases may find the case files available to the public(?) at the indicated
county courthouse by requesting the specified case number.
As mentioned above, we have done a great deal of
research on family names that have a connection to LaVonne's family. The
names on her mother's side of the family, and consequently those somewhat
related to the HAPNERs, are HOSHAW, JUDAY, and OTT. We have a great deal
of information on these names and have the book JUDAY and JUDY in
the Pacific Northwest available and are currently working on
HOSHAW and HUSHAW in the West. In the future we will be compiling booklets similar to
HAPNER in the West for the names JUDY/JUDAY and
OTT. Anyone interested in
these names should not hesitate to let us know and we will keep you
informed of our progress on these exciting projects. In the meantime we
thank you for your interest in our publications, and please let others
know about us.
Finally, we want to thank the many people who have helped
make this booklet possible. First has to be the many fine citizens in the
states covered who provided services to us during our travels. Those
people include RV park proprietors and employees, service station
operators, restaurateurs, and in general, all the fine people we had the
privilege of coming in contact with. And we thank all the personnel at the
county courthouses who were most helpful, and those who were not quite as
helpful, as well. It is to this group of people we have entrusted the care
of our county records. These records are probably the most precious gift
of one generation to another.
Bill and LaVonne Lee
La Feria, Texas
March 2004
Return to Top
Return to Purchase
HAPNER Genealogy and Family History at OneGreatFamily.com.
Some helpful Genealogy Websites follow.
Click onto each to view.
HAPNER Genealogy and Family History at mycinnamontoast.com.
HAPNER
Records at Footnote.com.
HAPNER Cemetery Records at Findagrave.com.
HAPNER Cemetery Records at
Interment.net.
HAPNER
at Genealogy Today.
