Falling Back into Research...Ralph J. Burcham

 So, it is February 5th, how is that possible? I had ideas of what I would accomplish in January and truth be told the month unfolded with whatever needed to happen, all part of my surrender. Now, I am starting to review my research and get organized because it is a mere 2 months before I am off to Washington State to continue my research about the Washington State Archives. So, I open my notes and decide to research the state archivist Ralph J. Burcham.

What follows is typical when doing research on anything whether it is a research project or genealogy, you follow something and it isn't exactly what you were looking for, but it is just so interesting. I decided to start by plugging Ralph Burcham into the Washington State Digital Archives. I am met with several hits, including census, death, cemetery, institution, school census, and birth. I am sure I have found my Ralph Burcham based on notes I already have and the death certificate from 1963, but I cannot help but look at the census and the institution records to find another Ralph J. Burcham with a totally different life trajectory.

It is interesting to research someone with the same name when you know it isn't the same person, but very frustrating if you go off and research the wrong person only to discover it hours later, days later, or months later. Sometimes in genealogy this is near impossible to avoid, and with the advent of online records, this can happen more often that you may think.

Could they be related? Maybe? but my Ralph J. Burcham was born in 1924 and died at the age of 39 in 1963. Is Burcham a common name? Common enough that Ralph J. Burcham from the mug shot was father to another Ralph Burcham - but my Ralph Burcham was born in Ohio and not Washington State. He was born to a father named Ralph Burcham as well. 

I loved the idea that these two men shared the same name and spent time in Washington State for two very different reasons and two different time periods. I did think it would have been cool to link the two in some way, but definitely did not have the time to research all of that out. I merely chuckled at the distraction as is often the case with research, you find things that you wish you had time to dig into more, but have to stay focused on the task at hand. I also thought about how it would have been to research these two men just 10 or 15 years ago - less records online and lots more trip planning that needed to include a trip to the Archives or Library versus a little trip to Ancestry.com, Newspapers.com and the Digital Archives all from the comfort of my home in my pjs.