A big thank you to everyone who sent in your best reference question - there were 28 submissions, and 395 total votes for the four finalists. At the end, it was close - the winner got 30% of the vote, and second place got 27%.

And the winner is: Erin Apostolos!

Here's her winning entry again:

I had a genealogy question from a patron who lives locally. She has an alabaster stone on her property that says "Mary E." born 1910 died (date is lost) wife of Peter E. Hadley. She wanted to know when Mary had died and what her story was. I was able to find their marriage info and find them on the census in Goffstown, NH but Mary disappeared by 1870 so I assumed she died between 1860-1870. I poured through our genealogy books at the library but did not find her or her husband.

After exhausting our genealogy databases, I googled Mary and Peter. After looking around a bit I found this link: http://www.hadleyfamily.us/album/album.html If you scroll about halfway down, you will find a picture of Mary Cochran Hadley, dead in her coffin with her date of birth and death! My jaw just dropped when I found this. In all my years of doing genealogy, I have never found a subject in such a state! What a find. The patron was absolutely thrilled. I was able to connect her with the man who had created the family's Website.

This was by far my favorite reference question and answer!

If you're interested, be sure to read all 28 contest entries.

For her prize, Erin wins a custom-imprinted six-pack of Jones Soda, with the Swiss Army Librarian logo on the label. She, and the other three finalists, also each get a cool Swiss Army Librarian sticker.

Thank you again to everyone who participated, and especially for reading my website. I hope everyone has as much fun with this as I do.

Posted under Uncategorized on Saturday, November 2nd, 2013 at 9:54 am, by Brian Herzog. Post and comments available via the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.