Timelines, Maps and Collateral Relatives

I have been searching for clues to my Lithuanian ancestry for a few years, but had essentially given up. My grandfather was the only child who had married of his 4 siblings and my mother had been taken from her parents at the age of 5 and placed in foster care.  My g-grandparents had never naturalized and there didn’t seem to be any records that named the Lithuanian town. 

I had deduced that my g-grandmother Salomeja’s maiden name was Markiswiez.  Salomeja’s maiden name is reported on many records as “Morris” and my g-grandfather’s ship manifest reads as follows:

Departure 7 April 1900 from Antwerp Belgium, Arrival 18 April 1900, ship Kensington: Jozef Baltrunas, age 25 male, married, unable to read or write, Russian, Village Prezvi (?) , destination Boston MA, passage paid by brother-in-law.  US contact is a brother-in-law Kaz (or Raz?)  Markiswiez, Boston, MA. 

I had searched for Kaz and my g-grandfather in the 1900 census and Boston city directories previously without any success.

A few months ago, I had posted the following in this blog: 

My Lithuanian relatives (who lived in Pittsfield and Athol, MA) changed their surname from Baltrunas to Billings/Billie/Barton. Children were Anthony, Charles (my grandfather), Ralph and  Connie.

I  found a draft registration card at Ancestry.com dated 12 Sep 1918 for an Anthony George Baltrunas born 20 Apr 1900 listed as living on 289 First Street in Pittsfield, MA.  Birth place is listed as Russia. Nearest relative is listed as Anthony Gaston also of 289 First Street.  

I had sort of dismissed this record as being my Lithuanian G-Uncle. The ship manifest of “Anton” and his mom, dated April 1902, listed him as being 36 months of age, thus born in 1899. The family disappeared from the Pittsfield city directories in 1918 and began to appear in Athol, MA directories – I assumed that he moved with the family. I didn’t have the Gaston’s as a related surname. Not to mention that Anthony’s father arrived at Ellis Island on 7 April 1900, meaning he would have left behind a wife who was ready to deliver any day!!

But…  The 1930 Pittsfield census has a Charles Billings, single, age 25, born in MA, both parents born in Lithuania, listed as a boarder at 387 Draper Avenue at the home of Anthony Gaston, age 52, born in Lithuania and wife Ann, age 46, born in Lithuania.

I had saved this census record, but wasn’t all that sure that this was my grandfather (since in 1930, according to my mother he was living in Athol, MA).

It wasn’t until I began to transcribe records and look at neighbors that I realized both men were living with an Anthony Gaston…  With a bit of research I confirmed that this was the same Anthony Gaston and thus concluded that the draft registration and 1930 census record were that of my ancestors!

At that time, I forwarded this new revelation to my 75-year-old mother and asked if she had even heard of a Gaston family. My mother who previously swore that she had no other information on the family, said that she didn’t know of a Gaston family, but she suddenly recalled that she had a letter from a cousin:

Mrs. Blanche McKeever, 23 Williamsburg, Pittsfield Ma. 01201

Sept. 8. 1974

Dear Betty,

I’m awfully sorry I didn’t write sooner but I guess it’s better late than never.  What I wanted to tell you how sad I am about your aunt Connie passing away so suddenly.  She was a very dear friend and cousin of mine and I miss her very much.  I often think of her and I miss her letters.

The last letter I got from her was a week before she died. Betty I never found out what she died of.

I know she had terrible headaches but otherwise I guess she was all right.  She was very closed mouth and never complained.  She hated to see doctors.

I was very sorry that no one could get in touch with you at the time of her death.  Mrs. Martin (her landlord) found my address on Connie’s table that’s why she called me.  Connie never told me where you lived or I would have got a hold of you.  It was awful.  I didn’t know what to do.  Well any way it’s all over.  I hope that everything is settled.  I understand she had a brother in Boston, that was news to me.

Betty if you have the time would you please write and let me know how everything was settled and about her brother.  I hope that you come in on the settlement.

I know Connie always said that the only one she cared for was her niece Betty that’s all she said. as far as your sister and brother she never mentioned them.  I hope Betty that you and I can keep in touch once in a while so please write.

Love,  Daisy

A bit of research using  Ancestry.com, MA vital records and online copies of the “The Berkshire Eagle”, revealed that Daisy was the daughter of Anthony and Anna Gaston.  The same family with whom my g-uncle and grandfather resided!

I reconstructed the family using these sources and discovered a number of living people - some using the surname Gaston, others using Gasson.  I began to write letters. 

I did a quick search on Facebook which revealed a Mitt Gasson living in Pittsfield, MA, I couldn’t figure out how or if he fit into my tree, but it was worth a shot, so I wrote to him as well. 

The next morning, I rose to the following Facebook response:

• LINDA…I’M DAISY’S SON…CONNIE WAS MY MOTHER’S COUSIN…MY GRAND FATHER WAS ANTHONY GASSON…IBELIEVE MY GRANDMOTHER WAS RELATED TO YOUR GRANDFATHER CHARLES…SHE PAST ON IN 1935… I NEVER KNEW HER…THESE RELATIVES YOU ARE ASKING ABOUT ARE PAST ON…MY TEL. IS xxx-xxx-xxxx. I’M 75 YEARS OLD…I HAVE A LOT OF STORIES …MILTON S. GASSON

Turns out that Daisy had a child out-of-wedlock!!  (which is why Mitt has the Gasson surname).

My husband and I had already planned a research/hiking trip in the Berkshires.  According to Mapquest, we would be staying 8 miles from Mitt’s home!

Mitt invited us for dinner.  It was a wonderful evening!  I had homemade Lithuanian food for the first time in my life and although Mitt couldn’t remember many of the names, he recalled sleeping on Aunt Connie’s floor in Athol, MA., as a child, when they went to visit the Lithuanian relatives (who all loved Lithuanian homemade beer).  He shared stories of his mother and grandfather and of his own life, he passed on some old photos.  We stayed for hours. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure how Daisy and Connie were related.  He thought that it was through his grandmother Anna.

I discovered that Mitt’s grandparents were married in Pittsfield, and not in Lithuania.  A quick search on the NEHGS site reveal a marriage record:

October 29, 1906, Pittsfield

Antanas Gasiunos (age 26) married Anna Wishnewski (age 19)

The groom’s father is Andors Gariunos, his mother is Regina Kiarshauski

The bride’s father is Dominikas Wishnewski, her mother is Elizbista Morkiewich (pretty close to my g-grandmother’s maiden name).

Antanas is listed as a Machinest Helper living at 87 Madison Ave and Anna is listed as Housework  living at 29 Alder Street.

My Lithuanian family was living on 87 Madison Ave that particular year.  So perhaps my ancestor’s “fixed up” the couple, or we are related to both Anna and Anthony or the town clerk mixed up the addresses and Anna was really the one living at 87 Madison (which might be what occurred, since Anthony Gaston’s ship manifest refers to a brother on Alder Street).

Long story short, the next day I stopped by the Pittsfield library and collected naturalization records for several Gasson’s.  Anna is listed on her husband Anthony’s records as being born in Pumpenai, Pasvalys, Lithuania.

I hadn’t searched for Kaz (listed as my g-grandfather’s brother-in-law on the manifest) in some time, so I tried again.   Someone had recently posted a gravestone photo of Kazimeras and Magdalena Morkevicius in an Athol, MA cemetery!!!   I found the couple in the Athol census records and located birth records for their children.  Kazimeras was also called Charles in some of the documents.

I then found a single Kazimeras (under the name Charles) Morris living in South Boston with a brother Raphael Morris.  In the next census year, I find Kazimeras to be married and residing in Athol, MA.  I have yet to find a marriage records for Kazimeras (which I am hoping once found, will name his parents, thus giving me the names of my g-g-grandparents….)

A few days later I discover a naturalization record on Footnote.com for Raphael Morris’ son.  Place of birth – Pumpenai, Pasvalys, Lithuania. We have a match!!

So it appears that I FINALLY have a town for one of my g-grandparents!!

The lessons?  There are lots.  But to name a few:

1. Always go back and review records that you collected long ago, as you might have missed a clue.

2. Create a time line and plot on a map where each of your relatives were living and with whom they were living each year. I should have discovered Kaz in Athol a long time ago, since that is where my g-grandmother resided after her husband died!! Look at siblings, neighbor’s, cousins and roommates.

3. Keep asking your relatives if they are sure that they told you everything (interestingly after I shared Mitt’s photos with my mother, she suddenly remembered that she had taken a stack of photos from my aunt Connie’s apartment when she cleaned it out after her death - most were unmarked, but a few have given me more clues and one was of my g-grandmother Salomeja!!)

4. Join Facebook?!?!? 

Just in case ”cousins” out there comes across this post, here is a summary of information related to my g-grandmother and three others who I believe to be her siblings:

SEEKING MORKIEWICH/ MARKISVICH/MORRIS:

Morkiewich is either Markevic^ius or Morkevic^ius in Lithuanian. The Polish ending “-wicz” (often rendered in English as “-vitz”, “-wich”, “-vich”, “-vage”, etc.) is “-vic^ius” in Lithuanian. The ending “-ski” becomes “-skas” in Lithuanian, which does not use the letter “w” but “v” instead.

1. Salomeja /Seleomije  (Sally):  b. about 1869, arrived Ellis Island 22 April 1902, resided Pittsfield and Athol, Massachusetts, d. 5 March 1938, married Joseph BALTRUNAS/BILLIE/BILLINGS;
2. Kazimieras/Kazys  (Charles) b. Mar 1871, immigrated about 1895, resided South Boston and Athol, Massachusetts, d. 1924, married Magdelena/Maggie BLANDENZA/BINDINSKO.
3. Rapolas or Rafaelas or even Ralfas (Raphael/Ralph):  b. 15 Dec 1873, immigrated about 1900, resided South Boston, Massachusetts d. about 1954, married Anastasia MACKAY;  
4. Elizbista: married Dominykas WISHNEWSKI (birth/death , immigration information unknown);

Linda Hall-Little, PO Box 132, Jackson, NH 03846; e-mail:LLittle62@roadrunner.com

Happy Hunting!!

Don’t Overlook the Local Historical Society

I spent a few hours at the local Jackson Historical Society this past Sunday photographing some of the pieces which will be included in the annual White Mountain Art Show and Sale.

Jackson, New Hampshire is a small town of 800 residents and a popular tourist destination, with a rich historic past dating  from the late 1700′s.

Warren Schomaker, now 86 years young, is President of the town’s Historical Society.  It is his passion.  He wears every imaginable hat – fundraiser, grant writer, record keeper, landscaper, docent, etc.   For this, he receives no salary.  Although future plans may include a paid employee, today there are only volunteers; few in number.

I tell you this, because many of the small towns where your ancestors lived are just like our small town. 

The Jackson Historical Society has boxes and boxes and boxes of records. Some are related to town business (such as selectman meeting minutes, which name residents who spoke at meeting or brought an item up for discussion at a meeting). Others are filled with old family papers, scrapbooks, diaries and photos; donations from Jackson families, many of whom have resided in the town for generations.

Some points (which I would guess apply to most small Historical Societies):

- The Historical Society is advertised as being open 9-4 on Saturdays but, I believe Warren would be thrilled to meet you there at any time day or night to give you a tour.  In most Historical Societies there will be someone like Warren.

-  Although there is an index of records online http://www.jacksonhistory.org/collection.html, it is not all-inclusive and does not do justice to this vast collection, as is the case with many understaffed organizations with limited funding.

- Warren will tell you that Alice Warwick Pepper is the town historian.  She has boxes of Jackson  records stored in her home and has written a book tracing the genealogy of the first Jackson families http://www.jacksonhistory.org/merchandise.html - she would be thrilled to tell you all about your ancestors. I have found that most small towns do have someone who has been deemed the town historian either formally or informally.

- Warren will tell you which families in town are unwilling to turn over their historic papers for preservation and have instead chosen to retain documents that span many generations in their private homes.  He may even give you their phone numbers.

- Warren will not be able to look through all of the boxes for your personal family records.  Not that he is unwilling, but there are thousands of records.  Warren is not a genealogist.  His dream is to establish a world-class museum for the White Mountain School of Art Paintings within the edifice of our Historical Society.  To find your ancestors in these records, you may want to make a personal visit or hire a local professional genealogist to perform a search for you. 

- If the Historical Society or Historian were to help you, be sure to offer a donation or become a member of their society.  Without public donations and memberships many of these societies would cease to exist. 

- Will these records be available on-line someday?  Perhaps.  It takes volunteers.  There are numerous volunteer opportunities in Mount Washington Valley, so many that the volunteers are stretched thin.  Warren mentioned that he had tried to organize such a project, but his volunteers lost interest after a few weeks….

- My family is not from Jackson.  We vacationed here as children.  If I were to die tomorrow, besides making sure that all 8 of my g-grandparents down to my siblings are named in my obituary (including middle and maiden names), my husband has been instructed to donate all of my records.  My husband is not a genealogist.  He would in all probability donate my collection to the Jackson Historical Society.  My ancestors were primarily from Massachusetts, New York, Canada, Rhode Island, France, Wales and Lithuania.

What future researcher would ever think to look in the Jackson, New Hampshire Historical Society for these records?  I never had children of my own, so in all probability, no one. Just another reminder that you never can tell where records mentioning your family might be found.  Yet another reason to spend time searching for those collateral relatives.

OTHER HISTORICAL SOCIETIES

My husband’s childhood was spent in Pelham, NH.  This Historical Society has an extensive online collection: tax records, graveyard inscriptions, church records and vital records, just to name a few.  

Their site: http://www.pelhamnhhistory.org/ 

Click on the link that reads “HAYES-GENOTER HISTORY AND GENEALOGY ON-LINE LIBRARY” (http://www.pelhamnhhistory.org/library/onlinelibrary.html)

Then select “Aunt Molly’s Scrapbook” http://www.pelhamnhhistory.org/library/onlinelibrary_scrapbook.html  Aunt Molly was the town librarian beginning in 1892 at the age of 18.  For 65 years she collected newspaper articles related to Pelham families and events and pasted them in a scrapbook for the library patrons to view.  The earliest scrapbook pages pre-date 1892.

Amazing stuff.

The state of Maine has the “Maine Memory Network”.  This allows smaller historical societies to upload their collections eliminating the expense of building and maintaining a web presence  http://www.mainememory.net/ (list of contributing societies: http://www.mainememory.net/user/search_CP.shtml).

Have you visited your local historical society in the town where you are currently living?  If not, stop by…  Ask to see their collection.   Before you visit, find a family tree on the internet naming a family who resided in your town in the late 1800′s/early 1900′s.  See what you can find.  Surprise the tree owner with your findings. 

Use Google to search online for historical societies in cities & towns of your ancestors’ homes.  What do they have online?  Call them, visit and share your stories!

Happy Hunting!!

The People Closest to You and a FREE Military Record

As genealogists and family historians, we tend to focus on documenting the lives of our g-grandparents, gg-grandparents, etc.  We sometimes neglect our own parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents. 

At a minimum, you should secure birth, marriage and death records for these folks (you will need them for your immediate line if you ever plan to join an organization such as DAR, SAR, Mayflower Society, etc.) 

For those with parents, uncles and grandparents who were in the US Military, the following record may be of interest.

Did you know that most veterans and their next-of-kin can obtain FREE copies of their DD Form 214 (Report of Separation) and other military and medical records at NARA?

Military personnel files are stored at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
http://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records/get-service-records.html

 https://vetrecs.archives.gov/VeteranRequest/home.asp

The NARA website provides a list of the information included on the DD Form 214:

• Date and place of entry into active duty
• Home address at time of entry
• Date and place of release from active duty
• Home address after separation
• Last duty assignment and rank
• Military job specialty
• Military education
• Decorations, medals, badges, citations, and campaign awards
• Total creditable service
• Foreign service credited
• Separation information (type of separation, character of service, authority and reason for separation, separation and re-enlistment eligibility codes)

I submitted a request and received the form (image below) within 3 weeks.  My neighbor wasn’t so lucky, she was informed that her dad’s record was destroyed in the fire and could not be recreated: http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2005/spring/spotlight-nprc.html

Surviving a Fire

A fire on July 12, 1973, left the top floor of the military personnel records facility in ruins. This floor had contained some 22 million personnel folders, filed alphabetically, for U.S. Army personnel discharged from 1912 through 1959 and of the U.S. Air Force discharged from September 1947 through 1963. At the time of the fire, one-third of the air force records already had been relocated and thus saved, but overall, fewer than 4 million records were recovered, either entirely or with as little as one identifiable document. A subsequent renovation included frequent firewalls within the storage areas as well as a comprehensive sprinkler system.

Since 1973, NPRC has obtained alternative sources of documents to verify the dates of individual military service and the character of separation for many of the veterans whose files were destroyed. Among these are final pay records, enlistment registers from induction stations, an index of World War II service numbers and dates they were assigned, morning reports, unit rosters, and discharge orders. Many state and federal agencies, particularly the Department of Veterans Affairs, assist NPRC in the reconstruction effort.

NPRC reconstructs a file only after receiving a request involving that veteran, and even then, replacement of an entire folder is impossible for these one-of-a-kind documents. Medical information is especially difficult to replace. NPRC has provided several million reconstruction replies since the fire, but as the number of living veterans from the affected years declines, so has the volume of requests. Nevertheless, NPRC still processes up to 3,000 reconstruction inquiries each week.

Sharing 10 “Cool” Things (that you may not know about…)

1. Want a copy of a webpage for your files or to attach to your family tree? Use this (free) site to convert a webpage to a .pdf   http://pdfmyurl.com/ .

2. Check out the (free) Chronicling America collection at the Library of Congress website http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/.  Here you will find (indexed) images of newspapers, 1860-1920, for Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington state.

3. http://babelfish.yahoo.com/ is a site I use when I need to translate a couple of words or sentences from or to another language (it has only the most common languages, for example, no Lithuanian). 

I find this helpful when translating documents (such as those found in the French Canadian, Drouin Collection) or when letter writing to foreign repositories.

There is also a section that allows you to enter a URL and it will translate the entire page for you.

4. For those of you with Boston ancestors, this is an interesting site, illustrating how stories may be woven from city directories (it also includes free access to a number of digitized Boston street directories 1845, 1855, 1865, 1870, 1872, 19875, 1885, 1905, and 1925) http://dca.lib.tufts.edu/features/bostonstreets/index.html  fun to check out even if there are no Bostonian’s in your past.

5.  Although Google is (in my opinion) the top search engine, be sure to search for your ancestor’s using other search engines as their algorithms (hence results) may differ:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines

6. Almost all researchers know of the Family History Library, but did you know that the Allen County Public Library has the 2nd largest collection of genealogical records in the USA? http://www.acpl.lib.in.us/genealogy/index.html

7. When searching in Google, the ~  tilde character finds up to 10 synonyms and related words. For example, including ~genealogy (no space) in your surname search will reveal results which include such terms as family tree, ancestors, etc. Stop by the library and pick up a copy of “Google Your Family Tree, Unlock the Hidden Power of Google for Genealogy & Family History” by Daniel M. Lynch for more tips – http://www.googleyourfamilytree.com/

8. As an aid in finding where your ancestor may be buried or which church they many have attended (assuming it still exists), I add the street/city  (from the census or city directory) and then use mapquest or google maps with the word cemetery or church to get a listing of those closest their ancestral homes.

9.  Use the following website to view a variety of demographics collected in the census  years (1790-1960) and “map it” either for the whole country or for particular counties in a state: http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu

10. Go to  http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/search to search 36,886,027 Rootsweb genealogical message board posts (see related post at Genea Musings  http://www.geneamusings.com/search?q=Rootsweb+message+board)

Happy Hunting!!!

Casefile Clues

I am always seeking new ideas to help break through my many “brick walls”. This morning, I came across an interesting link on Genealogy Today http://news.genealogytoday.com

It was a highly positive review of a weekly newsletter called “Casefile Clues”.  I ordered my free sample (by emailing samples@casefileclues.com) which arrived in my inbox (as an automated response) almost immediately.

The response included links to two .pdf sample newsletters and a link which listed past topics. Following was the text included with the response:

“Thank you for your interest in Casefile Clues, a weekly genealogy how-to
newsletter written by Michael John Neill. Casefile Clues is not about the latest
website or database. Instead it focuses on sources, methods, problem-solving,
and analysis.

All research is drawn from personal research Michael has conducted in a wide
variety of states and several foreign countries. Upcoming topics include a
series on metes and bounds deeds in Kentucky, War of 1812 benefit records,
hiring and working with a professional genealogist, problem-solving approaches
on two brick wall ancestors, work with pre-1850 census records, and more.
Casefile Clues covers records and families from across the United States with a
focus on analysis and method that can be applied to problems in a variety of
areas and time periods. We even discuss things that did not work as that too is
an important part of the research process”.

Of course, (as I might have expected)  I was unable to access the .pdf files on my Compaq laptop running on Windows Vista (grrrrrrrrrrr - how I despise Vista!!) even though I have Adobe Acrobat Pro V9.  Michael provides his personal e-mail address in the event that you have questions or can not open the file, I was able to view them on my desktop MAC. 

In the right hand column of Michael’s website, there are a number of positive reviews from some popular bloggers including three of my favorites: DearMyrtle, Dick Eastman and GeneaMusings – http://www.casefileclues.com/2009/09/about-michael.html

I found the samples to be quite thorough and clearly written.  The reader is taken step by step through the research process.  This is a great resource for beginning and intermediate (and even advanced) researchers.  And I think a great deal for the price!

As of this writing, Casefile Clues is available weekly by email subscription for $17 a year (52 issues) or $6.50 for 3 months  – http://www.casefileclues.com/subscribe.html  – You can also purchase back issues at $1.25 each.  It seems that once Michael completes his 52nd issue these will only be available as a full set (so if you want individual copies order them quickly).

OR 

You may wish to take advantage of the offer which he posted on his site Wednesday, August 4th:

“For now until issue 52 comes out, you can get issues 1-52 from Casefile Clues volume 1 and have your subscription good through the end of volume 2 for only $34!”

Before signing up, explore his blog: http://blog.casefileclues.com/  Today I found a paypal link offering subscriptions at $15.00 through October 2010 and a copy of original issues 1-50 for another $15.00…  There are also prices listed for 10 issues. 

You can reach Michael directly at mjnrootdig@gmail.com.

I submitted my subscription request via papypal.  Michael emailed (from his phone) saying that he was out of the office and would get me my first newsletter upon his return.  I few hours later I had it!  Amazing customer service!

Michael also writes a blog entitled “Genealogy Tip of the Day” which I have added to my favorite blogs  -  http://genealogytipoftheday.blogspot.com/

Grandpa’s Sister in the 1900-30 Census – What’s Her Married Name?

For those female siblings who you uncover in the United States 20th century census, and don’t know what became of them, here’s a quick tip.  It doesn’t always work since it assumes that the woman is deceased, that she died after 1962 and she made it into the Social Security Death Index.   But always worth a try!

You will need to know the woman’s birth date.  If you don’t have this information, order her birth certificate (most places had started to require birth certificates by the early 1900′s).  If you are not sure where to find a birth record, search for the city/county in Vital Rec  http://www.vitalrec.com/ 

VitalRec will usually tell you in what year the city/county/state began record collection, the current location of the records (i.e. county clerk’s office) and the cost of ordering the record.

Next, using one of the available Social Security Death Indexes (SSDI), enter the woman’s date of birth and first name:

• Rootsweb’s SSDI, http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi (free index)
• NEHGS http://www.newenglandancestors.org/database_search/ssdi.asp (free index, but their search engine accepts only birth year which will give you more results to weed through).
• Ancestry.com http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=3693 (requires subscription)

This search should give you a pretty short list of possible surname combinations. You could try entering the state of issue (assuming her residence state hadn’t changed since the 1930 census).

You can then  use other research techniques (i.e. look for death records, also using VitalRec as a finding aid) to confirm a match or rule out the individual (s) as an ancestor.

Remember that you can also order a copy of the social security application (SS-5).  It’s a bit pricy, so you may want to confirm that you have the correct person before ordering.  Instructions are outlined in #6 of this prior post: http://passagetothepast.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/learning-from-others/

For those of you who have never ordered a copy of the SS-5, below you can view my g-grandmother Georgianna’s:

Happy Hunting!!

My Education Plan

I am participating in ProGen 8, an 18-month home-study course based on the book Professional Genealogy, edited by Elizabeth Shown Mills. We attend monthly group “online chats”, group members critique each others assignments and we all have access to a “genealogical” mentor who has volunteered to support our group.

This month’s assignment was to pull together our own personal Genealogy Education Plan. I thought that it might be helpful to share some of the items on my list and some things that I have done already to help further my research skills. 

Just as an Accountant or Doctor must keep us with changes in their field, so must a Genealogist. Primarily we gain knowledge  through hands on research experience. But learning is also enhanced by attending conferences and institutes, completing self-directed online (or classroom) based study courses and by reading genealogical books, magazines and other publications. To many of us, learning is a lifelong passion and by the way – as a side benefit –  lifelong learners are believed to have lower incidences of Alzheimer’s Disease.

My three favorite books:

• The Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy, Val D. Greenwood
• Google Your Family Tree, Daniel M. Lynch
• The Family Tree Problem Solver, Proven Method for Scaling the Inevitable Brick Walls,  Marsha Hoffman Rising

Free Online Courses:

• Genealogy.com geared mainly to the beginner: http://www.genealogy.com/university.html
• FamilySearch  (beginner to intermediate) at FamilySearch.org, http://www.familysearch.org/eng/library/education/frameset_education.asp?PAGE=education_research_series_online.asp%3FActiveTab=2
• Brigham Young University (beginner to intermediate) http://ce.byu.edu/is/site/courses/free.cfm
• About.com (beginner) http://genealogy.about.com/library/lessons/blintro.htm
• Board for Certification of Genealogists, skill building columns (free – Intermediate/Advanced) http://www.bcgcertification.org/skillbuilders/index.html and their publication Onboard ($15/annually) http://www.bcgcertification.org/publications/onboard/index.html
• Roots Television (beginner to intermediate) http://www.rootstelevision.com/

Other Online Courses:

• The National Genealogical Society has a number of options  http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/online_courses, they offer free classes to members ($60/year for an individual memberships which includes other benefits – Four issues of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly , and NGS Magazine, Access to the UpFront with NGS blog & a  number of discounts to other courses and conferences.
• The National Genealogical Society- NGS American Genealogy: Home Study Course (graded $495, and ungraded options $315) – I would HIGHLY recommend this course for beginner and intermediate genealogists, it offers a great foundation (NGS recommends that beginners take the online course before enrolling in the home study course).
• Ancestry.com’s Learing Center (beginner to intermediate) http://learn.ancestry.com/Home/HMLND.aspx?cj=1&o_xid=0001029688&o_lid=0001029688 (beginner to intermediate – free with paid subscription).
• NEHGS (http://www.newenglandancestors.org/ (beginner to intermediate – free with paid subscription).

Brick and Mortar

• National Institute on Genealogical Research (NIGR), held 11-16 July 2010 at the National Archives (NARA) in Washington, D.C., and College Park, Maryland, their website describes the course as “an intensive program offering on-site examination of federal records.  Designed for experienced researchers, it is not an introduction to genealogy”. The 2010 course (held July 11th-16th) was $350 – http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~natgenin/
• The Samford Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR) - $445, They describe their offerings as “provides an educational forum for the discovery, critical evaluation, and use of genealogical sources and methodology through a week of intensive study led by nationally prominent genealogical educators.  Students may choose one of the offered courses that range from a course for beginners to courses on specialized topics.” Registration opens in January 2011, and many of the courses are filled within minutes http://www4.samford.edu/schools/ighr/
• Boston University Certificate in Genealogical Research  http://professional.bu.edu/cpe/Genealogy.asp (also available ONLINE) class starting 9/2010 is priced at $2,695, the prerequisites are described as follows: “Some prior genealogical experience will be assumed; the student should have spent a significant amount of time searching for multiple generations of a family through record repositories and online sources, then documenting results. Students are expected to possess basic computer skills, including the ability to use a web browser and word processor. Students should also be able to communicate well in spoken and written English”. I will tell you this class is WELL worth it based on my personal experience!!
• The Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy http://www.infouga.org/index.php?option=2011institute fees for Jan 2011 are $320 (intermediate to advance)

There are lots that I haven’t mentioned.  These are just the ones with which I am familiar (either I have taken them, am in the process of taking them or plan to take them).  Cyndi’s list names many more http://www.cyndislist.com/educate.htm or try a google search on: education ~genealogy

It’s also helpful to read some of the popular blogs – There are 100′s – I list my favorites (to the right of this post) in my blogroll.

It might be fun to attempt to complete the blog series entitled 52 Weeks to Better Genealogy, described as: ” to get all genealogists and family historians – both new to the field as well as the “lifers” – to stretch their brains and examine certain aspects of what some of us pursue as a past time, some as a profession and all as a passion”- http://wetree.blogspot.com/2010/01/52-weeks-to-better-genealogy.html

Magazines and other publications are helpful as well.  Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings posts the table of contents for many of the popular ones so you can pick and choose.  Just search on the words “table of contents” in the search box within his blog: http://www.geneamusings.com/

I regularly read articles in National Genealogical Society Quarterly, New England Historical and Genealogical Register and American Ancestors.  I don’t yet follow Internet Genealogy ($27.95/annually), but it’s recommended by many of my classmates,  they do offer one free online issue http://internet-genealogy.com/InternetGenealogy_Extra.pdf

So what’s the value in reading articles that are unrelated to your own personal genealogical surnames?

1. It helps to improve your own research techniques learning how someone else found that missing record or correlated information to come up with a genealogical conclusion.

2. You learn of sources which you may not have been aware, which may help with the progression of your own family history research.

3. They are a great source for enlightening discussions (blogs too).

4.  It raises your awareness of some of the top genealogists in the field because you have read their work.  This helps when you are deciding whether or not to take a course or which session to attend at a conference – Who are my favorites, you ask?  99% of the courses/presentations that I have attended were WONDERFUL – here are just a few off the top of my head (certainly not an all-inclusive list) – Dr. Thomas W. Jones, D. Joshua Taylor, Elizabeth Shown Mills, Elissa Scalise Powell, Melinde Lutz Sanborn and Jean Nudd…..

This video by Mary Penner taped at the APG Professional Management Conference given in September 2009 on Henry O’Neil will give you an idea of how genealogies written by others might teach you something… https://fch.ldschurch.org/WWSupport/Courses/FGS_2009/The_Bachelor__Reconstructing_a_Solitary_Life_Using/Player.html

Last but not least, volunteer!  Helping to transcribe records or find records in different repositories “pays it forward” and helps to improve your skills – see my related post: http://passagetothepast.wordpress.com/2010/07/03/genealogy-volunteering/

Happy Hunting!!

Abstracts and Indexes as a Source?

One of my many brick walls is the identity of Lt. Brian Hall’s parents.  Brian is my 7th g-grandfather who’s service to our country has bestowed upon me the honor of being accepted to the Daughter’s of the American Revolution Society.

The First Book of Raynham (MA) Records (Raynham is in Bristol County), 1700–1835 (Online database: NewEnglandAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2003), (Handwritten unpublished transcription, transcriber unknown, “First Book of Raynham Records,” donated to NEHGS in 1897) lists his parents as:

Year	Date	Record		Type
1727	July 9	Brian son of John Hall 3d of Taunton & Mary his wife		Birth

 

There is speculation (in unsourced published genealogies) that Brian’s mother was Mary Brettun, granddaughter of Mary (Pendleton) Brettun Cross Morey who was the granddaughter of Brian Pendleton a wealthy Englishman born about 1599. He was one of the early settlers of Watertown and Sudbury, MA and owned quite a bit of land in the Saco area of Maine and Portsmouth New Hampshire.

Mary (Pendleton) Brettun Cross Morey (possibly Brian’s grandmother) left a will.  It is indexed under the name “Marcy Morey” in ”Abstracts of Bristol County, Massachusetts Probate Records, 1687-1745″ H. L. Peter Rounds:

An abstract is a summary of the text of a document, retaining all its essential details.

SCORE!!!!!!!!!!!. right?  Incredible list of names…  Mary Hall is among them.  It doesn’t support the claim that she is my Brian Hall’s mother, but at least it tells us that there was a Mary Hall in this particular family in the right time period and maybe even in Bristol County.

Let’s step back a bit….

As one of Ancestry.com’s Expert Connect providers, I have observed a common theme.  8 times out of 10  the query begins with something like:

“I have tried every search imaginable on Ancestry.com and can not find any records on my family”

or

“I have looked everywhere online and can not find any information on my family.”

In 5 out of 10 cases, when I spend 30 seconds searching (Family Search, Footnote, NEHGS, Google, etc. ) I find a record or in some cases many records naming their “unfindable” (is that a word?) ancestor. 

I am guessing that most of these folks are beginners (even though most profess to have been searching for 5 or 10 years for this “lost” ancestor).  So I am thinking that if they were to find their ancestor in an index, they might stop there; add it to their family tree with great joy (I finally found a record!!!!) - perhaps not even aware that there might be more.

How tragic would it be to find your ancestor in Ancestry’s Naturalization Index and stop…  Never look for the actual record which would be chock full of great information – potentially a birth date, town of origin in the “old country”, ship name, ship arrival date, wife and children’s names, etc., etc.

But what about an abstract, it lists everything, doesn’t it? 

So do you stop there, or would you pull a copy of the original probate record?

Pull you should.   Many years ago I stopped in at the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston and got an actual copy of Mary Morey’s will which they have on microfilm (not the case here, but sometimes you get lucky and find other papers filed with the will). 

Below is a small section which I transcribed. Not “transcription perfect” as required by the BCG, but good enough for me - I added some punctuation to make it easier for the reader (the original has no commas between the names):

A transcript is a word-for-word exact copy of the text in a document. Nothing is changed; everything is written just as it appears: errors, punctuation, misspellings, and all.

….Item – I Give and Bequeath to my Grand Children William Brettun, Abiale Brettun, Ebenezer Brettun, Pendleton Brettun, Mary Hall, Lydia Brettun, Sarah Brettun, Elizabeth Brettun, & Abigail Brettun,  all the remaining three quarters of my Real Estate lands Meadows & ____ which belong to me to be equally divided between them Only that my granddaughter Mary Hall is to enjoy her part during her life and after her deceased her children to enjoy her part equally between them and their heirs….

The original will doesn’t tell us much more about Mary Hall, but it is interesting that Mary is called out separately.  Perhaps implying that Mary Hall already had a child or children?  The will was written in 1732.  Brian Hall would have been about 5 years old and living in Bristol County. 

In any case, the will clearly reads “Mary Morey” and not “Marcy Morey”.  It gives enough of a description of the actual land in Maine and New Hampshire so that a researcher could identify land deeds related to this  property and perhaps follow the book and page numbers to determine if any of the land mentioned ends up in the hands of Lt Brian Hall, who was by the way, a large land holder.

Too many beginning researchers use online indexes, abstracts and transcriptions as “proof”.  It’s important to remember that humans make mistakes – who knows if the original was abstracted correctly (Marcy vs. Mary, for example).  Original records will have additional information not found in indexes and abstracts.   Yes; it is a lot of work to pull offline sources – you may have to look through 100′s of unrelated records, not to mention that it sometimes costs money and you have to actually leave your computer; but as genealogists we  strive to meet the Genealogical Proof Standard which includes our completion of “a reasonably exhaustive search”.   Not to mention that it is actually fun to look through old records (extra bonus if you find an ancestor).

This doesn’t just apply to probate records but all records.  There are more and more indexes, abstracts and transcriptions appearing online daily – births, marriages, deaths, censuses….  Use these as “finding aids” to help you locate the original records.

Once you have the original record, it may be difficult to read.  There are a lot of great resources on the Internet to assist you with old handwriting.  Try a google search on the word palaeography.

Thsi webstie si ym fvaortie wehre yuo cna gte sarted http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography/where_to_start.htm

Happy Hunting!!

Denied the Right to Vote – Transcribing Records

Today, I want to draw your attention to a question in the 1870 census.

How many ancestors have you found on this census?  Have you “noticed” if information is recorded in columns 19 & 20 for these ancestors?

Questions #19 & #20 (last two columns) ask: “male citizens 21 and over, and number of such persons whose right to vote is denied or abridged on grounds other than “rebellion or other crime”.

The 1870 census instructions to Assistant Marshals were as follows:

CONSTITUTIONAL RELATIONS

Upon the answers to the questions under this head will depend the distribution of representative power in the General Government. It is therefore imperative that this part of the enumeration should be performed with absolute accuracy. Every male person born within the United States, who has attained the age of 21 years, is a citizen of the United States by force of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution; also, all person born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, whose fathers at the time of their birth were citizens of the United States (act of February 10, 1855); also, all persons born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, who have been declared by judgment of court to have been duly naturalized, having taken out both “papers.” 

The part of the enumerator’s duty which relates to column 19 is therefore easy, but it is none the less of importance. It is a matter of more delicacy to obtain the information required by column 20. Many persons never try to vote, and therefore do not know whether their right to vote is or is not abridged. It is not only those whose votes have actually been challenged, and refused at the polls for some disability or want of qualification, who must be reported in this column; but all who come within the scope of any State law denying or abridging suffrage to any class or individual on any other ground than participation in rebellion, or legal conviction of crime. Assistant marshals, therefore, will be required to carefully study the laws of their own States in these respects, and to satisfy themselves, in the case of each male citizen of the United States above the age of 21 years, whether he does or does not, come within one of these classes. 

As the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting the exclusion from the suffrage of any person on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, has become the law of the land, all State laws working such exclusion have ceased to be of virtue. If any person is, in any State, still practically denied the right to vote by reason of any such State laws not repealed, that denial is merely an act of violence, of which the courts may have cognizance, but which does not come within the view of marshals and their assistants in respect to the census. 

Huh?

NARA tries to decipher the instructions for us:

• “In other words, was the person denied the right to vote in violation of the 15th amendment, which guarantees citizenship, due process, and equal protection under the law for men regardless of race”.

For those of you (like me) who wish they paid attention in 5th grade history, Wikipedia explains:

• The Fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the United States Constitution prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen’s “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (i.e., slavery). It was ratified on February 3, 1870

But….It seems, to find the real reason that your ancestor was denied the right to vote, you will have to research the local and state laws on eligibility for voting requirements in the state where he lived in that year.

From http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/background-voting

• “In colonial America, voters were required to have a “stake in society,” meaning they either had to pay taxes or own a certain amount of land, and some colonies added their own restrictions onto this by excluding voters who followed certain religions. Voting rights varied throughout the colonies, and in some cities just 40% to 50% of white men were ruled eligible to vote.
• Following the American Revolution, most states eliminated religious requirements for voting, but many still required voters to be taxpayers. Vermont was the first state to get rid of all property and taxpaying qualifications for voting and was one of only six states that allowed free African-Americans to vote. In the early 1800’s, men who didn’t own property and political parties seeking to gain more support, pressured states to expand voting rights. The property requirement was soon thrown out, and some states began to allow immigrants who intended to become citizens to vote”.

From Voting Rights History
http://www.crmvet.org/info/votehist.htm

• “Adoption of the 15th Amendment in 1870 extends voting rights to Black males — in theory.
• In reality, there is massive resistance to the intent of the 15th Amendment, particularly in the Southern states, but also in the North and Midwest. Violence and economic reprisal are used to intimidate and prevent Black men from voting.
• The 15th Amendment does not apply to Native-Americans or Asians because they cannot be citizens. Similarly, it does not apply to Mexican-Americans in New Mexico and Arizona because they live in “territories” that are not yet states. While legally eligible to vote in Texas and California, Mexican-Americans are still denied the vote through violence and economic retaliation”.

That’s all for today’s history lesson.  Sad that most of us take our rights to vote for granted and many of us don’t exercise those rights…

I must confess that I had never noticed this column until taking a genealogy course at Boston University where they suggested that researchers transcribe each document, even if it is typed – census, birth, death, deeds, probate, etc.

I find that this practice forces me to read and digest each piece of information. It also doesn’t hurt to list the other surnames on the page (and perhaps even the preceding and following pages).  I find this information useful when an ancestor “goes missing” from a census, I search for his neighbors.  This way I also “notice” matching surnames (potential relatives) and potential candidates for married daughters…stuff that I may not have picked up until months later (or never).

My short (related) story :

My Lithuanian relatives (who lived in Pittsfield and Athol, MA) changed their surname from Baltrunas to Billings. Brothers were Anthony, Charles (my grandfather) and Ralph.

I  found a draft registration card at Ancestry.com dated 12 Sep 1918 for an Anthony George Baltrunas born 20 Apr 1900 listed as living on 289 First Street in Pittsfield, MA.  Birth place is listed as Russia. Nearest relative is listed as Anthony Gaston also of 289 First Street.  

I had sort of dismissed this record as being my Lithuanian G-Uncle. The ship manifest of “Anton” and his mom, dated April 1902, listed him as being 36 months of age, thus born in 1899. The family disappeared from the Pittsfield city directories in 1918 and began to appear in Athol, MA directories – I assumed that he moved with the family. I didn’t have the Gaston’s as a related surname. Not to mention that Anthony’s father arrived at Ellis Island on 7 April 1900, meaning he would have left behind a wife who was ready to deliver any day!!

But…  The 1930 Pittsfield census has a Charles Billings, single, age 25, born in MA, both parents born in Lithuania, listed as a boarder at 387 Draper Avenue at the home of Anthony Gaston, age 52, born in Lithuania and wife Ann, age 46, born in Lithuania.

I had saved this census record, but wasn’t all that sure that this was my grandfather (since in 1930, according to my mother he was living in Athol, MA).

It wasn’t until I began to transcribe records and look at neighbors that I realized both men were living with an Anthony Gaston…  With a bit of research I confirmed that this was the same Anthony Gaston and thus concluded that the draft registration and 1930 census record were that of my ancestors!

Anyway…..There are some great free forms to use as a transcription aid prepared by Gary Minder : http://www.censustools.com/census/download.html  (he asks for a $10 donation if you find his tools useful).

I also find it helpful and interesting to review the enumerator instructions for each census year.  It will give you a better understanding of the data that they collected – for example the reasons why your ancestors occupation may have been recorded differently in various census years.  IPUMS USA has posted these instructions: http://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml

If you are just beginning your family research, and you are new to census records, it may also be helpful to explore some of the information that NARA has posted on census records http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/census/

Happy Hunting!  and If you are an expert on the voting laws on any particular state and/or find some links on the topic, please share.

Finding Living Relatives after the 1930 Census

So what happened to all those relatives listed in the 1930 census?  Are you hoping to find your grandmother’s living sister or her children?  Here are some things to try – some obvious, some not so obvious: 

City Directories:  

• If the family moved in the last year, many times the directory will tell you to what city they “Removed”.  Many of the directories list the names of people who died in town that year, so always check for that as well.  Death information is usually in the back of the directory, so browse those pages.
•  The data for the directory was sometimes collected a year in advance, so be sure to check all versions.  For example the data collected in 1916 might appear in the 1917 city directory.
• If the directory you need is not on ancestry.com, you could do a google search for the local library in the city where your ancestor was living. The librarian may be able to help you with street directories if they are not online.  Many times they will copy the pages for you for free or just charge a small fee for copying.

Salvation Army Missing Persons Locator Service  

• The Missing Persons Service is available in most countries where The Salvation Army operates. Their objective is to bring families together where contact has been lost, either recently or in the distant past.   You must provide: Missing person’s complete name, date of birth, place of birth, and parent’s names.  They do say that they will not search for “genealogical reasons”….  I realize this is a genealogy blog, but sounds like a grey area to me…I met my g-g-g-grandmother’s g-g-grandson online when he discovered a photo I had posted of our common ancestor standing with both of our g-grandmothers…we are friends now.  Genealogy?  maybe, maybe not…  Cost is $25 for a search in the Northeastern US  (I am not sure if the cost varies by region).

• US – http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/www_usn_2.nsf/vw-sublinks/5D969AF479D05F78852574410045EEB5?openDocument
• UK – http://www1.salvationarmy.org.uk/en/Departments/FamilyTracing/Home.htm
• Main Site: http://www.salvationarmy.org/ihq/www_sa.nsf

Social Security Administration letter-forwarding service 

• The SSA will forward a letter to someone’s last known address for “under circumstances involving a matter of great importance” if the you have a name, Social Security number and birth date. Letters that have a “humanitarian purpose” will be forwarded for free. Requests for letter forwarding should be sent to: SSA, Letter Forwarding, P.O. Box 33022, Baltimore, MD 21290-3022. http://www.ssa.gov/foia/html/ltrfwding.htm

 Driver Records

•  By writing to the Division of Motor Vehicles Office or Drivers License Office in the state of residence, it may be possible to obtain information such as Social Security number, address, date of birth, and accident history. There are different rules by state.  Do a google search.  Here is an example of what is available in the state of California “How to get a copy of someone else’s driver license, ID card, vehicle or vessel record”: http://www.dmv.ca.gov/faq/genfaq.htm     

Need a Birth Date to contact one of the organizations above?

• Try http://www.veromi.com/ -   although it doesn’t give the birth date, you can find it (for free) using trial and error. First, put the year. It usually gives the person’s age, so you should only have to try 2 years. Then try the months. Once you establish the month and year, try the days. If you go to www.zabasearch.com (similar to Veromi.com) or some of ancestry.com’s public record indexes, they sometimes give you month and year of birth to get you started.

Obituaries

• Many “recent” obituaries are easily located online at funeral home websites and local newspaper sites.  When Aunt Mary passes, the obituary sometimes lists the names of those she left behind along with the city/state of residence.  Check for these names at social networking websites like Facebook, Linkedin or Classmates.com.  In Linked in and Facebook, you can usually view a person’s “friend” list without becoming  their friend.  Browse the list – any of the other names in the obituary listed?  Bingo you have the right person!

I’ve barely touched the surface, but hopefully have given you a few new ideas.  Check out Cyndi’s list for more ideas: http://www.cyndislist.com/finding.htm

This quick interview from Lisa Louise Cooke of The Genealogy Gems Podcast with Amy Urman, a private investigator offers a few additional tips:

Do you have additional tips to share?  We’d love to hear them!!

Happy Searching!!

American Genealogical Biographical Index

The Rider Index (named after its creator, Fremont Rider, a librarian and an avid genealogist) also known as the American Genealogical Biographical Index (AGBI) can be a valuable tool when researching your family history.  The index is a useful finding aid which can lead you to published sources which mention your ancestor(s).

Many of today’s researchers don’t bother to consult this index as they feel it is archaic and unnecessary due to the introduction (and growing collections) of Google Books http://books.google.com/ and the Internet Archive http://www.archive.org/.

I disagree!!!  Read on……

The AGBI is an ongoing project started in 1942; the owner and publisher is the Godfrey Memorial Library in Middletown, CT.  In over 225 volumes there are more than 850 sources mentioned, equating to over 12 million records which include over 2 million records from the Boston Transcript  (a genealogy newspaper column dating from 1896 to 1941). 

   According to Wikipedia (quoting Gary Boyd Roberts of NEHGS):

“The Boston Evening Transcript was a newspaper of record. Its genealogical column, which usually ran twice or more a week for several decades in the early twentieth century, was often an exchange among the most devoted and scholarly genealogists of the day. Many materials not published elsewhere are published therein.

The AGBI includes items such as town and county histories, biographies, vital records, Revolutionary war records and the 1790 census to name a few…. Much of this material has never been indexed elsewhere.

So let’s try an EXPERIMENT with one of my Pinder (sometimes spelled Pindar) ancestors from Ipswich, Massachusetts:

American Genealogical-Biographical Index (AGBI)

Name: Joanna Pinder Birth Date: 1830 Birthplace: Massachusetts Volume: 137 Page Number: 221 Reference: Caldwell recds. John and Sarah (Dillingham) Caldwell of Ipswich, Ms, and des. by Augustine Caldwell. Boston, 1873. (80p.)ds:47

 

1.  Search in Google Books and Internet Archive for:

• “Joanna Pindar” OR “Pindar, Joanna” OR “Joanna Pinder” OR “Pinder, Joanna”  Ipswich

 - reveals 0 records in the Internet Archive and 5 records in Google Books, none written by Caldwell.

- Note that a search of Pinder OR Pindar AND Ipswich in Google Books reveals 2,880 results…1,320 “full view”…too many for me!

2. Search in both databases for

• “Caldwell Family Records”,  Augustine Caldwell

- Google Books doesn’t have the original book but offers a number of places where it can be found – libraries and historical societies.

- Internet archives has actual copies of two Caldwell family books by Augustine Caldwell searchable and available for FREE download:

There are a number of Pinder/Pindar’s mentioned, references I may never have found without the aid of the AGBI:

“John Caldwell and Sarah Dillingham Caldwell, his wife, Ipswich, Mass., 1654 : genealogical records of their descendants, eight generations, 1654-1900 (1904)”

Page n46 – . John Pinder. Samuel Wait. Mary (Hart)

Page n85 – . Benjamin Pinder was Captain. The brig crossed Ipswich

Page 159 – John Pinder was twice married. His first wife,

Page 160 – of John Pinder. They had two daughters,

Page n89 – married Benjamin Pindar. Deborah, married David Hart, Newburyport,

Page 103 – Mrs. Pindar lived years, and departed this

 

Caldwell records : John and Sarah (Dillingham) Caldwell, Ipswich, Mass., and their descendants, sketches of families connected with them by marriage, brief notices of other Caldwell families

• Page 30 - Benj. Pindar. iv. Deborah, m. Daniel
• Page 41 – . Benjamin Pindar, Feb. , . She
• Page n92 – Sarah Caldwell Pindar Thomas and Elizabeth Sweet Francis
• Page 19 – , John Pinder, Samuel Wait. Mary Caldwell, widow
• Page 46 – and Benjamin Pinder, bap. Jan. , .
• Page 47 – . John Pinder, who has a general oversight of the
• Page 73 – and Lucy Pinder, m. ( ) Susanna

A large number of the sources indexed are related to New England (since that is where the index was created) but there are other listings: early history of families from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Maryland; entries for the first twelve colonies;  records from parts of the Pennsylvania Archives; and sources related to Vermont, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Alabama.

Only published sources are included in the index, so most of them are likely to be found at a number of libraries (but since most are out of copyright, check Google Books and the Internet Archive). If not online, the two libraries that are likely to have all the sources indexed are: The Godfrey Memorial Library and the Family History Library.

The entries are alphabetical and most index entries includes full name, birthplace, volume, page, biographical information and reference information (when known). 

You can search for names listed in the index at Ancestry.com, http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=3599&enc=1

Their website explains how the included names were selected:

Names that Were Indexed—The index is of all persons according to set standards, rather than every name. The following persons have been included in the index: (1) person mentioned as wife, husband, father, mother, son, daughter, or other relative, of some person mentioned; (2) person mentioned as being born or married, or those mentioned dying; (3) person mentioned as having performed military or public service, or mentioned in connection with other facts of biographical importance; (4) person mentioned in a deed or legal document; (5) person mentioned as one of the founders of a settlement, a passenger on an immigrant ship (before 1850), a member of a church (before 1850), etc.

Name the Were Omitted—Omissions include: (1) persons (such as ship captains, ministers, army officers, etc.) mentioned only casually and not related to the family line being followed; (2) all casually mentioned names of well-known persons (e.g., George Washington or Benjamin Franklin); (3) witnesses, and similar incidental names, that appear in legal documents; (4) authors of works cited, or persons cited as authorities for statements.

Also the following information may be useful when structuring your Ancestry.com search:

Entry Construction—Each entry consists of the following: (1) Person’s surname, spelled as it appears in the indexed text (Note that names are, in general, written and filed as one word, e.g., “Van Derbilt” and “Van Der Bilt” would be written as “Vanderbilt”; also, surnames with apostrophes have been indexed and alphabetized without the apostrophe, though it does appear in the actual name, e.g., “O’Connor” would be filed as “Oconnor.”); (2) The person’s first name (or initial) and middle names (or initials), if any (Note that if there is no given name, we have substituted a long dash in that area, and where an abbreviated name is given in the text, we have substituted the full name indicated if it is clear (e.g., for “Dan” we write “Daniel”); (3) The person’s birth year, as it appears in the indexed text; (4) The person’s state (or states) of residence (including the states of birth and death, if they are known); (5) Biographical data, abbreviated; (6) The page citation of the text being indexed; consisting of the abbreviated title and page number.

Or you can submit search and photocopy requests to the Godfrey Memorial Library (copies are fairly inexpensive) by using this form: http://www.godfrey.org/agbiform.pdf

 So give it a try and share your successes with us!!

Google Books

Google Books is an amazing family history research tool!  Are you using it? 

A number of my ancestor’s biographies have been found in books documenting the history of Bristol County, Taunton and surrounding towns in Massachusetts.  These books give a sense of the community and times in which my ancestor lived – the biography finds are a bonus!

 Most of the books in this database are no longer in print or commercially available.

You can find things like:

• The 1774 “Census of the inhabitants of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence”
• Diary of Samuel Sewall: 1699-1714 
• The New England historical and genealogical register, Volume 75
• The history of Malden, Massachusetts, 1633-1785

Books are being added daily, so I always re-check periodically.  I always used the advance book search: http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search

If the book is out of copyright, you can view and download the entire book (otherwise there are links to online bookstores and library borrowing locations).

Even more exciting – if you find books that are of interest you can save them to your own “library” inside of google.  Then you can go back and search them over and over for more information as you add new members to your family tree.   Here are google’s instructions for setting up your own library (a 30 second project assuming you already have a free google account):

http://books.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=75375&topic=9259&hl=en

Matt Cutts gives some great tips in this video for adding your own personal book collection to your Google library.  You can then search the full text of the books on your bookshelf  (that Google has already scanned and converted to text using OCR, “Optical character recognition”) – cool stuff!

I discussed the OCR search technologies and it’s limitations in a prior post.  Here’s the link in case you missed it: http://passagetothepast.wordpress.com/2010/07/10/an%c2%a0unexpected%c2%a0source/

Wikipedia states that Google had scanned ten million books (as of October 2009) this certainly raises the odds that you’ll find your ancestors!!

Research Tool

I began to use TMG Software some 6 months ago to capture my personal family data.  (The Master Genealogist – http://www.whollygenes.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?screen=TMG)

Instead of starting from scratch (like I should have) , I imported my entire GEDCOM.  Now I am too far into the weeds to start over, but suffice it to say that I have a lot of “junk” in my database and I need to dedicate a good week or two or three for clean up.

I have been meaning to try a software program called Gensmarts. It uses artificial intelligence to analyze the data in TMG  and other genealogy programs.  I finally got around to using my limited free time this week to play with the free trial version -http://www.gensmarts.com/. Very cool stuff!

GenSmarts http://www.gensmarts.com/ reads directly from your genealogy data and makes some very specific research recommendations. 

Here is a description from their website:

What does GenSmarts do?
GenSmarts develops a profile of your ancestors based on where and when they lived. This profile is then matched with GenSmarts inventory of known records to make predictions about the record trail your ancestors may have left behind. These predictions are then prioritized to highlight data that you’re missing. The logic behind each suggestion is fully explained. For suggestions that can be researched online, at your direction, GenSmarts will navigate your internet browser for you, typing in your ancestors name and even pressing the SEARCH button for you!

It works with the following programs (but can not be used with a MAC):

- RootsMagic (including RootsMagic 4)
- Family Tree Maker (including FTM 2008,2009, & 2010)
- PAF 5
- The Master Genealogist
- Legacy
- Ancestral Quest
- Ancestry Family Tree
- Brother’s Keeper (Version 6)
- Ultimate Family Tree
- Family Trees Quick and Easy (contact us for info)
- Heritage Family Tree Deluxe (contact us for info)
- Gedcom

Set up was simple.  I was up and running in less than 10 minutes using their wizard. 

GenSmarts suggestions can be filtered by person, family, state/county or city, repository, online source….and lots more.  It  makes educated guesses about whatever you are missing  like a marriage date (based on a known birth date or the first child’s birth date).

For example,  I selected my ancestor Pierre Melanson. 

- The Software suggested that I search the Nova Scotia Censuses of 1770 and 1753.   

- It explained the reasoning behind the suggestion (because his spouse died there in 1764 and he died there in 1791).

-  A table was displayed of what the family might look like in those census years,  naming all the children, their ages as of that date, their birthplace and parents birthplace.  Helpful when looking through census records. 

- It also gave several suggestions of alternate surname spellings based on soundex.

- a note states that the  paid version also tells you where to find the sources, both on and offline including call numbers, microfilm numbers, etc.

Click here to review the report: Doc2 . The explanations are quite detailed and the results popped up in seconds.

I found most of the source suggestions to be obvious – “check Massachusetts birth, marriage, death and land records….”

However what I did find intriguing is that I could print a research suggestion list for a specific town, library, court-house, etc.  This would help immensely when planning research trips (yes, it is possible that I can already do that in TMG – so I will have to look into that further).

For my 1,599 relatives it  produced a list of 3,889 research suggestions, 1,552 to fill “holes” in my data and 2,411 which could be found online. Enough research recommendations to keep me busy for months!  It reminded me a bit of the “leaf” (aka hint functionality) in Ancestry.com except that it offered hints from a large variety of sources versus being limited to Ancestry.

The software would be quite helpful for beginning/intermediate genealogists who may not be aware of existing sources.  As more and more sources become available online, the program may be helpful to even experienced genealogists in finding new online sources (assuming the company keeps these updated) or for those attempting to manage a family tree with hundreds or thousands of ancestors and those seeking a quick but detailed “to do” list.

Currently the software only searches for sources in the USA, Canada,  UK and a few in Australia.  The tool costs only $24.95.  There are no annual subscription fees and updates are free. 

Once I get my act together and clean up TMG, I plan to buy the full version. 

Would love for you to download the trial and post your thoughts!

Finding the Ship Manifest using Naturalization Records

We all have that elusive ancestor who arrived from a port in Europe. Finding your ancestor on a ship manifest can seem like a daunting task.  Names are indexed improperly, inconsistencies of  “arrival year”  the 1910, 20 and 30 census may exist, some changed their names after arrival and others have a name so common that there are hundreds of possibilities.

Today I will talk about using Naturalization records as a Manifest finding aid. 

First find your relatives in the census. Last week’s blog gives some census search tips http://passagetothepast.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/finding-missing-ancestors-in-the-census/

• 1900: If foreign born, year of immigration and whether naturalized
• 1910: If foreign born, year of immigration and whether naturalized, language spoken if not able to speak English
• 1920: If foreign born, year of immigration, whether naturalized, year of naturalization
• 1930: If foreign born, year of immigration, whether naturalized, language spoken in home before coming to US, and ability to speak English

Review the census entries (which aren’t always accurate) and look for “Al” alien, “Pa” papers, which means your ancestor had declared his intent to become a citizen, and “Na” which meant he was already naturalized (meaning he became a US a citizen). If they were naturalized, you are in luck!

The naturalization record for your ancestors will usually list when they arrived and a town of origin plus lots of other great information. Hopefully the dates on the census records will be close to the actual arrival date, but always expand your search by a few years. The declaration and naturalization dates may be estimated using the arrival date + 2 and arrival date +5: immigrants had to be in US for two years before they could “declare intent” and then another three years before finally being naturalized (although there were exceptions to this rule).

Exceptions included (copied from http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/naturalization/naturalization.html)

The first major exception was that “derivative” citizenship was granted to wives and minor children of naturalized men. From 1790 to 1922, wives of naturalized men automatically became citizens. This also meant that an alien woman who married a U.S. citizen automatically became a citizen. (Conversely, an American woman who married an alien lost her U.S. citizenship, even if she never left the United States.) From 1790 to 1940, children under the age of 21 automatically became naturalized citizens upon the naturalization of their father. Unfortunately, however, names and biographical information about wives and children are rarely included in declarations or petitions filed before September 1906. For more information about women in naturalization records, see Marian L. Smith, “Women and Naturalization, ca. 1802-1940,” Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Summer 1998): 146-153.

The second major exception to the general rule was that, from 1824 to 1906, minor aliens who had lived in the United States 5 years before their 23rd birthday could file both their declarations and petitions at the same time.

The third major exception to the general rule was the special consideration given to veterans. An 1862 law allowed honorably discharged Army veterans of any war to petition for naturalization–without previously having filed a declaration of intent–after only 1 year of residence in the United States. An 1894 law extended the same no-previous-declaration privilege to honorably discharged 5-year veterans of the Navy or Marine Corps. Over 192,000 aliens were naturalized between May 9, 1918, and June 30, 1919, under an act of May 9, 1918, that allowed aliens serving in the U.S. armed forces during “the present war” to file a petition for naturalization without making a declaration of intent or proving 5 years’ residence. Laws enacted in 1919, 1926, 1940, and 1952 continued various preferential treatment provisions for veterans.

Naturalization records usually name the vessel, the arrival date and the name of the port where your ancestor arrived. You can then use that information to locate ship records.

The petition for naturalization and declaration of intent  have a wealth of information. If you have an Ancestry.com subscription, below is a link to an example of what you can expect to see (be sure to “page forward” a few screens to see the different documents):

http://search.ancestry.com/iexec/?htx=View&r=an&dbid=1554&iid=31313_132656-00254&fn=Pat&ln=Acres&st=r&ssrc=&pid=2518844

Where you can search for the naturalization records depends on when they applied. Before 1906 your ancestors could apply to any court, so most went to the county courthouse because it was convenient. Starting in late 1906, all applications had to instead be made in a federal court.

Ancestry.com recently posted the index of naturalization records from the World Project for a number of states.  The index might give you the court that they went to to be naturalized (i.e. US District Court). If you find the information in the index, you can order a copy of the document online at the National Archives (or you can visit a branch of the Archives).  http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/naturalization/#find

Here are the related databases in Ancestry.com

• Selected U.S. Naturalization Records – Original Documents, 1790-1974 (World Archives Project)
• Index to Petitions for Naturalization filed in New York City, 1792-1989
• Selected U.S. Naturalization Record Indexes, 1791-1966 (Indexed in World Archives Project)
• U.S. Naturalization Records Indexes, 1794-1995
• U.S. Naturalization Records – Original Documents, 1795-1972

You will get better results searching in each individual database. Click the search button on the top of the screen in ancestry, then on the right select “View All Ancestry Titles” and then search for those titles. Make sure you are using “old search” – it works much better than “new search”.

Footnote.com also has some Naturalization records.

Otherwise go to the National Archives (link above) and order a copy of the document online

A great book is (get it at your  library, via  interlibrary loan or at Amazon.com): Schaefer, Christine. Guide to Naturalization Records of the United States (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1997).

 The book  is divided by state, county and city. It  identifies naturalization repositories, giving the types of records held, coverage dates, and the location of both originals and microfilm. More info: http://www.genealogical.com/products/Guide%20to%20Naturalization%20Records%20in%20the%20United%20States/5177.html

It also should be noted that in 1922 women aged 21 years and older could become citizens regardless of marital status. Wives no longer became citizens upon husband’s naturalization. Also in that year, the residency requirement was reduced to three years.

Last, Federal Naturalizations did not start until the early 1800s. There were oaths of allegiance done in the 1700s which are recorded in the published Pennsylvania Archives. Philadelphia was the largest port in the 1700s and the Germans were coming in for land and freedom of religion, so the English had ship passengers swear oaths of allegiance to King George. If they were  British, this was not a requirement, thus their name was not recorded.

Happy searching!

When Can We Expect the 1940 Census?

This morning, while drinking a strong cup of coffee (in an effort to recover from ”brain fog” caused by my staying up until 2AM looking through some Drouin Collection records related to David Brian Pinder Hall, my 3rd g-uncle – can you say OCD), I was mindlessly perusing Facebook and noticed that someone had posted a question on the Ancestry.com Facebook page asking if anyone knew when the 1940 census would be released.  How’s that for a run-on sentence!?!?

The 16th Federal Population Census will be released on 2-April-2012 (72 years after it was taken, read about the ”75 year rule”  in this article by Joel Weintraub http://members.cox.net/census1940/paper6.jpg).  The data would have been released on 1-April, but since that date falls on a Sunday in 2012, we’ll have to wait an extra day.  The release will be in digital format only (no films will be released to the public) and will be available on computers at NARA facilities and via the Internet.

Initially there will be no index available (although companies like Ancestry, FamilySearch and HeritageQuest will most likely create an index fairly quickly).  At least initially, you will need the Enumeration District (ED), which is essentially the name for the geographic area assigned to each census taker, to be able to locate your ancestors. 

Don’t worry though – Steve Morse is currently working on an aid for converting street addresses to EDs (so on day #1 it will be easier to  find your ancestors, as long as you know their addresses, which you can most likely locate in city directories).  To read about this tool or volunteer to help with the project, go to: http://www.stevemorse.org/census/1940instructions.htm.

NARA also offers some instructions for identifying the ED: http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/census/1940/start-research.html 

Something to add to your “to do” list now, so that you will be prepared on the day of census release!!

Wondering what information was collected during the 1940 census? Go to: http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/census/1940/general-info.html 

My personal favorite as I scanned the list of 50 is: 

• SOCIAL SECURITY: Does this person have a Federal Social Security Number? (Yes or No)

If the answer is “Yes”, then I know that I can probably obtain a copy of my ancestor’s SS-5 (social security application) which has a wealth of information usually including the names of their parents, date of birth and (for woman) maiden name – all in my ancestor’s handwriting!!  So if you ancestor is not listed in the Social Security Death Index (SSDI), but their response is “Y” to this question then their application is probably available.  See item #6 in one of my previous posts for more information on the social security application: http://passagetothepast.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/learning-from-others/

But {sigh} 1940 was the first census year of “sampling”, so only 5% of respondents ages 14 and over were asked this question (2 per sheet – line numbers 14 & 29).  This was true for 16 of the 50 census questions. Other “sampling” questions included those related to parents place of birth, language spoken at home at earliest childhood, veteran/military service, retirement wage deductions, occupation related, and for women only marriage and child bearing information. 

Can’t wait 630 days (as of this writing)  to see the data in the 1940 census? or 2022 for the 1950 census? or 2032 for the 1960 census?

You can request an official transcript for deceased ancestors right now (see conditions below) using form BC-600 for any unreleased census.  It is a bit pricey – $65.00 for one person + $10.00 for the full schedule transcription (versus select fields), + $10.00/each for all other household members as long as the conditions below are met (3-4 week turnaround, or 1 day turnaround for an additional $20).  The form with additional instructions can be found here: http://www.census.gov/genealogy/www/data/agesearch/bc-600.pdf 

Excerpt from the form:

Deceased persons – If the record requested relates to a deceased person, the application MUST be signed by (1) a blood relative in the immediate family (parent, brother, sister, or child), (2) the surviving wife or husband, (3) the administrator or executor of the estate, or (4) a beneficiary by will, or insurance. IN ALL CASES INVOLVING DECEASED PERSONS, a certified copy of the death certificate MUST be furnished, and the relationship to the deceased MUST be stated on the application. Legal representatives MUST also furnish a certified copy of the court order naming such legal representatives; and beneficiaries MUST furnish legal evidence of such beneficiary interest.

For all you history buffs, here is a link to the videos created by the US Census Bureau to train the 1940 census employees – I really enjoyed them! –  http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/census/1940/videos.html

Last, here is my favorite American history link so you can see what was happening in 1940: http://americasbesthistory.com/abhtimeline1940.html

An Unexpected Source

My favorite free newspaper website is http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html which has 12,698,000 Old New York State Historical Newspaper Pages, all searchable. 

Your direct descendants don’t come from New York?  Read on.

My 4th g-grandparents Robert Jones and Catherine Owen immigrated from Llanfaelog, Anglesey, Wales to Oneida County, NY in 1849 on the vessel Julia Howard. Manyof their children (possibly 8), grandchildren and their hundred or so first and second cousins, remained for a number generation in Oneida County.  However there were a few who left the area. 

My 2nd g-grandmother Kittie Perry headed off to Massachusetts. I had surmised that she had gone directly to the town of Lynn since that is where she appears for many years in census records, city directories and a few obituaries.  Her sister Cordelia (Palmer/Spoor) Perry and brother George headed to Galeton, PA.  Luckily (for my research) her brother William remained behind in Rome.

Most newspapers in that era had a “social section”, Rome was no different.  You can learn who was out of town and why and who was in town and with whom they were staying.  You hear of who was sick, who had a dinner party and who cheated on their wife. And of course you find the usual birth, marriage and death notices.  Here are a few of the many articles that I found mentioning my Jones/Perry family:

• Utica Morning Herald, August 24 1895 or 1896: Miss Georgiana Hughes (my g-grandmother) of Frankfort, who has been visiting her mother at Lowell, Mass. has returned, and accompanied by Miss Kittie May Palmer of Frankfort, is a guest of Mr. and Mrs. W.C. Perry of 414 West Dominick Street.

 

• Rome Semi Weekly Citizen, September 1, 1896: Miss Georgianna Hughes of Lowell, Mass., and Miss Kittie A. Palmer of Frankfort, NY , are visiting their uncle, W. C. Perry, 414 West Dominick street.

 

• The Utica Observer: Wednesday, Sept 4, 1895 W. C Perry, delivery window clerk at the post office, left yesterday afternoon on a bicycle trip of 275 miles to Lowell.

 

• Rome Semi-Weekly Citizen, Friday September 24, 1897: WC Perry general delivery clerk at the post office received on Tuesday from his Uncle Owen R Jones of Clipper Gap, Placer County a box of four varieties of grapes. They excel anything in the grape line ever seen in this city.

 

• Tuesday, Feb 21, 1891, Rome Semi-Weekly Citizen: The family of George Perry of East Rome, who eloped some time ago with Miss Nettie Hickson, is in a pitiable condition. On Wednesday afternoon three of the four children died with diphtheria, George, aged 4 years, 11 months and 18 days; Alice, aged 6 months; and Arthur, aged three years and one month. The remaining child, a son, about eight years old, has recovered from the disease. The mother is in bed, sick with the same disease, and is unable to do anything, but seems to be recovering. The only one present, aside from the family, and who is able to do anything, is a sister of Mrs. Perry, Miss Alice Phillips, who is now threatened with the disease. The family is not destitute, but they should receive the attention and aid of the Charitable people of the community. 

 

• Utica Observer, October 19, 1904 – William C Perry has received a telegram announcing the death in Galeton, PA of his nephew George Spoore.  His mother, Mrs Charles Spoore was formerly Miss Delia Perry of this city.

 

• The Auburn Bulletin, Friday, October 21, 1904 – Killed at Play, Game of Cowboy and Indians cost 16 year old boy his life – Corning, NY, George Spoor, aged 16 years of Galeton, PA was shot and instantly killed at that place by Carl Cartson a friend, Cartson was and Indian and Spoor a cowboy in a Wild West show.

 

• UTICA HERALD-DISPATCH THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 3, 1911 Mrs. F. M. Shipman of Lynn, Mass and her daughter, Mrs. C. M. Hall, and son Charles (my grandfather) of Malden, Mass. are spending two weeks with Mrs. Shipman’s brother. W. C. Perry, 414 West Dominick street.

 

• Utica Herald-Dispatch, Thursday Evening October 3, 1918, Page 13 Whole Families Dying: Mrs. F. M. Shipman of Lynn. Mass., who spent a month with her brother and wife. Mr. and Mrs. W. C. Perry.414 West Dominick street, returning home last week In perfect health. Mr. Perry has received a letter from his niece. Mrs. C. M Hall of Malden, Mass.. daughter of Mrs. Shipman stating that her mother had been, stricken with influenza and was confined to the bed, but the doctor says that she is improving. The letter says” The State Guards were called out tonight to do duty putting up tents and caring for the sick. Family after family are dying. They are having over 50 funerals a day here in Malden.

 

• Utica Daily Press, September 11, 1909; Their Silver Wedding; Rome, Sept 10 – Mr. and Mrs. William C Perry 414 West Dominick street were married in this city 25 years ago by the late Rev James H Taylor, then pastor of the Presbyterian Church, and they have since lived here….During the afternoon and evening refreshments were served under the direction of Mrs. Fuller by 6 ladies attired in white, cousins of Mr. Perry. Margaret Jones and Jennie May Roberts of Floyd, Olwin Jones of Utica, Jennie May Palmer of Galeton, PA, Anne Hughes of Rome and Irene Jones of Rome, who were presented necklaces by Mrs. Perry.

 

• Rome NY Roman Citizen 1895 – 1896 Grayscale – 0207.pdf Jacob French of 414 West Dominick Street is suffering from a badly swollen foot, caused by a plank falling on it while at work in D. H. Burrell’s cheese press factory.

  

• Utica Morning Herald, November 4, 1896, page 2, column 3; FRANKFORT. PUSHED INTO THE CANAL. Sad Death of Mrs. James Evans of Frankfort.  Nov. 3.-About 7:30 o’clock last evening, as Mrs. James Evans of this village was walking along the towpath of the Erie canal she fell into “the canal. With her three grandchildren, the oldest about ten years of age she was returning from a visit to her sister. They met a team of horses drawing a canal boat and turned to pass them, taking the side near the water. After the team had passed the tow line brushed Mrs. Evans into the water. She was taken out as promptly as possible by the boatmen and removed to her home, where she died in a short time from the effects of her Injuries, at her age being unable to withstand the shock. Mrs. Evans was about 65 years old. She was a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Jones and was born in Wales. She came with her parents to this country about 45 years ago. They settled in Oriskany and afterward removed to Floyd, where the deceased was married to George Perry. Mr. and Mrs. Perry came to Rome about 35 years ago, and lived on the Lynch farm in East Rome. Mr. Perry for some time conducting a milk route. He died 33 years ago. His widow married James Evans of Rome for her second husband:—Eleven years ago they removed to Frankfort…

To date I have found some 70 articles on this family.  Not only did it give me better insight into the lives of these family members, but many led to more discoveries.  I hadn’t known that my 2nd g-grandmother Kittie had resided in Lowell, MA.  This led to my discovery of her request for an annulment from her husband Frank Clough (for bigamy) in the Middlesex County Court records.  Which in turn led to me finding a copy of their marriage record at the Frankfort, NY county clerk’s office.

My g-grandmother Georgianna’s maiden name was thought to be Clough based on her marriage and death certificates, her handwriting on family photos and social security application (there were no recorded births in Rome, NY until 1882 and she was born in 1881).  These articles led to my discovery that her birth father’s name was probably Hughes.

My point today is don’t overlook unlikely sources; you may find your ancestors. As with all documents, there may be errors, so you should always seek to uncover primary sources to strengthen your case. 

A word about the search functions on this site.  It uses optical character recognition (OCR). OCR is not perfect, for example r n is often read as m,  l is often t and vice versa,  p can be read as a y.  I try to look for letters that look similar to each other or that perhaps look like another letter when close to each other.  For example, Thorn could be interpreted as Thom.  So a search for “John Thorn” may come up null, but by changing the search to “John Thom” you may get some hits.

Sometimes the OCR technology doesn’t work , especially if the paper is dark or the letters smeared.

Try searching on something other than a name.  For example I knew that Uncle William Perry lived on 414 West Dominick Street in Rome.  I searched on 414 AND Perry, then just on “West Dominick”  and also on “post office” AND Rome (since that is where he worked for 29 years) . I got lots of hits that I hadn’t found previously.

I have had similar luck with Newspaper Archives (although it is a pay site) http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Archives/?gclid=CNm9suT53qICFZNo5QodPB_HzA.  They have old copies of the Lowell Daily Sun.  My 3rd great uncle David Brian Pinder Hall lived for a time in Lowell, MA.  His grandson Joseph Edward David “Frenchie” Thibeault had16 children with 5 different women, most born in Lowell, MA, many of whom I uncovered using newspaper sources.

Seek out some online newspapers and see what you can find of your ancestors!  We’d love you to share some posts of your finds and suggestions for sources.  Remember that there are offline searchable newspapers as well. The Malden Public Library in Massachusetts has old copies of the Malden Evening News on microfilm.  While not searchable, I was able to find birth, marriage and death notices by collecting vital records and searching newspapers a week before and after those dates.

World Record Challenge

The World Record Challenge is this: If the Ancestry World Archives community keys and arbitrates at least 8 million records from June 1st to August 31st, Ancestry.com will match with collections they paid to have keyed and launch those indexes for free on their website.

http://community.ancestry.com/wap/download.aspx

Please help!!  Even if it’s just one record.  You can choose the project you wish to work on - for example today I indexed some New York Naturalizations and California Railroad Wage Sheets.

When you sign up, please select OTHER as the reason you chose to participate in the World Archives Project and then put ”PassagetothePast.wordpress.com”  in the comment section.  Thanks!!

If I Had to do it ALL over

Last night we watched a show, hosted by Morgan Freedman, on time travel http://science.discovery.com/tv/through-the-wormhole/.  It got me thinking of what I would have done differently (genealogically) if I could start all over…

- Most teenagers are self-centered and most discussions with the adults in their lives are about “me”, “me and my friends” and “me”.  I was no different.   I didn’t get much better as I aged.

• My grandfather was one of my best friends, I spent every Saturday helping him in his veterinary hospital.  He died in 1976 when I was 13.  He was a quiet, reserved type of guy.  I don’t remember him ever speaking of his family.
• My dad died when I was 30.  We vacationed together 2 weeks a year until I was 27.  We worked near each other and frequently met for lunch.  He was a quiet, reserved type of guy. I did all the talking.  I know very little about his life before “me”
• My nana lived to be 92.  She lived in her own apartment and walked every day, she had lots of friends.  I was 36 when she passed.  I don’t know much about her life before “me” other than a few stories that she loved to tell – meeting my grandfather, her first job and how she “dropped” a whole card catalog of hundreds of alphabetized cards down a flight of stairs while she was working at John Hancock and watched them flutter everywhere…. I never had a clue that she had started working on the Hall family genealogy.

To all you young people out there. Interview every living relative you have.  Ask lots of questions about the past. Video tape them. Have them write stories.  Collect pictures. Ask if you can look through their scrapbooks and all those boxes in the attic. Be very interested in all you can learn about them and the past.

- Next, I would NEVER have added a name, birth date or ANYTHING to my family tree unless I had a source.  An unsourced, published genealogy from the library is not a source.   I added many entries using “The Halls of New England”.  Which I found (and am still finding) to be riddled with errors…

- If I did have a source, as soon as I discovered the source I would have added a correct source citation to my database (Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills). I now have a few thousand people in my tree, about 10 of them are correctly sourced.  Perhaps 1000 have sources, but with improper source citations. I have made a pact with myself to go back and add sources, 1 person a day.  Tomorrow is day 11.  In 5 years I will be caught up.

- I would focus on family history instead of genealogy.  I would spend time, person by person learning as much as I could about them instead of just collecting birth, marriage, death and census records.

-I would become organized.  Everything would be filed in binders.  There would be no piles of “stuff” (birth certificates, book photo copies, deeds, photos, etc.) on my desk, in my bedroom and in the basement.  I found a great guide to becoming organized on Dear Myrtle entitled “FINALLY GET ORGANIZED” http://www.dearmyrtle.com/ I start this weekend.

If you are just starting out, I hope you do not repeat my mistakes!

My next thought was, if you could travel back in time, which five ancestors who you never knew would you travel back to meet?

1. Lt Brian Hall, my 7th g-grandfather of Norton, MA and Providence, RI who fought in the Revolution.  Besides that I think he must have been an amazing man, I would love to see how he lived, meet his wife Abiah and his children and ask him for the names of his parents and grandparents; once and for all “squashing” the rumor that he is George Hall’s (one of the founders of Taunton, MA)  g-grandson  I would video tape the encounter and send it to the 100′s of people on the Internet who have this wrong  in their family trees!

2. Lt. Brian Hall’s grandson Brian Hall of Norton, MA and Seekonk (now MA but back then RI) and India Point, RI, one of my g-uncles.  In 1838 he filed an intention to marry a Lucy Mason; five days later he died..  Years later his brother Horatio (my 4^th g-grandfather) named his daughter Lucy Mason Hall (and named a son David Brian Pinder Hall, why not just Brian?) .  I want to hear of their lives together and the circumstances of his death at age 41.  He left a will, so he may have known that death was near.

3. Solomea (Morris) Baltrunas, my g-grandmother who arrived in New York in 1902 from Lithuania with her infant son Anthony. From NY, she traveled to settle with her husband in Pittsfield, MA (or was he there to pick her up?). They were poor immigrants.  When her husband died abt. 1917 she relocated to Athol, MA where she resided until her death in 1938.  I would like to see where she lived in Lithuania, ask how she survived after her husband died at such a young age, learn how she and her husband met and yes, I would love to ask for the names of her and her husband Josef’s siblings,  parents and grandparents.

 4. Georgianna (Hughes Clough) Hall, my g-grandmother born in 1881 in Rome, NY (a year before they started to record births).

• Why did she use the surname Hughes until she was 18 and then change it to Clough.  Her mother married Clough when she was 8,  and filed a petition for an annulment because she found Clough to be a bigomist, 6 years later when Georgianna was 14.  Why take his name 4 years later?
• What was her father (Hughes) first name? 
• Was she one of the three grandchildren who watched in horror as her grandmother, Ann (Jones) Perry Evans was pushed into the Erie Canal by a team of horses and later died? 
• Who is “Anne from Rome” a pretty young girl in a photo posing with an elderly Georgianna at her home in Malden, Massachusetts?
• Who is the single Ann Hughes mentioned as a niece and hostess at her uncle William Perry’s 25th wedding anniversary in Rome, NY in 1909.  Georgianna was 28, already married, had a child and was using the surname Hall.
• And I would have loved to have met Georgianna’s husband Charles “Garry” Milton Hall of whom my uncle speaks so fondly.

5. My bachelor g-uncle Walter Lansil, born in 1846,  an artist from Bangor, ME.  A world traveler best known for his marine and coastal scenes of New England and Venice, Italy. Someday I will own one of his paintings.

 

Okay, so you guessed it.  I would use time travel to break through my most frustrating brick walls! Please share yours!!

Mortality Schedules

Yesterday I spoke a bit about the US Census Federal Non-Population Schedules.  With online resources increasing by the day I thought I’d talk about another schedule that frequently goes undiscovered, the U.S. Federal Census Mortality Schedules (1850-1885) which can be found on Ancestry.com for 37 states (assuming I counted right; and note that not all states have all years available). Here is the link to the ancestry database  http://tinyurl.com/22qzbdk 

Other sources for the mortality schedules include:

• http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#start 
• http://www.mortalityschedules.com/ 
•  microfilm from the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, Utah which can be ordered can be ordered from most local Family History Centers http://www.familysearch.org/eng/library/fhc/frameset_fhc.asp

Use the search tips that I spoke of in this post: http://passagetothepast.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/finding-missing-ancestors-in-the-census/

Since most counties and states did not begin to issue death certificates until the late 1800′s or early 1900′s, these schedules can be quite helpful. Mortality schedules may provide you the opportunity to find out what happened to someone who is“missing” from the census. Keep in mind that your ancestor will only be listed if he died during the 1 year prior to the census as it only lists anyone who died between the dates of June 1st of the year prior to the census through May 31st of the census year. For example, the 1850 mortality schedule would have  the deaths of anyone who died between 1 June 1849 and 31 May 1850.

Mortality schedules were created during the census years of 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, and was also part of the Federal census in 1885 for Colorado, Florida, Nebraska and the territories of South Dakota and New Mexico.

The mortality schedule contains the following information:

1850 and 1860: name of the deceased, age at death, sex, color, status (free or slave), marital status (married or widowed), place of birth (state, territory or county), the month of death, occupation, disease or cause of death, and the number of days the deceased was ill.

1870: includes the same information as in the prior schedules (with the exception of  ”free or slave” and “number of days ill”) but added whether the father/mother were of foreign birth and lists a  family number which ties back to the family number in the regular census.

1880: includes the same information but adds single or divorced, the place of birth of the deceased’s mother and father, the number of years the deceased had been a resident of the county, where the disease was contracted, if different from the place of death and the name of the attending physician.

The 1890 mortality schedules were destroyed by fire (same as the 1890 census) and the 1900 mortality schedules were destroyed through an act of Congress after the statistics had been complied, only the 1900 mortality schedule for Minnesota  (discovered years later at the Minnesota Historical Society) survived.

Problems:

Although some slaves may have been recorded, some omit the deaths of slaves. Sometimes deceased slaves were recorded without surnames or with the surname of their owner.

In 1880, a question asks for “the place where a disease was contracted, if different than the place of death”. Census takers were asked to record the place of death for the deceased who belonged to a family in the district but had died someplace else. They were also told to record the place of residence for the family of the deceased who had died in the district but whose family lived someplace else. This resulted in some of the deceased being recorded on two schedules in different locations.

I have read that deaths were under reported as much as 20 to 40 percent.

The Federal Census records have some great information, but they can contain mistakes (as can all genealogical records). The census takers took the information orally. Many of the foreign immigrants had heavy accents. In most cases the census taker probably didn’t ask how to spell a name. Usually they talked to the head of the household or his wife but if neither of these were available he might instead speak to an older child, neighbor or just record the information based on his own personal knowledge of the family. The information might only be fairly accurate if someone other than the head of household reported the information.  The head of household might also have reason to “fib”.  For example, an Irishman may have lied about his origins to avoid discrimination. In the mid-1800′s in places such as New York, ads for employment most often included the stipulation that “No Irish Need Apply”.

Last, many of the diseases listed on these schedules may be unfamiliar.  This website describes many of them: http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/misc/disease.shtml

Best of luck with your search!  Please let me know if you have any success in finding your lost relatives on these schedules!

Genealogy vs. Family History and Exciting News!

I just received word that I have officially been accepted to the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) National Society for my 7th g-grandfather, Lt Brian Hall effective July 5th. I have attended several local meetings in anticipation of being accepted, but it’s nice to finally be official and quite an honor! and how appropriate that I was accepted just after our day of Independence!

The DAR organization promotes historic preservation, patriotism and education through the work of 32 related committees. There are more than 168,000 members in over 3,000 chapters nationwide!

I had to provide proof for each date and place, for each generation, starting with myself and going back lineally to Brian. In the first three generations, these proofs had to consist of photocopies of birth, marriage, and death documents. For other generations back to the Brian, I had to provide proof such as cemetery records, obituaries, probate records, wills, census records and published vital records. Relationships between generations HAD to be proven.

After gathering all the data, it had to be input on to the application and printed on special paper. Special thanks go to Jane Lasselle, the Anna Stickney chapter regent. Without her, I would still be working on my application! Of course I pulled everything together and realized at the 11th hour that I didn’t have my husband’s birth certificate! Ironic that one of the easiest parts of my research, held the submission up another 10 days.

The process of my DAR acceptance was purely that of “Genealogy”; finding members of a specific family and discovering how these family members are related to others. While it’s interesting to know the names of your ancestor’s and where they came from, I think most of us want more. What most of us are really yearning is an understanding our “Family History” which is something much broader. What was daily life like in the time and place where our ancestor’s lived, what did they do for jobs, what did they look like, who were their friends, what did they do in their leisure time, why did they move so many times, how did they come to choose the town where they settled and why the heck would they have 11 children?!

There are ways that you can begin to develop your Family History. I’ll list a few random thoughts, but do your own google search on the topic, read genealogy journals and books to look for unique ideas and sources to help you pull the pieces of your family history together. Perhaps start small by focusing on just one ancestor or family.

1. Start by creating a timeline for the selected ancestor. Go through his life and record where he was every year, note the gaps and look for sources that fill them. If he moved a lot it may be helpful to draw his path on a map and connect the dots. There are always sources you haven’t searched yet. Write a generic e-mail to a local historical society or archives and ask a general question: I think my ancestor “John Smith” might have lived in your town/county from 1823-45, can you think of any unusual sources that might help me in my search?

So let’s say he is found in the Providence, RI census in 1910 and then appears in the Malden, MA census in 1920. You have a gap of 10 years. When did he move? Did he live elsewhere before moving to Malden? Look at the children in the census. Where were his children born and in what years? Check city directories, if they were available in that time period. People did not move alone – review the censuses to see which neighbors moved with them. Depending on the year and place there may be other documents listing addresses (birth, marriage and death records to name a few).

2. Look at the census to see if your ancestor owned land. It he did, look for land records – deeds (which would be found locally), homestead records, purchases of government lands and bounty lands for government service (all federal records). A searchable database of land grants issued in public land states (30 western states + Florida) between 1820 and 1908 can be found at this site: http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/

3. Did they leave a will? Who was named in the will?  Take note of the witnesses.  Who were they? How do they fit in with the family – friends, neighbors, collateral relatives?

Here is a short excerpt of my ancestor Lt Brian Hall’s will to give you an idea of what you might find:

In the name of God honor I Brian Hall of Norton in the county of Bristol in the Massachusetts being in New England being at this time not very well of a yet of a sound and his posing mind and memory taking under consideration the uncertainty of life think it my duty to make my last will and testament first of all and my body and the peace my worldly estate of as follows:

I give and bequeath to my son Issac Hall his heirs and assigns forever 4 acres of land lying on the west side of old pond in Raynham and two acres of fencing in Joiners Swamp. I give him my Camblet Coat and my Beaver Hat.

To my daughter Prudence I give to her, her heirs and assign two feather beds and furniture a dozen of chairs and a looking glass and a round table.

My pew in the meeting house I leave to be used by any or all of my family as long as they live in said Norton.

Wills can usually be found in the probate court records of the county where the ancestor was last living. In some cases, early records have been moved to other depositories such as state archives.  Probate files may include other documents such as a list of inventory and the probate of the will.  This link gives a great summary on finding probate records: http://dohistory.org/on_your_own/toolkit/probateRecords.html

4.  For ancestors living between 1850-1880, search the U.S. Federal Census Non-Population Schedules (in Ancestry.com).   These include agriculture, manufacturing and industry.  There are two pages, be sure to look at both images.

By using this schedule, I learned that my ancestor George Perry of Rome, NY owned 20 acres of farmland and that the cash value of his farm was $2,000, which was about average in comparison to his neighbors. He owned 1 horse, 3 milk cows, 1 other cattle and 5 swine. He was growing indian corn, oats and irish potatoes and was a producer of butter.

If your ancestor had an occupation as a painter, plasterer , shoe maker or mason you may find them listed in the manufacturing or industry schedules. 

For those of you with ancestry subscriptions here is the direct link to the database: http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1276&enc=1

5.  Randy Seaver’s blog post  http://www.geneamusings.com/2010/07/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-your.html gives a fun idea for learning more about your ancestors.

Find their address in the census, city directory, birth, death or marriage record (sometimes the street names are difficult to read in the census, but usually you can at least identify a few letters; look at the preceeding and following census pages to see if there are other nearby street names that you can read, then go to google maps and punch in that street name, then look at the surrounding street names to see if there is something that resembles your ancestors  scribbled street name).

Then type this address into http://maps.google.com/  Next select “satellite view” and then “street view” (not always available). 

I always wondered why my Lithuanian g-grandparents would move just two blocks away.  When I typed in their address on Wahconah Street,  in Pittsfield, MA, I found in that location a baseball stadium built in 1919. This was just a few years after my ancestor’s moved a few streets over to Tierney Place.  Another piece of the puzzle solved!!

I like to also search for the address in http://www.zillow.com/.  This will give you the year that the home was built (so you can determine if this was actually the house where your ancestors lived or if it was torn down and rebuilt), a description, lot size, photos, date of prior sales, etc.  Check to see when the neighboring homes were built.  Were they built years after your ancestor’s homes or did they exist in that same time period.  This will give you a better idea of what the neighborhood may have looked like.

5. A few weeks ago, I attended the Massachusetts Genealogical Council’s http://www.massgencouncil.com/annual seminar.  Joshua Taylor was one of the presenters (you may remember him from NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?; he played a part in the Sarah Jessica Parker episode). 

His presentation was entitled “Goldmines at the Colleges and Universities of Massachusetts”.   It was amazing to hear about the college record collections donated by families who may have attended or were affiliated with the school – scrapbooks, account books, manuscripts, newspaper clippings to name a few.

Who knew that Northeastern University is the keeper of the records of the Greater Boston YMCA (1833-2003) and the Boys and Girl’s Club of Boston (1893-2004); Boston College holds the Charitable Irish Society Records (1737-1937) which includes member photos; Harvard holds a Business Manuscripts Collection – http://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/collections/mss/ - the definition of “business” back then was different.  If your ancestor owned a small business, his account book outlining his sales may still exist.  Also keep in mind that when ancestor bought from a local business his name would have been listed in that account book.

6.  Related to this are the holdings by some historical societies.   A few examples:

Check out the Pelham, MA site: http://pelhamnhhistory.org/, click on the library link and then on “Aunt Molly’s Scrapbook”.  Aunt Molly was the town librarian who collected newspaper clippings – births, marriages, deaths, special events, photos….

A few weeks ago a donation was made to our local Jackson Historical Society.  It was an old scrapbook commemorating a couple’s 50th wedding anniversary.  There are over 100 pages each with a photo and personal note from a friend, neighbor or associate of the couple. 

As a school project, I spent an afternoon at the New England Historic Genealogical Society in the manuscripts room.  My assignment was to pull a manuscript and report on it.  I selected the Betts Family scrapbook .

• The collection is in a large bound scrapbook from the mid-1800’s chronicling the life of Frederick Henry Betts and his wife Mary Louise Hollbrook, probably created by Louise.
• There were a few hundred documents, letters, photos and newspaper clippings. It’s contents include items such as:
  • Letters to “grandma” (Sarah Scoville) from Frederick “Freddy” Betts and his brother Wyllys, one of which notes that Sarah died in 1852. My favorite was one that reads: “Kitty is growing fast, he is fat and ugly.”
  • Obituaries from nine different newspapers regarding the 1889 death of Judge Frederick M. Betts which chronicle his life.
  • A school paper by Charles Wyllys Betts, 1857 New Haven (Observations on the visible planets).
  • Yale acceptance to the freshman class in 1859 of Frederick H. Betts.
  • A draft record requesting that Frederick H. Betts of 143 Chapel Street, New Haven, report for duty 3 August 1863.
  • Material related to Yale’s 1863 commencement.
  • An 1864 license from the Internal Revenue service for Frederic to become a lawyer.
  • An 1886 records where Frederick of 64 Wall Street, is appointed as Notary Public in New York City.
  • An invitation to Frederick from Louise Hollbrook with a handwritten note “Louise’s first note to me”.
  • A letter from Mary E. Hollbrook explaining that while she likes Frederick there will be no engagement to Louise.
  • A marriage certificate from 1867 of Frederic Henry Betts and Mary Louise Hollbrook.
  • A number of pamphlet’s naming the Betts (a few with their children – Fred, Eliot and Rossiter, and maid) as saloon passengers on a variety of ships to Europe.
  • A number of documents regarding Frederick being a special lecturer on patent law at Yale, a booklet he created on patent law, membership into the University Club, involvement in Trinty Church committees.
  • Documents pertaining to Frederick’s membership in the New York Historical Society, a Judge for Columbia Univeristy’s essay contest, receipts for purchases of dishes and furniture.
  • Articles related Mrs. Betts singing in amateur contests, choral club and shows.
  • Photos of various homes owned, with the address noted including the summer home in the Hamptons.
  • Newspaper articles mentioning things like Mrs. Betts tennis win and the giant Basswood tree at the entrance to their property.
  • An invitation to meet President Hayes in 1880.
  • Letters from the children to Uncle Wyllys who was visiting Europe mentioning Regie, Fannette and cousin Fannie which mention how their horse Daisy was shot and killed after breaking an ankle.
  • An article where son LF Hollbrook Betts a 1991 graduate of Yale offers a $1,000 scholarship in memory of his uncle C Wyllys Betts.

The purpose was to document major or meaningful events during that small period in the family’s history.  I found it interesting that there was little information on the children.  The guide focused primarily on the life of husband and wife.  There were no birth announcements, baby photos or much on the lives of the children as one might find in this century.  

Many names, relationships, dates and locations were revealed throughout the scrapbook.  It chronicles the lives of this family and reveals many details which would not be discovered elsewhere.

In summary, there are lots of places to look for your ancestor’s, you have to be creative and find them.  I recently discovered that my great-aunt Natalie who has been researching our family since the 1970′s had a copy of a diary written by one of her great aunt Mary Haines diary.  

Mary recorded events of a three year period when she was employed by Mrs. Richard H. Dana of Boston. Mrs Dana was the former Edith Longfellow, daughter of Professor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of Cambridge. Mary was nurse to Edith’s two sons Dicky and Harry. In the diary, Mary speaks of her 5 brothers and her letters from them, a journey to Europe and a terrible accident while she was riding in a horse carriage.  The journal is sometimes sad. Mary was lonely.  She believed she would soon lose all 5 of her brothers, all of whom were seaman. Entwined among her recordings of daily events is the revival of her romance that started seven years prior in Nova Scotia with John Roderick Stevens from Truro, Nova Scotia who wrote from Republic, Michigan where he worked as a miner. The correspondence and John’s romantic visits to Boston culminated in their marriage in October 1882 at which point the diary ends.

Aunt Natalie had been lucky enough to find a long-lost cousin who owned the original copy and was kind enough to share. 

If you are lucky enough to have old photos, bibles, diaries or scrapbooks,  please consider sharing them with your “cousins”.  Look for cousins in ancestry trees, on message boards and through google searches.  Your kindness could really make someone’s day!  and you never can tell what they might share in return!!!

Finding “Missing” Ancestors in the Census

One of my toughest “brick walls” has been trying to locate my Lithuanian ancestor’s who immigrated to Pittsfield, MA and then to Athol, MA in the late 1800′s.    From what I can tell their surname was Baltrunas, but I have found them listed in records as Baltruniene, Baltrunene, Baltromei, Baltrenas, Baltrunew, Barton, Bill, Billie, Billei, Billy and Billings.

My mother thought that “Ellis Island” officials changed our Lithuanian surname. However, I have found there is not much truth to that bit of lore. While immigrants’ surnames may have changed as they adjusted to their new lives, rarely were names changed upon their arrival at Ellis Island. Here is a great article: http://genealogy.about.com/od/ellis_island/a/name_change.htm

So how did I find these ancestors in America?  I will share some Ancestry.com “search tips” that helped me in locating them in census (and other) records:

First always start in “old search” (not sure why, but I seem to have better luck with the old search tool).    Go to the main search screen and on the top right hand side there will be a link that reads “old search”.  Don’t try to search in the main search form on ancestry. Go right to the database you want to search, for example the 1900 census. Pick the advanced search.

1. Use a wild card to search (this requires at least three letters)
Try Joh* for Johansen

When using wildcards you can also use them at the BEGINNING of a name. For example when searching on the Johansen you can try *ansen or *sen

You can also use them within the word, as long as you have three characters total.  So for Johansen try: Jo*en OR *han*en OR J*h*n.  

Sometimes you get a weird error message from ancestry.com, but for the most part it works.

2. Check name variations like: Reed, Reid, Ried;  George, Goerge, Gorge; Joseph, Joesph, Josef.   Try spelling the name phonetically. For Johansen try things like Joehanson.

3. Leave the last name blank, and search on first name only or a few letters in the first name with a wildcard (*) if it’s an unusual or uncommon first name. 

4. Leave the first and last name blank

By doing this, you might get hundreds of hits. Try to narrow down your results by adding additional  information:

Add State, County, City, birth year (+/- 2 years or more), place of birth, etc. You also have choices like head of household, wife, son, daughter, white, black, etc.

When all else fails, I look for my ancestors in the city directory for the census year (city directories can be found on Ancestry.com). 

If the directory you need is not on ancestry.com, you could do a google search for the local library in the city where your ancestor was living. The librarian may be able to help you with street directories if they are not online.  Many times they will copy the pages for you for free or just charge a small fee for copying.

Once you find them in the directory, you will have a street address.

The data for the directory was sometimes collected a year in advance, so be sure to check the year of the census as well as the years before and after to get an address. If the family moved within the directory year, many times the directory will tell you what city they moved to.  Many of the directories list the names of people who died in town that year, so always check for that as well.  It is usually in the back of the directory, so browse those pages.

You can then go to the free Steve Morse site: http://stevemorse.org/ and search for that street name on a census (see the link called “1900-1940 Census Street Finder”). Once you find the street on the census you can look through all the census pages for that street until you find your ancestors.

Another great thing to do is look at neighbors. Say you find them in 1920 but can’t find them in 1930. Look at their census page in 1920, find some neighbors with “easier” names. Search for them in the 1930 census. Chances are that your relatives will still be nearby (you might have to do this for a few neighbors).

 You may also want to try checking other census indexes.  If their name was improperly indexed on ancestry.com, it may be properly indexed on HeritageQuest (http://www.heritagequestonline.com/hqoweb/library/do/index you can usually get free access to this at your local library), footnote.com (http://www.footnote.com/ ) or Family Search (http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#start).

It’s a rare occurance, but sometimes there are people who were just never captured in the census data.  My g-grandmother Georgianna Clough is found in the 1900 Lynn, MA city directory living at the same address as her mother and her step-father Kittie and Frank Shipman.   Kittie and Frank are listed at that same address in the 1900 Lynn, Essex County, MA census without Georgianna. Perhaps Georgianna moved during the census year and was missed at both locations or perhaps the family wasn’t home and the census taker asked a neighbor about the family and the neighbor wasn’t aware that Georgianna had moved in with her mother.    

Have fun searching and please share any additional search tips that you use!

Learning from Others

I recently graduated from Boston University’s Genealogy Certificate program. It was LOTS of hard work, but I can tell you that if you are a serious researcher and you can afford to pay the $2,695 tuition fee, take this online class: http://professional.bu.edu/cpe/Genealogy.asp

Not only will you learn more than you ever imagined (the professors were terrific), but you will make some great new genealogy contacts  -  My classmates all seem to know so much more than I do!! – they are terrific resources and more than willing to share their knowledge.  We have kept in touch via Google Groups, meet up at conferences and bounce ideas off one another.

I thought I would share just a few of the things that I learned from my classmates.  I can’t remember who gave me which tidbits, so unfortunately I can’t give them each proper credit. 

1. My favorite is ”The Way Back Machine” which will actually let you choose from archived images for a website for the past 10 years or more. The Wayback Machine is located at www.archive.org  This is really helpful when a website disappears. The Internet Archive is a non-profit organization and they are building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. About 75% of the time it will “find” the missing website.  Note that if you are searching in Google, many times there is a “cache” button under the listing.  The “cache” button works just like the Wayback Machine.

2. Google is an enormously powerful tool and it’s constantly being improved.  The “Google Your Family Tree Book” is an excellent resource. See if you can find a copy at your local library or you can get it here: http://www.googleyourfamilytree.com/  I learned ALOT from this book.  It was worth every penny! (Note that I am in no way affiliated with the author, nor do I get any kickback if you purchase a copy)  Here are a few tips:

 - Try using the timeline (under Show Options). It shows your search results stretched across a timeline so you can zoom in the time you’re looking for.

 - Adding a tilde before a word, like ~genealogy basically tells google to search using all synonyms of genealogy. You can use the ~ with any Google search and it will find synonyms of that word. See http://google.about.com/od/googlebasics/qt/synonyms.htm

- When searching for your ancestor in Google, use the OR command and quotes.  For example:  “Brian Hall” OR “Hall, Brian”  you can also use a * as a wild card:  ”Brian * Hall” OR “Hall * Brian”, that way if he is listed with a middle name your search will pick it up. 

-  Search with the (numrange) feature.  “Brian Hall” 1727..1789 will limit your search results to “Brian Hall” with dates between 1727 and 1789.

- If you search state then city instead of city and state … this will give you different results (not sure why!)

 - If you want to locate information on a specific type of site say .gov or .edu you can search like this. Go to google.com and type the following in the search box: genealogy +site:gov. This will give you result only about genealogy on governmental websites.

- Another Google search operator is the command “related:” If you find a Website that is particularly helpful this search feature will help you locate other similar websites. For example related:www.genealogybank.com would return a list of other similar websites.

3. Cemetery  records are most helpful in  family history research. First located the cemetery in which your ancestor is buried (it’s usually listed on their death certificate), then contact the cemetery office for any burial records they may have. You can collect various burial records from cemetery offices including general burial records, burial permits (sometimes called an application for burial), burial plot maps (with diagrams for where each ancestor is buried within a plot), grave purchase receipts, gravestone orders, death certificates, and obituaries. Some of these records provide a variety of information that are not available from other sources.  Be sure to add the listing to FindAGrave.com and “Request A Photo”. Often within a week, a volunteer will email you the image.

The cemetery records or death certificate may list a funeral home. Funeral homes also may have helped write the obituary. Funeral programs may also be available from the funeral home. Funeral programs include a short biography of the deceased. They often contain (1) birth date, (2) death date, (3) place of birth and death, (4) Surviving relatives, (5) parents’ names, (6) siblings’ names, (7) wives’ names, (8) occupations, (9) military service, (10) place of employment, (11) married names of daughters, (12) maiden names, and (13) burial site. 

4. The easiest path to online death certificate images (and a lot of other death info) is www.deathindexes.com

5. Let  me give you my two favorite free sites:

http://pilot.familysearch.org  (free site and they continue to add records)  and

 To see a list of the collections available, go to http://fsbeta.familysearch.org/s/collection/list  To search the records, go to http://beta.familysearch.org

Check out my blogroll for more of my favorites (and feel free to suggest your own).

6. Stuck on finding the names of your g-grandparents?  If your grandparents died after 1962, chances are that they had a Social Security number.  In order to get a Social Security card, they needed to complete an application form (known as an SS-5) .

It generally includes the following:

Full name
Full name at birth, including maiden name
Present mailing address
Age at last birthday
Date of birth
Place of birth (city, county, State)
Father’s full name
Mother’s full name, including maiden name
Sex
Race as indicated by the applicant
Whether the applicant ever applied for Social Security or Railroad Retirement before
Current employer’s name and address
Date signed
Applicant’s signature

The easiest way to request a copy of the SS-5 form for your ancestor is to apply online through the Social Security Administration:

If you supply the Social Security Number, the fee is $27.00. If the SSN is not known, the fee is $29.00,

https://secure.ssa.gov/apps9/eFOIA-FEWeb/internet/main.jsp
The usual wait time for receiving a copy of a Social Security Application Form is 6-8 weeks.

Here is the link on ancestry to the SSDI (Social Security Death Index) database, so you can first search to see if you can find the social security number: http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=3693

There is a free index on Rootsweb: http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi?cj=1&o_xid=0000584978&o_lid=0000584978

And also on Genealogy Bank: http://www.genealogybank.com/gbnk/ssdi/?kbid=9064&m=9

A small number of deaths are listed before 1962 some back to 1935 and not everyone who died from 1962 to the present is listed, but it does list most of the deaths after 1962, even more in recent years (especially from the late 1980s to the present). 400,000 railroad retirees are also included in the SSDI.

7. And last, here is a link to my favorite genealogy related video: https://fch.ldschurch.org/WWSupport/Courses/FGS_2009/The_Bachelor__Reconstructing_a_Solitary_Life_Using/Player.html

That’s all for today!  I am sure your head is spinning and I can’t give away all of my tips in one blog, I’ll have nothing left to write about!

Independence Day

Love Ancestry.com’s latest slogan: “Independence Day, brought to you by your ancestors”.  How true!

 Happy 234th birthday America! and many thanks to everyone in the past and present for their service to our country and the sacrifices of the families who wait(ed) for their return home.

Today I am remembering my 7th great grandfather, Lt. Brian Hall. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, and according to what has been published of him, one of the first to act and respond. He was a lieutenant in Capt. Hodges’ company, serving in Rhode Island in 1776.  He was also a member of the select committee of correspondence, and asked to take into consideration the “Confederation of the Union of States” proposed by Congress and also on the committee to devise means for the formation of a State constitution. 

Volume 7 page 68

Hall, Brian (also given Briant), Norton. 1st Lieutenant, Capt. Isaac Hodges’s (2d) co., Col. John Daggatt’s (4th Bristol Co.) regt. of Mass. militia; list of officers chosen by the several companies in said regiment, dated Attleborough, March 18, 1776; ordered in Council March 21, 1776, that said officers be commissioned; reported commissioned March 21, 1776; also, Lieutenant, Capt. Isaac Hodges’s co., Col. John Daggit’s (Daggett’s) regt.; service, 25 days, in Dec., 1776, and Jan., 1777, on an alarm, including travel (34 miles) from Norton to Tiverton, R. I., and return; also, 1st Lieutenant, Capt. Samuel Robinson’s co., Col. Wade’s regt.; engaged June 18, 1778; service, 25 days, at Rhode Island; company raised to serve for 21 days from June 21, 1778; roll dated Attleborough.

 

It seems appropriate on this day of our independence to speak of some of my favorite war related genealogical sites:

Before I begin, let me tell you about a great Military research document that  can be found on the LDS site http://tinyurl.com/2dwqgu5  The document introduces strategies and records that can help you learn more about your ancestors who served in the United States military.

LDS Family Search offers some great FREE classes.  Five of them are related to Military records: http://tinyurl.com/debr9s 

Military Records: Civil War
(35 minutes) 

Military Records: Pre-WWI Pension Applications
(16 minutes) 

Military Records: Revolutionary War
(34 minutes) 

Civil War Genealogical Research
(46 minutes)

Revolutionary War Genealogy Research
(43 minutes)

1. Ancestry.com has recently published an index of Civil War pensions (1889-1904).  Cards are arranged alphabetically with name of soldier, organization in which he served, and name of person who made inquiry. This isn’t an easy database to find!

- Go to “Search all Records”

- Select “Card Catalog”

- Type in the word “Correspondence”  in the title box.

- This will bring up the link to: U.S. Index to General Correspondence of the Record and Pension Office, 1889-1904 

- You can then select the first letter of your ancestor’s surname and browse through the records.

2. Ancestry.com and Footnote.com have digitized selected NARA microfilm publications and original records.  Here is a listing of records that have been either partially or wholly digitized as of March 2010 – http://www.archives.gov/digitization/digitized-by-partners.html

3. Did you know that all US Veterans are entitled to a free Gravestone?  You might find your veteran ancestor in the
Veterans Nationwide Gravesite locator: http://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/

4. Here are a few of my favorite Civil War links:

http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/

http://www.suvcw.org/

http://www.hqudc.org/

5. DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) http://www.dar.org/library/online_research.cfm

If your ancestor was in the American Revolution, check the fairly new DAR online searchable index.  Some of the family trees are right on the DAR site.  If you find a relative you can order the backup paperwork for a reasonable price.

6.  Military personnel files are stored at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Most veterans and their next-of-kin can obtain FREE copies of their DD Form 214 (Report of Separation) and other military and medical records at NARA.  The service takes about 3-4 weeks.  I just received my dad’s record a few months ago.

http://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records/get-service-records.html

https://vetrecs.archives.gov/VeteranRequest/home.asp

7. Pension files, most of which are held at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., are often amazingly rich in family history.

To locate a Civil War pension file, you need to have the name of the individual, and his unit, because that is how the pension files are arranged. If you know his name, and the state that he was from, you can probably find his regiment at the Soldiers and Sailors database http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/soldiers.cfm  or on Ancestry.com.  Confederates seldom received pensions, although there were a few states that provided them. War of 1812 and Revolutionary pension files can also provide rich family data.

I feel that you are much better off hiring a professional researcher to go in and get pension files — as opposed to ordering them directly from NARA. The professional can be less expensive. More importantly, the professional can be either (1) selective or (2) comprehensive, your choice. I can ask the professional just to get the “most genealogically significant pages,” up to – say – 10 to 40 pages. Alternatively, if I want the entire file, no matter how many pages and how many small scraps are in the file, I am more assured that I will get everything.

I am barely scratching the surface of everything related to the military that is available to researchers, but this should get you started.  Just remember that (last I heard) only 3% of genealogical data is online.  Although the amount available is increasing daily, you will need to seek out and consult offline sources.

Genealogy Volunteering

I have had a number of folks help with my genealogical research by taking cemetery photographs, looking up my surnames in city directories at their local library and adding records to places like usgenweb, fultonhistory.com and Family Search.

Since I have gotten so much free information from these kind people I try to give back a few hours a week. 

Today my (very patient) husband and I printed out some local gravestone photo requests from FindAGrave.com.  The first cemetery was called the Dolloff Hill Road Cemetery and we were looking for graves with, you guessed it, the surname Dolloff. It took us awhile to find, we stopped to ask a guy working in his front yard for directions – Dolloff Hill Road is a dirt road that goes up through wooded marshland for about a mile.  We finally found it!  In the middle of nowhere, a cemetery surrounded by a simple white fence appeared in the woods.  There were about 30 gravestones, but no Dolloff’s. 

I took a few photos and transcribed some of the other gravestones until the horseflies chased us back to the car.

The second cemetery was called “Conway Village Cemetery”.  Mapquest listed it on Route 302 near Mill Street.  The FindAGrave poster listed a location of “Row 1, Block 11″, so we thought this one would be easy!  He listed 7 members of the Willey family all deceased in 1826.  I was curious about the fate of this poor family. 

We wandered around for a bit and then found a “Cemetery Quest” brochure created by the Center Conway Pine Tree Elementary School which called the cemetery “Center Conway Cemetery”.  Perhaps we had the wrong place!

Anyway, the brochure was a great find.  I googled it when I got home.  Here’s the link: http://users.ncia.net/~pgetch/

I then googled “history of the year 1826 in Conway, NH” to see if there might have been an epidemic or a disaster.  I found that 1826 was the year of the Willey slide disaster in Crawford Notch, NH.   This family, who were innkeepers, left their home to avoid the danger of mud slides.  In a tragic twist of fate, the slide missed their home, but the Willeys’ found themselves directly in the path of the slide, and all seven family members and two hired hands were buried alive or flung  into the river and drowned. This blog post offers the details: http://www.murderati.com/blog/2010/6/26/google-and-me-and-horace-fabyan-and-the-willeys.html. 

A second article that mentions the tragic mudslide also states that Conway was sometimes called Dollofftown from the name of one of the early settlers –  http://conway.lib.nh.us/index.php?page=early-history-of-conway

All of these things I wouldn’t have known about the area where I live if I hadn’t decided to help others find their roots.

But I digress, today’s blog is really about giving back.  Here are some ideas.  Feel free to suggest others!!

1. Volunteer to index on Family Search: http://www.familysearch.org/eng/indexing/frameset_indexing.asp  Their sites says:

The key life events of billions of people are being preserved and shared through the efforts of people like you. Using our online indexing system, volunteers from around the world are able to quickly and easily transcribe the records—all from the convenience of their homes. The indexes are then posted for FREE at familysearch.org.

2. Volunteer to index at Ancestry’s World Archives Project: http://landing.ancestry.com/keyingtool/notify.aspx Their sites says:

For centuries, key moments in our family stories have been captured on fragile paper. These records are often all that’s left of ancestors’ lives – the only way we can learn more about them. Sadly, many of the world’s historical records are disappearing faster than we can archive them on our own. That’s why we’re creating the World Archives Project, to let anyone help preserve the contents of these valuable documents in indexes that will remain FREE to the public. As a participant, you’ll be the first to see new collections as you enter information into our database. You’ll also get the satisfaction of helping families better understand their unique, meaningful stories.

3. Become a RAOGK volunteer (Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness) – http://www.raogk.org/

4. Volunteer for the USGenWeb project in your area - http://usgenweb.org/volunteers/newvolunteer.shtml

5. Take a look at the various message boards and see if there is anyone you can help out!!   I frequently will look for a random birth or death certificate on http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#start and then see if there are trees on ancestry.com that include that person.  I then post a link to the birth certificate in the comment field! 

One last comment on cemetery photos, I have learned the hard way!!

1. Do take an overall photo of the plot site, the surrounding area, and the sign at the cemetery entrance.

2. Do NOT try to take photos in direct sunlight (overcast days are best!)

3. Bring a squirt bottle filled with water.  A bit of water on an old gravestone makes it more readable in the photo.

4. Bring a notebook and piece of paper to record all of the information on the gravestone.  I have a great camera and lens and I shoot in RAW.  I thought I would be able to go home and using Photoshop easily transcribe the information on the stones.  No such luck!  I found myself questioning my husband, “Do you think that says 1869 or 1889?”  It’s much easier to tell while you are there with your face close to the stone, versus seeing it on film!!

5. Read this great post on http://www.ancestry.com/wiki/index.php?title=Graving&diff=11173&oldid=9143

That’s all for today!  Have a great evening!!

Welcome to my Genealogy blog!!

I have been interested in genealogy for years!  It all began when my aging Uncle Charlie asked if I could help uncover the ancestors of my G-Grandmother Georgianna (Clough) Hall, who he was sure was the illegitimate daughter of Isaac Merritt Singer the founder of Singer Sewing machines, who was known to be promiscuous and who is said to have fathered 24 children with his 5 wives and numerous others out of wedlock.

This wasn’t even close to the truth. Turns out that Georgianna’s biological father was named Hughes and her two step-father’s names were Clough and Shipman.  Isaac Merritt Singer died in 1875, 6 years before Georgianna’s birth.

What I did discover was that Georgianna’s husband Charles had an uncle named Thomas Hough (rhymes with Clough? – technically not because Clough is pronounced “Cluff” as the woman in the Bath, NH town clerk’s office nicely pointed out to me),  anyway, Uncle Hough worked at a sewing machine company and was perhaps the President. 

Ahhh said Uncle Charlie, maybe that’s what I was thinking!  I knew there was some connection to sewing!

So you can see how easily the family lore can become a bit mangled.  It’s like that game we all played in grade school where you whisper a message to the kid next to you, who whispers it to the kid next to him, who whispers it to the kid next to him and so on….  Never turned out well did it?

That’s what we all need to remember when beginning to create our family tree.  Start by talking to all your living relatives and record everything that is known (siblings, cousins, grandparents, great grandparents, etc).  Look on Ancestry.com and search for other people’s trees who name your ancestor.  Check what other researchers may have already published about the surnames in your family tree at the Family History Library, in HeritageQuest,  PERSI, Genealogy Today, National Genealogical Society, the New England Historical Genealogical Society, Library of Congress, local libraries and historical societies in the area where your ancestors lived and Google books.

But then locate sources (such as census data, city directories, war records, birth, death and marriage records, deeds, court records, manifests, naturalization records, etc.) to help in your quest to prove that the published family trees and family lore is correct and you really are related to the REAL Pocahontas or Ben Franklin.